AMAZON HQ2 AT NATIONAL LANDING

Background

On November 13, 2018, Amazon announced that the company would create a new major U.S. headquarters in the Crystal City and Pentagon City portion of National Landing – a joint site that straddles Arlington County and the City of Alexandria, Virginia. Simultaneously, Virginia Tech announced that they will create a $1 billion innovation campus in the Alexandria portion of National Landing.  Amazon would be investing $2.5 billion, create at least 25,000 new high-paying jobs to the area over the next 12 years and occupy at least six million square feet over the next 16 years in the Crystal City and Pentagon City neighborhoods. The Virginia Tech Innovation Campus would result in new graduates with 1,500 master’s degrees and more than 40 PhDs  in computer science related fields by 2035. Together, these two monumental projects will be the catalyst to fuel the Northern Virginia region and spur continued economic growth.

The Project

In September 2017, Amazon publicly posted an RFP from states and/or localities for locations that could a house Amazon’s second U.S. headquarters, dubbed HQ2.

Immediately upon release of the RFP, the Commonwealth of Virginia began working with economic developers in three regions: Greater Richmond, Hampton Roads, and Northern Virginia (NOVA), to develop world-class responses. In the course of six weeks, VEDP and its economic development partners, in conjunction with McKinsey and Subject Matter, developed three world-class proposals for the project.

All three regions required a unified ‘brand’ image to convey to Amazon what made their communities unique and why the company should choose them for HQ2. As the regional teams began work on the data and content that would make up the proposals, we also worked to develop an identity for each region.

Each region’s submission contained multiple elements: a best-in-class written proposal (ranging in length from 300-450 pages each), as well as a password-protected project website (accessible only by Amazon) which included a new custom brand video for each region. In addition to highlighting the state and region’s advantages for tech talent, transportation, business climate, diversity, and quality of life, the proposals featured comprehensive information about ten properties: three in Greater Richmond, three in Hampton Roads, and four in Northern Virginia.  

For Greater Richmond, the team chose to capitalize on the region’s strong history, outstanding quality of life, and emerging arts and culture scene. The photography was energetic and infused with bold colors to convey vitality. The brand video built on these themes and featured the painting of a custom mural (yes, we created a large-scale mural just for this video just for this project) juxtaposed with content about and images of the region.

For Hampton Roads, we chose to feature the beauty of the region and the rich outdoor and natural resources there. We capitalized on the attractiveness of the region and its location on the coast for the visuals, infusing it with information about the area’s talent assets.

While Greater Richmond and Hampton Roads had established regional economic development organizations, Northern Virginia did not. The four localities, the City of Alexandria, Arlington County, Fairfax County, and Loudoun County, had never submitted a joint project proposal response before—creating a unique set of challenges. As the communities adjusted to working together as a region, they also faced the challenge of creating a regional brand that could represent their very diverse communities.

The new identity, Innovation Lives Here, was created to reflect NOVA’s unique tech assets, robust business community, regional diversity, and forward-thinking culture. The regional brand video took these advantages and communicated this message in a fun and relatable way, playing off the company’s A-Z branding. The video effectively highlighted the region’s diversity by calling out things Amazonians (and ultimately the world) may not know about NOVA’s robust advantages.

On January 18, 2018, Amazon published a shortlist of 20 metro regions, which included Northern Virginia.  During the second round of Amazon’s selection process, the state and regional team looked for innovative ways to set Northern Virginia apart from the other 19 locations still in the running. The resulting second-phase response brought hundreds of individuals together to develop a thorough regional proposal totaling more than 900 pages.

Over the course of the next 10 months, the team worked together to secure the project by coordinating multiple visits with the company, honing the incentive package to maximize the benefits to the company, community, and Commonwealth, and determining the best locations for both Amazon and Virginia Tech’s new Innovation Campus within National Landing.

Ultimately the NOVA team was informed the day before the public announcement in November 2018 that Amazon would be investing $2.5 billion, create at least 25,000 new high-paying jobs to the area over the next 12 years and occupy at least six million square feet over the next 16 years in the Crystal City and Pentagon City neighborhoods at the north end of National Landing. Building on Amazon’s announcement, Virginia Tech announced that it will create a $1 billion innovation campus at the south end of National Landing, resulting in new graduates with 1,500 master’s degrees and more than 40 PhDs in computer science related fields by 2035.  

The Commonwealth, Arlington County, the City of Alexandria, and Virginia Tech chose to announce their investments, the positive ROI of the project, and the new tech talent initiatives by making the NOVA written proposal and website available to the public at the time of the announcement. HQNOVA.com (now password protected) demonstrated to the world why NOVA was a smart choice for Amazon while serving two additional objectives: clearly address potential concerns of the public as well as be transparent about the process and the agreements. The website contained not just the promotional content but also FAQs, proposal document, MOUs, and informational fact sheets. It also showed the magnitude of the collaboration to win the project, listing most of the 400 people who were involved in the proposal process over the course of 14 months.  

This transparent, public approach to marketing Northern Virginia achieved multiple objectives. Not only did the release of all information help to allay local concerns about the impact of the project on the community, it succeeded in raising the profile of Northern Virginia as an attractive place for business and tech talent worldwide.

Since the announcement in November 2018, more than 24,000 individuals visited the site, spending more than 4 minutes per page. There were over 3,400 document downloads and more than 3,500 clicks to play the video. This engagement suggests that the website was effective in providing both marketing messaging and up-front details about the deal.

Additionally, Virginia’s HQ2 win generated more than $300 million of advertising value equivalent in the two months immediately following the announcement. Contrasted with the negative coverage of New York’s win, this was a boon for the Commonwealth. The positive coverage not only reinforced Northern Virginia’s attractiveness as a tech talent destination, but also Virginia’s pro-business environment and smart approach to economic development incentives.

Amazon HQ Creative Awards:

• 2018 Silver American Advertising Award (ADDY) - Washington, D.C.: Branded Content and Entertainment (non-broadcast)

• 2018 Silver American Advertising Award (ADDY) - Washington, D.C.: B to B, Online and Interactive

My role in this project was the creative team lead and a project manager from the announcement of the RFP in September 2017 through the announcement in November 2018. I coordinated multiple teams of consultants, economic developers, real estate developers, vendors, and other stakeholders to develop the three initial proposals and then the NOVA effort beginning in January 2018. Throughout the process, VEDP’s CEO, Stephen Moret, was intimately involved in the proposal and the crafting of messaging and the incentive package.   

Partners: More than 400 individuals contributed to the NOVA portion of the project. In addition, many organizations and individuals in Greater Richmond and Hampton Roads worked on their regional proposals.

Key partners include: the four women who carried the water for the NOVA proposal - Christina Winn (then in Arlington), Stephanie Landrum (in Alexandria), Cathy Riley (in Fairfax), and Colleen Kardasz (in Loudoun); and the VEDP M&C team – in particular, Kevin Miller, Kelly Spraker, and Danni Neal (pictured above).

Agency Partner: Subject Matter - especially Maggie Allard