The Brief
The Eurekas is an annual physics competition for students aged 11-16 in the UK and Ireland. It is part of the Institute of Physics’ (IOP) Limit Less campaign to diversify the range of people doing physics after the age of 16 and challenge students to see physics differently.
Following the successful launch of the Eurekas competition in 2022, IOP reappointed Barley to promote the 2023 competition.
In 2023 our objectives were to reach more of the campaign’s diverse target audiences and increase the number of submissions from 2022.
Insights and Approach
Our main target audience was adults – parents and teachers of students who would be supervising students to enter. We also wanted to reach 11–16-year-olds with a particular focus on those from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in physics.
To be fully inclusive and encourage entries on a wide range of hobbies, interests and causes, we developed a fresh theme for 2023, ‘how does physics power your passion?’
Armed with insights from the 2022 campaign evaluation we refined our approach. In 2023 this saw us bring in the support of influencers to spread the word, including the wonderfully charismatic teacher, Bobby Seagull, who challenged his students to think differently and mother and engineer, Dr Samira Ahmed, who produced charming and compelling videos to help introduce her audience to the competition.
We also secured physics industry bod, Alom Shaha and Eurekas ambassador, Shivani Dave, as judges alongside campaign creator and lead, Ray Mitchell, to ensure credibility and scientific accuracy.
The Outcome
We successfully doubled 2022’s submissions and increased the number of students and schools involved by roughly half.
The organic social media campaign led to half a million impressions and 10,000 engagements, while the paid social media campaign reached 200,000 people.
The 19 pieces of influencer content performed strongly, generating 50,000 video views, 112,000 impressions and 2,000 engagements.
Local media outreach in Leicester to announce the winner led to interviews with BBC Radio Leicester and Capital FM Leicestershire, which also aired on Smooth East Midlands. We also secured a TV interview with the competition winner and winning school principal broadcast on ITV News Central’s evening news programme and an article in Leicester Times.
100
%
increase in submissions
50
%
increase in students taking part
50
k
views of influencer video content
500
k
organic social media impressions
200
k
people reached via paid social media
