10 years of Broadband
Liberate Media case study: 10 years of Broadband
Results:
- Engagement with broadband community via campaign hub, Twitter and purpose-built content
- Media coverage of campaign launch and results
- iBAHN positioned in line with 10th anniversary of Broadband in UK, the debates surrounding the Digital Economy Bill, and proposed tax to fund Broadband.
Client Quote: Carolyn Sait, PR Director, iBAHN EMEA: “We have worked with Liberate Media for many years, and their focus on our communications, both online and offline, continues to drive iBAHN forward. The team at Liberate Media is always striving to build creative and relevant campaigns that will help us to engage with our community, and the 10 years of broadband campaign has helped iBAHN to join newsworthy and timely debates surrounding our sector.”
Overview
iBAHN is a provider of digital entertainment and Internet solutions for the hospitality and meeting industries, connecting more than 1.8 million travellers, in nearly 3,000 hotels in 41 countries worldwide.
The 10 years of Broadband campaign was developed by Liberate Media to position iBAHN in line with the tenth anniversary of broadband connectivity in the UK, and a number of relevant broadband news angles focused on issues such as the Digital Economy Bill and the Government’s proposed broadband tax, as overviewed in the core objectives below.
Over the three phases of the campaign, iBAHN engaged directly with the broadband community via the campaign hub and ongoing Twitter promotion. It also secured target media coverage through the launch of survey results and resulting broadband discussions, and it now has an ongoing focal point for future discussion and engagement on issues surrounding broadband and connectivity in the UK.
Objectives
The original objectives of this campaign were to:
1. Celebrate the tenth anniversary of first UK broadband consumer service and link iBAHN to this milestone
2. Engage with the broadband-savvy community, and develop the conversation around the future of broadband
3. Develop newsworthy stats that can be publicised through the campaign website, via Twitter and to target media
Campaign
The 10 years of broadband campaign was developed by Liberate Media as part of its retainer focus for long-term client iBAHN. The PR team delivers separate project-focused campaigns on top of its integrated PR and social media services, but as part of the retained focus and in-line with the ongoing campaign’s objectives.
Following an initial planning and development phase, the 10 years of Broadband campaign was launched in Q4 2009, with a target of rolling out three phases to firstly engage with the broadband community and offer relevant content and input, then request feedback and encourage discussion around key issues, before finally feeding back on the results of the discussions to date including publication of survey results.
The campaign included a number of offline and online tactics designed to expand iBAHN’s reach and hook onto news worthy events around the tenth anniversary of broadband in the UK, the Digital Economy Bill, and the UK Government’s planned introduction of a broadband tax.
The campaign encouraged the community to get involved by offering useful and relevant content in the form of a downloadable 10 Years of Broadband Timeline, a video viewpoint by David Garrison, iBAHN’s CEO, three detailed articles on the future of broadband from leading industry figures, and a Top Tips Guide for successful internet connection at industry events.
Furthermore, conversation was built using a Twitter campaign and directly through a survey on the main campaign site, which offered people the chance to get involved and have their say (for further information, see the ‘Tools and tactics’ section).
News announcements and seeding were supported by Pressitt Social Media News Releases, Liberate Media’s social media news release distribution platform, as well as by more traditional methods such as placement of stories with media and news announcement to key journalist contacts.
The results of the campaign should not be measured by the final media coverage alone, as overviewed in the ‘Results section’, but also by the engagement via the campaign hub and Twitter campaign, which will both continue beyond the initial campaign’s end. The number of visitors content downloads and especially time spent on the site (averaging 3 minutes) is also encouraging and shows that visitors to www.10yearsofbroadband.com did not click on and click off but spent time engaging with the available content and then stayed in touch with developments on Twitter.
Tools and tactics
- Campaign site - phase 1: the community
The first campaign site was developed to offer the Broadband community a hub to find out more information about the tenth anniversary of broadband in the UK. Visitors were also invited to engage with iBAHN through David Garrison’s video address and to download content in the form of futurology papers from leading industry thinkers: Douglas Rice, Bryan Steele and David Garrison.
In addition, the community joined in the discussion on the Twitter stream, which offered daily news and insights into the broadband debate.
- Campaign site - phase 2: the survey
Once the community had been engaged, the campaign site was transformed into a ‘have your say’ interaction site, which still offered the original content from phase 1, but switched the focus to gathering usable data on six core questions:
1. What will be the biggest challenge for broadband networks in the next 10 years?
2. What one improvement would you suggest that broadband suppliers make?
3. How important is security to you when you connect to a broadband network?
4. How do you access the web?
5. Are you concerned that we are already reaching the limit of the UK broadband network?
6. Do you think that government should step in and ensure that faster broadband speeds are achieved via a household tax?
New content was also added to the campaign site to continue building interest and encourage further usage. Following interactions from the initial phase of the campaign, especially feedback from Twitter, the team identified ‘internet connection at industry events’ as a key issue for further explanation, as and a result developed a Top Ten Tips document for the second phase campaign site, which was also serialised via Twitter to drive interest.
- Campaign site - phase 3: the Results
Once the target number of survey responses was achieved, the team then reviewed the data, identified the strongest hooks and developed relevant media stories to support the launch of the findings to the community.
The media hooks were also developed to coincide with the second reading of the Digital Economy Bill in Parliament, to maximise the newsworthiness of the content and offer the campaign an additional focus.
As part of the third phase, the campaign site was also redeveloped to display the full results in text and graph format, with the key news hooks at the top of the page, linking to the debate around the Digital Economy bill and proposed tax on fixed telephone lines for all UK households to pay for the further development of the UK’s broadband infrastructure, which was confirmed in the national budget, but then dropped a week later to push the bill through.
Key survey findings:
Broadband Community demands action on UK web infrastructure
- 59% disagree with broadband tax
- 72% are concerned or very concerned that the UK is reaching the limit of its broadband network
- Biggest challenge for broadband networks over the next 10 years will be increased data traffic (38%), demand for higher speeds (19%) and security (16%)
- 92% said that security is important or essential when connecting to a broadband network
The Twitter campaign was developed with three main goals:
1. Engage with the 10yearsofbroadband community on a daily basis to drive interest and conversation
2. Allow any developments and announcements to be communicated immediately, including new content, announcements, calls for survey responses and results launch
3. Drive traffic to the main campaign site
The Twitter community will continue to develop following the campaign and this offers iBAHN further opportunities to discuss concerns and innovations with a broadband-savvy audience.
- Social Media News Release and social seeding
As well as launching the campaign website and communicating developments on Twitter, The key stages of the campaign, including launch, survey, and results were promoted through social media news releases (SMNRs), which allowed the content and news to be linked to a wide audience via social sharing sites such as Digg, Reddit and Delicious, as well as promoted via essential online news engines such Google news and Yahoo News, and offer additional content for any interested parties.
The three 10 years of broadband SMNRs can be viewed through links below:
Community Hub launched to celebrate 10 years of Broadband
UK survey launched to review first 10 years of broadband and gather future predictions
72 per cent of Broadband community fears UK is reaching limit of its high-speed network
Results
Media coverage
Over 40 pieces of media coverage were secured, a summary of which can be viewed here coverage (click on link and hit ‘Go’ button bottom right-hand corner, then use arrows to scroll through)
Content/iBAHN links
- 10 years of broadband website with survey results will remain live as a link to iBAHN
- 10yearsofbroadband Twitter campaign will remain live and active as a link to iBAHN
- David Garrison video will remain live on YouTube
- iBAHN timeline will remain live and downloadable
- Content will remain live and downloadable
- iBAHN event connection tips will remain live and downloadable