Case Studies Archives - Clairemont Communications

Clairemont Secures Byline Coverage for Club Car

June 27, 2022July 15, 2022 Olivia NolesBlog, Case Studies, Clairemont Client NewsClairemont Communications, Club Car, PR Agency, Public Relations, Raleigh PR AgencyLeave a Comment

No longer regulated to the golf course, golf cars have become a lifestyle hallmark. In fact, Mordor Intelligence predicts the golf car market will grow by 5 percent in the next five years, becoming a $2.5 billion industry by 2027.

Clairemont saw this trend as an opportunity for Club Car, a global leader in golf, consumer and utility vehicles, and assisted with the writing of an article that targeted the 55+ audience and highlighted the growth of the golf car lifestyle.

Clairemont researched and pitched appropriate targets in key markets. So far, we have secured coverage for Club Car in Patch Neighborhood News, AZ Big Media, Senior News GA and Lifestyles After 50, resulting in a total reach of 525,000+.

CLAIREMONT RECEIVES NATIONAL AND STATEWIDE RECOGNITION

December 14, 2021July 15, 2022 Derek BullingtonAwards, Blog, Case StudiesLeave a Comment

Clairemont Communications is the only agency headquartered in North Carolina to receive a 2021 Silver Anvil. The Silver Anvil Awards are given by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). Along with awards from the North Carolina and Charlotte chapters of PRSA this year, Clairemont has received national and statewide recognition with 241 awards for superb communications campaigns since its founding in 2010.

2021 SILVER ANVIL AWARD

The Silver Anvil Awards symbolize the forging of public opinion and have been awarded each year since 1944. They are giving to organizations that have successfully addressed challenging issues with exemplary professional skill, creativity and resourcefulness. The awards are often referred to as the “Oscars of the PR Industry.” This honor is bestowed only on the most outstanding programs with proven results.

NATIONAL RECOGNITION

Clairemont earned this national recognition for its work with client Ingersoll Rand for a campaign called “Owning the Future: Ingersoll Rand’s Equity Grant.” Ingersoll Rand committed to make all employees owners in the company and awarded an equity grant of $150 million, one of the largest by an industrial company. To improve employee connection, contribution to financial performance and awareness within the industry, the agency-client team united 16,000 global employees during COVID-19 through a virtual bell ringing event with the New York Stock Exchange and meticulously coordinated 300 simultaneous on-site and remote celebrations.

“Clairemont is honored to have partnered with Ingersoll Rand on such an important milestone initiative in the company’s history that combined internal communications, external communications and event planning,” said Dana Phelps, chief executive officer, Clairemont Communications. “Receiving a prestigious Silver Anvil for this work is incredibly meaningful praise.”

STATEWIDE RECOGNITION

Together, Clairemont Communications and Ingersoll Rand also stand as award winners throughout North Carolina. This campaign garnered a 2021 InSpire Award from NCPRSA and a Queen City PR Award from PRSA Charlotte. Another campaign from this client-agency team, “Uniting 16,000 Employees Behind One Brand,” is the reigning NCPRSA Silver Best in Show winner. The highest honor the organization grants. Clairemont is also this year’s NCPRSA Bronze Best in Show winner for its work with client, Wendell Falls.

“Spearheading communications for a merger and uniting two global company cultures with 16,000 employees can be difficult. Doing this in March 2020, the same month the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, presents an almost insurmountable challenge,” said Misty Zelent, vice president of communications, Ingersoll Rand. “Our global Ingersoll Rand communications team relied on our trusted agency partner, Clairemont Communications. Clairemont helped us design a successful internal communications program to unite 16,000 employees across 70 countries for a seamless integration.”

In addition to the NCPRSA Best in Show awards, Clairemont’s total of nine InSpire wins showcase the agency’s expertise in the areas of global communications, internal/employee communications, integrated communications, media relations and video programs, with clients North Carolina Association of Fire Chiefs (NCAFC), International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) and WGU North Carolina also being recognized.

