Case study

What we did for D&B

As the world’s leading source of commercial information for business, Dun and Bradstreet, (NYSE:DNB) has often had – over its 165-year history – more than its fair share of media attention.

In recent years, however, D&B UK’s once fruitful relationships with business and trade journalists had gone stale. Despite having some of the best data products and technologies in the market and continued leadership in several key categories, D&B was no longer being talked about in the pages of its key media. In fact, an audit Tannissan Mae conducted showed that the business editors often sought, or would have sought D&B comment, but found the organisation hindered them, rather than help them get what they needed.

That was all we needed. We’d established our business information credentials having successfully launched Hoover’s Online in the UK. And when Hoover’s UK was bought by D&B in 2004, we were asked to pitch for D&B’s business, too. A new senior management team at D&B was keen to re-establish its relationships with the media and to re-ignite some of the important conversations.

We won the three-way pitch for D&B’s business against much larger agencies, and got stuck in immediately to prove that in agency terms bigger doesn’t always mean better.

After three years of working closely with D&B, the company is again a regular contributor to whole range of debates around the topics its customers care about: how to best mitigate credit risk, best practice in regulatory compliance, the strategic use of customer data in marketing and business planning. They’ve secured coverage in each of their target titles – many times over.

Here’s what one key contact at D&B said about how we’ve helped them: “The investment we’ve made in Tannissan Mae is the best marketing money D&B has spent in years. An excellent ROI all around.”