Case Study

SAN DIEGO COUNTY AIRPORT SITE SELECTION PROGRAM (ASSP)

Meeting San Diego County’s expected air travel demands is one of the most critical issues facing the region. Forecasts estimate that by 2015, the county’s existing airport, Lindbergh Field, could reach maximum capacity. The effects would be automobile traffic congestion surrounding the airport, long lines for tickets and security checks, higher ticket prices, and difficulties in obtaining flights in and out of San Diego. As a result, San Diego’s tourism industry would suffer and businesses would choose to relocate elsewhere. Studies have shown that if air transportation needs are not fully met, in 2030 the region would lose up to $8 billion in gross regional product, 56,000 jobs, $2.5 billion in personal income, and $67.9 million in tax revenues.

State legislation created the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority in 2003 to find a solution to the region’s air transportation needs. The legislation also required a November 2006 ballot initiative when San Diego residents voted on a new site for the constrained airport.  However, relocating San Diego’s Lindbergh Field is an extremely contentious issue that has been studied for more than 40 years yet has failed to be resolved for a number of reasons, including NIMBYism, such special interests as the military and base supporters, and lack of a viable alternative site. Adding to the challenge is the fact that Lindbergh Field today is a model of efficiency, ranked third in the nation for customer service. It is extremely difficult to communicate the impending crisis that could arrive in a little over a decade given the convenience and effectiveness of today’s facility.

Cook & Schmid developed the Fly into the Future brand as the centerpiece of a broad strategy for communicating the need to address San Diego’s long-term air transportation needs leading up to the November 2006 vote. In preparation for that ballot measure, the Cook & Schmid account team and its client, the Airport Authority, designed and began implementing an outreach and education program that would directly engage and inform all key stakeholder groups of key issues and milestones throughout the process; and prepare San Diego County voters for a November 2006 referendum, seeking their informed direction on the region’s air transportation infrastructure. 

RESEARCH

The Cook & Schmid account team recommended conducting a benchmark survey to establish a baseline for future measurement, to better understand existing community attitudes about the Airport Site Selection Program, and to identify issues and concerns that must be addressed by the outreach and education program.  Cook & Schmid won support for this approach from the ASSP Communication Team (consisting of the Airport Authority president/CEO, the VP of Strategic Planning, the VP of Marketing and Communications, ASSP technical consultants, other Authority support staff and the Cook & Schmid account staff) and worked with CIC Research, an expert in aviation research issues, to design and implement the survey. 

We also implemented other research early in the program including:

• An internal audit regarding the ASSP, including interviews with the Authority president/CEO and her management team of eight vice presidents.
• A thorough review of the results from an earlier Stakeholders Dialogue conducted by the Airport Authority’s Strategic Planning Department.  The Dialogue was actually conducted by Viewpoint Learning and well-known pollster Dan Yankelovich with several hundred San Diego County residents in a daylong session.  Cook & Schmid used the data from this project to refine the brand and design the message sequence of the outreach and education campaign. 
• Cook & Schmid also later worked with Viewpoint Learning to design and implement California’s first Web Dialogue, a two-week long, online conversation with 750 San Diego County residents re: the ASSP, conducted in partnership with Sign on San Diego. 
• In addition, Cook & Schmid established and managed a 50-member Public Working Group, and Advisory Committee, and environmental, ground transportation, and air space technical stakeholder committees.

STRATEGIES

Cook & Schmid worked with the client to develop several long-term strategic goals for the program.  They included:

• Maintain ongoing two-way communication between the Airport Authority and stakeholders.
• Demonstrate transparency in the public process to encourage participation and consensus.
• Ensure that public feedback informs the Airport Authority Board’s decision-making.

Research showed that the region’s 50-year history of airport site selection study and inaction had created a distrustful, skeptical public.  Further, the Airport Authority, as a new agency and the first to focus exclusively on the region’s air transportation infrastructure, was not well known or differentiated from its predecessor agencies.

For these reasons, Cook & Schmid developed a comprehensive public relations and marketing program designed to reach virtually all San Diego County residents, to differentiate the current ASSP from previous efforts and to engage residents through as many multiple media – and whenever possible, in their own communities – as the $3.5 million budget for the period would allow.  (This budget covered all agency fees as well as ad placement, production, printing, and all outside vendor costs).  Research data led the agency to emphasize “purpose and need” heavily in the program, focusing on what, not where, in our attempt to move a historically stagnant dialogue beyond proposed sites and on to more fruitful discussion of root causes and a shared community vision.  State law prohibited the campaign from advocacy of any kind, and the overarching goal of the effort was to engage citizens in a civic conversation, without regard for leading that conversation to a particular outcome.

Execution

The Airport Authority deployed an array of tactics to achieve these goals:

• Launched a major Fly into the Future Family event to bring the ASSP to the masses.
• Subsequently took the “show on the road” to dozens of communities throughout the region.
• Organized an aggressive Speakers Bureau.
• Exhibited at the 15 largest community festivals and street fairs in the region.
• Launched innovative Web Dialogues to engage citizens in online ASSP discussions.
• Established a Public Working Group comprised of 50 elected officials, civic leaders and subject matter experts.
• Established an Advisory Committee as well as three technical committees to advise on environmental, ground transportation and air space issues.
• Developed a Town Hall program to reach the 19 cities comprising San Diego County, successfully partnering with the local community newspapers.
• Pursued proactive media relations including regular media briefings, editorial board briefings, milestone press releases and letters-to-the-editor.
• Developed high-impact visuals including a vision poster, community street fair displays, a newspaper insert, compelling graphics and large-scale display boards.

Media Relations

• More than 334 million audience impressions through countywide print media coverage.
• Approximately 325 Airport Site Selection Program related articles.
• Approximately 2.4 million audience impressions through broadcast media coverage.
• Approximate advertising dollar value of all media coverage this year is in excess of $2.8 million.

Fly into the Future Family Event

• Media relations and advertising outreach resulted in 9.15 million audience impressions.
• While the original program goal was 1,500 guests, more than 3,500 community members attended.
  

Fly into the Future Insert

• The insert reached more than 1 million San Diego County residents in the initial distribution.
• The benchmark survey determined that the number of people who had heard nothing about the airport site selection program vote dropped nearly 10 percent after insert distribution.
• The Public Relations Society of America awarded this publication a Bronze Anvil, PRSA’s highest honor for program tactics.                   

Web Dialogues

• More than 735 people registered to participate from 25 different zip codes countywide.

Public Working Group

• More than 50 elected officials and regulatory authorities, civic leaders and relevant subject-matter experts participated.

Speakers Bureau

• More than 110 speaking opportunities were secured, reaching approximately 5,000 stakeholders.

Community Street Fairs

• 15 street fairs were identified in communities with high public involvement to reach more than 3.2 million attendees over the course of the outreach program.

Coffee Klatches

• Nearly 40 coffee klatches were held throughout the program, engaging some 600 opinion leaders in intimate, candid discussions on the Airport Site Selection Program.

Fly into the Future Town Halls

• Media relations advertising and community outreach resulted in more than 1.5 million audience impressions.

Editorial Board Briefings

• More than 10 local television stations and print publications were briefed, resulting in a one-hour primetime special on the ASSP, increased media coverage and event sponsorship.

Advertising to support Public Outreach

• More than 125 print, online and radio advertisements were placed reaching more than 7.5 million people (more than $50,000 in placements were negotiated free of cost).