Montgomery County’s Vision Zero Initiative’s primary goal is achieving zero traffic deaths by 2030. With an increase in pedestrian injuries and fatalities, including predominantly Spanish-speaking areas, the County wanted to increase awareness and demonstrate how to use pedestrian hybrid beacons (PHBs). These important tools help the County get closer to reaching its Vision Zero goals. Clark Communications develop a pilot program and deliver its first ever Spanish-first campaign.
To help educate residents, the pilot campaign used La Abuelina, a wise grandmother character first used by the Latino Health Initiative in 2021 to promote the safety and efficacy of COVID vaccines. Abuelina provided information to residents about why the PHBs were added and instructions for how to properly use them to ultimately increase pedestrian safety.
A multi-prong approach was used to share information using a mix of in-person outreach, social media, traditional media, and community partners. The campaign ran in the summer of 2023.
Landing page
A dedicated web page in Spanish launched July 2023 to house information about PHBs and promote in-person outreach events.
Media
La Abuelina caught the attention of key local media outlets such as Montgomery Community Media’s Spanish publication Hola Montgomery and English pieces ran in the MoCo Show and WTOP. County Executive Marc Elrich spoke about the La Abuelina initiative during his Media Briefing on July 26, 2023. You can watch the recorded video below.
Signage and Collateral
Social media
English and Spanish social media messages and graphics for the county and its community partners, shared via Facebook, Twitter/X, and Instagram.
Animated GIFs
Comic strip
Plain text and graphics promoting in-person events
Using a multi-channel approach and the La Abuelina characters, Montgomery County was able to reach thousands of Spanish-speaking residents as well as English speaking residents to increase awareness and teach them how to properly use the PHBs. As a Spanish-first campaign, the County was able to deliver information more easily and directly to the targeted audience and collect feedback in the outreach areas which laid the groundwork for future campaigns to continue delivering this important safety information.
The MCDOT newsletter, GoMontgomery ran a story on La Abuelina twice during the campaign including once as the lead story. This newsletter has 23,700 subscribers. Additionally, the County Executive’s weekly newsletter included a story in July to its 100,000+ subscribers.
In-person Outreach Events
# of residents engaged
Total Views
