MARKETING
EXECUTE
Once they felt they understood
the problems they were trying
to solve and had a good idea
of who the audience was that
they were trying to reach – a
splintered mix of locals and
non-locals in this case – the
Absolute team turned their
attention toward forming a
clear and consistent message
for the campaign. They settled
on “Let’s Drive North Dakota
Progress” as both a slogan and
a way of creating a collective
identity in the area.
“We wanted people to feel
like we’re all in this together,”
McCord says. “And if we can
all stay safe in construction
zones and be patient and let this
infrastructure start to be built,
then it’s going to be better for all
of us.”
As the DOT had never hired a
vendor for the Williston District
before, McCord and her team
were more or less starting
from scratch – especially when
it came to digital and social
media – and because of that,
felt they needed an information
hub for the content they’d be
creating and disseminating for
the campaign.
24
FEBRUARY 2016
WEBSITE
“The website was one of the
first things we did,” McCord
says. “This past construction
season, there were 15 projects
and when you’re looking at
that many and you’ve got news
coming out about each one
concurrently – we needed a
centralized place for everything.
So the website was really
important in getting that done.”
It’s a great lesson in
understanding why, even
with something as basic as a
website, it’s important to have
a specific strategy from the
outset. For McCord and her
team, they weren’t building
a site “just because,” they
were building it with a specific
purpose in mind and, more
importantly, a specific audience
in mind. They understood
their audience’s needs and
how they would interact with
the campaign’s content and
designed the site accordingly.