The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative (MITEI), MIT’s hub for energy research, education, and outreach, engaged the Belfort Group to help in preparing to release a highly anticipated new report about energy storage technologies. The Future of Storage report, as it would be known, collected input from globally-recognized engineers, chemists, economists, and policy experts to lay out the ways in which storage could decarbonize the global power grid and help combat climate change. MITEI needed to ensure that the report’s publication would not only reach but be understood by key audiences, including regulators and lawmakers in American and foreign governments.
After extensive intakes with the authors of the report, BG developed a nuanced set of personas aimed at categorizing the audiences for the report and how best to reach them. These were followed by media-friendly messaging, pitches, and briefing materials that condensed the key takeaways of the report into packages tailored for specific outlets, social media platforms, and high-level meetings. Finally, BG’s Creative practice developed a three-minute animated video summarizing the report’s findings for social media distribution.
MITEI’s rollout of the report was a huge success, with media coverage in The Washington Post, Boston NPR station WBUR, a bevy of energy industry publications, and more. The report was also introduced to regulators, lawmakers, and their staffs at key receptions in Washington, DC and beyond. By condensing the complex but critical findings of the report to accessible key points, BG was able to provide understandable summaries of the report’s conclusions to targeted audiences and the channels that best reached them.
