CHALLENGE

Centennial Airport is one of the world’s busiest general aviation airports, a $2.4 billion regional economic engine and the base for thousands of lifesaving medical flights each year. Yet its story was fragmented. Communications were largely reactive, social channels operated without baselines or goals, and dozens of tenants with competing interests had no coordinated way to engage. The Airport needed a research-grounded, year-round strategy to make that value visible to neighbors, elected officials and business audiences. 

OBJECTIVE

Pierpont was engaged for a focused strategic planning project with four commitments: 

  • Assess the landscape. Conduct stakeholder interviews, review existing research (Corona Insights) and the Authority’s Strategic Plan, and audit the website and every social channel. 
  • Define the message. Develop a framework positioning the airport as a regional economic driver, critical emergency services resource, community partner and emerging leader in sustainable general aviation. 
  • Build the infrastructure. Create a vetted media database, a tenant engagement model and channel-by-channel social guidelines with measurable KPIs. 
  • Deliver the roadmap. Translate strategy into a board-ready, 12-month public relations plan with month-by-month campaigns and defined metrics. 

SOLUTION

Research first. Pierpont interviewed airport leadership and audited performance across the website and five social channels. The audit gave the Authority its first unified view of digital performance, including 20,500 annual website users and follower, reach and engagement baselines for every platform. It also surfaced a strategic insight: the airport’s highest-engagement LinkedIn content featured its snow removal team, proof that operational storytelling could carry community-first messaging. 

Strategy and messaging. Pierpont built a messaging framework around four pillars: economic catalyst, essential services hub, community partner and global vision for sustainable general aviation. Supporting facts, statistics and anecdotes were packaged so airport staff and tenants could apply consistent messages across channels. 

A 12-month editorial calendar. The resulting PR Plan keys campaigns to moments when the story is most tellable: winter snow operations paired with medevac partners such as Children’s Hospital flight teams and Flight For Life under the theme “Clearing the Way for Lifesaving Missions”; tower improvement visuals and annual business statistics in March; an Earth Day sustainability push spotlighting unleaded avgas, fluorine-free firefighting foam, LED airfield lighting and EV charging; the airport’s founding anniversary (May 12, 1968) alongside wildfire season readiness with the state Division of Fire Prevention and Control; the Runway 5K benefiting the Centennial Airport Foundation; aircraft rescue training with South Metro Fire Rescue; a National Internship Day campaign built on partnerships with Metropolitan State University of Denver and the Cherry Creek Innovation Campus; a unified August platform for charity events including Morgan Adams, Wings of Hope, AeroAngel and Challenge Air; and veterans commemorations in November. 

Always-on digital. Six named LinkedIn campaigns carry the calendar through the year (“Follow Our Flight,” “Green Skies Ahead,” “Elevate with Us,” “Fly High with Us,” “Autumn Ascents” and “Flight Reflections”), supported by 50 targeted page invitations per month and a companion Social Media Guide setting KPI goals and best practices for each channel. 

Smarter stakeholder engagement. Rather than the originally contemplated all-tenant “kitchen cabinet” forum, Pierpont recommended confidential one-on-one relationships with each tenant’s marketing lead, protecting competitive sensitivities while uncovering joint-promotion opportunities. The plan also embeds crisis readiness: at least two training exercises annually with South Metro Fire Rescue, the Arapahoe and Douglas County sheriff’s offices and the FAA, plus media training for airport spokespeople. 

RESULTS

In a two-month project window, Pierpont delivered the complete strategic foundation for the airport’s  communications program: 

  • A board-ready PR Plan spanning 13 months of campaigns, each with themes, actions, partners and media targets, delivered on schedule. 
  • First-ever unified performance baseline across the website and five social channels, with KPI goals for follower growth, reach, engagement and site traffic, making every tactic in the plan measurable. 
  • A vetted media database of more than 100 Denver-metro news, business and trade contacts mapped to the airport’s story lines. 
  • A redesigned tenant engagement model adopted in the plan, replacing a single group forum with one-on-one briefings that respect competitive boundaries. 
  • Audit insight turned into strategy: the discovery that snow-team content outperformed all other LinkedIn posts directly shaped the plan’s lead winter campaign pairing snow operations with lifesaving flights.