In late 1999, only about 20% of California fourth graders were considered proficient readers. The California Governor's Office of the Secretary for Education implemented a
sweeping statewide campaign called READ California, designed to promote reading as a top priority, especially for children in kindergarten through sixth grade and their
parents.
The Governor's Office turned to Porter Novelli's Los Angeles office to support the advertising component of the campaign with a far-reaching community relations and public
awareness campaign.
Hitting the Books
Porter Novelli began by reaching out to corporate partners to support the campaign. They secured 38 sponsors including America Online, Barnes & Noble and Scholastic. The
campaign launched with "READ California Day" on Oct. 7, 1999. The Governor's Office approved the event only four weeks before the launch, leaving the team scrambling to plan and
execute launch rallies at local elementary schools in Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Fresno and San Diego.
"This was the first time anything like this had been done on this scale," says Bill Kolberg, Porter Novelli SVP. "We were trying to hit as many people as we could. We wanted
to get the communities on board with a very short timetable." The team worked with the Secretary for Education's office to select schools in each key market for the rallies, and
they turned to sponsors to help them procure celebrity spokespeople and guest readers and to help spread the word in each market.
The team also turned to its sponsors to put out a call for the campaign's most important spokespeople: kids. Corporate sponsors like Barnes & Noble did in-store promotions
to recruit kids as members of a Kids Advisory Council that eventually came to be known as the California Page Flippers. "We had a very difficult decision choosing 15 kids" out of
the many nominations, Kolberg says.
The 15 Page Flippers became READ California ambassadors, conducting local book drives and donating books to charities in their communities. The kids met for a Summer Reading
Summit at the state capitol to identify how kids could be encouraged to read during the summer months, and they contributed book reviews to the READ California Web site (http://www.readcalifornia.org).
Porter Novelli also launched a Readapalooza tour, which hit 57 schools, community centers and retail outlets in 29 days. The tour consisted of 20-minute shows featuring
reading, storytelling, improvisation and games. After each show, kids could pledge to read every day by signing a READ California pledge book that got started at the launch
rallies.
Media Literate
The team kept the media in the loop with press kits tailored to each facet of the campaign. The READ California Web site also offered information and materials on the
campaign, as well as daily reports from the Readapalooza tour and a resource area specifically geared to the press. Major outlets including the Associated Press, The Wall Street
Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Sacramento Bee, The Fresno Bee, The San Diego Union-Tribune, CNN and NPR were quick to pick up the story, as were
ethnic news outlets like El Informador, Chinese Daily News and Korean TV news programs, which were impressed with the campaign's outreach to a variety of ethnic groups.
Results
Baseline research conducted for measurement purposes showed 99% of California parents believed reading is "the most important" or a "very important" skill to help their
children succeed in school and in life. But before the READ California campaign, only 55% of parents reported their children reading on their own or being read to each day.
By the end of 2000, nearly three quarters of parents who had seen the READ California campaign indicated they realized it was important to read to their children every day.
More than two-thirds of parents said they would be willing to make more of an effort to have their child read or that they would read to their child.
Kids got the message, too - 89% of children who had seen the campaign said they realized reading every day was more important than they had previously thought. Most
importantly, fourth grade reading scores improved by seven percentile points over the previous school year on the state's basic skills test. Although Kolberg says his team can't
take all the credit, "We were a part of generating that awareness of reading." (Bill Kolberg, 310/444-7080)
Campaign Stats
Timeframe: Late 1999 through 2000
Public Relations Budget: $813,375
Sponsors: 38 sponsors offered financial and in-kind donations, including
Barnes & Noble, America Online, Chevron, Hewlett Packard, Southwest Airlines,
State Farm Insurance, and Scholastic
Results: 289 million media impressions; 23,000 books donated to 25 local
charities by members of the Kids Advisory Council; the Readapalooza tour reached
11,000 children in more than 40 cities; nearly 20,000 kids signed the READ California
pledge book; the READ California Web site received more than 155,000 hits over
the course of the campaign
The Team Players
Porter Novelli: Bill Kolberg, SVP; Michelle Kurland, VP; Laura Gallardo,
account supervisor; Kristy Chan, account executive; Marisa Olguin, assistant
account executive; Calen Boutilier, account coordinator; Tracy Smith, media
specialist; Deborah Howard, VP; Kim Marquardt, Web specialist
Governor's Office of the Secretary for Education: Lisa Fisher, communications
assistant
Porter Novelli Los Angeles Stats
FY2000 Billings: $4.7 million
Key Clients: Bandai, The Jim Henson Co., Hewlett Packard, McDonald's
Operators' Association of Southern California, Krispy Kreme, Gillette Oral Care
Areas of Expertise: Consumer, Youth, Food/Nutrition, Technology