It turns out that “waiting for the cable guy” costs the American workforce nearly $38 billion every year in lost time? That’s what TOA (Time of Arrival) Technologies’ 3rd annual Cost of Waiting Survey found. And Atomic conceived and designed the program.

Last week, this staggering statistic caught the attention of both David Letterman and Conan O’Brian. The late night show hosts both opened their respective monologues with references to the report, bringing national consumer attention to the survey’s findings and TOA’s solution to the “cable guy problem.”

TOA Technologies’ software is used by cable companies and other providers to cut the wait-time window they offer customers and accurately predict in-home appointment arrival times for many global brands, including Cox Communications, Arhaus Furniture and Virgin Media. Its technology touches the lives of millions of Americans, but most consumers don’t really think of the cable and delivery guy past their current service appointment.

So, how did Atomic get TOA, a business-to-business mobile workforce software company from Cleveland widespread attention from a slew of major national broadcast, print and outline outlets?

TOA came to Atomic nearly three years ago with the goal of obtaining more media awareness in consumer press, as well as business and trade outlets. Atomic’s strategic recommendation: focus on bigger picture consumer problems and answer the fundamental question: How much does all this waiting really cost customers and companies?

The first national Cost of Waiting Survey generated 18 pieces of media coverage in 2009, mostly in trade press. The following year Atomic expanded research to include the UK and Germany, while modifying the questions to hone in on popular themes from 2009 and identify new trends. Program materials included more in-depth reports, infographics and a video. US coverage grew 83% from the previous year — especially in the consumer space, with more than 30 media placements.

This year Atomic expanded markets to include Brazil, an emerging cable market, and engaged with IBOPE Zogby to help identify trends in the customer service space and reevaluate the survey questions, leveraging benchmarks of relevant statistics from previous years.

The 2011 findings gave Atomic the opportunity for a NYC media tour with TOA’s CEO, Yuval Brisker, who hosted pre-briefings with Fortune, CNN Money and Reuters. The tour and all messaging highlighted 3 key trends: social media’s impact on the space, the shorter fuse and higher expectations of customers across the board, and the need for a human element in customer service. Atomic’s focus on top-tier media and trade press generated coverage by media influencers and national outlets, including Good Morning America, TIME Magazine, Business Insider, CNBC and the Huffington Post. To date, the survey has generated 88 pieces of media coverage in the US alone, a 193% increase over last year and 360% more coverage than the first report.

The Cost of Waiting conversation continues to cycle, with Twitter mentions surpassing last weekend’s traditional and online news coverage and many of the national articles spurring strong opinions from readers, generating at least 30 comments per article. By elevating TOA’s differentiators and business model within key media interviews, the news cycle began to build into a problem and solution conversation — highlighting TOA’s business model and how they solve a frequent consumer need.

From Conan O’Brian to USA Today, more than 110 million people have read, watched or listened to news on TOA’s Cost of Waiting 2011 survey. That’s more than 1/36 of the world’s population — which is another stat we’re thinking of emailing to Letterman’s producers.

Beth Krietsch
May 18, 2011

 SAN DIEGO: Sony Electronics recently selected Atomic PR as its US agency of record for PR and social media. Atomic will handle all PR, social media, and digital

for the company’s PCs, tablets, cameras, camcorders, home theater, and audio products as well as for Sony retail stores. The budget on the account was not disclosed.

Atomic was chosen following a multiple-round review process involving a number of PR, digital, and social media agencies.

The agency was selected for a number of reasons, including its experience approaching PR from both a traditional and social media perspective, as well as its creativity, according to Valerie Motis, director of corporate communications at Sony Electronics.

“Atomic came to us with a refreshing analytic mindset, the most interesting creative ideas and proven capabilities mixing mass audience, mainstream, and product media with digital, social, video, and SEO,” said John Dolak, VP of communications at Sony Electronics, in a release.

Atomic began work for Sony a few weeks ago and the contract was recently finalized. The account will be managed out of Atomic’s San Francisco and Los Angeles offices, noted Andy Getsey, co-founder and CEO at Atomic.

Previously, Paine PR handled the account for Sony. The company declined to comment on why they conducted a review for a new agency, other than that it was the start of a new fiscal year. Paine PR could not be reached for comment.

