The brief
Global lightweight construction materials manufacturer, Etex, is currently making one of its largest plant investments in its history to increase the UK plasterboard manufacturing capacity for its Siniat brand. The new facility will be a state-of-the-art, sustainability-led factory. So, when Etex asked Refresh to develop a campaign to promote this significant investment to internal and external audiences, a creative content marketing campaign was the way to go.
This centred around the creation of a four-part video ‘Docuseries’, following the progress of the new factory via a number of core ‘characters’ – Etex team members representing different parts of the business.
19.8k
views of the docuseries
312
unique social media engagements
35
pieces of coverage
The campaign
The core objectives for the campaign were to build brand awareness of Etex’s investment into its new plasterboard factory with internal and external audiences, including specifiers, contractors, and merchants, and to facilitate engagement with these audiences throughout the factory build duration.
Refresh wanted to create a campaign that would help humanise the business and show the ‘people behind the plasterboard’. With this in mind, Refresh recommended a ‘hero’ piece of content, which would follow the progress of the development of the factory, in a short, easy to digest and engaging way.
Keen to do something outside of the box, this took the form of a Docuseries: ‘The People Behind the Plasterboard’ – a four-part video series that documents the progress of the factory via five ‘main characters’, documenting the story of the factory build. Sharing the journey via Etex’s own team members was a strategic decision to help us humanise the business and make colleagues feel engaged with the project and feel ‘part of something bigger’.
As well as interviews with key spokespeople, footage was also captured during the breaking ground event – which hosted local stakeholders and the community – including local schools, MPs, media and partners.
Refresh then sent the Docuseries out across multiple communications channels – internal and external – to update all stakeholders on the factory build progress. This included:
- Etex’s website – where Refresh supported in developing a landing page hosting all content related to the build
- LinkedIn and YouTube
- eShots to Etex’s database
- Internal comms channels
- Trade media via a number of interviews/Q&As/features
The results
- 19,846 views of Docuseries (across LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook) in launch week
- 312 unique social media engagements (note: shares, comments and likes) with Docuseries in first week
- eShot sent to 2,284 potential customers, (architects and contractors) – 17.1% open rate
- Unique interactions (note: includes Docuseries participants/employee engagement with videos; breaking ground attendees; and sales conference colleague interactions) with approx. 270 Etex colleagues to date
- 25 key external stakeholders (60 people in total, including employees) attended the breaking ground event
- 35 pieces of press coverage including Construction Enquirer, Construction.co.uk and Builders Merchant News
- 3 exclusive media interviews about the new factory secured for Country Manager, Neil Shaw, resulting in 6 dedicated pages of interview coverage
Services delivered include:
- Strategy and planning
- Event management
- Videography
- Content development
- Press releases
- Social media
- Trade press office
- Media relations
- Thought-leadership
- General copywriting
- Measurement and evaluation
”We’ve been working with Refresh as our retained PR/comms partner since the start of 2021. What started out as a PR-first relationship has evolved into Refresh supporting us with lots of elements of our marketing – from video and social, to event support, as well as the more traditional PR-focused activities such as media relations and generating us top tier press coverage. The team are a pleasure to work with and really take the time to understand our business and the briefs we give them. They’re also not afraid to think outside the box and come up with creative ideas that are a bit different from the norm and help to set us apart. When you work in a busy marketing department it is critical to work with agencies you can rely on. I know when an initiative is briefed into the team at Refresh, I can sit back safe in the knowledge that whatever they deliver will be timely, accurate, impactful and, most importantly, different. And perhaps best of all, I genuinely really get on with the team, enjoy speaking to them and view them as a real partner, rather than a supplier.” UK Market Manager and Head of Marcomms, Etex