Firm at Work On Breakup Sales Pitch By JACQUELINE FOX Staff Reporter Quick: think of a catchy spin for a new car, a new breakfast cereal. Not so hard is it? Now come up with a strategy to push through legislation aimed at making the streets safer for schoolchildren. That’s easy. But how do you brand a campaign for a municipal divorce? How do you convince voters, many with long cultural, personal and professional links to Los Angeles, to toss out the Angeleno in themselves and accept a new geographic identity? These are some of the questions before the folks at Goddard Claussen Porter Novelli, the Los Angeles advertising and public relations firm hired by Valley VOTE to prepare a multi-million-dollar “yes” campaign for Valley secession, assuming a ballot initiative is approved, as expected, in just a few days. In fact, secessionists, Goddard representatives and even some who track political campaigns for a living say the business of branding Valley secession has already been accomplished. What the proponents of a split now need to focus on, they say, is convincing voters they will be better off afterward. “It’s really simple,” said Jack Feuer, Los Angeles-based national news editor for ADWEEK. “They are going to want to tackle this with a persuasive communications strategy, and self-interest has absolutely got to be at the core. They have to zero in on why this a good thing, why folks in the Valley would be happier and what the benefits for them will be.” Perhaps not since the U.S. Civil War has there been a push for a breakup of a geographic region as significant as the drive to form a new Valley city that, with roughly 1.4 million residents, would become the sixth largest city in the nation. So, can Goddard Claussen pull it off? “No question about it,” said Feuer. “These guys have taken on political and social issues many times over and they know the line they are going down here. They are high-profile, high-energy, heavy hitters.” Goddard Claussen claims to have won 95 percent of their campaign efforts. The tag line on its Web site reads “Get used to winning.” The firm has also been hired by Hollywood secessionists to help them with their campaign for cityhood. But Jeff Daar, co-chairman of the anti-secession group One Los Angeles, said the firm has no special advantage over the opponents’ campaign at this point. He said his group, which is primarily raising funds to educate voters on the issue of secession, has seen little evidence of a groundswell of public support for a breakup. “Clearly, the proponents have controlled dialogue on the issue so far,” said Daar. “But I believe that other than people being aware of the issue, most haven’t given much of any thought as to whether or not they want a breakup of the city. I think that is significant. All we have is six or so years of one side arguing in the press reasons why they think there should be secession and not much of a response from others until very recently.” In addition to high-profile issue management and initiative campaigns, Goddard Claussen has some experience with incorporation movements. Ben Goddard said he worked on the campaign to incorporate the city of Malibu in 1991 and a subsequent cityhood drive in Arizona. “The campaign for the Valley,” Goddard said, “will be very similar. We will focus on the benefits of a breakup. I think it’s a win-win for both Valley residents and those who will be in Los Angeles once the new city is formed. And that’s what we intend to center on.” Goddard doesn’t come cheap. The firm’s 1994 campaign to help the Health Insurance Association of America defeat President Bill Clinton’s health care proposal cost $28 million. Goddard would say only that the Valley campaign would “be a multi-million-dollar” effort. Feuer said Goddard Claussen’s campaign will have to bombard voters with messages that strike right at the heart of the secession mantra: Los Angeles has treated the Valley like a bastard stepchild for years, deprived it of its fair share of services and reneged on repeated promises to make things better. Details of a Valley secession campaign are still in the design stages but, Goddard said, it will include TV, print, radio and Internet advertising as well as an army of volunteers taking their cause door to door in the Valley and across the Westside and South Los Angeles. He said his staff has been meeting with residents throughout Los Angeles, asking for feedback on what it means to be an Angeleno and why breaking away from the city would improve their lives. “We are finding that there are a number of things that really resonate with them and we find the arguments for independence to be very compelling,” said Goddard. “We are listening to people’s perceptions of Los Angeles and of their lives here and the things they would like to see happen. The theme that sort of runs through all of it is that smaller is better.” Feuer said, “You get the feeling that there is a lot of sentiment for secession in the press already. “Meanwhile, the mayor’s side has been relatively soft. He’s (Mayor James Hahn) been distracted by budget issues and the controversy over whether to reappoint Police Chief Bernard Parks. So secessionists have had the field pretty much to themselves for quite a while.” “Obviously, that’s brilliant,” said former Assemblyman Richard Katz and co-chairman of the secession campaign, in response to Feuer’s remarks. “One of the reasons it’s gotten this far is the same as the reason we got here in the first place: people downtown didn’t take it or the Valley seriously.” Katz said he and Goddard, whose company was taken over by Porter Novelli two years ago, have been friends since the 1970s. He said Valley VOTE, the group leading the secession drive, chose Goddard because of its experience with issue management and political initiatives. With respect to business interests in the Valley, Goddard said the campaign will hit on key points of concern like business taxes and the permitting and licensing process. “The new city will be much more responsive to the needs of business owners,” said Goddard. “We intend to focus on those things, letting voters know that it will be easier to cut through the red tape with a smaller, more local form of government.” While the anti-secession campaign may very well lag behind proponents in terms of brand recognition at the moment, even Katz admitted the opposition still has very deep pockets it has yet to tap. Hahn vowed to raise $5 million to defeat the initiative. Katz said funding is an important part of the campaign process, but it will also hinge on the issues at stake and the support and interest already generated. “We are going to spend as much as we can raise,” said Katz. “But we don’t expect to raise the kind of money the mayor is going to raise. He has the labor unions and the downtown interest groups that are going to help him. I’ve even heard that there’s a Sacramento labor union ready to spend $1 million to defeat us. “But we have 14 council members and a race for mayor that will generate interest in the Valley, so there are more issues playing into it that are more important than just money.” “I think the hardest part of the campaign has already been put in motion for secessionists,” said Feuer. “The pro-secession movement got started a long time ago and has already made deep inroads. They’ve done a very good job of establishing secession as an important issue, while the opponents have taken a wait-and-see approach, which could very well come back to haunt them.”
