Jones Bros Ruthin is one of Wales’ leading construction, civil engineering and site management contractors. Based in Ruthin, North Wales, the company has over thirty years experience, turning over around £30 million a year and employing 240 full time operatives.

Jones Bros Ruthin has completed a number of high profile projects through the years, but none more so than the construction of a major new motor racing circuit, Trac Mon on the Isle of Anglesey, off the coast of North West Wales.

The £3.4 million project was the first race track built in the UK for seven years and represented a major coup for the company.

Too good an opportunity to miss

As a company director with a broad range of responsibilities (including overseeing marketing and communications), John Dielhof recognised the potential PR value of Trac Mon to Jones Bros Ruthin.

Responding to this opportunity Jones Bros Ruthin contacted Frontier PR with the specific brief of maximising the profile of their involvement with the completed track.

With a broad range of experience delivering PR and communications for the construction sector, Frontier PR’s David Innes-Edwards understood that a project this technical required thorough preparation and research.

Said David: “Jones Bros Ruthin were very clear about their requirements, which included market exposure, and Frontier PR was contracted on that basis. We initially visited the site to meet all the partners involved in the project, including the designers, Capita Symonds, the Site Manager and the Track Manager, ensuring that all key stakeholders were fully involved.”

Frontier PR quickly established that although the construction of a racetrack was something of a ‘one off’ for the industry, many of the processes undertaken were related closely to Jones Bros Ruthin’s more everyday civil engineering projects, such as highway construction, plant hire and general site management.

Any effective PR had to communicate this connection to the market.

“This is a unique project not just for Jones Bros Ruthin but for the UK Civil Engineering industry as a whole. Race tracks of this size and quality are not built very often so it was imperative that we seized the moment and generated profile within the relevant trade publications.” John Dielhof, Director, Jones Bros Ruthin

The PR solution

It was agreed that due to the uniqueness and newsworthiness of the project, a high profile media relations campaign would be the best strategy to employ. Utilising its knowledge of the sector, Frontier PR set about developing a target list of key journalists and media titles.

Says David; “We established four key messages to convey to the market via the media, which where:

• that Jones Brothers is a leading company in its field,

• that it delivers a diverse range of projects and solutions,

• the company has atrack record of delivering projects on time and on budget,

• it has the expertise, equipment and man power to deliver.”

Frontier PR proceeded to develop a number of tailored press releases and comprehensive supporting information to be targeted at the key construction and civil engineering media.

David continues: “We highlighted some innovative approaches implemented by Jones Brothers. These included the very high specification track surface, and measures taken to prevent environmental damage, including the quarrying of all stone on site rather than transporting it from elsewhere. This saved over 3,500 return truck journeys and the subsequent CO2 emissions and local disruption.”

The results

The campaign was very successful both in terms of the amount and quality of the coverage generated.

Says John: “The different media highlighted the various aspects of the project, some focusing on the racetrack surface, whilst others went into detail on other technical aspects.”

John concludes: “Coverage was secured in most of the targeted publications, and the key messages identified at the start of the campaign where all covered.”

Said David: “We were very satisfied with the campaign results. We generated eight individual pieces of coverage. Campaign evaluation revealed that the value of the coverage generated paid for the campaign 50 times over.”

“Our expectations were high, but we were very impressed with how Frontier PR really took the time to understand what had been undertaken, and consider how it related to each of our target markets.” John Dielhof, Director, Jones Bros Ruthin.

"We were very pleased with the volume and variety of coverage we received, especially the double page article in the New Civil Engineer which is the leading publication in its field."