Does The World Know Your Name?

PR is a powerful tool. A successful PR campaign can be the difference between your news being published by 35 publications worldwide or reaching just 5 in the UK. It gives you control over what's said about your business, rather than allowing the rumour mill to go to work. PR also delivers your news in a more cost effective way than display advertising.

Using the example of Vertical client OK International, we'll show you what goes into a strategic PR campaign and the results we can achieve.

The background

OK International offers products for the electronics workbench. Historically, these were marketed under the different brands of Metcal, Techcon Systems and Impell. In 2005, the decision was made to adopt a single brand strategy, dropping the Metcal, Techcon and Impell names and re-branding all products under the single OK International brand.

OK International was keen to emphasise that the changes went far beyond a new logo and company identity, and wanted to reassure everyone - distributors, clients and the industry at large - that this was an entirely positive move. To this end, Vertical was tasked with planning and implementing a PR campaign to generate maximum coverage globally.

The plan

To ensure editors would be interested in publishing this story we had to focus heavily on the customer benefits of the re-branding. At Vertical, we believe that any company's brand needs a champion and that champion has to be the person at the top. So, one of our writers, a former editor of several electronics trade publications, conducted in-depth interviews with OK International's CEO and the company's VP of Sales and Marketing. Armed with detailed question and answer type articles from those at the helm, we knew from experience that editors would be keen to cover the story.

The attack

On 1st June 2005 we hit the entire industry media globally, both the traditional hard copy and online press, with the announcement that OK International was moving to a single brand. We supported this message with suitable images, including an image of the new logo to start the re-branding immediately.

We contacted our 'A List' media from the USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, China, South East Asia, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe.

We organised additional press interviews with the VP Sales and Marketing to cover Europe and Asia, and with the CEO to cover North America, giving a complete profile of what OK International was doing, why they were doing it and the benefits to their customers.

We secured profile interview articles throughout the territories listed above. We facilitated any media questions, so as to offer a completely honest and transparent interview. The new single look OK International was to be revealed for the first time at the industry's premier Productronica exhibition in November.

Where possible, we arranged for those articles to be published in the pre-show issues as these are always well read. We also arranged additional press interviews to take place on the stand during the show.

The results

The coverage we achieved for OK International was enormous, making it impossible for anyone to miss the story. We helped OK International explain their positioning specifically for each country/region, as each region had its own level of knowledge on the company which needed consolidating.

We had promoted their new logo and look. Plus, we had started to raise the profiles of these two senior executives, both of whom were new to their respective roles. This was particularly useful as it identified them as the right people for the press to establish relationships with - essential for future media coverage.

OK International was extremely pleased with what we achieved, acknowledging that it provided them with an excellent launch for the single brand strategy and strong platform to build on in 2006.

If you would like to maximise the return on investment from your PR budget please contact us.