"It's In Your Hands" Campaign Provokes Readers of the Virginian-Pilot.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- What's black, white and "red" all over? It's a recently launched branding campaign for Virginia's largest-circulation newspaper, the Virginian-Pilot. There is no punch line, only serious questions and a more serious pay-off for the paper's readers and non-readers.

"It's In Your Hands," created by BCF, one of southeastern Virginia's largest brand communications firms, is a stark shift from past campaigns focused on columnists and classifieds. Instead, the agency shaped a campaign that takes the role of provocateur by asking difficult, introspective, goading questions and answers them through the statement "It's In Your Hands," and follows up with "Every Day. The Potential For Change. The Insight To Know How."

"The campaign asks people 'can you be great?' It lets people know they have the power to change their world everyday and the Virginian-Pilot is the fuel making that mission a reality," said Keith Ireland, partner and creative director at BCF. "The newspaper industry has not seen a campaign like this; where people are deliberately provoked into self examination, so they read the paper."

The campaign's goal is multi-tiered; to have non-paper readers take notice of the paper's benefits and give the newspaper more relevance with twenty-somethings and have 30-year-olds to 50-year-olds reevaluate and deepen their relationship with the paper.

"It's In Your Hands," two years in the making, takes elements typically found in a comprehensive national branding campaign and implements them in a local market. It involves 25 print executions, 14 :30 second tv spots featuring music by rising R & B artist Adrian McKinnon, billboards, building projections, window clings in area stores, "red" people acting out activities depicted in the print ads, and a sitelet, www.pilotinyourhands.com, featuring the tv spots and inviting visitors to post stories of change and inspiration.

The push began with tv spots during the Emmys, followed by print ads in the Virginian-Pilot and its regional publications, movie theaters, window clings in highly-trafficked stores, and banner ads on the paper's Web site, www.pilotonline.com, and will continue through December; radio begins in November, running through year's end. TV and print ads were complemented by shorter-lived tactics, including newspaper wraps and building projections, and red-painted people on street corners playing violins, riding stationary bikes, even holding signs saying "marry me" as depicted in the print ads.

Campaign credits: Keith Ireland, creative director/art director; Ginny Petty of BCF, copy writer; Theresa Wingert, MacGuffin Films director; Keith Lanpher and Virginian-Pilot photographers contributed photography for print ads.

BCF is a brand communications firm specializing in marketing products and experiences to the Baby Boom generation, with a focus on travel & tourism and consumer products.