Nortel
“Taking a Measured Approach to PR to Drive Home Messages”

The Challenge:

Historically in the U.S. trade media, Nortel had the perception of being a telecommunications equipment provider for the world’s top service providers. However, the company wanted to balance this perception by educating the IT trade media and the market on its long-standing relationships with blue-chip enterprise customers.

Specifically, the company wanted to achieve three goals: promote its leadership in key technology areas critical to enterprises, determine how it was being perceived vis-à-vis it’s main two enterprise competitors – Cisco and Avaya; and measure how well its key messages were resonating with the top IT trade influencers.

Nortel contracted with LP&P, its agency of record, to develop a customized solution for measuring media results for the Enterprise Networks business, as well as leveraging these results to enhance the PR program.

At the time of engagement, the Enterprise Networks business had just come off a major strategic initiative – the “One Network. A World of Choice.” launch, which served as the main news trigger to re-emphasize the company’s enterprise messages in the top IT trade media.

The LP&P Difference:

LP&P met this challenge head on with the development of a customized, quarterly measurement and analytics tool for the Enterprise Networks group. At the core of this solution was an LP&P media measurement database custom-designed to help capture and analyze the relevant articles in the group’s top 10 IT trade publications. The articles captured within this database included those related to Nortel’s enterprise business, as well as to Cisco’s and Avaya’s enterprise businesses. 

With this customized tool, LP&P was able to develop and present a detailed media metrics report that determined not only how much coverage Nortel was garnering in comparison to its two main competitors, but also how much message pull-through Nortel was achieving and from which announcements compared to competitors, and in what types of stories (news, features, reviews) and whether or not the coverage was positive or negative.

LP&P tracked and analyzed more than 400 clips per quarter over a two-year span and was able to leverage the data to closely track the progress of the Enterprise Networks PR program. In addition to quarterly analysis, LP&P also provided a year-end perspective of the program for a broader view. LP&P also leveraged the report results to make recommendations and to focus the PR program on critical areas where competitors were initially stronger, such as executive visibility and case study placements.

The Results:

As a result, LP&P instituted an executive visibility and case study program that resulted in the creation of numerous pitch abstracts, byline articles, and published customer references. Within the executive byline program, which generated 25 byline articles in a 16-month period, LP&P also identified eight overarching topics of interest for the media for its top enterprise executives, interviewed these Nortel executives, and drafted the articles, securing coverage for seven of eight topics in the top 10 IT trade publications and tier one vertical publications, bringing the total number of byline articles placed in this time to 32. With the case study program, LP&P was able to increase placements in top trade publications, including in eWEEK, Computerworld and Network World, securing an average of one major stand-alone feature case study per quarter. Customers highlighted in these pieces included Mandalay Bay Casino, city of Daytona Beach, Florida, and House of Blues, among numerous other customer mentions each quarter.

The measurement reports were also used by the PR team to communicate their results to all levels of the organization, including the president and chief marketing officer of the division.

It is also important to note this program was conducted while the company was restating earnings. Nevertheless, LP&P was able to improve message pull-through for Nortel by eight percent year-over-year during one of the most difficult times in the company’s history.

 

View more information on Lois Paul & Partner's Telecommunications Practice Area