Cramer had a great angle. Their target market — telecommunications companies — wanted to differentiate with convergent services, but as new technologies became more complex so did the process of tracking the underlying network inventory essential to creating and delivering the services.  Carriers needed help.

Cramer had the perfect solution: An inventory management product that mapped all network assets and ensured fast, accurate service provisioning and fulfillment, regardless of service complexity.

Most importantly, Cramer had high profile customers that had benefited from Cramer’s inventory management solution. In developing Cramer’s communications strategy, we saw the value of many traditional activities, but the most priceless assets in Cramer’s PR arsenal were its customers. Together we decided that the PR campaign would focus on the voice of the customer at every opportunity.

Cramer’s PR program covered all the bases – analysts, story advances and exclusives, and a steady stream of awards, including Billing and OSS World’s Best Product, Best Company, and Best Customer Deployment awards.

But customers made the biggest splash.

In announcements, case studies, joint presentations and interviews, Bell Canada, BT, Cablecom, Fastweb, Japan Telecom, KPN, Slovak Telecom, Telefónica de España, Telmex, T-Mobile Vodafone, VSNL and others hailed Cramer’s positive impact in their businesses:

• Bell Canada credited Cramer’s inventory management platform as a key driver of over $1 billion in savings as the carrier switched to an all-IP network.

• In just six months, Cramer helped AT&T recover more than $20 million worth of unused plug-ins in the SONET network.

• KPN eliminated a 50 percent error rate in its international network by switching from a legacy operations system to Cramer.

• Using Cramer, Telmex boosted its market share in the corporate enterprise market through the ability to provide better service level agreements, quality of service guarantees, faster provisioning, and an expanding array of services.

Every new telling of the story triggered a domino effect in media coverage and new sales. Reaching over $100 million in revenue, Cramer caught the eye of leading IT companies that saw the value of adding Cramer’s unique solution to their portfolio. Ultimately, Amdocs bought Cramer for US$370M.

When the deal closed, Connected Planet credited Cramer’s PR machine for “a very healthy acquisition price.” We applaud Cramer’s commitment to leveraging the value outstanding relationships with high profile customers.

The challenges:

• Tight deadline: 10 days start to finish for the final product.
• August start date, when many subject matter experts (SMEs) vital to advising on new product info would be on holiday.
• Tight budget.

The re-launch was mission-critical to the client.  And if an SME wasn’t available?  No matter.  The project went forward because Crawford has worked in the OSS sector for years and we “know it cold.”

Five brochures. 10,000+ words. Completed and delivered to the client on schedule.  Reviewed and approved with only minor changes. The client liked the result so much that they welcomed our input on a related project underway with another vendor — syncing up Web site copy with the new marketing collateral.

Even though this project came to us on a short fuse and required intensive effort to complete, there were no “rush” charges.

End result: Spot-on execution at an affordable price.

Every executive speech, bylined article, marketing brochure and product fact sheet soon found its way into a blog.  The problem: Nobody thought to translate each piece from its original “tongue” to the language of blogging.  The blog drawn from marketing collateral read like a sales piece, and so on.

Crawford stepped in to help. We didn’t even ask — we just authored a blog for the client on our own volition and said, “here — try this and see how it works.”

Today we blog for senior executives throughout the company.  The blogs appear weekly and are among the most-viewed sections of their web site.  Why they’re clicking with visitors — Each blog is lively, attention-getting and to the point. We know these executives’ hot buttons, ergo their blogs sound just like them.

Sound counter-intuitive to intrude in a medium where the author is supposed to speak in his or her own voice?  Well, maybe.  But who do you think writes those bylined articles, marketing brochures and product fact sheets?  We do.  To be sure, the industry leaders and subject matters experts are all brilliant in their respective areas, but when it comes to getting the word out, they turn to another set of professionals: experienced writers.

For obvious reasons, we can’t provide blog links here, any more than we’d reveal the names of corporate leaders who speak our words from the podium.  But call and we’ll be happy to chat about your needs on a confidential basis: 703-753-4480.

But years before, bad press on fixed wireless had soured public opinion. Customers were wary of the technology.

