Kurt Salmon

Kurt Salmon’s annual shipping study wasn’t tied to business strategy and generated minimal media. Bliss advised Kurt Salmon to build a coordinated outreach effort to “own” the “where’s my package” topic throughout the entire holiday season. Bliss helped develop survey questions, stagger data releases from Thanksgiving through early January, frame the results, and create a report shedding light on the overall study findings and implications for retailers.

Establish Kurt Salmon’s Retail & Consumer Group as the foremost expert on holiday shipping and fulfillment issues to generate awareness of and new business leads for the firm. Build up the profile of retail strategist Steve Osburn as the leading expert on holiday shipping breaking news.

Leverage Kurt Salmon’s proprietary holiday shipping data and insights to position the firm as the “go-to” expert on retailers’ Cyber Monday fulfillment speed, last guaranteed ship date before Christmas promises—and whether presents made it under the tree in time—as well as speed in processing holiday returns. Tactics included strategically pre-pitching reporters in advance of the holiday season; leveraging breaking news hooks, like Cyber Monday, Christmas, as well as shipping disruptions caused by poor winter weather conditions; and releasing data on Christmas Day in order to “make” the news.

Media outreach on Kurt Salmon’s holiday shipping study resulted in the publication of 67 unique articles, including four Wall Street Journal articles (one being an exclusive story), four FOX Business articles, and 3 CNBC stories, as well as coverage in TIME, MarketWatch, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, TheStreet and Women’s Wear Daily, among other top-tier national and trade outlets. Kurt Salmon was featured in six TV segments, including Good Morning America, CNBC and Reuters TV, as well as four radio shows, among them including Marketplace and CNBC Radio. In addition, retail reporters now regularly call Kurt Salmon seeking insights on shipping stories year-round.