A multi-faceted creative strategy to put timber in the frame
To build a home is to build a future. But if we’re to dream of a brighter future we must take care of the home we all share.
Developing a nationwide strategy for an entire brand category, elevating a sustainable resource and creating positive change for one of Australia’s most important industries—that’s what we love here at Engine.
So when the Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) engaged us to promote Timber Framing – The Ultimate Renewable™, we were thrilled by the opportunity to bring people back to this beautiful resource, this environmental marvel, and help make the world a better place.
THE OPPORTUNITY
With steel use on the rise, the timber framing industry needed to unite to bring this sustainable material back into the hearts and minds of people building new homes across the nation.
THE STRATEGY
It wasn’t simply creating a campaign and buying our audiences. It involved the development of a formidable marketing communications strategy that was brought to life through a huge body of work with the help of talented people, including the Timber Framing Collective founding funding partners and funding supporters, industry stakeholders, people across the supply chain, research agency, production partners and the passionate team here at Engine covering strategy, marketing, account management, creative, production, design, digital and PR.
Unearthing gold
We engaged with people across the entire industry to help shape our way forward. Through industry stakeholder interviews, workshops and market research, we discovered:
- Many builders and fabricators had been steered to other materials due to consumer demand. They were hungry for tools to bring consumers back to timber.
- The industry was full of fear around timber supply challenges that were drawing consumers to steel, despite steel having its own availability issues.
- Almost 80% of consumers want to know about green building materials, yet timber framing’s incredible green story hadn’t been told.
- Timber framing didn’t have a single source of marketing, a unified voice, unlike their competitor.
We knew our strategy needed to encourage the industry to think like a collective, create confidence around supply and educate people about the value of timber framing—one of the most eco-friendly building materials available.
‘Green’ was more than a campaign
With many people seeing cutting down trees as a bad thing, we needed to keep this environmental message at the core of our communications and dismantle timber framing’s multi-layered green credentials into easy to understand messages and stories.
Timber framing’s remarkable green story was a place steel simply couldn’t win. And it was universally agreed and supported by stakeholders as our lead messaging.
Leveraging the entire industry: 1 + 1 = 3
Without the funds of our competitor, we needed to leverage one of the industry’s greatest strengths and turn the tens of thousands of people in the supply chain into passionate advocates, encouraging and equipping them with the brand tools they needed to share the unique and incredible green story of timber framing with their customers and networks.
BRINGING THE STRATEGY TO LIFE
Once the strategy was endorsed by the entire committee, we began creating a mammoth body of work to celebrate timber framing and share its story far and wide.
Timber Framing Collective
First, we transformed the internal marketing committee with a B2B platform and brand, the Timber Framing Collective, that could take leadership on all things timber framing. This gave the industry a unified voice when engaging with stakeholders, giving the Timber Framing – The Ultimate Renewable™ category brand a clear owner and the industry the strength of a collective.
We created a brand identity, logo and website and launched the new Timber Framing Collective brand through media relations, video, eDM, social and other owned assets.
Supply/demand campaign
Using the voice of the collective, we helped deliver clear messaging to create confidence around supply.
Through an open letter to the industry and a social campaign, we shifted the narrative from a supply issue to a demand issue, highlighting the many efforts underway to increase supply to reassure the industry of the strong future of timber framing.
Timber Framing – The Ultimate Renewable™
And while supply was growing back into balance, we transformed the existing category brand, Timber Framing – The Ultimate Renewable™, into a highly desirable asset.
We developed a new look and feel, brand story and proposition, that encouraged an emotional connection to timber framing, focusing on the incredible environmental properties that make our world a better place, and the families that benefit from beautiful timber framed homes.
We developed a new video-rich website and updated social platforms to reflect the new brand.
A suite of creative resources
Once we created the new look and feel, we developed an extensive suite of creative resources to promote Timber Framing – The Ultimate Renewable™.
These resources were designed to not only give consumers the reasons to choose timber framing, but also empower and equip members of the supply chain—from forestry and sawmill workers to treatment suppliers, nail plate and frame and truss manufacturers, distributors, carpenters and tradies—with the tools they needed.
The resources include a suite of seven videos, brochures, fact sheets, social assets, posters, installation certificates, merchandise, building and vehicle wraps and more. View the resources.
Watch hero video
Watch video suite
Launch campaign
Our final step was to inspire and excite an entire industry to adopt the creative resources as their own and proudly share them across their networks.
The campaign focused on getting these brand tools into the hands of the industry through an emotive, pointed message and strategic touchpoints, including spots in industry magazines, social video posts for industry to share, Ads on Wheels OOH and an interactive video brochure sent to the top 100 builders—complete with a screen to watch the video assets and a USB to easily access all the resources.
ONE TREE IS STRONG, BUT A FOREST IS MIGHTY
The timber framing industry is now not only empowered and equipped to put timber back in the frame, but has transformed into a strong and unstoppable marketing collective that continues to recruit new industry participants to the movement, ready to promote the only sustainable building resource that locks up carbon, protects the air we breathe and helps build a better world.