stein + partners brand activation’s 25th anniversary section in btob magazine

8
S19 T his month, Stein + Partners Brand Activation (SPBA) celebrates its 25th anniversary. This special section in BtoB Magazine is intended to chronicle this important agency milestone. “We are thrilled to have this section devoted to SPBA, and particularly thrilled that clients have acknowledged our contribu- tion to their businesses by par- ticipating in the section,” states Tom Stein, a founding partner of SPBA and its president and chief creative officer. “As we thought about the section, though, our thoughts turned from the past to the future – and we decided that instead of looking back we wanted to look ahead,” Stein continues. This look forward began with a simple question. Through research fielded across social channels, the agency asked this question of senior marketing executives: From Insight to Activation Stein + Partners takes a brand new approach Which brands in BtoB do you con- sider activated – meaning brands that are “firing on all cylinders”? Perhaps not surprisingly, the brands most frequently cited by respondents were Apple, Google, IBM and Verizon. “What was sur- prising,” states Tom Stein, “was how few brands were cited at all. After the ‘usual suspects’, respon- dents were very hard pressed to come up with any other names other than a few consumer brands like JetBlue, Zappos and Amazon.” According to Stein, these research results weren’t entirely unexpect- ed. “When you deconstruct an ‘activated brand’, there are many facets. A brand with a clear and compelling purpose that is embraced across the enterprise. A brand with key leadership and functional alignment – C-suite, marketing, sales, IT, product, HR, customer care. With a true belief in the wisdom of its customers. With innovation that is integral. And with a belief that marketing can be the brand/ demand catalyst.” “It takes a lot for a brand to get it going good, and even more to get it going great,” adds Marianne Moore, partner and Chief Strategy Officer at SPBA. “Once you get it going great, you have to work even harder to keep it going great.” But for CEOs and CMOs who make the commitment, there are profound payoffs. “Activated brands aren’t just the global poster children – the Apples and Googles of the world. When you drill into specific industries and sectors, there are actually quite a few. They are all category leaders, disruptive challengers or category creators. They all believe in what they are doing with passion and purpose. They are willing to take risks and strike hard when opportunity presents itself. They are relentless, and relent- lessly accountable.” Stein points out they also are all extremely successful. “Look at stock performance and valua- tions. Look at M&A activity and outcomes. Look at the respect earned among analysts and influ- encers – and the loyalty earned among customers.” Activating brands for 25 years…and counting “As we grew up as an agency,” comments Moore, “we positioned ourselves early on and clearly as ‘The Brand Activators.’ As we con- templated our 25th anniversary, we wanted to put this positioning even more front and center – and so we re-branded from Stein Rogan + Partners to Stein + Partners Brand Activation. We elevated P R Newswire was looking to significantly evolve its brand positioning – and in doing so to establish a platform for Brand Activation. It turned to an agency that has made Brand Activation its mis- sion and its mantra, turning it into an actionable approach that enables brand and business success. That agency is the newly named, 25-year-old BtoB expert, Stein + Partners Brand Activation (formerly Stein Rogan + Partners). “PR Newswire pioneered the commercial news release distri- bution industry, and has been the market leader ever since,” states Tom Stein. “But two things had changed, and changed dramatically. First, PR Newswire’s core vertical mar- kets – the public relations and investor relations industries – were in the midst of radical evolution. Second, PR Newswire had rapidly evolved its solution sets, and was offering a new generation of multimedia and socially-driven products and brand activation all the way up to our own brand name. That’s how important we believe the concept is for marketing leaders today.” “This isn’t an easy business to succeed in for 25 years,” Stein notes, “especially given the extent of change that is ongoing. But we have always embraced change. In a lot of ways, we straddled the digital divide. The agency started growing just as digital was rearing its head. Our growth since has been fueled by merging the best tenets of brand stewardship with the propulsive power of digital in all its manifestations. This is what has enabled us to be ‘Brand Activators’ for clients in so many sectors.” SPBA Account Services VP Sue Guerrero adds, “Brand Activation is what we do – and who we are. It’s what clients want and need. Given the accelerated pace of business, of competition, of tech- nology, of customer proclivities, brands have to be extremely Brand Activation Stein + Partners turns 25 with a total focus on… “Activated brands believe in what they are doing... with passion and purpose.” (Insight continued on page S21) (Brand Activation continued on page S20) steinbrand.com

Upload: rubywriter

Post on 01-Nov-2014

519 views

Category:

Documents


0 download

DESCRIPTION

Stein + Partners Brand Activation’s 25th Anniversary Section in BtoB Magazine. A road map for identifying and becoming an activated brand.

