Putting Bentley Systems at the heart of the US and UK infrastructure debate

3

LBC letters secured in 3 months

2

prime-time BBC airtime appearances within 60 days

2

CityAM pieces published in less than 6 months

Challenge

Bentley Systems is a respected name in infrastructure and engineering, with established expertise across specialist and trade media. The next step was harder: taking that expertise into national media and policy debates, where infrastructure shapes everyday life.

Bentley’s technology supports everything from roads and water networks to infrastructure built to withstand extreme weather. But talking about technology alone wasn’t enough to cut through with tier-one journalists and policy audiences. The opportunity was to shift the conversation from what Bentley does to why the infrastructure it helps design, build and manage matters to everyone.

Solution

SourceCode built a communications strategy around connecting Bentley’s expertise to the infrastructure issues already shaping public debate.

Globally, we identified moments when infrastructure was already entering the public conversation. Extreme weather offered a natural entry point. Heatwaves, flooding, wildfires and drought were disrupting communities and economies in real time, creating opportunities to explore the infrastructure challenges behind them.

Rather than forcing Bentley into these stories, we positioned its experts as credible voices on questions such as: What happens when cities aren’t designed for the weather they’re experiencing? How can infrastructure become more resilient? And what can governments and infrastructure owners do before the next extreme event?

This gave Bentley a much bigger role in the conversation, moving it from a company talking about engineering technology to an expert helping audiences understand the infrastructure issues affecting their daily lives.

In the UK, we added a strong public policy lens. SourceCode built relationships between Bentley experts and journalists across national, business and policy-driven media, then applied a policy filter to the issues already on the agenda.

Potholes, for example, became a conversation about the value of preventative infrastructure maintenance. Heatwaves and drought became an opportunity to explore how governments and public-sector organisations can prepare infrastructure for increasingly unpredictable climate scenarios.

The approach moved Bentley from commenting on technology to contributing expertise to the bigger policy questions around how we plan, maintain and future-proof the infrastructure people rely on every day.

In the US, SourceCode applied the same principle, using moments such as flooding in New York City and wildfires to elevate Bentley into conversations around infrastructure resilience and the challenges facing communities in an increasingly volatile climate. We also latched onto key news drivers around infrastructure policy to position Bentley executives as true experts in the sector. 

Results

The approach turned Bentley’s expertise on infrastructure resilience into national media opportunities.

Within 60 days, SourceCode secured two prime-time BBC appearances, generating approximately nine minutes of combined on-air exposure around climate and extreme-weather issues, including heatwaves, in addition to two Fox Weather segments centered around Bentley’s work on the NYC flood walls and recent innovations in disaster resiliency.  

The coverage put Bentley experts at the center of conversations about how infrastructure needs to adapt to a changing climate, taking the company’s expertise beyond specialist engineering audiences and into mainstream public debate.

By leading with the real-world impact of heat, flooding and other climate pressures, SourceCode helped Bentley earn a voice in national conversations, reach new audiences and demonstrate the relevance of infrastructure resilience to everyday life.