Open Text

Based in Waterloo, Ontario, Open Text (Nasdaq: OTEX) possesses a history decidedly more unique than the average software vendor, Canadian or otherwise. Founded in 1992 at Oxford University as the offshoot of a project to put the Oxford Dictionary online, the company's founders went on to create what became the very first Yahoo search engine. Over time, through a series of technology expansions and acquisitions, Open Text has grown into one of the leading vendors in the increasingly crowded knowledge management and collaboration market.

The Challenge

Open Text challenged PAN with developing and executing an aggressive executive and corporate visibility strategy that branded CEO Tom Jenkins as an industry visionary and heightened the company’s penetration of the business press beyond its technology space.

The Approach

PAN’s approach to building Open Text’s corporate and executive visibility has been a tale of gradual momentum, ultimately leading to an innovative new program for both the company and the agency. During the spring of 2004, PAN was faced with the dilemma of creating executive visibility around a CEO whose schedule did not allow for much flexibility. Thus, PAN partnered with Open Text to create clusters of opportunities around Jenkins’ existing travel schedule, eschewing the traditional “business press tour” format for a more ad hoc format that seized on the opportunity at hand rather than delaying tactics for the most convenient time.

The strategy paid off, as Jenkins was able to participate in high-level briefings with publications such as BusinessWeek, Forbes, Fortune, Investor’s Business Daily and Barron’s, among others. The company, meanwhile, began receiving more regular coverage in the financial columns of publications like BusinessWeek and Forbes, as well as coverage on U.S.-based wire services such as Reuters, outlets the company had been unable to penetrate in the past beyond Canadian bureaus.

The strategy continued throughout the summer until August, when Open Text and PAN determined that based on the success of the summer’s activities, the program as a whole should be taken to the next level.

The Results

In September 2004, Open Text and PAN came to the conclusion that the executive and corporate visibility elements of the core public relations program should be branched off into their own entity. Thereby, the Open Text Corporate Awareness program was born. It represents an entirely new program and with members of the PAN account team spun off from the original team that had executed the summer program.

The launch of the Corporate Awareness program directly resulted from the tremendous stand-alone coverage in publications such as Fortune and Investor’s Business Daily, representing a significant increase in business press coverage overall from the previous year.

In particular, the Fortune piece that ran on June 3, 2004 was a major coup for the PAN team and Open Text as it epitomized thought leadership. The article details the enterprise content management market and illustrated how Open Text held a leadership position within it. The published piece represented several months of work from PAN’s perspective as the reporter was very skeptical when first approached. When Open Text saw the piece, they were thrilled and commented that the reporter was now a “true believer.”

Going forward, the Corporate Awareness team is charged solely with creating not only high-level business press and executive visibility opportunities for Open Text, but also executing media-driven activities such as customer/vendor roundtables, industry surveys and trade show events. In addition, the team is squarely focused on securing top-level industry speaking opportunities for Jenkins and other Open Text executives. The core PR team, meanwhile, remains focused on advancing Open Text’s efforts as the undisputed leader in the enterprise content management sector. Undoubtedly, we’ll be hearing a lot more about Open Text as a leader in the field!