As the father of two boys under the age of four I thought I knew a lot about thumbsucking. That is until endpoint security vendor Senforce Technologies selected Strategic Communications Group (Strategic) as its public relations agency of record.
Technology vendors face quite a conundrum when it comes to securing customer references. Journalists and analysts alike love them because they provide insight into the value delivered by a product or service, thereby validating the vendor’s claims.
Yet, customers tend to shy away from participating in promotional activity that doesn’t directly benefit their own business. For security companies it’s nearly impossible because their customers also invite risk by publicizing their technologies and practices.
This issue came up a few weeks ago as we sat in our conference room with a couple of Senforce’s sales executives brainstorming public relations tactics. Could an emphasis on rapid response programs produce a consistent flow of media coverage? How about a co-marketing campaign with one or two select partners? What thought leadership angles could we pursue?
That’s when Senforce’s Bruce Hassett inquired, “What about thumbsucking?” My colleague Shany Seawright and I shared a quizzical look. Bruce explained it’s what he called a new threat to the enterprise: when information is illicitly downloaded from a laptop to a small thumb drive for malicious purposes.
We had our thought leadership topic. Now the challenge became how to incorporate it into Senforce’s PR program to increase the company’s awareness and positioning. Our plan came together quickly:
1. Industry survey to validate the trend: we had already surveyed attendees who visited Senforce’s booth at two recent trade shows about their endpoint security requirements. We merely incorporated thumbsucking messaging into our press release announcing the survey results.
2. New media technologies to provide background: Senforce created a Web site dedicate to this campaign. The branding was purposely kept distinct from Senforce’s corporate site to enhance the perception of credibility. We also contributed a definition of thumbsucking to Wikipedia , a Web-based encyclopedia that serves as an information resource.
3. Aggressive media outreach: a press release is merely a tool to facilitate a direct interaction with a journalist. On behalf of Senforce we worked the phones talking to security and IT trade media about our survey and the thumbsucking threat.
Survey Says 73% of Organizations Store Corporate Information on Removable Devices
Survey Exposes Thumbsucking Threat
