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Founded in 1997 by Silicon Valley marketing expert
Stuart McFaul, Spiralgroup makes
companies successful with customers, partners and the
media by taking 'a different spin' on marketing and
public relations.
Named one of SUCCESS! Magazine's Top 100 Companies
in 2001, Spiralgroup helps clients meet business goals
by providing seasoned marketing expertise to refine
and focus company strategy and developing creative results-getting
communications programs that are conducted by highly-experienced
well-connected account teams.
With offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles, California,
Spiralgroup serves startup to Fortune 10 companies in
the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
OUR APPROACH
SOLVE BUSINESS PROBLEMS TO HELP CLIENTS OVERCOME THEIR CHALLENGES.
No company is perfect. However, many marketing/PR firms demand that their clients are already successful, from having high-ticket funding from well-known investors to having attracted top-tier management. We don't work this way. It's our job to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses, then creatively solve the problems and find opportunities to bring you the success you desire.
FOCUS PROGRAMS TO TARGET THE RIGHT INITIATIVES AT THE RIGHT
TIME.
Each of our clients is at a different point in their business life cycle. Some are pre-funding or pre-launch startups, others are mature public companies. Spiralgroup designs cost-effective individualized programs that scale to each client's business maturity and focus on goals that can be realistically achieved. By targeting the right media at the right time, we use your money and time most wisely.
LEAD THE EFFORT WITH SEASONED TEAMS.
Spiralgroup works with highly experienced marketing and public relations professionals. The senior-level people who strategize with clients are the same individuals who execute the programs. We assemble a dedicated and seasoned team for each client, with representatives who serve the client's requirements in each of the following areas: Business Strategies, Public Relations, Marketing Services and Program Management.
GENERATE BIG IDEAS TO ESTABLISH BREAKTHROUGH POSITIONING.
Spiralgroup is known for its ability to position companies as leading or breakthrough organizations. Our ability to develop "Big Ideas" that crystallize and focus a company's vision has helped us position companies squarely into the heart of the latest issues and trends. As a result, Spiralgroup has often been retained to direct or co-direct clients' total marketing efforts, from product development to sales training. Our efforts have resulted in client companies being purchased for a total exceeding $1 billion? and, in 2005, two of our clients were named to Time Magazine's "Best Tech Companies"® list.
PLAN DECONSTRUCTIVELY FOR BETTER, MORE CREATIVE RESULTS.
Creativity is the difference between good and great programs. We constantly research and "deconstruct" the marketing and public relations process to find new ways of doing things to rise above the noise level. Using this approach, we have developed such Spiralgroup-exclusive efforts as our AcidTest™ analyst presentation development process and Company You Keep™ relationship development program. These creative programs have broken down media barriers, resulting in coverage in high-level publications such as The Wall Street Journal and Business Week for even the smallest of our clients.
LEVERAGE SPIRAL MARKETING TECHNIQUES.
Successful marketing/public relations programs effectively incorporate spiral marketing, the proper use of different media to create and deliver a powerful message. We take an active role in tightly integrating public relations with such activities as market research, branding, interactive marketing, advertising and direct mail, trade shows, seminars and events, and Web development and marketing. We also align our programs with non-marketing activities, such as product development, management team development and training.
INCORPORATE INVESTOR RELATIONS PRACTICES INTO EACH PROGRAM.
From the very start, your company has investors and stakeholders. Our spiral marketing approach incorporates investor relations practices into your public relations program at the outset. Over time, we have found this positions clients well for IPO or acquisition by giving them greater clarity in setting goals, a balanced communications approach in dealing with their constituents, and a strong sense of fiscal responsibility. Quite simply, companies that act like public companies tend to become public companies.
TELL A GOOD STORY THROUGH CLIENTS' OWN NEWS BUREAUS.
Every company has a unique story to tell. Spiralgroup builds on its Big Idea positioning by using our Story Arc™ strategic announcement process to research and evaluate the competitive landscape, allowing us to pinpoint the correct quantity and content of announcements to offset your competition and attract the media's attention.
BECOME A VALUED SERVICE TO THE MEDIA.
