Get-Out-the-Vote Ad Campaign Focuses on Protecting the Right to Vote

By STUART ELLIOTT

In presidential election years, late September and early October usually bring a wave of conventional public service advertising campaigns that are intended to encourage Americans to vote in November. A campaign scheduled to begin on Monday, from the National Urban League, adds an element that is torn from today's headlines.

The campaign, created by the New York office of the DraftFCB advertising agency, which is part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, carries the slogan “It's time to be heard.” It is the next phase of an initiative from the organization under the “Occupy the vote” umbrella theme.

The ads in the campaign include the usual appeal to stimulate turnout, in this instance celebrities â€" including Angela Bassett, Eric Benét, Kim Coles and Al Sharpton - who say: “Your vote is your voice. Stay silent, and your opinion is lost.”

But the stars in the ads go on to say: “Your right to vo te could be denied. Changes in state voting laws could affect you. Protect your right to vote.” They direct potential voters to a Web site, occupythevote12.org, as well as a toll-free phone number, 1-866- MYVOTE1 (1-866-698-6831).

The discussion of the right to vote by the campaign stems from actions in numerous states to tighten the requirements to vote that include adding stipulations to show photo identification. The changes, which critics charge amount to voter suppression, stem from a belief among some conservative groups that voter fraud is a growing problem, although only a handful of documented cases have been recently found.

At the same time, there have been efforts in states like Ohio to cut back or limit the hours polling places would be open or curtail the hours of early voting in the days and weeks before Election Day.

All that led the officials at the National Urban League to decide months ago “we have to do something,” Marc Morial, pres ident and chief executive, said in a phone interview, after “civil rights, human rights, social justice organizations began to fight these laws in the courts.”

Mr. Morial subsequently turned to DraftFCB New York to see “if the agency could take the concept of ‘Occupy the vote' and give it a media component,” he said. He said he was familiar with the agency from his work as the chairman of the 2010 Census Advisory Committee;  DraftFCB New York was the lead agency on a campaign to encourage Americans to participate in the census.

The idea behind the “It's time to be heard” campaign is that “when you lose your right to vote, you lose your voice,” said Rich Levy, executive vice president and chief creative officer at DraftFCB Healthcare. “As we were working on this, more and more stories came out” about efforts to scrutinize voters and regulate voting, he added.

Megan Williams, a creative director at DraftFCB New York who was the art dire ctor on the campaign, said: “From the beginning, this was exciting to us because it was an opportunity to effect real change through our work.”

More than a dozen celebrities appear in the campaign, which includes commercials, print and digital ads and a presence in social media. Others include the singer Ryan Leslie, the actresses Erica Campbell and Vanessa Bell Calloway and the television personality, Rocsi Diaz.

“When you have a cause like this, that affects every citizen, it's not difficult” to get participation, Mr. Levy said.

Mr. Morial, a former mayor of New Orleans, also appears amid the stars; in one commercial he says the phrase “Your right to vote could be denied.”

The National Urban League and DraftFCB New York are in discussions with media companies about running the campaign on television and in print outlets. (Public service ads depend on the kindness of media companies to see the light of day, as they do not have paid budget s.)

As part of the “Occupy the vote” initiative, Mr. Morial said, the National Urban League plans grass-roots efforts to encourage voting, like knocking on doors and operating phone banks, in 10 cities in five states: Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Stuart Elliott has been the advertising columnist at The New York Times since 1991. Follow @stuartenyt on Twitter and sign up for In Advertising, his weekly e-mail newsletter.