Results

Results

Results

The Applegreen marketing team wanted to make a splash for their Applegreen 24/7 birthday by giving back to their loyal customers with an eye-catching offer. The big day took place immediately after the easing of restrictions and Applegreen knew the nation craved a lift after the challenges of the previous months.

As Applegreen’s newly appointed PR / Communications agency, and with a lead-time of a little over two weeks, Cullen Communications was tasked with developing all social media content and generating excitement through an intense integrated influencer and media relations programme.

All activity focussed on delivering widespread earned and social media coverage for the birthday date of 24/7.

Applegreen had amazing in-store offers but the key offer to highlight for earned PR was the 24.7cent fuel sale across 24 selected stores nationwide. A fuel sale of this value was a first for any Irish brand and offered an excellent opportunity to create a very tactical campaign.

It was equally important to manage any potential negativity caused by potential traffic congestion, therefore as communications advisors, we had to ensure that all fuel sale announcements were strategically timed to mitigate this risk.

The success of the activity hinged on the surprise stunt element, and it was agreed to gift bespoke media party boxes in advance to generate social sharing and talkability in advance. The boxes were packed with goodies and included a cryptic note highlighting that there would be a BIG surprise on 24/7.

The agency also engaged with high profile influencers to help build excitement through their owned channels in advance of and on 24/7 by visiting a number of Applegreen’s. Cullen Communications worked closely with the Applegreen social media team to develop birthday competition mechanics for social and to generate content to build excitement for the 24/7 celebrations and the fuel sale reveal across all owned and shared platforms.

To soften the commercial component of the campaign and to assist with earned PR coverage, we pitched an interesting business angle to business media focussing on the Applegreen success story, marking 28 years in business in Ireland. On top of this, the agency crafted a press release to share on the birthday date, in advance of all key morning news shows, and followed up with key detail on the fuel sale locations each hour throughout the day.

The strategy consisted of an intense two-week campaign including, planning, preparation and execution on the day:

This short, sharp stunt campaign reached an audience of over 20 million through online and print media coverage on the day of the 24/7 celebrations and in regional print media afterwards – this reach was generated through earned media coverage, influencer activity and social media mentions/shares.

To build excitement and reveal this record-breaking fuel sale offer, we secured a high-profile radio interview on RTE Morning Ireland business slot, which included key messing on company success, the significance of the birthday milestone and concluded with information on the sale offer including the announcement of the first site sale reveal at the time of interview.  

The overall retail sales in Applegreen with customers availing of the special birthday offers was up 33.5% versus the 2019 birthday campaign. This included an overall increase in footfall to Applegreen outlets nationwide of 7.4% on 24th July. 

To generate excitement online and to increase the duration of the birthday celebrations the Applegreen social media competitions delivered a significant lift in engagement from existing and new followers from 20th – 24th July. In fact, the consumer competitions and fresh content relating to the 24/7 celebration amassed a lift of 70,000 new followers on Facebook and Instagram channels in advance of 24/7 alone (65k Facebook and 5k Instagram).

The TikTok style pass the parcel social content, the happy birthday messages from staff and the individualised fuel sale reveal content managed by the Cullen’s team ensured that all Applegreen social platforms had fresh, engaging content in the lead up to the birthday and throughout 24/7. These social videos amassed a total of 57,128 video through plays.

The influencer collaborations throughout the day delivered positive engagements and amassed a collective impression rate of over 200,000 between our three influencers. This demonstrated that the excitement generated by the influencer engagements helped to maintain engagement and attention online throughout the day.

Influencer PR at Kildare and Cork with Anna Geary and Brian Dowling also delivered earned PR coverage in local titles and online after the fuel sale event including four regional titles that carried imagery and mentions of the Applegreen stunt activity.

Complete Laboratory Solutions (CLS) is the largest privately-owned contract laboratory in Ireland and supplies microbiological and analytical testing, and fully trained analysts on contract to clients in the food, environmental, medical device and pharmaceutical industries. CLS was set up by Founder and CEO, Evelyn O’Toole in 1994 in the West of Ireland and today it employs over 180 staff across two facilities in Galway.

Cullen Communications began working with the CEO and Founder of CLS on her journey as a finalist of the EY Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. She went on to win the Industry EY Entrepreneur of the Year category – the first female to do so since the awards started in 1997! 

Evelyn had a great story to tell, and we provided her with guidance in developing and streamlining her journey as a scientist and entrepreneur to tell and share with media and the wider community. It was about telling her story and highlighting Evelyn as the incredible role model she is, detailing how she set up CLS at the age of 25 and the growth of the company to the current day. For this we focused on four core media angles: Evelyn’s story; the STEM industry in Ireland; female entrepreneurs; business in rural Ireland.

The CLS agency team worked with Evelyn to fine tune her story and key messages with agency services comprising of: media preparation, content creation, speaking engagement and management including presentation development and design, content creation, copywriting support for EY Entrepreneur of the Year Ireland activity including speech writing, social media support and media relations.

We worked with the EOY team on media opportunities managing the preparation for Evelyn as she began the journey of raising her profile. Local media in Galway were very keen to share her successes in addition to national media.  Cullen Communications also identified newsworthy stories within the CLS brand working with members of the senior team to raise the profile of the CLS brand future, expanding media reach in support of Evelyn’s profile campaign. This involved highlighting their expertise across the environment, medical device, pharmaceutical industries including a focus on their analysts on contract division.

