‘When I Grow Up’ wins national construction award

We are delighted to announce that our children’s book ‘When I Grow Up’ has won ‘Best Contractor Marketing Campaign’ at the prestigious Construction Marketing Awards last night.

Hot on the heels of winning two international awards for the book earlier this year, we’re pleased to add another trophy to our cabinet.

We launched our ambitious ‘When I Grow Up’ children’s book campaign, designed to inspire the future generation of construction workers and address the industry’s growing skills gap, in March this year.

Since its launch, the free book has been read by thousands of school children across the world and has been praised by literacy charities Read for Good, Book Aid International and Words for Work National Literacy Trust. It has also been recognised by famous faces including celebrity architect George Clarke and BBC’s DIY SOS star Billy Byrne.

The book, which was written and developed inhouse by our nmcn team, tells the story of twins Harry and Amy, who are considering their future jobs at their school’s careers day competition. It covers a range of engineering activities and demonstrates to children that without the hard work of those in the construction industry, many other critical roles would not be made possible.

Author of the book and business development director at nmcn, Rich Smith, said: “We are absolutely thrilled to win the Construction Marketing Award for When I Grow Up.

“We received amazing comments from the judges about how the objective to reach and engage children and paint construction in a positive light is well on track.

“We’ve been overwhelmed by the success of the book so far, it has been sent to schools as far as Australia and the animation of the book has had more than 10,000 views on YouTube. We’re looking forward to reaching even more children with the book next year.”

The book was created to directly align with our group-wide sustainability strategy as part of our Positive Impact Plan, the campaign has delivered strong results and put us on track to achieve our target of engaging with at least 5,000 school children by 2025.

The Construction Marketing Awards, which this year celebrated its 20th anniversary, showcases the construction industry’s creativity, innovation and effectiveness in marketing.

To request a copy of the book, please email  info@nmcn.com, or you can watch the animated version here.