Georgia Tech - Framing for the Generation II Reinvented Toilet
Challenge: Funded by the Gates Foundation, Professor Shannon Lee from Georgia Tech, led an incredible team of scientists and engineers towards a breakthrough in sanitation technology - the Generation II Reinvented Toilet. They had a working prototype but needed partners to invest in a commercially scalable prototype, manufacturing and distribution. If they could secure this, they would be able to transform sanitation for millions. Although a humanitarian imperative birthed the Gates-funded sanitation technology - to stop people dying from poor sanitation - the technology needed to attract attention from a very diverse set of potential partners and investors e.g. appliance manufacturers, utility companies, NGOs, and governments. So, we needed a unifying frame for the technology, that could still flex the message for different interests.
Method
I led the team through a four-stage process - Define, Discover, Distil, Develop - to identify a way to frame the Generation II Reinvented Toilet (G2RT), that would be attractive to diverse target investor groups. It involved document analysis of the technology, expert interviews, target investor research, influencer analysis and an online social narrative scan in target markets. The different sources of insight were triangulated to develop a frame for positioning the G2RT, and inspire future communications assets.
Key Insight
The one thing that all parties had in common, was the desire or ability to make our world 'cleaner'. For NGOs and governments that meant 'a world free from human waste'. Big appliance manufacturers are see sanitation as a dirty business, but the G2RT is the ultimate embodiment of what big appliances do; CLEAN. The G2RT's most powerful truth is that...
It neutralises human waste at the source, which is the most sustainable way to keep the world clean.
The G2RT stops human waste from ever entering our land and waterways, a brings a whole new category to appliance manufacturers.
Strategy
In a world where land and water are increasingly being contaminated by human waste, costing lives, we must show investors that the G2RT is a sustainable sanitation system that can clean up the world. Depending on the audience's interests, the key benefits touted would flex across 'People, Planet or Profit'.
Execution
We developed communications assets spanning each of our three messaging pillars, People, Planet & Profit, produced PR and Op-eds for key media and ran a paid targeted LinkedIn social media campaign.
Impact
On a small budget, the campaign successfully raised awareness and generated a large number of active leads.
