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 indus-
tries, 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 an-
niversary 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 discus-
sion 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 mile-
stone
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

web: www.liberatemedia.com email: hello@liberatemedia.com

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 com-
munity 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 Me-
dia’s social media news release distribution platform, as well as by more traditional methods such as place-
ment 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.

web: www.liberatemedia.com email: hello@liberatemedia.com

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 in-
formation 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 futurol-
ogy 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 gath-
ering 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 fur-
ther 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 ex-
planation, 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, identi-
fied 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 addi-
tional focus.

web: www.liberatemedia.com email: hello@liberatemedia.com

 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

- Twitter
The Twitter campaign was developed with three main goals:
1. Engage with the 10yearsofbroadband community on a daily basis to drive interest and con-
versation
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 fur-
ther 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

web: www.liberatemedia.com email: hello@liberatemedia.com

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

web: www.liberatemedia.com email: hello@liberatemedia.com