As the awards ceremony neared the excitement mounted and Evelyn was profiled on national broadcast and print outlets – preparations were in place with the agency working on winning press release drafts and scripting of acceptance speeches that were ready to go if success was achieved. On the night nerves were frayed as the winner of each category was announced. Evelyn came out triumphant in the Industry category. Naturally there was elation for everyone who was there to support Evelyn on the night for winning this monumental accolade from EY who organise the fantastic EY Entrepreneur of the Year programme.

Following the win the press release was finalised and photography was issued to relevant media outlets including local media, it was also shared on the CLS website and across their social media platforms. Evelyn continued with media engagement in the days that followed the awards. Cullen Communications monitored outlets for coverage to collated a coverage report post event.

Evelyn’s entrepreneur story generated huge interest across all media platforms and the campaign media coverage surpassed a reach of 32.6 million with 38 articles and over 5,000 social media shares.

Since winning the Industry EY Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017, Evelyn has gone on to win additional accolades including the Irish Tatler Business Woman of the Year 2017, a winner in the Galway Person of the Year Awards, and the WXN Ireland’s Most Powerful Women: Top 25 Award Winner 2018. She is a judge on the EY Entrepreneur of the Year since 2018, has been appointed to the Irish Medtech board and is on the support centre committee for Cancer Care West.

CLS continues to grow and expand its business and Cullen Communications continues to support Evelyn with ongoing public engagements and media opportunities. Including activity on core communication projects across their departments as well as various marketing and PR activity.

Results

Results

Equifax is a consumer credit reporting agency with a broad and complex range of IT requirements. The company’s new Dublin IT Development centre supports those requirements through R&D efforts with a focus on how the company’s consumer and business data can be used to develop new products.

With just an eight-week deadline, the agency began planning with weekly conference calls between the teams in Georgia and Dublin. Our agenda included event management, media outreach and consultancy on spokespeople and guests – we would have both Equifax’s CIO and International President on hand.

Our objectives included:

• Provide local market / media insights to the client
• Organise and execute a successful launch
• Leverage corporate media contacts to maximise coverage

As the jobs announcement had already been made in January, we needed a new hook to promote the launch of the new IT centre.

As luck would have it, the annual College Football Classic was taking place in Dublin the day after our launch – and the match featured none other than Georgia Tech (Equifax’s ‘local’ college football team) playing against Boston College.

We decided to give our launch a distinctive American Football theme.

The theme was brought through the event with entertainment incorporating the use of an NFL-style goalpost for guests to attempt to shoot a target to win tickets to the game the next day.

We also had Equifax-branded NFL foam stress balls, branded balloons and an American football for photography purposes.

We were successful in our attempts to secure a high-profile guest to perform the ribbon-cutting – the Irish Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Mary Mitchell O’Connor TD.

Attendance exceeded 100 guests and included Equifax leadership, Dublin IT centre employees, Irish and Georgia dignitaries including the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Mayor of Atlanta, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, President of Georgia Institute of Technology, and IDA Ireland CEO, Martin Shanahan.

Our media outreach efforts secured 17 high-quality pieces of coverage including national press (the Sunday Business Post) and national radio (RTE Radio 1, FM104, Q102, Newstalk), comfortably exceeding the client’s expectations.

The event also resulted in an increase in applications from college students interested in joining Equifax – another KPI which we met.

And Georgia Tech won the game the next day!

Office Depot, Inc. is a leading global provider of office supplies and solutions. Established in 1987, Office Depot, Inc. Ireland is the largest employer in the office supplies sector with 106 employees based in the company’s 90,000 sq.ft. warehouse in Ballycoolin, Dublin as well as offices in Cork and Belfast.  Office Depot works with mid to large organisations and the public sector on a contract basis.

The Tote Delivery Solution was developed and researched over a 12 month period in response to customer’s interest in reducing waste and saving resources.  It has replaced the traditional cardboard boxes used to deliver supplies for the last 19 years. 

The Tote Delivery Solution improves efficiencies, reduces the cost of waste management and has helped customers minimise the volume of waste generated in the workplace.

It’s a delivery solution that includes a Tote, a reusable container, which is lined with a recyclable plastic liner made from recyclable MDPE and does not contain either bio or photo degradable plastics.  Customers order is placed and packed in the recyclable MDPE plastic liner which is then placed in the tote and sealed ready for delivery.  The tote is then collected for delivery from the warehouse and delivered to the customer upon where the seal is removed on delivery, the liner with the order enclosed is given to the customer and the tote box removed by the driver and utilised for ongoing deliveries.  The liner can then be conveniently reused and recycled by customers.

At the time, none of Office Depot’s competitors have engaged in this delivery solution in Ireland.

The new solution replaced approximately 290,000 cardboard boxes with re-usable totes and liners per annum – lowering CO2 emissions by some 31 tonnes per year and reduce the overall environmental impact of deliveries.

On top of the improve efficiencies, we have identified and entered Office Depot to several awards, ultimately winning the prestigious Green Awards 2015 in the Sustainable Supply Chain Achievement category. It was a great achievement to pick up this highly sought after award.

This project ultimately generated additional 455,112 media reach with 45 brand mentions.