As a member of the JP Marketing account team, I’ve realized that we have much to be proud of when reflecting on our accomplishments in 2022, from meeting more of our clients in person to guiding several successful projects across the finish line.
One account our team—once again—had the privilege of working on has been with the City of Fresno’s Department of Public Utilities (DPU). Since 2018, we have strived to combine eye-catching creative with meaningful messaging that has the potential to change human behaviors for the betterment of our city. Of course, creating wins is no small feat when talking about the fifth-largest city in California, but we’re proud to say we’ve done so for DPU and various clients, big and small.
Creating Wins Behind the Scenes
When defining a ‘win,’ we don’t always think of it as widespread recognition or a shiny trophy. But, as Jane likes to say, sometimes the journey itself is the win.
Our work on DPU’s Leaky Acres 50th Anniversary video eventually led to a Gold Addy Award, but it’s also a journey we’re proud of completing. It started in 2020 when DPU challenged JP to give a fresh look to its social media accounts. We also wanted to bring a new perspective to make all things trash, poop, and water… fun! We started our social research by seeing what other cities were doing with their municipality’s social media channels. Then, we paired that with nuances of the various social algorithms and audiences DPU serves to build a social strategy. The Leaky Acres Anniversary video was part of that process.
The Story of Leaky Acres
The best part of social media is the ability to tell a story concisely and in a unique way. During the social refresh, we did an audit of the existing content on the page and found images showcasing people behind the scenes of DPU were among the top-performing posts. So, when DPU came to us wanting a campaign to celebrate Leaky Acres, one of the city’s oldest groundwater recharge stations, we knew it was the perfect opportunity for us. We would raise awareness for the facility, what it does, and, last but not least, the people behind it protecting water resources for many years to come.
We took all of our learnings from the past year of building and remodeling DPU’s social and poured it into the Leaky Acres campaign. We knew a video would help engage audiences in the story, and with the narration of actual DPU employees, it would help bring validity to the campaign. Keeping the video exclusively online was risky, but it paid off. This post accumulated over five times more engagement than the average DPU social media post and, of course, won DPU’s first Gold Addy Award.
Celebrating Our Win
Creating this win for DPU was a dream come true, but utilizing the social strategy and understanding from the process is an even bigger win for us. Now that the celebrations are over and we’re coming upon another year of work for the City of Fresno, we’ll be able to take these lessons with us and apply them to future campaigns. That’s the power of reflection and the beauty of our agency’s evolution in the upcoming year.
—
Skylar Karle, Account Coordinator
