Award Case | Recommind – PR Report Award 2016

In the blind spot: monkey sees no evil 

Recommind's software solutions (now opentext eDiscovery) are used in large law firms, public authorities and corporate legal departments. Typical application scenarios include antitrust investigations, compliance checks and audits. The number of potential users is small, but the market segment is lucrative and correspondingly competitive.

Over the years, Recommind had built up a very good reputation among law firms through targeted marketing. However, the company now wanted to reach decision-makers at board level through targeted PR and thus open up new sales channels.

The task

The communication work for Recommind started with several challenges. There was rarely any real news. Customers were reluctant to talk about the use of the solution and product news was uninteresting even for technology editors. The constant feedback was: “Far too special for our readership!”

PR had to solve three problem:

  1. making e-discovery relevant for a broad audience
  2. tapping into new media segments beyond the legal trade press
  3. support sales with PR measures

The decisive factor for the impact of the Recommind campaign was that it was able to create everyday relevance for company decision-makers.

Manuela Moore, Managing Partner

Our approach

1

A matter of interest

We addressed the importance of preventative compliance checks for companies of all sizes - based on prominent scandals involving antitrust violations and corruption cases.
2

Divers content

A cross-media content package consisting of bylined articles, use cases from law firms, videos, presentations and surveys highlighted the relevance of compliance for employees and employers - and the risks of a lack of controls.
3

Trustworthy partners

Lawyers from leading law firms and compliance managers from DAX companies supported our campaign with specialist knowledge and case studies, thus underlining Recommind's business case.
4

Presence at events

Recommind regularly hosted or sponsored specialist conferences for in-house counsel. Wherever possible, we took the opportunity to enrich our editorial planning with new topics.

Results

Recommind outgrew its niche in the trade press. Almost all German business publications picked up our story. Hartwig Laute, Managing Director of Recommind in Germany, was established as an expert in forward-looking compliance management. New business successes were also attributable to our PR campaign.

Working together to increase compliance awareness created close ties between Recommind and potential users. This generated significant new business for our sales department, which more than justified the investment in PR.

Peter Gottschalk,
former Head of Marketing & PR, Recommind Deutschland

Selected coverage

Wenn Geschenke Schwierigkeiten machen

04.04.15 | Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Wozu ist Compliance da, wenn sie keiner beachtet?

02.05.15 / Die Welt

Wenn das Gespräch unter Kollegen gefährlich wird

07.08.15 | Compliance Manager

Gefährliches Feierabendbier

16.06.15 | Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Jeder Vierte würde Geschenke von Geschäftspartnern annehmen

04.03.15 | IT Finanzmagazin

Mitgefangen, mitgehangen

13.11.15 | Süddeutsche Zeitung

Der Vertrieb ist ein Alptraum für jeden Compliance Officer

07.09.16 | manage IT

Vorsicht, Chef liest mit! 

30.09.15 | Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

DGB will Schutz für Whistleblower in Unternehmen

19.11.15 | Deutschlandfunk
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An award-winning campaign

A clear strategy and a clever sequence of high-quality tactics gave the campaign “In the blind spot: monkey sees no evil” the impact that Recommind wanted.

The jury of the PR Report Awards 2016 was impressed by the professional implementation, the high-caliber media coverage and the clearly measurable return on investment of 1:12. The campaign therefore received the prestigious industry award in the Technology category.