The future of the router starts here

prweek.com, Monday, 01 June 2009, 9:38am,

TalkTalk's very well known for providing great value broadband, but less famous for having an interesting view on where internet usage is headed in the next few years. So Launch Group was asked to help project this unexposed side of the TalkTalk personality. The result was a project that took as its start-point this question: Is the internet router destined to spend its life forever blinking in a dark corner? Or could router-kind be about to burst from the shadows....

Energy Saver

Campaign: Future Routers

Client: TalkTalk

PR team: Launch Group

Timescale: 3 months

Budget: £50k

Objectives:

Position TalkTalk - now the UK's largest home broadband provider - as a thought leader and innovator
To secure positive coverage and comment throughout the consumer tech sector and a variety of other lifestyle media

Jelly Fish

Strategy and Plan:

The strategy was to re-invent the wireless router, which is an unexciting yet ubiquitous domestic product. To do this, Launch Group brought TalkTalk together with Goldsmiths University, the latter famous for its cutting edge design and production talent. Four new routers were conceptualised and created. Each execution was designed to spark debate and appeal to a different audience. The campaign was supported by a viral video, microsite (www.futurerouters.com), All Media Release (http://news.futurerouters.com/?ReleaseID=12934) and intensive on and offline media relations.

Richard Benson, Head of Social Media who led the campaign

Measurement and Evaluation:

Campaign success was measured by the number of positive articles on and offline, microsite page views, comments, Tweets and video views. A voting system was embedded within the microsite, to encourage further consumer participation.

The Future Routers campaign achieved significant UK and worldwide coverage across a wide variety of sectors, including the environment, business, design and technology. Highlights included prominent features on Engadget (http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/17/future-routers-pass-themselves-off-as-common-household-items-cl/), Wired (http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/07/giant-router-clock-shows-when-internet-tubes-are-clear/), The Awesomer (http://theawesomer.com/route-oclock/16342/), EcoGeek (http://www.ecogeek.org/component/content/article/2857) and Mirror.co.uk (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology/2009/07/16/talktalk-serves-up-future-routers-115875-21524850/).

Results:

In total, Launch Group secured over 200 pieces of positive online/offline coverage, supported by over 350 user comments.

The microsite achieved over 15,000 visits in just two weeks, whilst 32,000 people viewed the video - traffic to which was 100% driven by editorial coverage.