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Stein + Partners Brand Activation’s 25th Anniversary Section in BtoB Magazine

S19

This month, Stein + Partners Brand Activation (SPBA)

celebrates its 25th anniversary. This special section in BtoB Magazine is intended to chronicle this important agency milestone. “We are thrilled to have this section devoted to SPBA, and particularly thrilled that clients have acknowledged our contribu-tion to their businesses by par-ticipating in the section,” states Tom Stein, a founding partner of SPBA and its president and chief creative officer.

“As we thought about the section, though, our thoughts turned from the past to the future – and we decided that instead of looking back we wanted to look ahead,” Stein continues.

This look forward began with a simple question. Through research fielded across social channels, the agency asked this question of senior marketing executives:

From Insight to Activation Stein + Partners takes a brand new approach

Which brands in BtoB do you con-sider activated – meaning brands that are “firing on all cylinders”?

Perhaps not surprisingly, the brands most frequently cited by respondents were Apple, Google, IBM and Verizon. “What was sur-prising,” states Tom Stein, “was how few brands were cited at all. After the ‘usual suspects’, respon-dents were very hard pressed to come up with any other names other than a few consumer brands like JetBlue, Zappos and Amazon.”

According to Stein, these research results weren’t entirely unexpect-ed. “When you deconstruct an ‘activated brand’, there are many facets. A brand with a clear and compelling purpose that is embraced across the enterprise. A brand with key leadership and functional alignment – C-suite, marketing, sales, IT, product, HR, customer care. With a true belief in the wisdom of its customers. With innovation that is integral. And with a belief that marketing can be the brand/demand catalyst.”

“It takes a lot for a brand to get it going good, and even more to get it going great,” adds Marianne Moore, partner and Chief Strategy Officer at SPBA. “Once you get it going great, you have to work even harder to keep it going great.”

But for CEOs and CMOs who make the commitment, there are profound payoffs. “Activated brands aren’t just the global poster children – the Apples and Googles of the world. When you drill into specific industries and sectors, there are actually quite a few. They are all category leaders, disruptive challengers or category creators. They all believe in what they are doing with passion and purpose. They are willing to take risks and strike hard when opportunity presents itself. They are relentless, and relent-lessly accountable.”

Stein points out they also are all extremely successful. “Look at stock performance and valua-tions. Look at M&A activity and outcomes. Look at the respect earned among analysts and influ-encers – and the loyalty earned among customers.”

Activating brands for 25 years…and counting“As we grew up as an agency,” comments Moore, “we positioned ourselves early on and clearly as ‘The Brand Activators.’ As we con-templated our 25th anniversary, we wanted to put this positioning even more front and center – and so we re-branded from Stein Rogan + Partners to Stein + Partners Brand Activation. We elevated

PR Newswire was looking to significantly evolve its

brand positioning – and in doing so to establish a platform for Brand Activation.

It turned to an agency that has made Brand Activation its mis-sion and its mantra, turning it into an actionable approach that enables brand and business success. That agency is the newly named, 25-year-old BtoB expert, Stein + Partners Brand Activation (formerly Stein Rogan + Partners).

“PR Newswire pioneered the commercial news release distri-bution industry, and has been the market leader ever since,” states Tom Stein.

“But two things had changed, and changed dramatically. First, PR Newswire’s core vertical mar-kets – the public relations and investor relations industries – were in the midst of radical evolution. Second, PR Newswire had rapidly evolved its solution sets, and was offering a new generation of multimedia and socially-driven products and

brand activation all the way up to our own brand name. That’s how important we believe the concept is for marketing leaders today.”

“This isn’t an easy business to succeed in for 25 years,” Stein notes, “especially given the extent of change that is ongoing. But we have always embraced change. In a lot of ways, we straddled the digital divide. The agency started growing just as digital was rearing its head. Our growth since has been fueled by merging the best tenets

of brand stewardship with the propulsive power of digital in all its manifestations. This is what has enabled us to be ‘Brand Activators’ for clients in so many sectors.”

SPBA Account Services VP Sue Guerrero adds, “Brand Activation is what we do – and who we are. It’s what clients want and need. Given the accelerated pace of business, of competition, of tech-nology, of customer proclivities, brands have to be extremely

Brand ActivationStein + Partners turns 25 with a total focus on…

“Activated brands believe in what they are doing... with passion and purpose.”