Crawford responded by re-launching Nextlink’s new and improved platform as a reliable, cost-effective alternative to local fiber for broadband apps ranging from wireless backhaul to network redundancy.

Coverage in more than 25 national, trade and wire service outlets turned skeptics into believers.

With today’s boom in bandwidth demand, Nextlink’s spectrum is the mother lode of local broadband connectivity. The company is leveraging its assets to expand in over 80 U.S. metro markets.

$1 billion XO Communications hired Crawford to stop $100 billion Verizon win what looked like an “inevitable” Federal Communications Commission (FCC) policy decision.  What followed was an award-winning PR initiative fueling one of the more surprising and remarkable “come from behind” telecom policy victories of the decade.

The task put to us didn’t appear that promising at the outset.  The battle with Verizon would prove to be the most challenging policy fight Crawford had ever undertaken.  What we faced on Day 1:

1. Verizon wanted the FCC to grant “regulatory forbearance” from federal rules requiring former Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOC) to provide wholesale network services to smaller providers at competitive-based rates.  Verizon sought forbearance in six major East Coast markets, for starters.  If they won there, the deregulation of other markets in their service region would inevitably follow.
2. Under the leadership of its Chairman, the FCC appeared predisposed to grant Verizon’s request.  Qwest, another RBOC, had already set a key precedent, winning approval for an identical petition.
3. Even if the FCC opted not to vote on the petition, Verizon could still win. If the deadline for the FCC vote came & went, the petition would be “deemed granted” under a loophole in the law.
4. Under the deregulation-minded Bush Administration, the RBOCs had won a string of major victories undoing the pro-competitive provisions of telecommunications law.  In the eyes of most of the world, approval of Verizon’s forbearance petition would just be one more.
5. Most national media didn’t care.   “Regulatory forbearance” was too arcane a topic.  Because competitors were small, reporters assumed that a Verizon win would affect few customers.
6. Media on the comms beat were focused on what they considered to be bigger news: The FCC chairman’s stated interest in re-regulating the cable industry, a far larger business.
7. Some press seemed predisposed toward Verizon.  When the competitive telecom industry imploded with the dot.coms in 2001, it lost credibility in many journalists’ eyes.  Some saw the demise of competition as inevitable, others as a just comeuppance.
8. XO and other competitive providers had run through several PR agencies, without much success.  Results: 6 media hits in the first 9 months of 2007.
9. Time was short.  The FCC would vote on Verizon’s petition — or allow it to be “deemed granted” — on Dec. 6, just 75 days away.
10. If competitors lost this fight, many would have to shut their doors — The wholesale rate hike would price them out of the market.

The one glimmer of hope: The competitive industry had friends on “the Hill.”  But for Congressional leaders to help us, we had to do a better job of stirring up support for our cause.

Crawford went on the attack.

In a letter to the editor in The Washington Post, we likened the FCC Chairman to a Roman emperor fiddling with cable TV while ignoring consumers’ and businesses’ more critical need for competitive choice in local broadband and telecommunications services.  We didn’t mince words: “An FCC misstep will mean higher charges.”

We reinforced this point by promoting a third party study showing the downstream impact of Verizon’s plans: $2.4 billion in higher consumer phone bills across the six major cities where the RBOC sought forbearance. 

The Wall Street Journal broke the story in New York City and nationwide, “Verizon Rate Ruling May Hit Small Businesses.”  Similar coverage followed in The Newport News Daily Press, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Providence Business News and the Boston Business Journal .  All six markets targeted by Verizon.

We wrote and placed op eds appearing in many of the same papers and more. The score: 50 key media hits.  Editors added their own opposition to Verizon.  Consumer groups piled on.  As media coverage appeared, representatives of the competitive industry quickly circulated copies on the Hill.  Then Congress applied heat.

In early December the FCC delivered a shocker to the industry and to Wall Street pundits who’d predicted yet another RBOC policy win: a unanimous vote against Verizon, defeating this regulatory forbearance bid and preserving competition.

For its work, Crawford won the 2008 PR News Legal PR Award for “Best Media Relations During Litigation or Crisis.”

We weren’t done.  In 2008, When Qwest tried to expand its first forbearance win to other markets in the West, Crawford stepped in and helped defeat that, too.