Our Difference

Founded in 2003, Arcadia Communications Lab is a boutique communications agency that specializes in helping global, publicly traded B2B brands use earned and owned media content to talk about innovation more uniquely, effectively, and sustainably with both external and internal stakeholders.

We do it by knocking down barriers to thinking and execution that limit what B2B brands can accomplish:

Unlocking the processes, policies, and people behind products, and sharing more compelling stories with stakeholders more often.

Innovating new, bold creative ideas for the ways announcements are made.

Imagining employees as communications partners, not just recipients of information.

Perhaps most importantly, we have unique experience using a broad array of technology, business, and consumer media as channels for our clients’ messaging.

Also, since we’re a virtual collaborative, we don’t have the set staff or costs that require other agencies to solve client challenges with solutions they already have waiting to sell, charge for the infrastructure they need to support, or avoid telling clients the truth because they have retainers to preserve. We can, literally, afford to consider better answers, propose more creative and targeted projects, put the right people on each activity, and deliver more cost-effective, measurable results.

We’ve proven our proprietary approach with dozens of client engagements, most of them multi-year (our average relationship lasts 4+ years), working with category leaders in agriculture, automotive, CE, computer hardware, energy, entertainment, industrial equipment, IoT, insurance, manufacturing, non-profits, semiconductors, software, transportation, and retail.

Our Services

Innovation communications is all that we do, and here is a representative list of how we do it:

Unlock innovation stories — We disrupt traditional industrial product launch calendars and create content, publicity, and even entire microsites to share insights into development progress long before products reach the marketplace. This lets our clients talk to a wider audience and pre-sell customers.

Expand news events — We build “mini-campaigns” based on what were once press releases targeted only at technical trades, creating stories about innovation and process attributes that expand one-day news events into multi-day opportunities for exposure. 

Extend magazine reach — We edit, parse, and repurpose customer or technical magazine content to target more and different stakeholder audiences. This can also involve repurposing Sustainability Reports, which are usually not well-read.

Activate employee advocacy — We invent, develop, and maintain internal communications programs that tell employees things they couldn’t learn anywhere else, dare to tell them things first, and give them reasons to engage with that content. We see every employee as a potential brand ambassador.

Create thought leadership — In a media space awash with content, we proactively bring ideas for thought leadership to clients, and then help them articulate POVs that don’t just restate company strategy or market overviews, but assert meaningful points that break through the clutter.

Invent better events — We understand and take qualities that make an event something to attend and remember in the real world — such as true novelty, relevance, meaning, and utility — and apply them to make news announcements, trade shows, and conferences better.

Renovate before you innovate — We work hand-in-hand with communicators and their agencies to get faster, better, and more reliable results from existing plans and budgets by challenging assumptions and suggesting new ways to think about old problems.

Our Approach

Whether we’re working on a publicity strategy, internal communications plan, or big picture creative challenge, our approach is consistent. Here it is in a nutshell:

A big data context engine — We see journalists, bloggers, and other opinion-makers as customers, not simply messengers, which means we strive to understand not only their personal proclivities, but what qualities constitute their understanding and expectations for innovation. Our proprietary Context Engine collects and aggregates this data, and then informs our clients’ strategy development. We call it ‘outside-in’ strategy.

Real-world integration — Once we understand the context for innovation in a particular industry, we partner with our clients to develop a strategy that directs and links its activities to that reality. This means we work with operations, not just communications and marketing, to identify the content that will accomplish our differentiation goals. Nothing has intrinsic value for us, yet everything has potential uses. Actions speak louder than words.

Strategic creative — Our approach to creativity isn’t to focus only on tactical techniques to deliver content, but net new creative approaches to how it’s produced. This can include recommendations for new partnerships, programs, or even changes in product functionality or services offerings. The overriding purpose is to maximize our clients’ opportunities to participate meaningfully in conversations about innovation. Less ‘me too,’ and more ‘only us.’

An actionable roadmap — We don’t deliver plans promising “to work with key media,” or “position you as so-and-so in front of employees.” Our initial engagements produce actionable roadmaps that start with communications goals — what, where, and when we want outcomes — and then work backward to specify the actions, required work, cost, and likelihood of success for each step. Clients can use it on their own, or we are ready to help deliver it.

A better approach to execution — Unlike agencies that expend endless hours ‘working’ with media to try and make client stories fit their needs, we get most of that work done via our Context Engine at the start of our engagements. This means we have a far better understanding of who will use what (and when), and rely on our Content Tool to aggressively manage its delivery.

We host a worldwide community of expert, inspired individuals who staff our client projects based on skill and location requirements.

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