Business-to-Business Communications Case Studies

Bulgarian Cheese

Intro

Germany is a saturated market for food and beverages. Therefore it is extremely difficult to enter this market from scratch. Nevertheless the Bulgarian Association of Milk Processors started a campaign financed with aid from the European Union and the Republic of Bulgaria to introduce the Bulgarian cheeses Sirene (white cheese of cow´s, cheep´s or goat´s milk) and Kashkaval (a yellow hard cheese) to the German market. But do the Germans need Bulgarian cheese? The project really bore a challenge. Bulgarian cheese was unknown to German consumers and products only were available in a Bulgarian online shop managed from Berlin at this time. In addition, for the first event in Hamburg we had only three weeks for the whole organization.

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Finnair’s German face: Football legend and world champion Pierre Littbarski

Finnair Logo

Introduction

The Finish national carrier Finnair flies to six destinations in Germany. Its strategy focuses on transporting passengers between Europe (Germany) and Asia via its hub in Helsinki. Due to Helsinki’s geographical position Finnair can offer its guests the shortest way to Asia. This advantage needs to be communicated Finnair costumers, above all to business travelers.

In Germany the national carrier dominates the airline market. Therefore, other airlines try to focus on their profiles. To boost public awareness, Finnair was looking for an unique characteristic. The aim was to find a “German face” which symbolizes for the costumer a “bridge” between the local market, Finland and Asia. The football legend and world champion Pierre Littbarski was an ideal cast due to his personal background and biography. He is still well known for his football carrier in Germany. Moreover, in Japan Littbarski is one of the best-known Germans due to his carrier as coach. He lives in both countries.

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Financial Services Marketing Communications and Media Relations

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Situation

max.xs, a Frankfurt-based financial services firm, had a great pitch for U.S. asset managers proposing to act as their dedicated sales and marketing agent in German-speaking Europe. max.xs provides experienced and well-deployed sales and marketing functions and is remunerated on a performance basis and, therefore, asset managers are able to cut back on in-house sales organizations, which dramatically cut operating costs. With so many asset management firms headquartered in the U.S., max.xs needed a U.S.-based representative to arrange meetings with senior sales and distribution executives at asset management firms with $5 billion to $100 billion under management.

To get the job done for a planned one-week trip to New York and Boston, max.xs hired Adam Friedman Associates (AFA), a corporate and investor communications firm with an established and successful track record of putting its clients in front of senior money managers at asset management firms located across the U.S. AFA also had the skills and a reputation for generating positive media coverage that established a client’s credibility in the investment community at large.

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Vocollect conquers the globe by PR

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Situation

  • Vocollect is located in Pittsburgh (USA) with an European HQ nearby London.
  • The company’s portfolio of products and expertise for enabling Voice-Directed Work® creates direct communication between operators and information systems. Especially in distribution centers and warehouses, Vocollect Voice helps to achieve greater productivity, accuracy and safety.
  • When Vocollect started their business in Europe in early years of the new millennium this innovative way to direct operators through their daily tasks was almost unknown.

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ETS – European Tissue Producers

Situation

The European Tissue Symposium (ETS) is a trade association, organized as a non-profit association established in the International and European Union environment of Brussels, Belgium. The members of ETS represent the majority of tissue paper producers throughout Europe and about 90% of the total European tissue production.

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A Tragedy in Full

Situation

A long-time legal friend recommended The Ledlie Group to one of his Fortune 500 clients hours after one of the client’s subsidiary companies suffered a disastrous mine explosion that killed 13 miners. The company’s communications director was overwhelmed by the gravity of the incident and the number of media requests, which were multiplying at record speed.

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Virgin America: Supporting and Building a New Airline

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Intro

Xenophon Strategies, PRGN member in Washington DC, was the public relations agency of record for Virgin America during the new-entrant airline efforts to seek certification by the U.S. Department of Transportation

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Rockwool Passive House

Situation

The Rockwool Group is the world’s leading producer of stone wool – a material that improves the quality of life for millions of people and helps to alleviate environmental problems, such as the greenhouse effect, smog and acid rain. Moreover, Rockwool insulation gives us pleasant indoor environments by keeping out the freezing cold, while in hot climates, stone wool helps to keep indoor temperatures comfortably cool.

Main goals of the company were:

  • to communicate to Italian journalists its leadership position and arising, all the while, its brand awareness
  • to boost new model-building paradigms application

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Landis Communications Inc. (LCI)/LS9 Case Study

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LS9 is a renewable petroleum company that applies synthetic biology to produce proprietary biofuels that are compatible with existing fuel distribution infrastructure, as well as high-value industrial chemicals.

Situation

In 2008, when LS9 entered the renewable biofuels space, it faced an uphill battle against competitors that not only owned the majority of media mindshare, but also had raised millions of dollars in funding that LS9 had not acquired. As LS9 prepared to move the company to the next phase of growth – commercial scalability and the next round of funding – LS9 contacted San Francisco PRGN partner Landis Communications, Inc. (LCI) to develop and implement a communications strategy that would advance its current business by attracting new funders.

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Ford: Launch of Ireland’s first biofuel car

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Introduction

The Focus FlexiFuel Vehicle (FFV) was billed as an ‘everyday’ car which could deliver 70% fewer CO2 emissions, run seamlessly on any mixture of renewable bioethanol or conventional petrol – and all at a marginal cost over the equivalent petrol car.

Already the country’s best-selling car, the Focus FFV arrived in Ireland with a new USP (advice what is USP) of particular relevance to an agricultural community in need of future outlets for their products.

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