Working within the Strategic Communications practice, Scott joins Copper from Weber Shandwick, where he worked as a Senior Associate. Scott brings a breadth of knowledge and experience working across traditional, digital and social media platforms. His experience covers a range of global corporate clients including Equinor, Jotun, Offshore Energies UK, and DLA Piper.
Scott’s multi-sectoral experience includes energy, maritime, petrochemicals, technology, professional services, and infrastructure. Bringing with him over seven years of experience in media relations, technical writing, and strategic communications. At Copper, he will join a growing team of skilled communicators, creative content creators; and media relations, digital, and stakeholder engagement specialists.
Having spent most of his career in the north east of Scotland, Scott has witnessed the energy transition first hand. Playing an active role in helping several oil and gas operators and supply chain companies diversify and cement their position in the renewable industry.
Commenting on the appointment, James Hillier, Head of Data Insight and Strategy said: “Scott’s experience and knowledge of the renewable energy industry and technologies makes him an excellent fit for our team. His proven track record of supporting multinational and specialist organisations – across the corporate and industrial sectors – in addressing complex communications challenges will be a real asset to our business.”
Reaching your target audience can be a challenging task at the best of times and becomes even more difficult when your target audience is considered traditionally ‘hard-to-reach‘.
Hard-to-reach audiences refers to a group of individuals who are difficult to engage through traditional marketing or outreach efforts. This varies but could be individuals who have limited access to technology, speak a different language than the majority of the population, live in remote areas or potentially individuals with a disability that makes it difficult for them to interact with certain types of content.
To communicate effectively, it’s important to build a deeper understanding of your target audience. Your strategy may require a unique approach, one that mirrors their needs and desires will help maximise engagement.
Understand who they are, what they value, and how they engage with digital channels. Be sure to take onboard their side of the story.
Gaining intel on your audience can be achieved in a number of ways. This could be through conducting surveys, or through third-party results such as census data and attitude reports.
Using social media and website analytics can provide a wealth of data to understand your audience’s interests, behaviours and preferences. For some projects it may be worth conducting focus groups to gather qualitative data. Are you unsure if you’re effectively reaching your audience? Using digital analytics to identify gaps in your data can show areas where you are not effectively reaching your target audience, using this information can help to inform a need for an alternative method, such as face-to-face events.
Remember that finding audience insights for hard-to-reach audiences requires patience, creativity, and persistence. By utilising a variety of tools and approaches, you can gain a better understanding of your target audience and create more effective marketing strategies.
Use the information you have about your audience to tailor your messaging. Centre your campaign around a compelling message that resonates with them. Speak their language, address their pain points, and offer solutions or ways to add value specifically designed for them.
With projects where another language may be spoken, it’s important you consider this in your communications. For example, we work with a number of projects that operate in Wales and therefore ensure materials are available billingually.
As we also mentioned the importance of accessibility, when creating materials, it’s important that factors are considered such as:
Social media platforms provide a gateway to a vast array of audiences, making them invaluable for reaching hard-to-reach groups. However, ensuring that you select relevant platforms is a fundamental step in successfully reaching your target audience. Remember, social media should be a two-way communication, not a brand monologue. Fundamentally, social media is socialising in the digital world and interactions are key to building relationships virtually.
However, in the instance that your audience is not on social media, whether that’s due to demographics or whether they have access to technology, then it’s vital to find the right channels to communicate with them such as more traditional forms of marketing including elements such as in person events and print materials.
When using multiple platforms to engage and facilitate dialogue with community members and stakeholders, remember that some individuals will see all communications and others just one. Each method of communication needs to stand alone, but also work alongside other communications. Your audience does not want to receive the same content in four different formats.
Collaborating with influential figures in your industry or community can help bridge the gap between your brand and hard-to-reach audiences. Influencers can command the attention and trust of the very audience you’re targeting. Choose influencers who align with your brand values and have a demonstrable impact on your intended audience. When thinking of our projects, examples of influencers could be local businesses, MPs, community or religious groups, schools, etc.
Tackling hard-to-reach audiences can be a daunting task, but if you invest time in generating audience insight, and building a careful execution plan, you can reach those hard-to-reach audience groups and hopefully gain some advocates for your campaign.
Feel free to reach out to Hannah Jarrett, our Digital and Social Media Manager to discuss improving your digital communications approach.
HyNet North West is an innovative low carbon and hydrogen energy project that will unlock a low carbon economy for the North West and North Wales and put the region at the forefront of the UK’s drive to net zero.
As the project moves towards a more public-facing stage, we were tasked with evolving the HyNet North West brand and creating a series of assets to explain the project.
We developed the UI designs and redeveloped the HyNet webite, simplifying the navigation and streamlining information. We created a series of graphics and assets that could be utilised across multiple channels, as well as on the website.
Sitting alongside the website, we developed a consultation microsite to support the first consultation on the HyNet North West project. The look and feel reflected the overarching HyNet brand.
We develop social graphics to support HyNet’s key messages, encourage engagement and explain complex concepts to stakeholders and the public.
HyNet North West is made up of several different projects, the first of which is a carbon capture pipeline. We designed and delivered an animation to help explain key elements of the project in an accessible way, enabling people to easily respond to the project’s public consultation.
Powering up a ‘green’ design for RSK’s new electric vehicle fleet.
RSK Group approached our design team requesting a fresh and appropriately ‘green’ design for the livery of a new electric vehicle (EV) fleet. The aim was to develop a slightly modified version of the existing RSK design to make the new EVs stand out. This would help raise public awareness of RSK switching to EVs and reflect the company’s commitment to sustainability, caring for the planet and tackling climate change.
