Success Story: Communication campaign for LUMI in spring/summer 2022

NCC presenting the success story

NCC Finland

A communication campaign was created to cover LUMI’s ISC22 conference activities and the LUMI inauguration in order to maximise the media visibility for LUMI during these events (ISC on 29 May – 2 June 2022, LUMI inauguration on 13 June 2022).

Technical/scientific Challenge:

Communication campaign, objectives:

• to gain more visibility and awareness for LUMI especially in the European HPC & AI communities, policy makers and other stakeholders
• highlight the impact of data and high‐performance computing on different areas of society
• to point out that LUMI provides previously unseen possibilities to impact future well‐being by speeding up European and Finnish competitiveness and green transition
• highlight LUMI’s technical & sustainability features

Impact:

The careful communication campaign planning resulted in an astonishing visibility for LUMI around the world: LUMI was part of 1270 articles, and the communication campaign potentially reached 3,5 billion people around the globe (measured by Meltwater’s analytic tools). In social media, the campaign got 5,26 million views (impressions), 12 800 reactions (engagement) and 209 posts (own and earned).

Benefits:

We could not have reached the media visibility gained alone – collaboration with the press release distribution and translations was key. Also supporting activities in social media were important for the campaign.

Solution:

A communication campaign was created to cover LUMI’s ISC22 conference activities and the LUMI inauguration in order to maximise the media visibility for LUMI during these events (ISC on 29 May – 2 June 2022, LUMI inauguration on 13 June 2022).

• The aim was to maximise the visibility gained by LUMI’s Top500/Green500/HPCG rankings, released during ISC22, by focusing the messages on LUMI’s technical features and sustainability features. Press releases were sent internationally, mainly to tech‐focused media.
• Messages during LUMI’s inauguration had a strong focus on LUMI’s impact to the society, research and industry, releases sent to a very wide audience covering also non‐tech media. Additionally, main media was approached with targeted pitches to raise interest.

Comprehensive social media plan was created and implemented: the plan covered ISC22 and LUMI inauguration: social media activities around these events started in the beginning of May and lasted until week after the inauguration.

NCC Finland did collaboration with the following NCCs during the communication campaign: NCCs Belgium, Denmark, Czech Republic, Estonia, Norway, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland. In addition, we did collaboration directly with the EuroHPC JU. Furthermore, the following organizations were included in the communication campaign: Ministry of Education and Culture, Finland, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, Finland, European Commission’s representation in Finland and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Close cooperation was done with the organisations involved mainly on getting quotes from relevant bodies for the press releases, making translations to national languages, distribution of the press releases, and sharing the news in social media. EuroCC funding was referred to in the press materials.

Key points before agreeing on project:

CSC discussed with other NCCs at the LUMI PR interest group meetings, and arranged meetings with other organisations involved separately.