Carhartt x Metallica:
Hard Rock is Hard Work

On Labor Day 2021, Carhartt partnered with Metallica’s All Within My Hands foundation — a foundation dedicated to helping connect young people to the trades through community college programs — to donate 100% of online Carhartt sales to the charity.

Not too long ago, trades jobs were found through the classifieds. It’s even how Metallica got started 40 years ago. So we decided to take a page out of the band’s playbook to create a one-of-a-kind experience for five lucky job seekers and raise a hell of a lot of money for AWMH in the process.

🏆 PR Week Awards 2021: Best in Community Relations

We placed classified ads in major newspapers throughout the South and the Midwest, keeping to the spirit of Metallica’s original classified. But we know that the *youth* of today are very tech savvy, so we also ran digital job board placements and Craigslist postings.

Anyone who called the number in the classified heard a recording from none other than Metallica’s frontman James Hetfield, directing callers to an intake website, hardrockishardwork.com. From there, we chose and vetted 5 respondents for a skilled trades workshop at Upstaging, a production and transportation company who helps put on shows for some of the biggest names in the music and entertainment business.

Our hero video with footage from the workshop was our main asset that we pitched to media, along with promotions from Carhartt, Metallica, and All Within My Hands across owned and earned channels.