Crafting a resonant brand anthem to evolve a utility services company.

Client name: Stake Center Locating

Central idea: Finding the emotional hook and giving a brand its voice. 

I had my hand in: 

• Brand anthem video concept & scriptwriting

• Voice and tone development

• Tagline exploration

I’m sure it didn’t feel like this at the time, but when I recall this project, I remember it being the most straightforward project I’d ever worked on. It was a rare, perfect marketing harmony: the creative brief was smart and comprehensive, the client was open and willing, and only the minimum people needed to touch and/or feedback on it. 

At that point, I’d already taken part in concepting a couple times. I knew enough about it to decide it was my favorite part of the job. Maybe that was obvious to my bosses, because I was eventually given the chance to take a crack at creating this company’s very first brand video after a big company change. The project also involved coming up with a new company tagline! I felt a little bit like  

Because this wasn’t just some blogs, or an email, or a LinkedIn ad. This work would decide how an established company, Stake Center Locating, sees itself. It would establish a collective attitude across its employees, corporate or not. And it would also bring emotion to a largely non-emotional industry (as far as marketing goes). The opportunity was just as exciting as it was scary, but it wouldn’t take being in this business long to realize that being scared can be a really good sign.

In the end, my video concept was sold through to the client and my small creative team got to work storyboarding and planning a video shoot. I also helped direct voiceover auditions for the video’s VO artist, ultimately choosing who best matched the video’s vibe and the brand’s vision. Our editors delivered a cinematic, deeply thoughtful brand anthem (embedded below) that fixed Stake Center Locating to its purpose. I also wrote their tagline (that they still use!).