Building Clean Energy Support in Rural America
We are leading the strategic storytelling for a national campaign aimed at increasing support for utility-scale clean energy projects in rural America. These projects often face opposition in areas where clean energy isn’t traditionally supported. Our campaign focused on educating key audiences about the true positive impact these projects can have on their communities, paving the way for increased local support and permitting.
We are leading the strategic storytelling for a national campaign aimed at increasing support for utility-scale clean energy projects in rural America. These projects often face opposition in areas where clean energy isn’t traditionally supported. Our campaign focused on educating key audiences about the true positive impact these projects can have on their communities, paving the way for increased local support and permitting.
Challenge
The U.S. must build utility-scale clean energy projects, but approvals often lie with decision-makers and communities that haven't traditionally supported clean energy. While national polling shows widespread support, local approvals remain elusive. This disconnect revealed that, despite verbal support, many rural communities were not motivated to act. Our challenge was to identify the emotional drivers, shared values, and issues that mattered most to these constituencies and create a research-backed storytelling strategy that would resonate deeply and move them toward active support
Approach
Using our proprietary StoryHeat platform, we uncovered and tested real stories from real people at the grassroots level—stories that were credible, authentic, and aligned with the emotional drivers and shared values of our audience. These narratives addressed core concerns and resonated deeply with the community. We then translated these insights into a strategic, multi-channel campaign designed to move key audiences and build genuine support for clean energy projects.
Results
In rigorous randomized control trials, our storytelling assets measurably moved key audiences on critical metrics. We saw increased belief that new solar projects would positively impact their community and a rise in intent to publicly support clean energy. Our videos outperformed benchmarks by 6x, demonstrating significant conversion among traditionally hard-to-persuade audiences.
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