Qorvis’ approach to the launch of Huntington Ingalls Industries (a company recently spun off from Northrup Grumman) was to make a real splash (pun intended) in a very staid industry. The new company combined two legendary names in shipbuilding—Newport News and Ingalls Shipbuilding—with 125-year legacy of building the best military ships ever put to sea. But no one had ever heard of Huntington Ingalls.

Clearly the typical defense ad with an image of military folks on the deck of a ship and a long-winded headline just wasn’t going to cut it, or cut through the clutter.

The client agreed. New company. New vision.

From there a “Legend Reborn” was created.

Taking inspiration from retro navy poster art, we created an ad with a vintage Americana feel. The illustration invokes the same sense of power and wonder that the actual ships being created by Huntington Ingalls do. Also key, keeping the headline short and the body copy powerful and punchy, driving people to the website to find out more.

The ad generated incredible buzz within the industry and has propelled Qorvis to Agency of Record for Huntington Ingalls—a company we’re proud to represent.

When Qorvis pitched the Alpha Natural Resources account in the end of March, we knew it meant being prepared to launch June 1st — the day Alpha’s acquisition of Massey Energy was being announced. So as soon as we heard we’d won the business, we hit the ground running.  Sprinting, actually.

Phase One of the campaign included two TV commercials, a series of print ads, as well as outdoor billboards.

First up? Announce the Massey acquisition and welcome more than 7,000 of its employees to the Alpha family of companies.

But companies don’t welcome people. People do.

The perfect person to do so in this case was Alpha’s CEO, Kevin Crutchfield. In “Welcome from Kevin Crutchfield,” the camera is a fly-on-the-wall as Kevin visits a mine and spends time greeting the miners, answering their questions and listening to their concerns.

The second commercial, “Running Right,” pivots the focus to the Alpha brand. Alpha is a company that has a reputation for putting the safety and well being of its people first—so who better to tell that story than the men and women who live it everyday?  In this spot, Alpha miners talk to what the “Alpha name” means to them, and their pride in working for a coal company that’s known for “Running Right.”

Every TV commercial production has its challenges, especially when it involves a tight turnaround. But when you add the challenge of negotiating the time of a very busy CEO, plus the challenge of filming real people rather than actors, you may have just one challenge too many. In the end though, what we got were two great spots and proof, once again, that real people telling the story amounts to really powerful stuff.