How to market Ron Paul! Meetup groups and member can put up 1,000 billboards nationwide
Here is a way for everyone to get involved. I spoke with a member of the campaign office and they said this would be fine.
I live in Los Angeles, so I will use our area as an example. My goal for Los Angeles would to put up 20 billboards of Ron Paul during the month of November beginning November 1st and running through November 30th. The theme of the bill boards would be picture of Ron Paul with the caption "Vote Ron Paul for President and he will protect what you are thankful for". Underneath it would read www.ronpaul2008.com.
Each group in the Los Angeles area could sponsor a billboard. If each billboard ran an estimated $2,000 it would not be much if each person chipped in. We probably could get this rate if we bought in a block.
Just think millions of commuters stuck in traffic driving past his biilboards 20 times during a month. In Los Angeles and surrounding areas we have the Pasadena group, the Calabasas group, the Sherman Oaks group, Valencia, Beverly Hills, Hermosa, Venice, Los Angeles, Burbank, Ventura group, Pomona, Riverside, and some more.
Now if other cities duplicated this nationwide, just think of the name recognition Ron Paul could have? New York, Chicago, Austin, Seattle, San Francisco, Phoenix, St. Louis, Miami, and then smaller communities could buy billboards for less because it is cheaper in areas of lower population.
I am going to include some links and example of billboards here from some PR agencies so you can check it out as examples.
If your group can not get a billboard, then consider city busses, taxis, bus stops, local movie theatres. We could really Paint The Town Ron.
Also, checkout local newspapers they usually have a discounted political rate.
output
How do you all like this?
http://files.meetup.com/4...
portable billboard, Big welcome to hillary in Oakland, CA
http://www.youtube.com/wa...
Anti-war is big in the SF bay area, so "End the War" Over all I say hillary supporter are nice, open minded and open to Ron Paul message. The one that I talked to, has not decided who they will vote for so they aren't really Hillary supporter. It was alot of fun. Most of the time my camera was pointing to the ground because i was telling people about Ron Paul.
Our last one, we put it on the freeway bridge and somebody tear it down, but it is cheap. It was not the cop because the sign sitter saw it when he was walking back.
Billboard Theme...
My real estate firm pays a lot to heavy duty marketing and branding companies. One such company owed me for a previous multimillion dollar successfull campaign. I used my IOU with them to tell me what needed to be done to get Ron Paul elected.
Thier answer: 1) Only this man can Beat Hillary
and #2) He's the Thomas Jefferson of our day
The why and hows: Among the republican voters, the ONLY thing they are concerned with is beating Hillary. If another Hillary--another NY liberal pretending to be Conservative came along, say like Giuliani, they would vote for him. Little else matters to them. Not even the war in Iraq. Now, who is Ron Paul? To answer that, both in the Primaries and in the General Election, the phrase, He is the Thomas Jefferson of our day is all that is needed. Getting into Ron's issues and opinions and record is too bookish, the "long and short of it" is all the voters want to know.
In the Primaries, can he beat Hillary? Yes.
In the General election the voter wants to know three issues,
Will he stop the War, Yes,
Will he stop illegal immigration & make us safer, yes,
Will he be better for the economy and that includes health care, yes.
According to my people, Ron is weak with the General Election voters on the last question. But that is another battle.
Todays battle is to be taken to Republicans, Ron Paul CAN beat Hillary. That is all they need to know.
Good ideas Treg
I tend to think the "beat Hillary" phrase should maybe be saved for closer to the primary election when only the registered Republicans will be effected. Right now, when we are still getting people to change to Republican in the closed states, it's not as significant for those people. The long term GOPers have the mentality of who can beat her. Once the door is closed in those states, the GOP voters will have beating Hillary as their primary target.
The Thomas Jefferson or Hope for America would likely be best for the next 2 months while trying to convert voters to the GOP to vote for Ron.
My 2 cents.
Bob W., Naples, FL
Short & Sweet - Good!
Very good advice ... as proud of RP as I am abot not accepting junkets... this is not a piece of info that needs to be heavily marketed. The simple basics are what matters!
I think those two phrases...
...are perfect. I hope everyone involved takes note of your idea.
Mini Billboards
In our area (Wisconsin) many of our meetups are of little means financially and can't afford to buy billboards. Its a great idea though for meetups that have enough members and can afford them though.
I would like to suggest something for those of smaller means to be able to get the word out. You can place "mini-billboards" for Ron Paul all over in public places to get the word out.
infiniteronpaul.com is a site that has a neat little setup for printing off removable Avery labels of various sizes with some slogans on them to get the word out.
If we all do our little part we can get Ron's name out everywhere. Signs, banners, stickers, billboards, tv, etc.
Go Ron Paul!!
This idea is spreading... site has MAP of downloads...
Seems that the "mini-billboard" campaign idea is being used in quite a few places around the country (almost every state), and even someone in England (though why they would want to put up RonPaul stickers is beyond me... just showing support I guess.)