Written by  Andy Getsey, CEO

In April, we posted about more than 20 campaigns, including Photobucket, Bebo, Xign, Mint.com, Rapt, Golden Gate Software and many others, where AtomicPR has managed the PR and social media efforts in the period leading up to the high profile acquisitions of clients by major brands http://www.atomicpr.com/blog/atomic-pr-has-managed-the-pr-and-social-media-work-in-advance-of-more-than-20-acquisitions-of-start-/.

Since then, Simplify Media was acquired by Google in May:

Then in September, Atomic client ArcSight was acquired by HP for $1.5 billion:

We’ve worked very closely with the ArcSight team, coming up with a strategy to expand the company’s positioning, create a new sub-category, create a stronger digital and social media presence and substantially increase the company’s media coverage. A case snapshot of the first few months is here:http://www.atomicpr.com/results/arcsight/index.php.


And here’s a video we produced at the very beginning of the engagement to dramatize the reality of a term Atomic created - Enterprise Threat and Risk - in a way that words kind of can’t:

(Link to video: http://vimeo.com/35584797)

Mint.com yesterday became the latest Atomic PR client acquired by a major brand in recent months. Almost exactly 2 years ago, an Atomic team met with Donna Wells, Mint.com CMO (and former Intuit CMO) and Mint.com founder and CEO, Aaron Patzer to see if there might be a good fit.

Atomic’s analytics engine ComContext and range of inhouse capabilities across consulting, traditional + social media, video and search, plus shared Web cultures boded well for a match up. Happily, Atomic was selected from a field of the best agencies in the country.

The partnership has turned out to be a close and mutually supportive collaboration, with the Mint and Atomic teams fusing into one cohesive unit and making the most of each others’ capabilities.

With launch venue TechCrunch rapidly approaching, the first couple of weeks were spent in fast paced research and planning. Obsessive attention was paid to Aaron’s first public demo of Mint.com, and the very careful creation of the specific words to be used to describe, position and differentiate Mint.com from its weight-class competitors. And to align Mint directly for competition with the biggest brands in both desktop and online personal finance applications. Mint.com’s launch at TechCrunch was highly successful, with Mint pulling Best of Show. Mint.com repeated several weeks later with Best of Show at Finovate in New York.

From there, building on Mint’s history of offering useful finance tips on its blog, the program turned to putting Aaron forward as a voice for modern personal finance, Web 2.0 style, “the Suze Orman for the social media set.” The formal push launched with a YouTube video series that quickly drew an invitation for Aaron to screen test for a regular TV segment. (The board preferred he focus on his day job - wise choice :) ).

Other key initiatives have involved careful promotion of product enhancements, the creation of a program to provide media with data and infographics reflecting personal finance trends in key markets across the country, consistent communication of important company milestones, and close collaboration between agency and Mint social media and search teams to foster active online dialog and create a large inventory of useful and search-discoverable content.

Mint has won literally truckloads of awards and has been covered positively numerous times by every print, broadcast and online outlet related to Mint-friendly topics. Aaron has gone on to be named one of the most influential people in personal finance by Money magazine, has spoken at numerous conferences including Davos, and has consulted with various committees on the Hill.

There are a few reasons for the success Mint has enjoyed in the media and social media community. First and foremost, it’s a great product on the face of it - delivering strongly on the promise of Web technology. It has a great front man in Aaron Patzer, and a strong executive and engineering team who understand what is needed to rock the media, and know how to deliver useful PR assets on a regular basis. Mint.com has a great CMO in Donna Wells, who knows how to get the most from collaboration between company and agency teams, knows when to provide direction and knows when to accept direction from the agency. It also has a savvy set of investors who personify the definition of “smart money”. Congratulations to the entire Mint.com team.

And oh… Mint’s PR firm is OK, too.

Other recent acquisitions of Atomic clients include Vurv to Taleo, Xign to JPMorgan, Rapt to Microsoft, Bebo to AOL, and GoldenGate Software to Oracle.

