Dot Mobile - taylor herring - public relations

Case Study: Dot mobile launch
Client: Dot mobile

What the client said
“Taylor Herring played a fundamental and invaluable role in launching dot to the student market and building relationships with student media, delivering over £1m of coverage in 3 months.”
Steve Brabenec, Marketing Director, Dot Mobile

Objectives
Dot Mobile, a new mobile service developed exclusively for students, approached Taylor Herring to launch their new offering, both on and off campus in September 2005. The brief was simple: launch the product at a trade level, promote awareness of the new service amongst the 18-25 year old student demographic and gain real cut through via the generation of creative news angles.

Strategy
Taylor Herring employed a three-tiered strategy to launch the service:

To kick off with, we provided the trade press with a series of captivating visuals and news hooks to announce the launch of the service. Key telecoms, marketing and student titles covered our story, many of whom interviewed key personnel who were media trained in house at Taylor Herring.

News stories were then generated which were aimed specifically at the national press and broadcast media. These included the ingenious launch of ‘textbooks’ – a scheme we put together with Professor John Sutherland – one of the UK’s foremost English Literature experts and the Chairman of this year’s Man Booker prize. The textbooks service enabled students to order precied versions of classic books in text format.

The final string to our strategy was a concerted campaign to raise awareness of dot amongst the students themselves with a dedicated campus campaign that included the development of targeted stories and a wealth of competitions.

Result
• The launch of dot was covered extensively in the key trade titles whilst the John Sutherland ‘textbooks’ scheme dominated the news agenda in November 2005: the story was covered by all the national newspapers, appearing in the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, The Independent, The Guardian, Metro, Daily Express and The Times. The story even achieved the rare distinction of being picked up in the USA by Time Magazine.

• Taylor Herring secured a full day of brand credited interviews with Professor Sutherland including the Today programme on Radio 4, Radio 5 Live Breakfast Show and the BBC World Service.

• Features were secured in over 45 key campus publications. These were supplemented by competitions and offers in student print media across the UK, ensuring a strong brand presence in campuses across the country.

·• The four month campaign achieved press coverage with an estimated advertising value well in excess of £1,000,000 and the agency have been retained by dot for further work in 2006.

back to case studies menu