TRA

TRA Inc. created an innovative media measurement solution. It is quickly gaining awareness as the possible “Holy Grail” that advertisers have been searching for.

The Challenge

Mid February was an important deadline for advertisers—TRA’s target customers—to decide whether or not to invest in existing media measurement programs for the remainder of 2008. As a result, it was imperative that TRA make as big a splash within the advertising community to raise awareness right out of the gate to garner greater levels of market share.

As TRA’s PR agency, PAN Communications knew it would need to secure coverage that would not only raise awareness of an emerging market leader, but also provide the level of credibility that would gain attention of the entire advertising/media measurement industry. The objective was to secure a stand-alone launch article within the Wall Street Journal. The team knew that resting all of its efforts on one hit, within the Wall Street Journal, for a private company emerging from stealth mode, without an actual customer, was a big gamble and a challenge.

The Approach

Although TRA was still an unknown company, it had several strengths PAN knew it could leverage in its favor. TRA’s executive team included pioneers of the media measurement industry, board of directors that included former CEOs of major advertising and media companies, as well as investors and media partners at leading media buying firms and broadcast outlets. A number of the team members formerly worked in the media departments of leading global advertising agencies including Young & Rubicam, NY.

The team also understood the advertising industry and how the media planning and buying departments made decisions on selecting and buying media. Thus, they were confident that they had a strong story that would interest Stephanie Kang, Advertising Reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Kang had been covering the media measurement industry on a regular basis, and was a good target for this launch story. However, she didn’t normally cover company launches unless they were very large, or companies that didn’t yet have customers.

To overcome this challenge, PAN touted TRA’s strong beta program with great results and strong media partners currently in the mix, including CBS and GroupM. To convince Kang of the importance of this launch and validity of the company, PAN and TRA decided to reveal strategic information to the reporter after securing a non-disclosure agreement. This gave her a firsthand view of the company’s potential to impact the advertising industry.

This was the turning point in PAN’s efforts to secure a stand-alone piece in the Wall Street Journal. The team piqued Kang’s interest in an initial telephone briefing, demonstrating that TRA was an industry changing story they felt warranted coverage. The strategy paid off. After the initial telephone briefing, PAN secured her interest in a demo at TRA’s offices in midtown Manhattan. Simultaneously, the team lined up industry luminaries for Kang to speak with immediately following the face-to-face meeting. During the face-to-face, PAN seeded the conversation with more critical industry information.

PAN had open communications with its client TRA, and offered additional information sources and assistance to the reporter in an effort to keep in touch and offer valuable information and contacts.

The Results

The end result was a larger than anticipated profile of TRA in the Wall Street Journal that ran on Monday, February 11, 2008. In addition, the reporter opted to not make this an industry piece, rather she focused solely on TRA and how it would impact the advertising/media buying industry.

The article resulted in more than 15 calls for new business leads and partnership opportunities—almost all of them from Fortune 500 companies, including two major name-brand retailers which TRA’s executive team had been having difficulty reaching prior to the article’s appearance. Additional new prospects, including top-ten advertising firms, phoned looking for engagements as well.

The buzz that this launch article created was significant and immediately catapulted TRA—which was completely unknown only a day before—as a serious threat to Nielsen and Arbitron, the two largest media measurement companies in the industry. Additionally, the blogosphere immediately launched into a debate about the state of the media measurement industry and its previous inability to provide transparency into advertising performance and return on investment.

Simultaneously, Project Apollo, a competitive initiative led by Arbitron and Nielsen, was scuttled within two weeks of TRA’s launch and the Wall Street Journal article. Although TRA claims it wasn’t directly responsible for the death of Apollo, which was a two-year-old, $50 million initiative, the Wall Street Journal article was a topic of discussion between Nielsen, Arbitron, and the angry institutional investors who wanted to know why the project they had funded was suddenly shut down without ever getting off the ground. Clearly, TRA’s initial splash made enough of an impact on the industry to get and hold the attention of the institutional investment community (as well as the primary PR audience targets), highlighting the value this article provided for TRA.