Business Challenge
During late 2004, GlobalSpec focused on aerospace engineering as its number one target for growth during the first half of 2005. Just 120,000 of the site’s 1.7 million current users held positions in aerospace and defense. The company asked Tech Image to explore opportunities that communicated user benefits to the aerospace field. GlobalSpec was committed to motivate aerospace engineers to register in higher numbers and, by the close of 2005, represent fully 10 percent of the site user mix.

Background
GlobalSpec, the leading specialized search engine for the engineering community, provides access to comprehensive technical content on standards, patents, materials properties, specifications, designs and application notes. Registration is free to users. Thousands of suppliers advertise on and collect sales leads from the vertical search engine. From its beginnings in 1996, the Web site at www.globalspec.com targeted the general engineering and technical buying community to steadily increase its number of registered users. In early 2004, the company registered its one millionth user.

Solution
Tech Image recommended a two-pronged strategy:

• Identify a single, dramatic moment of ingenuity from the storied history of manned space flight to reinforce the usefulness and time management benefits of GlobalSpec’s engineering-only search engine to the North American aerospace industry.

• Use a promotional event highlighted by an award program to
successfully tie great moments in engineering history to great
moments in engineering practice and time management now
attainable for users through The Engineering Search Engine.

The goal was achieving maximum brand awareness value and securing multiple story placements. Because of that, any selected honoree needed to be an unsung hero. But the achievement itself had to have historical significance. The honor was coined the GlobalSpec Great Moments in Engineering award. After researching candidates, a review committee agreed on the 1970 Crew Systems Division (CSD) of NASA. Overnight at the Johnson Space Center, on April 14, 1970, this small engineering team concocted an emergency reconfiguration of a CO2 scrubbing system used aboard the Apollo 13 spacecraft. Their engineering ingenuity and coolness under extreme time pressure saved the lives of crew members during the harrowing Apollo 13 moon-landing mission.

The promotional event concept and the potential honoree were proposed in late December 2004. The inaugural award event was held in Houston, Texas, on April 19, 2005, coinciding with the 35th anniversary of Apollo 13. More than 100 targeted prospects attended.

Results
The inaugural GlobalSpec Great Moments in Engineering award enabled company executives to meet and begin discussions with more than 100 influential decision makers from the aerospace industry, NASA and academia. Follow-up initiatives have resulted in on-going business relationships. As of September 2005, more than 10 percent of site users now hail from aerospace and defense. The site has now topped two million users. Prominent feature article news coverage of the award, the event and GlobalSpec’s role has appeared in 450 outlets worldwide. Following is a partial listing of those media results:
•Associated Press
•The Tonight Show
• Reuters Space.com
• USA Today print edition
• The Miami Herald
• USA Today online edition
•The Chicago Tribune
• The Wall Street Journal online
•The San Francisco Chronicle
• DowJones.com
•The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
•Investor’s Business Daily
•The Los Angeles Times
• ABC-TV Network News / affiliates
•The Montreal Gazette
• CBS-TV Network News / affiliates
•The Denver Post
•CNN International
•The Boston Globe
• CNN-TV Network News
•B to B magazine
•MSNBC-TV Network News
•The Sydney, Australia, News
•ABC News
•Radio Area Press Italy
•The New York Times online edition
•The Calcutta Telegraph