Humane Society of the United States/Yes on Prop 2! Event

A celebrity-studded gala to benefit the YES! on Prop 2 campaign, providing critical support for the statewide ballot measure to stop the cruel an inhumane treatment of farm animals. The evening included a cocktail reception, gourmet dinner and dessert, and musical entertainment. The event was hosted by Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi with special performances by Carole King and Moby.

The Humane Society of the United States is the nation's largest animal protection organization – backed by 10.5 million Americans, or one of every 30. For more than a half-century, the HSUS has been fighting for the protection of all animals through advocacy, education and hands-on programs. Celebrating animals and confronting cruelty -- On the web at humanesociety.org.

The Humane Society of the United States is the only animal protection organization with a Hollywood office devoted to encouraging and honoring the influential news and entertainment media. Working with compassionate celebrities, writers, filmmakers and producers, we strived to activate the power of the media in our quest for a more compassionate society. Through the annual Genesis Awards recognized as the nation's premier consciousness raiser of animal issues, and our Animal Content in Entertainment (ACE) program, we work with HSUS to help put animal protection concerns in the Hollywood picture.

Prop 2 was a modest measure that stops cruel and inhumane treatment of animals, ending the practice of cramming farm animals into cages so small the animals can’t even turn around or extend their limbs. The measure was endorsed by The Humane Society of the United States, the Center for Food Safety, the California Veterinary Medical Association, the Consumer Federation of America, Farm Sanctuary, United Farm Workers, and thousands of veterinarians, family farmers, and animal and consumer protection advocates.

Challenge:

For the past five years, Much and House Public Relations has handled the media relations campaign for the the HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES’ GENESIS AWARDS which annually recognizes the major news and entertainment media for highlighting emerging animal protection issues or for bringing a fresh perspective to long-standing ones. With our longstanding relationship with the Humane Society’s Hollywood office we were asked to handle the public relations campaign for the celebrity-studded gala benefit for the YES! on Prop 2 campaign during the most recent political campaign season.

The challenge was to ensure that the important messages for the YES! On Prop 2 campaign received fair attention from the media while covering the celebrity gala. In an extremely crowded and cluttered media environment, our goal was to position the YES! On Prop 2 campaign as the issue that celebrities were putting their energy and voice behind, while introducing the Prop and its issues to the media and Californians as well as refuting the opposition. It was also important that the questions asked by the media to the celebrities that evening remained on topic about the event that evening.

Strategy & Tactics:

Over the years, we have used a number of successful tactics in order to generate media coverage and awareness for the Humane Society of the United States—Hollywood Office and their involvement with many wonderful animal rights issues.

