Overview
Elle was first introduced to the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) leading up to the 2018 Golden Globes to media train NDWA Executive Director Ai-jen Poo ahead of her red carpet appearance alongside Meryl Streep in support of the TIME’S UP movement (in addition, we were brought in to media train all of the activist/actress duos set to walk the carpet in January 2018). Following our initial session, Ai-jen requested additional time together on the morning of the award ceremony with an expanded focus into broader messaging of her work and scenario-planning for the carpet. From there, Elle was tapped to work with Ai-jen and NDWA on multiple projects, including a campaign for Ai-jen’s other organization Caring Across Generations, which then parlayed into a project surrounding NDWA’s work on the film Roma during Oscar’s season. After our successful efforts together for the Roma campaign, NDWA hired Elle to be its PR agency of record with a specific focus geared at making a huge PR splash around the July 2019 introduction of the first-ever Federal Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.
ROMA x NDWA
The Challenge
When Roma was released in 2018, the film’s narrative resonated with a wide range of audiences, bringing heightened awareness to the plight of domestic workers, such as the film’s main character. Through a partnership with National Domestic Workers Alliance, the filmmaker, team members, and cast behind Roma began to use this moment as an opportunity to bring light to the unfair pay and working conditions, as well as the organization’s solution to this, which is the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.
Once the film was nominated for an Academy Award, the decision was made to use this opportunity to create a major media moment for the impact initiative tied to the film. Our firm was brought in to help in doing so.
Our Approach
Working strategically and collectively alongside the NDWA, Participant, and Netflix teams, our team pursued the following approach:
Secure, liaise with, and prepare talent who would be acting as hosts and spokespersons on the red carpet during the event, such as Eva Longoria, Rashida Jones, Patricia Arquette, and Karla Souza.
Assist with event planning and concepting, advising from the media perspective of the event.
We developed both a Spanish and English messaging platform and media trained film and non-profit spokespersons, 50 domestic workers, and talent.
Create a series of media moments, beginning with an announcement prior to the event, following domestic workers as they prepare for the event, and culminating with an Academy Awards viewing party.
We got creative with our approach, telling stories ranging from Yahoo! following a domestic worker in her week leading up to the event, InStyle covering red carpet fashion for this vital cause’s moment in the spotlight, and various outlets interviewing celebrities who had brought their own domestic workers to the event, as we had encouraged them to pre-event.
Our Impact
In a single week, we created 4.5 billion media impressions for the NDWA/Roma partnership, including coverage in Yahoo!, The Hollywood Reporter, Entertainment Tonight, Variety, People Magazine, and attn:. And, most importantly, we were thrilled to see that the messaging in each hit our key target speaking points and reflected the goals of the organization’s awareness campaign. In fact, the work went so well that Ai-jen Poo hired our team to represent the organization permanently and we recently completed a wildly successful day at the U.S. Capitol in July 2019 (more below).
FEDERAL DOMESTIC WORKER BILL OF RIGHTS
The Challenge
Every day, over 2 million nannies, house cleaners, and care workers do the work of caring and cleaning in our homes, and yet their work and their own livelihoods are not protected under the law. These workers are disproportionately women, women of color, and immigrants, who lack the safe working environment guaranteed to other workers in this country. In July 2019, Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (WA-07) introduced the National Domestic Workers BIll of Rights, a landmark piece of legislation that protects domestic workers, gives them recourse for sexual harassment and violence, and closes loopholes that exclude domestic workers from basic labor laws.
NDWA had been working on the policy and politics behind this bill for many years and needed a far-reaching, multi-tiered communications strategy in order to ensure this bill was introduced to a diverse set of audiences in order to advance the political, social, and cultural understandings of the needs of this workforce.
Our Approach
Elle worked closely with the entire NDWA team in order to ensure widespread media coverage of these efforts and to create a groundswell of support for the bill, and for domestic workers. Our strategic approach included:
Generating coverage as the bill was introduced by placing priority focus on landing Ai-jen and bill sponsors in print and on broadcast media to generate excitement and build credibility, and overall online coverage for enhanced ‘sharability’ across all social media platforms.
Working hand in hand with reporters to cater individual stories to their coverage needs, seeding different angles and stories that will illuminate all sides of the Bill and its positive impact on domestic workers.
Creating in-person moments for DC-based media to engage with principles, domestic workers, and the core messages at the heart of the Bill of Rights.
Focusing on the human stories at the core of the Bill, highlighting the workers, employers, and advocates that are fighting for worker protection and rights. Amplifying domestic workers as key leaders of the campaign.
Creating a post-introduction tail that maintains momentum of the bill going into Congress’ August recess.
Uplifting the National Domestic Workers Bill of Rights as a conversation that every American can and should get involved with, by including 1-2 call to actions every journalist can use in their stories.
Our Impact
Elle secured 77 placements on the Bill of Rights from key target outlets including Fast Company, Fortune, VOX, Politico, Teen Vogue, ABC News, ELLE, Vice, Refinery29, Buzzfeed, HuffPost, The Hill and The Hill TV, TIME, MSNBC, and others, exceeding the team’s initially allocated goal of 20 placements, and earning 8,245,389,689 viewership impressions total. Additionally, we generated broadcast coverage at regional stations across the country through facilitated interviews with Scripps E.W. Company on Introduction Day, bringing in 41 placements for NDWA. Twelve press attendees joined us outside the U.S. Capitol on Introduction Day in D.C., including journalists from ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, Buzzfeed, The Hill, Teen Vogue, Telemundo, and other target publications. The buzz extended across social media as there was earned social media coverage on Twitter from key editors from Telemundo, DailyKos, Refinery29, ELLE + Vice, sharing about the introduction, as well as Instagram stories from Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness, garnering 132,679 additional impressions.
NDWA and the rights of domestic workers now continues to be a subject of great interest for press and NDWA continues to gain new allies stemming from these bill introduction efforts.