Related links:

Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090914-709453.html

TechCrunch: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/14/the-value-of-techcrunch50-mint-acquired-by-intuit-for-170m-two-years-after-winning-tc40/

PR Week: http://thecycle.prweekblogs.com/2009/09/14/intuit-to-buy-rival-mintcom-months-after-launching-campaign-to-woo-its-user-base/

Atomic/Mint.com campaign snapshot:http://www.atomicpr.com/results/mintcom/index.php

In mid-November, Atomic was listed at #17 on the O’Dwyers list of top tech PR firms in the U.S. A few weeks before that, the agency was named to the SF Business Times list of fastest growing Bay Area companies for the third year running. In 2008 Atomic grew another 45%. Our work has always come by referral from existing or former clients and their executives and investors, personal contacts of our teammates and inbound inquiries from potential clients. Inquiries are almost always based on specific programs and results Atomic has produced for clients - very often 100% or 300% greater, across numerous measures of PR effectiveness, in comparison to the client’s previous program. So far, the agency hasn’t had a new business program or designated pitch team; the team that would work the business is the team that handles the proposal. That has helped minimize any growing pains and has helped keep relationships strong with our clients.

In addition to our mid-sized and start-up client base, a growing trend over the past few years is interest from larger brands who view Atomic as a potentially higher-impact and more cost-effective PR agency alternative to larger agencies. They tend to self-select. If measurably better program results are the most important issue, Atomic can be a good fit for assignments with the right larger brands - or any authentically good company, for that matter. We’re respectful of, and grateful for the organic growth we’ve experienced over the last couple of years. It has allowed us focus on our core mission: to continue to produce non-standard results for good clients, to be a useful resource to media, bloggers and the other communities in our sphere, and to provide strong opportunities for teammates at several levels.

It’s nice to be included in these lists, and we appreciate it.

For the second year running, Atomic was one of a handful of tech related agencies profiled by PR Week in their annual Agency Business Report. Thanks PR Week.

For Atomic, 2007 was a year of crossing the $5 million threshold, while preparing and investing to go to the next level in 2008. We had grown quickly over the past two years, and elected to slow down just a bit from the 35%+ growth of prior years. Our goal was to lay the foundation for continuing growth in 2008 while maintaining the quality of service, culture and work/life balance that have always been our hallmarks..We added several large brands to our client list, and broadened our service offerings in SEO, SEM, and digital video. We also expanded our senior management team and staff with top talent, secured more office space, further refined our management and staff development processes, expanded our international partner network - even served as judges in the PR Week Awards for the second year running. We’re happy with progress and preparations on all fronts in 2007

2008 is off to a good start. The agency continues to deliver on its promise of our best efforts to increase impact of PR spend by 100% or more across numerous measurements of PR goodness. Programs for current clients continue to grow in their effectiveness and a number of clients have increased their budgets with us. The agency has won numerous competitive reviews against some of the other best agencies in the world for a great new layer of brand name clients ranging from deep tech to consumer and entertainment tech. First trimester revenue is up more than 50% over the same period in 2007. This, despite the fact that several Atomic clients were acquired during the same time period - with a combined market value well exceeding $1.25 billion. We continue to be word-of-mouth and referral only. We presently have no new business efforts, and no new business team - the team that meets our clients is the team that runs their accounts. Our offices in LA and NYC are growing nicely, and preparations for offices in select new US cities and key international locations are shaping up well.

In the first four months of 2008, we’ve made a number of internal promotions, and added a dozen new teammates - two new VPs and more than 8 great new people have joined us as teammates from other top PR firms; plus two additional technologists and an additional video producer. We’ve added internal executives in talent acquisition and training to increase our commitment to finding new teammates who “fit”, and offering progressive, world class learning and financial opportunities to like minded alternative PR thinkers interested in what’s next.

We continue to develop technology for PR research, strategy setting, creative direction and measurement of PR program results, and are expanding our skill sets and staff rapidly outward from classical print, broadcast and online PR (still powerful) and into SEO, SEM, digital video, blogging, blog media buying, social media, WOM, Web design, events and guerilla activities which can make great programs even more amazing.

Very importantly, our unique culture has retained its positive qualities the way we had hoped it would - growth has not changed us. If anything, we are more of what we were - although perhaps a bit more organized, in a good way. Our goal is to keep pushing the envelope for clients and teammates interested in an alternative - in a few more cities in the US and around the world. Stay tuned.

For look at Atomic’s profile in this year’s PR Week Annual Agency Business Report go here.