‘Journey of the Drop’ - Video
Success achieved
By introducing video content, we challenged public perceptions of the role of oil and gas, explored education and sustainability initiatives and showcased the work of the association and its membership.
- Website
- https://www.world-petroleum.org/resources/journey-drop
- Project dates
February – September 2017
Project team
- Ulrike Von Lonski, Director of Communications
Tools & Systems
The WPC Communications team are grateful for the support of the ITN Productions international production team, who helped to turn the vision for ‘Journey of the Drop’ in to a reality. Having created very little content before, ITN Productions’ expertise in video story-telling helped to transform how the WPC connects with its members. This particularly resonated with the younger generation, the WPC Youth Forum, who engaged and shared the content through social media during the Congress and beyond.
As well as editorial advice, ITN Productions provided:
- Broadcast-quality production services, including access to a global newsgathering team, HD studios and post-production facilities (Avid)
- Access to Wistia, a user-friendly content hosting platform
- The creation of a YouTube channel to enable quick sharing of the content and improved ability to target audience groups
- Social media content calendar, to enhance and align the distribution of the programme
Introduction
The global oil and gas sector is worth more than $5 trillion – and the companies that operate within this market influence every aspect of daily life. The World Petroleum Council (WPC) represents 96% of the oil and gas producing and exporting countries across the globe and is the only organisation representing this community.
Communicating key messages on such a large scale can prove difficult (and can be diluted or misconstrued through negative publicity), but by harnessing the power of video content, the WPC has been able to speak directly to its global membership, share examples of best practice and discuss key issues that affect the industry worldwide.
The news-style programme ‘Journey of the Drop’, was created in partnership with ITN Productions for the oil and gas industry, to encourage collaboration, reinforce its communication strategy, as well as provide a platform for the initiatives and innovations that will change the shape of the global energy sector. WPC members were encouraged to harness the power of positive story-telling, to ensure that the progressive steps being taken within the sector received exposure.
Discovery
The WPC and ITN Productions worked closely with the membership to understand the issues that were important to their community, and explore whether public perceptions matched up to the reality – in order to provide a snapshot of the oil and gas industry in 2017.
The ITN Productions team spent 6 months getting to know the influencers and innovators of the energy sector across the globe, and encouraged contributors to the programme to be transparent, real and authentic, to ensure their message connected with the audience.
Production units were sent on assignments across the globe to speak to the firms and individuals who were campaigning for change and working towards a sustainable future that would benefit the global community. From witnessing the moment that a family in India was given access to clean energy for the first time, to exploring the potential for Ukraine to become an independent energy provider, the reports featured in ‘Journey of the Drop’ explored the narratives in the sector that can be often overlooked by the mainstream media, whilst ensuring the content was balanced and accurate.
The team discovered that there were lots of positive projects operating within the extraction, production and distribution of oil and gas – and ‘Journey of the Drop’ provided an outlet for these stories to be heard.
Objectives
‘Journey of the Drop’ was created to align with the WPC’s main objective: to catalyse and facilitate dialogue amongst internal and external stakeholders, seeking solutions to challenges within the global energy sector.
As outlined in the Programme Brief, the content created a narrative to:
- Showcase the work of the WPC and its membership
- Challenge public perceptions of the role of oil and gas
- Explore the tools and solutions that will create cleaner energy, as well as sustainability and education initiatives
Through the partnership, WPC wanted to create video content that would not only make an impact at the World Petroleum Congress, but would also have longevity outside of the launch event. This can be exemplified by the opening animation and a discussion on the role of oil and gas in the future energy mix, which has been used at numerous workshops.
Activities
Initiation
Journey of the Drop 2017 page
WPC met with ITN Productions for an Editorial Meeting, where we outlined the key themes and messaging for the ‘Journey of the Drop’ programme. We discussed the narrative, objectives, themes, deliverables and the marketing campaign. The summary of this can be seen in the Programme Brief, a collaborative working document, which was the blueprint for the whole project.
To launch the programme, the WPC launched a Promo Video, which was published on their website, shared through social media and directly emailed to all members.
Development & pre-production
Following on from the editorial meeting – WPC had meetings at ITN Productions to discuss:
- News Items – which issues were the WPC members keen to pursue, and how could we bring these to life on screen?
- Distribution – what resources and support were required to capitalise on the campaign? How could we use the WPC’s website, email distribution, social media and the World Petroleum Congress to maximise the reach and exposure of ‘Journey of the Drop’?
Production
As per the partnership, ITN Productions moved the programme in to the production phase. The team of Programming Directors researched the themes for the programme for 4 weeks and then spent the following 8 weeks contacting WPC members and affiliates to see which stories would be suitable for ‘Journey of the Drop’. The response from the membership was very positive, which resulted in pieces of sponsored editorial content being created across the globe.
