The challenge

When our client, Advanced Electric Machines, told us that they’d been successful in securing a presentation slot at the hotly anticipated COP26 climate change conference, we were beyond excited. The opportunity that this presented our client – an innovative EV powertrain start-up – to be heard on a truly global platform, was huge.

We knew that we had to help AEM make the most of this opportunity, and we did so by integrating a full suite of our marcomms capabilities.

What we did

Both AEM and Torque agreed that COP26 was not the time to heavily promote the company’s products, but instead educate a new audience on the issues that AEM’s technology can help solve.

We worked with AEM to curate an impressive line-up of speakers, including a senior global automotive executive and a board member at an EV start-up, as well as the leading minds in power electronics and rare earth materials. These speakers were joined by AEM’s CEO, Dr James Widmer, and the session was chaired by respected automotive editor, Megan Lampinen.

With these speakers on board, we developed a coherent narrative that explained the environmental and economic risks of scaling up EV production with today’s technology. We worked with our speakers to produce and develop scripts that they were comfortable with and that got our message across loud and clear. With these agreed, we then produced presentation assets to run alongside each speech.

Knowing that we would have just 15 minutes to set up before our presentation slot, preparation was key. We held several Zoom-based rehearsals in the weeks running up to our presentation, giving space for key stakeholders to give feedback and hold discussions in good time.

In the run-up to the event, we engaged our social media and media relations teams to generate interest ahead of time. We also worked closely with AEM’s internal team to ensure all logistics around the event was accounted for.

We attended COP26 alongside AEM and its speakers, acting as the point of contact for the floor manager and AV team. We also facilitated any in-person media activities and secured assets for social media live-posting.

The results

AEM’s session at COP26 was regarded by organisers as one of the best-attended and well-engaged-with events held in the Green Zone during the event. Our promotion of the event drew people to the session, and captured people’s attention when they were in the room (anecdotally, most sessions have people coming and going throughout the event).

We achieved national broadcast and print media coverage for AEM’s session, while engagement on AEM’s social channels hit peak levels.

Importantly, AEM had several meaningful commercial conversations, which it credits to its profile and activity at COP26.

If you would like to discuss implementing a similar approach in your business, get in touch – hello@torqueagencygroup.com