Manufacturing Media Moments

How we boosted brand recognition for OFS through pitching, podcasts and more

Overview

OFS is a family-owned contract furniture manufacturer based in Huntingburg, Indiana that provides solutions for office, healthcare, education, lifestyle, hospitality, government and home office markets worldwide, offering a variety of soft architecture and open plan products to fit the needs of the evolving workplace.

Beginning in August 2020, we supported OFS’ earned media practice with an early focus on articulating a corporate story and announcing the, then, forthcoming WELL Platinum certification for its corporate HQ. Throughout the partnership, we led regular media outreach and storytelling to help elevate OFS in the industry, serving as an extension of their marketing team with a focus on furthering the brand’s reputation and visibility in trade and business press.

Discovery and Insights

To develop a successful foundation, we conducted ongoing discovery across the family of brands, which included:

  • Mining for gem sessions with company leadership from each brand
  • Editorial brainstorming sessions with the marketing team to align on key opportunities
  • A competitive analysis of the media landscape for each industry

Ultimately, this phase helped us create our PR foundation — including spokesperson profiles by owned topics and key messaging by core narrative — which we leveraged to guide us throughout our work.

Strategy and Tactics

To achieve the goals set forth in collaboration with OFS we developed a comprehensive PR strategy focused on:

  • Elevating OFS’ thought leaders within the industry
  • Amplifying awareness for the OFS family of brands
  • Establishing a replicable framework for addressing issues

At the onset of our work, we partnered with OFS to develop several tactical deliverables to streamline our efforts, including:

  • An issues management playbook with guidance on how to handle threats to the brand
  • A project tracker of recommended awards and speaking opportunities to apply for
  • A rolodex of evergreen bylines for each key leader to use in ongoing pitching
  • A long-lead calendar matrix of all target publications and their monthly editorial themes
  • An editorial planning board for pipelining content into the company newsroom

As our partnership evolved and we continued to identify key media targets, we found that podcasts were  garnering more engagement and leads than traditional earned media. Armed with this insight, we pivoted our approach to focus solely on this medium. Our work then shifted from pitching reporters to both pitching hosts to interview OFS leaders on their owned shows and pitching influencers to appear as guests on OFS’ owned shows. 

Through these efforts, we helped establish the Imagine a Place Productions network, building its successful Skill Set podcast from the ground up.

Results

We secured coverage across a number of channels, in both written and digital media.

Media placements included:

20+ Imagine a Place Productions guests secured, such as:

  • Rebecca Walker, daughter of author Alice Walker
  • Llisa Demetrios, granddaughter of Ray and Charles Eames
  • Winter Vinecki, Olympian
  • Dr. David Langer, internationally renowned brain surgeon
  • Mark Safarik, FBI profiler

Anecdotally, OFS also shared that these placements, particularly the podcasts, helped secure new business for their brands, proving to have a meaningful return on investment.