“Give us a campaign which genuinely reaches C-level Outsourcing deal-makers!” This was our brief from Cognizant, NASDAQ-listed global IT services business in 2009. In response we developed a three stage PR-led marketing and influencer campaign designed to unveil the real return on outsourced mission-critical arrangements to businesses, beyond any one-time offshore cost saving alone. It didn’t just raise the issue, it proposed the real solution too, identifying a seven step methodology for C-level outsourcing deal commissioners to measure and communicate the real return on outsourcing back to the board.

The campaign - Identifying the Real Return on Outsourcing – included a partnership with Warwick Business School to investigate how businesses across Europe assessed the value of their outsourcing strategies. This research, which combined quantitative and qualitative elements, enabled Cognizant to pinpoint the problems associated with this topic and to put forward a Seven Steps to Outsourcing Excellence methodology. The campaign delivered value at every level. The research results were discussed at a Cognizant CIO event in London, the campaign micro-site (www.quantifyingoutsourcingbenefits.com) generated several hundred CIO-level enquiries and the PR campaign generated major pieces in Business Week and The Financial Times as well as a hundred other quality pieces around the world.

Travel is an incredibly competitive market where every player is trying to find new ways to gain customer attention. For the last three years Flight Centre has employed us to help make the phones ring.

We make sure that Flight Centre’s latest deals are featured in all the travel round-ups in print and online. We also create special themed editorial when the occasion warrants it. The week before the London Marathon, we created a Flight Centre dominated double-page spread in The Sun that profiled all the other marathons people could run and how Flight Centre could get them there. Likewise when England qualified for the World Cup in South Africa we organised a piece in The Mirror that showed how easy it would be to get to South Africa via Flight Centre.

For three years we worked with Tesco to gain broadcast and national coverage for its latest products and offers. Working closely with the in-house PR team and the product/category managers, our goal was to use editorial to amplify the advertising and marketing message.

This task required a strong instinct for the news agenda, the ability to craft a stand-out story and exceptional media contacts. So, for example, when Tesco brought Action Man back to the UK for the first time in three years we put the story on the front page of The Daily Telegraph and when Wayne Rooney gave Colleen a £250,000 wedding ring we made sure that Tesco’s £11 ring was also mentioned in the stories. We were also charged with the creation of feature stories around key shopping periods – for example, we organised a group of school-kids to test out Tesco’s latest range of Xmas toys in a double page spread in The Mirror. On average we generated over 100 pieces of quality national coverage for Tesco every year.

Since 2001 we’ve worked hand-in-hand with T-Mobile’s in-house PR team to promote its products and services to consumers and businesses. Our results-oriented approach ensures that T-Mobile punches above its weight with the traditional and online media.

When T-Mobile won the rights to market the first Google phone in the UK we had just two weeks to plan the launch. The brief was simple but tough - out-perform the iPhone launch that had happened the previous year.

Our initial focus was on the message. The G-Phone was more about functionality than design and we needed to make sure the commentators judged it on this basis. Then we had to plan the campaign. A three stage programme ensured we gained maximum bang-for—buck. In late September we ran a series of embargoed briefings with key broadcast, national and telco media. This was followed a month later by the retail launch. With specific news ‘titbits’ held back for individual media we made sure the buzz stayed high. Finally we ran an aggressive review and features placement programme so that everyone got a chance to assess the phone for themselves.

The campaign was an outstanding success on every count. We beat the previous year’s iPhone launch hands-down with over 50% more coverage. 75% of those articles had T-Mobile as the prime element of the story. This equated to an estimated AVE of £7.6m.

Many of our clients work with us on global or regional strategy and content as well as national programmes. Cisco Europe uses us to help execute its European PR programme as an extension of its in-house team.

The Broadband Quality Study is a project that showcases our work together at its finest. Broadband quality is recognised as a key ingredient in national productivity and competitiveness. Every year the Cisco study tests the quality of broadband quality in 66 countries and ranks them.

Our role is to help develop the storylines, create the content, support the 22 countries in their roll-out and present the story to the international media. In 2009 the Study achieved its greatest profile yet with 400 pieces of coverage globally including three pieces on the BBC Online and a half-page in The Financial Times. Other coverage achieved including top European national press such as Dagens Industri (Sweden), Berlingske Tidende (Denmark), Kauppalehti (Finland), Il Sole 24 Ore (Italy), de Telegraaf (Netherlands), Kathimerini (Greece) and La Libre Belgique (Belgium).