This largest takeaway from this research project was that most people do not know or understand PILOT. We also found that people who did know about PILOT were more likely to support it. Given this information, our suggestion to Councilmember Bermudez and Jason Ortiz would be to create an educational campaign. This campaign would be a great stepping stone towards greater PILOT support. As more people learn and understand about PILOT, they will be more likely support it. It is essential for people to have a basic understanding of PILOT before we can use emotional messaging products, like those used in the survey.
We believe that a combination of social media infographics and partnerships with the arts communities and restaurants in and around Hartford might be a good way to spread information. We have already curated a few infographics that could be used based on our focus groups and interviews. We noticed during our data collection that people are interested and came into Hartford for restaurants, cultural events, and the arts. Knowing that, an effective strategy might be to partner with local art organization or restaurants to structure an ad campaign to inform and tell residents about PILOT.
Once the window for presenting an emotional messaging method becomes available, we suggest using a positive messaging strategy. We found that positive messages lead to more action, whereas negatively-themed messages were more likely to get people to change their minds. Given that people who know more about PILOT are more likely to support it, and positive messaging strategies elicit more action toward a cause, we believe that a positive messaging strategy will be most effective.