Digging deep for science

Getting our hands dirty to support a good cause

Aruga dug deep to help launch The University of Queensland Institute for Molecular Bioscience (UQ IMB) citizen science program, Soils for Science, teaching Australians that the next major medical breakthrough could be buried in their backyards.

Our first campaign was a ground-breaking success, leveraging the school holidays to promote the Soils for Science program with targeted activity. This approach netted 60 media clips and reached an audience of 1.9M through PR and more than 100,000 through paid social media.

‘Digging’ these results, UQ IMB re-engaged Aruga to deliver a second, content-led campaign. We unearthed the people and stories behind the science with a suite of original copywriting, content and creative assets including feature articles, researcher profiles, graphic design, photography, videography, animation, newsletter management and organic social media.

Across the two campaigns, we encouraged the public to collect, log and send 10,000 backyard soil samples, helping Soils for Science sow the seeds towards its goal of collecting 100,000 samples.

Results

60

media clips

1.0M

audience reach from PR coverage

100K+

people reached via social media

2,540

clicks to campaign website

10K+

soil samples submitted to date

Deliverables

Interviews

Conducted interviews with Soils for Science research team.

Feature Articles

Development of long-form feature articles and profiles about research team.

Written Materials

Creation of media materials, including media releases, fact sheets and FAQs.

eDMs

Design and copywriting of monthly e-newsletter.

Social Media

Strategy, scheduling and design of monthly organic social media calendar.

Content Production

Pre-production, production and post-production of video content and photoshoot.

Delve deeper into the strategy behind this work

See under the bonnet

Campaign Highlights

Aruga_500x500 — Creation of engaging social media assets.

Aruga_500x5003 — Creation and production of 3x stellar 1-minute videos for the campaign.

Aruga_500x5002 — Development of in-depth articles, eDMs and other written materials.

Winning Tactics

Prioritising parent and family media outlets and positioning the science project activity as a fun school holiday activity.

Launching PR and paid social media activity concurrently to bring UQ IMB to the top of news feeds, resulting in 1,000 participant registrations within 24 hours of launch.

Pivoting to deliver an engaging educational concept for the video content to ensure UQ IMB achieved its objectives.

More Work

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The Little Red Company