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 Company: Vantage Communications, San Francisco, California
Company Description: With offices in San Francisco, New York and Orlando, Vantage Communications is an award-winning public relations agency specializing in high technology, including semiconductors, VoIP, web 2.0, green-tech, security, wireless, broadband, video, Internet, software, networking, financial, venture capital, and optics. The firm was formed in 1990, and changed its name from PR@vantage in 2008.
Nomination Category: Corporate Communications, Investor Relations, & Public Relations Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Communications or PR Campaign
Nomination Title: Vantage Communications: PR Slam Dunk
- Tell the story about this nominated campaign since January 1 2007 (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:
Creativity. Strategic thinking. Global media relationships. Since 1990,
Vantage Communications (formerly PR@Vantage) has brought these skills along
with a strong, thorough understanding of the marketplace to the high-technology
industry. In an increasingly competitive industry, Vantage consistently works
to maximize the potential of a broad range of high-tech clients by increasing
the prominence of the company and helping to expand its customer base, and
earning a reputation for over-delivering. Even for small budget clients, it is
important for us to get great results. It’s part of our professional pride.
The Challenge: Create Buzz, Under $10K budget
The Strategy:
One of our greatest accomplishments during 2007 was a slam dunk campaign for
one of our network management clients, eTelemetry. In early 2007, the company
launched its second product, a bandwidth management tool that measured network
bandwidth usage by employee. The product was originally positioned as a useful
network management product. However, we dug deeper and found out that the tool
had a very important feature – it could measure Internet usage of employees,
including sites visited and time spent surfing. We
then repositioned the product to focus on the employee monitoring aspect.
As CBS Sports would be streaming the 2007 NCAA tournament basketball games live
over the web during business hours, we saw this as a unique opportunity for
eTelemetry since its new bandwidth management product had the ability to report
on which employees in an organization were watching the tournament on the
Internet during the workday.
We knew that monitoring employee Internet usage is a controversial topic, and
we positioned the product as a tool to discover who was abusing company
networks. We made it clear that the NCAA Tournament was only an example of what
companies deal with all the time. This was important because we (and the
journalists) knew that potential customers would not buy the product solely for
the NCAAs, so it was in our interest to frame the tournament as a piece of a
bigger picture.
The Results:
• 30 television station websites picked up Todd Stone’s Inc.com article, “The
Business of March Madness”
• Total circulation for all coverage was over 24 million unique visitors and
readers
• National television broadcast on March 22, 2007 – “Evil Empire Tracks you
Online,” ABC News (8,500,000 viewers)
• Print articles included:
o The Washington Post – “Technology is Watching the Watchers” 3/16/2007 – circ:
635,087
o The Baltimore Sun – “Firms Watching Game Watchers” 3/15/2007 – circ: 232,749
o The San Jose Mercury News – “Back Off Big Brother” March 17, 2007 – circ:
228,537
• 41 online publications posted articles, not merely press release reprints,
including:
o Inc.com – circ: 706,860
o MercuryNews.com – circ: 1,515,423
o WashingtonPost.com – circ: 7,943,529
o AZCentral.com – circ: 1,989,619
o BaltimoreSun.com – circ: 888,282
o OregonLive.com – circ: 979,618
o FoxNews.com – circ: 8,184,466
o TMCnet.com – circ: 672,148
o FastCompany.com – circ: 491,754
o Telegraph.com – circ: 25,161
o Kitsapsun.com – circ: 77,899
• eTelemetry’s web hits jumped 69% from subsequent news features and interviews
stemming from the March Madness press release.
- List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:
The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/03/15/AR2007031502127.html
The Washington Post’s William Wan wrote an article titled “Technology is
Watching the Watchers” on March 16, 2007. Not only was this article
significant in that it reached the paper’s over 600,000 print readers and the
near 8 million readers of its online edition, but it also led to eTelemetry’s
first TV feature. After reading the Washington Post article, a local ABC News
producer was inspired to contact eTelemetry to interview eTelemetry’s CEO and
CTO) at its office for a business feature on the company and its employee
Internet monitoring device. This two-minute television clip, titled “Evil
Empire Tracks You Online,” appeared on the ABC evening news program on March
22, 2007. The Washington Post article was also picked up through syndication
in numerous newspapers and websites including The Arizona Sun and (Portland)
Oregonian.
ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerindex?id=2973694
Inc.com
http://www.inc.com/articles/2007/03/madness.html
- Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the team that carried out this campaign:
Ilene Adler, founder and CEO of Vantage Communications, a PR agency that
promotes technology clients worldwide. Founded in 1990, the company has
offices in San Francisco, New York and Orlando. Vantage handles worldwide PR
for a number of international companies, including ECI Telecom, Veraz Networks
and eglue. Prior to founding Vantage, Ilene was president of RAD Data
Communication, Inc. where she built the company and sales force in the U.S. and
prior to that was Director of International Sales & Marketing for the company.
Ilene holds an MBA in Marketing and International Business from NYU and a BS
from S.U.N.Y. Buffalo.
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