A powerful, integrated media, public education campaign I led that cost-effectively reached more than 80% of North Carolina has received a write-up by the NC Department of Commerce.  It's being held up as a shining example of a ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment) energy project. 

The biofuels education project was accomplished on a relatively tight budget and ran for a year.  At the time, I was the Communications Director of the Biofuels Center and I was responsible for concept, budget development and management, and implementation of the campaign.

One example is embedded below.

[embed=videolink]{"video":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HwR05A1Ev4","width":"560","height":"315"}[/embed]

It was launched in the Green NC tent at the 2010 State Fair. The fair attracts about a million people over a 10 day period.  The campaign included a dedicated website about biofuels answering the three main questions asked by the public - what are biofuels; where can I get biofuels; and, can my vehicle run on biofuels?  In the Green NC tent, we gave people the opportunity to show their support for home-grown biofuels by starring in their own green-screen video which we edited on site, uploaded to Youtube and embedded in the website.  A Facebook page and twitter feed were also created to share information about the videos and to highlight fun and interesting videos.  By the end of the 10 days, more than 500 video endorsements had been shot and posted.  Those provided the basis for a traditional TV PSA campaign that was scheduled to run during March Madness and with a promotional piece done in conjunction with NC-based Novozymes, by the end of the short run, the Facebook page had attracted more than 2,000 fans.  Over the course of the next  eight months, working with a freelancer, the fanbase grew to almost 2,500.

The campaign is an excellent example of how the public, digital video, social media, traditional media, and informational content can be woven together effectively for high awareness about subject. Coherent Marketing is doing similar projects for small businesses with brand and market development.