In this in depth Case Study, BiOrbic's Public Engagement Manager Amanda Mathieson explains how she executed a successful multi-week, multi-county, multi-language public awareness campaign across Ireland.
Watch the above interview to hear Amanda's thoughts on the campaign and how Promohire helped.
Who are BiOrbic?
BiOrbic is an SFI-funded research centre dedicated to bringing researchers together to investigate the bioeconomy.
What did BiOrbic want?
Amanda wanted a mobile exhibition unit she could use to bring the subject of the bio-economy to the public in an easily digestible practical way.
She planned to recreate a typical Irish home within a large mobile vehicle, to demonstrate how crude oil and its related products permeate every aspect of our lives.
She just had one problem... while she knew what she wanted to do, she had no idea how to achieve it!
As Amanda says, "We're a research company, we have 0 experience in fitting out a vehicle, in building our own exhibit, with the logistics of all that, so that's what we needed. So we hired Promohire to do that in a professional way that we wouldn't have been able to do on our own."
How did Promohire help?
"Promohire basically did all the things we couldn't do ourselves. We had no idea how to put an exhibit together, build it, arrange everything on the vehicle, like the solar panels - to keep the electrics on in a sustainable way. That was really important to us."
"They did the whole build sustainably, we were able to run the vehicle on biofuel. So all of these different things, having professionals who know how to do this, that was really important and it meant that we could kind of just rest easy and focus on the bits that we had planned to do and leave the rest to them."
What were the results?
We spoke to Amanda midway through her campaign, but she was ecstatic to report that the campaign was already doing fantastically well!
"We've achieved loads with this campaign. We've been to every county across Ireland, we've been to so many towns and locations, we've interacted with the public face to face."
"At each location we've had a different researcher or member of BiOrbic coming to talk to the public. We've collected surveys, insights from the public about what they want and what they think about the bioeconomy."
"We've interacted with hundreds of school students who will be the future leaders of the bioeconomy.
"We've already had almost 2000 come to visit the van itself, we've been in so many local newspapers, local radio - that exposure that has come from this campaign and the vehicle itself."
"We have had a couple of hiccups, unforeseen things that have happened, break down on the road, things like that, things that you can't really predict. During those times Promohire has acted really quickly. They've immediately come to action and dealt with that and got us back on the road, got us sorted."
"So it's really nice to have that professional support, you know you don't have to worry about it, it's in their hands, your campaign is good to go."
"Yes, we would definitely recommend Promohire, in fact, I already have to the other SFI research centres and hopefully we will have an opportunity to use them again."
Want to take your next campaign on the road?
Promohire can help! With more than 20 different types of customisable vehicles available, as well as numerous support and management services, all you have to do is tell us your ideas and we'll take care of the rest!
Check out our costs and services guide to familiarise yourself with everything we offer, plus our budget calculator which can ballpark your expenses.
If you've done all of that you're in a great position for us to help you and get the ball rolling. Hope to hear from you soon!