Revitalising channel relationships with the human touch
In Stats
5,375,965
total readership
16
pieces of channel coverage
Key Results
5,375,965 total campaign readership
16 pieces of channel and B2B tech coverage for the campaign
Interviews with Channel PRO and Tech Reseller
Computer Weekly coverage with a daily readership of over 780,000
ITPro Portal coverage, with more than 630,000 daily readers
Tags
Date Summer 2020
Since its inception 30 years ago, Kaspersky has always adopted a customer-centric approach when working with its distribution partners. But, accelerated by the pandemic, a new trend gathered pace in 2020 which would potentially threaten this successful model: the channel was losing its human touch. Our PR campaign set out to uncover the extent of the issue and encourage vendors to place more importance on partner relationships, acting as educators instead of merely seeing distributors as companies which sell their products.
The problem
Long before the pandemic hit, a disconnect was developing between vendors and resellers within the channel. In many areas, transactions had become too business-like and formulaic, leading to the valuable ‘human touch’ diminishing. People were feeling isolated, and resellers increasingly detached from the vendors they work with, due to a lack of communication and face to face contact. When the pandemic broke out, this situation only worsened.
This scenario led to vendors seeing their channel partners as merely a vehicle for selling more products, resulting in a loss of empowerment among resellers and distributors. Diminishing relationships, a lack of education being provided by vendors and the missing human touch all equated to resellers becoming less effective and profits declining for all parties.
The solution
With the help of Berkeley’s sister company, Arlington Research, we surveyed 150 decision-makers at the helm of reseller and distribution companies operating in the UK channel.
This gave us the proof points on which to base our concerns and announce that the problem was real: channel partners want better relationships with the vendors they work with, as well as more education provided. A focus on these areas would help channel partners to sell products and services far more effectively and navigate the choppy waters of the pandemic much more safely.
Using the research as the basis for our story, we secured press interviews for Kaspersky’s UK SMB channel head, Andy Bogdan, to engage the media and garner interest in the topic prior to releasing press materials.
The final phase of the campaign was to develop and pitch two press releases and a viewpoint to the channel and business media, to drive further coverage and awareness.
Ultimately, Kaspersky was positioned as the vendor to highlight the issue, taking action and calling on others to do the same, so that resellers and distributors feel empowered and connected, and ultimately remain successful.
