The Challenge

Since its founding in 2012, National Voter Registration Day has grown into a massive cultural and civic event with nationwide reach. In working with National Voter Registration Day, the largest one-day event aimed at registering voters across the United States, we were tasked with educating and firing up the public with the notion that regardless of who you want to vote for, every voice matters. In what turned out to be one of the most contentious election cycles in modern history, the 2016 National Voter Registration Day set out to register as many unregistered voters as possible, and tapped Elle to help get their message out.

Our Approach

To create awareness around National Voter Registration Day spanning our four-month remit, Elle’s goals were to secure national media stories in prominent publications featuring a nonpartisan voice; engage significant influencers to participate in the campaign; secure the placement of an Op-Ed written by the founder; and support National Voter Registration Day staff and partners in guiding media planning by creating press releases, a communications kit and social media editorial calendars. With these goals in mind, Elle creatively worked its way through the challenge of securing media coverage and influencer attention for a non-partisan campaign in a news cycle that constantly salivated over the latest scandal, gaffe or outrageously partisan remark.

Our Impact

In what became National Voter Registration Day’s most successful election cycle since its founding, Elle was able to secure national media stories in Business Insider, Huffington Post, TIME Magazine, Mashable, Mic, Refinery29, Elite Daily, Cosmopolitan.com, Glamour.com, ATTN, Vix, BuzzFeed, as well as placing an op-ed penned by founder Matt Singer in The Independent Journal Review. Elle engaged with influencers by securing social media posts from their personal accounts, as well as performances at the flagship LA event. Influencers enthusiastically joined the bipartisan cause, including Idina Menzel, Aziz Ansari, Amy Schumer, TI, Katie Perry, Chloe Grace Moretz, Alicia Keys, Conan O’Brien, Zoe Kravitz, Bernie Sanders, Mike Bloomberg, Eva Longoria, The Black Keys, Ann Hathaway, Ariana Grande, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cleo Wade, and more. In addition to upwards of 770,000 additional registered voters secured by National Voter Registration Day nationwide, the social media conversation peaked at around 359,954,700 impressions in a single day and was a trending topic across all platforms.