Our Technology Practice, Amazing.
I’ve been taking a long look at our Online & Technology division lately, not because there’s any problem – the practice has been a steady performer for a number of years – but rather because we have so many long-term, innovative clients in this area. If you’re like me, a few of the gray hairs on your temple are a result of the dot com bust a few years ago. A lot of hard lessons were learned by many in business at that time (How many paper millionaires couldn’t even afford to buy lunch?)
Here at 5WPR, we take a hard look at every so-called “Web 2.0″ and technology client before we agree to represent them (and we have turned down a number in the last few months who really have no business plan whatsoever). Despite the downturn in the financial markets over the last few weeks, I find that there’s a lot of investment money abound for the right technology companies.
It’s amazing how some of our clients turned a late-night business idea into a multi-million dollar enterprise; our clients have “must-have” wireless applications that were unheard of five years ago, online services that were impossible to provide two years ago, and older, time tested services that are continually enhanced with new technologies. The one common trait among our entire tech clientele is that they consistently look back at the hard lessons learned when the first dot com bubble burst. The notions of launch, initial public offering and cash-out are replaced by hard work, aggressive sales, marketing and PR, and – as one client told us – the will to “build something useful and meaningful.”
The reason why we have such great technology clients is twofold: we pick and choose who we work with, and their work ethic mirrors the 5W PR work ethic. Our senior VP spent a few days at the agency’s Hampton house, but never missed a conference call or dropped the ball when a client had a crisis. His staff comes in early and/or stays late to accommodate client work schedules from the West Coast to Israel. When we learned that a client’s competitor was going to appear in a Wall Street Journal article, a junior staffer contacted the editor and fought to have our client appear as well.
The tech world is a cluttered market filled with knock-offs, clones and pikers looking for a piece of the pie. It’s our job to raise a client above the noise and clamor and get them noticed by consumers, investors and large corporations looking for partners. We succeed and retain long-term clients because we place ourselves in the trenches alongside them. Our clients acknowledge the fact that we become “partners” in their vision.
We are only to happy to be there with them and witness some of the most exciting technologies unfold. They are amongst our agencies best clients and smartest folks.
Ronn Torossian
5WPR
