Transformation Tuesday - Bigtent Election Style
25k Voters & How We’re Spending the Next 500 Hours
Good morning and welcome to Bigtent Creative’s Newsletter. We’re bringing you fresh news from what we’re seeing in the trenches of social media influence and Election 2020 and here are this week’s hot takes:
Numbers: 21, 500, 10, and 25,000
With 21 days until Election Day, there are approximately 500 hours left for Bigtent Creative and anyone who cares about this election to be a voter and get out the vote.
10 weeks ago when we started working on this, our goal was to register 5,000 voters. Now we get to announce that we’ve registered over 25,000 voters through our various campaigns, with 85.6% all under the age of 25. This is INCREDIBLE!
Now that 18 more states have hit voter registration deadlines, we’re shifting our focus to Getting Out the Vote. This means messaging around “Be a Voter” and “Make a Vote Plan,” while providing as much informative, funny, and engaging content as possible.
Total # of Registrations by State
Gen Z UX Research: Voices
To learn more about our users, Bigtenter Shary Niv recently interviewed people who registered or attempted to register via our landing pages.
One of the things that’s come through the most in our interactions with both our content Creators and registered voters is that Gen Z sees this election not just as a monumental occasion to get any one candidate out of office, but to have their voices heard.
Shary found that interviewees talked about needing to represent their immigrant communities who didn’t have the right to vote. They talked about taking personal risks to stand up for the rights of the oppressed. They talked about galvanizing their friends to become civically engaged because we’re running out of time to change the course of history.
They used the word “voice” a lot. “My voice is power.” “I have a voice, it’s time to speak up.” “Voting is a way for my voice to be heard, otherwise I’d be powerless.” They talked a lot about finding power and hope in their generation. So we’ll be incorporating those learnings into our campaigns going forward.
Moving on to the 5th Circuit
As you may remember from last week, we filed a lawsuit against Governor Abbott of Texas for his gross infringement on voting rights through his executive order to limit ballot return boxes to one per county.
Marc Elias, the leading voting rights litigator in the country and OUR attorney on this Texas lawsuit broke the news via Twitter
We thought we’d received an election miracle when the U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman ruled that Governor Abbott’s executive order threatened to disenfranchise voters. In his statement, Judge Pitman said a ruling is needed immediately to respond to our claims as plaintiffs and “any delay risks irreparable violation of the right that the Supreme Court has called ‘the essence of a democratic society” further proving how important our advocacy is.
However, within a matter of hours, Texas Secretary of State Ruth Hughs appealed to the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. So now we’re appealing the appeal and plan to continue to fight for young voters. We’ll continue to update you until we reach a final (hopefully positive) verdict.
Great to catch up with Krystal Ball on The Hill Rising Last Week! We talked about the work Bigtent is doing around voter registration, making voting plans, and our advocacy efforts like the case we’re plaintiffs for in Texas
Media MOMENTUM
Hot off the presses! We’ve been on fire this week as we’ve been mentioned in numerouspieces for our leadership on the Texas lawsuit, but also receiving some in depth, esteemed press coverage from outlets about our narrative and what we’ve been able to accomplish in the last 10 weeks.
A Warren Meme (R)evolution! Great piece about our story as an organization from Gizmodo
You know you’re doing something right when a news piece’s data from a week ago is already vastly out of date! 😍🎉😎
Perhaps most importantly, Quinn at MEL noted that we’re really just getting started here at Bigtent. While it may not seem long, we’ve got 21 more intense days ahead of us to make things happen and get a historical youth voter turnout.
Obviously, we think so but check out Quinn’s reporting for MEL Magazine and let us know what you think!
Similarly, we’re just getting started when it comes to press coverage, and if you want to tune in, I’ll be commenting on next week’s debate with Cheddar.
Speaking of Debates…
Anyone notice that fly hanging out on Mike Pence’s head for two minutes last week? It was hard not to, and while the internet went wild with it, so did we in making this filter for one of our advocacy partners. It’s brand new, but we can’t wait to see how much love it gets from our Gen Z and Millennial crowd.
Why yes, that fly IS waving a “Go Vote!” Sign
Notable filters
In addition to the fly filter above, we’ve made a number of viral Snapchat Lenses and Instagram Filters. Filters are a way Gen Z expresses themselves and engages one another on Snapchat and Instagram, and we know it’s only a matter of time before TikTok enables third party filters like these as well.
“Which Black Leader do you embody?” filter
Our lenses and filters like the one above are some of the most popular on these platforms, having been viewed 163 Million times and used by followers and influencers 106 Million times. What’s more, they’ve been shared (someone using the filters shares them publicly on social media) 7 Million times.
Like I said, we’re just getting started. We’ll have an announcement in a few days and want you all to hear about it first, so make sure you look out for another update from me soon!
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We’ll be back with new information, data, and analysis from our campaigns every week from now until Election Day. Help us spread the word about how crucial TikTok, online voter registration, and the other work we are doing is by forwarding this email to friends who care about democracy and voter outreach. Have questions or media inquiries? Contact us at bigtent@bigtentcreative.com.