The Brief: 

The Royal Canal Greenway is a scenic 130km walking and cycling amenity stretching alongside the historic 225-year-old canal. The country’s longest Greenway, traversing through Kildare, Meath, Westmeath and Longford, the €12 million project was co-ordinated by Waterways Ireland. Springboard Communications worked with Waterways Ireland, as well as local councils in the respective counties, to develop a clear and effective media and social strategy for the launch in March 2021.

The objectives for Springboard Communications were to:

• Raise awareness of the Royal Canal Greenway among a domestic visitor market
• Achieve national and local coverage of the launch
• Increase engagement rates across social media platforms

The Execution:

Liaising with Waterways Ireland and tourism bodies within the counties of Kildare, Meath, Westmeath and Longford, Springboard Communications conducted a clear strategy and planning session to inform the following activities:

• Developing a compelling media story including clear narrative and messaging
• Drafting and issuing a national media release, along with dedicated local releases for the four counties
• Targeted outreach to key journalists
• Management of media campaign including organisation of media interviews
• Organisation of media trips
• Creation of compelling content, including imagery, to be shared across social media platforms
• Digital advertising planning and execution to amplify the launch across all platforms

Due to Covid-19 restrictions in February 2021, we worked with the client team to adapt launch activity in line with guidelines. This included pivoting from a physical launch to a virtual one, which was received with great success.   

Results: 

• 75 pieces of coverage across broadcast and print media
  

  

• Package on Royal Canal Greenway launch by Sinéad Hussey North East Correspondent with RTÉ. This reached over 935k viewers between RTÉ News: Six One and RTÉ News: News at One.
• Listenership of 1.59M across national and local radio stations.
• Online readership of 1.05B and print media readership of 1.78M.
• 5k social shares – Average engagement rate above industry average at 7.4% (Twitter), 4.6% (Facebook) and 2.97% (Instagram) respectively.

Testimonial:

“The launch of the Royal Canal Greenway was a culmination of work over a number of years, and we needed the communications campaign to hit both national and local media along with relevant target audiences on social media. 

Springboard Communications partnered with us for a hugely successful communications campaign. Not only did they deliver the results we needed, but they worked with us to adapt to the evolving challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic.” 

Katrina McGirr, Waterways Ireland, Strategic Corporate and Promotional Communications

Find out more about our services or get in touch today at info@springboardcommunications.ie.