Atomic PR Blog

Atomic Cost of Waiting Survey program for client TOA Technologies plugged on David Letterman and Conan O'Brien

2011-11-18T18:53:57Z

It turns out that "waiting for the cable guy" costs the American workforce nearly $38 billion every year in lost time? That's what TOA (Time of Arrival) Technologies' 3rd annual Cost of Waiting Survey found. And Atomic conceived and designed the program.

Last week, this staggering statistic caught the attention of both David Letterman and Conan O'Brian. The late night show hosts both opened their respective monologues with references to the report, bringing national consumer attention to the survey's findings and TOA's solution to the "cable guy problem."

TOA Technologies' software is used by cable companies and other providers to cut the wait-time window they offer customers and accurately predict in-home appointment arrival times for many global brands, including Cox Communications, Arhaus Furniture and Virgin Media. Its technology touches the lives of millions of Americans, but most consumers don't really think of the cable and delivery guy past their current service appointment.

So, how did Atomic get TOA, a business-to-business mobile workforce software company from Cleveland widespread attention from a slew of major national broadcast, print and outline outlets?

TOA came to Atomic nearly three years ago with the goal of obtaining more media awareness in consumer press, as well as business and trade outlets. Atomic's strategic recommendation: focus on bigger picture consumer problems and answer the fundamental question: How much does all this waiting really cost customers and companies?

The first national Cost of Waiting Survey generated 18 pieces of media coverage in 2009, mostly in trade press. The following year Atomic expanded research to include the UK and Germany, while modifying the questions to hone in on popular themes from 2009 and identify new trends. Program materials included more in-depth reports, infographics and a video. US coverage grew 83% from the previous year -- especially in the consumer space, with more than 30 media placements.

This year Atomic expanded markets to include Brazil, an emerging cable market, and engaged with IBOPE Zogby to help identify trends in the customer service space and reevaluate the survey questions, leveraging benchmarks of relevant statistics from previous years.

The 2011 findings gave Atomic the opportunity for a NYC media tour with TOA's CEO, Yuval Brisker, who hosted pre-briefings with Fortune, CNN Money and Reuters. The tour and all messaging highlighted 3 key trends: social media's impact on the space, the shorter fuse and higher expectations of customers across the board, and the need for a human element in customer service. Atomic's focus on top-tier media and trade press generated coverage by media influencers and national outlets, including Good Morning America, TIME Magazine, Business Insider, CNBC and the Huffington Post. To date, the survey has generated 88 pieces of media coverage in the US alone, a 193% increase over last year and 360% more coverage than the first report.

The Cost of Waiting conversation continues to cycle, with Twitter mentions surpassing last weekend's traditional and online news coverage and many of the national articles spurring strong opinions from readers, generating at least 30 comments per article. By elevating TOA's differentiators and business model within key media interviews, the news cycle began to build into a problem and solution conversation -- highlighting TOA's business model and how they solve a frequent consumer need.

From Conan O'Brian to USA Today, more than 110 million people have read, watched or listened to news on TOA's Cost of Waiting 2011 survey. That's more than 1/36 of the world's population -- which is another stat we're thinking of emailing to Letterman's producers.

Sony and Atomic PR launch Sony Tablet S

2011-09-28T22:58:34Z

With Apple, Samsung, Motorola, RIM and HP already competing in the tablet race, Atomic's job was to help launch the new Sony Tablet into a crowded and quickly commoditizing marketplace - engaging and exciting consumers, while generating strong, positive coverage from technology, business and consumer press and bloggers.

ComContext™ analysis fostered a number of key insights and helped Atomic build a strategic, well-informed plan; focusing messaging on Sony's own historical design prowess, the unique and differentiated design attributes of the Tablet S, and its connection to Sony's content ecosystem. Top tier media fell into two distinct camps - those who producing negative coverage of almost any Android Honeycomb tablet (avoid), and those who seemed to see Android tablets as a viable alternative to Apple's marketplace dominance (engage). We also observed that competitors were timing large numbers of reviews to hit on or near product announcement dates, which flooded the media with mostly positive coverage when product excitement should be highest.

Sony and Atomic organized and pitched a series of announcements, roundtables and briefings, and seeded early (pre-announcement) product with high-priority targets, to unfold the tablet story in the media, and drive sub-spikes of coverage leading up to the launch. Atomic organized a regional Tablet tour in San Francisco and New York to give reporters and key bloggers the opportunity to experience the Tablet firsthand and to speak with product managers directly. Sony and Atomic also took the Tablet directly to consumers and influencers with the #CatchTheTablet social media program (see separate post.)

