How to promote fast and simple scholarly article access to a suspicious institutional audience
Brand Development • Brand Positioning • Conference Management • Customer Insight • Design • Film Production • Social Media Assets
Education & Research • Technology
Pimento was tasked with clearly explaining the benefits and simple process for GetFTR, a service for the academic community that streamlines access to research on discovery tools and scholarly platforms.
The toughest challenge was to convince the suspicious librarian community that publisher and institutional interests were aligned but at the same time, we needed to manage a committee client constituting the five major publishing houses.
After conducting research amongst the librarian community, we gained the insight that assertive marketing messaging and statements of intent would be widely rejected by the community which hated any sense of being marketed to; clear and sober explanation of service functionality was needed to bring them on side.
This led to a strategy of employing active listening initiatives to win hearts and minds and engaging the community through webinars and explanatory video content walk-throughs. Proof of concept was provided through testimonial support from publishing partners and integrators.
A tight Pimento team worked on the project, comprising Jeremy Hemmings (Hurley Burley Partners) and Nick Band (Berlin), with Peter Foster from Field & Track providing the research insight. A range of deliverables was produced, spanning explanatory videos, webinar presentations and publisher seminar material, plus a range of other collateral material.
The results were very positive, with sentiment amongst the tough-to-please librarian community improving considerably, many new publishers and integrators encouraged to come on board to integrate the new tool and much positive feedback from the academic communities the tool was ultimately serving.
Katie Baker, Comms Director and Chair of GetFTR Comms Committee, commented on Pimento’s role:
“Pimento’s full strategic approach to our brief – supported by extensive sector research, transparency and collaboration in development and adaption to changing priorities – ensured delivery of a truly first class output from brief, to research, development to delivery which had a demonstrable positive impact on our community”
