Blanc & Otus

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a management firm.

What is your position and responsibilities?

My role is corporate communications, and I lead the company's corporate PR team. I am responsible for defining corporate strategy with all of our PR agencies in various regions. Blanc & Otus represents our North American agency of record.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Blanc & Otus?

As a seven-year old company, we've gone through heavy expansion both in terms of user growth and staff. We needed a quick PR team extension to happen overnight to support this. Blanc & Otus became that extension. They helped adjust our company positioning quickly and effectively to reflect the growth trajectory.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

Blanc & Otus have been charged with placing our story in the appropriate press or event opportunities, focused on the customer. Since our company offers a variety of offerings that fill various customer needs, it's important that the agency understands the customer use cases, and how they could benefit from using our platform for their specific need. 

How did you come to work with Blanc & Otus?

We researched a number of PR agencies across North America, weighing out their expertise in areas similar to our offering. In the end, Blanc & Otus came through an internal referral. After meeting them in person, we were impressed with the efforts they put into understanding our business. We signed with them and have been with them now for more than two years as our AOR [area of responsibility].

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in December 2013, and we're still working with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Blanc & Otus keep the relationships strong with the reporters that we work with. When those reporters are in a pinch trying to come up with a source for a story, we get many requests for comments as a result of the relationships they've build. We're seen externally as a leader in the respective social media space.

What distinguishes Blanc & Otus from other providers?

Blanc & Otus speaks our same language and have a very similar corporate culture to us. They process information at the same speed and think the same way. There have been various times when they come up with creative ways of carrying out projects that align well with topics that we've already discussed in-house, which is reassuring. While the budget allocation is often top of our mind as we've grown, they are great at weighing priorities and making recommendations on best use of resources.

Is there anything Blanc & Otus could have improved or done differently?

They've been solid. I haven't had any reason to test them out in terms of what they could do much better at this point. They're good at taking a challenge, and they always seem to impress in one way or another.