Project: This Is Manufacturing
Client: NWDA
www.thisismanufacturing.co.uk

When something is working, you want to do your best to keep it that way. Contrary to popular belief, manufacturing is the Northwest is biggest sector - contributing over £20 billion to the regional economy and employing 400,000 people.

The NWDA-led strategy outlined a raft of areas and activities, designed to keep the manufacturing industry flourishing. Junction K developed a change campaign based on three aims to help the strategy work.

1. Improve the image
2. Encourage businesses to engage with available support
3. Help deliver small pockets of strategy objectives.

We absorbed these different aims into one seamless programme by:

• Identifying themes with a universal appeal - for example, skills, funding, intellectual property and best practise - to attract audience interest in the first place
• Developing a brand and marketing strategy, based on those themes, to engage interest
• Building a web portal that showcased the latest activities around these themes and links to all major initiatives in the region
• Creating a range of articles, interviews, videos, blogs and podcasts
• Providing networking tools to help users interact amongst themselves (promoting debate) and set up private group spaces (to support work collaboration)

The marketing campaign leads the audience to This Is Manufacturing.co.uk. It is an online space where they can discover the latest innovations in manufacturing, connect directly to organisations, which can help turn ideas into action, and share comment and group activity. With a combined commercial and public audience, it is designed to become a regional centre for sharing ideas to improve business results.

Overall, this activity delivers the other essential aim - improving the image. By showcasing the breadth of innovation, we are showing that manufacturing is (no matter what the media might tell us) still one of the UK is most important sectors - and the Northwest is leading the way.