Creative from d expósito & Partners leveraged for Diverse Mass and beyond.

If by now you still have not returned your Census 2010 form, chances are this message was meant for you: “Open your doors to the Census and the Census will open doors for you”. This message was crafted by d expósito & Partners, one of several agencies working with DraftFCB , and it was leveraged in English, Spanish and other languages due to its power to motivate cooperation with Census enumerators going door-to-door to complete the decennial count. “We developed this message for the Non-Response Follow Up (NRFU) phase, and it’s targeting those who did not complete and return the Census form”, explains Fernando Fernández, partner and chief client officer at d expósito & Partners. “The goal is to maximize cooperation with the enumerators being deployed to count those households who didn’t participate in the Mail-out/Mail-back phase of the count.”

Given the increased anti-immigrant sentiment and concerns over privacy and/or security of household data, d expósito realized gaining Hispanic cooperation would be a hefty challenge. “The key to overcoming this was to emphasize the benefits participation brings to local communities across the country”, explains Danilo Alvarez, Creative Director at d expósito. The idea of the Census “opening doors” for things like better schools, better healthcare and better transportation helped drive intention to cooperate with the enumerators not just with Hispanics, but with the Diverse Mass audience and multiple ethnic segments, including African-American, Asian and Arabic communities. “We executed this concept in TV, radio and print, and we were pleased that the 2010 Census team recognized its power and worked with us to adapt the message for non-Hispanic audiences”, says Alvarez.

As part of the 2010 Census pan-agency team, d expósito & Partners works closely with DraftFCB and other partner agencies to craft messages for all phases of the campaign. This includes creative for the Awareness and Motivation phases of the Mail-out/Mail-back effort, as well as specific executions to address concerns like confidentiality and potential confusion of how to count individuals who may be temporarily living with family or friends.