(Insight continued on page S21)(Brand Activation continued on page S20)

steinbrand.com

Page 2: Stein + Partners Brand Activation’s 25th Anniversary Section in BtoB Magazine

S20

active. They have to project topicality, relevance and energy. They have to start and participate in important conversations. They have to optimize their messages and synchronize delivery of those messages across media, channels, markets and countries. And they have to do it all in real-time.”

Extreme activationOne of the brands that Stein points to as an activation exem-plar is Syniverse, a global leader in the mobile communications space. For mobile operators, cable and Internet providers, and enterprises in over 160 countries, Syniverse simplifies the complexi-

ties of roaming, messaging and networking. At the center of the mobile communications universe, the company keeps people con-nected today and forges new connections for tomorrow.

“Syniverse was able to crystalize its message with concision and clarity,” Guerrero states. With the tagline “We make mobile work,” the brand was able to communi-cate its essence to all key audi-ences – and to absolutely align its solution focus, its internal en-gagement focus, and its customer/prospect engagement focus.”

Stein has been an agency partner to Syniverse for four years now, and has worked to develop global

and vertical market campaigns to help activate the brand. “Mobile communications is inherently complex. Syniverse solves the complexity,” says Stein. “By doing so, Syniverse enables mobility to play a greater and greater role in business and society, all over the world. That’s Brand Activation in action.”

Syniverse has put this clear purpose at the heart of its business and its marketing. It is driving some of the enormous advances in mobile communications – from mobile video to LTE to advanced mobile messaging. Along the way, it is not just activating its brand, it is activating opportunity for the

10t e n e t S

Activated brands: you know one when you see one

Given its positioning and stated purpose as

“Brand Activators,” it’s not surprising that SPBA is frequently asked, “How do you spot an ‘activated brand?’” According to tom Stein, the answer is simple and, though not meant to, may come off sounding a bit glib:

You know one when you see one.

More specifically, Stein states that when you delve into a brand that is “firing on all cylinders,” there are clear commonalities.

An aligned senior leadership team with a clear focus and an absolute sense of the brand’s and business’s envisioned future

An enterprise-wide under-standing and internalization of this focus – and a shared sense of an exciting future

A set of internal and customer-facing values that have passion as an underlying constant

A deep desire to know what customers are thinking, to bet-ter understand what they need, and to frame everything the brand stands for in that context

The translation of all the above into marketing strategy, product strategy, sales strategy, customer care strategy, human resources strategy, CSR strategy – all of which are in lock-step alignment

A brand that projects relevance, topicality and energy – that is not afraid to take risks, but that avoids gratuitous behavior at all costs

A brand that believes and manifests that what it is doing is authentic and important

A brand that is a starter of and a participant in important conversations

A brand that creates value and makes things better for all its stakeholders – and not just by selling them products

A brand that is in demand, that inspires people, and that earns respect

industries and enterprises it touches.

“It’s no surprise to us that Syniverse’s business performance has been so consistently strong, or that The Carlyle Group acknowledged that Syniverse is indeed an activated brand when it purchased it this year for approximately $2.6 billion,” Stein summarizes.

As for its own future, Stein states, “In life, 25 years old is the point at which the future is boundless. That’s exactly how we feel. At 25, we see boundless opportunity ahead. It all starts with Brand Activation.”

(Brand Activation continued from cover)

Page 3: Stein + Partners Brand Activation’s 25th Anniversary Section in BtoB Magazine

S21

services to keep pace with the evolu-tion and opportunity,” Stein says.

Further, the company was enter-ing the marketing vertical for the first time.

But the company faced hurdles. “For the most part, we were still known as news release distributors. While distribution was and is still at our core, we had developed and launched numerous other platforms and tools that weren’t associated with our brand,” says Rachel Meranus, VP of marketing and communications at PR Newswire, which is a subsidiary of United Business Media.

From a product standpoint, PR Newswire was all dressed up – but from a Brand Activation standpoint it had a long way to go.

Externally, the company needed to activate its brand so that it would be more readily and credibly associated with the myriad new solutions it now offered. Internally, the company needed to evolve from selling a basket of products to selling holistic solutions.

Enter Stein + Partners Brand Activation (SPBA), which became PR Newswire’s agency of record in early 2010.

“One of the tenets of Brand Activation is that a company needs to have an aligned senior leadership team with clear focus and an absolute sense of the brand’s and business’s envisioned future,” states Stein. “PR Newswire absolutely has this focus, which is job one in activating any brand.”

Another key Brand Activation tenet is a company’s deep desire to know what customers are thinking, to better understand

what they need, and to frame everything the brand stands for in that context.

