ARAIN Case Study
Bringing AI to Regional Australia & Tapping Federal Funding
Situation
The Australian Regional AI Network (ARAIN) was engaged by Australia’s Regional AI Network, ARAIN, to 1) help secure more Federal Government funding and 2) drive 7,500 signups from regional businesses in 6 months, all while alleviating fears about AI and job losses by rural communities, particularly in agriculture, fisheries, and new energy sectors.
Action
To engage Federal Government, we authored successfully placed an editorial in Australia’s most direct channel to federal policymakers, The Canberra Times, on behalf of their spokesperson. This editorial was not just chock-full of data proving the national business case for greater investment into AI in regional communities, but also stressed our spokesperson’s heritage growing up in rural Gippsland to appeal to/appease rural readers.
To engage regional businesses, we followed this with a rural-targeting pitch and video news release (VNR) offering interviews at ARAIN’s SXSW stand to a series of regional TV and online channels.
Results
As a result, Minister Ed Husic (the man in charge of future funding for ARAIN!) was so impressed by the Canberra Times editorial, he visited Leonie at SXSW and gave a supporting quote to TV media, raving about the exciting possibilities of AI for regional Australia. Our VNR/pitching achieved 104M rural eyeballs across The Canberra Times, ABC Rural, ABC Online, Sky News AM, Farm Online, Farm Rural, Stock & Land, Queensland Country Life, The Land, and more, causing ARAIN to easily achieve its 7,500 signups goal in just 1 month – 5 months early!