The words "construction supply" and "poetry" normally don't appear in the same sentence, but an ad campaign that ProBuild launched this year proves the exception. The Denver-based LBM giant's "Believe in the Building" effort features a video with a blank-verse ode to construction.
"We believe from up here we can see the future," the unseen narrator begins, while the screen shows the picture above. Then, moving through a heart-tugging series of images, he declares: "We believe every empty lot is full of possibility, and that the act of breaking ground is a statement of pure optimism. We believe the future is built on concrete, and drywall, and 2x6s. ... We believe buildings of wood require nerves of steel. And we believe the day is never done before the work is."
Carolyn Atkinson, ProBuild's director for marketing and communications, says the campaign springs from the passion that builders showed about their trade, and ProBuild's desire to show that its workers share that passion.
"It's core to people's need to be provided shelter," she says. "This isn't something we stumbled on and needed to raise the flag. This is something that we've resonated internally for years."
Print versions of the ad have run in several trade magazines for builders; the latest version carries the headline "Every time you pick up a hammer, you make a promise."
Stock's revenues shrank 39.7% in 2010 to $861 million, the biggest decline of any company on this year's ProSales 100.
