Airgas
Business and financial media relations
Objectives
- Raise awareness of Airgas among potential investors (retail and institutional) by leveraging key company story angles with the "tough to crack" financial press.
Execution
At first, Airgas came to Vault with a challenge -- to help the industrial gas distribution company succeed where other Fortune 1000 companies often fail -- by getting the oft-hit financial media to pay better attention to earnings announcements. V
Vault accepted the challenge and saw an opportunity to expand beyond the company's earnings announcements to increase coverage and start building sustainable relationships. Vault believed firmly that the financial media had to understand that although the business of industrial packaged gas might not seem riveting -- the stock momentum certainly was. The agency proposed a New York media tour of high profile business media outlets to: 1) allow Airgas CEO Peter McCausland to appear live and in-studio with broadcast outlets; and 2) meet face-to-face with key reporters/editors to build relationships and spark interest in a larger Airgas feature story.
The media tour was a rousing success, with McCausland fulfilling in-person interviews with high-profile business press such as Forbes, Fortune and The New York Times, and appearing live on Bloomberg TV, Bloomberg radio and CNBC's "Mad Money" with Jim Cramer. And the work continued beyond the NYC media tour -- with additional appearances throughout the year on programs such as CNBC's "Street Signs." In 2008, McCausland became the most frequent guest on CNBC's "Mad Money" with seven total appearances in just under three years.
Of course, the original task of generating interest in earnings was not forgot. Since hiring Vault, Airgas has significantly increased coverage of earnings results with key reporters at the Associated Press, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Reuters, DowJones/MarketWatch and Bloomberg.