Campaign
In early Spring of 2009 I made the decision to run for Student Body President at the University of San Francisco. Having served on the Senate Finance subcommittee the previous year and entering the second semester of my tenure as one of two Off-campus representatives, I believed that I could provide the insights to propel student government to a new level by providing unique ideas, effective communication and constant access.
From the outset, I was blessed to have the help of my close friend and enterprising marketing student, Tom Roche, who developed the slogan of the campaign, “Who is Jon Coon?” and was integral in specific pieces of the plan we implemented to introduce individuals to myself.
Strategy
We wanted to spark the student body’s interest and convey some of the possibilities that I would offer as a candidate. Furthermore, we hoped that the events we created, web site that we developed, and photoshoot that we organized would spur voter interest in my campaign and in the end lead to much higher voter turnout than the 10% that had been drawn to the poles in the Spring 2008 election.
Team
While Tom played the largest role in facilitating the campaign, I was supported by many other friends who were able to bring our ideas to life.
Video
My high school buddy, Ben Einhorn, a rising video production specialist at the Academy of Art, shot and edited nearly all of the video that we released throughout the campaign
Photography
My friend, photographer Dylan Bartolini-Volk, completing his arts education at Dominican University, gifted us with some amazing photographs in promotion of the “Who is Jon Coon?” t-shirts that we had printed. Of course it would not have been possible without the beautiful ladies who also agreed to support the campaign
Concert
My friend and talented musical artist, J-billion, performed a set of songs at an On-Campus concert that received notoriety in the schools weekly newspaper.
Event
Tom put together an off-campus event at The Ambassador as a way to reach another segment of the university population. We believe that this was the first ever off-campus event held by a candidate at USF which is surprising given the frequency at which most students attend events in the city.
T-Shirts
We had the pleasure of working with Frank over at BG concepts on the production of t-shirts as another means to spread the word about the campaign and drive traffic to the web site.
The “Who Is Jon Coon ?” campaign was not an idea thought up over night orcreated in a matter of days. Significant work, creativity and organization contributed to the concept.
Conclusion
Although I did not win the election, the entire experience is one that I will never forget and I am so thankful for the many friends who supported and the many new friends I met. Most importantly, the goal that we had set out to achieve all along, raising voter turnout, was accomplished. When the final numbers were tabulated…
1260 students, or roughly 26-percent of the undergraduate student body voted in the election, the largest number ever according to Nguyen (elected VP of Business Administration), and far higher than the 10-percent who voted last year. via The Foghorn
What’s more we accomplished over 1,200 video views from the 8 we released, over 1,000 unique visits and 3,400 pageviews to the website, of which nearly 50% was direct traffic, indicative of the effectiveness of the campaign.
My hope is that those involved in the campaign, those who participated in the voting, and anyone who happened to come across one of our events or the web site was in some way inspired to push the limit of what is possible within their area of interest and encouraged to make their ideas come to fruition.
