Table of Contents 6 2012 OVATION Awards Winning Entries

Media training
Prior to the start of the media relations program, TFC led two extensive media training sessions with
CEO Greg Essensa, DECO Loren Wells and Chief Operating Officer Michael Stockfish to prepare them for
media interviews. These sessions included a review of Elections Ontario’s messaging matrix and
interview best practices. TFC’s Vice Chair, Terry Fallis, led the sessions and conducted a number of mock
interviews with each spokesperson that ranged from “friendly” to “hostile” in order to prepare them for
potential issues during interviews. TFC also trained Elections Ontario communication staff members in
two additional sessions to prepare them for media‐line inquires and to act as substitute spokespeople
when necessary.
Challenges
As previously mentioned, TFC had created and intended to distribute a pitch to campus media
identifying voting options for Ontario’s college and university students. Elections Ontario had worked
with university and college student union associations throughout the four years following the 2007
election to place polls for the 2011 election on all college and university campuses where there was oncampus
student housing. The day after the writ dropped, a strike was called by college support staff.
Elections Ontario and TFC discussed different contingencies — polls are pulled from campuses or polls
remain on campuses — and TFC prepared a media strategy document and then created a media
advisory announcing that for safety reasons Elections Ontario would not have polls on college campuses
as originally planned. TFC scrapped the planned campus media pitch and sent the media advisory out to
key college campus media instead.
Budget
The budget for the Elections Ontario Makes Voting Easy proactive media relations campaign was
$162,000. The proactive media relations, including planning, four media training sessions with Elections
Ontario spokespeople and the proactive pitches were budgeted at $63,220. The road tour budget was
$27,900 including travel. The We Make Voting Easy media briefing was $71,000, including all expenses
(webcasts in French and English, ASL interpreter, French translator, venue rental, etc.). The TFC team on
the project included a Vice Chair, SVP, Senior Consultant, Consultant two Coordinators and an Associate.
In the end, TFC was able to deliver the program for $121,000 given the reduction in the number of
pitches conducted and fewer than expected issues.
MEASUREMENT/EVALUATION OF OUTCOMES
The We Make Voting Easy campaign met all three of Elections Ontario’s communication objectives and
helped to position Elections Ontario as an organization that makes voting easy and accessible for
Ontario’s voters.
Inform Ontario’s voters about how, where and when to vote during the pre‐writ period as measured by:
• ROI of 2 cents or less per contact • ROI less than one cent ($0.005/contact). Exceeded goal by 75%. •
Number of media mentions: 206
• Total Possible Audience Reach: 29,870,920
• Coverage in 41 Ontario communities
• Earn a MRP (Media Relations Rating Points) score of 75%
• 78.4% MRP quality score. Exceeded goal by 3%.
• More Days, More Ways pitch: TFC secured 19 interviews for the CEO, DCEO and Elections Ontario
communication staff and earned 113 pieces of media coverage.