2. In 2012, Rock The Vote and The Marcus Graham
Project will partner to develop an incredible learning
experience for aspiring new media professionals,
while empowering a generation of youth
3. • Founded in 1990 in response to a wave of attacks on freedom
of speech and artistic expression.
• As a nonpartisan nonprofit organization, Rock the Vote doesn’t
endorse candidates. Rather, it empowers young people to
step up and claim their voice in the political process, changing
the way politics is done
• Rock the Vote is able to translate the success of its brand into
real results by running innovative and successful voter outreach
and registration efforts
• Rock the Vote was the first organization to introduce online
voter registration and during the past four presidential elections
has run the largest young voter registration drives on record
4. • The Marcus Graham Project is a 501(c)3 non-profit
organization and national network of diverse
professionals that have purposed themselves in
developing the next generation of thought leadership
within the advertising, media and marketing industry
• Our mission is to identify, expose, mentor and train
ethnically diverse men between the ages of 16 and 34
in all aspects of the media industry, including advertising,
entertainment and marketing
• The vision of the Marcus Graham Project (MGP) is to
provide long-term access to information, technology,
financial and people resources that will strategically
develop a viable pool of talent and leadership within the
industry
• Received national and local media attention in Ad Age,
Black Enterprise, Ebony, Rolling Out Magazine, NBC
• Founded in 2007, incorporated 2009
• HQ in Dallas, TX, with over 800 members nationally
5. In 2008, organizing members of The Marcus Graham Project (MGP) and
some of its mentees took on the Rock The Vote Chicago Get Out The Vote
efforts as a pro-bono project. After the success of the GOTV program,
MGP’s iCR8 Summer Boot Camp was born.
6. The BOOT CAMP
The iCR8 boot camp provides the next generation of advertising, media &
marketing talent with the exposure and experience necessary to solidify
careers within the industry.
The boot camp is a summer long internship program, where nearly a dozen
team members selected annually for an exclusive opportunity to provides pro-
bono consulting services, developing a marketing campaign for pre-selected
non-profit organizations or social causes, the opportunity to work on actual
client projects, providing experience across multiple segments and categories
The success of the boot camp program, as well as our story has lead to an
amazing amount of press:
7. The boot camp follows a rigorous curriculum and
syllabus, including research, blog postings, lectures,
company tours, interactive work sessions and
readings
This year, much of the curriculum will touch on the
effects of social media on political campaigns, media
buying trends during heavy political years,
corporate brand messaging and politics
8.
9. Through the sacrifice of our participants, supporting agencies and clients, MGP’s core program,
the iCR8 boot camp, was launched with a modest budget. The pilot program gained attention in
Ad Age immediately upon completion.
75% of job seekers secured full time or contract
positions immediately after the program
10. The second annual boot camp grew to 11 participants, attracted the attention of AT&T as a key
client / sponsor, local and national media attention and 50% of intended budget.
100% of job seekers secured opportunities
immediately after the end of the program,
working with agencies such as Wieden +
Kennedy, RAPP and The Richards Group
11.
12. The ICR8 2012 Boot Camp will take on
Rock The Vote as its core client for the
summer program, working on the following:
• Management and execution of a Rock The Trail
Summer Road Trip
– Video Content Development
– Social Media Content / Blog
– Events / Engagement
• Develop turn key Fall Get Out The Vote
campaign
• Conduct research study on
millennials and issues that are
important to that generation
and audience
• Coordinate campaign
activity during Lollapalooza
in Chicago
13. • Rock the Trail was a program created to engage young
people in the election process and build and shape the youth
vote story – all while showcasing the use of mobile
technology
• Rock The Vote launched the program in February 2008 in
partnership with Wiretap magazine, an award-winning online
news and culture magazine supported by AT&T
• Prior to launch, RTV developed an advisory panel of
distinguished political and cultural reporters through our
media partners and relationships including:
• Jeff Chang, award winning author of Can’t Stop Won’t Stop:
A History of the Hip Hop Generation
• Sian-Pierre Regis, producer, BET News
• Peter Rothberg, associate publisher, The Nation magazine
• Jose Antonio Vargas, political feature writer, The Washington Post
• The advisory panel chose from thousands of multimedia
entries and awarded five young aspiring journalists the
opportunity to become a Rock the Trail reporter
14. • Each reporter was charged with covering the political / electoral process with their own eyes
using video, written and blog reports
• Rock the Trail Reporters were armed with tools, such as laptops, video cameras and cell
phones, to report on the campaign trail throughout 2008
• Reporters attended everything from the Presidential dates and convention activities to
on-the-ground mobilization efforts at festivals such as the Warped Tour and Lollapallooza
15. The best of Rock the Trail’s
content was posted on
rockthevote.com, offered to
our media partners and
