CASE STUDY
MEDIA RELATIONS & THOUGHT LEADERSHIP: OCEANX
The Challenge
Ray and Mark Dalio hired The TASC Group to assist with launching OceanX, an initiative to raise awareness and increase interest in ocean exploration around the world. Uniting cutting-edge technology, fearless science, compelling storytelling and educational experiences, OceanX works to inspire and connect people around the world with their oceans. TASC’s challenge was to position the nonprofit and its team of scientists as subject matter experts in the ocean exploration space. TASC also promoted OceanX’s flagship youth education initiative, the Young Explorers Program, designed to inspire the next generation of scientists, offering 15 students from around the world the rare opportunity to travel aboard the revolutionary OceanXplorer. TASC’s goal was to help build an advocacy movement that would make ocean exploration as inspiring and relevant to the public as space exploration has historically been.
The Challenge
Ray and Mark Dalio hired The TASC Group to assist with launching OceanX, an initiative to raise awareness and increase interest in ocean exploration around the world. Uniting cutting-edge technology, fearless science, compelling storytelling and educational experiences, OceanX works to inspire and connect people around the world with their oceans. TASC’s challenge was to position the nonprofit and its team of scientists as subject matter experts in the ocean exploration space. TASC also promoted OceanX’s flagship youth education initiative, the Young Explorers Program, designed to inspire the next generation of scientists, offering 15 students from around the world the rare opportunity to travel aboard the revolutionary OceanXplorer. TASC’s goal was to help build an advocacy movement that would make ocean exploration as inspiring and relevant to the public as space exploration has historically been.
The Strategy
TASC worked with OceanX to launch the organization from day one, guiding long-term strategy for pioneering programs around the world and for launching groundbreaking research vessels and submarines. TASC helped develop foundational messaging, media trained its senior leaders, promoted its new programming, culled and crafted powerful individual storylines and solidified meaningful partnerships with science institutes, media partners and high-profile funders. TASC promoted the nonprofit’s official launch with a star-studded event in New York City, its “Oceans: Our Blue Planet” giant-screen film coproduced with BBC Earth, its “Unseen Oceans” exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History, its corporate partnership with Airbnb, numerous explorative research missions and the organization’s involvement in high profile events like 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Abu Dhabi (COP28) and the World Economic Forum.
TASC focused media efforts on outlets that covered a variety of target audiences including millennials, the tech industry, thought leaders in the scientific community and the general public.
The Results
TASC generated over 600 media placements in international, national and local media, yielding over 500 million media impressions in the targeted audiences. Coverage included a segment with ABC’s Good Morning America in which anchor Will Reeve participated in a one-mile-deep dive on one of OceanX’s submarines, as well as coverage by Mashable, CNBC, Yahoo! Finance, MSNBC, Forbes, The New York Times, HuffPost, Wired, The Daily Mail, Fast Company, Scientific American, Popular Science, The New Yorker, National Geographic and ABC News. The work yielded over 193 million social media impressions and elicited engagement from many different outlets and audiences.
TASC’s strategic outreach bolstered the public profile of OceanX, which went on to host world leaders at COP28. In addition to securing in-person coverage of OceanX events at COP28, TASC placed stories in international publications including TIME, EuroNews, POLITICO Europe’s “Who’s Hot at COP” newsletter, the Pulitzer Center and The National.
OceanX was subsequently invited to livestream from a deep-sea submersible for the first time in history at the World Economic Forum in Davos and launch a new National Geographic series, OceanXplorers, following a team of scientists aboard OceanX’s research vessel. As a result of TASC’s work, OceanX is now recognized as a key player in the ocean advocacy space, sharing major scientific discoveries in top scientific journals and utilizing compelling media about the oceans to capture the attention of a global audience. TASC’s work with URI won two Public Relations Society of America Big Apple Awards.
MEDIA COVERAGE
