MTA AlCan ONE Virtual Completion Event
The Project
The Fearey team worked with MTA to determine what elements of the project to leverage to attract the attention of local and national press, potential partners, governmental leaders, business leaders and more. Fearey assisted in arranging MTA to host a special AlCan ONE celebratory completion event with honored and distinguished stakeholders as guests, until the COVID-19 pandemic struck the U.S. It quickly became clear that a big, in-person celebration had evaporated, so both teams immediately shifted plans and began outlining what a compelling virtual event would look like – one that highlighted the massive, historic nature of this project and what it means to both Alaskan press and tech and government press throughout the U.S.
Our Results
In terms of messaging and storytelling to media, Fearey planned to emphasize the completion of AlCan ONE as both a game-changer for Alaska’s internet infrastructure and a reflection of MTA delivering on its big promises to its members in a safe, efficient and problem-free manner, particularly in the midst of a global pandemic.
We didn’t want to have just a spokesperson delivering a scripted speech, so our team incorporated a host, various participants from MTA and a high-quality, prerecorded video with MTA CEO Michael Burke, developed alongside Hybrid Color Films. We were also able to receive committments from various Alaska politicians to send either video or written remarks on the project. Both teams worked together in tandem to create a bank of AlCan ONE completion assets to share with media and other participants via Dropbox, including the video, fact sheet, press release and a variety of corresponding visual components.
Our team also created a system that allowed press to log in to the video platform and submit questions for the various participants, making it a virtual press conference in addition to a presentation, handled seamlessly behind-the-scenes by various team members from MTA and Fearey throughout the country.
In total, this campaign resulted in 92 media placements and an estimated 65.6 million impressions – nine local placements and 18 national/international placements – which exceeded our initial objectives. On the national media front, this event garnered coverage in Associated Press, CBC (Canada), Telecompetitor and Lightwave, to name a few. In terms of local, Alaska-specific media, this event garnered coverage in top outlets such as Alaska Public Media, Anchorage Daily News and the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman.
Between the various multimedia elements that went into the completion event and the media relations results that stemmed from it, it marked a highly successful completion to a landmark project and further elevated MTA as an innovative and forward-looking player in tech and telecommunications, in Alaska and beyond.