CASE STUDY

Verizon New Jersey
Lifeline and LinkUp America

Situation
In April 2003, Winning Strategies Public Relations (Winning Strategies) initiated work for Verizon New Jersey’s Communications Lifeline and Link Up America, discounted telephone services for New Jersey residents in need. The agency organized and executed a grassroots community relations campaign to raise awareness of the program by encouraging eligible residents to enroll in the program. “Hard-to-reach” audiences are comprised of New Jersey residents and senior citizens who live at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty line.

Strategy
Winning Strategies engaged Zogby International (Zogby) to conduct surveys among hard-to-reach audiences who are eligible for Communications Lifeline but who were not enrolled in the service. The survey’s purpose was to identify which public relations methods could best educate and motivate these residents to proactively enroll in Communications Lifeline. Concurrent with the development and fielding of the Zogby survey, Winning Strategies worked closely with Verizon New Jersey to plan the key elements of the community relations infrastructure on which the campaign would be based.

Tactics
Verizon New Jersey conducted a community outreach campaign to promote consumer interaction activities at key cultural and senior events and locations. Representatives at each event used bilingual communications materials including a bilingual brochure, PowerPoint® presentation, talking points, a Q&A document, and a basic fact sheet about the services to promote the program. From attending these cultural events, Verizon New Jersey created a Community Partners Database.

To supplement the comprehensive grassroots campaign, a media relations component was developed that focused on generating positive press coverage in local news media about Communications Lifeline and Link Up America. Press releases were issued in support of each of our outreach efforts. The releases have generated coverage in targeted mainstream, local and ethnic news organizations throughout the state.

Results
The grassroots campaign was present at ethnic and community events attended by more than 1 million people in targeted geographic locations across New Jersey. In its first five months, the campaign helped generate 3,600 manual enrollees in the program.

There is an active database of more than 450 community and faith-based organizations that have distributed more than 77,770 bilingual informational brochures, as well as 900 informational posters to target audiences.

The grassroots campaign’s media relations component generated more than 7 million impressions in 2003 and 2004 through a combination of local and alternative media, as well as mainstream media from the Trenton Times to the Jersey Journal. In addition, most of the 21 county offices of aging ran a full article of the program in their newsletters.