Dovetailing corporate marketing and personal branding to grow thought leadership and investor awareness.
Solid Power is an industry-leading developer of all-solid-state rechargeable batteries. The company is working closely with Ford, BMW, and others, toward meeting industry performance, scale, and cost goals. In addition to vehicle electrification, the company’s pilot line will support first product sales in beachhead markets like aerospace, defense, industrial, and medical applications.
During the R&D and product development stages, developing top of mind awareness that cuts the clutter from the litany of tech products vying for attention is no easy task. This becomes particularly difficult when the product a company is developing is competing with a market Goliath and a mainstream celebrity tech guru with seemingly endless capital and an insatiable thirst for the spotlight.
Avocet’s partnership with Solid Power came at an interesting time in their business growth: large successful funding rounds had been closed, but more were on the horizon, and extensive intellectual property had been created creating an optimistic future for production, however, no product had actually come off the Solid Power line yet. Furthermore, communicating with a niche audience including battery and power stakeholders, investors, and nuanced media folks presented a unique challenge for marketing.
Outside of public and media relations surrounding product updates and company announcements (including a news conference with the governor of Colorado and two state senators), promotion the company’s CEO, Doug Campbell, through thought leadership became a key differentiator. Avocet developed a comprehensive Personal Branding strategy that would position him as a dynamic voice within the entrepreneurial and startup space. This effort synergized the value of communications strategies for both entities.
The Doug Campbell Personal Brand Manifesto included creative industry positioning and the defining of Campbell’s online “brand personality,” his tone and voice, as well as his target audiences. We came up with an eyebrow-raising, smile-inducing name for the campaign that perfectly captured Campbell’s “counter-counter-culture” approach to business: “Entrepreneurial Dysfunction.”
Our tactics included the design of a multi-page website, a logo, collateral materials, a speaking engagement campaign, and a PR/media relations strategy aimed at local and national outlets, as well as key influencers. We secured interviews for Campbell on important podcasts, and for each proactive pitch and interview, Solid Power – as Campbell’s startup endeavor – was front and center.
With heavy-ups on PR and media relations, Avocet advanced a plan to support comprehensive media initiatives with a sleek, modern website that aligned with Solid Power’s innovative brand character.
Media relations successes included a huge Bloomberg campaign, promotion of strategic partnerships with the likes of Ford and BMW, and a hit in the client’s “dream publication,” Forbes. In one year alone, our Earned Media Value was $90,000 and our reach was nine million.
We created a powerful new custom-coded website with intelligent UX design and a Personal Branding campaign that was edgy, off-beat, and truly representative of Solid Power’s CEO, and which also fostered a symbiotic eco-system of promotion, awareness, and coverage that tied back to Solid Power.
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