The Sony Tablet launch was covered in 1,201 articles, generating nearly 1 billion impressions since the August 31 announcement. Many top tier outlets covered the launch, all communicating the product's unique and differentiating qualities effectively. For example, according to WIRED's Michael Calore, "Sony has taken a chance by eschewing the simple slate and going with a more humanizing shape. It's new and unusual, but yet familiar to anyone who's read a magazine at the beach. An admirable choice." A large number stories also carried content about Sony's design prowess and content universe as positives when compared to Apple and Apple's me-too competitors. Atomic's #CatchTheTablet social media campaign was considered by The Next Web to be the most successful social media promotion in SEL history, and a number of other trade press covered the launch.

Check out details here: http://www.atomicpr.com/results/sony-tablet-launch/

The Next Web calls (Atomic's) #CatchTheTablet social media campaign for Sony Tablet S the most successful Sony Electronics product launch in the US

2011-09-28T22:36:56Z

According to a recent article on The Next Web, #CatchTheTablet is considered the most successful social media campaign ever implemented by Sony Electronics for a product launch in the US: http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2011/09/26/how-sony-ran-catchthetablet-its-most-successful-social-media-campaign-in-history/.

The concept and name for the #CatchTheTablet social media campaign was conceived at Atomic PR, and Atomic teammates worked alongside the social media team at Sony Electronics to combine Facebook, Twitter and gaming elements to give participating fans in important markets across the United States the opportunity to win a Tablet and increase brand awareness for Sony. The Atomic team built a Facebook tab, which acted as a central hub for campaign efforts. Through the hub, Sony fans could learn about and RSVP for Tablet events in top U.S. markets and use interactive maps to discover exactly where they needed to go in order to "Catch the Tablet." Sony and Atomic social media staffers personally turned up with the Tablet in hand at different locations in five top cities across the country, including New York, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco and Chicago.

To enter the contest, fans had to locate the team, take a photograph with the Tablet and tweet it out with the #catchthetablet hashtag. Fans could also head to a Sony Store and photograph the Tablet there. To increase engagement among fans not located in the five cities, fans could go onto Facebook and vote to add their city to the itinerary. Additionally, to help engage fans located outside Catch the Tablet tour stops in top markets, we also provided a virtual way to enter the contest to win a Tablet, by simply submitting your email address to the Facebook tab. Over the two-week campaign, 60 Sony Tablets were distributed to fans participating in the campaign.

Check out more details and complete results here: http://www.atomicpr.com/results/sony-catch-the-tablet/index.php

Atomic awarded two separate 2011 Agency of the Year distinctions from Bulldog Reporter

2011-09-01T17:43:33Z

Bulldog Reporter has selected Atomic as it's 2011 Bronze Mid-Sized Agency of the Year, and 2011 Silver Tech Agency of the Year - the only agency receiving two honors in the judging. The recognition in the Bulldog Awards especially satisfying because the ranking of agencies is done by journalists, bloggers and other industry influencers as opposed to sheer size of billings or other distinctions. 2011 has been a very strong year for Atomic PR, including our acquisition of the Red Consultancy, San Francisco in February and subsequent rebranding and spin out of sister agency H30, our acquisition by Huntsworth in March, our win of the Sony Electronics account in the US in April, a string of other exciting account wins across mid-size and startup accounts from EyeFi to Shopkick and 30%+ growth overall through the first half of the year. Atomic has also done significant hiring and teambuilding to further enhance our digital/social, and pure consumer and B2B offerings outside of technology related categories. In April of 2010, Atomic was named US Tech Agency of the Year by the Holmes Report, which focused heavily on our use of sophisticated communications analytics to drive strategy and creative, and provide detailed campaign results analysis.

Atomic hires three VPs

2011-07-12T17:12:04Z

By Beth Krietsch
June 23, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO: Atomic PR recently added three VPs to its tech and web brand practice. Monica Wik and Sandra Lo join the agency's San Francisco office, and Debbie Etchison joins in Los Angeles.

Wik joins the tech and web brand practice in San Francisco, where she is working alongside a number of Atomic VPs in order to get acclimated with the agency's systems and culture. Starting in mid-July she will begin leading teams on different accounts. Before joining Atomic she worked on Apple's worldwide retail PR team.

