Alderwoman Julia Ramirez (12th)

Progressive Chicago Alderwoman Julia Ramirez had just been physically attacked in her ward while visiting a protest against a proposed winterized tent encampment for 1,500-2,000 migrants on a site zoned for industrial use. The Mayor’s administration had broken ground on the site with no prior consultation with the Alderwoman’s office, as is customary. Additionally, a statement had been sent to the media about the incident without the Alderwoman’s approval, furthering misinformation about what had actually happened to the Alderwoman at the protest. We were brought in during the crisis to help correct course.

85% to 55%

Shifted negative sentiment

20% to 45%

Grew neutral sentiment

+4000%

Increase in total social mentions

Services

Crisis communications, earned media, media training

THE CHALLENGE

Building upon our foundational understanding that the primarily Latino ward requires leadership that can balance the needs of families who’ve been here for generations and new arrivals, we needed to accomplish three things: 1) Regain community trust and electoral support for the Alderwoman. 2) Demonstrate that the Ald. supports the community while also standing against xenophobia. At the time, the Ald. had not made up her mind if she supported the proposed encampment. 3) Correct the record and shift blame to the Mayor’s Office for not going through a formal process with community input and environmental testing.

THE SOLUTION

Sent an open letter to residents following the attack and advised it to press.
Held a media tour of local and national outlets based on the advised open letter.
Had numerous off-the-record & on background conversations with reporters about what the City was telling the Alderwoman about the proposed site, particularly their obfuscating about the need for an environmental assessment of industrial land.
Held a community meeting and worked to shape press coverage.
Prepared an open letter to the Mayor calling for a community benefits agreement.
Developed bilingual messaging that always put the community and transparency first.

THE IMPACT

Immediately ran a social listening analysis of the Alderwoman’s social handles when we were retained by the Alderwoman at the beginning of the crisis: 80% with negative sentiment, and 20% with neutral sentiment: 482 total mentions (+815%), 1.8M total reach (+1153%), 9.1M total impressions (+2085%) and 445 unique authors (+667%).
After the crisis, we ran the same analysis during the period of our work and found that we reduced negative sentiment to 55% and grew neutral sentiment to 45%.
During our contract we generated the following: total mentions 3.8K (+4809%), total reach 6.7M (+4577%), total impressions 29M (+1872%) and unique authors 1.9K (+5906%). This included 46 press placements, including The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun-Times, NBC Chicago, ABC Chicago, Fox Chicago, WTTW, Univision, Telemundo National Network, Deon 24 (Polish media) and Breitbart News.
Re-established the Alderwoman’s credibility and transformed her from a position of weakness (literally being physically attacked) to a position of strength as a defender of the community and their desire for no tents AND a defender of the migrants, who should not be housed on toxic land.