March Communications was acquired by Walker Sands in August 2021.
Last week the March team tuned in to the 2021 Bell Ringer Awards, clinking our glasses as our eight wins were announced. This placed us as one of the top volume winners this year!
This was a mountain of a year for agencies and clients alike, with economic uncertainty and social unrest, yet March leaned into our expertise for stability and working with our partners hand in hand to create meaningful and powerful campaigns driven by creativity and curiosity. By sticking to what we know and do best, our teams saw big results despite what was a shaky year for everyone.
We’re very proud to partner with clients innovating for smarter tomorrows, across AI, health tech, security, retail and more. We are thankful to share the following awards with our clients who make our work interesting, ever evolving, and worthwhile.
AI
SPOILER ALERT: LEADING CONVERSATIONS ON THE FURUTRE OF TECH AND LEADERSHIP
Category: Executive Thought Leadership
Award: Gold – Superbell Finalist
We could write a book about this book launch campaign, and work to build a thought leadership platform for author and Affectiva CEO Rana el Kaliouby. The spark notes would say: when Rana decided to write and launch her memoir, Girl Decoded, she knew she had an opportunity to lead conversations beyond her personal story. She wanted to be recognized as a thought leader in the future of tech and in empathetic leadership; and she tapped March Communications to bring these narratives to life.
But with COVID-19 causing widespread lockdowns in March, and the book launch and media/events tour set for April 2020, we had to completely pivot our approach to getting Rana’s thought leadership out there. March partnered with Rana through plot twists, setting changes, and a new cast of supporting characters to elevate Rana’s thought leadership and generate important conversations with top media and industry leaders.
DECODING A BOOK TOUR WHEN THERE’S NO BOOKSTORES
Category: Special Event – Series
Award: Gold
How do you reinvent a book tour when there are no bookstores? That was the question we faced in April 2020 while supporting the launch of Girl Decoded, a memoir by Rana el Kaliouby, CEO of Affectiva. With her book, Rana had a compelling story to tell – and an important one at that. Rana wanted to spearhead conversations on the future of technology and the need to elevate more diverse leaders. One of the main venues where these conversations were set to take place was a large-scale book tour across the US and Europe.
But, plans changed drastically when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Less than a month before the book launch, March worked with Rana to completely reinvent the traditional book tour to go virtual, tapping into social communities, influencers, and new narratives to facilitate these important conversations with her target audiences, even when we couldn’t connect face-to-face.
MANUFACTURING A NAME FOR NEURALA’S AI IN THE INDUSTRIAL SPACE
Category: High-Tech
Award: Silver
In 2020, artificial intelligence (AI) startup Neurala decided to tackle an entirely new market: the manufacturing industry. Recognizing the opportunity for AI to address manufacturers’ current needs and innovate for the future – even before the pandemic – Neurala devised an entirely new go-to-market strategy centered around selling through channel partners and messaging to manufacturers. The challenge? Neurala had no previous visibility with manufacturers or the channel, and was significantly challenged to build credibility with this new audience and media subset. March Communications was tasked with building up Neurala’s visibility in the media and generating interest with prospective channel partners: the gatekeepers of the company’s next growth stage.
rAIsing AWARENESS IN AI
Category: Agency Marketing
Award: Merit
AI is at an inflection point. It’s disrupted industries like healthcare, automotive & manufacturing, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Simultaneously, there’s been a lot of confusion, uncertainty and misunderstandings around what AI is and what it means for our lives and livelihoods. As marketers and comms professionals, it’s March’s belief that we need to highlight the positive impact AI is having and can continue to have, while debunking myths and tackling difficult conversations, like ethics and privacy.
March’s WE ARE AI campaign takes stock of the good, the bad and the future of AI. At the core of it – and March’s own AI practice – is our deep curiosity to understand how the technology works, the often-heated debates and issues central to its evolution, the massive impact it’s already having across how we live and work, and the innovative technologies and creators behind them.
Security
HELPING BUILD A SECURE MODERN WORKPLACE WITH ZIX
Category: Integrated Marketing Communications
Award: Silver
This submission delves into March Communications’ efforts to support the launch of Zix’s Secure Cloud, a flagship communication security solution that served as the culmination of a year long product unification with AppRiver, a company Zix previously acquired. For the launch, March planned an integrated approach to leverage earned, owned, and social media, further amplifying each with paid social efforts. Following the strategy development the March and Zix team was forced to pivot messaging and strategy on the fly as the effects of COVID enveloped the world. With mass work from home orders, the onus of building a secure, modern workplace capable of safe, remote work (the onus of Secure Cloud) became even more paramount. With restructured a restructured goals and plan of attack, the March team successfully exceeded expectations for this launch as further outlined in the submission.
INCREASING SOPHOS TIER-ONE COVERAGE WITH ISSUES RESPONSE
Category: Industry Campaigns
Award: Merit
Sophos’ PR program helps create awareness of Sophos as a leading next-gen cybersecurity company. A big part of this has been securing interest with top-tier media based on insights from SophosLabs, Sophos’ innovation hub that provides real-time intelligence regarding today’s sophisticated threat landscape.
When COVID-19 hit, it was dominating the media headlines. Simultaneously, SophosLabs was reporting a spikes in cyberthreats taking advantage of the pandemic.
March knew that SophosLabs’ intel would be valuable to add to the national pandemic conversation, so the team coordinated an rapid response campaign in real-time that offered tier-one media research, warnings and tips to make the public more aware of, and protected from, pandemic related cyber attacks.
As the pandemic evolved, so did the threats, which gave Sophos additional opportunities to contribute insight on an ongoing basis.
The team was able to secure significant high-tier coverage that reinforced the company as a next-gen cybersecurity company.
Retail Tech
RBS CARES: COMMUNICATING AMID CRISIS
Category: Corporate Culture
Award: Bronze
The onset of the global pandemic in March 2020 completely shifted the way we live and work, forcing Retail Business Services to adapt. As the services group for leading grocery retailer, Ahold Delhaize USA (ADUSA), RBS – with guidance from its PR agency partner March Communications – knew it needed to swiftly develop a strategic communications plan to keep all stakeholders, including its leadership team and associates, informed of its COVID-19 response.
Health Tech
RE-IMAGINING CARE DELIVERY THROUGH TECHNOLOGY
Category: Industry Campaigns
Award: Merit
At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare providers around the world were forced into crisis mode, coming under unprecedented pressure to transform nearly every aspect of care delivery. Healthcare technology provider Lumeon quickly took action, rapidly developing, launching and deploying a series of virtual care solutions to support providers and patients during the crisis.
March Communications was tasked with the challenge of breaking into an incredibly busy healthcare news cycle to build awareness and credibility of Lumeon’s new solutions among its target healthcare provider audience. By developing a compelling news package, building credibility with customers and awards, and conveying thought leadership through content and research, the team worked to solidify Lumeon’s position as a leader in re-imagining care delivery – during a pandemic and beyond.
