Shell: A New Energy Future
Shell was seeking to distinguish itself in a cluttered field with major players communicating similar messages. Key targets ranged from government policy makers to digitally-savvy, energy-concerned consumers
Their objectives:
- Tell Shell's New Energy Future story in an accessible and high-profile way while linking to high-quality content on related topics
- Drive favorability via engagement
- Stimulate debates without monopolizing them
- Maintain visibility
- Listen to, learn from and include audiences in the conversation
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN developed a series of polls entitled Energy for the Future. the Polls encouraged our global audience to engage in critical energy issues and enter the dialogue on how we, as a global community, can ensure a sustainable energy future for everyone
Leveraging our connection with nature to maximize reach, SA created a multi-platform promotion to drive participation via rich media banners and interstitials, interaction-enabled E-mail newsletters as well as a print trafficdriving awareness campaign in both nature and SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN.
Questions ranged from the effectiveness of energy policy to natural gas and the technologies behind enhanced oil recovery. After voting, participants landed on a destination page containing:
- Interactive map capable of displaying voting by region
- Shell content and links
- Links to SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN content
- A commenting platform enabled log-in via social accounts
Leveraging SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN's and nature's global reach, the polls sparked interest and intelligent discussions
- Click through rates as high as 8%
- Upwards of 14,000 votes on individual polls
- Working to improve user engagement, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN's new social commenting platform drove a 47% increase in comments — and average user time spent on the destination page more than doubled YoY to nearly 5 minutes
