Cammell Laird shiprepairers and shipbuilders

Polaris’ adventure into maritime PR began in shipbuilding.

One of our first maritime clients was the famous 200-year-old Merseyside shipbuilder Cammell Laird, builder of some of Britain’s most famous ships including the HMS Prince of Wales, the Mauretania, the Windsor Castle, the confederate raider the CSS Alabama and two Arc Royal aircraft carriers to name just a few.

We delivered a wide range of retained PR services to the resurgent shipyard for more than 12 years including helping manage the PR for the biggest commercial shipbuilding project in Britain for 30 years the RRS SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH polar ship.

Objective

Raise awareness and build reputation of brand locally, nationally and internationally.

Raise awareness of the then management team’s vision to diversify the business from ship repair and refit into naval and commercial ship building as well as nuclear, renewables and offshore.

Showcase importance of the company as wealth and skilled job creator for the Merseyside region and maritime industry with 3000 suppliers and more than 1500 workers employed directly and indirectly.

Services provided:

Media management including press releases, press conference management, crisis PR and broadcast media spokesman, liaison with shipyard’s customers including press teams from Royal Navy, Royal Fleet Auxiliary, Ministry of Defence, NERC, British Antarctic Survey and wide range of ship owners.
Copywriting and content production for LinkedIn and Twitter, speeches, website and brochure design and writing read:

RRS SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH ROYAL NAMING BROCHURE

CAMMELL LAIRD SUBMARINES

CAMMELL LAIRD FELLOWSHIP BROCHURE

Creative design

Impact

Managed media, with customer press teams, for numerous high profile events including three major press conferences for RSS SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH. All three events the steel cutting, hull in the water and Royal Christening were attended by Sir David and a large number of national, regional and trade press.

The final event, the Royal Naming, was attended by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and 2000 members of the public.

We further managed the media for the relaunching of the Cammell Laird name, a £1billion 25-year contract with the Royal Fleet Auxiliary as well as managing the media around two contracts worth £40million each to build the flight decks for the UK’s two new aircraft carrier the HMS QUEEEN ELIZABETH AND HMS PRINCE OF WALES.

We helped build the reputation of the company with media coverage consistently emphasising key messages around quality of facilities, depth of skills and quality of supply chain.

Wrote applications for numerous award wins including a number of Business of the Year, Business Person of the Year awards with the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo Business Awards and the Wirral Business Awards as well as a successful honours application.