Building a carbon-free energy coalition

For many, the image of nuclear energy is stuck in the 1970’s. The result is that many nuclear plants are shutting down when they compete against energy sources that receive legislative support. We partnered with the Nuclear Energy Institute to improve nuclear energy’s perception among D.C. legislators and their networks, specifically by promoting one of nuclear energy’s chief benefits: it’s a virtually carbon-free energy source and therefore critical in the effort to lower global emissions.

To gain support in federal and state legislatures our campaign needed to overcome the stigma associated with nuclear (weapons, Cold War, nuclear waste, past accidents) and importantly, move nuclear out of the perceived category of legacy energy sources into the category where it belongs - that of renewable energy alongside wind, solar and hydroelectric.

We established our creative concepts and message strategy through online surveys testing several 30s videos. Our results showed that an education element – emphasizing that nuclear produces 55% of America’s clean energy – would be most effective. We then reached the target audience through a variety of channels including: direct targeting via our proprietary list of D.C. influencers using social media and high-impact video and display ads, native advertising and other placements in major D.C. publications like The Washington Post, Politico, and Axios.