Company: SpinVox, Marlow, UK and New York, NY
Company Description: SpinVox is the world's largest privately-held speech technology company, providing the only voice to text messaging services used daily by millions of people and whose user base has grown over twenty-fold in the last 12 months. SpinVox services are available directly from spinvox.com, through leading carriers, new media (Web 2.0), Unified Communications and other service providers globally.
Nomination Category: Corporate Communications, Investor Relations, & Public Relations Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Communications Department of the Year

Nomination Title: Building the SpinVox Brand...

Tell the story about what this nominated organization/department achieved (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

The SpinVox Corp Comms department has had one mission – build the SpinVox brand
around the world by being resourceful, incredibly creative and reaching people
in a way they respond to. In true team fashion, the department works seamlessly
together – four people spread over two continents – with the common goal to
ensure every strategic opportunity is pursued for its full potential.

In January 2008 the team was challenged to help SpinVox grow from a start-up
company to a recognized global player in the voice-to-text market. In 2007 the
company launched big branding event campaigns in the US and UK and for 2008 the
team had to keep the momentum going leveraging innovative story ideas, creating
interesting media partnerships and opportunities, and capitalizing on new
service enhancements and the growing number of new partners around the globe.

With limited budgets the team leveraged grassroots PR strategies to build the
brand, get the messages out there and educate the market on just what speech-to-
text can do. Since January 2008 the team has garnered more than 1,500 articles,
including 14 features in the Financial Times, and 9 executive and product
awards including; Wall Street Journal Women to Watch and CNBC Entrepreneur of
the Year awards for CEO Christina Domecq; and 2009 World Economic Forum
Technology Pioneer designation for SpinVox.

Leveraging the grassroots power of ‘seeing is believing’ combined with word of
mouth marketing, the team put SpinVox in the hands of notable athletes and
record-setting persons that could put the service through its paces in the most
extreme conditions, such as a father/son South Pole Expedition team, a Beijing
Olympics athlete, Himalayas climber, and an ultramarathoner running across
America, to name a few. Putting SpinVox in people’s hands and letting the
service speak for itself has been hugely successful with the media, such as the
recent profile in Mobile Marketer about Team Flying Lemon’s use of SpinVox as
an extreme mobile blogging tool during the 2009 Gumball Rally 3000.

The team also created opportunities that promoted the SpinVox mission
of ‘speaking freely’ through celebrity events and media partnerships such as
the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) Figures of Speech event in London with
Sir Bob Geldoff, WNYC’s ‘On the Record’ show, and Financial Times’ ‘Elevator
Pitch Challenge’.  

The team got further creative in furthering brand awareness by building a
Wishing Well in London’s renown Covent Garden during holidays 2008 to let
people try SpinVox service first hand by speaking their wishes and having them
posted as text on the wishing well walls. The Covent Garden Wishing Well was so
popular that it was brought online to be available all year round! Coverage
included innumerable blog posts, YouTube videos and broadcast coverage on BBC
national UK television.

The media awareness and branding achievements of SpinVox, a company less than
six years old, rival that of much older, established industry leaders, with no
advertising support whatsoever. The PR team’s ability to leverage multi-channel
tactics and create engaging story opportunities has helped SpinVox grow more
than twenty-fold in the last year.

List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:

• YouTube Videos (launch events, campaigns and broadcast placements):
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=spinvox&aq=f

• News Releases: http://www.spinvox.com/announcements.html

• SpinVox Wishing Well: http://blog.spinvox.com/2008/12/22/more-wishing-well-magic/

• Wishing Well Online: http://spinvoxwishingwell.com/

• Event – ICA Figures of SpeechL http://blog.spinvox.com/2009/03/30/the-ica-figures-of-speech-fos/

• Financial Times and SpinVox Elevator Pitch Challenge:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BqIAkZKpFY

Sample Coverage:
• Sunday Times (May 17, 2009) photo with SpinVox CEO and Prince of Wales:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article6301568.ece

• Canadian Business – SpinVox CEO Profile:
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/columnists/andrew_wahl/article.jsp?content=20080903_172905_21924

• Red Herring – Censored Olympic Athlete Uses SpinVox:
http://www.redherring.com/blogs/24674  

• SpinVox Speaking Freely Campaign, Most Boring UK Speaker
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2009/mar/11/gordon-brown-worst-speaker  

• Historical Coverage Examples (Jan. ’07-Oct. ’08):
http://www.spinvox.com/in_the_news.html?wp_month=10&wp_year=2008&wp_day=false&wp_start=0

Awards
• NBC Entrepreneur of the Year:
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS79623+27-Mar-2009+BW20090327  

• WSJ Women to Watch:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122629166790613063.html  

• World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer:
http://www.weforum.org/en/Communities/Technology%20Pioneers/SelectedTechPioneers/index.htm

Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of this nominated organization/department:

Jonathan Simnett brings more than 20 years of experience to his role as Global
Director of Communications at SpinVox, a role he has held since 2007. Former
vice chairman in the UK of Brodeur Worldwide, a global public relations and
marketing communications consultancy, Simnett was part of the team that founded
and built the company to nearly 650 people and $95 million turnover worldwide.
At SpinVox he has built a team of seasoned professionals formerly from
companies such as CNBC, Dell and Google. Communications team during the award
period included Jane Henry and Ema Linaker.