syndicated through:
• WireTap Magazine
• BET.com
• The Nation
• Current TV
• Youtube
• Facebook
• The Source Magazine
• Washington Post
It was also made available
for viewing on AT&T mobile
phones
16. The Rock the Trail reporters delivered insightful blogs, articles and
videos from the communities they lived in reporting on issues that
most alarmed young people including: jobs, the economy, college
affordability, the Iraq war and the environment
• The reporters captured election news at events such as: Netroots
Nation, The Democratic and Republican National Convention,
Comicon, Rock the Bells, The National Political Hip Hop Convention
and the first Presidential Debate
• The reporters interviewed individuals such as: Speaker of the House
Nancy Pelosi, Ralph Nader and Green Party Vice Presidential
Candidate Rosa Clemente; they also interviewed campaigners, young
voters and Rock the Vote artists such as Pharrell
• The diverse backgrounds of the selected journalist represented
multiple facets of today’s multicultural youth population and provided
Rock the Trail articles, blogs and videos with several insights and
perspectives: two African-American, one Native American, one Latina
and one Caucasian (four females and one male)
17. Nearly 50% Nearly 50% of voter
registrations generated were
multicultural:
• Hispanics make up 10-12% 23% African American
and an additional
• 12-15% multi-racial or unknown
• (240,000 Latino voters registered in 2008; more
than 500,000 African American - making Rock the
Vote the largest minority voter registration
operation in the country outside of the Obama
campaign)
18. Partnering with Rock the Vote and The Marcus Graham
Project offers an exclusive sponsorship occasion, bringing
together the biggest celebrity names, media outlets and
young people to exceptional venues to create dynamic
events that provide our partners with considerable
exposure
• Nearly 80% brand recognition with our
targeted demographic (18-29)
• 401 million media impressions in 2008
• 5.8 million website visits
• More than 1 million “members”
• More than 200K mobile activists
• More than 17.5K Twitter followers
• More than 66K likes on Facebook
20. Log Line: iCR8 the vote is a docu-series that will follow the
lives of 11 emerging media and marketing professionals of
diverse cultural backgrounds as they create their own
creative agency. They are tasked to develop a national
advertising campaign for their client Rock The Vote in what
just may be the most intense political year in our history.
Photo from 2011 team “Bippitus” click to view team’s website
21. Week 1 : Coming Together
• After completing a rigorous and highly competitive national interview process,
including the development of a :30 video pitch on why they should be chosen for
our program, 11 finalists will be selected for the experience of a lifetime.
• All 11 team members, a mix of mostly Type-A hyper creative men and women,
arrive from across the country to the South Side on Lamar lofts in Dallas, TX
where they’ll live with each other (and learn how to get along with each other)
for the entire summer.
• DAY ONE, the newly formed agency will be tasked with naming their agency,
developing a website, producing a photo shoot for their site & collateral, as well
as presenting a capabilities presentation to a room of industry professionals,
media and judges.
• During the week the team receives a deep-dive orientation to the agency
landscape via a visit to agency RAPP, where they will learn strategy,
brainstorming techniques, functions of account service & planning.
• The team’s additional assignment for the week is to promote their weekly mixer,
The Lemonade Stand. Most of them, strangers to the city of Dallas, will need to
quickly hit the streets with a hard core guerilla style plan to bring 150 or more
professionals to their event. Not only will the team have to promote the event,
but they will need to find a caterer and beverage sponsor within 4 days time.
22. Week 2: Briefed
• Heather Smith, President of Rock The Vote and Chrissy Faessen, VP of
Communications at Rock The Vote, will come to Dallas to brief the team on their
assignment of developing a voter registration & get-out-the-vote campaign for young
voters.
• The team will also visit AT&T’s Global Headquarters in Dallas and receive their main
assignment, creating a retail campaign for the GO-Phone, AT&T’s all inclusive text &
data value device, which they will have to position against an 18-24 year old
• Immediately following the briefing, and to help learn the landscape of retail, the team
will visit The Marketing Arm, a retail and promotions agency, who will give them a quick
fire assignment of of developing a back-to-school campaign that incorporates digital
point of sale activation.
• The team will receive a visit from industry legends Lee Clow (TBWA/Chait Day), John
Jay (Wieden +Kennedy) and Jeff Goodby (Goodby, Silverstein & Partners) who will
teach a course on inspiration. Inside of the course the team of students will have to
take an hour long break, find objects or people that inspire them and explain where they
are inspired.
23. Week 3: In a Digital and Analog World
Next, all 11 members will go through a digital
intelligence boot camp, presented by Google & Hyper
Island, where they will have to create a digital project
in 24 hours that launches their Rock The Vote road
trip.
The team will receive a visit from Torrence Boone,
Managing Director of Agency Business Development
at Google, who will give them the 12-hour hour
challenge to create an “influencer” digital town hall
using the Google + Hangout feature as well.
