Situation

Spam is a four letter word that often brings other four letter words to mind. San Francisco-based Brightmail had been fighting spam since 1998. But despite its efforts and partnerships with ISPs such as MSN, AOL, and EarthLink, the company's mindshare wasn't as high as it wanted in 2001. As agency of record, we used the company's data on spam to give the media what it needed to write stories about the problem, exponentially increasing Brightmail's media coverage - and its sales leads.

Objectives

• Build awareness of its brand and the spam problem
  
• Establish Brightmail as the anti-spam thought leader by becoming the spam expert for the media and analysts
  
• Solidify Brightmail's position as the spam fighting technology leader
  

Special Connections

• We found that Brightmail had the ability to aggregate statistics about the volume and types of spam it saw during the course of its spam-fighting.
  
• We helped the company produce monthly statistics and media-friendly graphs and charts about the growth and impact of spam, and established an opt-in e-mail newsletter that media could use to keep up with the facts.
  
• We introduced Brightmail executives to spam influencers in a range of institutions such as the Federal Trade Commission, California Senate, and American Marketing Association, furthering the company's image as anti-spam thought leaders.

Results

• By giving the media what it needed to write stories about the spam problem, we stimulated a major increase in media coverage in just six months.
  
• By the second half of 2001 Brightmail was being regularly featured in coverage in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Forbes, USA Today, Investor's Business Daily and hundreds of other local and national newspapers, and business, trade and technology media as well as radio and television.
  
• The company credited public relations with driving more than 80% of its sales leads as it enjoyed very rapid sales growth.