ABOUT CIRCLE

Founded in 2014 and with offices in Portland, OR. and Cypress, CA, Circle Media Labs Inc. exists to develop family-centric products that redefine how families connect.

PROBLEM

With increasing competition and a growing debate in the screen time management and parental device control space, Circle needed to gain mindshare with parents. New entrants from router makers were emerging, along with service providers such as Comcast and even Apple offering varying degrees of parental controls and monitoring.

At the same time, the agency’s three-year history with the brand has necessitated our programming to evolve over time to stay in lockstep with the company’s evolving goals. With a steady cadence of top-tier press in major media outlets, as well as targeted family and parenting sites and communities, the company was able to leverage the growth in exposure in targeted retail and partnership efforts. Starting with only Amazon and direct website availability, Circle broadened its retail footprint and is now available in every major retailer. Additional, the brand aligned strategic integrations with NETGEAR and T-Mobile, further extending its reach to nearly 100 million combined customers. What Circle needed most was an agency that was able to execute on a number of B2C and B2B initiatives to satisfy a growing number of parties to fuel global growth.

APPROACH

From a consumer marketing approach, GreenRoom worked closely with the Circle team on a detailed communications roadmap to identify the most press worthy announcements and partnerships to ensure a cohesive story was being told about the brand and employing the executives to demonstrate thought leadership and rich storytelling around topics that were central to the brand ethos and the evolving smart family platform. At the same time, ensuring consistent product reviews in a variety of vertical markets to reach a multitude of audiences was paramount to the program.

Over the years, the scales have shifted to include a much more robust B2B execution to support key partnerships and integrations with a greater emphasis on bylined articles, growing a roster of analysts and leveraging key tradeshows and speaking opportunities. At the same time, the team has worked to extend the reach of the consumer-oriented pieces of press and make necessary modifications for more of a business audience by supporting key case study and targeted pieces of collateral.

EXECUTION

Identifying key buying opportunities around major holidays and pillar pitch initiatives, the agency enacted a plan of securing marquee reviews in numerous vertical markets while also positioning the executive team as authorities on a variety of topics while touting a growing and more sophisticated business. The main topics leveraged the latest research on how screen time affects developing minds, faith-based narratives and key attributes of the platform such as making screen time currency by earning more time for doing chores and homework.    There was also a significant emphasis on educating parents on how they can have a better idea of where their kids are going online in order to have more productive discussions with children on responsible usage. The brand also had an important fundraising announcement that provided the agency the opportunity to tell a business focused story to major outlets such as TechCrunch and Fortune Term Sheet to provide an exceptionally wide reach of exposure to vastly different audiences.

To further support the burgeoning B2B interests of the company, the 2018 Mobile World Congress Americas show was an example of perfect harmony between B2B and B2C disciplines. The agency was able to leverage the consumer relationship with Good Morning America technology contributor Becky Worley to moderate a panel that included leaders from Disney, T-Mobile and Sky Networks. The panel was designed to educate potential partners on the value of the platform for managing screen time, but also how it can be customized for key integrations as had been successfully done with the Orbi series of routers and branded as T-Mobile’s FamilyMode.

RESULTS

With coverage ranging from the New York Times, Good Morning America, USA Today, which syndicated to newspapers across the country, to a key broadcast feature on hit daytime talk show, “The Doctors,” the agency secured major wins in different mediums for the brand. Leveraging Circle’s team of experts and key seasonal pitching initiatives, including: kid’s summer break, back-to-school, holiday screen time solutions and even managing what kids are seeing in the wake of natural disasters and tragedies, the team was able to appropriately position the brand. Additionally, by keeping the local Portland market, where Circle is headquartered, consistently briefed on the developments with the company, its profile was raised and earned the distinction of being “Startup of the Year” which was a huge distinction in the community.

From a B2B standpoint, the company strengthened existing partnerships and is steadily cultivating many others, demonstrating that a flexible agency with a myriad of capabilities can execute on KPIs that move the needle for a business.

• Print Circulation – Over 11.1 million

• Web Impressions – Over 4.3 billion

• Broadcast Household Audience – Over 7.1 million