Competitive Positioning PR Campaign

Juniper Networks faced an uphill battle competing for federal business with Cisco, the established market leader. Although many third-party authorities acknowledged Juniper's technical superiority, lack of awareness of the company made it hard when bidding against Cisco on major government contracts. Sage developed a PR strategy that positioned Juniper Networks as an expert in the government space with a ground-breaking study of an OMB-mandated technology transition.

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Situation:

Juniper Networks faced an uphill battle competing for federal business with Cisco, the established market leader. Although many third-party authorities acknowledged Juniper's technical superiority, a lack of awareness made it hard for the company when bidding against Cisco on major government contracts. Sage’s PR strategy was to position Juniper Networks' executives as experts on the "hot button" trends in government, such as the OMB mandated transition from IPv4 to IPv6.

Objective:

To position Juniper Networks as a superior, more knowledgeable alternative to Cisco when dealing with networking issues relevant to government customers.

Our Process:

Sage Communications developed and implemented a comprehensive public relations strategy and program for Juniper. The first step in the program was to recommend that the company launch an extensive research study on IPv6. This comprehensive report would provide reporters and the industry at large with hard numbers on where the transition stood and what its impact on government would be.

Sage worked closely with Juniper to develop questions for the study. Regardless of how the data came back, the completed report would contain new and exciting information that reporters would find both relevant and newsworthy, improving the chances the survey might receive media attention.

To launch the study most effectively, Sage planned and executed a week-long media tour with Juniper Networks, providing reporters with the results under embargo a week prior to the announcement. The survey results were extremely compelling.

Results:

By putting together the right package for reporters, the survey generated more than 90 media articles and millions of audience impressions among the business, technology and government IT community. Fortune broke the news, calling the study "the most comprehensive survey ever about U.S. steps to the next-generation Internet." Additional coverage in publications that directly targeted Juniper's customer prospects included Federal Computer Week, Government Computer News, Federal News Radio, Network World, and more.