Proposed Text for Online Ad

All,

We have 26 characters for the title, and 91 characters for the ad body. The ad title will be linked to whatever destination we decide on. My proposal is this for text:

Matt,

  That works for me. Good work coming up with exactly 20 words and 91 characters! Would the Facebook ad be text only without any graphics? I support linking to the LPSF's voter recommendations (Aubrey and Marcy did a good job writing those up too). I think it would be good to also have a link on that page, in the text about Prop. A, to our arguments in the Voters Handbook. However the PDF file isn't set up so that specific sections of the document have unique URLs, so we'd have to either link to the Voter's Handbook argument as a whole and advise people to go to the Prop. A section to see our arguments. Or we could copy and paste them on a separate page on our site and link to that page. What say all?

  My friend Rhea never got back to me about doing art for our postcard against Prop. A, but I have an idea for an editorial cartoon type graphic that we could potentially use in a print ad, if our newcomer at yesterday's meeting (Joe?) or someone else can draw it.

  On the deck of a boat labeled "SS San Francisco" would be 11 people representing the Board of Supervisors. One of them representing Mark Farrell would be pointing to a small iceberg poking up out of the water in the rough shape of the letter A and labeled "Proposition A", saying "Hey we're running low on fresh water, let's pull up to that ice and break off a piece," with the rest of them looking excited and enthused. Up in the boat's control room would be mayor Ed Lee wearing a captain's hat and shouting, "Full speed ahead!" Under the water however would be the bulk of the iceberg, labeled "Unlimited Taxpayer Liability", with jagged edges ready to rip a hole in the boat under the waterline if it gets closer.

Love & Liberty,
                                 ((( starchild )))

Hi Joe,

  Thanks for coming to our meeting yesterday, it was good to meet you. I just found your card and thought I'd forward you this message I sent to our Activist list earlier, since you may not be subscribed. I describe an idea I had for a 1-panel cartoon against Prop. A that we could use for print/web advertising or fliers, or submit to local publications as an editorial cartoon. Let me know if you'd like to take a shot at drawing it.

Love & Liberty,
                              ((( starchild )))
Outreach Director, Libertarian Party of San Francisco

Hi All,

Just my 2 cents on all the suggestions so far.

Regarding Matt's Facebook ad, I am personally leaning toward something that
includes the retirees also, since Prop A according to the union rank and
file is lousy for them too. For example, if Matt would be amenable to
saying "put everybody" instead of "put you"; since "you" might be
misconstrued to mean "you who do not care about the downtrodden," as
libertarians are often viewed (never mind some of the downtrodden make a
lot more money than many of us). But my suggestion is not any kind of deal breaker.

Regarding graphics for the Facebook ad, I think the space in the sidebar is so small that any graphics would have to be very simple and easily grasped in the 3 seconds any advertiser has to catch eyeballs. I would probably lean towards what I believe Matt suggested, the LPSF logo.

Regarding link to the Voters Handbook on the ads, I would "vote" against it, since I do not think anyone would bother to go to the Voters Handbook and then look for our argument. I think a link to the LPSF website where the reader can see our recommendations right a way is best.

Yes, I will figure a way to include our Voters Handbook argument as part of the LPSF website recommendations. Thanks for pointing that out.

Regarding the graphics for the newspaper ad, if we can have it for free, I would say go for it. One caveat, again, advertisers have a couple of seconds in which to convey a message so I personally always lean towards the very simple straightforward subliminal picture/words.

Question: Treasurer Les is very serious about our keeping under the $1,000 campaign limit. Donations in kind (free printing, free ads, free any kind of work) is considered a donation at the market value of the donation. We might want to ask for Les' opinion before we asked for any donated graphics.

Marcy

Marcy is right about "free" donations. Generally this is considered to be a "nonmonetary" contribution at the fair market value of whatever is contributed. I do not believe this is true of volunteers' time however.

I would say that BEFORE you accept any "free" anything you should email me and Marcy about it.

I don't want to rule out everything such contribution, but as I stressed at the meeting the more we do, the more attention we are going to attract. Believe me the people who thought up all these campaign disclosure rules have thought of all the loopholes.

Contributions by individuals are considered made by the LPSF if our name appears in the message.
Donations of artwork and such are considered "non monetary" contributions included in the $1,000 limit.

How will they know about this?
They're probably not likely to know, but the more we do the more likely they are to find out.

The bottom line is that for the November 2013 election we are going to have to cool it a little. The LPSF is NOT registered as a campaign committee yet.

Les

Hi All,

Just my 2 cents on all the suggestions so far.

Regarding Matt's Facebook ad, I am personally leaning toward something that includes the retirees also, since Prop A according to the union rank and file is lousy for them too. For example, if Matt would be amenable to saying "put everybody" instead of "put you"; since "you" might be misconstrued to mean "you who do not care about the downtrodden," as libertarians are often viewed (never mind some of the downtrodden make a lot more money than many of us). But my suggestion is not any kind of deal breaker.

