Physical security · VMS
Milestone Systems
Reinforcing market leadership through thought leadership PR campaigns
Milestone Systems is the leading video management software (VMS) provider globally, eventually acquired by Canon Europe. Milestone has led the VMS market consistently since its inception in 1992. Today Milestone operates internationally, selling its offerings through more than 9,000 channel partners who work with 500 distributors in over 150 countries. The software supports more than 5,000 devices from over 130 camera manufacturers and works with the ONVIF specifications that enable hundreds more devices to operate with Milestone VMS.
Milestone Systems had the challenge of projecting itself in the media as the long-standing market leader it has been for some time, while remaining highly inclusive and encouraging of its growing partner-base, which puts together increasingly complex, multi-faceted, video-enabled solutions driven by Milestone software.
Solutions
Agility PR was the core PR agency partner for Milestone in the UK & Ireland for more than 5 years. During this time Agility PR’s core work was to provide case study content: customer win press releases, full-length case studies, double page Success Stories for marketing collateral usage, and Video Case Studies.
Its brief extended to optimising coverage for this content in relevant vertical sector and professional security trade media. During this period Agility PR delivered and promoted a total of 21 powerfully written case studies (an average of more than 1 per quarter), most of which are still in use on Milestone’s website today.
Following an increased focus on thought leadership, Milestone’s new head of PR EMEA, JOS Svendsen, extended Agility PR’s brief into building thought leadership content. So since mid-2014 Agility PR wrote and promoted (to the UK & Ireland media) a series of 13 technical, issues and vertical sector-specific articles, an average in excess of 6 per year.
Agility PR also provided media relations support for Milestone at the then key industry event of the year, IFSEC. At this event, Agility PR routinely fixed more than 15 media briefings over the three-day show, ensuring journalists attending these briefings got all the content they needed to put together positive news stories, even formulating article synopses, some of which were commissioned during these briefings.
“Agility PR has worked with Milestone during a period when the business has been growing at a significant rate, upwards of 30%. In this period, PR has changed from being the classic discipline into a strategic tool for us. Agility PR has been able to support us in every step of this change.
Agility PR, led by Miles Clayton, has been able to develop content on all levels from crafting media invitations to high-level thought leadership articles which have been game changers in the physical security industry. For us the collaboration with Agility PR has been more of a partnership than a traditional agency relationship. For us Agility PR is a trusted advisor, helping us accelerate our business even further.
Agility PR has also assisted us in identifying like-minded PR agencies in France and Germany as we expanded and deepened our regional PR capabilities. Their recommendations there eased the path towards EMEA-wide communications consistency and effectiveness.”
JOS Svendsen, then PR Manager EMEA, Milestone Systems