Helping Leading Public Relations Firms Help Clients

Porter Novelli

“GLG is a great place to start when you need expert perspectives to inform any campaign, anywhere in the world. GLG finds the precise experts we seek-no matter how far off-the-beaten path we ask them to look.”

Joseph Russo
Executive Vice President
Global Director of Research
Porter Novelli

Tove Carroll and Erica Sandler work for the same global public relations giant. With Carroll in London and Sandler in Washington, DC, they serve different clients in different markets—but they share a unique resource that reaches every corner of the world.

The firm is Porter Novelli—a global public relations powerhouse that provides communications and marketing solutions for consumer brands, technology companies, the healthcare and financial services industries, non-profit organizations, and government agencies. The resource is the Gerson Lehrman Group Councils—a global network of the world's leading experts spanning every sector on Porter Novelli's client roster.

Achieving Intelligent Influence

For nearly 40 years, Porter Novelli has developed and executed strategic communications programs designed to help clients around the world raise their profiles, build their brands—and ultimately drive revenues. With 100 offices in 60 countries, the entire agency is guided by one principle: Intelligent Influence.

“Intelligent Influence means we understand what motivates people to change their opinions, attitudes, and behaviors, and how best to engage them in a dialogue that ultimately influences them to change,” says Sandler, Senior Account Planner, Strategic Planning & Research at Porter Novelli. “This is our pathway to helping clients achieve their objectives.” This pathway must always be paved with external information. Enter GLG.

The World's Marketplace for Expertise

Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG) provides technology and services to support a marketplace for expertise and manages the world's leading expert network, helping more than 850 client companies find, engage, and manage^SM experts. When clients need to deepen their understanding of a company, an industry, or a market, they turn to GLG for relevant, hard-to-find, authoritative experts from the GLG Councils^SM—a network of more than 200,000 experts worldwide.

“GLG is a great place to start when you need expert perspectives to inform any campaign, anywhere in the world,” says Joseph Russo, Executive Vice President, Global Director of Research, Porter Novelli. “GLG finds the precise experts we seek—no matter how far off-the-beaten path we ask them to look.”

Porter Novelli has tapped GLG for expert perspectives in multiple global markets—to help the team bring Intelligent Influence to clients worldwide.

Consumer Goods: Europe

For Carroll, Senior Account Manager, and her team in London, it was that time of year again. The approaching holidays called for the creation of an innovative PR campaign that would cut through the clutter of a crowded marketplace—and generate media attention to help drive seasonal sales for a global consumer electronics client.

The team devised a global PR initiative designed to endow functional gifts with an emotional connection: a campaign on the psychology of gift giving. They sought a niche expert to lend credibility to the program, an expert with broad appeal for a campaign targeting audiences across Western Europe—seemingly a needle in a haystack. GLG found it.

“I wasn't even sure if someone like this existed. Without GLG, I could have Googled the possibilities for hours and still come up empty—but GLG delivered,” says Carrol. “Even though I gave GLG a very loose brief on our unique requirements, the team was able to translate it, understand it, and revert back to us with a world-renowned, credible expert in mindful giving.”

The Result

Carroll and her team developed an innovative 2009 holiday PR campaign and media toolkit, centered on a fresh new angle to the same-old holiday story. Ultimately, Porter Novelli exceeded expectations for one of the world's top consumer brands—while saving time and money.

“It was probably one of the best reactions I have ever received from a client around a campaign like this,” Carrol says. “We were able to execute the PR strategy our client was depending on because GLG delivered exactly what we needed.”

Healthcare: United States

Across the Atlantic, Sandler and her team were developing a general awareness campaign for a US-based healthcare provider seeking to attract financial support, new patients, and top medical professionals from around the country.

Sandler began with an audit of the client and its competitors to analyze current market perceptions to help create new positioning. She then turned to GLG to test these new messages in the marketplace using a cross-section of leading US experts.

GLG arranged a series of telephone consultations with referring physicians, pediatric researchers, and healthcare policy and quality-care experts, who provided valuable input to help Sandler revise the client's messaging for maximum impact. The benefits go well beyond that. “Until I worked with GLG, I had never participated in such an easy process for engaging such credible experts in such a short timeframe,” says Sandler, who comes from a research background. “We have accomplished in weeks what would have taken months through more traditional research channels.”

The Result

Sandler and her team quickly produced an informed, enhanced set of messages, which they will now road test with a specific set of GLG Council Members. The client is extremely impressed with how far-and how fast-Porter Novelli has moved the dial toward achieving their goal.

“The high caliber of the GLG Council Members gives us added confidence in our client recommendations, while giving our clients added confidence in us, based on the credibility of our sources,” she adds. “This drives action, results, and ultimately positive change.”

Effecting that positive change is at the very heart of what Porter Novelli does every day, in 60 countries around the world—with the help of superior insights from the GLG expert network.

“I wasn't even sure if someone like this existed. Without GLG, I could have Googled the possibilities for hours and still come up empty.”

Tove Carroll
Senior Account Manager
Porter Novelli