WE Launches Vote Drive
Competes With Lifetime, Again, to Get Attention of Females
By Linda Haugsted -- Multichannel News, 10/21/2007 8:00:00 PM
Register 1 million women to vote by the 2008 election. That’s the goal WE TV has set for a new year-long public affairs initiative, WE Vote 2008.
WE TV has attracted a couple of political lights to co-chair its efforts: Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to run for vice president on a major ticket; and former New York congresswoman Susan Molinari. WE has also brought aboard TV celebrity Kelly Ripa, singer LeAnn Rimes and movie star Kerry Washington (Ray) to star in a series of public service announcements promoting the get-out-the-vote effort.
But WE is not the only women’s network trying to get out the vote and make a connection with its core audience. Competitor Lifetime is ramping up its own efforts to drive female voters to the polls, with the League of Women Voters on its side. It’s the fifth time Lifetime has tried to get women more involved in elections.
The WE campaign will be in partnership with a group of non-profit, non-partisan organizations, including Women’s Voices, Women Vote; America’s Promise Alliance, Women’s Campaign Forum and The Creative Coalition. Within the cable industry, WE has solicited campaign support from the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, Women in Cable Telecommunications and the Association of Cable Communicators.
WE has done public affairs partnerships since executive vice president and general manager Kim Martin joined the channel in 2005. WE Empowers Women has partnered with the American Heart Association and the Women’s Sports Association, among others. With next year’s highly contested election and its very diverse slate of candidates, it made sense to educate women on the impact they can have on our government, executives said.
To prepare for this, WE polled more than 1,000 women in May, asking them to identify their top five issues, said senior vice president of marketing Kenetta Bailey. The respondents identified education, health care, safety at home, the economy and national security.
WE launched a Web site (www.wevotes08.com) for the campaign Oct. 22. There, the channel will post the candidates’ views on the key hot button issues for women identified by the poll. The Web site will also address the primary reasons why respondents haven’t yet registered: they don’t know how, they don’t know where the local polling place is or they don’t know the candidates well enough.
Bailey said the Web site will include a U.S. map. Web users can click on their own state, learn the requirements for voter registration, and click to download documents they can file locally to register to vote. They will not be able to register online.
But WE will not just be fighting female ennui to hit its 1 million registration goal. Lifetime has been politically active in presidential races for the last four cycles and announced last week it is pursuing its most diverse edition of its Every Woman Counts initiative this year.
Lifetime has its own site (www.everywomancounts08.com), high-profile partners (corporate siblings Redbook, CosmoGIRL! and Marie Claire) and the support of non-profit groups such as the League of Women Voters.
The women’s network will also run public service announcements. Lifetime’s own survey identified pay equity, education, violence against women, women’s health research as top issues for women.
Political activity is “organic to the Lifetime brand,” network executive vice president of public affairs Meredith Wagner said. Research has shown that Lifetime’s political advocacy is a “major factor in the depth of relationship we have with viewers. They trust us to do it,” she said. “But we do it because it’s the right thing to do.”
Lifetime’s campaign will add to its database on women’s concerns by going coast-to-coast, staging events and asking women to finish the statement “If I were president, I would …”
The filmed responses, plus input online and via postcards, will be compiled into monthly vignettes for broadband and video on demand, as well as shared with candidates throughout the campaign.
Asked about Lifetime’s competing effort, WE’s Bailey said her channel’s campaign represents its voice and spirit, with a clear focus: register, learn, vote.
Though Bailey would not give the cost of the public affairs effort, she said the network is spending as much as it would to promote one of its original series.
The channel will stage local, celebrity-driven events, door-to-door registration drives, educational forums and WE vote parties. The details of affiliate participation in local marketing are still being created.
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