Project Talent
Situation
Large-scale, nationally representative longitudinal studies offer unparalleled insight into how early-life experiences, abilities, interests, and social contexts shape health and wellbeing across the lifespan—findings with significant implications for public policy, education, and government investment.
Project Talent is the largest and most comprehensive longitudinal study ever conducted. Launched in 1960, the study surveyed more than 400,000 American high school students over two days, collecting detailed data on aptitudes, abilities, socioeconomic background, attitudes, and aspirations. It remains the only study to follow participants from adolescence through retirement age, enabling rigorous analysis of critical subgroups including women, twins, racial and ethnic minorities, and veterans.
Although participants were followed into their late thirties, the study entered a prolonged hiatus due to challenges in tracking and engaging a representative cohort. More than 30 years after the last follow-up, Project Talent was relaunched. Cloud Street was engaged to develop and execute a communications strategy to re-engage participants and secure participation in a new generation of follow-up studies.
Approach
Cloud Street recognized that effective, resonant messaging would be central to reactivating a diverse and aging participant base – particularly given concerns among some participants about sharing personal information with a government-funded study.
We reframed Project Talent as a once-in-a-generation portrait of Americans who came of age during a period of profound social, political, and cultural transformation – from the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War to the Space Race and the counterculture era. Participants were invited to see themselves not merely as research subjects, but as contributors to a living historical record. The unifying call to action: Tell Your Story.
This narrative framework informed a comprehensive suite of outreach materials, including personalized letters, newsletters, and website content, as well as a national media relations campaign spanning national, regional, and local outlets.
Cloud Street placed particular emphasis on engaging “hard-to-reach” participants, including individuals from rural, lower-income, and minority communities. To further humanize the study and reinforce trust, we partnered with an acclaimed documentary filmmaker to produce a short film featuring original participants reflecting on their experiences as teenagers and the paths their lives have taken since — bringing the study’s purpose and value to life through peer voices.
Impact
Substantial increase in survey response rates, including growth in participants willing to take part in focus groups and cognitive interviews
Significant gains in the identification and recruitment of participants of color, strengthening the representativeness of the cohort
Media coverage in more than 60 outlets, including The Washington Post, NPR, and the Chicago Tribune
Recruitment of dozens of participant “ambassadors” supporting peer-to-peer outreach and sustained engagement