The National Retail Federation has launched an unprecedented year-long campaign intended to increase lawmakers’ awareness of the importance of the retail industry to the nation’s economy and to push for adoption of a pro-retail, pro-jobs legislative agenda.

“The retail industry supports a quarter of our nation’s jobs and will continue to be at the forefront of our economic recovery,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said. “This campaign aims to ensure that we do everything possible as a nation to support the vitality of the retail sector, in order to create jobs and continue to foster U.S. innovation and competitiveness.”

“This campaign represents a major step forward in the retail industry’s efforts to have a voice that is commensurate with our massive role in the nation’s economic and employment picture,” said Shay, who has reorganized NRF with a new emphasis on advocacy, communication and education since coming on board as CEO in 2010. “On issues of jobs, innovation and economic competitiveness, the voice of retail matters a great deal – and over the coming months it will be heard loud and clear.”

Announcement of the “Retail Means Jobs” campaign came in a media briefing at NRF headquarters in Washington in September, 2011, and drew coverage ranging from Capitol Hill publications to the Wall Street Journal.

A key component of the campaign is a new study conducted for NRF by PricewaterhouseCoopers that found retail directly and indirectly accounts for one out of every four U.S. jobs and nearly 20 percent of gross domestic product. Retail directly provides 28.1 million full-time and part-time jobs, and when workers in businesses that provide good and services to retail are included, retail supports 41.6 million jobs and contributes $2.48 trillion annually to GDP. That makes retail one of the largest private employers in the nation, with double the number of workers in health care and nearly four times the number in manufacturing.

In addition to the study, NRF unveiled a new Jobs, Innovation and Consumer Value Agenda that covers corporate tax reform, the Main Street Fairness Act, transportation infrastructure, visas for foreign travelers, Fair Trade Agreements, consumer privacy, health care reform and many other topics affecting the bottom line for retailers and other businesses.

A centerpiece of the campaign – which will include lobbying, grassroots, advertising, social media, earned media and more – is www.RetailMeansJobs.com, an interactive web site and action center designed to encourage engagement on behalf of the retail community’s agenda. The web site houses the PwC study, the jobs agenda and other information, along with a 50-state map allowing visitors to view retail’s contribution by state and congressional district, along with links to make it easy to e-mail, tweet or Facebook members of Congress.

Key elements of the campaign will include:

• Grassroots activation of retail businesses, employees and consumers in hundreds of communities and congressional districts across the country, including an open letter to the retail industry to urge participation
• Outreach to Congress to highlight the value of retail to the U.S. economy and jobs
• Advertising in multiple media including print, radio and online
• A viral campaign to showcase the “Faces of Retail” by engaging consumers and employees in a video contest to be launched in 2012
• The release of new research that measures retail’s unique role as the nation’s most significant driver of jobs, innovation and consumer value
• A unique social media campaign including a viral video, with heavy emphasis on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
• An international push to highlight the importance of retail to the global economy

“With direct daily contact with U.S. consumers in every congressional district around the country, retailers have an untapped advocacy potential larger than any industry in the nation and we want to unleash that potential state by state,” Shay said.

Shay said one of the first priorities will be to follow up on a letter NRF sent earlier this month to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction asking the “supercommittee” to consider corporate tax reform, the Main Street Fairness Act and the employer mandate among its options.

“Over the next 60 days NRF is aggressively urging the supercommittee to seriously consider reform of the corporate tax system, passage of the Main Street Fairness Act and elimination the employer mandate as ways to bring the deficit down and deliver more certainty to America’s job creators,” Shay said. “We’ll be activating retailers from every corner of the country throughout this campaign, ensuring that they weigh in with policymakers on the importance of getting these issues done.”