Saint-Gobain Group

Saint-Gobain products make a difference to the comfort of Polish people’s lives – in homes, offices and schools. One of S-G’s key competences is to create solutions that increase acoustic comfort. To position S-G as a competence leader in this area, we took advantage of the fact that there is low awareness of the impact of noise on our lives – especially on the 5 million children in poorly soundproofed schools. We provoked a nationwide discussion and, at the culmination, gave a voice to those who can make a difference. S-G talks are underway with Polish school principals about upgrading selected facilities.

Challenge

Poland is home to 37 million people, including nearly 5 million children. We are becoming more and more concerned with comfort every year. With one exception. In Poland, as both experts and journalists point out, there is practically no awareness of the negative impact of noise on the quality of private life and work. However, the most affected by this problem are Polish children who attend schools built with old technology, which are among the noisiest places in Poland.
The main objective of the activities was to provoke a nationwide discussion on the impact of noise on the quality of private life and work of Poles, in particular on the development conditions of children, most affected by this problem in schools.
A specific objective was to position S-G as a competence leader in acoustic comfort.

Strategy

It assumed the launch of a project that would be so unique in terms of the impact of noise on the lives of Poles that it would attract the attention of the majority of Polish media. An important element was the possibility of reaching regional and local media, which in Poland collectively generate much greater coverage than the national media. This, in turn, was to allow for the involvement in the discussion on the impact of noise on the lives of Poles, especially children, of all parties affected by this problem – both ‘ordinary’ citizens, as well as school principals, building investors who decide on the quality of buildings, journalists as well as experts.

An additional strategic assumption was to enable every interested Pole to take part in the discussion. The campaign was also to take on a format that would allow the initiative to be continued and expanded in the future.

Implementation

We have implemented the first such detailed report on the presence of noise in the lives of Poles. It was prepared by experts from S-G and an invited partner, the Comfort of Silence Association, whose mission is to care for the acoustic comfort of Poles.

This was the first such in-depth study of noise in Poland conducted in 7 major agglomerations, in each of which we selected 6 categories – the noisiest city centres, streets, housing estates, the quietest housing estates, noise in cultural facilities, shopping malls and sound icons – places characteristic for each metropolis.

This structure of the report made it possible to identify the noisiest and quietest places in Poland, but also the same for each region of Poland. This, in turn, gave us a pretext to contact the editors of the national media, but also most regional and local media, which together guarantee greater coverage and more in-depth coverage than the national media.

We measured noise levels in Polish schools and compared them with appealing examples of noise generation – for example, the noise generated by a metro train entering a station. The levels of these noises turned out to be similar to those in Polish schools during school lunches, for example.

We launched the report at a press conference in Warsaw attended by dozens of journalists. On the same day, we also contacted more than 100 regional and local media. We provided all of them with the report and press releases, in which experts from S-G and Stow Komfort Ciszy interpreted the results for the whole of Poland and individual agglomerations.

To the media In addition, we sent recordings of the experts’ speeches to the regions, later used by radio journalists.
During a meeting with the media, we announced the organisation of an online conference (COVID-19), on the impact of noise on our lives and how to combat noise. The conference was open to everyone. We also invited school principals, building experts and investors as well as journalists to participate.

Some journalists mentioned the conference when describing the results of the report. At the same time as publishing the report on the social media channels of the S-G Group and its brands, the Comfort of Silence Association and the Copernicus Science Centre, which we invited to partner in the project – we informed the public about the event.
An element of the conference’s communication was the invitation to cooperate with one of the most popular Polish youtubers – Radek Kotarski, creator of the largest popular science channel. He inaugurated the Polimaty 2 series with a jointly produced episode on the impact of noise on our lives. The message was to build another reason, after media reports, to be interested in the issue of noise in our lives.

Radek Kotarski and experimenters from the Copernicus Science Centre then spoke alongside acoustics experts at the conference that crowned the project.

Outcomes

Noise issues, based on the Poland in decibels report, were covered in 09 and 10.2020 by all major national media, including the most popular high-profile morning programmes, radio and daily newspapers.

The results were commented on by S-G experts, positioning the Group as a leader in the field of acoustic comfort.
Importantly, the key regional and local media around the largest Polish agglomerations devoted their publications to the subject of noise. The total reach of the publications was 4.9 million viewers.

The longest TV programme devoted to the report lasted almost 8 minutes.

The online noise conference was attended by nearly 1,000 people – school principals, journalists, experts and mostly ordinary citizens.

Awards

The ‘In pursuit of silence’ campaign won the Bronze Clip award in the corporate PR category at the Golden Clips 2021, the largest PR industry competition in Poland and a distinction in the effectiveness of the year category at the PR Wings 2021 competition.

The campaign was also among top 5 the finalists of the European Excellence Awards 2020, the largest PR industry competition in Europe, in the regional category Poland, Ukraine and Moldova, and the SABRE Awards 2021, the largest PR industry competition in the world, in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East, Africa), in the Real Estate & Construction category.