Discover how Sterling Communications transformed a construction material innovator into a media darling — and, more importantly, a cleantech champion for their customers.
Concrete is the world’s most widely used building material — and one of the world’s biggest sources of carbon emissions. CarbonCure Technologies found a way to inject CO2 into concrete as it is mixed, sequestering the harmful greenhouse gas forever. CarbonCure’s ingenious approach to reducing the construction industry’s global climate impact was exciting enough to attract the attention of Breakthrough Energy Ventures, spearheaded by Bill Gates with Jeff Bezos, Marc Benioff, and Michael Bloomberg also participating in the fund.
Attention from Bill Gates and CNN would be positively heady, but CarbonCure needed the attention of more important influencers: the concrete producers themselves.
When the hot story leaves clients cold
Mainstream media coverage would be, naturally, a PR coup. However, critical to CarbonCure’s bottom line would be feature coverage and thought leadership articles in concrete trade publications popular among its customers. Mainstream press and trade pubs represent very different audiences, but CarbonCure technology was important to both. The company’s message needed to be communicated effectively to all.
Here’s how we were able to deliver that message through the press, to the producers, all the way to the XPRIZE.
The Sterling strategy to customize messages for different audiences
To earn coverage in concrete-focused trade publications, local newspapers, and national outlets favored by concrete producers and the construction community, Sterling focused on two goals.
Tapping into the voice of the concrete producer
We collaborated closely with CarbonCure to understand the motivations of customers. We formulated a list of industry influencers to speak about their experiences with CarbonCure technology. We interviewed subject matter experts directly to write bylined articles that spoke their language.
Prioritizing the right concrete outlets
Sterling closely vetted potential opportunities and prioritized scheduling interviews with reporters that could truly reach the concrete producer audience — even when that meant deprioritizing attention from flashier publications. Sterling constantly monitored the CarbonCure narrative, providing clarifications for journalists in real-time during interviews and before and after conversations. It was vital that stories about CarbonCure included accurate language that resonated with concrete producers.
Achieving Sterling results
Sterling Communications supported CarbonCure with dozens of placements in trade publications and positive coverage in national general-interest and local news outlets — with many more ensuing (yes, even top-tier print and online tech coverage).
All that news coverage helped put CarbonCure on the radar of the XPRIZE, the world’s top honor for climate tech innovation. And the win? Just proof of solid PR results.
To learn how Sterling can tailor strategies for your cleantech public relations, contact us today.