The team will also be challenged with shooting a video
PSA that they will load onto an iPad (or other tablet) as
a “selling tool” to convince potential voters to vote.
The team will have one week to produce, shoot and
edit their video. They will meet with Spike Jonze to
learn the basics of directing a compelling message
through film.
24. Week 4 & 5: Road Tripping
• All 11 members of the agency will hit the road for a trip across America where they
will be charged with activating an engaging non-partisan campaign that spans all
media including social, non-traditional and event engagement.
• The team will be split up into 2 teams, which will then travel across the country. The
routes will compete with one another to complete a variety of assignments and
challenges.
• Challenges that they will face on the road will include setting up events within 24-48
hours in markets where their contacts are limited, registering young voters (and first
time voters) who don’t see the importance of voting, visits to community
organizations, as well as conducting research to be used for a Fall Get Out the Vote
Campaign that they create.
• They will be measured by the quantity of voters that they register while on the road
(both online and in person).
• While on the road, the team will drop-in to select ad agencies in the area where they
will present their initial research findings and rough concepts to select celebrity
judges such as Lady Gaga, Questlove, John Legend, Matt Damon, Janelle Monae,
Gwen Stefani, Wyclef, Common and others.
25. Weeks 6 & 7: The Work Comes First
• The teams will return from off the road and will compare best practices of their
campaign activations to determine which overall strategy they will move forward
with the culmination of the Get Out The Vote campaign.
• The team will have 2 weeks to develop the strategy for the campaign and
receive approval from their client, as well as the panel of judges. They will be
charged with developing a campaign that includes traditional Print, TV, and
Radio, as well as digital and social engagement.
• The team will spend countless hours brainstorming, furthering research by
message testing with focus groups that they will pull together on the fly, both
digitally and in person.
• The team will be charged with scheduling check-ins with political strategists,
industry heavy weight and additional surprise celebrity social activists, such as:
Russell Simmons, Bono and Ashton Kutcher.
• The team will receive a surprise “break” and fly to the Essence Music festival to
throw one of Rock The Vote’s signature events, “Rock The Vote Nights” a party
with a purpose.
• Once they return from New Orleans they will participate in a digital workshop
with imc2, that will allow them the opportunity to run their initial concepts by one
of the leading digital shops in Dallas.
26. Week 8: Texas Wranglers
• The team will switch gears from music and politics and
receive a quick assignment from Jerry Jones who will
give them 24-hour challenge on marketing “America’s”
team and the newly built Dallas Cowboys Stadium.
• The team will have a hard time wrangling current and
former Cowboys players such as Deion Sanders and
Dez Bryant to participant in the assignment.
• Additionally, the team will have their 4th internal
presentation, as well as a client presentation to Rock the
Vote noting the progress of their campaign development.
27. Week 9 & 10: Deadline or Bust
• The team will spend the final two weeks in the world of
photo shoots, video shoots, and editing/sound studios as
they will be focused on producing PSAs to run alongside
the campaign that they are developing for Rock The
Vote, as well as AT&T.
• The team will truly have to learn client management, as
both of their clients have high demands, high
expectations and a low tolerance for not delivering on
time, on-budget and with the highest level of quality
• This will truly be the most intense two weeks within the
summer, as deadlines will seemingly come at the every
second. They will cut their teeth on what it takes to
produce a robust campaign.
28. Week 11: Completion
• The team prepares their final presentation in Dallas and travels to
Chicago to attend the Lollapollooza Music Festival to present their
campaign to an audience of artists, media, political consultants,
community organizations, as well as their panel of mentors/judges.
• The team, nervous and anxious to share their ideas with the world,
must not only present their campaign, but also must share their
experience and the results of their summer activity.
• Did they meet their goal of registering 250,000 new voters? Did
they complete a body of research that can be used to better
understand a mindset of youth and young adults.
• The week culminates in a VIP party of artists & media all coming
together to celebrate the work of the team and the launch of the
campaign thet they have developed.
29. ROCK THE VOTE ARTISTS
Rock the Vote works with a
variety of artists who currently
support and can be
considered for components of
the show
30. • September 2011: Boot Camp Applications available online
and client announcement
• September-December 2011: Recruitment campaign
• January 2012: Applications must be postmarked and mailed
• January 2012: Applications are reviewed by Boot Camp
Steering Committee and semi-finalists chosen
• February 2012: Boot Camp semifinalist interviews conducted
• March 2012: Boot Camp finalists announced
• June 2012: Boot Camp begins
• August 2012: Boot Camp culminating event @ Lollapolooza
• September 2012: - November 2012: On Air Dates.
32. Chrissy Faessen
V.P Communications & Marketing
Rock the Vote
202.368.1706 (mobile)
Chrissy@rockthevote.com
Lincoln Stephens
Executive Director
Marcus Graham Project
972.897.9985 (mobile)
lincoln@marcusgrahamproject.org