AVORD: EXPOSING THE COST OF SECURITY TESTING
• Campaign reach in excess of 3.5 million, with 60% of coverage in tier one titles and 73% containing key message “AVORD will cut the cost of security testing by up to 40%”.
• Since launch, AVORD has secured a higher media presence than PwC, Deloitte and CNS Group, its main competitors, with comments about cyber security.
• Helped recruit three times the target number of security testers for its client-side launch in Summer 2019.
• Established as a credible voice in security testing: invited to contribute to key cyber features and secured space on the Maritime CIO Forum.
When disruptive cyber security testing platform AVORD was looking to launch and stand out in a competitive and fast-growing market, it reached out to Storm. Our brief was to generate noise in the media to establish it as a credible voice within the cyber security market ahead of its client-side launch in Summer 2019 and to assist with its second round of financial investment.
Our strategy focused on leveraging AVORD’s claim that it would make security testing more affordable to businesses, positioning it in the media and on LinkedIn as a credible alternative to costly consultancies. We devised a research project that would see 400 UK businesses, across five sectors, asked their perceptions of security testing and future requirements – something that had not been done before.
A robust report was compiled from these findings: The Cost Of Security Testing, and this formed the basis for all the launch campaign collateral from news releases, thought leadership articles, social media content, infographics through to a corporate video and sales brochure.
A launch event was held in London, to introduce AVORD to the media as well as to unveil the report findings. 18 journalists attended including Information Age, IT Pro, Risk UK, Real Business, Digital Energy Journal, Mortgage Finance Gazette and Retail Gazette, and those that couldn’t attend had telephone interviews on the same day. This resulted in over 20 pieces of high profile coverage on the day of the launch, including a feature article in Computer Weekly – name checked by the client as their most important title and Real Business, the leading SME publication. We also secured a double page spread in both Professional Security magazine and Intelligent CISO magazine.
The launch activity was underpinned by a series of more expansive thought leadership articles in key publications, ranging from SC Magazine – one of the leading cyber security publications, World Pipelines Magazine, Port Technology, The UK Newspaper and The Grocer, where we were the top read story on the day of publication.
Commenting on the success of the launch campaign, Brian Harrison, CEO of AVORD, said: “The research project was a great addition to this campaign and helped us achieve some great results, while it also formed the basis of our sales materials. Storm has helped give AVORD a great start in a very competitive sector, helping us bring in more testers than we had hoped for and we hope to build on this over the coming months.”
