Merritt Group named a Hermes Creative Award Platinum Winner

June 30, 2010 | Posted by: Tom Rice

We’re please to announce that we’ve been named a Hermes Creative Award Platinum Winner! The Hermes Creative Awards is an international competition for creative professionals involved in the concept, writing and design of programs and print, visual and audio materials. Entries come from television stations, corporate marketing and communication departments, advertising agencies, PR firms, design shops and freelancers. Merritt Group was awarded for the superb work done in promoting the U.S. Cost of Data Breach Study.

As data breaches continue to make headlines in all types of media, PGP Corporation and the Ponemon Institute, one of the most well-known research organizations in the area of privacy and data protection, started a relationship in 2005 to develop a piece of research that could quantify how much data breaches were costing U.S. corporations. The two organizations created the annual U.S. Cost of Data Breach Study (CODB), which tracks a wide range of cost factors incurred over the course of a data breach. 

Merritt Group has handled promoting the past three U.S. CODB Reports since being PGP’s agency of record in 2007. For the 2009 report, the PGP team executed a comprehensive media relations campaign designed to drive broad awareness for the Report’s findings and build PGP Corporation’s thought leadership in the security marketplace while driving ongoing awareness of the company’s data protection capabilities. The team aggressively executed on a multi-pronged strategy that centered around securing pre-briefings with target business, IT and security press/blog outlets. The PGP team was able to secure roughly 20 pre-briefings with business, IT trade and security publications/blogs, garnering 200+ press/blog placements.  Press coverage for the Study also includes the publications/sites such as Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Investor’s Business Daily, Network World, CNET, Computerworld, CSO Magazine, Consumer Reports, CRN, SC Magazine and many more.

The PGP team also integrated social media campaigns into the overall strategy to help the client reach new channels and build more of a following for the Report.  This included developing the client’s first social media release; recording a podcast with PGP’s CEO and the Report’s author, Larry Ponemon; implementing a Twitter campaign; and stepped-up Report outreach to the security/technology blogger community.  The 2009 Report was referenced on Twitter on 250+ unique occasions. 

Out of over 3,600 entries to the Hermes Creative Award, the campaign fell into the top 18% and was named a Hermes Creative Award Platinum Winner. This is a great testament to the quality of work that Merritt Group is able to continuously deliver to our clients. Fantastic job PGP Team!