“With the PR Newswire team as a more-than-willing partner, we were able to deeply probe for needs and aspirations,” com-

ments SPBA’s chief strategy officer, Marianne Moore.Stein + Partners’ team covered the entire waterfront, conducting exten-sive research with internal stakehold-ers, market influ-encers, thought-leaders, customers and prospects from existing and new markets that PR

Newswire wanted to enter. “The agency dove in and got to know our business incredibly fast, and they helped to articulate the

positioning we needed in order to move forward,” Meranus says.

The point of activation“The special ‘Brand Activation’ sauce we cooked up came right from the insights,” Moore continues. “Specifically, across PR Newswire’s PR, IR and marketing verticals, everyone was seeking deeper, cross-channel audience engagement driven by content. But they also realized that engagement is hard to come by given the splintering of audiences across so many digi-tal and social channels.”

“The Brand Activation Platform we developed with SPBA, ‘Engage Opportunity Everywhere,’ focuses on how PR Newswire helps orga-nizations leverage their content

From Insight to Activation

PR newswire’s “engage Opportunity Everywhere” brand platform derived from SPBA’s insight-driven process.

(Insight continued from cover)

(Insight continued on page S22)

Congratulations to Stein + Partners for 25 years of making brands work.

© 2011 Syniverse Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Syniverse and the Syniverse logo are registered trademarks of Syniverse Technologies, Inc.We make mobile work.

Syniverse.com

Page 4: Stein + Partners Brand Activation’s 25th Anniversary Section in BtoB Magazine

S22

assets in any format – text, mul-timedia, video – to engage with the right influencers, the right audiences, the right constituents, literally everywhere. That means across the web and social web, as well as across traditional chan-nels,” Meranus adds.

This Brand Activation platform led to an integrated internal/external marketing campaign. The “Engage Opportunity Everywhere” campaign officially kicked off in October 2010 at the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) annual conference. The campaign rolled out across multiple channels, including online display, search, mobile, social, multimedia content marketing, trade show marketing and e-direct. It has continued in earnest ever since.

“Importantly, our sales people and our internal people are now speaking differently to custom-ers and are having different conversations,” Meranus says. “They’re not going in and selling press release distribution, they’re

Is a brand a starter of and participant in important

conversations? Does it create value and make things better for all its stakeholders? Is it in demand because it goes farther to meet needs?

The answers to these questions go a long way to defining an activated brand. They also are the driving force behind the steps brands and agencies are taking to better understand and leverage what Stein + Partners has dubbed ‘PEO,’ or ‘Paid, Earned and Owned Media.’

SPBA has codified its approach to synchronizing paid, earned and owned media. This approach is now integral to its global go-to-market planning process – and its clients’ success.

“It’s our foundation, our planning DNA,” says Ted Kohnen, VP of integrated marketing at SPBA. “It’s our going-in philosophy for campaign structures that generate optimal results.”

Specifically, Kohnen points to con-verging trends – the growing us-age of content marketing (owned media), the ubiquity of the social web and social marketing (earned

selling a holistic program to help companies take their content and use our distribution network to send that content out into the digital ecosystem, while using our tools to measure the impact.”

In the view of SPBA’s Moore, Brand Activation is about much more than a positioning or a cam-paign. “It’s a way of thinking about a brand, it’s a way of thinking about a business and it’s a way that, we believe, the C-suite and senior marketing leadership needs to be thinking about their companies.”

The point of returnThe PR Newswire campaign has been a success on multiple levels. It has served as a strong inter-nal statement of purpose, and galvanized the company around a shared vision. Overall, results have been very strong across all channels utilized.

More specifically, online advertising has out-performed industry benchmarks by 2.6X. Other channels have also been strong performers, surpassing benchmarks by 3X.

media), and the advances in paid media, which are being driven in particular by hyper-targeting.

“Paid media – an integrated, multi-channel campaign – is

what clients are most used to and comfortable with,” Kohnen says. “What’s of note, though, is that hyper-targeting, down to the group and individual decision- maker level – is enabling what we call ‘targeted ubiquity’ at unprecedented efficiency levels.”

“What we also have found,” he says, “is that there is an additive

Perhaps most impressive are conversion rates. Overall, the campaign has yielded an astounding click-to-lead conversion rate of 43%. Seventy-five percent of leads are new to PR Newswire. Of note, the campaign served as entry point to a new market for PR Newswire (the marketing vertical). Results received from this market – from front-end response rates to lead volume to prospect quality – have also exceeded expectations.

and dramatic acceleration in per-formance when you take owned media – provocative, topically relevant content that a brand produces – and leverage that in

paid media campaigns, as well as in earned media campaign adjuncts (social media and PR efforts).”

