We gave any Costa Rican citizen the chance to have a one on one with their next president.

Through our social networks, we made Carlos' WhatsApp number public and invited people to make their inquiries directly through an audio message. One by one, Carlos answered the questions of a whole country with his own voice and in a personalized way.

To amplify the idea, Alvarado posted several videos online while answering some messages at random. In addition, the most relevant questions and answers were selected and turned into our radio campaign.

But nothing of this would have been possible without the candidate's compromise to the idea, Carlos took "listening to the people" to the next level.

On December 26, we made Carlos' WhatsApp number public. The next day, the candidate made a Facebook live video answering some of the questions and inviting people to keep sending audios during the electoral ban.

During the holidays, instead of taking some rest, Carlos took advantage of his free time and kept answering as many messages as possible. At January 3, he made another Facebook live video in his way to an interview.

At January 24, Alvarado published an online video in wich he answered more audios and shared some results.

The radio campaign made from the WhatsApp voice messages ran from December 27 up to January 31.

Carlos kept answering queries during the rest of the campaign.

While in other countries due to its large population it would be impossible to apply a similar idea, in Costa Rica the voter registry is composed of only 3,322,329 people.

- Average conversation trough WhatsApp audios: 2.5 hours per day.

- More than 12.000 messages answered total.

- More than 1.000.000 social media impressions.

- Today, Carlos Alvarado is the youngest president in Latin America and in Costa Rica's history.

It is relevant because it put a whole country just one voice message away from a presidential candidate. And because that candidate won the elections thanks to this and other tactics that helped him to separate from his opponents and their traditional way of doing politics.

In general, politicians are inaccessible for citizens, however, through a simple idea: using no more than WhatsApp audio messages, we gave Costa Ricans direct access to Carlos Alvarado, in order to evacuate their doubts in a personalize way.

In addition, our idea was born and developed thanks to the innovative use of audio platforms.

Target audience of this tactic: people under 34 years old (40% of voters)*.

*Source: Costa Rica Supreme Electoral Tribunal, 2017.

97% of people from 18 to 34 years in Costa Rica, thinks that WhatsApp is the most indispensable app from all.

Source: Red 506, El Financiero / Unimer 2017.

Taking advantage of these two facts, we decided to use WhatsApp in order to approach young voters, segment that was not being effectively reached by Carlos´s adversaries.

Trough our social media, we made Carlos' WhatsApp number public, and we invited people to take the conversation to a channel where other candidates were absent.

Situation:

December 2017 (two months before the elections): Carlos Alvarado, PAC’s presidential candidate aged 38, was labeled as "too young" to be president, and was located in the sixth position, showing less than 5% support in the surveys.

Important information:

- In Costa Rica candidates are prohibited from issuing political propaganda from December 16 to January 1, due to the holidays.

- The voter registry is composed of 3,322,329 voters*.

- People under 34 years represent 40% of voters*.

*Source: Costa Rica Supreme Electoral Tribunal.

Brief:

Use Carlos' youth in favor, and present him as the leader of a new generation of politicians. Introduce Carlos as a fresh option, both in his messages and in the way of communicating them.

Objectives:

- Stay in touch with voters during the election silence.

- Communicate Carlos ideas and proposals in an attractive and innovative way.

- Get closer to young voters.