Just the “Deets”
- 3 blogs sharing the story of the Culpeper Tech Zone (CTZ)
- 4+ strong earned media pieces for Culpeper Economic Development
In response to growing skepticism towards data centers in Virginia, Culpeper County, Virginia, adopted a unique and fresh approach to welcome the booming market into its community on terms that would benefit both residents and businesses.
Culpeper County and the Culpeper County Economic Development came together to establish the Culpeper Tech Zone (CTZ), a 690-acre area designated explicitly for data centers. By creating this incentive and centralized zone, Culpeper developed an ecosystem of innovation that incorporates business and workforce development opportunities, all achieved through a collaborative effort with various partners.
To share this unique story, Culpeper County Economic Development enlisted PPR Strategies to craft a three-part blog series telling the dynamic story of the CTZ.
PPR worked with partners from five different data center developers and the two education systems to unearth the story from all perspectives within the ecosystem. Simplifying the complex topic of data centers, the PPR team crafted three distinct stories to tell the CTZ’s expansive story, including:
- Describing the origins of the CTZ and Culpeper’s strategic decision to concentrate data centers in the CTZ
- Detailing why the data center companies chose Culpeper, highlighting Culpeper’s geographic and workforce strengths
- Showcasing the partnerships between the County, the data centers, and nearby education systems to provide students in information technology with hands-on experiences in the data centers through internships and apprenticeships.
“PPR really understood our vision for this project,” said Bryan Rothamel, CEcD and director of Culpeper Economic Development. “The CTZ story is important to Culpeper County and sets our community apart in how we’ve managed the attraction of data centers. PPR’s team delved into our world to understand the narrative from all angles and helped tell the story with our community and the larger data center market and ecosystem.”
The stories were published on the Culpeper County Economic Development website and shared on social media. To expand the reach of the CTZ’s story, media pitching efforts were taken to help Culpeper County showcase its success to an even broader audience. Selecting curated pitching angles, PPR took selected approaches to the story to engage different media outlets. With media hits still coming in, feature stories in Facilities Net, Data Center Frontier, The Register, and Culpeper Star Exponent have been published thus far.
Want to tell your community’s unique story? PPR Strategies can help you craft and broadcast your narrative to a larger audience. Contact us today!
*Photo Credit: Culpeper County Economic Development