PEO as response activatorIn fact, the agency’s data shows an impressive 35% increase in paid media response when the call-to-action or action catalyst is brand-generated content, or

owned media. As cited in a recent white paper, titled, “Paid, Earned & Owned (PEO) Media: Orchestrating Opportunity,” SPBA analyzed roughly 50 million paid online ad impressions booked for all clients across industries. Ad impressions that used owned content as a catalyst/call-to-action generated a 35% higher response rate than impressions without specific owned-content CTAs.

“Paid, earned and owned media each have their own sets of characteristics that make them effective in isolation,” Kohnen says. “But the key to effective synchronization and campaign performance is putting the content and information needs of the target audience at the center.”

PEO in playSPBA’s synchronized campaigns for TheLadders, the leading recruitment solution for profes-sional talent, help illustrate an effective PEO strategy in action.

In early 2010, SPBA was named AOR for TheLadders’ enterprise division, which is charged with marketing to corporate HR and recruiting teams, as well as third-party recruiters and agencies.

‘PeO’: the new ‘DnA’ of Brand Activation‘Paid, earned and owned’ strategies activate integrated marketing campaigns

the PR newswire brand platform has enabled multi-channel campaigns and content marketing that have driven brand and demand in the marketplace.

Stein + Partners: An agency activated At age 25, Stein + Partners has many milestones at which to look back. the agency straddled the “Internet divide” – and has pioneered innovation while porting key competencies across the divide in such areas as brand/account planning, brand stewardship and integrated marketing.

SPBA also can look back at many of the “disruptively innovative” brands it has activated that have gone on to category dominance – from Blackboard in the education technology space, to Cars.com in the online automotive space, to Symbol technologies, the inventor of bar code technology that SPBA helped re-position as the enterprise Mobility Company – setting the stage for its acquisition by and ultimate role as part of the Motorola Solutions business.

Here are some recent SPBA highlights:

In 2011, re-branded as Stein + Partners Brand Activation (from Stein Rogan + Partners)

In 2011, launched the Brand Activation network, a global collaborative of marketing services providers

In 2011, launched Pivot, a multifaceted provider of brand/marketing research services

In 2011, named Agency of the Year: BtoB Magazine

In 2010, named Agency of the Year: the Business Marketing Association

In 2009, named Agency of the Year: BtoB Magazine

150 major creative honors in the past 4 years alone

In 2008, president/chief creative officer tom Stein inducted into the CeBA (Creative excellence in Business Advertising) Hall of Fame

In 2008, launched Kilter, the first content marketing practice specializing in business brands

Since 2001, named one of America’s top BtoB agencies every year

25Y e A R S

(Insight continued from page S21)

(PEO continued on page S23)

What’s more, the campaign has been honored with numerous industry accolades, including B2 and ACE Awards, as well as a PRSA Big Apple Award for Integrated Communications in B2B.

According to Moore, “Brand Activation starts with better insights. Once brands have them, they’re off to the races.” For PR Newswire, the brand now has the inside track.

theLadders capitalized on PeO through extensive social media and content marketing integration.

Page 5: Stein + Partners Brand Activation’s 25th Anniversary Section in BtoB Magazine

S23

“The agency’s initial research for TheLadders found that what the core benefit recruiters wanted was a solution that could help them find the ‘best fits, fast,’” Kohnen says. “They wanted the most qualified job candidates, as quickly as possible, to drive competitive advantage.”

The agency also uncovered another key insight: Most hiring managers have a “picture” in their minds of what the ideal can-didates are for different jobs. For example, a senior sales executive is seen as strong and driven, yet also personable. A senior market-ing executive is viewed as more of a “mastermind,” with the abil-ity to “think big” while also being buttoned down and accountable.

Position accomplished, brand activatedSPBA used these insights to create one of the most critically acclaimed PEO campaigns, based on the tagline “Position Accomplished.”

Paid media – online and print – leveraged several personas that embodied the ideal $100K+ professional talent job managers have in their minds’ eye when they start a search, such as “The Machine,” a CFO who crunches P&Ls with ruthless efficiency, and “The Hammer,” a top sales execu-tive who knocks down quotas.

Earned media, specifically social media, played a significant role as well, in the form of branded Twitter and Facebook pages for each of the “characters” in the campaign, as well as RecruitLadders ‘social team’ profiles on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

From an owned media standpoint, SPBA research revealed the emergence of a new KPI in the enterprise recruiting space – quality of hire (QoH). The agency, in turn, developed a series of white papers and other assets to create a body of high-value owned media around quality of hire.