What Does a PR Agency Do? Ingersoll Rand’s Equity Grant Celebration

November 2, 2021July 15, 2022 Clairemont InternBlog, Case Studies, Internal Communications#casestudy, #PR, #RaleighPRAgencyLeave a Comment

When the merger of Gardner Denver, Inc. and Ingersoll Rand Industrials was announced in 2019, Vicente Reynal, CEO of Gardner Denver, Inc. declared an employee equity award for all future Ingersoll Rand employees after the close of the merger. The transaction was completed in March 2020, and then the global pandemic and economic downturn took hold. Employees were skeptical the equity award would happen. An extensive body of research on employee ownership guided Ingersoll Rand and its agency, Clairemont Communications, to plan and implement an equity grant celebration event.

Goal + General Plan: Based on research, the team designed a plan around the newly combined company’s core value of ‘Think and Act Like Owners’ that included a live global broadcast in partnership with NYSE; equity 101 training; videos and fact sheets on the company portal translated in 15 languages; local celebrations held safely around the world; framed commemorative stock certificates for all 16,000 employees globally with a letter from the CEO and Chairman; and target media outreach.

Preparing the Runway (Pre-Event Training): The multi-channel strategy began three months pre-event to educate every employee on the equity grant’s significance. Local HR leaders received courses to facilitate logistics and guide trainings. Employees received “bite-sized,” cadenced communications via personal weekly emails from the CEO, intranet Q&As/articles, local staff meetings, posters and even graphics displayed on factory floor monitors. More than 100 resources were published and translated on IR NOW, the company intranet. Employees engaged in Ownership Purpose & Values training to connect their own values to those of the company and prepare them to “think and act like owners.”

For Whom the Bell Tolls (NYSE Bell Ringing & Global Town Hall): Given pandemic limitations, Ingersoll Rand designed a celebration where CEO Vicente Reynal virtually rang the opening bell at the NYSE, broadcasting to customers and investors. The team choreographed a global celebration that combined the NYSE bell ringing with a virtual town hall. Equipped with a “party in the box,” 300 Ingersoll Rand sites hosted celebrations together or at home, complete with themed foods or decor; the town hall featured interviews with teams from Simmern, Germany to Wujiang, China, sharing reactions to allow employees to celebrate with their global teammates in real-time. On-site liaisons captured photography and video interviews to foster connection between sites, and each employee received a personalized, framed equity grant certificate with a letter from the CEO.

Top-Tier Headlines: IR leveraged the grant’s historical importance as one of the first and largest of its kind, as well as teased the economic impact for local markets. The team positioned the grant as a case study in global leadership development, leveraging local employees to share personal experience as a now-owner. With 2020’s attention to diversity, CEO Vicente became celebrated as one of the first Hispanics to lead such an initiative. Simultaneously, IR launched a schedule of creative graphics, videos and posts leading up to the grant. Without any social media budget, the team appointed an informal group of LinkedIn ambassadors to amplify the posts through sharing, tagging and engagement.

One IR, Many Staff: The core team worked with 200 site champions across 70 countries to coordinate trainings, material delivery and a site celebration launch. We liaised with NYSE ambassadors along with IT leaders to coordinate the bell ringing and global town hall down to the second, and media teams provided 24-hour coverage to monitor the news and coordinate interviews.

Successful execution of Ingersoll Rand’s global event exceeded all five objectives. We secured coverage in four top tier financial outlets (Forbes, MarketWatch, Dow Jones and Fortune), exceeding our target of three; one financial broadcast outlet (Bloomberg) as targeted; and coverage in our U.S. and in the UK, India, China, Australia, Singapore and South Korea to position Ingersoll Rand as a manufacturing industry leader. We also achieved 2 times the target increase in equity grant value with 20% versus 10% goal in fewer than 45 days after the grant event. Even more, recently we were proud to receive, along with Ingersoll Rand, a PRSA Silver Anvil award for this campaign in the Events and Observances category.

Need help creating an award-winning campaign? Drop us a line, we’d love to help!

What Does A PR Agency Do? WGU North Carolina Student Scholarship Videos

September 27, 2021July 15, 2022 Clairemont InternBlog, Case Studies, Marketing#casestudy, #mediarelations, #PR, #RaleighPRAgencyLeave a Comment

WGU North Carolina, an affiliate of Western Governors University, is an online, competency-based university designed for busy adults who need to balance work, family and financial obligations. Since coming to North Carolina three years ago, WGU North Carolina has offered a chance for many individuals across the state to achieve their higher education goals.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, WGU North Carolina, often known for surprising its scholarship recipients on-site, faced a problem: How could they still present scholarships to unexpectant recipients and share the student’s story in a safe, impactful way? Even more, how could they maintain and even increase the social media engagement that often came with posting the reaction of these surprised scholarship recipients?

