Healthy and Safe Communities

Summary of objective implementation status

The objective is to help build awareness and trust in Sonoma County’s public safety agencies. Building upon 2023, when the Comms team produced eight PSA (public service announcement) videos in English and Spanish to highlight our public safety agencies, we began 2024 by continuing our marketing campaign, pushing the videos on social media and in local movie theaters. Later in the year, we found additional money in the budget to renew the advertising campaign for our videos in two movie theaters.

We utilized the County’s new podcast, SoCo Chat, to further this objective, interviewing several senior public safety staff about their roles. In June, we launched a podcast series called SoCo Ready, a four-part project that spotlighted efforts to prepare for wildfire season. We also interviewed the director of 2-1-1, the District Attorney, and the Sheriff, who spoke about the new Sheriff’s Office parks unit.

In May, we produced a reel for social media in English and Spanish on the differences between 2-1-1 and 9-1-1 and when to use each. We effectively used social media to push out information from public safety agencies during disasters, including videos in Spanish to help our migrant and farmworker community understand their rights during evacuations.

Key milestone update 

Our “Before the Movie” advertising campaign, a service that places video ads seen at local movie theaters, featured videos about the Probation Department, IOLERO (Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach), the Public Defender’s Office and the District Attorney’s Office. The campaign ran before feature films at Airport Stadium 12 and the Roxy in Santa Rosa. At the Roxy, the ad played on average 2,120 times per month, and the theater had an average attendance of 35,400 ticket sales per month during the run. At the Airport Stadium 12, the ad was playing an average of 1,820 times per month and the theater had an average attendance of 41,600 ticket sales per month.

SoCo Chat podcast, has had a total of 20,280 views, ​333 subscribers​, and 1,229 hours listened/viewed for all of the episodes. Several public safety officials have been featured, including Sonoma County’s Sheriff, District Attorney, Director of Emergency Management, 2-1-1 Director and Community Preparedness Manager. These episodes have been viewed a total of 1,100 times on YouTube. Our SoCo Ready series has been viewed a total of 900 times in English and Spanish on YouTube.

Coordination and partnership update

The overall campaign was developed and implemented in partnership with community groups such as Nuestra Comunidad, a community outreach and engagement organization specializing in bilingual public safety messaging in Sonoma County, as well as the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, the Office of Equity and other agencies and community groups. This campaign also has been undertaken in coordination with local media including The Press Democrat, KSRO radio, KBBF Spanish-language radio and other media partners which have helped distribute the information concerning the differences between 2-1-1 and 9-1-1 and other emergency information. The marketing effort partnered with Before the Movie and Nexo Media for placement in Spanish-speaking venues.

Community, equity and climate update

These initiatives were undertaken and coordinated with community partners through an equity lens and an emphasis on reaching all County residents, particularly those most at risk of being disenfranchised during times of crisis due to language barriers. All communications in this campaign have been provided in both English and Spanish.

Objective funding

The public safety video campaign included a $16,000 ad purchase with Before the Movie at the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024. In June, we utilized an additional $9,500 to renew the Before the Movie contract for four months.