At Spiralgroup, we don't limit our media contact to pitching news and story ideas. We aim to become a valued resource, bringing press and analysts directly to our clients, through such innovative means as state-of-the-art newsrooms, continual proactive surveying that allows our clients to become trusted sources of information to editors and analysts, and creative efforts to incorporate our clients' products and services into the everyday lives of the media.
MAKE CLIENTS KNOWN THROUGH THE COMPANY THEY KEEP.
Spiralgroup strongly believes that companies become best known and promoted by "the company they keep." As such, Spiralgroup works to cultivate, involve, and leverage a sphere of high-quality investors, company advisors, customers, business partners, and other allies to act as advocates for our clients. In addition, we look for opportunities to incorporate our clients into their partner's activities, extending the power of their communications effort at little additional cost.
BUILD ONGOING MEASUREMENT AND EDUCATION INTO EVERY PROGRAM.
We enrich our programs by adding two vital dimensions: a goal-setting/measurement framework and an ongoing education program. We set objectives and evaluate progress for every element of our public relations programs. We work hard to extend what we learn about the changes in marketing and public relations to help make our clients better marketers.
OUR MANAGEMENT
FOUNDER-PRESIDENT
Stuart McFaul
Stuart McFaul has been an active player in Silicon Valley tech marketing and public relations for 26 years which, according to a friend of his, makes him "older than sin and not nearly as attractive."
Starting as a 19-year-old undergrad at San Jose State, he was initially a market analyst for a police security software company. After graduation - in a stagnant job market - he went to work for a small temporary services company called ArrowStaff, where he foolishly promised the company's owner that he would develop for them "the best PR program in the industry." Two years later, the National Association of Temporary Services named ArrowStaff's the Best Communications Program, with its one-man $50K-per-year program (including salary) besting the multimillion-dollar campaigns of Manpower and Kelly Services.
Stuart subsequently went to work for a variety of public and privately-held high-tech companies in the hardware, software, networking and telecommunications industries, where he introduced several new technologies and positioned companies for IPO or acquisition. The work he did for Wedge Innovations, a small technology company that developed high-tech hand tools, was selected by the Smithsonian Institution as a role model for introducing complex technologies to a consumer market.
In 1997, disturbed by the "disconnect" he saw between clients and their PR agencies, he left the corporate world to start Spiralgroup, a marketing and public relations firm. Spiralgroup was notable in three aspects: first, it took the role of partnering with clients as strategic business counsel; second, it adopted a newly-developing marketing approach called spiral marketing, an approach which leveraged the Internet and other new media to establish immediate, interactive relationships with key constituencies; and third, it was one of the PR world's first completely virtual companies, designed to always be able to offer top-tier expertise by tapping into a worldwide network of highly-experienced consultants.
In 2001, SUCCESS! Magazine selected Spiralgroup as one of their Top 100 Companies based on its innovative recession-resistant business model and record of outstanding client/contractor/employee service. Over the years, Spiralgroup has served over 100 clients in North America, Europe and the Pacific Rim, from leading Fortune 10 software, hardware and networking companies, such as Cisco, Lucent and Siebel, to startups, communities and marketplaces, including Blinkx, CitySearch and SimplyHired.com.
In addition to running Spiralgroup and sitting on the advisory boards of several companies, he is also a founding partner of Big Picture Productions (www.bigpictureproductions.com), a mass-market television development and production company headquartered in Los Angeles. He also consults in the non-profit sector and sits on the Advisory Board of the India Community Center, the nation's largest East Indian community center. He has advised PRWeek, the PR industry's leading magazine, on editorial content and was selected by the magazine to participate in an executive roundtable from the world's leading high-tech agencies and companies to determine better ways to service PR clients.
Stuart is a guest lecturer in marketing and public relations at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and has spoken internationally on those topics. He is also taking time to write his first book - a mystery novel - where the central storyline focuses on a client who kills his PR person. He says the real mystery isn't whodunit, but why clients haven't done this to their PR people more often in real life.
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At Cisco, I can always count on Spiralgroup
to over-deliver on results, whether it is a product launch
or creating innovative communications programs.
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