A Vote for the Future

Arctic Slope Regional Corporation

Marathon supported Arctic Slope Regional Corporation (ASRC) through a two-year education and advocacy campaign, which helped ensure that future generations of North Slope Iñupiat would continue to have access to the same benefits and resources offered to shareholders today.

The Challenge

Arctic Slope Regional Corporation (ASRC), the state’s largest Alaska Native corporation, is owned by and serves the North Slope Iñupiat. As a business, it is dedicated to continued growth in order to provide direct cultural and economic benefits to its growing number of shareholders.  

ASRC was running out of shares. Without action, North Slope Iñupiaq children — who are eligible to enroll as shareholders at birth — were at risk of being excluded from ownership of their corporation.

ASRC leadership sought to engage and educate current shareholders with a dedicated campaign about a proposed reform: to authorize an additional one million Class C shares and 300,000 Class D shares, thereby securing the future of ASRC and the communities it serves.  

Our Approach 

With a two-year runway before the historic vote, Marathon Strategies worked with ASRC to launch a strategic campaign divided into four phases to educate shareholders on the collective benefits of authorizing new shares — and prepare them to vote in June 2025.  

• Education: The campaign launched with a strictly educational phase to build awareness and understanding about the 2025 vote.
• Impact: With awareness in place, this phase homed in on how the vote would affect shareholders.
• Creating Urgency: Closer to the voting period, this phase began introducing actionable items for shareholders, like signing up for an online voting portal.
• Activation: The campaign shifted in tone and frequency in its final phase and centered on the importance of voting — and voting ‘yes’ to additional shares. 

Marathon developed a host of materials for this campaign, including: a 24-part social video series, 10 targeted mailers, 16 flyers and posters, radio ads, designed email and text blasts, and dozens of unique social graphics. Marathon also maintained and updated a web hub with resources and FAQs about the vote.

The Impact

After two years of deliberate and precise execution, ASRC shareholders made history when they overwhelmingly voted to authorize the additional shares — securing ASRC’s future for generations to come.  

As a result of Marathon and ASRC’s campaign, the June 2025 vote broke several previous company voting records in the categories of online voting participation, quorum percentage, and total number of votes.