Media Strategy Case Study Software 2005: Branding a Technology Conference

Horn Group was tapped by Sand Hill Group to position its second annual Software 2005, featuring tech heavyweights including Oracle Co-president Charles Phillips and serial investor Roger McNamee, as a must-attend industry conference.

Through effective teamwork Horn Group provided strategic media outreach to secure stellar media and analyst attendance for the conference, orchestrate an exclusive media luncheon and provide on-site tactical and strategic support at the conference itself.

Horn Group helped Software 2005 gain credibility and visibility by securing interest from 115 media and analysts and subsequent media coverage of both keynotes and the conference itself. The combined efforts helped drive coverage in more than 20 news articles in wires, trade publications, online outlets and daily newspapers.

Pre-Show Coverage
In phase one, Horn Group set out to secure pre-show coverage to help drive attendance to the show. In today's cynical business environment, no technology show is newsworthy just for its own sake, so Horn Group devised an angle on the "softer side of software" playing up the conference's unique charity ties, including the sizable charitable donation made each year from conference profits. The pitch resulted in a story in the San Jose Mercury Journal. While show registration volume cannot be directly tracked to the article, the number of Google hits on the term "Software 2005" increased dramatically after the article.

Top-Notch Media and Analyst Attendance
Horn Group's software focus enables us to develop and strengthen long-standing relationships with the media and industry analysts most relevant to our clients. Through a multi-pronged approach, Horn Group secured registration confirmation from 115 media, trade and financial analysts for the show, which then translated to a better than 50% retention rate of actual attendees, despite a heavy earnings week. Media attendees read like a "Who's Who" including Quentin Hardy of Forbes, David Kirkpatrick and Adam Lashinsky of Fortune, John Soat of InformationWeek, Gary Rivlin of The New York Times, Joel Dreyfuss of Red Herring and David Bank of The Wall Street Journal.

Horn Group strategically positioned the show to press and analysts as an important barometer of technology innovation and investment in the software industry, while working to provide each journalist with the proof points and background that would entice them to attend based on personal and publication interests and beats. Also key to the stellar media turnout was leveraging the PR relationships and outreach of all the keynoting companies and working together to secure attendance of their target media and ours.

Power Lunch
An additional incentive to attract and ensure attendance of A-list media was the promise of an exclusive networking luncheon with conference keynoters and other presenters. Twenty-four top-tier media and analysts - including BusinessWeek, Forbes, Fortune, Investor's Business Daily, InformationWeek and many others - were at the luncheon alongside high profile company executives and keynoters.

Media Panel
Horn Group used its media relationships to orchestrate and moderate a media panel discussion on the essential ingredients of a good technology story. Three heavy-weight journalists from Forbes, Investor's Business Daily and InformationWeek told a packed room of 200 software executives what it takes to get noticed today and what's hot on their radars this year. Here are a few highlights from the panel:

Story Ingredients

• Forbes: drama, passion and relevance
• InformationWeek: business process, technology innovation and customers
• Investor's Business Daily: tension, friction and conflict

• Enterprise software will never be boring to InformationWeek readers, it's where they live.
• The bar for enterprise software is now much higher. It is easier to write about the iPod than it is server virtualization. Gadgets are interesting. Your challenge is to come up with something fresh.
• Enterprise software can make an interesting story, but you must illuminate a struggle, tie it to an issue like a congressional hearing or be interesting financially. Google is hot because the stock is hot.