Lycos

Media tour introduces new CEO, enlivens well-known tech brand

Lycos, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Daum Communications Corp., a leading Internet portal and e-commerce destination in Korea with a growing presence throughout the Asian markets. Lycos, Inc. creates and operates search, community, and technology lifestyle sites, including Lycos.com, Hotbot.com, Wired.com, Tripod.com, Angelfire.com, and Quote.com. Other Lycos products and sites include Lycos Mail, Gamesville, and GetRelevant. Lycos has its U.S. headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts.

The Challenge

"We worked closely together to pull off an engaging media tour and generated considerable press attention. We're very pleased with the energetic and creative approach."

Kathy O'Reilly
Director, Public Relations

Lycos sought to extend its brand and gain press coverage for the company's new CEO, Alfred Tolle. Lycos sought to differentiate itself from the search engine market and lay the foundation for its future company strategy. The challenge was how to capture the interest of busy reporters at a time when there was no hard news to report and re-establish Lycos as a leading Internet brand.

The Approach

PAN focused on an ambitious media tour with top-level business press in New York, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. The PAN team leveraged the ten-year anniversary of web search functionality, reminding reporters of Lycos's early entrée into the market. The team marketed Tolle's media background at Bertlesman, and piqued the interest of reporters looking to gain insights from Tolle about emerging market trends.

The Result

PAN generated tremendous media coverage and set the stage for strong press relationships for the new CEO through meetings with top-tier national business press, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, Associated Press, Reuters, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose mercury News, Boston Globe, Newsweek, Washington Post, and CBS Marketwatch. Within a month’s time, Lycos was featured in several profile stories, including a CEO Q&A on the front page of the Sunday Globe’s business section, coverage on CBS Marketwatch, an interview with Tolle in IDG News, and a positive story in Business 2.0.

Through this successful media tour, the PAN team set the stage for Lycos' direction and for positive coverage of future Lycos announcements supporting that direction.