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Arizona’s emerging industries, including semiconductors, lithium batteries, and electric vehicles, are projected to generate $60 billion in capital investment. This investment is projected to create nearly 20,000 direct, well-paid jobs over the next several years, plus thousands more at suppliers and construction firms.

Indeed, Arizona’s future workforce has a lot on the horizon. Getting them to see that horizon more clearly — and to act on what they see — becomes crucial.

To meet these significant workforce demands and create a sustainable pipeline of qualified and diverse talent, the Arizona Commerce Authority (ACA) partnered with Ideas Collide. Through this partnership, we built an exciting and original brand awareness video campaign about the ACA’s workforce accelerator program — known as Future48 — and promoted this campaign to Arizona’s teen and young adult students and their parents.

The main goal of this brand awareness campaign was to inspire students and their parents about a career in advanced manufacturing, right here in Arizona. 

To ensure the campaign was backed by qualitative research, Ideas Collide conducted interviews with local educators and facilitated focus groups with students ages 16-24, as well as parents of school-aged children, to learn the target audience’s perceptions of advanced manufacturing.

Perceptions + Misperceptions in Advanced Manufacturing:

• Approximately half of the student-aged focus group participants were aware of advanced manufacturing. The level of awareness increased only slightly among parents.
• When hearing the term “advanced manufacturing,” the group participants’ initial associations were technical and included: engineering, 3D printing, AI, machinery, robots, and warehouses.

Marketing Future48 in Arizona:

• Educators, teens/young adults, and parents all agreed that immersive, real-life experiences are best delivered in informative and fun videos through platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.
• The campaign name, Future48, tested the best across all focus group sessions.

From this research, the ACA and Ideas Collide developed a strategic approach to the brand awareness campaign. This approach focused on driving awareness and portraying a vibrant future in advanced manufacturing. Through a video series that utilized immersive storytelling and engaging visuals, we aimed to dispel advanced manufacturing misconceptions and ignite interest in this dynamic industry.

Our creative storyboarding process centered on creating a narrative journey that would resonate with young individuals like Alex, the subject of the video. 

We carefully structured the storyline to transport Alex — and by extension, the video’s viewers — through a series of captivating tech-rich work environments in the aerospace, automotive, and biotech industries. Each one of these environments unveils the innovative possibilities within advanced manufacturing. By immersing viewers in Alex’s journey, we positioned young individuals to explore and consider career paths of their own in advanced manufacturing.

The campaign’s filming process was collaborative and meticulously planned, involving multiple locations and diverse settings to bring Alex’s journey to life. 

Key filming locations in metro Phoenix: 

• The state-of-the-art Lucid Manufacturing Plant provided the perfect backdrop for showcasing cutting-edge automotive manufacturing technology.
• The Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University airplane hangar offered a unique setting to showcase aerospace manufacturing and technology.
• The Phoenix Bioscience Core lab was a backdrop to showcase the innovative advancements in medical manufacturing and biotechnology.

Ideas Collide worked closely with visual effects company Foxtrot X-Ray, leveraging their state-of-the-art visual effects technology to bring the complete story to life in post-production.

From creating a hangar filled with futuristic aircraft to designing an electric vehicle assembly line, their VFX artists meticulously crafted every aspect of the campaign’s visual storytelling. 

Alex’s full story is told in a three-minute video featured on the future48.com website, designed by Ideas Collide.

To reach the target audience through paid media ads, our team created three 30-second vignettes, highlighting each of the three stops on Alex’s journey. Through captivating visuals and on-screen captions, the vignettes aim to inspire viewers to explore the exciting career opportunities within these dynamic sectors.