VotoLatino

PR & Messaging

In June of 2018, VotoLatino hired the eStreet.co team to help draw national attention to the immigration crisis happening in Tornillo, Texas—where children were being locked in cages. We built a coalition of partners and used several platforms outside of the immigration space to spark national attention.

The Challenge

Increase awareness of an issue with minimal national coverage

Build a coalition of partners outside of the immigration space to talk about the issue

Spark a national conversation around both child detention and family separation

163

million impressions on June 24, 2018

The Strategy

In June of 2018, VotoLatino hired the eStreet.co team to help draw national attention to the immigration crisis happening in Tornillo, Texas. At the time, the story wasn’t entirely mainstream; few publications had done significant reporting on the issue. It was important to spark a national conversation around both child detention and family separation.

Our end goal was not to change the administration policy. We knew that would not be feasible given the ideologies of the administration at that time. Our goal was to build a coalition of partners outside of the immigration space to talk about the issue, bring in celebrities to appeal to younger voters, and highlight the atrocities by putting the faces of children locked in cages into the homes of every American.

336

million impressions on June 25, 2018

The Project

We decided to build a large scale rally in Tornillo, Texas, outside of the immigration facilities. Being that Tornillo is roughly 30 miles southeast of El Paso, Texas, and is difficult to access, this was an almost impossible task. Immediately, we started inviting major organizations, key speakers, and celebrities to increase the awareness of our cause by using their platforms. We worked with corporate sponsors, like Southwest Airlines, to both advertise the event and facilitate accessibility.

The Result

Our actions led to more than 36 public partners and corporate sponsorships from Patagonia, Coca-Cola, Univision, and Southwest Airlines. We had more than two dozen celebrities in attendance and, on social media, we saw more than five million impressions on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram on the VotoLatino channels alone.

Most importantly, we generated 352 press hits, garnering 163 million impressions on June 24, 2018 and 336 million impressions on June 25, 2018. We successfully placed our story into every single American household and drastically swayed public perception of the immigration debate.