AboutMyArea local election campaign

Given the brief to create and strengthen links between a national website network and local government, Actuality Media created a campaign around the 2007 English local council, Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament elections.

The project covered almost fifty election areas from Cornwall to Inverness and rural Bedfordshire to metropolitan Barnsley.  Almost a thousand election candidates were approached and, as a result, web traffic increased by an average 15 per cent.  Many community websites participating in the campaign received their highest ever statistics and the project has since been nominated for a New Statesman New Media Award.

The idea was to address low levels of turnout at the local elections by plugging the gap in voter information. Each of the community-run websites would then become a source of information about all the candidates from all parties, helping the electorate make their choice using the internet in the same way as they might research a major purchase or choice of a holiday. Voters were even able to print off a pocket guide to the candidates to take with them to the polling booth.

Actuality Media developed the concept, consulted with election authorities then project managed the campaign from start to finish.  We supported the community web editors and handled the national and regional PR campaign.