Lutchansky Communications Honored With Prestigious Bulldog Reporter Award For Media Relations Excellence in the Internet/New Media Category

Presenting the LComm Silver Bulldog Award entry

Strategy:
After a three-year intensive marketing and branding campaign, Check Point Software, the scrappy internet start-up out of Israel, had successfully positioned itself as the leader in the network/internet security industry with an acknowledged 40% market share. However, a series of acquisitions in the security marketplace was putting this leadership into question. Cisco Systems, in a move to infiltrate and take over a big piece of the security pie, made a series of security related announcements that directly threatened Check Point’s technology. Network Associates, in a series of acquisitions, was making a big entry into the security marketplace, and as it has been known to do, was using a variety of sensationalistic weapons to gain attention and hopefully market share. Some of these tactics included blatant attacks against Check Point’s technology in press releases, widely publicized boasts of how Network Associates was going to take over the industry with its acquisitions, and high profile television and print advertising.

It was critical that Check Point stand up and defend itself in a way that was not defensive and exuded leadership. However, budget was limited and the PR budget available was a total of $35,000 over a two month period. We needed to be creative, extremely persuasive, and most importantly, highly educated and informed in order to successfully get the results needed.

To create the pitch, we first looked at what our competitors were saying. Both Cisco and Network Associates were pitching a one-stop shopping approach to an enterprise’s complex security needs. By looking at Check Point’s technology and its positioning, we were able to counter these threats in the industry by aggressively communicating our technology and business advantages. First off, we created a best-of-breed pitch that specifically answered the technology questions, and effectively countered Cisco’s and Network Associates superior technology claims.

We also took advantage of the marketplace flux due to a significant amount of acquisitions. Not only did we research these moves in detail, we also analyzed and defined the major issues and problems with each competitor to create a focused, powerful pitch letter that used all of these elements. We wanted to emphasize our seriousness in this marketplace, and our knowledge base as experts in the industry. This was done in a deliberate effort to counter the flamboyance of Network Associates campaign attempts. In addition, we offered a personal meeting with Check Point CEO, Deb Triant, to elucidate Check Point’s strategy to win in this tumultuous marketplace.

The format we chose for the trade press was a series of "Fireside Chats" in New York, Boston and the San Francisco Bay Area with Check Point CEO Deb Triant, VP of Technical Services Tony Reed and VP of Marketing Jacqueline Ross to discuss in detail the technology needed to provide a complete global security solution for any enterprise. The Fireside Chat format allowed us to have more time with the editors, and created an interactive feedback environment. As a result, it felt as if the group was coming up with answers rather than have it feel like just another session with another vendor trying to "force-feed" their point of view. In addition to having Check Point executives at the chats, we also had key Check Point customers, system integrators and resellers at the events to present their real-world experiences in the industry and provide solid, third-party validation of Check Point’s claims. For the business press, we chose to conduct a series of one-on-one meetings with the most influential business press. The goal: change public opinion at all levels that influence the purchase decision including the CEO, the CIO and the network administrator.

In order to ensure that our strategy would work, we performed market research with several key analysts. We presented our strategy and presentation to friendly analysts under NDA in order to "bullet proof" our strategy. We found that we had hit upon the right strategy to fight back in many ways as evidenced by the following feedback we received from Ted Julian of IDC (he is currently with Forrester): ".. everyone (customers, prospects, press, Wall Street, etc.) is looking for (if not demanding :-) this kind of guidance from you. In light of the chaos in the industry and your guys position in it, such a tour is a unique opportunity to cast the discussion of the security business and Check Point’s role in it."

Implementation:
In order to prove that Check Point had the ability to retain leadership, we had to make a significant and persuasive argument as to why this little $35 million dollar company was going to beat out the likes of Cisco and Network Associates. The "Fireside Chats" and the individual meetings enabled us to educate the editorial and analyst community on the complex needs of a complete security solution and how no one vendor had all of the answers at this point.

Stories appeared in most of the trades, but we got incredible results from the business press with stories appearing in the following publications:

Washington Post, Elizabeth Corcoran
Bloomberg News, Mylene Mangalindan
Business Week, Andy Reinhardt
Dow Jones News Service, Mark Boslet
Financial Times, Louise Kehoe
Forbes, Eric Nee
Fortune, Rick Tetzeli, Courtney Clinton
New York Times, Serge Schmemann
DBC, Brennon Daly

However, the "big hits" that we got by landing the right pitch to the right journalist in the right format were major stories in Forbes, Fortune and the Wall Street Journal. The Forbes and Fortune hits were both front covers, one for Deb Triant, CEO of Check Point in the U.S. and one for Gil Schwed, CEO and founder of Check Point in Israel. Each of these three hits because each one is significant in it’s own right, and all three resulted from the above campaign.

• The Wall Street Journal story because it communicates exactly what we wanted to regarding the competitive issues.
• The Forbes article because it equates Check Point with the hottest Internet companies including Amazon.com, carrying the exact leadership message we intended to convey.
• The Fortune article because, hey, it’s a great cover, a great picture, and again, underscores Check Point’s leadership in the market as a whole.

For a reasonable amount of money, the results were incredible: two front covers in two of the leading business publications in the same month of the same year as well as a huge story in the Wall Street Journal. Check Point’s stock went up immediately following the publication of these stories. Check Point’s earnings release reflected stellar results that quarter with net income for the quarter showing an increase of 158% in net income and 150% in net income per share. The company’s total installed base crossed the 51,000 mark that quarter as well. In addition, immediately following the above PR push, the number of partners committed to the OPSEC alliance increased to over 140 security, internetworking, and application vendors. In fact, a survey conducted with leading Check Point resellers that quarter revealed that approximately half of all sales included an OPSEC partner product. Finally, Goldman, Sachs just recently released a survey of Fortune 1000 CIOs and network managers that confirmed increased acceptance of Check Point’s open platform approach to enterprise security. In fact, 61% of those surveyed chose a best-of-breed approach over single-vendor suites or bundles, proving that we have accomplished our goal of influencing public opinion regarding this critical issue for Check Point.