WGU North Carolina began setting up virtual “scholarship interviews” via Zoom that acted as a pretext for scholarship unveilings and recorded each one. As the raw footage of student testimonials – and their reactions of joy, relief, pride and tears – started pouring in, our team recognized the need to share these snippets of good news with a larger audience. Therefore, Clairemont launched a video campaign in response.

The WGU North Carolina student scholarship video campaign showcased the authenticity and personality of WGU North Carolina. Each student testimonial personalized individuals’ efforts, perseverance and successes reaching their higher education goals, while Zoom backgrounds often offered a peek into their own home and day-to-day reality, many times consisting of family members. The videos spotlighted stories of moonlighting gigs, mid-life career changes, stay-at-home moms’ dreams to head back to the workplace and those inspired to change their course of work and/or study due to the pandemic. A few of the video testimonials were so powerful, we decided to expand the “good news” beyond social media and reached out to the students asking if we could share the videos with local media outlets.

WGU North Carolina recorded and Clairemont edited 28 scholarship surprise videos in 2020 which garnered nearly 11,000 views (and counting!) and helped boost WGU North Carolina’s followers across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube by 5 percent. Several of the videos posted also received attention and praise from WGU North Carolina’s social media followers, WGU National, and even other WGU state affiliates. The video series now serves as a content cornerstone across each of WGU North Carolina’s social media platforms and is an example that is referenced state affiliates when discussing video content.

Interested in reading more about the creative ways we’ve helped our clients? Click here.

This campaign was recognized by the North Carolina Chapter of Public Relations Society of America (NCPRSA) with an Award of Excellence. Thanks to Glenn Gillen (one of our very favorite PR pros!) and WGU North Carolina for allowing us to do awarding-winning work with you!

What Does a PR Agency Do? One Ingersoll Rand: Uniting 16,000 Global Employees Behind One Purpose

August 23, 2021July 15, 2022 Clairemont InternBlog, Case Studies, Internal Communications#casestudy, #Crisiscommunication, #mediarelations, #PR, #PRagency, #publicrelations, #PublicRelationsagency, #RaleighPRAgencyLeave a Comment

Spearheading communications for a merger and uniting two global company cultures with 16,000 employees can be difficult, but doing so in March 2020, the same month the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, presents an almost insurmountable challenge. This is what faced Ingersoll Rand during the merger of Gardner Denver, Inc. with the Ingersoll Rand Industrials segment to form the new Ingersoll Rand (NYSE: IR), a global provider of mission-critical flow creation and industrial solutions. As an essential business, Ingersoll Rand manufactures vital products to COVID-19 frontline workers – such as pumps for hospital ventilators – and there could be no production delay. The five-person global Ingersoll Rand communications team and Clairemont designed a successful internal communications program to unite 16,000 employees across 70 countries for a seamless Day 1 integration.

Ingersoll Rand set the goal to launch the newly combined company based on a Day 1 readiness list of go/no-go criteria, and to create a celebratory transition that would inspire employees and equip them to live out the company’s purpose – Lean On Us To Help You Make Life Better.

Based on research, the core team planned a company-wide Day 1 global celebration. With the target audience of 16,000 company employees, Ingersoll Rand set the following objectives and timelines:

Company Launch: Go live on time with all identified communications channels of the company by March 1, 2020, including intranet, company website, social media channels, Code of Conduct, Ethics Hotline posters and Purpose and Values posters.

Develop and deploy a comprehensive training toolkit for 200 site champions and all business unit leaders prior to March 1.

Host a live global town hall and Day 1 celebration at locations globally on March 9, 2020 with approximately 100% employee attendance, ‘Team IR’ pennants for each employee for photo opportunities and large banners at each location for employee signatures.

Employee Engagement: Increase employee satisfaction categories of “employee connectedness to company” and “understanding of long-term strategy” each by 2 points and maintain or improve by 1 point the rating that “leaders communicate a motivating vision” (maintain because the pre-Day 1 survey had an 80% rating, and that was already above manufacturing industry benchmark).

