When Rage-baiting Helped Save A Library 😅 #shorts

So, this award-winning library was about to be unfairly shut down one day. But no one ever could have expected rage baiting to save the day. You see, right after the 2008 Great Recession, the city of Troy, Michigan, realized that they could no longer afford to keep funding some services like their public library. Even though the Troy Public Library had just been ranked 10th in the nation for its population class, the citizens of Troy had voted against the city’s proposed 7% tax increase that would have saved the library’s funding. Although most people were actually more than willing to pay to keep the library, a local anti-ax org called Choice Citizens United basically just convinced everyone that any tax increase was bad without mentioning the library at all. So even though supporters of the library spent more than a year of their own unpaid time desperately spreading awareness, signing petitions, and even creating a proposal to independently fund the library, most citizens still ended up voting against this tax increase with no idea that their library would be lost in the process. But shortly after a closing date was finally set, locals just suddenly started seeing tons of signs being put up advertising a Troy Library book burning party. This unknown company was apparently so happy that the library was being shut down, they were hiring a clown and even an ice cream vendor just for this celebration event. They even posted ads in the local newspaper and started a Facebook page saying things like, “The Troy Library may be short on money, but it has books to burn.” And safe to say, the people of Troy were absolutely furious. They left countless comments saying, “You people are sick and this is disgusting.” And the widespread outrage eventually got so big that the story even made international news. But literally right before the very last vote that could save the Troy Public Library, the organizers of this book burning event finally revealed that their real message was actually a vote against the library is like a vote to burn books. As it turns out, this whole thing had been a crazy marketing campaign run by a local ad agency called Leo Bernett. Since they had realized that, a lot of people didn’t even know the library was being shut down. They just came up with this fake infuriating event to force people to change the conversation from taxes back to libraries. As a result, turnout at that last vote apparently went up by 342%. And this time, the tax increase proposal was easily passed, finally saving the library. And Leo Brunett’s ad later went on to win a gold FE award for exceptional marketing.

21 comments

  2. Isn’t this the oldest trick in to book though? Goverment will package taxes with the ’hostage situation’ of removing services people actually care for if they are not approved. The same goes for publicly funded companies; ”we’ll cut your favorite stuff and not the stuff no one cares for, if this budget cut goes trough”.

    Please don’t buy into this trick friends. They could have cut from other parts no body cares for (eg. byrocratic machine) and not from the public services everybody cares for. This marketing firm was also clearly hired by the goverment to sell you the tax hike with false dilemma/dichotomy.

  4. Most of the taxes vanish in the hands of politicians. Increasing the tax is the dumbest way to deal with the issue.

  5. The way things were talking about the taxes being voted against without people knowing it would destroy the library, sounds a lot like how propaganda works.

  7. The Woodbury TN hospital is like 30 miles from anywhere and its being shut down due to lack of funds.

  15. I still dont approve of this. The people still needed to know everything in thst bill they were voting for and like sheep they let an ad make the choice for them.

  18. One thing I should say is that nobody should ever get rid of a public library that's in any town or city or state. It is so needed to have a public library and people going to say no you can get it online there is nothing like opening a book from the library and having that book smell I'm feeling the crisp pages as you turn. Like most things that's happening in our country lately I feel like that's happening with everything that actually matters in some cases. Is why would you celebrate something that is awful that should never be done like closing a public library

  19. Or the city could use the tax payer dollars more responsibly and spend less on themselves for personal gain and ensure the library is seeing its own entitled share to remain operational. Short changing the library should look bad for the cities elected officials. Veto them out.

  21. Yeah… my support for that library would've gone out the window after that trick. I'd sign on to close the library out of spite if I could.

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