“The synchronization of PEO activity was designed to lift the performance of each channel – and to lift overall performance,” Kohnen states.

And it did. The results of the cam-paign exceeded all expectations – both hard “demand” metrics and brand metrics. SPBA exceeded an aggressive proforma conversion goal by 12% and delivered quality leads at a cost per lead 33% below projections. In social media, within six months, SPBA gener-ated over 7,000 qualified connec-tions across LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, enabling TheLad-ders to connect and engage with highly qualified and targeted individuals and companies. Most important of all, TheLadders was able to drive enterprise revenue

by 67% – exceeding its own goal for penetration and share of market.

Firing on all cylindersKohnen stresses that a PEO-struc-tured campaign has a particularly high impact when major conferences and trade shows are a focal point. For example, at the 2011 Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) Conference, TheLadders tasked Stein + Partners with achieving 500 sign-ups for its newly launched “Passport” solution.

SPBA created a fully integrated campaign, called “Passport,” that was built around a two-level, 40x50 jet – TheLadders 747 – that served as the company’s

exhibit space at the conference. The agency ran several online, social and mobile promotions featuring owned media to drive

interest in “Pass-port” and spike booth traffic. “Leading up to the event, we teased the event experience and, during the event, everybody was talking about it in social media,” Kohnen says.

This PEO effort fueled “massive activation” for the TheLadders.

There were 1,286 Passport sign-ups at SHRM, 157% above the goal, as well as thousands of booth visitors and hundreds of

A PeO strategy yielded massive activation for theLadders at the Society of Human Resource Management tradeshow.

short code participants who returned to The Ladders’ booth for gift cards to cover their luggage fees home.

“TheLadders is a strong example of Brand Activation that has been driven by the interrelationship of paid, earned and owned media,” says SPBA’s Tom Stein.

Kohnen continues, “It’s also a great illustration of how acti-vation is triggered by insight, ignited by outstanding and highly relevant creative across all chan-nels, and accelerated by a PEO approach that is tied to specific success/activation metrics.”

(PEO continued from page S22)

Congratulations to Tom Steinand

Stein + Partners Brand Activation

on

25 Years

of Innovation, Creativity and

Service to the Business-to-Business

Advertising Community.

Your tireless effort and insistence on excellence

have netted you 10 Top Agency awards

from BtoB since 2000.

As one of your clients, we know why!

Your friends at

zde_congrats_b2b_x1a_jnr_v3.indd 1 9/29/11 1:59 PM

Page 6: Stein + Partners Brand Activation’s 25th Anniversary Section in BtoB Magazine

S24

The world’s largest market-place for software testing

services, uTest taps into more than 45,000 quality assurance (QA) professionals in 180 countries. It started in 2008 based on a closely-held belief that software testing in a controlled lab envi-ronment is insufficient in today’s app-driven world.

In doing so, uTest embodied one of the core tenets of Brand Activation as espoused by Stein + Partners, the agency that recently undertook a significant re-brand-ing project for the software tester. According to SPBA, a brand that believes – and manifests – that what it is doing is authentic and important is well on its way to being an activated brand.

In uTest’s case, the company turned its belief into a radical approach to testing – crowd-sourced testing – that has turned the market upside down. The idea of allowing a huge community of professional testers to test outside the so-called firewall – while disruptive to the status quo – has proven immensely successful with companies that had been wrestling with the problem of apps performing differently outside the firewall than inside their own QA labs.

In fact, in the three years since launch, uTest’s customer base has grown to more than 1,000 compa-nies, including AOL, Google and Groupon.

Earlier this year, to accelerate its growth and take the brand to the next level, uTest unveiled a new business strategy. The company decided to move beyond its origi-nal focus on functional testing to a full suite of software testing services, including load testing, localization testing, security test-ing and usability testing. What remained constant was the com-pany’s passionate belief that its model adds value everywhere – to

software testers, to app developers, and ultimately to consumers and businesses dependent on the performance of their applications.

“The brand umbrella that we had

built wasn’t big enough to fit five different testing types underneath,” says Matt Johnston, chief marketing officer of uTest. “We needed a unifying approach.”

Said another way, uTest needed a brand voice which reflected its purpose and passion. And so, the company engaged Stein + Partners Brand Activation.

