Business
Challenge
Language Analysis Systems (LAS), a maker of name-recognition
software, labored in obscurity for nearly 20 years.
The reason: it worked in secrecy as a consultant on
names and linguistics for the U.S. State Department,
FBI, Border Control and other agencies. When given the
green light to promote itself in 2002, LAS turned to
Tech Image Ltd. to gain recognition for its technology.
While the company was virtually unknown, one of the
major business challenges was that its competitors were
claiming that their older, inferior technologies were
superior to LAS’ software tools.
Background
Whether it’s Change, Gonzalez or Mohammed, handling
the names of many cultures has proven to be “perilously
complicated” for many U.S. government agencies
and corporations. For example, what’s in the name
“Khalid Shaikh Mohammed?” More than 300
different spellings of “Mohammed” alone!
If you’re a government agent looking for a terrorist
suspect, how do you know if his name matches one on
an anti-terrorist watch list? How do you make the split-second
decision allowing him into the country when you can’t
intelligently identify the different ways of spelling
his name?
LAS addresses those questions. The Herndon, Va.-based
company is in the business of understanding names from
around the world. It makes powerful software that shows
the different ways that names from other cultures are
likely to be spelled in English, plus where those names
originate.
Solution
Tech Image began its relationship with LAS by hosting
a series of messaging sessions with company officials
and conducting interviews with sales and marketing executives.
Through these meetings, we learned that 80% of first-time
customer prospects didn’t understand what LAS
did, how its technology worked and what differentiated
the company from its competitors.
Based on this
information, Tech Image recommended LAS position itself
as the leader in a new category we defined as “name
recognition.” Tech Image developed a consistent
set of messages around this theme that would help reporters
and their readers understand the complexities of multi-cultural
names. In addition, Tech Image conducted media coaching
for key executives to prepare them for difficult questions
from reporters and industry analysts. With no customer
references available, Tech Image tied in the name recognition
topic to the security issue. We leveraged the credibility
of CEO Dr. John C. Hermansen to schedule a series of
interviews that coincided with the one-year anniversary
of the September 11 tragedy.
Results
By positioning Dr. Hermansen as the subject matter expert
in name recognition, we helped the media understand
how this important technology could help the government
stop terrorists from slipping across our borders undetected.
Our aggressive, award-winning PR campaign resulted in
dozens of national print and broadcast placements for
LAS, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal,
CNBC and MSNBC. During the first six months alone, the
campaign generated more than 384 million media impressions,
which the client viewed as a major success.
After reviewing the results, Tech Image and LAS agreed
that national media placements were not necessarily
generating sales leads. We recommended shifting the
emphasis of the campaign to trade and vertical market
media, as well as influential IT industry analysts.
This campaign resulted in LAS being named to Fast Company
Magazine’s “Fast 50” list in 2003
and the Federal Computer Week 100 List in 2004. LAS
also was spotlighted in a single-focused GartnerGroup
research brief on name recognition software and the
company now dominates trade and vertical market media
coverage for its product category. As a result, LAS
was acquired by IBM in early 2006.
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“I would like to commend Tech
Image for the security media coverage for Language Analysis
Systems. You have generated more interest and actual
press for LAS than I have ever seen with other PR agencies.
Your team is professional, detail- and resulted-oriented
and has quickly become an integral part of our team.”
—Tobi Moriarty, VP Business Development, LAS |
