Imagine With Us

Yes on Proposition 3: The Children's Hospital Bond of 2008

This $980 million statewide bond measure faced opposition from anti-tax
forces and the general public's disinclination to support a bond measure
in a rapidly worsening economy.

However, what began to emerge from our reearch was that people rejected
the veiled warning that children might die from a lack of funding but
responded warmly to the idea that children were overcoming their critical
illnesses.

Imagine With Us became an indirect appeal to join California's Children's
Hospitals and implicitly required a "Yes" vote as an emotional commitment.

We conceived of a television commercial that would feature children singing
along with a group of trained adult musicians. After storyboard development,
we worked with Yoko Ono to secure the rights to use John Lennon's "Imagine"
and actress Jamie Lee Curtis for her performance onscreen. Over several
weeks, we worked with the Children's Hospitals to find children who had
overcome very serious illnesses, could sing or otherwise perform and were
not camera-shy.

After film production, we launched a Web site that shared these children's
success stories, a "behind-the-scenes" video and the television commercials.
Upon launch, we worked with news organizations to package a news segment
that aired in broadcasts around the state garnering invaluable publicity.

Proposition 3 passed by a margin of nearly 1.5 million votes.

Click here to visit www.imaginewithus.org.