Managed by the Senior Producer, the ITN Productions Industry News team set to work on the sponsored editorial content. Each of the programme’s partners had several meetings with their dedicated Producer who helped shaped their key messages and creative treatment. ITN crews were deployed all over the globe interviewing key figures from the oil and gas sector. The Post Production team crafted beautiful thought-provoking reports for the programme.
To weave the video content together, the ITN Productions team collaborated with the WPC on the studio recording – deciding what the studio would look like, and creating the script that the programme’s anchor, Natasha Kaplinsky, would deliver, to create our news-style programme. This recording also featured a studio interview with Dr Pierce Riemer, Director General of the World Petroleum Council, which provided an opportunity for the WPC to speak directly to the membership.
As well as creating the programme, the WPC and ITN Productions’ Account Manager had numerous meetings with the World Petroleum Congress and Turkish Petroleum delegation to discuss the best way to launch the programme. These discussions were very productive and the programme became a valuable asset to the Congress, featuring on the official app, and being screened in a dedicated cinema for the duration of the Congress.
Launch & distribution
The marketing campaign for the programme consisted of the WPC and ITN Productions distributing the programme through many different channels:
- Premiere at the Welcome Reception for WPC members
- Screening the programme at the Congress Cinema ≡ Emailing a link to the programme to all WPC members
- Advertisements in the daily congress newspaper
- Featuring links to the video content on the Congress mobile app
- A targeted, conversation-driven 4-week social media campaign
- Targeted YouTube campaign featuring all of the video content on the WPC’s channel
- Press release sent to list of specialists and influencers within the oil and gas community
- Further to this, we encouraged the participants in the programme to share their content with pride – and provided them with a Marketing Toolkit.
Report
As outlined in the supporting Reflections document:
- More than 25,000 visited the World Petroleum Congress, including 500 CEOs and 50 national ministers
- The direct email was shared across 65 member countries
- The social media campaign resulted in more than 18,000 Twitter impressions and 2.47 million YouTube impressions
Innovation
Rather than approaching a video agency to create content, the WPC chose to partner with ITN Productions on a new-style programme that encouraged members and wider stakeholders to collaborate on creating short-form content that would shape the narrative for ‘Journey of the Drop’. The ITN Productions team worked with WPC and its members directly to create a suite of content – the funding model for this programme meant that key commercial partners could make relevant sponsored editorial content, whilst supporting the WPC in this new endeavour. The support from commercial partners also gave WPC the resources to create independent content on pertinent issues within oil and gas, including gender diversity and access to clean energy in the developing world.
Introduced by national news presenter Natasha Kaplinsky, ‘Journey of the Drop’ is an incredibly professional piece of broadcast-quality content, including in-studio interviews, animations, archive footage and news-style reports filmed across four continents. In an industry which can be viewed as obsolescent, the introduction of polished and captivating video content has shown the wider stakeholders and membership that the oil and gas industry is relevant, progressive and disruptive.
Marketing
In partnership with ITN Productions, the WPC executed a fully-targeted marketing campaign, through owned and earned media. At its core were the principals of reach, relevance and resonance:
- You must know your audience
- Communicate in a way that’s relevant to them
- Have a meaningful exchange that is dedicated to that particular audience
The programme premiered at the 22nd World Petroleum Congress in Istanbul, Turkey from 9th – 13th July 2017. Known as the ‘Olympics of the oil and gas sector’, the triennial event is attended by 6,000 people from the oil and gas sector.
During the Congress, the video content was shared via several platforms:
- A showcase of the content was screened at a special reception for WPC members
- The full programme was shown three times each day at a pop-up cinema theatre
- A trailer of the content was housed on the official Congress mobile app
- Selected content was profiled in ‘Upstream’ the daily newspaper for the Congress
- A social media content calendar was created to reflect the themes of the Congress
- ITN Productions participated in a panel debate exploring the perception of the petroleum industry by society
Further to this, the WPC sent the content directly to the membership and issued a press release to a bespoke list of industry titles and influencers.
Since its launch, the content for ‘Journey of the Drop’ has been displayed on the WPC’s website, and also at EXPO 2017 in Astana, Kazakhstan, visited by 300,000 delegates.
Challenges
The challenges faced in creating ‘Journey of the Drop’ mirrored the challenges faced by WPC members across the globe. The declining oil price has had a significant impact across the sector and led to a change in priorities
for some WPC members – for some it meant that it was difficult for them to engage in the process. WPC and ITN Productions worked closely with the membership to offer opportunities for exposure within the programme – and aimed to provide a global snapshot of the industry in 2017.
For others the challenge of poor perceptions about the operations within the oil and gas sector provided the perfect opportunity to share their story in a fair and balanced production. We were able to explore what companies are doing to tackle environmental, climate and social challenges and how they engage with local communities to demonstrate that the oil and gas industry takes its commitments seriously.
