Many Americans don’t realize that the private equity industry primarily invests capital in small businesses. Private equity backed companies employ approximately 11.7 million U.S. workers. Since 2015, private equity firms have invested over $3.8 trillion dollars in more than 30,000 American companies, and in 2020, over 86% of current private equity investments were in small businesses.
The American Investment Council, the trade group representing PE groups in DC, wanted to educate audiences about how private equity supports entrepreneurs across the country by highlighting well-known, likable entrepreneurs and companies that are backed by private equity. To do this, the AIC released a video with an evergreen message on the industry’s support for entrepreneurs.
On National Entrepreneur Day (November 16, 2021), the American Investment Council launched the lively “Empowering American Entrepreneurs” video on how private equity is empowering entrepreneurs across America – making critical investments in companies we know and use every day. Specifically, the video highlighted three well-liked companies from diverse industries – The Honest Company, Shake Shack, and U.S. Wind. The video showed how private equity firms apply capital and lend their industry expertise to grow many of the companies we know and love – from burgers, to renewable energy, to beauty and baby products.
The 15-second video ran on digital platforms nationwide, including The Hill, The Washington Post, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, OTT/CTV, and programmatic video. Unlike more traditional targeting methods (i.e. geofencing, interest-based, and demo-based targeting) that are often broad, costly, and inefficient, this campaign leveraged Applecart’s proprietary decision maker targeting to surround those whose opinions matter most in government, media, and finance.
The video was served to these high-value influencers over 2 million times, generating 7,895 clicks, a 0.38% CTR, and just under 400K video completes. This content ran for over two months, reaching a key audience at a high frequency to increase awareness of private equity’s support of America’s entrepreneurs.