Atkins Design & Engineering Solutions, part of WS Atkins plc, has been working with Cohn & Wolfe on a thought leadership programme since April 2007. Energy issues have been a key focus. Significant media coverage has been achieved, generating a substantial return on investment in PR, and leading to direct and positive feedback from customers.
Atkins is fully engaged in, and actively enhancing its capability for, all aspects of the developing energy market. Creating thought leadership on the key issues, including nuclear, oil and gas, sustainability – is an important part of the company’s positioning in the market. By demonstrating deep understanding and new thinking on these critical topics, Atkins is more likely to be perceived as a company which can help energy customers with their most pressing concerns
Thought leadership for Atkins’ energy team (part of Atkins Design & Engineering Solutions) means serious articles in the key trade titles for the energy industry, such as Energy World, Nuclear Engineering International, New Civil Engineer, Modern Utility Management and Power Engineering International.
Atkins needed to work with a PR agency which could create a highly credible thought leadership programme of this kind. The agency would have the ability to take complex energy issues, many of them technical in nature, and turn them into high quality articles for the trade media. That’s why Atkins chose Cohn & Wolfe.
Trudy Warrender, Communications Director for Atkins Design & Engineering Solutions, said:
“The value we get from Cohn & Wolfe is three-fold: the ability to find great stories on energy within Atkins; excellent writing skills; and great media relationships when we do want to talk about energy.”
“Each energy issue – whether it’s new nuclear build, North Sea Infrastructure, or calculating carbon footprint – is enormously complex in its own right. Not many PR agencies have the skill to be able to create thought leadership across the board – but that’s what I have found with Cohn & Wolfe.
The success of the Atkins strategy, supported by Cohn & Wolfe, was very evident when the debate on nuclear power in the UK restarted in 2007. From the publication of the Energy White Paper in May, when support for nuclear became the government’s ‘preliminary view’, to the end of the consultation period in the autumn, Atkins demonstrated thought leadership through a series of high quality articles in the key trade media. Writing in publications like New Civil Engineer, Atkins Executive Director, Ivor Catto, argued for nuclear as a ‘low carbon’ form of energy. He also addressed the pressing issue of skills shortages in the nuclear industry, and proposed ways of overcoming it. Modern Utility Management found Mr Catto’s thoughts on nuclear so compelling that they made his article their cover story for the August/September edition.
Trudy Warrender said:
“It’s almost a definition of thought leadership when your issue becomes the ‘cover story’. That’s where Atkins DES wants to be, and Cohn & Wolfe have helped us get there.
“We know from direct feedback that the campaign and the thought leadership articles have had a positive impact on our energy clients.”
The value of the PR coverage generated by the thought leadership programme has far exceeded the investment made by Atkins.