Achievements
Through news-style content, ‘Journey of the Drop’ succeeded in the objectives of:
- Engaging members on the issues they share
- Demonstrating the breadth of the sector
- Providing a platform for the membership to exchange ideas
Introducing this content has raised the WPC’s social media profile, leading to an increase in Twitter followers and YouTube subscribers. The creation of the programme has improved WPC’s understanding of the membership and its communication preferences. The activity on social media is a big draw for young professionals, however longer- serving members still prefer traditional forms of communication, and the selection of video content and distribution provides the flexibility to tailor the strategy based on demographic. The ideal achievement of major press coverage or a ‘viral uplift’ is not something that can necessarily be planned for, but widening the conversation on how to create a sustainable, clean and secure energy sector is a key objective for 2018’s programme.
‘Journey of the Drop’ was created with the user in mind and the content was tailored to allow users to create their own experience based on their interests.
When visiting the dedicated URL for the programme, viewers are greeted with several options with which to consume the content:
- The Showcase: Highlights of ‘Journey of the Drop’, created to provide a flavour of the topics explored within the programme, to encourage the user to delve deeper in to their subjects of interest
- WPC editorial content – films looking at broader issues, such as gender diversity within the industry and access to clean energy
- Sponsored editorial content – video content created with WPC partners that look at specific issues in depth, such as how LNG could transform the transport and logistics industry, with Shell. These partners were encouraged to host the content on their own websites to widen access to the content.
WPC members, and the public, could access content through the WPC’s Twitter account. Users could scroll through the content, and engage in conversation about the issues by using the hashtag #JourneyOfTheDrop. The Twitter account posed questions linked to the content to encourage debate and interaction e.g. “Which political, economic and industrial shifts do you think have impacted on long-term energy requirements?”
This campaign led to the highest levels of engagement that the WPC has even received on Twitter, demonstrating the added value video content brings.
Targets & Statistics
Please see supporting Reflections document. As this was the first time the WPC had used video content at the World Petroleum Congress, there were no previous benchmarks for comparison.
Financials
The WPC did not invest financially in this project – the revenue was raised through the sponsorship of editorial pieces across the programme, created by ITN Productions. ‘Journey of the Drop’ and its publicity encouraged participation from the oil and gas community, and strengthened partnerships with WPC members, as well as creating a suite of content for the Congress.
WPC invested time and resource in engaging the community and network with ‘Journey of the Drop’ and its positive stories, which has improved relations and attendance at WPC events, which could potentially lead to commercial gains in the long term.
Thanks to the strong working relationship with ITN Productions, WPC could draw on 60 years of news making heritage, to create a suite of video content, covering themes that will resonate with its global membership for years to come.
What would we do differently?
Following on from the success of Journey of the Drop 2017, the WPC will be collaborating with ITN Productions again to create a programme in 2018. We will be exploring the following issues that have come to the fore with our members:
- Leadership and good governance – those in charge at companies need to ‘lead the way’ to show good leadership
- Responsibility – leadership in demonstrating good and safe working operations for employees, stakeholders, communities and the environment, making the industry a good partner with which to work, and a good neighbour for the communities the industry touches
- Sustainability – the role of the industry in tackling climate change
- Raising standards in the industry – how companies are growing to become more responsible
- Energy poverty and access to poverty - energy poverty alleviation initiatives, meeting universal energy access targets
We are very much looking forward to creating this year’s programme and inviting new partners to join us.
Feedback & Testimonials
“It was a great week and fascinating to see such a professional process on the ITN production. Many thanks. We are VERY pleased with the end result.”
Russell Hoare, JKX Oil & Gas
“Thanks so much for everything. Looking forward to getting stuck in to the promotion.”
Cara McFayden, Price Forbes
“The film looks great, we are extremely happy with the ITN approach and the end result. Everything was professionally handled and we felt in safe hands throughout the process.”
Paul Root, Goodwin International
Wider impact
As a large international association, WPC wanted to create video content that would unify the membership through common issues and goals, as well as encourage participation and engagement within WPC events and initiatives.
When designing the marketing strategy for ‘Journey of the Drop’, it became apparent that starting a conversation around the content would engage the audience – particularly through social media where environmental and social issues promote lively discussion and activity. The content calendar for the extensive social media campaign ensured the video content would connect people with global issues, and improve understanding of debates within the oil and gas sector.
The introduction of video content to the WPC was particularly successful at engaging the Youth Forum, with young leaders from Russia, Spain, Brazil and Canada actively sharing the content via social media, and encouraging delegates at the Congress to watch ‘Journey of the Drop’. This engagement is of special importance as WPC is keen to engage the future leaders within the energy sector, as the industry gears up for a ‘crew change’ at the major national exporters and producers.
As outlined with the Reflections document, the video content was curated and shared to maximise the impact of ‘Journey of the Drop’ and raise the profile of the WPC within the sector.