Prior to Apple, she worked for a number of years at Sony Computer Entertainment America, where she helped build the company's corporate communications team. She also has agency experience from a position at Blanc & Otus, where she managed several consumer accounts.

Much like Wik, Lo is getting a feel for the agency's culture before she starts joining new accounts and leading teams in mid-July. She previously served as the global communications lead at Adobe, where she led PR and social media programs for the company's digital enterprise solutions, launched products, and led thought leadership campaigns.

Before working at Adobe, Lo managed corporate communications at Salesforce.com and has also worked at Macromedia, where she led global PR and analyst relations.

In Los Angeles, Etchinson will work on the Sony Electronics account, as well as several others. She joins from a VP position at Hill and Knowlton in Washington.

She has also worked as a VP at Weber Shandwick in both New York and Atlanta, where she managed consumer media relations and product launch campaigns. She also has experience as a congressional press secretary, journalist, and documentary filmmaker.

How do you adopt SEO practices to deal with changing search algorithms?

2011-07-07T23:28:08Z

There's a not-so-secret fear in the search marketing world, and it's the algorithm update. Whenever the major search engines make a significant change, SEOs around the world will immediately dive into their analytics to see how it has affected them.

The good news is that by and large these algorithm updates tend to target sites using practices that are on the borderline of what would be considered "black hat" SEO practices. The latest major Google update, the "Panda" update rolled out in February/April, is aimed at content farms - sites that aggregate or create large amounts of low-quality content. Such content farms aren't explicitly SPAM, but are not valuable to most users.

Atomic advocates and practices "white hat" SEO tactics, in which we aim to create content that users will naturally value, share, and link to. These tactics have proven highly effective for a number of clients, for example Mint.com. Because such content is of actual value, and the links they attract are from natural, quality sources, the sites we work with are only minimally affected by algorithm updates.

None the less, any algorithm update will have collateral damage. If your clients have been affected, the first step is to evaluate your strategies for any tactics that might have been targeted in the update. The next step would be to see if your client sites are strongly associated with sites that have been affected. If many of your links or referrers come from XYZ.com, and they were hammered by an update, then it might have rippled back to you.

Lastly, it's possibly you've unintentionally triggered a penalty. For example, having very little content per page, little original content, or lots of duplicate content. Look to see if you can improve your content strategies and clean your site of low-quality sections that might be seen as a content farm.

Updates to the algorithms are always a good time to review your strategies, but the best defense is an adherence to white hat tactics that are unlikely to be affected by an update now or in the future.

//image via adactio

Andrea Collins Joins Atomic PR New York as Director

2011-07-07T18:40:13Z

Andrea Collins, a national award-winning public relations and marketing professional with 10 years of experience leading account teams across technology, finance, travel and tourism, entertainment, food and spirits, has joined Atomic PR's New York office as a Director. Andrea most recently served as a communications consultant for clients including Kashi Foods, Ibex Outdoor Clothing and Tribe Mediterranean Foods. She brings with her extensive experience providing strategic leadership for clients undergoing re-branding, crisis communications and management change.

According to Andrea, "I was attracted to Atomic PR because of its client focus, leadership in executing broad, multi-media campaigns and emphasis on analytics as a key part of its strategic and creative process. The Atomic mix has worked amazingly well for a wide range of clients."

Andrea honed her communications experience at KSCA Strategic Communications and Vollmer Public Relations where she worked on b-to-b, b-to-c, non-profit, and community affairs accounts including for Deloitte Financial Advisory Services, VSP Vision Care and Hess Energy Marketing. Her work on the Travelocity and Texas Tourism accounts earned her a PRSA Silver Anvil, and IABC Golden and Silver Quill awards.

Debbie Etchison joins Atomic PR Los Angeles as vice president

2011-06-16T21:57:11Z

Debbie Etchison, a PR pro with more than 20 years experience directing creative and award-winning national communications and employee engagement programs for high profile brands including Philips, Pfizer, Bank of America, Q-tips, Cox Enterprises and HSBC has joined Atomic PR's Los Angeles office as vice president. Debbie joined Atomic from Hill and Knowlton in Washington, D.C., where she was a VP providing senior management and day-to-day implementation for top tier clients.

Said Debbie Etchison, vice president, Atomic PR Los Angeles. "Atomic PR is among the vanguard of the new PR, and I'm happy to bring my management experience to bear as the agency continues to grow and take on assignments of increasing scale."

