Public Relations Capabilities

October 12, 2012

© 2012 Bridge Global Strategies LLC

www.bridgeny.com

What Is Bridge Global Strategies?

• A New York City-headquartered boutique PR firm

• Specializes in helping start-ups and foreign companies in the U.S. to raise corporate and product visibility, awareness & sales

• We are entrepreneurs; a lot of our work is for other entrepreneurs

Our Key Services

• Communications to launch or re-position organizations and their services and products

• Programs to build and manage organizations’ reputations

• Strategies and programs to build brand visibility and/or increase sales of products/services

• A full arsenal of communications tools to carry out these strategies and programs– From media relations to events to marketing

materials

What Differentiates Us

• Big agency know-how and experience; small agency service, creativity and results

– Clients and employees are our most important consideration, not shareholders or quarterly results

– Experienced staff working on the account, not just selling or showing up for meetings; five key staff members have an average of 18 years of experience

What Differentiates Us

• Senior professionals actually work on your account – not just show up for meetings

• Amazing client retention demonstrates the quality of our service

22 years 15 years 19 years

Small and Hands-on, ButWith a North American & Global

Network• Best of large and small agencies: senior level service,

with a North American-wide and a global network (something usually found only with big multinational agencies)– Bridge was a founder of Public Relations Boutiques

International (PRBI); Lucy Siegel, CEO of Bridge, was founding president

– This network provides Bridge with “arms and legs” on the ground where we need them to help us help you, from Minneapolis to Moscow, San Francisco to São Paulo

– For more information on PRBI, visit www.prboutiques.com

Grabs, SwitzerlandBrighton, EnglandMoira, Northern IrelandMunich, GermanyMoscow, RussiaSao Paulo, BrazilBuenos Aires, ArgentinaDubai, U.A.E.Johannesburg, South AfricaKuala Lumpur, MalaysiaSeoul, Republic of Korea

BostonNew York (2 firms)Roseland, N.J.Philadelphia, Penn.Washington, D.C.Kansas City, Kan.PittsburghChicagoMinneapolisHoustonPhoenix (2 firms)Aspen, Colo.Los AngelesSan FranciscoPortland, Ore.SeattleTorontoVancouver

Industry Experience

• Academic Institutions• Appliances and Housewares• Broadcast Media• Consumer Electronics• Financial Services• Food• Games• Governmental Organizations• Healthcare• Information Services• Insurance• Internet retailers• Internet technology solutions

• Industrial/Manufacturing• Non-Profit Organizations• Office Equipment• Consumer Packaged Goods• Consumer Services• Professional Services Firms• Scientific Instruments• Software• Telecommunications• Trade & Professional

Associations• Travel and Hospitality• Travel technology

How We Work with Our Clients

• Consult on marketing positioning • Develop strategies for corporate PR (reputation

building/managing) & marketing public relations (promotion of products or services)

• Execute those strategies:– Make companies/products visible to key constituents

to build reputations and visibility and enhance image– Put clients in front of the gatekeepers they rely on to

distribute products and/or services to their end customers -- buyers, wholesalers, agents, partners

– Use media relations, public speaking and other PR tools to carry out strategies

• Help position the company or its key products/services as innovators, challenging the marketplace status quo

• Help senior executives get credit for being thought leaders – Helpful to sales force and in building long-term

reputation

• Sometimes able to help introduce senior executives to new funding sources

How We Work with Our Clients

Social Media Marketing & Reputation Management Experience

• All of our client work now involves social media relations– At times incidental – monitoring social media, interacting with

bloggers– But sometimes the core of the work – using blogger relations and

social media to spread the buzz on a new product or service, or advising a client on negative online buzz

• Examples: – Created a social media program for pharma industry association New

York Pharma Forum that included Twitter and development of a LinkedIn group to build the organization’s visibility; monitor online discussion of NYPF

– Wrote company social media manual for executives of B2B tech company as a “how to” for executives; monitored online discussion of company; helped company create its own social media groups

– Launched new green consumer product via blogger relations strategy– Handled an online crisis for a consumer beauty products company

Social Media Marketing & Reputation Skill Set

• Online reputation management via social media is an extension of traditional PR but requires savvy, sensitivity, mature judgment and ability to act quickly and decisively

• If an organization doesn’t take control of its brand and reputation, others will– This is true online, communicating directly with customers

and potential customers, as it has always been with traditional media

– New companies that “specialize in social media” usually are not as well-equipped to deal with corporate reputation or marketing communications as general PR firms: they don’t have overall perspective on issues management, strategic communications planning and positioning

Case Studies

In addition to the following case studies, additional ones are available on our website,

www.bridgeny.com

ecobee: Green $$$ Made Easy?• ecobee hired Bridge in September, 2008 to

help make its corporate and product debut• We worked with ecobee on a PR strategy

for the company and its ecobee Smart Thermostat. We divided the PR campaign into phases:– Announcement phase with pre-orders– “Product available” announcement– Trade shows to get to know trade media– Consumer media/reviewers– Business media and analysts last

• Set goals for measuring success• Produced press materials • In consumer PR phase, arranged product

reviews, reaching out to traditional consumer media

• Launched second product in early 2010• Launched third product in early 2012

Helped launch ecobee’s third product, new Smart Si Thermostat in 2012

ecobee: Early Media Results (First 6 Months)

• U.S. articles written on/in:• 107 North American blogs• 12 Overseas blogs• 18 newspapers & magazines• 3 TV shows

• Audience impressions: over 140,000,000

• U.S. coverage included:• Engadget• Gizmodo• CNet• Treehugger• Good Clean Tech (PC Magazine blog)• Crunchgear

• CPM = 28 cents

• At least 3 X this number of media impressions achieved after 18 months!

