Case Study: Research / Events based PR
Dynamo was tasked to create innovative PR for text based Q&A service AQA, which had already been covered widely by national press. The challenge was to create breakthrough coverage that would directly lead to a rise in new customers using the service – so whatever we did had to be not only newsworthy, but also have a strong call to action.
Strategy & target audience
At the heart of AQA service were smart researchers who were used to delivering fast, interesting answers. Dynamo came up with a series of campaigns that used their unique research capabilities to answer questions that we knew journalists wanted answers too.
Implementation & creativity
One key campaign was the launch of the first iPad. Dynamo got up early to undertake primary research from the queue, to get answers to questions such as ‘what is an iPad tablet actually for?’. We also sourced answers to quirky questions such as ‘How many men had beards in the queue?’, ‘How many people in the queue are single?’
Stats on the queue were crunched at a local Starbucks, turned into an exit poll sheet and handed out to journalists before doors opened.
Results & evaluation
With valuable, and humourous research at the heart of the PR campaign, press coverage reinforced AQA’s ability to answer questions to any question, encouraging others to test the service.
Within 2 hours of the launch the first article appeared as the main tech story on the Guardian, and tweeted out to over 1 million followers. Within 2 days over 200 pieces of coverage were secured with key pieces in top tier targets The Sun, Mirror, Daily Express, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph & MacWorld.
Further more, Dynamo persuaded the first person in the queue to wear an AQA t-shirt – which gained the brand worldwide broadcast coverage via BBC Breakfast, CNN, C4 News, Daybreak and Reuters as well as being on the front cover on the FT Weekend and Daily Mirror the next day.
Texts and new customers generated from the coverage exceeded all expectations and targets, generating more than a 200% return on PR investment within the month.
