Editor’s Note: This story has been revised from a previously published version.
The Louisiana Workforce Education Initiative is bringing on some of the country’s best-known marketing experts to spearhead a media campaign and grassroots communications effort designed to change negative perceptions about a technical education career path. LWEI—which was formed in early 2014 by state business leaders to address the need for more and better-trained skilled workers—has retained the services of The Purpose Institute, an Austin, Texas-based brand engagement and creative services firm founded by marketing guru Roy Spence, best known for founding the marketing firm GSD&M. Also working on the campaign is CSpence Group, a San Francisco-based marketing company owned by Spence’s daughter, Courtney Spence.
The aim of the media campaign will be threefold: to rapidly change perceptions among young adults, students and parents about diverse and accessible pathways to successful careers, to change behavior in a way that leads to significantly increased participation in the Jump Start program and to create a new level of awareness of the many pathways to the middle class for those who are unemployed or employed in low-wage jobs.
Jump Start is a career diploma program that allows juniors and seniors in high school to begin taking courses while still in high school that will count towards a technical education degree.
“We are thrilled to have this team on board,” says Christel Slaughter, of SSA Consultants, which has been working with the LWEI on the project for more than a year. “They are very creative, state-of-the-art, cool, really incredible.”
Slaughter declines to say how much the firms are charging for the campaign, but says they are giving the nonprofit LWEI a “sweetheart deal.”
“I think they are anxious to get involved with us because they see this as more than just a Louisiana problem,” she says. “It’s a national problem and they are impressed that we are already organized and working on addressing it here.”
The firms are no stranger to Louisiana. GSD&M, which helped put Southwest Airlines on the map in the 1970s, devised an in-depth plan for marketing the interstates 10 and 12 corridor in south Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina. The CSpence Group has also been involved in the area, producing a campaign post-Katrina for The Broadmoor Improvement Association in New Orleans.
The LWEI campaign will begin with a 90-day research phase that will include meeting with focus groups and conducting interviews with relevant stakeholders.
“The aim of this first phase is to lay the foundation to enable us to create an ongoing, multi-year campaign that resonates statewide, changes public perception and moves the needle rapidly for the Jump Start initiative,” Slaughter says.
—Stephanie Riegel
