The Mellman Group is pleased to have been honored with two Pollie awards from The American Association of Political Consultants, as well as an earlier Reed award from Campaigns & Elections magazine. At Friday’s AAPC annual awards dinner, The Mellman Group won Pollies for the years’ best Public Affairs Campaign and for the Best International Campaign.
Firm President Mark Mellman thanked our peers and the special judges on the AAPC and Reed Awards committees, extolled the dedication and ability of The Mellman Group’s extraordinary team, without whom none of this would have been possible, and expressed deep gratitude to our clients for enabling us to play an important role in the political life of our country and our world.
The Mellman Group was awarded Best Public Affairs Campaign, for a second time, along with The American Alliance for Manufacturing, a unique industry-labor team led by Scott Paul, working to build support for policies that will revive our manufacturing sector and our colleagues Ayres, McHenry (now North Star Opinion Research), MichaelWessel and Tracy Sefl.
Working with what is now North Star, our research sought to define the role of manufacturing in Americans’ understanding of our economy and assess support for policies designed to revitalize our manufacturing sector. The research generated a host of new findings-showing that voters prioritized job creation, even over deficit reduction; discovering that Americans no longer believed we were the world’s economic leader; demonstrating that voters see manufacturing as the irreplaceable bedrock of economic strength; uncovering public concern about the economic threat from China; revealing massive bipartisan support for a host of pro-manufacturing policies; and outlining a political message strategy around manufacturing issues.
AAM consultants arranged briefings with the Hill, the White House, GOP campaigns and the media. The research and briefings were front page news in major outlets like The Washington Post, Politico, Daily Kos and Roll Call and were covered across the blogosphere. Leaders on both sides of the aisle and the White House embraced the strategy, passing several pieces of legislation on AAM’s list. House Democrats’ Make It In America Agenda emerged, in part, from the data and discussions while the President even made manufacturing a central thematic of his State of the Union address. Politico credited our research and strategy with being, “the catalyst for [Congress’s and the Administration’s] manufacturing agenda.”
The Mellman Group received the 2012 Pollie and Reed Awards, for “Best International Campaign,” in recognition of our work with the Luzlim Basha for Mayor in Tirana, Albania where we served as general consultants and pollsters. Winning the award with us were our on the ground representative Abe Dyk and GMMB which produced outstanding media. Our opponent, a three-term incumbent and the leader of the national opposition, was named the world’s top Mayor in 2004 and maintained strong favorability and job performance ratings. Nonetheless, we developed a message that turned what had historically been a nationalized race, based on partisanship and harsh attacks, into a local contest between a candidate committed to modernizing the city and one fighting national political battles. Basha’s victory proved a major upset which electrified the country and the region.
Together with our Albanian colleagues, our team devised what was a revolutionary campaign for the country deploying new strategies and tactics. One local paper said it “changed Albanian politics forever” bringing what another described as a “new way of campaigning to Albania.”
These awards build on The Mellman Group’s record of success last year when the firm won awards from The AAPC for “Pollster of the Year” for the second time and Reed Awards for “Campaign Comeback of the Year” for our work helpingre-elect the Senate Majority Leader; and for “Best Use of New Technology” for our innovative internet-based ad testing. TMG was also recognized as a Reed Award finalist for best micro-targeting in a campaign for our work in helping re-elect Congressman Ben Chandler.