CEO Stuart Lombard with ecobee’s original Smart Thermostat

• Technorati• Ubergizmo• Josh Spear• NBC TV Chicago• Business Week TV• New York Post• London Times

Helping Top Asian B-Schools Earn A+ In American Communications

• Challenge: Four top Asian business schools (China Europe International Business School, Shanghai; HKUST Business School, Hong Kong; Nanyang Business School, Singapore; Indian School of Business, Hyderabad) wanted to increase applicants from North America despite being relatively unknown here

• Solution: Hired Bridge for public relations/media relations project prior to a four–school North American recruiting trip: planning, positioning (Asia’s Ivy League), news releases, media contacting, interviews with deans, students and faculty

• Results: Long and positive feature articles in Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, Wall Street Journal, Crain’s New York Business and Canada’s National Post, which were then widely discussed and linked to by online news outlets and B-School blogs. Excellent attendance at the four school’s North American recruiting events.

Launched New Mutual Fund at Start of “The Great Recession”

• Startup investment firm Structured Investment Management’s innovative mutual fund was approved by SEC just as Lehman Bros. fell

• With market in chaos, journalists ignored news of new mutual funds

• We paused PR to conserve budget, waiting for media to return to routine coverage; but crisis worsened and spread worldwide

• Worked with company to start building thought leadership; used time to achieve greater visibility for company and fund

• Arranged several opportunities for CEO to comment on the financial crisis on Fox Business News and CNBC. He was able talk about the new fund on air

• As the media slowly returned to covering routine news, we were able to arrange interviews with trade media, BusinessWeek TV, Smart Money, Kiplinger’s, Louis Rukeyser’s Mutual Fund Report and Money Magazine

Admiral Road’s Cause Marketing Program

• Bridge helped Admiral Road, a Canadian manufacturer of children’s fleece products, to enter the U.S. market

• We suggested a cause marketing program as a way to inject some news value into announcement of a few new products

• The new products were personalized fleece blankets for babies and kids decorated with monkeys, zebras and giraffes

• Bridge positioned the new products as a new line, and named it the Admiral Road “Baby Safari” line

• Bridge arranged a cause marketing sponsorship for Admiral Road with the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF)

• Announced the new “Baby Safari” line to the media; stressed donation of a percent of sales to AWF

• Admiral Road was included on the AWF web site as a sponsor (a million unique visitors/month), with a link to the AR site

• This strategy provided a news hook for media coverage and attracted new animal-loving customers

• Cause marketing relationship lasted for more than five years

Crisis Management Experience

Our staff has helped to save companies large and small from crises ranging from boycotts to bankruptcies:•Korean economic crisis

– Provided issues management and media relations counseling to bolster a top Korean conglomerate’s financial viability and U.S. image during collapsed economy in Korea

• False rumors – Developed internal and external communications strategies to stop rumors of

foreign company’s U.S. market withdrawal and sale; media trained senior executives and conducted aggressive media outreach

• Greenmailing– Counseled corporate management on media relations involving a greenmailer who

tried to use the media to manipulate the company’s board of directors; conducted aggressive media outreach to discredit the greenmailer

•HIV-Contaminated Plasma– When a drug company’s HIV-tainted blood products caused a massive crisis, we

developed a crisis management and communications strategy, provided counsel to the CEO, and set the direction for media relations and internal communications. As a result, we were able to help the company wind down media attention and stabilize its business environment

Lucy SiegelPresident & CEO

Lucy’s experience spans almost every area of PR: communications positioning, issues and crises, corporate media relations, executive speeches, internal communications, merger communications and a wide range of other matters related to corporate reputation. She is also proficient as a marketing public relations counselor, helping clients position and sell their products and services, both in consumer and B2B industries.

She started her career in journalism and then moved to PR at Equitable Life, where she directed communications for the group health and pension asset management businesses

She then moved to Tokyo where she worked for Cosmo Public Relations, which appointed her its first non-Japanese board member.

After returning to New York, she launched and headed a subsidiary for Cosmo before opening her own firm, which she ran for seven years until it was acquired. It is now part of Publicis in New York.

Prior to founding Bridge Global Strategies LLC, Lucy spent seven years at Publicis, where she co-directed public relations in the agency’s New York headquarters, managing the PR staff and overseeing all PR clients.

Lucy has served in many industry leadership roles, including as an officer of the Public Relations Society of America’s New York Chapter, Women Executives in Communications and the organization she helped found, PR Boutiques International. She is a graduate of Connecticut College in New London, Ct., with a major in government.

Thank you for taking time to learn about us!

Lucy Siegel

President & CEO

Bridge Global Strategies LLC

16 West 36th Street, 10th Fl.

New York, NY 10018

Tel: 212-583-1043

www.bridgeny.com