Case Studies
When a major company sought to eliminate their accountability for devastating California wildfires through legislative changes, Wilson Public Affairs was engaged to lead the opposition. Facing a budget deficit of twenty-to-one against the proponents, we executed a lethal strategy by intensely tiering our efforts within specific legislative districts, selected for their ideal campaign geography.
Our success was founded on meticulous public opinion research, which yielded concise and powerful messaging delivered via highly effective creative executions. We leveraged our political expertise to exponentially multiply the value of every dollar spent, achieving an outsized influence on the legislative discourse. This involved precisely locating and deploying large digital billboards visible daily to key legislators and staff, integrating them with surgical digital and earned media efforts within the target districts. Our swift, aggressive action dramatically elevated the political "risk" of supporting the measure, compelling its abandonment. The issue remains dormant, a testament to the campaign's success.
Wilson Public Affairs took on the management of Californians for Energy Independence (CEI), a powerful coalition representing Californian voters committed to supporting the state’s responsible oil production. As strategic leads, our team developed and executed comprehensive strategies to favorably position the industry’s energy production methods across statewide and local arenas. This critically included aggressively fighting ordinances and ballot initiatives designed to effectively shut down oil and gas production throughout the state.
Our strategic oversight encompassed all facets of the campaign: earned media, coalition building, deep-dive research, opposition monitoring, precision direct mail, intense local activation and strategy, and robust paid media—anchored by an extensive digital and social media campaign, plus meticulous voter file maintenance and targeting. Operating under the CEI banner, we achieved significant victories, successfully defeating Measure P in Santa Barbara and Measure A in La Habra Heights, alongside numerous restrictive ordinances statewide. We grew the coalition into a force of over 250,000 California voters, establishing a massive digital footprint with more than 140,000 Facebook likes and 16,000 Twitter followers.
Wilson Public Affairs directs an exclusive program for modeling voter behavior on energy issues across California. This advanced model moves beyond surface-level voter attitudes and policy opinions. It is engineered to identify core personal beliefs and consumer behaviors to precisely predict which voters are most likely to embrace and engage on our clients' issues. The model continuously refines itself by layering in political engagement data gathered from ongoing paid media campaigns.
The model provides the client with capability to engage with specific voters, ensuring resources are deployed effectively. It is utilized for targeting specific legislative districts and for surgical deployment in local campaigns.
In a landmark case, the model enabled the tailored door-to-door canvassing and engagement programs, deep inside opponent territory. After weeks of ground operations and the recruitment of thousands of households, the opposition remained completely unaware and was caught entirely off-guard when thousands of signatures supporting the client's issue were delivered directly to local elected officials.
WPA served as the day-to-day campaign manager for No on Proposition 27 – overseeing all campaign activities from coalition recruitment and engagement, web site design, earned media to social and digital media. The campaign achieved “No” endorsements from both the Republican and Democrat Parties and their leaders and nearly every major newspaper in the state.
Heavily focused on voters’ concerns about harming native American tribes and the lack of revenue that would be generated for the state, the campaign sowed doubt about the both the need for this measure as well as the negative impacts on the state and tribes.
While public polling had the measure garnering 34% of the vote, on Election Day voters resoundingly rejected the measure with an 82% NO vote.