After the slew of negative publicity the latest videos on YouTube show construction can be sexy

The video sharing phenomenon that is YouTube is probably best known in the UK construction industry for the recent examples of site workers carrying out dangerous stunts on projects, which managed successfully to entrench public opinion that our sector is unprofessional and unsafe. Hardly the ideal career for those viewing the prank footage.

Well I’m glad to report that there are some examples of more positive images of the industry on YouTube. First up in defence of the sector’s image comes three videos put up on the site in recent weeks by engineering group Faber Maunsell. The firm has produced some pretty professional offerings, from a short piece advertising its commitment to tackling climate change, Faber Maunsell Carbon Management to two longer clips attempting to attract school and university leavers to join the firm.

There’s also an interesting trend emerging among some of the videos I stumbled onto during a fairly random search around the site this week. Splicing together coverage from webcams and speeding it up makes for pretty compulsive viewing, such as one for the Willis office building currently being put up in the City.

Then add some music to such footage and it makes construction positively sexy, which has often been tried by very rarely achieved. There’s a package on the world’s tallest tower, the Burj Dubai complete with dance music from a band called Tiesto. More to my taste is a montage of projects being put up spliced together with a track from US guitar band Midlake. The video includes footage of the new Beetham tower in Birmingham being built. You can see this footage directly on my sustainability news site Zerochampion.

This is a real opportunity for the industry to encourage fresh blood so sorely needed to join the ranks by advertising the excitement and buzz that is construction. Not necessarily just via the direct route of putting up company or institutional videos with direct pleas to join training or employment schemes but through more subtle and creative messages.

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