MEDIA RELATIONS – G2O WATER TECHNOLOGIES

OBJECTIVES

• To educate water industry professionals about an emerging innovation for water treatment and filtration
• To raise the company’s profile in advance of fundraising.
• To differentiate G2O from the “academic hype” of other organisations and focus on the potential applications of its technology, i.e. in drinking water.

PR STRATEGY

Our strategy recommended media relations among relevant regional business and water industry audiences demonstrate how the company was:

• Providing a solution to drinking water scarcity
• Developing a Graphene application that addresses real-world water problems
• Attracting significant public funding to advance its operations
• Working with water industry experts to address specific, sector issues
• Led by Tim Harper – a credible scientist and businessman with a track record in successful technology businesses

PR ACTIVITIES

News story 1: 

The first news story delivered a number of vital key messages:

• G2O aims to make clean drinking water more widely and cheaply available worldwide.
• Its water filtration application is simple as “making a cup of filter coffee” – a message devised by Metamorphic PR – compared to currently complex water filtration systems.
• It has received a second round of Innovate UK funding, enabling the next phase of development. 
• The technology, validated by innovation specialists at the Centre for Process and Innovation, is now scaling up from lab to industry. 
• G2O has secured an agreement with a global consumer products company to test the technology.

News story 2: 

The second news story delivered a number of key messages:

• G2O is teaming up with water@leeds, part of the University of Leeds to test its technology in relation to real water industry issues 
• A pilot, wastewater treatment plant will be operational.
• G2O is the only company transferring its graphene technology from lab to real-world water industry applications.
• Water@leeds quoted: “the project is about developing commercially viable water filtration membranes…that can be scaled up for industrial application.”

Video filming with Business Cloud magazine

We negotiated with regional business publication, Business Cloud, to deploy a journalist and cameraman to film an interview with G2O CEO, Tim Harper, and showcase the G2O lab operations at water@leeds. The result was a three-minute news video explaining the global water problem, how G2O’s technology works and its industrial applications. 

Water and Waste Water Treatment magazine – feature article 

We created a 1,200-word feature article in conjunction with and by-lined to water@leeds to offer an independent assessment of the G2O project. It delivered messages to a water industry audience, including:

• Graphene offers a “genuine step-change in the way water is treated right now”.
• It “opens up the possibility to build plants where it’s otherwise…not feasible or economic”.
• “This…could change lives in the developing world.”

High quality photography

We commissioned a specialist photographer to capture the intricacies of G2O’s laboratory environment and to bring to life visually the abstract concept (for the non-scientist) of coating water filters with graphene.