5.1 Audio Transmission Symposium

The Project

Project Name: 5.1 Audio Transmission Symposium

Client: Audio Processing Technology

Client’s market sector: Broadcast Audio. APT manufactures audio codecs based on their core technology – the award winning apt-X compression algorithm.
Time frame: 3 months

Project Aim: APT (Audio Processing Technology) wanted to highlight their company’s expertise in the field of surround audio for radio broadcasting.

The Process:

I needed to secure a commitment from the editors of the main relevant publications that they would support the ideas of APT and in turn publish meaningful articles on the topic.

I decided to use the AES Convention in New York – an event at which all the relevant broadcast audio editors would gather – and engage with them all at the same time. I didn’t want the usual ‘press conference’ approach because it would have been too formal. So, instead, I arranged a round-table symposium-style working lunch. This gave myself and the client time to present the ideas and then for each of the attending editors to openly discuss the issues. In addition to the company executives present we invited an APT client who was knowledgeable about the challenges and evangelical about APT and their suggested solutions.

At no point during the lunch did we express any wish to gain a commitment for editorial coverage from any of the attending editors, as they wouldn’t have done so in front of their peers.

However, over the following 2-3 weeks I contacted each editor and spoke at length about how they felt the symposium went and effectively secured articles from each of them, which I then rigorously followed up until published. In some cases we delivered contributed copy and in others merely assisted in putting the right people together for interviews etc.

The Timeline:

Month 1 – preparation of content, order of events, inviting relevant editors
Month 2 – attending event, ensuring invitees turned-up, followed-up after event securing feature articles
Month 3 – continued to follow-up and ensure articles were published.