The Situation

Today‚ there are more ways to stay connected than ever before. It’s not uncommon to have a work phone, a home phone‚ a cell phone and a BlackBerry‚ too. People can stay in touch anywhere and at anytime. That’s the good news. But things can get pretty complicated trying to juggle multiple devices and several voicemail boxes. GrandCentral’s vision was to make things simpler by giving people one number…for life.

GrandCentral was a small‚ Silicon Valley startup poised to launch a new communications service to the public. The company wanted to build consumer awareness quickly‚ but knew the first critical step was to get a tech savvy audience of early adopters singing its praises. Additionally, GrandCentral believed its service could be made even more powerful with the right platform. As such, the company's goal was to position itself for a strategic acquisition by a partner that could take GrandCentral to the next level. GrandCentral turned to Tier One Partners to design a broad-reaching media relations campaign targeting both traditional and new media outlets as a way to showcase this powerful technology to all the right people.

Our Approach

In the tech world‚ certain journalists and bloggers have the ability to make or break a product or service. Our strategy was to identify those “big fish” whose coverage could really move the needle for GrandCentral‚ and get them actively using the service to help pave the way for positive coverage. Not only was this group of top-tier contacts the key to raising awareness for GrandCentral among consumers‚ but they were also a powerful link to the even bigger fish — companies on the hunt to acquire the most innovative‚ yet proven technology to round out their own portfolio. Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft depend on the likes of Walt Mossberg‚ Om Malik‚ David Pogue‚ Michael Arrington for clues on “the next big thing.”

• We identified DEMO as the ideal event to launch the GrandCentral product and lobbied hard for a coveted spot on the presenter list. In a few short days‚ we could gain broad base exposure to our key audience through an on-stage presentation and one-on-one media briefings to drill down to specifics with certain heavy hitters.
• We encouraged trial and reviews by key technology bloggers‚ knowing that this group was a direct link to our early adopter crowd.
• Pitch. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. With a highly targeted list of the most important tech reporters in hand, we pursued a tireless media relations campaign to brief these contacts and get them to try the product. We stayed on reporters for weeks, and in some cases months, on end. In one instance, we worked with the Wall Street Journal over a period of 51 weeks until we had secured a favorable piece in the publication.

The Results

The Buzz and Swelled to a Roar. Our efforts with bloggers yielded overwhelmingly positive coverage with virtually every influential technology blog including TechCrunch, GigaOm, O’Reilly Radar and Lifehacker.

DEMO Creates Demand. As a result of launching at DEMOfall and the subsequent blog buzz, GrandCentral exceeded its goals for its beta test pool by 200% and the announcement of GrandCentral’s launch appeared on the front page of Digg.

Stellar Coverage Leads to Consumer Trial. We secured more than 200 pieces of print and broadcast coverage. The most outstanding piece of coverage was a stunning column and video by David Pogue in the New York Times that resulted in a 20-fold increase in sign ups. Additional national media coverage included positive stories in the Wall Street Journal, Time, Business Week, Associated Press, Newsweek, and the International Herald Tribune.

We Caught the Big Fish: Catching Google’s Eye! Google acquires GrandCentral on July 2, 2007 – just a little more than nine months after launch.