Title	THE ROBOT PROJECT
Brand	KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Product/Service	EDUCATION IN ENGINEERING
Category	C01. USE OF DIGITAL IN A PR CAMPAIGN
Entrant Company	FAMILJENPANGEA Stockholm, SWEDEN
Advertising Agency	FAMILJENPANGEA Stockholm, SWEDEN

Name	Company	Position
Johan Helander	Familjenpangea	Creative Director
Tomas Hempel	Familjenpangea	Art Director
Erik Otterman	Familjenpangea	Film/Photo/Editing
Karolina Von Melén	Familjenpangea	Production Manager
Anna Kagervall	Familjenpangea	Project Manager
Helena Wearn	Familjenpangea	Production Manager
Henrik Berglund	Familjenpangea	Editing
Annifrid Pålsson	KTH	Boss
Åsa Ankarcrona	KTH	Superboss
Hillevi Good	KTH	Project Manager

The Campaign

CHALLENGE AND OBJECTIVES: At the KTH Mechatronics program, only one out of ten students are women. One of the reasons is the engineering is seen as traditionally male and not very exciting. This is something KTH* wanted to change by making Mechatronics available for a wider audience. *KTH is one of northern Europe's greatest Tech Universities. SOLUTION Finding a female role model with a sincere interest for Mechatronics. EXECUTION The music artist Robyn became the perfect role model. Robyn is a strong individual who goes her own way and she just happens to love robots. In order to attract her attention, nine students were given the assignment to build a dancing robot in tribute to her. We thought the best way of telling her was to let a little test-robot tell her. We shot a film with a small robot telling the world about the project and put on Youtube. Medias like Pitchfork, Wired, Mashable, The Atlantic and NME picked it up. The news was out and from there the project was covered from the end of 2013 to the beginning of 2014. OUTCOME Two weeks after the launch Robyn emailed us. She wanted to be part of the project. During three months she met up with the students several times voluntarily! Robyn came with some great input regarding the look and functions of the robot. She showed true interest in Technology and Mechatronics and really inspired the students to do some great work.

The Brief

A short term goal was to increase the number of female applicants from 8 % to 12 % (all via PR, except €3000 put on Facebook Adverts). A long term goal is that KTH represents society in its whole. In other words, as many women as men.

Results

AWARENESS - 15 million people reached worldwide. - Over 200 news articles (PR-value: €700 000) - Female followers on Facebook increased with 40%. - KTH's Facebook page increased from 14,000 to 27,000. - 50,000 unique visitors to the project blog (www.kth.se/robot). ACTION - Female Technical applicants went up from only 8% last year to 15% this year (a 90% increase). All time high! - 1,579 more student applicants in 2014 than the year before (from 39,629 in 2013 to 41,208 in 2014). OTHER Each student is worth up to €5000 per semester. KTH has increased the number of students with 76 % since 2007. Their biggest rival, Chalmers in Gothenburg, has decreased with 4 % during the same period.

Execution

Nine Mechatronics students were given the assignment to build a robot in tribute to Robyn. The students were given a budget of €5 000 for the construction of the robot. The project was launched via a short movie, where a small robot tells the world about the student's ambitions. Two weeks later, the students were contacted by Robyn who wanted to meet up with the students. After the meeting she became a part of the group and came visit several times. Robyn had great part in the development. The "dancing robot" was shown to the world in spring 2014, at various KTH-related events where the target group could meet the robot IRL/AFK. Robyn was awarded to KTH's Great Price (€170 000) for her voluntary involvement in the project. Former recipients are Daniel Ek (Spotify), Niklas Zennström (Skype) and Hans Rosling (Professor in international health).

The Situation

KTH is a institution with a very small media budget. All communication is about creating content that generates earned media. Their target group is between 18-28 years old, which means they have communicate through alternative media and methods. Therefore they continuously scan young peoples perception of engineering and adjust the communication to be relevant in their world. That can be; building a robot or making music through radiation or creating a perfume that smells Technology. Solutions that combines KTH's competence with something that attracts young people.

The Strategy

In 2013 KTH Mechatronics had one of the lowest proportions of women of all programs at KTH. Only eight percent of students in grades four were women. The proportion of women has been fluctuated between five to ten percent in recent years. Generally the whole KTH is the percentage of women 31 percent. KTH assumed that some of the disparity, was due to the images reproduced from the education – a lot of robots that can be perceived as traditionally "masculine" (like cars, watercraft, segways) in a context where the majority of students are male. The aim was therefore to, within the education, launch a project that broke with the current perception of a Technology intensive education at KTH. We needed to show a different picture. The strategy was to merge KTH Mechatronics with a pop culture phenomena that appeals to an audience that traditionally are uninterested in Mechatronics.