Black Hills Energy – Team Ready
Overview
Black Hills Energy – Team Ready
Focused on Safety, Savings and Customer Connection
Audience Reach: 1.35+ Million Customers
Awards: American Advertising Federation Gold in Cross-Platform Campaign, Silver in Cross-Platform Online/Interactive Campaign
Overview
Team Ready is a multi-platform internal and external campaign developed for Black Hills Energy in partnership with the agency of record. Designed to unify employees around the brand mission and provide customers with helpful, approachable content, the campaign combined employee alignment with company-facing energy education. At the heart of the initiative was a set of fictional, but relatable, DIY customer personas delivering practical advice around home energy efficiency, safety and cost savings.
My Role
As the in-house Senior Graphic/Multimedia Designer, I was involved from concept to execution, helping guide strategy, messaging, design and creative assets across every aspect of the campaign. Key responsibilities included:
- Co-developing customer personas – Mike, Maria and eventually additional characters to expand the content ecosystem.
- Designing content focused on energy efficiency, basic DIY safety, and utility savings
- Art direction and coordinating photo and video shoots
- Brand guidance on the Team Ready brand playbook to align internal teams and set creative standards
- Creating print and digital materials used across departments, event and marketing channels
- Contributing to content strategy, planning for scalable storytelling and campaign longevity
The Challenge
Internally: Unify teams around a shared visual identity and service-first brand story
Externally: connect with everyday customers in a way that was friendly, informative, and actionable.
The approach needed to feel authentic and provide long-term value – helping customers and employees see their roles in building a safer, more efficient energy future.
Concept: Mike, Maria and the Expansion
We launched the campaign with Mike and Maria, a fictional couple of at-home DIYers who embodied our typical customer: practical, budget-conscious, and looking for guidance on making smart, safe energy decisions at home.
I was instrumental in:
- Developing personalities and backstories
- Crafting messaging around energy-savings tips, seasonal maintenance and DIY safety best practices
- Designing visual materials that presented their advice in easy-to-digest formats across print and video
As the campaign gained traction, we recognized the opportunity to introduce a third at-home DIY persona – someone who could:
- Appeal to a different demographic or household type
- Offer new content agencies (smart home tech, small household-focused tips
- Extend the life of the campaign by creating space for new photos, videos, articles and visuals and create evergreen assets that stayed true to Team Ready voice while adding relevance, freshness and perspective.
The Process
- Strategic collaboration: Worked closely with the agency and internal teams on persona development, scripting, brand storyboarding
- Creative execution: Led the design of Team Ready playbook, print collateral, and visual toolkit used by fiend teams and comms.
- Content creation: Helped concept and develop content for the extended campaign including energy tip sheets, brand videos and customer-facing educational pieces.
- Campaign and Scalability: Collaborated on integrating the third DIY personal to allow for flexible storytelling and content updates beyond the initial campaign cycle and concepted, directed and executed a photo and video shoot.
Outcome & Impact
The campaign delivered strong internal engagement and helped employees better articulate and embody the company’s mission. Externally, Mike, Maria and the expanded persona structure allowed us to speak to a broader customer base and make safety and energy education feel personal, achievable and even fun.
The campaign earned a Gold Addy award in 2024 cross-platform integrated campaign and a Silver in cross-platform: online/interactive campaign. Its storytelling approach and persona strategy became a blueprint for future communication efforts.
Reflection/Learnings
His campaign allowed me to flex both my strategic thinking, asset planning and execution and creative design skills. I enjoyed helping shape the characters who made safety and energy efficiency feel simple and accessible. Expanding the campaign with the third DIYer showed the power of scalable storytelling and gave our team a long-term content engine rooted in real customer behavior. It was a rewarding project to be part of – and the Addy recognition was a proud moment for our entire team.