Winner: Imprenta Communications Group - Plastic Pollution Awareness Campaign
Communities of color make up a majority of California’s population, yet they remain largely unrepresented in the state’s mainstream environmental movement. The long-term strength of California’s environmental movement will be determined by its ability to engage and include these diverse constituencies. Imprenta Communications Group researched and assessed the viability of activating and engaging the Latino and Asian Pacific American communities in Los Angeles and the South Bay around plastic pollution and local plastic bag bans. Imprenta conducted a comprehensive statewide communications and outreach plan to activate communities of color around these issues.
Imprenta launched a multilingual website with core messaging and additional information about plastic pollution. The site was translated into Chinese, Vietnamese and Spanish and included an online pledge form to collect commitments to fight plastic pollution. The agency ran a statewide pledge campaign through the #StopPlasticBags website, social media outreach and paid canvassers. Pledge forms were designed to capture the contact information of supporters for use in future communications. The website saw over 42,000 hits over a 10-week period, with 65 percent of visitors viewing the site in a language other than English. The Facebook page received over 6,000 likes and reached an estimated total audience of more than 300,000 in the same time frame. Earned media placement saw 3.1 million impressions, with paid media generating an additional 42.7 million impressions in support of the campaign.