Case Studies
Power IT Down Day
Public sector workers and industry unite for green IT initiative
Situation
Jump to design samplesIn an effort to encourage government to consider simple, individual actions that conserve energy, Citrix Systems, Inc. hosted the third annual Power IT Down Day, a one-day virtual event on August 27. The federal government is the single largest consumer of electricity in the United States, and initiatives such as Power IT Down Day can help cut energy consumption and decrease operating costs for all levels of government. This green IT initiative is particularly relevant during this time of tightening public sector budgets and elevated awareness of environmental issues.
The premise behind Power IT Down Day is simple: encourage individuals in government and industry to visit a dedicated website and pledge to power down their computers and other peripherals at the end of the work day on August 27. As individuals enroll, a ticker on the site tracks how many people have made the commitment, as well as how much electricity will be saved with their pledge. The sponsor companies, Citrix, HP, Intel and GTSI, make a donation to Wounded Warrior Project to illustrate how the money saved on energy can be used to support important programs.
The Power IT Down Day challenge for Boscobel in 2010: how to expand awareness of, and interest in, this established event among the media and public sector audiences, and increase government agency participation.
Objectives
- Grow the number of participants.
- Expand media outreach to secure coverage in public sector media, national IT media, broadcast media, online media and blogs, and social media outlets.
- Secure at least one public endorsement by a government agency.
Tactics
Working with the corporate sponsors, Boscobel created a comprehensive Power IT Down Day campaign that integrated design, branding, marketing, public relations, conference and trade show support, government outreach
and social media.
Boscobel designed a new logo, Web banner ads and website, www.powerITdown.org, to create a cause-driven, vendor-neutral, “dot-org” brand. This strategy helped government agencies feel comfortable pledging their
support.
President Obama’s 2009 designation of chief sustainability officers for federal agencies offered a new source of potential champions for Power IT Down Day. Boscobel identified and contacted more than 40 sustainability
officers to enlist public sector support for the program. Additional outreach efforts focused on state and local governments as well as professional and governmental associations at the local, state and national level.
As part of the strategic PR campaign, Boscobel identified a fresh news angle to garner media attention around this year’s Power IT Down Day. In 2010, August 27 fell on a Friday — allowing energy savings to accrue over an entire weekend, not just overnight as in previous years. Boscobel presented this angle to public sector IT publications as well as media outlets with a broader focus. Reporters and editors were encouraged to write stories highlighting the potential magnitude of this increase in energy savings over the weekend, and executives from each of the four sponsor companies were quoted in multiple articles.
Boscobel also strengthened Power IT Down Day’s social media presence with active Facebook updates and a brand-new Twitter feed. The social media campaign positioned Power IT Down Day as a worthy cause as well as a source for green IT information, and ultimately achieved a 1,200 percent increase in Facebook members. Additional outreach to social media communities, such as FedScoop and GovLoop, led to increased online coverage for the event.
From the core group of sponsors in the event’s inaugural year, Boscobel grew the Power IT Down Day 2010 list of participants by garnering support from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), FedScoop, GovLoop, Knoxville County, National Association of Counties, National Association of State Chief Information Officers and the Professional Services Council. More than a dozen agencies across federal, state and local government also helped to promote Power IT Down Day to their employees and contractors via online articles, web banners, internal e-mails, bulletin board postings and other activities.
Results
By the end of the day on August 27, more than 17,600 individuals pledged to participate in Power IT Down Day – a 315 percent increase from the previous year. Event coverage based on PR activities totaled 63.8 million in circulation and included 66 dedicated articles from outlets such as Washington Technology, Government Computer News and Federal Times. GSA CIO Casey Coleman publicly endorsed Power IT Down Day in a keynote address, giving the event a real “stamp of approval” from a top federal agency. Public sector employees made up more than two-thirds of the event’s participants, providing solid evidence that this integrated campaign effectively reached its target audiences.
Most importantly, the Power IT Down Day sponsors donated a total of $60,000 to Wounded Warrior Project – a heartfelt example of how energy savings can help government and industry support such a worthy cause.
Design Samples
