Case Studies
Product Public Relations: Hexago Gateway6 Campaign
Subudhi Consulting Group, Inc. (SCG), a strategic and tactical public relations, marketing and communications agency for companies, concepts, and events, was retained by Hexago, Inc., for ongoing product public relations around the company’s flagship product, Gateway6, and to increase overall awareness of the company in the U.S. federal and IT markets.
Hexago, Inc. is a leading provider of IPv6 deployment solutions to companies and organizations that need to incorporate IPv6 compatibility into their Internet services or products. Based in Quebec, Canada, Hexago has taken part in designing network standards for IPv6, and actively contributes to the IPv6 Operations Working Group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Involved in Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) peering for IPv6 since 1997, Hexago operates on a global level with over 40 clients such as the U.S. Air Force and Deutsche Telecom.
Hexago developed Gateway6 to function as a tool allowing companies to establish connectivity between the current Internet, IPv4, and the next generation Internet, IPv6. Providing greater speed, reliability, security and flexibility than its precursor, Gateway6 makes it possible for companies and governments to access and use IPv6 with greater ease and confidence. While Hexago developed a tool necessary for the IPv6 transition, the company’s limited presence in the U.S. and federal IT markets hindered the company’s ability to effectively market Gateway6.
SCG created and implemented a six-month public relations plan to increase name recognition and product awareness by specifically targeting leading IT and government trade press and analysts. Media targets were selected and ranked by SCG based on the relevance and compatibility of their editorial mission to Hexago products and services. Individual press and analysts were matched based on their beat, coverage of the government IT market, and past coverage of the IPv6 industry. SCG implemented strategic planning sessions and monthly tracking meetings to ensure program implementation ran smoothly and according to schedule. Through periodic news releases, press tours, media briefings to print and radio outlets, as well as outreach to editorial contacts, SCG generated coverage for Hexago in key publications.
During the months of January and February, SCG secured two customer interviews and two media briefings resulting in feature stories for Hexago. The first story, “IPv6: A major step forward is mandated by 2008,” by J.R. Wilson appeared in the January issue of The Year in Defense journal and covered Hexago as an IPv6 solution provider to the Department of Defense. The publication was distributed to the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, members of Congress, top global defense contractors, base commanders, procurement officers and program managers from within all of the armed services. The second feature story, entitled “A Bridge to the Future,” by Doug Beizer, appeared in Washington Technology, and highlighted the company’s success in working with U.S. federal government customers.
In March, SCG developed two news releases: “Hexago Empowers Market Development of IPv6 Products,” and “Hexago Teams with Industry Partners to Launch go6.net.” SCG’s outreach around the releases resulted in five media briefings and two feature stories on Hexago. The feature story, “Portal offers free IPv6 news, tools,” by Carolyn Marsan appeared in Network World on March 26 and focused on the successful launch of Hexago’s portal go6.net. The second story, “Connecting Soldiers - and Their Toothbrushes?,” by Kim Hart appeared in The Washington Post technology blog, POST I.T.
In addition, as a result of an April briefing secured for Hexago by SCG, Max Cacas, reporter for 1050 AM Federal News Radio featured Hexago in the on-air story “An IPv6 Deadline Solution,” which emphasized Gateway6 was the federal government’s primary solution to the IPv6 transition.
SCG’s ongoing PR plan successfully increased Hexago’s influence by targeting key events to effectively build brand recognition. In May, Hexago attended Interop Las Vegas, North America’s largest business technology event. Due to SCG’s continuous efforts in publicizing Hexago’s groundbreaking work in service platforms, the company shone as one of the top business IT leaders at the event. In advance of the conference, SCG secured mention of Hexago in Interop’s news release, “Business IT Leaders Announce Latest Products and News at CMP Technology’s Interop Las Vegas 2007,” which was issued by Interop. The release, “Hexago First to Launch IPv6 Revenue Generating Services Platform,” was strategically distributed at Interop and resulted in seven media briefings and three feature stories on Hexago.
“Hexago Introduces IPv6 Home Access Proxy,” by Jim Carroll appeared in Converge! Network Digest, “Hexago Teams with Industry Partners to Launch go6.net,” appeared in Homeland Defense Journal, and “IPv6 for Small Business Arrives,” by Sean Michael Kerner appeared in Internet.com. The Interop PR campaign led to 399 total PR Newswire views, 282 public accesses on the prnewswire.com web site, 117 media accesses on the PR Newswire for Journalists Web site, and hit 12 initial Web sites, including AOL News and Yahoo!
During the month of June, SCG secured two media briefings for Hexago, one of which resulted in the IPv6 feature story, “What Businesses Need to Know about IPv6,” by Tiare Rath. The story appeared in IncTechnology.com, the technology channel for Inc. Magazine’s Inc.com, the daily resource for entrepreneurs and C-level executives, which has an average of 829,000 monthly unique visitors and 7.2 million monthly page views.
Overall, SCG developed six news releases for Hexago as part of the campaign, and distributed a total of four releases. Media briefings were secured with 18 different trade publications, newspapers, and radio programs, which resulted in eight feature stories, three significant media hits, 10 blog posts and 55 Web site postings. The coverage increased Hexago’s exposure and aided in keeping Gateway6 top of mind.
SCG’s PR campaign reached 215,000 unique individuals through print and radio targets, reached 38.7 million online visitors, and led to 391.1 million combined page views on publication web sites. The press briefings to story ratio for the campaign was an exceptional, 17:12, or, 70% effective due to SCG’s knowledge of positioning the product as news, briefing journalists and preparing spokespeople. In addition, the company’s investment in public relations services represented only 9% of the total advertising value equivalency of the coverage SCG generated for Hexago during the six-month campaign.
Over the course of a six-month period SCG was able to effectively raise awareness of Hexago and the Gateway6 product in the company’s target market.
