Climate change think tank E3G were well respected but had a low profile. With a global international climate change summit approaching in Paris in December 2015, they hired H+K to establish them as independent experts and ensure balanced media reporting of COP21.
H+K held messaging workshops to develop a narrative and then facilitated a series of briefings. We secured 17 pre-briefings with national print and broadcast media, 4 of which were editorial boards with as many as 25 journalists at a time – vastly exceeding our targets. Having developed relationships with their target media we were then able to successfully pitch E3G throughout the summit. H+K secured interviews with 19 of the 22 pre-briefed targets, many of whom had several interviews throughout the summit.
For the closing day of COP21 E3G’s spokespeople appeared on BBC News, BBC World Service, Channel 4 News, ITV News, Sky News, Al Jazeera and France 24, thereby successfully securing coverage with all target broadcast outlets. E3G’s closing comment on COP21 was also featured in the Economist, Wall Street Journal and Forbes among other top-tier media.
In total during the two week conference E3G had 117 media hits, 29 of which were broadcast segments and additional 40 of which were UK nationals or primary targets. Of the coverage featuring E3G, 99% included a quote and was on-message.
Overall reporting of COP21 was also broadly positive and on message throughout the two weeks, which was instrumental in securing a strong outcome for the Summit.