Giving start-ups staying power
The brief:
The client came to us with a typical start-up's brief: an idea, a tight budget, a challenging timescale, and minimal media profile. The company wasn't first into its market, which was Internet-based print procurement - in fact, it was one of many in the second "wave" of online solutions - but it had serious ambitions: to win a place, as soon as possible, in the vanguard of the sector in the UK.
The campaign:
In a competitive market, we had to make our client stand out from the crowd. Within 11 days of taking on the challenge, we held one-to-one briefings with the leading titles at the client's offices, and presented evidence of commercial viability, financial backing, market knowledge and third-party testimonials. The message was that here was a supplier not jumping on a bandwagon but entering the market with a considered, coherent offering. Initial news coverage within days of the briefings was followed by in-depth feature analysis within weeks.
Next, we worked with the client's technological USP - its expertise in the exciting JDF data format - to promote the CEO as an 'evangelist' for the technology. A series of bylined editorial features not only promoted the company but established the CEO as a regular media commentator on "all things JDF".