Company: Brand and Buzz Marketing
Company Description: Consulting firm Brand and Buzz focusses on corporate marketing, branding and thought leadership. Its services are designed to build, humanize and amplify brands, so businesses can stay competitive, raise funds or get acquired, fast. The team specializes in building and boosting CEOs and executives’ reputation and market credibility, while transforming them into industry thought leaders.
Nomination Category: Thought Leadership Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Thought Leadership Campaign of the Year - Business Products
 Nomination Title: Onshape's Thought Leadership Campaign: Powering the Digital Economy
- Which will you submit for your nomination in this category, a video of up to five (5) minutes, explaining the nominated thought leadership campaign or program - its genesis,development, planning, commission, and performance to date - OR written answers to the questions? (Choose one):
Written answers to the questions
- If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video. If you are submitting written answers to the questions, provide them in the appropriate spaces below:
- Specify the date on which this campaign or program was launched:
Total 50 words used.
Onshape’s first-ever thought leadership program was launched in July 2020. The program was designed, managed and executed by Parna Sarkar-Basu – along with a team of BBM and Onshape professionals. Parna is the founder of Brand and Buzz Marketing – a consulting firm that specializes in branding and thought leadership.
- Describe the genesis of the nominated campaign or program: the reasons it was initiated, the challenges it was created to address, the problems it was developed to solve, etc. (up to 250 words):
Total 249 words used.
Goal: Drive visibility for Onshape, part of software giant PTC, and create demand for Onshape, the first SaaS platform for product developers.
Strategy: Position the company right. Simplify the complex product so both technical and non-technical business leaders will understand the benefit of the technology.
Leverage industry insights and experience of Onshape cofounders. Jon Hirschtick is a CAD (computer aided design) industry legend. Before selling Onshape to PTC for $470M in 2019, he also co-founded SOLIDWORKS, acquired by Dassault Systèmes for $310M. Jon also had an interesting past. He was a member of the famed MIT Blackjack team featured in the movies “21” and “The Last Casino.”
We broadened Jon’s positioning to a tech pioneer as he has been developing technologies to empower innovators. Cofounder John McEleney was positioned as a successful industry luminary and manufacturing expert who has been transforming businesses. Our goal was to use their expertise and entrepreneurial successes to drive brand awareness for Onshape.
Challenges: Breaking through the clutter and effectively reaching the target audience, while staying visible during the pandemic. Onshape didn’t have hard news, especially at a time of significant social and business changes. Though both founders are well known in the engineering space, we didn’t find initial success when pitching them to the mainstream media or conference organizers.
Solution: Leverage the creator economy, the media companies and their influencers to create a high impact, highly tailored thought leadership program to spotlight the Onshape co-founders and amplify the brand.
- Describe the development of the campaign or program: the planning process, the goal setting, the subject and content development, the scheduling, etc. (up to 250 words):
Total 250 words used.
First, we positioned Onshape and developed an overarching theme for the thought leadership program. Next, each of the spokespeople had specific positioning based on their expertise, so collectively we could demonstrate Onshape-PTC’s bench strength. We then developed a multipronged TL strategy, tightly integrated with Onshape’s go-to-market plan, that could be executed in phases and could scale to add more executives to the roster.
The cornerstone of the TL program was custom virtual events, developed in collaboration with select national and local media groups, including Bloomberg, Forbes, TechCrunch and Boston Globe. These tailored events were designed to quickly boost and amplify the Onshape brand – while providing a platform to spotlight the co-founders. We also created branded campaigns with Fortune and CXOTalk.
Process: The team met bi-weekly to discuss overall marketing programs, brainstorm on topics and trends, and develop content. A shared marketing calendar kept us on track.
In addition to custom events and branded content, the TL program was expanded. The team:
- Identified speaking opportunities at key industry conferences.
- Developed bylines on tech and manufacturing trends to innovation and entrepreneurship for targeted publications.
- Pitched executives for media interviews and podcasts.
- Identified opportunities to spotlight key customers – media and conferences.
- Designed social tiles to visually promote thought leadership content.
- Developed a strategic social media campaign and dedicated 2-3 days per week for TL content.
- Created a newsletter to feature thought leadership content and Onshape events.
- Developed a landing page to spotlight Jon’s TL activities.
- Supported 10 Onshape and PTC executives.
- Outline the activities and concrete results of this campaign or program since the beginning of July 2020. Even if your initiative started before July 2020, limit your response to activities and results since the beginning of July 2020 only (up to 250 words):
Total 230 words used.
Flawless Execution. Phenomenal Results.
Onshape’s first ever thought leadership program was a huge success. It delivered a consistent drumbeat around Onshape and its executives and positively impacted the brand. And each metric was a milestone for the company.
Result Highlights:
- Onshape was named the #1 fastest growing CAD system in the world in 2021, growing at more than 7X the market average and now has more than 2 million users.
- Custom sessions: Developed 40 sessions in collaboration with various media groups and organizations to support 10 executives (started with two).
- Branded content: Created 10+ pieces of thought leadership content -- Q&A and video interviews with Fortune and CXOTalk respectively.
- Total reach: 44 Million
- Total engagement: 314,800
- Leads/Opt-in –11,830
- Earned Media: Generated 40 pieces of profiles, bylines and podcasts – despite zero news.
- Reach: 90 Million
- Social: Y-o-Y
- LinkedIn:
- Reactions increased by >820%
- Shares increased by >900%
- Comments increased by >980%
- Twitter:
- Likes increased >992%
- Replies increased >2.6K%
- Retweets increased by >580%
- Facebook:
- Reactions increased by 666%
- Shares increased by 747%
- Comments increased by 950%
- Keynotes and panels:
- Executives and customers spoke at various conferences, including TechCrunch SaaS, TechCrunch Justice, Robotics Summit, Globe Summit, Front End of Innovation and Women Tech Global Conference.
- Significance: A combination of modern TL strategy, out-of-the-box-thinking and media partnerships helped make Onshape a powerhouse in the product development - computer aided design industry.
- Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):
Total 88 words used.
Links to the following documents:
1. Comments from Onshape - PTC executives on the thought leadership program.
[REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION] We are very proud of the work we've done and the results we've generated as ONE Brand and Buzz-Onshape-PTC team.
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