CSR
The client
CSR is the leading global provider of personal wireless technology and its technology portfolio covers Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS, FM and UWB. CSR has its headquarters and offices in Cambridge, UK, and today has offices in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, India, France, Denmark, Sweden and both Dallas and Detroit in the USA.
Objective
EML started to work with CSR in 2000 when the original objective of the campaign was to position CSR as ‘The single-chip Bluetooth company’ and the leader in Bluetooth silicon.
Since that time, CSR’s messages have grown in complexity, and CSR has become an opinion leader in many areas including clarifying the roles of Bluetooth and WiFi; embedded WiFi; and recently software GPS. At this stage, as the number of countries that CSR was targeting was also multiplying, the brief developed to include ensuring consistent messaging across geographic territories.
Strategy
The first task was to tackle CSR's positioning and messaging to ensure messages were clear and consistent across a range of media. In order to build credibility, EML launched an intensive campaign to link CSR with industry leading household technology names, helping CSR to demonstrate that the company was capable of taking on much larger and more established industry players.
EML also promoted the business benefits that CSR delivered whilst countering negative publicity that the company had received in the past due to scepticism about the model of technology the company was adopting.
As CSR grew and moved into new markets, EML supported the organisation by acting as the lead PR agency, building a network of partner agencies to support CSR's growth in local markets. EML now manages relationships with 6 agencies for CSR, delivering campaigns across UK, Europe, Japan, India, Korea, China, Taiwan and US. EML provides briefs to the agencies in all territories to ensure consistency of messaging, provides consolidated global launch plans as well as consolidated analysis for CSR. EML also helps to ensure CSR's PR strategy is tailored appropriately for each region.
The results
CSR continues to dominate the Bluetooth market in spite of increased competition from major industry names and is now viewed increasingly as an industry and opinion leader in embedded wireless technologies. The company also now experiences a higher level of demand, something which can be directly linked to the success of the global PR campaign.
The testimonial
"Throughout the years EML has become an integral part of the CSR marketing strategy. The team really does feel like an extension of the internal marketing function, controlling and coordinating CSR's PR across geographic territories with precision and consistency. The experience and skill that the agency brings to CSR has allowed us to grow in terms of geography, and in terms of the complexity of our messages. Through working with EML, I have always had complete confidence that CSR's coverage in the press would be positive and on-message”.
Alan Woolhouse, VP Communications.
