MEDIA RELATIONS - XCELLR8

Objectives

• Create greater association for the company in the media and in online search with the issue of animal testing.
• Generate media visibility for XCellR8’s work in non-animal testing and show progress made towards eliminating animal testing.
• Improve XCellR8’s ranking in Google organic results for specific search terms.

PR Strategy

• Evolved the company’s ethical stance on animal testing to a create a harder-hitting, science-led and more commercially-driven media relations campaign for the business. 
• A chemicals and cosmetics sector media relations campaign around XCellR8’s success in obtaining Horizon 2020 funding – a European Union innovation programme – to develop a new, non-animal acute toxicity test. 
• Deploy material from an 80-page proof of market primary research report to present the case for industry adopting non-animal testing methods. 

The strategy we deployed to maximise media coverage and appearance in online search focused on:

• Highlighting that its work was “world-leading”.
• Publicising its ground-breaking use in testing of human cells taken from skin samples donated by cosmetic surgery patients.
• Presenting non-animal testing as a more scientifically-valid way to assess the effects of chemicals on people.
• Reiterating that EU regulation for products containing chemicals and public opinion was increasingly demanding an end to animal testing.
• Emphasising XCellR8’s status as the only-known testing laboratory developing new, and adapting existing, tests to eliminate all animal components.
• Explain the demands on chemical companies and product manufacturers to meet EU regulations and find alternatives to animal testing.
• Reiterate the pressure on companies to have chemical ingredients tested and validated before the EU’s 2018 deadline.

PR activity:

The XCellR8 campaign included two phases of media relations activity:

• News story #1: announcing the Horizon 2020 funding success as the “next step in the complete eradication of animal testing for chemical ingredients used in cosmetics, personal care and household products”.
• News story #2: calling on scientists working in chemicals and cosmetics manufacturing to contribute their views to XCellR8’s bid for further EU funding to develop the non-animal, acute toxicity test.