The challenge

Governments around the world have been focusing increasing attention on the risk of terrorist organisations smuggling nuclear material across borders. The primary policy is the deployment of radiation detection equipment at ports and borders, the protection of cities, critical infrastructure, HAZMAT response and dynamic mobile and area monitoring capabilities.

The best-kept secret in radiation detection in this market space was a small UK company. Having pioneered a disruptive technology – already deployed by world-class detection manufacturers – this start-up was suffering a credibility gap about the performance offered vs. the competition and market expectations.

The campaign objective was to produce a step change in brand capability awareness within key decision making communities in the US and worldwide.

What we did

Our strategy for this campaign was the delivery of a global, content-driven campaign that included, but went beyond, media relations. We targeted journalists, bloggers, analysts, procurement specialists, scientists and academics, technical specifiers and designers, regulators and end users through a variety of channels spanning from traditional (e.g. media, events etc.) to digital ones (e.g. LinkedIn groups).

Part 1: The first part of the campaign was primarily focused on researching, analysing and ‘listening’ to competitors and prime contractors: who they were, where and which type of presence they had, where they gathered information from and what they were interested in.

The outcome of this analysis was that the competition wasn’t taking full advantage of the available opportunities and that there was a real opportunity for our client to ‘dominate’ the conversations.

Part 2. Having identified and understood the audience, the second part of the campaign looked at the development of relevant messages and the creation of supporting content assets.

The content was tailored to address the pain points of each target group:

Part 3. The final stage of the campaign comprised reaching out to the target audiences via an integrated approach that included repurposing the developed content and its distribution through different channels.

A regular flow of press announcements, technical articles, case studies and thought leadership articles were generated and placed on key media.

International events, speaking and awards opportunities were identified and participation abstracts submitted.

Results

In less than 12 months, the campaign delivered the following results:

  • Winning of the ‘2016 ADS Security Innovation Award’
  • High levels of media coverage
    • Including briefings with ‘IHS Jane’s 360/Airport 360’ (UK) and ‘Homeland Security Today’ (US)
    • 2,108,376 global media reach
  • Direct lead generation through article placement in ‘L’info expoprotection’ (France)
  • Positive and direct dialogue generated with key target audience, including:
    • ADS (Premier Trade Organisation for companies in the UK Aerospace, Defence, Security and Space Sectors)
    • WCO (World Customs Organization)
    • Dutch and Finnish customs
    • Smiths Detection
    • L3
    • UK Minister of State (Minister for Security)
    • UK Director General of Border Force
    • UK Home Office
    • UK Permanent private secretary for security
    • MP Caroline Nokes
    • British Embassies
  • ROI 5:1