Financial Growth: Create a positive new company culture that would equip employees to meet quarterly financial goals in 2020, including strong margins, liquidity and cost savings of >$25 million.

EXECUTION

Championing Success: Success sprang from preparation and disciplined use of Ingersoll Rand Execution Excellence, the engine to how the company is managed. Beginning in November 2019, Ingersoll Rand and Clairemont formed a site champion team of liaisons to brainstorm concepts, convey corporate messages to all 300 sites, share employee feedback, develop materials, assist with translations 2 and plan a site-appropriate Day 1 experience. All site champions participated in a virtual training, idea exchange and ongoing support network to ensure two-way communication with all employees.

Purpose and Values: To unite employees behind a common vision, IR launched a research-based employee task force that created the company’s new Purpose and Values. The comms team then designed a simple, compelling graphic and poster around the Purpose and Values, which were translated and distributed to every site. Employees engaged in Purpose and Values training sessions, personally connecting their own values to those of the company and preparing them to “think and act like owners.”

Corporate Narrative: The team leveraged the Purpose and Values to create the corporate story, merging two companies’ rich histories and highlighting its unifying vision across 40+ brands. IT and comms teams worked around the clock to build, test and prepare the new social channels and strategy, asset libraries, website (translated and tested for 70 countries) and intranet. To support employee engagement, Ingersoll Rand hosted an employee contest to name the new intranet, IR NOW.

Cadenced Communications: Clarity was key for unity. Employees received regular integration updates, personal leadership messages, the new Purpose and Values, and even a humorous Brady-Bunch-style video introducing the new leadership team to forge a personal connection. The intranet featured an evolving FAQ section and articles spotlighting business units so employees could get to know their new coworkers. The comms team crafted toolkits for leaders to deliver to suppliers, vendors and employees the week before company launch. Employees across the globe received a “what you need to know to function on Day 1” desk drop on March 1, followed by Week 2 desk drop with a company overview – translated into 15 core languages.

An Open Dialogue: IR leadership committed itself to live out one of the company’s core values to help employees “think and act like owners” by encouraging questions and two-way dialogue. IR hosted two live global town halls (complete with red-themed backdrops for a little “team spirit”) where 16,000 employees tuned in to a live Q&A section with CEO Vicente Reynal. The intranet housed a Q&A section and provided an email welcoming employee integration questions at any time.

Day 1 Celebration: Ingersoll Rand went “red” – the company brand color that conveyed excitement – for its Day 1 celebration. The integration team equipped each of the 300 sites around the world with a “party in a box” translated into the native language, featuring inaugural banners for employees to sign, posters touting IR’s new purpose, a pennant to wave, Purpose & Values activities and even catering ideas. (Red bon-bons, anyone?) Since many had to celebrate from home, site champions coordinated with regional HR personnel to provide localized support. All sites hosted their celebrations simultaneously while tuning into a live town hall with the CEO. With unity as the goal, the town hall featured live vignettes from Shanghai to Spain — real-time interactivity that bridged thousands of miles and enabled employees to virtually meet their new colleagues. Vicente answered Q&As and finished the town hall with an iconic selfie, capturing on-site employees in the background waving celebratory pennants.

The Ingersoll Rand Day 1 internal communications campaign united employees, bolstered financial growth and ensured the company continued production.

Company Launch: IR successfully launched all identified communications functions of the company by March 1, 2020; trained 200+ site champions and all business units prior to March 1; and hosted a live global town hall and Day 1 celebration on March 9, 2020 with 100% employee attendance.

Employee Engagement: Despite the pandemic and inability to travel and meet to integrate the global organization of 16,000, ‘feel more connected to the newly combined company’ improved 5 points to 77%, surpassing the 2-point target. ‘Better understanding of the long-term strategy’ increased 8 points, jumping 4 times the 2-point goal; and ‘leaders communicate a motivating vision’ maintained at 80%.

Financial Growth: By the release of the IR first quarterly financial results as a combined company after Day 1 event, IR delivered solid margins, strong liquidity at $1.6 billion with the quarter closing at $556 million of cash on the balance sheet and actions added up to more than $50 million of cost savings.

Interested in hearing more about how we can help you with a successful internal communications campaign? Drop us a line!