Gunnebo, 30 successful years with Atlantide

Gunnebo Italia Spa, the Italian branch of Gunnebo, the leading Swedish multinational physical security group, for thirty years has entrusted its communication budget to the same agency: Atlantide, thereby ensuring a perfect coherence and coordination among the different tools used.

This exceptionally long-lasting partnership enabled the agency to get to know the company, its products and its evolution on the market in considerable detail; Gunnebo in turn was able to appreciate Atlantide’s correctness and reliability, trusting its advice fully, delegating the completion of many tasks and saving precious time, knowing that Atlantide always acts in its clients’ best interest.

Everything changes over time: this holds valid for Gunnebo Italia Spa, a leading company providing added-value physical security solutions. During the past three decades, the company underwent a considerable evolution, from its beginning as a producer of turnstiles sold under the Italdis brand; acquisition by the Gunnebo group and the successive merger with other leading companies in physical security industry such as Lips Vago and Fichet-Bauche led Gunnebo Italia SpA to become a key player in the physical security industry in Italy.

Some characteristic traits of the company remained unaltered during all these years: the quest for the perfect balance between technology and design, special attention to customer service and… the communication agency, that has always been Atlantide throughout these thirty years. The length of this relationship, besides being an evident and much appreciated proof of the company’s trust in the agency, also provides the client with a guarantee of continuity and coordination in its projected image, a result which might be difficult to obtain for companies whose partner agency changes very often.

During these thirty years, Atlantide developed all sorts of communication tools for Gunnebo: trade show stands, advertisements, media planning, press office, direct communication material and other on and offline activities. The long-lasting relationship enabled client and agency to develop in parallel, creating constantly updated, cutting-edge forms of communication.

Constance and trust should not be mistaken for rigidity: Gunnebo is very reactive to market evolutions, dynamic in changing the characteristics of the products and services it offers and fast in communicating these changes, even by means of a constantly updated website.

Over the past few years, the evolution of communication led to the shared decision of increasing online communication: the company announced this objective to the agency, which went on to define an operational strategy, noting however a few critical aspects.

In the physical security industry, trade magazines make up a complex system with many well-reputed, reliable players, having shares of constant readers built up in years of activity; by means of a combination of interesting content creation and careful maintenance of circulation lists, publishers allow companies in this industry to communicate efficiently with their target.

This, in any case, holds good as far as offline publications are concerned. What about online? Here the situation is definitely more fluid: many portals are still not well tracked by search engines and can mainly count on users who know and appreciate them only thanks to the reputation of the corresponding offline magazines.

The agency therefore suggested that Gunnebo adopt a media planning strategy allowing a gradual shift towards digital media, while keeping in touch with the readers of printed magazines.

The presence on online trade magazines was carefully gauged, based upon the agency’s experience in the field: such indicators as unique users, cpc, ctr and other significant data were evaluated to calculate a cost per contact and estimate the returns of an investment in communication, choosing the ideal mix of on and offline media in keeping with the budget.

As well as defining the media mix, the communication tools were also fine-tuned based on Gunnebo’s demands; rather than opt for traditional advertisements (banners on online magazines’ websites) the agency chose to focus on DEMs and newsletters sent by publishers to qualified mailing lists. A message thus circulated produces its effect over a very short time period, ensuring that readers will be forwarded to recent and updated contents while allowing the agency to analyse redemption data, very useful to fine-tune media planning during successive years.

The increase in online investments implied a redefinition of offline media planning and an increase in press office activities, so as to ensure that a constant flow of information regarding the company would be present on strategic magazines even though advertisements were planned with a lower frequency; press office activities, also managed by Atlantide, also dealt with online media, thereby helping link-building and brand awareness and reputation on the web.

The results of these activities fully met the client’s expectations, leading to a gradual increase in web notoriety without losing contact with the long-standing readers of offline trade magazines and communicating news tuned in to the website’s constant evolution.

After thirty years the knowledge of the client is such that their requirements can be anticipated, but it must be said that the secret of such a long-lasting relationship is the enthusiasm with which the agency tackles challenges determined by new commercial strategies, always behaving as if the client had just been acquired.

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