Oops... forgot the Link shortcut to the sticker "maps" page.
Try knocking on doors
GO for the KNOCK KNOCK for Ron Paul ....idea. Its very effective.
LA Meetup Group Planning This
RONPAUL818 - I just came from an LA Meetup meeting last night (Meetup-121). I am leading an effort to raise money for billboards. We have to form a PAC to do this, however. And it cannot be associated with the campaign. Please contact me to coordinate our efforts. jbb1976@gmail.com
John
A Picture is worth 1,000 Words
I wouldn't put any words on the billboard except the contack info: "Google," "YouTube," the 800 number and the website.
What I would have is one of the terrific snapshots of a sign-waving rally and the sea of Ron Paul supporters smiling and having a great time.
The image to project is "success" and "fun." (="Freedom")
It gets the core message across, makes the message the winner, and shows the viewer a reason (fun) why they should check him out.
IMissLiberty
Any Idea of How Many Spaces are Available in LA?
Great idea! Are billboards readily available in the Los Angeles area? Any billboard around any freeway will get at least tens of thousands of "hits" a day, if not hundreds of thousands.
Yes
There are plenty of spaces ready. What we need are someone that can create a great looking billboard. Then I can take it and see how much it would cost. We could approach meetup groups with it and ask them to sponsor it.
I just have no artistic ability and would love for someone to help me with the billboard.
Barns
One enterprising co-organizer of our meetup group approached a lady about renting the side of her barn for 40.00 a month. The highway it faces gets about 10,000-15,000 cars a day.
You can see the banner here: http://ronpaul.meetup.com...
I could not see it
The link did not show the picture.
The best 99 cents i ever spent
write GOOGLE RON PAUL in white on your back window its like having a ron paul sign everrywhere you go and very cheep and effective!
We just put up a billboard
We just put up a billboard in abilene texas for a month.
Ron Paul 08
Billboard
Great job!
I am curious what the billboard cost is in that area. Dod you get a good location? Was it close to or on the Interstate I 20?
Please show us a picture
That would be great! What was the cost?
similar idea
We done something like that last week, we took our billboard to a Hillary rally and had alot of fun. it only cost 170$ for about 5 billboard. :-)
I will try to post it on youtube. This will be my first time trying to edit video so I'm a little slow, and a little busy on other thing. But I will try to get it done as soon as I can.
i've got an idea...
i'm not sure if we'd be allowed to do it, but we could try to raise enough money to buy a television commercial (not prime time or anything) and have it run a few times, or maybe one of those ads they play before movies in theaters. i know it would be more expensive (although i'm not sure how much air time goes for), but i think it would be much more effective if people could hear him talk. i mean, think of how many people we could pick up in a metropolitan area with just a 10 second clip from one of his speeches where he says he voted against the war and we need to bring the troops home now.
Great Idea!
Great idea; however, the slide shows in movie theaters don't usually take political ads. :-( Too bad; it's a great bang-for-the-buck.
You're on the right track, though; we must begin advertising to high-density audiences: commuters stuck in traffic at bottleneck points, sporting events, beaches (SoCal), rodeos, car races, chili cook-offs, etc. Think about all the places you see crowds and find out whether there is an opportunity for a political ad.
Consider banners towed behind planes over football stadiums (pro & college), beach venues (beach volleyball crowds), office parks and complexes.
Another good, sort of inexpensive (for the number of "eyeballs") medium is the Thursday entertainment insert in your local newspaper.
This is a great idea
This is a great idea. I think a short ad at movie theaters is a fantastic way to create name recognition and for people to connect with his message. Listening to him speak is definitely very powerful.
I also love the billboard idea. I live in LA too so I know what you mean about sitting in traffic.
I checked the price of this in my Springfield MO
They did not have the ablity to do a video but could run a one picture still shot it was roughly $1,000 for three months of ads They had 12 theaters and had 6 shows a day. thats way cheaper than TV ads.
Are you going to do it?
That would be great!
Just a thought!
Your idea is great but I think just putting a computer website is only good for ex amount of people I would add the telephone number of the biggest Meetup group as well for those who might be interested but have no access to a computer.
Campaign provide artwork?
I'm not a graphic designer and it would make it easier if the campaign had premade graphics in the format requested by the advertisers so we can just submit the graphics and pay for the billboards. Also, I'm including 3 more advertisers links for outdoor advertisements.
http://www.cbsoutdoor.com...
http://www.lamar.com/
http://www.clearchannelou...
We all need to combine our ideas and get it done
Good ideas! Any more?
In Kind Contribution
I believe if the campaign provides the artwork then anyone who uses that artwork for a billboard would have the money they spend apply towards their $2300 limit as an in-kind contribution.
We Can't Coordinate in ANY way with the Campaign
If we do, we are required to limit our spending and to report the expenses. We can only act as a single individual in order to have no limitations.
See what we're up against?
IMissLiberty
Meetups = PAC
A PAC can put up a billboard on their own. This is what I was told.
Go Ron Paul
Let's be heard!