San Francisco Department of the Environment 

In the spring of 2015, California had been in a serious drought for four years. People’s lawns were brown, and residents were trying to come up with creative ways to save water. The San Francisco Department of the Environment recognized these issues and launched the SF Plant Finder, an online database of plants and trees native to San Francisco’s microclimates that would help inform designers, landscapers, ecologists, and anyone with an interest in enhancing urban ecology. 

To celebrate the launch of the SF Plant Finder, I worked with the department to create a campaign and contest called “San Francisco’s Ugliest Yard” Competition, a social media competition that gave San Francisco residents the chance to win a full yard makeover with drought tolerant plants.

Strategy 

D&A created a robust and comprehensive strategy and carefully targeted audiences who would be interested in entering the contest or learning more about native, drought tolerant plants. We worked diligently to reach out to over 120 diverse, local and home and garden focused media outlets, as well as neighborhood associations who would have an interest in posting information about the competition on their social media or websites. 

Our pitch centered on the consistent and cohesive message that it is possible to still save water and have beautiful yards that support the city’s ecosystem, and that the competition was a fun way to engage the community with an important issue and use humor to get the public involved. 

Results 

As a result of our efforts, we secured positive coverage across a wide variety of media outlets, including SFGate, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Appeal, ABC7 Bay Area, and television and radio coverage on KGO, KTVU, KRON 4, and KNTV NBC Bay Area, among several others. Additional to secured coverage in local outlets, our efforts reached the Sacramento Bee, National NPR, Huffington Post, Take Part, the Los Angeles Times, City Lab, Wall Street Journal, and Sydney Morning Herald. All of the coverage celebrated the Department for being creative in developing water conservation solutions. 

Between local broadcast media, local online and print media, and national media, we garnered over 183 million impressions, with an additional more than 1.7 million impressions through social media outreach. Within a week, the number of entries for the competition had increased by over a dozen times.

(This work was executed as the Senior Communications Manager at D&A Communications)