Atomic Cost of Waiting Survey program for client TOA Technologies plugged on David Letterman and Conan O'Brien
Friday, 18 November 2011
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.
Atomic PR acquired by Huntsworth
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
On Wednesday, March 23, AtomicPR was acquired by our global joint venture partner, Huntsworth, plc in a deal capped at $50 million with $13.3 million in cash up front. Atomic will be associated with Grayling, Huntsworth's largest global agency, with whom we will open additional Atomic offices in Europe and Asia, and will serve as a US home for Grayling clients from other parts of the world.
Atomic PR in the San Francisco Chronicle
Atomic PR in the Wall Street Journal
Huntsworth is the second largest independent PR consultancy in the world, with clients ranging from Skype and Google, to McDonald's and British Airways. They have 70 offices in 41 countries around the world - but are not a large presence in the US. They are also rapidly becomming more digitally and analytically savvy. That's where we fit in. Atomic needs to expand its footprint quickly outside the US into Europe, the middle East and AsiaPac, and that's where they come in. We've been in a JV in London and Munich with them for more than a year, so we know them well - so this isn't the usual roll-up, but was well thought through over time.
This won't change anything about how we do things here in the US, but we'll have more resources overseas quickly. We'll also have access to other services we don't provide now that are of interest to a growing number of our clients, such as public affairs through Dutko Grayling. Atomic PR's founders Andy Getsey and James Hannon are staying on and will continue running the agency the next five years, at least. We aren't planning on changing anything that isn't broken, but we continue to aggressively expand our capabilities and are working hard to get better all the time.
Thanks to everyone at Huntsworth and Grayling; it's good to be part of the family. And thanks to all of our AtomicPR clients for trusting our teams with your programs!
Atomic PR Named 2009 Tech PR Agency of the Year
Tuesday, 06 April 2010
Each year, The Holmes Report, an influential independent publication covering the international public relations industry, evaluates the performance of public relations agencies based on specific criteria and a survey of leading corporations and clients to select the top agencies. We're exceedingly happy that Atomic has been named Tech PR Agency of the Year 2009.
We're grateful to the Holmes report for the honor, especially considering the high caliber of the other public relations and social media agencies in the technology community. And as we enter our 10th year, we're fortunate that a growing number of tech brands are coming to understand and value the differences in our viewpoint, technology and methods vs. the more prevalent opinion-based approaches still favored by most top PR agencies.
In selecting Atomic as Tech Agency of the Year, the Holmes Report states: "During a year in which clients were monitoring return-on-investment even more closely than usual, it should come as no surprise that Atomic's distinctive analytical approach to communications - its ComContext™ process, developed before the firm took on any clients, is designed to provide agency teams with critical insights that fuel strategy, elevate creative thinking, and provide granular metrics on program performance - helped Atomic hold its own during a turbulent time in the tech sector. Founder Andy Getsey believes the firm's analytics-enhanced strategy and creative thinking, its ability to mix traditional and digital and social media, video and search engine optimization, deliver superior results; he says clients often see a 100 percent increase on many measurement metrics after switching to Atomic. And clients from deep tech to consumer tech, from Internet commerce to digital entertainment - Verizon and Smule in mobile consumer technology, Bebo and Linkedin in social networking, Hotwire and RealtyTrac in web commerce - back that up."
Atomic's approach mixes classical PR and media relations with social media, video and search engine optimization, enhanced with the sophisticated use of ComContext communications analytics platform and processes for strategy building, creative planning and detailed program measurement. Atomic has powered numerous breakthrough campaigns for progressive technology, Web 2.0, consumer and entertainment brands from high profile startups like Mint.com, Bebo, and Smule, to growing mid-stage companies such as Ingres, LinkedIn and Polaroid, as well as publicly traded companies including Hotwire (an Expedia company), ArcSight, IMAX and Verizon. Many Atomic clients achieve 100% or greater improvements across numerous measures of PR program performance compared to pre-Atomic baselines (www.atomicpr.com/results).
Atomic has offices in London, Munich, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
Atomic's "Hollywood sign" stunt for the Trust for Public Land. More coming...
Friday, 12 February 2010
Atomic LA and Atomic Digital Ops have had to keep mum about this project for some time, but now we're public with our efforts and the news is making headlines around the globe. So far we've seen hundreds of major press hits, broadcast pickups, and social media chatter (1,750+ Facebook fans in 36 hours, a Top 10 trending Twitter keyword in LA, etc).
We're helping the Trust for Public Land in their campaign to save Cahuenga Peak, the land surrounding the Hollywood Sign. Owned by private developers, the land is at risk of having a number of mansions built atop it, forever marring the iconic view of the Hollywood Sign and preventing the public access to the land which people have enjoyed for decades.
Much more to come soon - in the meantime check out our microsite for the latest updates, and feel free to share the widget below and encourage support!
Atomic ranked #43 in 2009 O'Dwyers agency listings for PR firms of all types
Saturday, 14 March 2009
Atomic was listed last week at #43 in the O'Dwyer PR News Agency Rankings for agencies of all types, not just technology specialists like Atomic. It's excellent to see so many tech agencies in and around the top 50. Later this year, we will begin expanding our offering outward from strictly tech related assignments to adjacent categories where the analytic approach, strategies and playbooks we've honed in the hyper-competitive tech markets will have similar or even greater impact. And, we will very shortly open new offices in Europe and Asia. Stay tuned.