  • Celebrity Outreach -- A priority for the event was to assist in the celebrity outreach to bring high profile actors to this important and timely evening dedicated to getting the message out for Yes on Prop 2 campaign. In doing so we were able to bring a great deal of that entertainment media attention to animal rights issues. Celebrities’ lending their voices to causes has proven time and time again to help people think differently about what they can do to help -- in this case, the animal community on a worldwide level. The celebrities in attendance that evening included ELLEN DEGENERES, PORTIA de ROSSI, AMY SMART, ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, CAROL LEIFER, CATHERINE OXENBERG, CASPER VAN DIEN, CHARLOTTE ROSS, CHRIS KATTAN, CONSTANCE MARIE, COREY FELDMAN, EMILY DESCHANEL, ESAI MORALES, JAMES CROMWELL, JENNIFER COOLIDGE, KATE FLANNERY, HEATHER GRAHAM, KELLY LYNCH, MEREDITH EATON, MATT GRANT, PAULEY PERRETTE, PERSIA WHITE, SARA RUE, TOBEY MAGUIRE, OLESYA RULIN, MAYOR ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA, HSUS PRESIDENT--WAYNE PACELLE and AMBER TAMBLYN.
  • Message Development -- In order to ensure that the media understood Yes on Prop 2 and could ask appropriate questions to the celebrities in attendance -- and that celebrities were well versed on the topic, we spent a great deal of time on message development and talking points. In advance of the red carpet we serviced media bullet points on the prop and also sent suggested questions they could ask the celebrities that evening. Once a celebrity guest was confirmed we provided their publicist with talking points to help the celebrity attendee feel comfortable speaking about Yes on Prop 2. It was crucial that each attendee was informed and able to deliver educated sound bites.
  • Media Outreach -- The media that we targeted for the event was a very strategic list as we wanted to ensure that media outlets that were credentialed and approved for the event were going to broadcast or print material in a short lead time due to the Prop appearing on the ballot a few weeks following the event. We reached out to news outlets (i.e.; USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, MSN.com, AOL.com), political reporters, entertainment outlets to cover the red carpet (i.e.; Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, E!, MTV, Extra, People, Us Weekly, Daily Variety, Hollywood Reporter), national outlets to bring the celebrity power behind the Prop 2 to their attention (i.e.; In Style, Town & Country, Vanity Fair, CBS Early Show, Today Show, Good Morning America), local Los Angeles media where the focus was the local angle of Prop 2's importance to California (i.e.; Angeleno, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Confidential, Los Angeles magazine, Brentwood, Malibu, West, Venice Magazine and all local news stations), other local market outreach included San Francisco and San Diego media, animal outlets that had a strong online presence due to the short lead time, and we invited a select list of photographers to cover the event (we also had an in house photographer hired).
  • Press Materials -- To announce the event a save the date was created and disseminated to the media six weeks prior to the event to ensure they had the date on their planning calendars. We also sent the event information to the Hollywood News Calendar, Celebrity Datebook and Master Planner to ensure that publicists in the entertainment industry knew about the event and as another way to alert the media about the gala. We also sent out the celebrity endorsement video footage to key media outlets prior to the event to create extra buzz around the Yes on Prop 2 campaign. Once celebrities were confirmed we distributed a tip sheet that listed who was going to be in attendance and we continually updated it leading up to the day of the event. At the event we provide the media with footage of the YES on Prop 2 PSA, media alert, press release, and also a photo tip sheet of confirmed celebrities for the evening. After the event we provided broadcast outlets with B-Roll footage from inside the event and it was serviced to them the following day by 8am.
  • Event Coverage/Red Carpet Coordination -- In order to ensure that the event would go as planned we coordinated a walk though at the site two weeks in advance. We wanted to be sure that the red carpet was well situated on the property and that there would be the right amount of light. We managed the celebrity and press RSVP list, organized and administered the red carpet with a staff of ten people to ensure the media was well taken care of and that all the talent that attended the event walked the red carpet and was made available to the press.
  • Viral Campaign—The viral campaign included the following components-- maintenance of MySpace page, actively seek out friends on MySpace, create a channel on YouTube where an EPK can be uploaded, create a wikipedia page, create a del.icio.us page, subscribe to RSS feed that relates to your platform allowing us to stay on top of timely news, create a Facebook page, blog on the website, and create Virtual Press Kit on Much and House website for media.

Results:

Over the past few years’ coverage of the HSUS and the Genesis Awards has steadily grown, and the media impressions for the YES on Prop 2 benefit gala coverage reached into the hundreds of millions. The Prop 2 ballot initiative was passed by a strong majority. Our increasingly strong relationships with entertainment, event and animal media, both print and broadcast, have resulted in event coverage in outlets including (43 media outlets covered the red carpet):

  • TV Guide Channel
  • E! News
  • Entertainment Tonight
  • Extra
  • Access Hollywood
  • People.com
  • LA Times
  • Ecorazzi.com
  • Celeb Life Magazine
  • US Weekly
  • OK Magazine
  • People Magazine
  • Wuffington Wag
  • InStyle.com
  • Hollywood Reporter TV
  • OCTV
  • KTTV (Fox Los Angeles Affiliate)
  • WireImage Video (In House Crew)

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