Delivering strategic and tactical stakeholder communications for the Catapult Network
Find out how we enable the Catapult Network to engage and coordinate cross-Catapult updates to tell the Network’s success stories
Challenge
The Innovate UK Catapult Network sits at the hub of nine individual sector specific Catapults, working across high tech innovation in industries such as offshore wind, satellite, high value manufacturing, energy systems, digital, infrastructure and healthcare.
Its priority is to engage with stakeholders across central and local government, in business, research, academia and industry to enable awareness of how cutting-edge technology is making a difference to society, places, jobs and the UK economy.
Its key communications challenge is to engage and coordinate cross-Catapult activities and updates to tell the success stories of the whole network.
Solution
Strategy development
Since 2021 Leopard Co has supported the Catapult Network with tactical and strategic communications and marketing consultancy.
Working at a strategic level, Leopard Co has been responsible for delivering a functional communications strategy to facilitate more efficient and impactful routes to showcase the value Catapults add to the UK economy, employment and sustainability.
Central to this has been the creation of an Intranet using Monday.com as a collaboration platform. This aims to streamline communications and reduce email traffic, plus make it easier and faster to share important information, resources and assets.
The underlying principle in this new comms approach has been to make the transition as easy as possible, through the creation of simplified and branded boards as well as supplementary guides and drop-in sessions to aid easy adoption for all users – including those unfamiliar with the Monday.com platform.
Always on communications
Our robust social media strategy includes the creation of monthly calendars which feature key cross-Catapult themes, together with stories fed through from the nine individual Catapults. We utilise a tiered stakeholder targeting strategy, identifying key persons to engage with through the Catapult Network’s content, updated regularly to reflect government reshuffles.
Supporting this is a reactive, always-on news monitoring service. We identify topical stories where the Catapult Network can contribute to the conversation as a thought leader. Examples include Net Zero, COP, government announcements and research and innovation developments. Each of these enable us to positively reinforce the purpose and impact of the Catapult Network.
To facilitate the content calendar, our in-house Studio has created a suite of templated graphics to accompany reactive content, including short form video content that captures monthly achievements across the network.
We have also delivered other brand assets, including re-designing the Catapult Network’s prospectus and supporting in transitioning the brand to Innovate UK Catapult Network.
Impact
This has helped deliver a robust communications strategy for the Catapult Network, driving engagement with key audiences and stakeholders across central and local government, in business, research, academia and industry.
It has also resulted in creating an effective platform for communicating key activity and impact from across the nine individual Catapults, as well as Innovate UK, highlighting the excellent work they are delivering and raising awareness of how cutting-edge technology is making a difference to society, places, jobs and the UK economy.