A purposeful pivot“When clients come to us, they’ve recognized the need to pivot – to develop an evolved or different brand narrative that unlocks opportunity,” says Michael Ruby, creative director of SPBA.

For uTest, it was a matter of communicating the scope and benefits of its enhanced offerings – and putting aside any assumptions about its target audiences, Ruby says.

“You think application develop-ers, and you think very technical, even wonk-ish. But we did some crowdsourcing ourselves among the target, and found there’s a definite emotional aspect. First, business success for most com-panies hinges upon getting their apps right – and right out of the gate. Second, the guys who conceive, make and test apps are wired. They’re determined to make great apps that will make their customers happy,” Ruby states.

As part of the major rebranding that launched this August, SPBA changed uTest’s tagline from “On-demand testing” to “Where the best test.” Johnston says the new tagline helped to change

the conversation with the company’s stakeholders.

“One of the challenges we threw out [to SPBA] was that we wanted a tagline that was more emotionally

evocative, as opposed to the very literal, descriptive ‘On-demand testing,’” he says. “We also needed something that applied and appealed to both the company’s community of testers, as well as customers and prospects.”

He adds, “It was interesting to hear testers say, ‘Where the best test. That’s terrific because I’m a top tester.’ So, it’s very aspirational. Flip that around and have a conversation with a customer who says, ‘That’s where the best products and applications are tested. That’s me!’ So, I watch two people look at a tagline and absolutely internalize it to their own situation.”

In addition to the new tagline, SPBA re-vamped uTest’s brand design across all touchpoints, and re-launched its website to high-light the company’s new testing services – and to put its purpose front and center.

“Today, when brands and customers can directly engage in real time via online and social channels, purpose is the difference maker in terms of brand storytelling and engagement,” comments Ruby. “Engagement is as much, if not more, about why and how a brand does something as it is about what it does.”

With uTest, that meant elevating the brand narrative above simply what it tests, to what it aims to help customers and testers achieve.

Johnston says, “We broadened the story from, ‘Oh, it’s crowdsourced testing, or on-demand testing,’

which are really neat ideas, to the much bigger and more essential concept of ‘where the best test.’”

He adds that feedback on the rebranding from both tester and customer and prospect communities has been “immediately and resoundingly positive, and that’s – in my experience in BtoB – very rare.”

Brand activation gone “wild”Another aspect of uTest’s re-branding was the most elusive of BtoB goals – category creation. “We wanted to harness the inherent value of crowdsourced testing,” Johnston says. “By extending companies’ software testing out ‘in the wild,’ closer to their users, we help them launch better products.”

In September, this aspect of the re- branding went live with the intro-duction of InTheWildTesting.com, which launched at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference.

The website is a hub for thought leadership in the software testing space. It features analyst and media reports on In-The-Wild-

Testing, along with lessons on how such testing complements and enhances in-house QA to help companies create high-quality applications. It also showcases the benefits of deploying In-The-Wild-Testing via testimonials and success stories.

“What’s most important, and what comes through all of this work, is that stories are told with the real passion of the brand,” Ruby said. “It’s not phony; there’s true care and real purpose behind what uTest delivers for its customers and testers. The voice is entirely authentic because we’re speaking with the voice of the customer.”

The two-pronged approach by Stein – changing the conversation about uTest’s products and services, while simultaneously positioning the company as a leader in a new category, has paid off, Johnston says.

While still early, the company has seen a marked increase in website metrics, particularly stickiness as measured by page views per visit, as well as the percentage of repeat visitors, on the rebranded uTest.com. The launch of InTheWildTesting.com at TechCrunch was also immensely successful based on prospect feedback at the event and growing engagement post-event.

“From a top-line perspective, it has set us up to expand outside of functional testing into security, load, localization and usability testing – which has a direct, addi-tive impact on the top line. From a tester perspective, it’s been not only great for recruiting, but for loyalty and affinity within our existing community,” he says.

Johnston admits that he was not surprised by the results.

“I have worked with Stein three times, so I knew what to expect,” Johnston says, referring to en-gagements with the agency while he was a marketing executive at both Mimeo.com and OnForce.

“When Brand Activation is done right, it’s the difference maker,” he states.

With SPBA’s help, uTest has graduated from being a start-up brand to one that is sprinting to global success...actively.

Johnston says. “My experience is that Stein raises the stakes, and delivers.”

Purpose and Passion: the Active IngredientsSoftware testing provider uTest accelerates from start-up to sprint

SPBA helped utest bring its purpose into clear focus through brand positioning, design, website development and thought leadership.

IntheWildtesting.com: a hub for thought leadership in the software-testing space.

