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Talking the right visual language
Construction engineers and interior designers are not renowned for talking the same language. So when a building product comes along that sets new standards for style and design features, it’s worth presenting them in a way that will capture the imagination of architects, interior designers and end-customers alike. Optima Partitioning Systems’ Futurewall glass partitioning is not only stylish enough for the most leading-edge prestige offices, its clever design also offers assembly, installation and cost-saving benefits. Working in partnership with our sister design agency ArtHaus, we wrote and produced a strongly visual brochure with understated copy, designed for maximum impact on the target audience.
Building a reputation from the ground up
When two teleconferencing industry veterans, Tim Duffy, the former head of PictureTel Europe, and Steve Gandy, who set up BT Conferencing in the early 1990s, started up MeetingZone, a new UK service provider offering audio and web-conferencing, they turned to PR to help get the company on the map – even including it in their business plan.
MeetingZone offers an attractive new business model, but is competing with some big established players in the market. The company’s personalized audio and web conferencing service give users round-the-clock access to a virtual 'conference room’, so they can hold conferences whenever the need arises. There are no monthly fees – just charges based on usage. Dial-in numbers and access codes are allocated permanently, so they can be included in email signatures and on business cards.
We developed a corporate PR programme to help raise awareness of the business benefits of this new approach to audioconferencing, and help MeetingZone build market share. It included introductory letters to editors, proactive interview pitching, issue creation/management, opinion pieces, company profiles and customers case studies. Coverage of MeetingZone has been growing in the national and regional press, and on local radio, with at least 30 pieces of major coverage generated in all selected target sectors.
Leaving Buzby for less
If a company’s only marketing support is PR, it has to be confident that the agency can create the coverage that leads to sales. And we did just that for Telefficiency, the least-cost routing company that offers savings of around 30 per cent off standard BT call rates. Telefficiency's management laid it on the line – with no advertising and no direct mail support it was up us to communicate the benefits of least-cost routing to the end user businesses and generate the type of coverage that converts into sales. And so it did. Implementing a full service media relations programme, we used innovative angles and very carefully defined targeting of key SoHo, vertical press, and business media to position Telefficiency as a bright, brave and bold gatecrasher into BT's private party, featured on TV, radio and in press articles.
Handle with care!
We were brought in to help a successful business operating in a public service monopoly environment deal with changes affecting its customer base. The imposition of the latest technology, designed to revolutionise the franked postage market by improving standards of efficiency and security, placed our client in an interesting position, as it would also gain commercially from the change. With a deadline set externally for a technology conversion, the company had to communicate very quickly to its customers the requirement to upgrade.
The provision of intelligent advice on issues management is a strong feature of our client services portfolio. Clearly, balancing the defence of its market share-leading position against potentially damaging accusations of opportunism, whilst remaining on-message with its postal partner, was always going to be a tricky call. Our counsel ensured that our client’s client achieved the greatest share of voice in communicating the issues to its key target audience.
Building a strong local profile
Construction is often a highly localized business, and specialist construction firm HL Smith saw considerable business potential for its office partitioning and construction services in the local area around High Wycombe, UK. The company was keen to raise its profile in the local media to support its strategy of winning business from local companies. We have been advising HL Smith on the creation and placement of local-interest news stories, and the setting up of press interviews with local business and news media. This has resulted in considerable volumes of favourable coverage in the target media.
Slick thinking
We were brought in on a project at Texaco to apply our strategic thinking on critical communications issues, undertaking an internal communications critique.. The consulting project entailed facilitating an intensive two-day meeting to interrogate the structure of Texaco's internal communications with 27,000 employees world-wide. It proved fundamental to understanding the situation faced by the US-based HQ team. We brought to life Texaco's communications conundrum through a communications model which exposed the gaps in the information exchange. Clarity of vision, allied to a systematic, methodical and inquiring approach to problem-solving, enabled us to identify key communications issues between the executive tiers. De-Americanising the conglomerate's communications was key to enabling the US base to think internationally. Thus we introduced the concept of using the company's intranet to create feedback that could be successfully applied internationally across all languages and management levels.
Higher level signalling
Working out how a multi-billion pound plc communicates effectively with its group companies and executives meant examining the existing communications flow between member companies, individuals, and the internal and external issues that affect the tide of information. By first identifying, and then assessing the communications issues by subject matter and impact, we were able to take a complex communications problem and, by applying some engagingly lateral thinking, propose a simple yet effective solution for implementation throughout the group.
We produced a simple communications highway code, using simple colour graphics to signal whether a company or individual within the group could be given the green light to deal with a particular issue first hand. Strategically placed directional signs and warning symbols indicated the course to steer when an issue required handling at a higher level. Successfully piloted at operational level, the guide passed its test first time and became standard issue across all layers of senior management.
Pulp fiction
When the British Paper and Board Industry Federation asked us to raise awareness of the issues faced by the recycling of commercially generated waste paper and board, some seriously creative thinking was required. We recommended a fresh, new approach to enliven the debate and propel it into a wider arena. We devised the 'Paper Back' campaign and published a tongue-in-cheek mystery thriller paperback book to signal the launch, written under the spoof pen name Rhys Ikle. Being creative in the first instance allowed us to set the agenda for the debate and a range of activities followed. Radio and print coverage ensued, and questions were raised in the House of Commons and the DTI, and the BPBIF campaign was given a real boost.
DeFT handling
The Financial Times asked us to help communicate the best-of-breed proposition in the global business newspaper market, focusing on the paper's pedigree.
A comprehensive audit carried out in close conjunction with the FT's in-house PR team, showing which activities were the right brand fit and where there were potential communications gaps. A campaign to forge links with influential trade and broadcast media through the profiling of journalists communicated the FT's value-added brand positioning and produced significant levels of air-time and column inches for the FT's own columnists.
Crisis confinement
Publicity is the last thing a major client needs when two employee deaths occur at the same location within months of each other and investigations are under way. Providing our full strategic counselling service, we immediately devised a tailored crisis management plan for the embattled site management team, combined with full press office facilities at our base. Formulating a communications programme specifically to address the concerns of the trade, internal, local community and trade union audiences, we helped define key messages, confining the crisis to the site and, critically, averting what could easily have become a corporate-wide issue.
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