Citation

The approach

To achieve this, we came up with the idea to investigate some of the surprising ways in which the workplace might adjust post-coronavirus.  We set up an interview with our go-to expert on all things futurology: Dr. Ian Pearson. Pearson has excellent relationships with the media; his expertise has been utilised by the Metro, the Sun and the Mirror in the past.

We knew he could be relied on to not only provide insightful, scientific predictions around health and technology but also give out-of-the-box ideas that would be great for generating headlines.

We identified that the strongest “news hook” in the content would be Dr. Ian Pearson’s claim that workplaces may have to ban the office tea round, implement artificial intelligence and introduce outdoor meetings in places like beer gardens. This formed the headline of our press release, which was distributed to a media list of almost 100 journalists.

The story proved to be newsworthy after Boris Johnson’s press conference at the beginning of August urging employees to return to the office. This allowed the press release to be very timely when it was distributed in the first week of the month.

Citation’s campaign was picked up by many regional news publications including MyLondon, Bristol Post and Wales Online off the back of this. It was also published by a number of HR websites, including HR News and HR Director. Later, the popularity of these stories allowed the campaign to gain extra coverage on several business blogs too.