Case Study | PR and Brand Awareness

Unseen

We helped this mobile app developer gain awareness and downloads upon launch of their new app.

Overview

Bearch Inc., a mobile app developer based in Austin, Texas, needed assistance on a national PR campaign. The company, which had developed an anonymous photo-sharing app for college students called Unseen, approached us just prior to closing a multi-million dollar Angel funding round.

Our Challenge

Working closely with the Unseen founders, we devised a two-pronged strategy addressing the need for publicity in both the high tech media and college campus media.

Our Answer

Given the company’s goals, we developed a 5-point plan that included a number of different tactics and verticals. Each point of the plan was developed to either build upon the previous stage or further maximize our efforts.

Media Campaign

After researching the ongoing media coverage of anonymous social media apps, we developed a launch campaign emphasizing the initial Angel funding round. Our goal was to make the tech influencer community aware of the app and its capabilities. We also designed a media relations campaign targeting college campuses where Unseen had already launched.

Media Pitching

After researching existing news coverage of anonymous apps, we developed a targeted media list. Additionally, we created a separate list of college media outlets where Unseen was already being used or was about to launch.

News Embargo

Armed with a wire distribution of the launch press release, we negotiated a news embargo with an influential technology writer at TechCrunch, allowing her to be the first to publish news of the Angel funding round. We also developed a secondary pitch around the launch of Unseen at campuses across the U.S. that emphasized the apps features, user demographics and myths about anonymous apps.

Proven Results

Our two-market approach was successful at raising Unseen’s brand awareness, media inquiries, and downloads across the tech and college campus markets. The app grew from just 50 campus markets served to over 200 campuses in just three months.

We negotiated coverage in over 20 publications over a 60-day period. A sampling of the media outlets that covered Unseen included: TechCrunch, USA Today, NBC News, Vice, iDigital Times, and Campus media in close to 20 schools across the U.S.

Later in our engagement with Unseen we continued garnering high-profile media mentions, some of which included app upgrade announcements as well as trending news story pegs tied to racism, security holes in other anonymous apps, and parental concerns regarding use of anonymous apps. Some of these media placements included: VentureBeat, Huffington Post, USA Today, and The Daily Dot.