Positive Supply Chain Reaction

SELIS (the Shared European Logistics Intelligent Information Space) was a three-year €17 million research project funded by the European Commission.

The project strived to bring together 37 partners from across Europe including research organisations, SMEs and large industry players. SELIS’ role was to deliver an open source, cloud-based intelligence platform for logistics collaboration.

SELIS Case Study

“EC-PR has quickly grasped the complexities of the SELIS project and managed to transform them into a compelling media narrative.

“By building strong connections with our project partners and bringing them into media activities, they have strengthened the credibility of our story, which is important for future commercialisation of the project’s innovations. The results generated have been impressive.”

Dr. Takis Katsoulakos

MD, Inlecom Systems, the SELIS project coordinating partner

The aims of the project were to motivate faster, more efficient, flexible and sustainable supply chain ecosystems across Europe.

Dangers and Desires

After three years of promoting the project while it was in its research and development phase, the SELIS project team had experienced very limited success in raising awareness of the project among its key target audience.

The logistics community, which was set to be the main adopter and beneficiary of the project’s innovative platform, was largely unaware of the strides the project was making and SELIS wanted to change this. A new approach was required. It was time to call in EC-PR.

Design

Reaching the logistics community was pivotal to the success of the SELIS project. With this goal in mind, we devised an intensive three-month proactive media outreach programme that would target key journalists and influencers in the sector and raise awareness of the project across Europe.

Campaign Delivery

• Profiling key journalists and influencers
• Securing article placements
• Arranging media interviews
• Developing news announcements
• Creating thought leadership articles and blogs

Targeting key journalists and influencers

Using our PR expertise and global database of journalists and influencers, we set to work creating a list of key media outlets and individuals across Europe who had an active interest in the logistics industry and could help spread the word about the SELIS project.

Securing article placements

Once our list was complete, we set about creating a series of outreach articles and news stories that celebrated the successful conclusion of the SELIS project and promoted the commercial benefits of adopting SELIS’ logistics collaboration models.

After an intensive and brief ramp-up period, the PR programme swiftly generated the first tangible results. This included press coverage in tier 1 media outlets, such as Forbes and Intelligent CIO.

Thought leadership articles

To generate further interest and highlight the benefits of the SELIS project, we created a series of expert articles featuring comment and insight from Dr. Takis Katsoulakos and Makis Kouloumbis of Inlecom Systems (the SELIS project coordinating partner).

As a result, we secured coverage across numerous industry outlets, including JOC.com, Logistics Voices, Supply Chain News, Computer Weekly and TechTarget.

Media interviews

To endorse the benefits of the SELIS project among its key target industry, we communicated the results of the SELIS ‘Living Labs’ (real-life testing environments) through a series of press interviews with key Living Labs partners from the industry and academia.

Distinction

In total, as a result of our targeted approach, we secured 15 pieces of coverage in trade and tier 1 business publications, 4 interviews with SELIS project partners, 3 feature articles in key industry outlets and 1 expert speaking opportunity.

Through the media networking that was built and exposure in target publications, SELIS succeeded in reaching their most desired audience, getting their message across and laying fertile ground for future communications.