So PR - An award-winning, multi-discipline PR company with a national & international client base.

CE Electric UK

We turned a negative situation around with a campaign targeted at the media & community stakeholders.

"This has been a groundbreaking initiative... never before have we undertaken a community programme on this scale, or experienced so little resistance. We are now using this programme as a blueprint for other areas of the business."
David Gill, customer liaison manager, CE Electric UK

Community resistance was preventing CE Electric UK from carrying out crucial safety work-but our campaign achieved stakeholder buy-in, and the programme became a success.

The context

CE Electric UK had a started 6-year programme of cutting trees away from low voltage overhead power lines across the region. Such work is vital in guarding against power interruptions and ensuring that no one (especially tree-climbing children and enthusiastic gardeners) comes into contact with power lines. However, more than half of private landowners and householders were refusing permission to cut trees. Turning off the power in order to cut them down was causing resentment, and there was potential for negative media coverage.

The task

We were asked to counter this negativity while protecting the CE Electric UK brand and its reputation across the communities in which it operates.

What we did

• We talked to all major stakeholders up-front, to elicit support and uncover objections 
  
• We employed a low-key, reactive, non-alarmist media-relations stance
  
• We produced a media holding statement and Q&A documents
  
• We developed an information leaflet for stakeholders, and posters for community notice-boards
  
• We set up and manned a community relations telephone line
  
• We held breakfast briefings/exhibitions for local-authority decision-makers from Newcastle to Scunthorpe, at which we showed a video re-enacting the electrocution of a child retrieving a ball from a tree
  
• We developed Community Update-a newsletter from CE Electric UK. It contains news on vegetation management updates and other corporate initiatives, along with a customer satisfaction survey
  
• We invited 2,000 local primary schools to apply for a free ‘chainsaw sculpture', carved from wood resulting from the tree-cutting programme
  

The results

• Permission refusals went from over 50% to under 5%
  
• 78 local authorities sent representatives to the breakfast briefings
  
• Local authorities and parish councils thanked CE Electric for keeping them informed
  
• There was no negative media interest whatsoever during the year of the campaign
  
• Contractors reported a positive response, and say the campaign made their job easier
  
• Over 40 applications were received for chainsaw sculptures