Creative, fun and now, award-winning.
Our “Welcome to the Prairie” campaign developed to bring awareness to our tech and startup scene – our Silicon Prairie – was recently honored by the International Economic Development Council (IEDC) with a Silver Excellence in Economic Development Award.
The campaign was built in collaboration with Ervin & Smith and Edison Creative who helped bring the idea to life.
“We wanted to remind viewers that the geographical Silicon Valley isn’t the only place to have a startup. Omaha has a strong startup scene with lots of benefits to locating here and a community of established major companies, including Google, LinkedIn, Paypal and Yahoo!,” says Kim Sellmeyer, the Chamber’s creative director.
This “Welcome to the Prairie” campaign included a parody of the animated intro to HBO’s Silicon Valley; our way of showcasing the breadth of Omaha’s tech scene and highlighting our direct flight to San Francisco. It also included a social media campaign and web component –– which contained a letter to HBO Silicon Valley’s “Richard,” the fictional CEO of Pied Piper. The HBO series ended season 3 with Pied Piper having to move back into their garage due to high office costs in the Valley. This was an opportunity to tout Omaha’s lower cost of doing business, inviting the fictional company to move their startup to the Silicon Prairie.
Targeting people in the Valley’s startup/tech/entrepreneurial space and then those on a regional level, the campaign was released to coincide with the premiere of HBO’s Silicon Valley: Season 4, which also coincided with Omaha’s first direct flight to San Francisco.
The effort generated 80,200+ video views, 117,300+ impressions, with just under 1000 web page views. The long-term goal is to attract more west coast tech and startup companies to our blossoming Silicon Prairie.