Work:
Project Shout
Using trade insights to highlight a hidden public safety risk
The challenge
Project SHOUT is a UK-based campaign dedicated to raising awareness about the dangers of carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning. It urges households to install audible CO alarms and highlights the risks of this “silent killer”. The campaign provides advice on alarm placement, servicing appliances, and recognizing symptoms.
HROC (an integrated marketing agency) needed robust, credible trade evidence to support media engagement, policy discussion and campaign outreach. In particular, they wanted to understand:
- How frequently qualified gas engineers encounter poorly maintained or dangerous appliances
- Whether financial pressures are changing household behaviour around servicing and remedial work
- The real‑world prevalence of working carbon monoxide alarms in domestic properties
- How these issues are evolving over time, compared with earlier Project SHOUT research
The outputs needed to be fast, accessible and media‑ready, without over‑burdening busy trade professionals.
The solution
For three iterations, Eureka has provided the research evidence that has informed this critical campaign. We have designed and maintained a short online consultation that questions heating engineers on their recent exposure to dangerous gas appliances. Results have sobering and have highlighted persistent and concerning realities:
- Almost 4 in 10 engineers encounter badly fitted or poorly maintained gas appliances every week
- 14% see a dangerous appliance weekly, with around 4 in 10 encountering one monthly
- Financial pressure is now a major barrier to safety with 7 in 10 households putting off annual servicing and many engineers encountering dangerous appliances that are not being repaired due to affordability
- Around 4 in 10 properties visited have no working carbon monoxide alarm, despite engineers being in those homes regularly
- Nearly half of engineers believe the number of dangerous appliances is increasing
Crucially, these longitudinal findings show that this is not a short‑term issue, but an entrenched and worsening problem driven by cost‑of‑living pressures.
The research and wider reporting was aired on 5 News, ITV Meridian, ITV Wales and Good Morning Britain. It also gained significant traction with regional press and radio.
Feedback:
“HROC has worked with Eureka! on many occasions and the service, account management and results from our collaborations has always been first class. They get the brief, they have the contacts and always deliver on time and on budget – even when, through no fault of their own, turnaround times have been tight. Two great guys too.”
→ Steve Sherran (Managing Director)
Let’s bounce a few ideas around
If you’d like to talk through a challenge or explore what might work for your business, we’d love a chat. Get in touch, or feel free to have a further look around the site to see how our research helps solve real‑world business conundrums.