David and Goliath: How to Own Your Story
I’ve always thought of my career in public relations as an adventure that continues to unfold before me. In 2008 I found myself in Sydney, Australia running the technology practice for Fleishman-Hillard where we had just signed a Canadian manufacturer of network and telecom components. The company, then unknown in Australia had successfully sold a module to Telstra, the large public utility that provides Australians with telephone and telecommunications products and services.
The module was embedded in a new, powerful router Telstra was going to announce at a major news conference within a few days. Telstra was to position their router as the powerful WIFI solution for the SOHO. During the initial onboarding telephone call with our new client, we were tasked with launching them at the media event.
After the call ended the account team sat around the conference table letting the enormity of the challenge sink in. No one in AU knew who they were, and why would anyone care about a module the size of a postage stamp? We put on our thinking caps and dug in. The first order of business was to understand exactly what the module meant to the Telstra router.
The team called the client’s Australian General Manager of Sierra Wireless and asked him. After running through the technical specs of the module he stated, “It powers the whole bloody router. The thing won’t deliver the speed and bandwidth Telstra claims without it.”
Eureka! We had a story. This little module, the size of a postage stamp, provided the juice for Telstra’s most powerful router to date. It was a variation of the David vs Goliath story, and we used t construct to create our brand story and strategy for the Telstra media event.
We knew two things about the media and audience we were talking to. First, Australian’s don’t like Telstra all that much. It’s the big, hairy utility that raises rates while customers wait for service. Further, Australian’s love to support the little guy making his way in a harsh environment. It's part of their cultural DNA.
With this in mind, we crafted a ‘guerilla’ launch campaign that involved creating the ‘way’ we wanted the media to receive our news within the context of the Telstra announcement in. Setting the stage so the media discovered our story in a certain manner was crucial to our success. With time against us, we rolled up our sleeves and went to work.
The team arrived at the media event prior to the announcement, identified our target reporters as they arrived, approached them and introduced the General Manager with a “Here’s the real story about Telstra’s router” pitch. While we spoke with them the press release and materials arrived in their inbox so they could easily create their stories. (We noted many were reading our press release while Telstra executives were speaking about their router.)
The result was our client received placement in the top third of every story published about Telstra’s router, with the positioning we wanted. By the late afternoon, we had successful placements in all online tech pubs and in the mainstream business news that evening and the next morning. David now owned the story like a boss which set the stage for his next act.
#marketing, #public relations, #commuications
