Spark Coverage Cup

Media relations is at the heart of a successful campaign and our team take great pride in beating their colleagues to win the weekly Spark Coverage Cup vote.

The winning piece of coverage isn’t just about circulation or credibility. A great business national or broadcast piece doesn’t always beat trade coverage – outcomes are key. How effectively was the client’s message communicated? What was the engagement like? Did it result in leads?

While earned coverage is now only part of what we do, the impact of what we deliver is often why clients choose to work with us in the first place. It’s why 80% of our clients come through referral and why some of our clients have stayed with us for over ten years.

Below are some of our previous highlights:

Coverage Cup 13/11/20

While the weather might be cooling down, the Spark team’s media coverage is continuing to heat up. The first contender for the cup was the Ivalua team with some timely comment which led to a great hit in The Times/Raconteur’s Business Growth & Recovery supplement, discussing the new rules for choosing suppliers during the pandemic.

Next up was the Imperva team for coverage in Forbes on the brazen KashmirBlack CMS botnet campaign, which intriguingly has sold its own campaign t-shirts while also exploiting an estimated 70,000 servers per day. But the Imperva team didn’t stop there, also securing coverage for the report in IT Pro and the Daily Swig.

Staying in security, the RSA team secured a podcast opportunity with Security Insights for Daniel Cohen to discuss the problem of online fraud and how ‘card not present’ fraud alone could reach US $130bn. Sticking with RSA, the team also secured coverage in FE News and Intelligent CIO Europe with its research that found there’s been a 40 percent drop in British students leaving school with an IT qualification, which is likely to exacerbate the future digital skills gap.

The Verizon team has also been working hard to secure coverage for the company’s partnership with Nokia to supply enterprise 5G in Europe, securing coverage in The Register along with Capacity, Light Reading and Telecom TV.

Our life sciences teams have also been securing some top-notch pieces. Firstly, a thought leadership piece from Elsevier on the TB vaccine and a hackathon to explore its link to COVID-19 was published in Pharmaphorum. Meanwhile, the Pistoia Alliance team secured coverage in World Pharma Today and Scientific Computing World following the Alliance’s annual conference that called for better data sharing infrastructure. The Alliance also got a hit in Health Tech World on the launch of its Innovation Seed Fund to support new ideas. Finally, the Phesi team secured coverage in Applied Clinical Trials with analysis on two ongoing COVID-19 vaccine trials.

Spark has also been busy uncovering and pitching for features across a variety of hot topics. The Ivalua team secured coverage in Tech Monitor with some comment on the risks of using Chinese technology in supply chains due to worries about non-compliance in the US. Similarly, the Venafi team quickly drafted comment for IDG Connect looking at how cybercriminals are taking advantage of open source supply chains. Then, to round out this week’s blog, the MuleSoft team secured a hit in Silicon UK on the difficulties of delivering personalised customer experiences and the need for real-time customer data.

There will be another Coverage Cup blog coming soon and you can see more of our coverage in the expanded list opposite.

  • The Times / Raconteur – Feature on supplier relationships during COVID featuring comment from Ivalua
  • Forbes – Imperva research on KashmirBlack botnet
  • Daily Swig – Imperva research on KashmirBlack botnet
  • IT Pro – Imperva research on KashmirBlack botnet
  • The Register – Article on Verizon and Nokia’s European enterprise 5G
  • Light Reading – Article on Verizon and Nokia’s European enterprise 5G
  • Capacity – Article on Verizon and Nokia’s European enterprise 5G
  • Telecom TV – Article on Verizon and Nokia’s European enterprise 5G
  • Pharmaphorum – Elsevier opinion piece on the link between the TB vaccine and COVID-19
  • Pharmaceutical Technology Focus – Feature on the future of quantum computing in life sciences featuring The Pistoia Alliance
  • Scientific Computing World – Article on COVID-19 research learnings from The Pistoia Alliance’s conference
  • World Pharma Today – Article on COVID-19 research learnings from The Pistoia Alliance’s conference
  • Health Tech World – Interview with The Pistoia Alliance on its Innovation Seed Fund
  • Applied Clinical Trials – Phesi analysis on two COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials
  • CPO Strategy – Article on customer case study with Jollibee Foods and Ivalua
  • Verdict – Story on hackers stealing $2.3m from Wisconsin Republican Party, featuring comment from Ivalua
  • Tech Monitor – Feature on China-US relations and supply chains featuring Ivalua
  • TEISS – Opinion article from HP security on virtualisation
  • ZDNet – Article on the HP-Bromium Threat Insights Report which showed spike in Emotet activity
  • FinTech Magazine – Article on Quadient’s warning to high street banks that the window for enhancing digital services is closing
  • Insurance Business – Article on nuisance call fines, featuring Quadient’s FOI results
  • Security Insights – Podcast with RSA Security’s Daniel Cohen on online fraud
  • Intelligent CIO Europe – Article outlining 40 percent drop in British students leaving school with IT qualifications, featuring
  • FE News – Article outlining 40 percent drop in British students leaving school with IT qualifications, featuring RSA
  • TEISS – RSA opinion piece on remote working and cybersecurity
  • Infosecurity – Article on Venafi’s analysis of machine identity related security incidents
  • IDG Connect – Feature on open source supply chains with comment from Venafi
  • Computer Weekly – Article on Dynatrace and ServiceNow collaboration on Biz-AIOps-aas
  • IDG Connect – Feature on formative AI including comment from Dynatrace
  • Silicon UK – Article on personalisation and profitability featuring MuleSoft