I don't have enough characters for "everybody". I can replace the singular "you" with the plural "us" if you'd prefer.

Regarding graphics for the Facebook ad, I think the space in the sidebar is so small that any graphics would have to be very simple and easily grasped in the 3 seconds any advertiser has to catch eyeballs. I would probably lean towards what I believe Matt suggested, the LPSF logo.

Correct.

Regarding link to the Voters Handbook on the ads, I would "vote" against it, since I do not think anyone would bother to go to the Voters Handbook and then look for our argument. I think a link to the LPSF website where the reader can see our recommendations right a way is best.

That is my current plan.

Matt,

That works for me. Good work coming up with exactly 20 words and 91 characters! Would the Facebook ad be text only without any graphics?

I envisioned using the LPSF logo

I support linking to the LPSF's voter recommendations (Aubrey and Marcy did a good job writing those up too). I think it would be good to also have a link on that page, in the text about Prop. A, to our arguments in the Voters Handbook. However the PDF file isn't set up so that specific sections of the document have unique URLs, so we'd have to either link to the Voter's Handbook argument as a whole and advise people to go to the Prop. A section to see our arguments. Or we could copy and paste them on a separate page on our site and link to that page. What say all?

I'd rather see them copied, or linked on a separate page. The voter guide is big to even load, much less flip through.

My friend Rhea never got back to me about doing art for our postcard against Prop. A, but I have an idea for an editorial cartoon type graphic that we could potentially use in a print ad, if our newcomer at yesterday's meeting (Joe?) or someone else can draw it.

On the deck of a boat labeled "SS San Francisco" would be 11 people representing the Board of Supervisors. One of them representing Mark Farrell would be pointing to a small iceberg poking up out of the water in the rough shape of the letter A and labeled "Proposition A", saying "Hey we're running low on fresh water, let's pull up to that ice and break off a piece," with the rest of them looking excited and enthused. Up in the boat's control room would be mayor Ed Lee wearing a captain's hat and shouting, "Full speed ahead!" Under the water however would be the bulk of the iceberg, labeled "Unlimited Taxpayer Liability", with jagged edges ready to rip a hole in the boat under the waterline if it gets closer.

This general concept sounds like something we could use for future elections. Maybe go about it from that angle, given Les and Marcy's comments about in kind donations?

- Matt

Hi Matt,

Ah! I forgot about the number of characters. "You" is fine with me, as is the whole ad you propose.

Regarding the S.F. State University Ad, I agree that maybe we are not ready for it in this elections (we are not clear on whether donated volunteer work counts as campaign contribution, we do not have a volunteer artist, we do not know the deadline for submitting an ad to the paper, we do not know cost).

Marcy

Hi Matt,

I forgot to mention this before. When you are linking anything to the LPSF website (or articles within the site), I suggest you use a "user friendly link" rather than copying and pasting what appears on the web browser, if possible. I used such a link when linking the front page recommendations to the single page containing the copy/pasted Voter Information Pamphlet LPSF Argument. However, I do not know what is possible with Facebook, so if you have to use the unmodified browser address, so be it.

Marcy

Hi Matt,

Ah! I forgot about the number of characters. "You" is fine with me, as is the whole ad you propose.

Regarding the S.F. State University Ad, I agree that maybe we are not ready for it in this elections (we are not clear on whether donated volunteer work counts as campaign contribution, we do not have a volunteer artist, we do not know the deadline for submitting an ad to the paper, we do not know cost).

Marcy

Marcy,

  We don't have to use donated art in the print ad, it's just an idea.

  Here's a version without art, reconfigured from the ad I designed last year and in a similar format.

Love & Liberty,
                                ((( starchild )))

Most excellent Starchild.

Greetings to all the activists from Rio de Janeiro.

Michael Denny

Hi Starchild,

I like your ad, and think it would be perfect for a newspaper. But you have not told us how much it would cost or when the deadline is for submission to the paper, or when the ad would appear. If we wait for you to find out, we hold up Matt's ad on Facebook? If Matt could weigh in on what he can do independently of your ad, that would be good, I think.

I looked at the Golden Gate Xpress website, and did not see any ads on the on-line version, which makes me think not a good thing to have an ad there. There is some cost and some date information, but I could not readily figure out the details, especially regarding submission deadlines.

Marcy

Hi Marcy,

  I left them a message today, but haven't heard back. Will try again in the morning if I don't hear from them. All else being equal, I would say being the only ad is better than being with lots of other ads. I think it would only be bad if the reason for the lack of ads is because they are overpriced.

Love & Liberty,
                                 ((( starchild )))

Hi Starchild,

Good. Hope to hear from you tomorrow morning. Regarding reason for no on-line ads in GG Xpress, maybe because experience has shown to others that nobody looks at them?

Marcy