In the business world, success stories have shown that the more disruptive you are, the higher your chance of getting noticed for positive reasons.
Every year, Real Business brings us the Everline Future 50 which gives a round-up of new businesses set to disrupt their specific markets. Alumni of this programme have innovated the business landscape they operate in by offering something different to that of their competitors. Take JustPark as an example – a phone app that found an easy way for homeowners and business to rent out parking spaces. It’s now grown into a high-flying enterprise.
The concept of being disruptive has lots of scope for engaging PR too, as the press are interested in revolutionary business ideas. A current example is driverless cars which were at the forefront of this year’s CES and have since been a talking-point across tech and automotive media.
This got us thinking about what B2B PR agencies like us do to help our client disrupt the market. Working as a PR agency in the highly competitive tech sector, we’re always aware of the stiff competition that our clients are up against. In many cases we represent UK players competing against massive global companies that have been renowned in the market for years. Our PR expertise helps us examine what competitors aren’t doing that our clients are, aiding us to spot holes in these bigger brands that our clients can leverage. From this, we know what stories to develop in order to promote these businesses.
Here’s one example. The market that one of our clients operates in sees a lot of mud-slinging to deposition competitors. Rather than simply join in the fight, we recommended that our client throws down the gauntlet to its rivals. We took a higher stand and brought the market together, rather like a G20 summit, to mutually solve its differences and create a future market blueprint. A great example of PR doing something different to get noticed by taking a stand.
At Skout, we sometimes have to work extra hard to get the voices of our clients heard in crowded markets. Disruption-style tactics prove to be a great way of breaking the mould with more distinctive PR.
Alex Brown has just started his career at Skout PR and will be a regular contributor to the Skout blog.