The main challenge was creating and adjusting a design that would suit various vehicles in the fleet, given the differences in vehicle size and shape. This involved manipulating and rearranging the various elements of the design to fit accordingly. As part of the process, our designer visited the company that applies livery designs to vehicles. Seeing the designs brought to life at full size was very different from the challenges of creating them on a small screen in the design studio.
Content and Creative has designed and delivered a range of marketing support material, including exhibition stands, digital publications and product information sheets, for a new client in the aquaculture industry. Innovasea provides end-to-end solutions for fish farming and aquatic species research, including equipment, consulting services and innovative platforms and products.
One of our tasks was to improve an existing e-book design and create a more sophisticated look and feel for a new digital publication. The e-book described the pros and cons of recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS), examined the costs of building and operating these facilities, and detailed the typical return on investment for two typical farms: one raising freshwater Atlantic salmon and the other raising saltwater red snapper. Promoting the e-book would enable Innovasea to showcase its expertise in this area and underline its credentials as a knowledgeable and trusted source of information.
The Content and Creative design team focused on creating a design that presented the content in a clear and simple way, and developed a set of thematic icons that represented each section in the book. One of the main challenges was finding accurate imagery for this fairly specialised subject area. Searches of commercial image libraries did not yield suitable images, so the job had to be put on hold while the right images were sourced. As the e-book would be available from the Innovasea website, our designers chose a simple landscape format for the layout that would be ideal for online viewing.
Providing clear, non-technical explanations of complex concepts is a crucial part of what we do. But just as important is ensuring that when we make the message more accessible, we do not compromise on technical accuracy. In this example, the client asked us to describe the challenge of rising energy demand for server cooling operations and to illustrate how a radical new solution could transform this requirement. A complex story that needed a light-touch visual style.
We sit between marketers, who need to make strong claims, and scientists and engineers, who tend to be cautious and rightly insist on technical integrity. There are also legal teams to keep happy.
All our writers have science or engineering degrees. This helps us to work with our creative colleagues to make a splash while respecting technical accuracy.
Catalyst company Albemarle, headquartered in Baton Rouge, USA, asked us to help write and redesign its customer magazine, Catalyst Courier. We helped to transform it from a dry-looking technical journal into a contemporary, colourful and engaging read.
Catalyst Courier is produced regularly in print and electronically. Our team writes some sections of each issue, manages the publication schedule, edits and proofreads the text, creates the layout and graphics, and liaising with the printers.
Moving from a ‘house of brands’ to ‘hybrid branding under a parent brand’
Acteon’s strategy was to move from a collection of individual brands operating under an umbrella name to a more formal hybrid-branding approach. The branded services, product lines and expertise were to be structured into eight strategic business segments that aligned with customer needs. These segments would combine the overall Acteon brand with the strongest existing brand in each segment. We helped define how these would be presented and described.
Times change and company activities change with them. Familiar product and service brands are re-named, retired, merged or moved to new homes. And the effects of these changes are felt most keenly at the client interface. Those who manage brands want to ensure that any new structure brings clarity and attracts new business, without alienating existing customers. This was exactly the challenge that we took on when we helped a major engineering group modify its service structure branding.
As a specialist communications consultancy that’s dedicated to infrastructure, we have a unique opportunity to become involved across the whole development lifecycle. We have a role from policy development, through planning, construction and eventual operation of everything from roads, to windfarms to schools and hospitals.
Despite the brief hiatus caused by Covid-19, we are enormously optimistic about the state of our sector. The UK has faced numerous challenges for decades, from imbalances in the economy, to low levels of productivity and poor connectivity, to the looming need to decarbonise energy generation and transport.
These problems have seemed insurmountable. But that may just be changing.
There has been an acceptance across all levels of government that things can and must change fundamentally if we are to establish a successful net zero economy. That change will be all pervasive, impacting our working, as well as domestic lives, and it is inspiring an infrastructure revolution.
The outcome is that the infrastructure sector is booming, and Copper is growing fast to help accommodate and support it. We have expanded substantially in recent years, increasing the number of projects we are working on, the sectors we support and the services we offer. We expect to continue that growth in years to come, and see that our partners across the infrastructure sectors are experiencing the same increase in opportunity.
The biggest single thing that we need to capitalize on that opportunity, and to enable the change to UK infrastructure that’s needed, is to boost the availability of great people.
We have worked enormously hard to attract people into Copper, but more broadly into the infrastructure sector. We recruit at all levels, from those beginning their working life, to experienced seasoned professionals, and we are continuing to do so.
But the whole industry needs to capitalize on our moment in the spotlight, not to achieve short term growth, but to revitalize our offering to the people we work with and ensure that we are able to attract the brightest and the best people, from all walks of life.
We can offer a career path that provides rapid development, but perhaps more importantly enables people to make a tangible difference to the country. We cant promise an easy life, as infrastructure projects are complex and frequently demanding, but we can promise a job with an enormous amount of satisfaction and sense of achievement.
But that must be matched with offering ways of working that are compatible with modern family life, that are flexible and that trust people to work how, when and where will deliver the best outcomes, rather than forcing people to comply with outdated office-bound structures.
In our own really small way we are trying to take a lead in this area, enabling a completely flexible working arrangement, and allowing our highly capable team to work in ways that are right for them. People at Copper can work from any of our three offices in Bristol, Birmingham and London as suits them, but also remotely, and to decide how they structure their working week.
We support a wide range of working arrangements, with a number of our team choosing to work part time to support family commitments or academic studies.
We also offer an increasingly flexible range of benefits, including a fitness fund to support wellbeing and a flexible training fund to support personal and career development, in addition to on the job training and support.
We are far from a perfect employer and we are continuously striving to do better, with our dedicated People and Culture Director helping to ensure that we do everything we can to attract the very best people from across our industry and beyond, and to demonstrate the wonderfully fulfilling career that infrastructure can offer.