SkyCube

SunCheon Eco Trans

The Challenge

SkyCube is Korea’s first unmanned Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) that shuttles from Suncheon Bay Garden Expo site, the biggest garden of the nation in Suncheon City of the Jeollanamdo Province South Korea, to Suncheon Bay, a costal wetland located in Suncheon, Jeollanamdo Province. Powered by electricity, SkyCube is an environmentally friendly transit system without exhaust while representing a state-of-the-art unmanned vehicle. The SkyCube project was commenced in June 2011 based on the private investment agreement between POSCO, Korea’s largest steel maker and producer and Suncheon City, Jeollanamdo and officially began its commercial operation in April 2014.

Since SkyCube’s travel paths include Suncheon Bay and Suncheon Bay Garden, a number of issues were raised before its commercial opening including the concerns over possible environment degradation, safety and ticket prices. Although everything was ready to ensure eco-friendly and safe operation of the vehicle, negative articles accounted for 20 percent of the total media coverage before its opening. So, the challenge on the media relations front was to bring more visibility to SkyCube while enhancing its image by delivering right messages that address concerns over the vehicle upon its official opening.v

The Solution

PR House developed a media relations strategy designed to highlight the merits of SkyCube that can offset the negative publicity to raise its awareness and promote more positive news coverage.

Our focus was on developing articles about SkyCube emphasizing on its potential as a landmark of Suncheon whose design is in harmony with the nature, engaging in active communication with the press and delivering correct information with an emphasis on its advanced technology and features as a means of transportation to address negative issues.

We also gave many different angles to articles by adding information on travel destinations, and things to see and enjoy there and making technology-oriented promotion focusing on SkyCube being Korea’s first PRT.

Holding seasonal events such as a special ticket discount offer along with souvenir stamps targeting college students during summer vacation was well received.

Along with the media activities described above, we also relied on social network to generate viral effects, resulting in increasing online reservation rates and brand awareness.

The Result

After PR House launched PR activities, the number of positive articles increased more than seven folds than before while the percentage of negative ones was significantly down to 3.84 percent from about 20 percent. Our integrated communication activities led to more coverage, online viral effects and more exposure to broadcasting, successfully drawing nationwide interest from the public.

Seasonal events were added to general media activities. During a high season like autumn (October to November) when travelers are concentrated, coverage was up with the number of visitors to blog surpassing 2,000.