“A brand that believes what it is doing is authentic and important is well on its way to being an activated brand.”

Page 7: Stein + Partners Brand Activation’s 25th Anniversary Section in BtoB Magazine

S25

Kilter: Content at the core of Brand Activation

Across the business marketing landscape, the ascendance

of content to its role as a primary component in the mix is manifest. And with this ascendance, the need for brands to step up their capability to deliver an increased quality and quantity of content to fuel their marketing and thought leadership machines is ascending as well.

Founded in 2008, SPBA’s Kilter was among the first content mar-keting practices specializing in business brands. Through Kilter, brands gain a greatly enhanced ability to develop content strategy and create rich, relevant content across social, online, search, mobile, viral and traditional channels.

While branded content has been on the scene for many years, key

BAN: Brand Activation goes global

Across all company sizes and verticals, marketers are

faced with increased complexity and attendant service and resource requirements. These requirements may have to do with the range of marketing services required, with the regions in which these services are required, or both.

“From large to mid-sized to smaller companies, most BtoB brands need to integrate a multiplicity of marketing capabilities and also to have a global footprint – whether in a couple of key markets or many markets across all theaters,” states Tom Stein.

In response, SPBA spearheaded the launch of the Brand Activation Network in June 2011. BAN is a collaborative of best-in-category marketing service providers that

gives BtoB marketers integrated access to a broad range of capabil-ities to activate success globally.

With SPBA serving as the point-of-integration, BAN gives market-ers a single point of access to the best independent agencies and service providers encompassing most key capability areas:

Brand strategy, positioning and architecture

Brand design

Brand and market research

Integrated, multi-channel marketing

Content marketing/thought leadership

Data-driven marketing

Demand generation

Public relations and investor relations

Social media and CSR

Search engine marketing

Mobile marketing

Global media planning/buying

Global transcreation and fulfillment

Founding members of the Brand Activation Network include:

AAC Global/Interverbum, global transcreation leaders

B2BMarketing, a leader in data-driven marketing

Bizo, the world’s largest business audience marketing platform

Kilter, the BtoB content marketing leader

Middleberg Communications, one of the premier public relations firms in B2B

Pivot, the highly innovative brand/market research provider

Stein + Partners Brand Activation

World Media, a leader in global media planning

According to Stein, “The challenge companies face is in meeting widespread and global needs – and how best to do it. They may prefer a centralized marketing model, a decentralized model, or a hybrid. They may prefer to work with agency networks, with best-of-breed providers, or a hybrid.”

“Through the BAN model, we believe we can step up to meet any need, anywhere in the world,” Stein continues.

market drivers are dramatically changing the content game:

CRM and marketing automa-tion platforms have become ubiquitous. They are voracious content consumers.

The Social Web and the shift to inbound marketing have content at their roots.

A need and hunger has emerged for information to assist in decision-making – and not nec-essarily from traditional sources such as media companies.

The interconnection and interplay of paid, earned and owned media are entirely reliant on content.

Add in new content distribution/engagement technologies and platforms, as well as sophisticated measurement schemas and platforms, and the opportunity to differentiate brands, products and solutions via content comes into clear focus.

With Kilter, brands can quickly add the bandwidth, capabilities, processes and structure to become brand publishers, and to continually stream content to constituents and receive back streams of insight and opportunity.

This year, you won 33 ACE Awards.Frankly, we’re getting kind of tired of congratulating you.The Business Marketing Association New York Chapter extends its heartfelt congratulations to Stein + Partners for 25 years of success, and for its continued support of the BMA-NYC.

www.bmanyc.org

Page 8: Stein + Partners Brand Activation’s 25th Anniversary Section in BtoB Magazine

8

Over the past 25 years, Stein Rogan + Partners has activated B2B and prosumer businesses to drive both brand and demand.

now, we’re ushering in our second quarter-century with a new name that’s reflective of our laser focus on what we do best – Brand Activation.

Stein + Partners Brand Activation’s new name comes with an even stronger commitment to activating clients’ brands and businesses globally – to accelerating awareness, driving demand, creating momentum and positioning them to capitalize on opportunity.

Gain and leverage deeper insights. Innovate, excite and engage with inspired and inspiring creative. Create and syndicate rich, relevant content. Synchronize and optimize paid, earned and owned media. Activate your brand with SPBA.

Brand Activation isn’t just what we do.

It’s who we are.

2011 BtoB Magazine Agency of the Year | 2010 BMA Agency of the Year

See Brand Activation in action at steinbrand.com