Challenge
In 1993, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan was considering diverting $30 million from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) into the City of Los Angeles’ General Fund. The Mayor's proposal would have lead to cutbacks in the number of workers at the Los Angeles airport and a lower level of service – a costly, inconvenient, and detrimental proposal for LAX patrons. After negotiations between the ATA and the city had broken down, Mayor Riordan began to move forward on this plan. The only way to stop Riordan was to mobilize enough citizens and have them voice their objections directly to the City Council, the Mayor and their congressional representatives.

Solution
Harvey Englander knew that identifying, organizing and mobilizing a constituency with a vested self-interest was critical in order to get the City Council to oppose the Mayor’s plan. Englander identified frequent flyers as the primary group with a self-interest in keeping air travel costs down and therefore a natural constituency to oppose any new taxes or cost increases related to air travel and airport operational costs. Englander merged all the major airlines’ Frequent Flyer database lists with the City of Los Angeles’ 1.1 million voter file on the Englander developed proprietary system, DialogBuilder™. Englander designed a direct mail brochure and mailed it to over 375,000 frequent flyers who were registered voters in the Los Angeles area.

Result
More than 75,000 postcards were received back from over 25,000 frequent flyers who joined the coalition opposing the Mayor’s plan. The postcards made an immediate impact in Los Angeles and in the nation’s capitol. The Mayor’s plan was overwhelmingly rejected.