Previously, Debbie was a vice president for Weber Shandwick in New York and Atlanta, where she managed consumer media relations and product launch campaigns for a string of high profile accounts. A former journalist, Debbie also served as a Congressional press secretary and has significant government relations and Capitol Hill experience. In addition, Debbie is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, whose feature-length documentary entitled "War & Truth," received international broadcast and U.S. DVD distribution.

"Atomic PR is fortunate to be able to work with people of Debbie Etchison's experience and abilities in connection with some of the larger assignments we're being asked to take on, while also giving them exposure to some of the wildly entrepreneurial startups we're also fond of - the mix of people and brands is really energizing," said Andy Getsey, Atomic principal.

Sandra Lo joins Atomic PR San Francisco as vice president

2011-06-13T16:44:48Z

Sandra Lo has joined Atomic PR's San Francisco office as a vice president. With fifteen years of public relations experience, Sandra has worked with some of the top brands in Silicon Valley including Adobe, salesforce.com, Macromedia and TechTV. Most recently, Sandra led PR and social media programs for Adobe's digital enterprise solutions and pioneered the company's "Customer Experience Management" thought leadership campaign. Acting as global communications lead, Sandra successfully launched numerous products at Adobe including Web Experience Management Solution, LiveCycle Enterprise Suite, Acrobat.com, LiveCycle Managed Services, LiveCycle Mobile, Adobe Connect and the Flash Platform developer tools.

"Atomic is doing the kind of transmedia campaigns and applying analytics in sophisticated ways that most other agencies aren't; and it's on a lot of shortlists - so it's where I wanted to be after deciding to go back to the agency side," said Sandra Lo, vice president, Atomic PR San Francisco.

Prior to Adobe, Sandra managed corporate communications at salesforce.com and drove global awareness for customer successes, executive thought leadership and corporate philanthropy. At Macromedia, Sandra led global PR and analyst relations for popular creative, web and developer solutions such as Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, Shockwave and Studio.

In addition to technology PR experience, Sandra has spearheaded publicity campaigns for numerous consumer brands as well. At TechTV, she extended the reach of the network beyond technology enthusiasts, and created headline opportunities for the talents in top consumer magazines such as Maxim, Billboard, GQ and FHM, and airtime on The View, ESPN and Good Morning America. Earlier in her career, Sandra managed PR campaigns for consumer services clients including Legalzoom.com, Cafepress.com and Gateway to LA.

"Sandra Lo has lots of recent experience with the range of communications we work with at Atomic, and she has a sophisticated, hands-on background in mixing social media with traditional print and broadcast media," said Andy Getsey, AtomicPR principal. "We're delighted she chose to join Atomic PR."

Sandra graduated from U.C. Berkeley with a B.A. in Ethnic Studies and received a M.A. in Communications Management from USC Annenberg School of Communications. Sandra is an avid sports fan and welcomes a lively discussion with anyone about MLB, NFL, NBA and Pac-10.

Monica Wik joins Atomic PR San Francisco as vice president

2011-06-06T17:33:19Z

Monica Wik has joined Atomic PR in San Francisco as a vice president. Monica brings more than 15 years experience in marketing and public relations for companies in the consumer technology and video game industries; working for companies big and small to elevate their brands in crowded fields while building a large network of business, consumer and analyst relationships along the way.

"When I decided to go back onto the agency side, Atomic PR was at the top of my list of people to talk with - they're definitely a buzz agency," said Monica Wik, vice president, Atomic PR San Francisco. "Atomic's clever use of analytics and blend of events, traditional media, social media, video and SEO - and their mix of start up and modern, big brand clients is exactly what I was looking for."

Before joining AtomicPR, Monica worked on Apple's worldwide retail public relations team. Prior to Apple, Monica spent several years at Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) where she built the corporate communications team from the ground up. Before that, Monica worked at Blanc & Otus Public Relations where she managed a diverse group of consumer-focused accounts, from start-ups to public entities, including: TiVo, Sony, Kana, SpotLife, GetFit.com, drkoop.com and MongoMusic (acquired by Microsoft).

Monica was introduced to us by a mutual friend in the valley, and she's a great addition to Atomic's growing senior management team," said Andy Getsey, Atomic principal. "She has a strong leadership background, a great mix of startup and big brand experience, a broad perspective spanning consumer and b2b, experience with transmedia campaigns, and a great personality - we're delighted to have her aboard."