A yearlong social media campaign by leading UK Shower Manufacturer, Roman Limited, has won the CIPD (Chartered Institute of Professional Development) award for Innovation in Social Media. The original campaign, which was named Project 252, documented a year in the life of the shower manufacturer through captioned photos. There was one photo taken and shared across the company’s website and social media platforms every working day throughout 2012 (252 in total) – each with a full explanation.
The campaign saw all staff from the company getting involved at one time or another, by providing photographs, being in photographs and following the project throughout the year. The captions were very clearly aimed at internal and external communication of roles and scope of activity.
It became a useful internal communications exercise for Roman employees, giving every department and person a real insight into different areas of the company. Many Roman employees are located UK wide, working remotely, including their installation team and sales team.
Alongside this Roman has diversified greatly as a business over the last 10 years, with the addition of a solid surface manufacturing plant, an online retail business selling homewares and more recently they set up a subsidiary business in Kuala Lumpur, Roman Asia, which has been developed to serve the South East Asian and Australasian market. Project 252 became a useful cross-business communications exercise.
Being a photo-led campaign, Project 252 was quick and easy for all employees, suppliers, customers and other followers to digest. A photograph would be uploaded onto Flickr every day with a brief caption, it was then shared on Roman’s Twitter and Facebook feeds, before being uploaded onto the Roman website.
Every department at Roman was photographed at least once during the project, along with suppliers, customers, the company’s industry body (The Bathroom Manufacturers Association), members of the bathroom press and the company’s products.
It was the centenary year for the CIPD awards and as such, they received a record number of entries. Other winners at the event included Pepsico, Greggs and Virgin Money.
David Osborne, Managing Director at Roman commented: “Project 252 was a fantastic success for us as a business. It brought employees together, helped build relationships with customers and suppliers, and gave a real insight to all our followers, into Roman as a business. It highlighted the fact we are a British manufacturer, along with how we insource rather than outsource as a business. There are so many different aspects to Roman as a business and communicating what each different department does on a daily basis is not always easy. Project 252 helped us break down these barriers. This award is the icing on the cake for us and we are delighted that Project 252 has been recognised as such an innovative success. We are carrying on this fantastic idea in a less formalised way, with regular photos continuing to be shared on social media.”
