TTA Vote For Better Transit Integrated Communications Campaign

The Project: Award-Winning Integrated Communications Campaign

TTA (Tarrant Transit Alliance) – a nonprofit transit advocacy organization dedicated to educating, empowering and mobilizing the Fort Worth and Tarrant County communities to promote transit policy that serves the entire region – enlisted Thrive to create and execute an integrated PR and communications plan to help elevate transit as a topic of discussion and voter consideration during the 2021 Fort Worth City Mayoral and City Council election campaign. 

The strategy and tactics included branding, social media, media relations and more. This project earned two top PRSA Worthy awards – one in the Integrated Communications Campaign category and another in the Social Media category.

The Challenge

Even though Fort Worth is the 12th largest city in the U.S., it has the lowest spend per capita on public transit of any city in Texas, impacting the greater Fort Worth area’s quality of life, job growth, equity, mobility, economic development and environment. Despite its under-funding, public transit had never been elevated as a major topic of discussion or consideration during a past Fort Worth Mayoral or City Council election.

To further its mission, TTA decided to create its first ever online voter guide and its first candidate town hall forum. The organization needed to get TTA members and the community at large involved and engaged in both initiatives.

Thrive was part of every phase of the project, including strategizing and shaping the voter guide and candidate rating structure, to ensure that the communications campaign elements would be meaningful and accurate, yet also engaging and simple to convey to the average citizen.

This was the first time a communications plan was implemented for TTA to support transit as an election issue, and it was especially challenging amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and with a modest budget.

The Solution

Key strategies and tactics of this initiative included: 

• Brand the campaign with an engaging name and eye-catching logo and calls to action
• Create an integrated, engaging educational communications campaign utilizing:
  • • A public online mayoral candidate forum
    • Organic social media
    • Traditional media relations
    • Email communications 
    • Website content
• Use compelling and creative data visualization design to communicate mayoral and  city council candidates’ levels of transit support in a simple, easy-to-understand way (based on the organization’s lengthy, detailed candidate questionnaires)
• Without endorsing any candidates, provide opportunities for the Fort Worth community to learn about and hear directly from candidates about their levels of understanding, support and vision for transit in Fort Worth

The Results

As a result of this project, partnering with TTA leaders/Quindigo Management and the TTA board:

• Transit gained a larger spotlight than in any previous election; highlights included:
  • Close to 3,000 people engaged with the virtual TTA Mayoral Candidate Forum video
  • Gained media coverage in 6 local outlets
  • 50% to 200% social media engagement increases on social channels
• TTA met its member renewal goals in 1Q2021 plus gained new members
• The majority of the candidates elected are what TTA members deemed “moderately or significantly transit-friendly.”

Top PRSA “Worthy Awards” in Integrated Communications Campaign and Social Media Categories

Thrive was honored during the PRSA Worthy Awards ceremony at the historic Isis Theatre, where we WON TWO awards, taking home the top honor in two categories:

• • Integrated Communications Program
  • Social Media 

We were also selected as one of the four finalists, across all entry categories, for Best of Show!