Background

CROSSMARK launched in Australia in May 2008 after a merger between Australian retail marketing specialists, The Marketing Department and US-based global retail marketing agency CROSSMARK.

Our remit was to launch the CROSSMARK brand into Australia, a well known and respected brand across North America, and the largest retail marketing company in the world, and then steadily increase the brand awareness and profile of the CEO Kevin Moore in business and retail trade media.

To do this successfully, we needed to increase awareness about the relatively unknown retail marketing services industry, an industry that has grown at double digit rates for the past 10 years and that growth is predicted to continue.

Our strategy focused on positioning CROSSMARK’s CEO as an expert spokesperson on retail trends and issues, based upon CROSSMARK’s ability to draw market intelligence from across the US retailing sector,  and increasing awareness about CROSSMARK’s core business offer among potential and existing clients.

Results

For the launch of the business Access PR secured an exclusive feature story in key business media, followed by widespread trade and business features.

We achieved more than 20 stories about the launch in Australian business and trade media outlets in the first two months.

We then embarked on a profile-building campaign with CROSSMARK’s CEO, Kevin Moore -  a campaign that has yielded exceptional results.

Moore now has a weekly retail trends column that has been continued for 14 months in Smart Company. He is now proactively sought out by business journalists in Australia and New Zealand as an authority on the retail marketplace, in a similar vein to author Paco Underhill in the US.

Moore has been contacted by many senior industry executives about his commentary pieces.

In the 18 months since launch, CROSSMARK has appeared in target media more than 150 times.

No single piece of coverage about the business has ever been negative.

Media Coverage

Crossmark bulks up the retail department - Australian Financial Review, 18 August 2008

Local Cadbury has a bigger spread - Sydney Morning Herald (and syndicated), 21 January 2010

Marketing effectively in tech retail - Tech Trader, February 2010

Getting beneath the latest ABS retail figures - Smartcompany.com.au, 8 February 2010