A Legacy of Advocacy

Full disclosure: advocacy is not the bulk of what we do. We only raise our hands for causes we believe in. And over the many years of running our agency, we’ve found a few a causes too compelling to pass up. At heart, we’re a bunch of locals who grew up with this Valley. We care about it, and we know how to speak to others who care about it, too.

We’re pleased to be very effective advocates.  Here is some of our proudest work:

Boccardo Regional Reception Center in San Jose

In 1998, we were asked to design a multimedia campaign that highlighted best practices in the design and operation of homeless shelters. That campaign led to the reversal of the San Jose City Council’s intention to approve a 400-bed lockout shelter in an already overly-impacted San Jose neighborhood.

Following that campaign, and with the support of then-mayor Susan Hammer, Emergency Housing Consortium retained Orloff Marketing to help them win public support for what would become one the most progressive centers in the country supporting the homeless: the Boccardo Regional Reception Center.

This center is a multi-service facility that operates year-round, serving single individuals and families with children. It provides emergency shelter and transitional housing as well as an array of support services in the areas of job search and placement, mental health services, case management, legal assistance, substance abuse recovery, clinical services, and housing search assistance.

Santa Clara County Network for a Hate-Free Community

Here’s a project that is as relevant today in the COVID/politically charged era as it was when we took it on in 2001. A few months after 9/11, The County of Santa Clara’s Network for a Hate-Free Community turned to Orloff Marketing after recording a dramatic rise in area hate crimes following 9/11. We kicked off a County-wide anti-hate campaign with a press conference attended by virtually every news outlet in Bay Area. Promotion included radio, television, posters, public service announcements, and print ads — produced in three languages. Thanks to our healthy relationships with the media, we were able to secure free advertisements in local newspapers and magazines and on nearly every radio and television station in the area. Donations totaled more than $150,000.

A short postscript:  Normally we don’t talk about awards, but we were very gratified to see this campaign earn an Award for Excellence for Public Service Television at the Telly Awards, a national competition.

Santa Clara County Parks & Recreation

Orloff Marketing was the marketing agency of record for the Santa Clara County Department of Parks and Recreation from 1998 until 2004. Who would have thought the campaign we created for them way back when would still be in use some 20 years later?

The department came to us with the goal of increasing sales of annual park passes and generating more use of County Parks by our residents.

Because our budget was limited, we picked a single day of the week to promote local park use. This allowed us to spend our promotion dollars wisely — a lot of impressions and repetition in the 48 hours prior to the day, hitting people as they were making plans for recreation.

We launched “Go Outside and Play Day” as the official opening of the park season and promoted it through give-a-ways, media PSAs, and on-site displays at retail partner stores. We created logo and tagline for the promotion, designed park brochures, and created giveaway items like bumper stickers, Frisbees, and T-shirts. We also leveraged our modest budget through the creation of a retail partners program that encouraged local sporting goods retailers to sell annual passes in exchange for promotional consideration.

The single day promotion got rave reviews from rangers and park officials. That year, overall attendance at County parks exceeded the norms, and awareness of and positive feelings about County parks among residents grew. Retail partnerships also grew every year – eventually including virtually every sports equipment retailer in the County. And annual pass sales jumped the first year of “Go Outside and Play Day,” and continued to trend upwards in the years following.

More than 20 years later, Santa Clara County Department of Parks and Recreation is still using elements of the campaign.

Coyote Watershed Community Outreach

Orloff Marketing was the outsourced public relations arm of the Santa Clara Valley Water District’s Coyote Watershed Program from 2001 until 2002. In that capacity, we organized, agendized, promoted, and produced a series of public meetings to engage residents in efforts to restore San Jose’s largest watershed. We wanted to be proactive in communications with residents as we developed ownership of a community asset and provided information and updates about related construction projects in their neighborhoods.

We used mainstream media, neighborhood newsletters, schools, and a series of mailers to keep residents informed and to solicit participation at community meetings.

We held the kick-off meeting at Mexican Heritage Plaza, and for the occasion, we created a giant interactive floor map to illustrate the creek and the proposed plans for restoration and repair of the watershed. It had a very high cool factor: residents could literally find their home on the floor map and the see the exact location of the creek in relation to their home or place of business. An engineer and translator from each major construction project answered questions and addressed concerns.

As a result of these efforts, Santa Clara Valley Water District received positive feedback from affected residence about plans for improvements throughout the watershed and of the quality of their outreach activities.

Reid Hillview Airport

In 1996, Orloff Marketing was retained by Citizens for Responsible Airport Management and the San Jose/Silicon Valley Chamber of commerce to help prevent locally what was starting to happen across the country: closure of a vital regional airport. In this case, the airport was Reid Hillview Airport of in San Jose.

The group asked us to develop and implement a public information campaign that would increase awareness of the benefits of the continued operation Reid Hillview in the neighborhoods, the city, the county, and the region.

We began an awareness campaign that sparked interest in the issue and a prompted a vigorous debate among San Jose and County residents. When the issue moved into the political arena, we were prepared to communicate directly with legislators to educate them about the negative consequences of closing the airport. We organized email and letter-writing campaigns from business leaders, and secured support from the editorial boards of local media. We also created advertorials, in English and Spanish, focused on the many benefits of Reid Hillview, including employment, regional emergency response, medical transport, education, and much more.

Through the development and implementation of an integrated communications plan, we were able to successfully make the case for Reid Hillview. The San Jose City Council voted 3-1 in favor of keeping Reid Hillview Airport open, a reversal of their earlier decision to close it, and set the stage for future physical improvements to the facility.