Work
Protecting a community before disaster strikes.
Work
Protecting a community before disaster strikes.
The Kenai Peninsula Borough needed a way to unite diverse communities and teach residents how to act before disaster struck. We built a culturally resonant campaign centered around a locally beloved mascot and a clear, intuitive version of the RSG emergency system. Within months, the campaign reached 56% awareness and is now being considered for statewide expansion.
In the vast northern wilderness of Kenai, Alaska, things can get a little hairy. We’re talking earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, mudslides and more – serious disasters that need a serious solution to help ensure residents are knowledgeable and prepared before disasters strike.
Kenai is a population of diverse cultures, including tribal communities, ‘Old Believers’, generational locals, transplants, retirees, and vacationers, many of whom didn’t interact with each other, but needed to be brought together for emergency preparedness.
Awareness Campaign
Mascot Development
Illustration
Campaign Strategy
PR & Marketing Plan
Campaign Toolkit
Communicator Award of Excellence
The government office of the Kenai Peninsula Borough (KPB) was looking for a partner who could create a mascot and a campaign that would resonate with and energize its inhabitants, while also reinforcing its new Ready, Set, Go! (RSG) stages of disaster warning.
They were impressed with the state of Oregon’s Bigfoot wildfire campaign and wanted to see what our team could produce that could possibly relate to all members of their diverse population.
We came up with a series of mascots and the KPB ran them by their populations. One of our favorite mascots was the owl, who expressed the importance of keeping watch and being wise to help you survive. We were pleased to learn that the owl was cherished by the tribal communities and had a positive connection throughout the Kenai community as well. We began to build a series of our owls in different situations and with a series of ‘friends’ representing the diverse members of the Kenai community.
We created a representation of the community that allowed people to recognize their cherished homeland and their place within it, further helping to connect them around a single purpose of preparedness and safety.
We helped to reinforce the new Ready, Set, Go! (RSG) stages of disaster warning, by color-coding and refining the badge and messaging. We then worked with the KPB team and our asset and facility management partners – FEA – to help refine the messaging, phases and criteria around each phase to help identify the collateral needed for outreach.
The KPB needed a detailed outreach strategy to educate and get the word out in advance of disasters to help prepare the community before disaster struck. We created the marketing and public outreach plan and production schedule outlining the engagement phases and needs for each audience group that included the necessary collateral, such as education materials and presentations, brochures, handouts and posters, for various community leaders, gathering spots, schools, churches, community centers, stores, and more.
Finally, we created a series of campaign collateral as well as a campaign toolkit that allowed the KPB to produce materials as they needed on the go, with each design element available, including key messaging to help provide campaign clarity.
The campaign had such success in educating the community and bringing it together around disaster preparedness that we were told that Alaska is planning on expanding the campaign state-wide.
In May of 2024, less than a year after the campaign launch, we were awarded the prestigious Communicator Award of Excellence for our work with the KPB.
