Have you met Zoe? Zoe is an adorable one-year old girl, running for office… in 2064.
She is also the face for YMCA’s campaign by advertising agency, Droga5. This is part of their first national campaign: “For a Better Us.”
In February, in the midst the election, the Y launched “Zoe For President” to represent the potential the Y sees in every child to one day become president if they’re nurtured properly and given the right opportunities—opportunities the Y provides every day, like early learning, mentorship, healthy meals and more.
The second part of that campaign was to encourage people to get to the polls by “Rattling the Vote.”
The Y is helping “Rattle the Vote” by providing kids nationwide with a safe place to play on Election Day by introducing “Zoe’s Kids Day Out,” an initiative making it easier for busy parents and caregivers to get to the polls on Tuesday, November 8.
To learn what services are available locally on Election Day and their cost, visit YMCA.net for local Y contact information.
Additionally, on ZoeForPresident.net, people can create customized videos of Zoe encouraging their undecided or disillusioned friends to get out and exercise their civic duty. The videos can be shared on social media to further spread the news.
So who is the creative team behind Zoe?
Droga5’s Karen Land Short and Casey Rand are the creative directors, along with Gage Young and Gabe Sherman as the junior art director/copywriter team.
Short and Rand tell DIVERGE about the campaign:
Where did the idea of this campaign come from?
We knew that during the 2016 presidential election, the candidates would be talking about how they could make our country better, while the Y was actually doing it. We decided to launch our own candidate, Zoe, a one-year old running for president… in 2064. Zoe represents the potential in all kids to one day be president if given the right opportunities – opportunities the Y provides daily.
What sort of feedback have you received?
Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. People have responded to a bright, positive idea in the face of a very negative election. Commentary on our social channels has all been in support of the Zoe. Local Ys have run with the idea and made it their own, creating their own Zoe swag, as well as hosting events, summits and Zoe rallies as fundraising events.
What is the ask of the campaign?
Our primary goal is to enact a perception shift of the Y from a ‘gym and swim’ to a cause worthy of support. In this campaign. Zoe’s campaign connects the Y to the cultural conversation around change, and highlights all that the Y does to provide opportunities to youth. A donation call to action highlights the fact that these important programs need financial support.
Has it been successful so far?
The campaign has been very successful to date. It has inserted the Y into the cultural conversation around the election, and helped it to break through in a very cluttered environment. We have been able to find ways to insert Zoe into multiple campaign moments, from the primaries, to the conventions, and now in encouraging voter participation in the election. In terms of hard numbers, we’ve generated over 70 million mentions (based on follower counts). And, despite the changes in Facebook’s algorithm to de-prioritize organic content, we have still generated 41% of our reach organically – in addition to paid. Finally, almost 500,000 people have visited her site to date.
