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When the The Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) teamed up with LCV to discuss requirements for a clean energy campaign, three things became clear:

The creative had to feel authentic among the skilled trade veterans who would make up the campaign’s primary target audience.

It needed to convey a sense of genuine pride in American workmanship that had been threatened by the recent economic downturn, while communicating to veteran workers that their existing skills and training were a strong fit in a perceived “new” clean energy job market.

And it was absolutely essential that clean energy jobs were highlighted as a real and effective solution to both our economic concerns and our continuing climate crisis.

After being approached by LCV and BCTD to develop the campaign, The Compound went to work on a comprehensive strategy, which would involve pushes in four states, as well as the Washington DC beltway. TV, newspaper, trade publications, web, and radio were targeted as effective media outlets.

Once the project’s scope was determined, the next step was developing the language of the campaign, keeping each of the three key client directives in mind.

What are the tools that build a stronger future for America? They’re the same ones

we reach for every day.

Taglines can do a lot, but they can only do so much in delivering a message of authenticity to a target audience who literally build (by hand) America’s buildings and infrastructure. For a campaign to speak to a worker whose job is to balance on steel girders a quarter mile off the ground, we had to get up there ourselves.

Along with our partners at Draw Pictures, we made a commitment to use as little stock photography and video footage as possible for the campaign. In order to do that, we lugged gear up to the 46th floor of the new LA Live structure in downtown Los Angeles. We walked out on the blades of grounded wind turbines in the Mojave desert. We dragged our fathers’ hand and power tools into the studio for a photo shoot. The result was a TV spot and series of print ads with almost zero stock imagery and a story that rang true.

Categories: print, television, radio, digital & online, environmental, political