XPRIZE Foundation
How Green Rock Power The Most Audacious Foundation On The Planet
Preparing for lift-off. How we went about supercharging the content marketing of the world’s largest incentive prize company.
CLIENT
ROLE
Lead Strategic Content and Publishing partner
SPECIALISMS
Editorial/Social Strategy, Channel Planning, Social Creation/Production, Video Production, Brand Journalism, CRM, Publishing, Content Optimisation, Social Media Management, Paid Social Amplification, Documentary Production, Podcasting.
The Work
XPRIZE Foundation is the world’s most audacious incentivized prize company. Responsible for scientific breakthroughs that have positively impacted the future of the planet and even inspired how we will travel to others. The impact of XPRIZE work is felt the world over and has lead to the creation of billion-dollar industries from space travel to carbon neutrality. Their mission is simple; accelerate humanity to a future of abundance.
In 2019 XPRIZE Foundation approached Green Rock to reimagine how they could connect their groundbreaking work with a new generation of entrepreneurs, innovators and future optimists. Part of that mission was to help land a bigger slice of the audience within popular culture, not just the science community. It would require more than just refreshing the communications work. It needed an approach that would reimagine how content was commissioned, communicated and distributed. How could Green Rock take an organization with such a rich portfolio of stories and get them to think more like a broadcaster or a digital publisher and produce content specifically targeting channels, from social, to podcasts, to partnerships and reach a new audience?
“At XPRIZE, we set out in 2019 to become the world’s most talked-about foundation, and in collaboration with the publishing team at GreenRock, this year, we achieved our goal. The GreenRock team was instrumental in digging the footings, laying the foundations and building the first two floors. We’re excited to continue our partnership for a third year, leverage the global virtual operating system and build the ballroom”
Jay Kossifos, Chief Marketing Office, XPRIZE
Building the content strategy
Green Rock simplified the approach to content strategy, production and distribution. By utilising our audience-first data-led approach and integrating with XPRIZE Foundation’s own internal marketing team we were able to create a more agile and flexible resource. This allowed us to produce both campaign and editorial content for the foundation at speed and with huge efficiency. By simplifying both the creative development and amplification through one social publishing team, with integrated paid planning, we were able to move at pace from ideation to delivery.
We helped XPRIZE develop its own content franchises that could be used to tell stories from within its prize ecosystem. Video explainers, that got under the hood of the science with rich animations featuring team members, a weekly podcast Future Positive, featuring the brightest minds as they discussed radical ideas and the impact of the plane, to brand journalism where we created a weekly email newsletter publication, taking the best of XPRIZE and a point of view on the world, to engage readers every Sunday – radical optimism published.
In the first eighteen months, highlights included Future Positive, an Apple Top 75 podcast in the US, a weekly email publication reaching over 100,000 subscribers. We helped to launch 7 new prize initiatives, from a next-gen facemask challenge launched on TikTok, to the largest incentivized prize in history, XPRIZE Carbon Removal with Elon Musk. The launch alone reaching a social media audience of over 100 million and creating the most-watched live stream of Earth Day 2021, this was a momentous day for the team and one step closer to securing a more sustainable future for our planet.
Results
1214%
Net audience growth
120M+
Annual organic impressions
412%
Increase in engagement of target 18-24yr olds