The East of England Development Agency (EEDA) has been shortlisted for an Institute of Public Relations (IPR) Excellence Award.  EEDA is only one of six entries going forward in the Integrated Campaign category.

The demand broadband campaign was developed in response to the government’s brief to increase the availability of broadband across the UK. There were clearly a great many people in the region that wanted broadband, but couldn’t get it. The challenge was to turn broadband into an issue and to get people who wanted it to take action. A website, www.demandbroadband.com, went live at the launch held in October attended by the region’s press.

The campaign was conceived and executed by Omobono, a Cambridge based marketing agency.

Ben Dansie, managing director of Omobono, said: "The focus of the campaign is to keep the issue in the spotlight by raising the profile of broadband and making individuals and businesses aware that they can do something to help themselves. Instead of simply putting pressure on suppliers, we’re helping them by using information on demand gathered from the website."

Sponsored by PIMS, the Excellence Awards recognise and reward best practice in public relations throughout the country, and acknowledge personal and team achievement at the highest professional level.

Vivienne Oxley, communications manager at EEDA said: "Demand broadband is an exciting campaign to work on.  The lack of broadband availability in the East of England is an important economic issue. The campaign has struck a cord with people; over 13,000 have already registered on our independent web site, www.demandbroadband.com.  As well as this, we sent out over 2,300 entry forms for our £3m Connecting Communities Competition which will make broadband available to whole communities across the region. The competition has now closed, and we plan to announce the winners in June."