Metro RFP 4328
Category 2: Marketing and Brand Services
Section D. Experience: Visual Work Samples
Sheepscot Creative
Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development
Senate Bill 100 50th Anniversary
Description
Since 1973, the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD) has helped to manage urban growth; protect farm and forest lands, coastal areas and natural resources; and provide for safe, livable communities across Oregon. In 2023, Sheepscot produced a year-long campaign for the Salem-based agency to mark the 50th anniversary of Senate Bill 100, out of which DLCD was born.
To begin, we put a celebratory spin on DLCD’s existing logo, and then produced two versions: one gave DLCD staff, partners and advocates the option to focus on Senate Bill 100; the other honored DLCD, itself.
The challenge in telling DLCD’s story was to help audiences understand that so much of what they know and appreciate about Oregon has not only survived but thrived thanks to Senate Bill 100. We knew that professional planners would see the campaign, and we wanted it to ring true for them. We also wanted to catch the attention of Oregonians who’d never thought much about land use planning. So we interviewed farmers, ranchers, Tribal leaders, planners and professors. We listened to current and former DLCD staff members, and heard stories from people who were central to the proceedings when Governor McCall signed Senate Bill 100.
Taking inspiration from vintage WPA-style National Parks posters, seven illustrations depict familiar Oregon scenes in an approachable, painterly style. Each is accompanied by a caption that describes the scene through the lens of land use planning.
Our campaign illustrations, captions and interviews come together in a 2-minute animated video showcasing examples of Senate Bill 100’s impact today around the state. A story map organizes the illustrations and captions geographically. Along with those elements, audio excerpts from our interviews offer personal perspectives on the impact of Senate Bill 100.
From our interviews, we produced a series of twelve social media packages. Each includes a graphic pull-quote, a separate audio excerpt, and a suggested caption. At the DLCD website, partners and advocates can find ready-to-use materials for Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn along with virtual backgrounds and additional campaign assets.
Work Samples
The 50th anniversary logos. One pair calls out Senate Bill 100, the other DLCD.
Seven illustrations depict familiar Oregon scenes in an approachable, painterly style.
Our campaign illustrations, captions and interviews come together in a 2-minute animated video showcasing examples of Senate Bill 100’s impact today around the state.
DLCD embedded all of the anniversary-related content on its wesbite. Elements included a story map that organizes the illustrations and success stories geographically, longform interview transcripts that provide an opportunity for Oregonians to learn more about Senate Bill 100 from statewide experts, and a short video to commemorate the 50th Anniversary celebration in Salem.
Metro
Affordable Housing and Supportive Services Awareness
Description
Earlier this spring, Metro’s Housing Department asked Shepscot to design and produce a campaign and corresponding media plan to increase community awareness of the different investments being made to increase affordable housing options and supportive housing services in the region.
We met with Metro project leaders to determine the campaign’s core messages, key audiences, and timetable. Next, we reviewed available Metro communication assets related to affordable housing and supportive services; met with Metro project leaders to propose a campaign framework and workflow for corresponding asset production; developed a media buy strategy; created and produced a suite of assets to leverage the media plan’s channels; and launched the media buy.
All in eight weeks.
As of Thursday, May 30, campaign messaging has been read ninety-one times by OPB radio hosts, with the majority of those spots airing during Morning Edition, Here and Now, Afternoon Drive and Weekend Edition. An estimated 175,616 people have heard the spots an average of 2.2 times each. On Meta properties (Facebook and Instagram), display ads are driving the most cost-efficient reach (CPM: cost per 1,000 impressions), while video ads are generating stronger engagement (CPC: cost per click). We’ll continue to monitor performance and discuss potential optimizations to the mix of digital ads through the campaign’s prescribed end date of June 9.
Writing about it now (for the first time) inspires us to reflect on your earlier question about Metro’s mission and values. For all we’ve learned about Metro’s programs, it’s been our work with newly housed communities that has made us feel the impact of Metro’s mission and values in action. Photographing and filming families and children at Nueva Esperanza’s grand opening was a moving experience that our team is grateful to have shared.
Diplay and video ads for Facebook and Instagram.
Photographs of the grand opening of Nueva Esperanza in Hillsboro.
Work Samples
Tree for All
Removing Barriers, Opening Up Habitat
Description
Last year, we had a chance to tell the story of a community’s decade-long effort to remove an obsolete dam. Only eight feet high, for a century it nevertheless blocked access to more than thirty miles of upstream spawning grounds, cutting off key habitat for winter steelhead, Pacific lamprey and a host of other species.
When the Balm Grove dam (as it was called) was removed from Gales Creek in 2022, it marked the culmination of a patient, coordinated effort by more than a dozen partners in the Tualatin Watershed. Still, not everyone in the community understood why that effort mattered.
We worked directly with representatives of the nonprofits, public agencies and neighborhood groups whose collaboration made reopening the creek possible. With their input, we scripted the story, developed visual styles, and progressed from storyboards to animatics to a fully animated and soundscaped narrative: a video that honors partners’ work of restoring Gales Creek and the thriving ecosystem it fosters along a 50-mile run from the Coast Range to the Tualatin River in Washington County.
Important local history aside, the project team’s ultimate hope for their video was that it would inspire viewers to remove barriers to fish passage—no matter where they live. The partners wanted to give watershed stewards a tool to inspire the removal of fish barriers across the United States. Together, we made a conscious decision to make the story universal by omitting needlessly specific local details.