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Pacific Rim Alliance, a business development and consulting practice with offices in Shanghai, Hyderabad, India, Sao Paulo, Brazil, as well as Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor, Michigan found itself needing to expand its influence in two areas. One – the firm did not have a national reputation and was still viewed as a Michigan company even though it had a global reach and Two – was viewed as a consulting firm of President David Hemmings, instead of a global marketing, sales, production, sourcing, and manufacturing operation featuring more than 100 skilled employees with a vast global presence. Working with Hemmings and the global staff, Decus since 2006 has implemented a national strategic outreach platform for PRA featuring op-ed inclusion in auto based and national manufacturing publications, television and radio, as well as utilizing national business news outlets and speaking engagements to expand the company’s reputation. Decus has also provided opportunities for new alliances with manufacturing and automotive trade associations and law and accounting firms. Decus also writes, edits and distributes PRA’s newsletter the “PRA Intelligence Report” to national contacts and media. In 2008, Mark Gilman developed with PBS a program development opportunity to produce a series of one hour programs discussing Asia’s influence on the U.S. auto market and the need to strengthen the U.S. education system to keep our next generation of workers, globally competitive. The program will go into production spring of 2009.
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Decus was contracted by the Michigan Education Association beginning in 2008 to help its statewide communications and government affairs staff craft messaging and build statewide activities which would put the union organization at the forefront of education issues instead of relying on reacting to divisive issues such as teacher pay and tenure. Decus planned and executed a statewide series of forums in 12 cities across Michigan which discussed the rising dropout rate. Through Decus’ support, the forums drew teachers, parents, legislators, administrators and former student dropouts to discuss the issues in a moderated forum covered by newspapers, radio stations and television outlets from Grand Rapids to Marquette, Traverse City, Saginaw, Flint, Kalamazoo and Detroit. The findings of the statewide forums were presented to Governor Granholm in late 2008. In 2009 the MEA launched a radio show called “The Voices of Michigan Education” on Detroit’s Newstalk 760, WJR, produced and hosted by Decus’ Mark Gilman and aired on 12 other affiliates across the state. Decus also helped redefine MEA’s messaging by developing and producing a statewide radio and billboard advertising campaign around issues such as teacher community volunteers, dropouts, the rising youth homeless population in Michigan and classroom size.
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Market Strategies International, a $100 million market research company and one of the 25 largest in the world, contracted Decus in early 2008 to help the organization gain new national media attention for its syndicated studies. Though the company had proved to be growing and successful, it was hampered in its marketing efforts because of the amount of proprietary studies that could not be released publically due to contractual obligations with its Fortune 100 client base. Working with the company’s industry group leaders in MSI’s Energy, Technology, and Health Care divisions, Decus was able to not only tell the company’s stories through a series of local and regional articles about the company’s success, but develop national attention in Energy and Health Care blogs and trade publications for its E2 and Pharma syndicated studies in 2008 and 2009.
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At Cummings McClorey, a mid-size law firm in Livonia, Mich., Decus was tasked with expanding the firm’s core practice areas amidst a declining revenue base caused by an over reliance on Municipal based legal work. Traditionally, a 40 year old firm which made its reputation on working with statewide cities and townships, Cummings McClorey saw its revenue drop as a result of declining hourly rates for services caused by client cutbacks and an increase in competition. Decus developed strategic marketing plans and execution for additional and underutilized practice areas such as Franchise Law, Insurance Defense, Energy and the development of a woman’s service team to reach out to women owned businesses. By developing the firm’s first business and marketing plan, Decus was able to assist the firm in expanding its reach and acumen in not only southeast Michigan, but in its Traverse City, Grand Rapids and Riverside, California offices.
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At Hope Hill Children’s Home a residential housing facility in Hope, Kentucky with a $4 million budget for serving at-risk teenagers, Decus was hired to help the non-profit move away from an over dependence on state money and expand its dwindling donor base. Decus not only re-allocated its monthly newsletter to feature specified needs attracting new donor support, but developed an Equine Therapy program for some of the girls in the facility. The idea was, in horse-rich Kentucky, a program which would combine children, horses and therapy would resonate with a new donor base in the equine community. The program not only brought in new donors, but gained the facility unprecedented statewide media attention from the Lexington Herald, a number of local and regional publications and a four-page spread in Kentucky Monthly Magazine. Decus also developed a community advisory group that helped spearhead new sources of community donations and awareness. Hope Hill’s facility is now full to capacity for the first time in its history.
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For the American Lung Association of Michigan, not only did Decus initiate and deliver new unprecedented media partners and press visibility, but we also adeptly managed communications for a strategically complex four-state merger for the ALA in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.
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For Michigan State University, Decus was employed to help MSU do something they’ve never done before – go outside the campus to promote a new initiative in Eastern Europe. In conjunction with polling firm EPIC/MRA in Lansing, Decus gave MSU’s Civil Engineering school statewide print, radio and television coverage of the universities by creating earned media opportunities and developing a statewide vision for entrepreneurial and trade opportunities in Eastern Russia and the Ukraine. The effort gave MSU the support and collateral it needed to go after government grants supporting their work.
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Case Studies
