Solar Cooking

Working in partnership, the University of Brighton and Eastbourne Borough Council asked Cobb PR to publicise their solar cooking experiment which was held on Eastbourne Beach on Monday 23rd July 2012.

Cobb PR made sure that the event was publicised through the media and we were also successful in securing coverage on the event itself in most of the regional media outlets.   

Key messages for Eastbourne Borough Council were:

• to promote Eastbourne as a desirable sunny tourist destination
• to raise awareness of their commitment to reducing emissions and embracing renewable energy sources

Dr Ioannis Pantelidis from the University of Brighton spoke on BBC Radio Sussex on the morning of the event which attracts 229,000 listeners a week. He reinforced the usefulness of solar power and thanked Eastbourne council for their support.

Sovereign FM also ran a story which publicised the event to their 23,000 weekly listeners.

During the event, BBC South East Today broadcast live from the beach on their 1pm news programme. They then used footage from the day on a longer feature on their 6.30pm show. An estimated 250,000 – 300,000 tune into BBC South East Today on a weekday.

The event appeared in two separate editions of The Argus which has a weekly circulation of 23,874. It was first used on page 2 of the 26 July 2012 edition as a news lead, and again on the 27 July 2012 as a longer story with a picture. Both stories included quotes from Councillor Gill Mattock stating the Council’s commitment to environmental projects. The photograph featured Councillor Mattock with Officer for Energy Initiatives, Nick Adlam, and two members from the University of Brighton Culinary Art Studio.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

A full story with picture was featured in the Eastbourne Herald which has a weekly circulation of 22,036. Again, Councillor Mattock was quoted and appeared with Nick Adlam, in the photograph.

Nick Adlam, Energy Initiatives Officer at Eastbourne Borough Council said: “Many thanks to Julie at Cobbs for getting this all together at short notice and for ensuring Eastbourne got to capitalise on the good weather. The PR machine was working well!