Media Landscape

Media Audit Findings By Topic

Business Resources - 4%

Customer Success - 8%

Future of Work - 9%

Wellness/Sustainability - 4%

Leasing/Financial/Development - 75%

Our landscape and competitive media audit showed the vast majority of stories are transactional and financial in nature. This provides opportunities for ICOP to own thought leadership in areas like future of work, workplace wellness, and sustainability.

Building And Extending Media Relationships In Target Markets

Westbound possesses deep, long-standing relationships with local Southern California print and broadcast media that will enable us to proactively secure media opportunities or work to mitigate unwanted coverage. Our relationships extend into commercial real estate, construction, and property management trades, in addition to outlets that target ESG initiatives.

For New York, Chicago or any other new markets into which ICOP goes, Westbound has a proven track record of identifying the proper local and regional media outlets and associated reporters to properly position our designated spokespersons. For example, your core team members conducted thought-leadership programs for three Kelly Services’ executives that spanned every major market in the Mountain and Pacific time zones (Los Angeles and Orange County, San Diego, Bay Area, Seattle, Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake City, and more). This effort involved media research and outreach, interfacing with local economic development corporations and corporate customers for third-party endorsements, and market-specific content generation of pitched stories, contributed articles, social media content, and more.

In addition, Westbound regularly performs targeted media outreach for events, frequently securing media briefings and corresponding coverage at trade shows such as BOMA International Conference & Expo, ICSC, NAIOP and Urban Land Institute events, and more.

AUDITING THE MEDIA: OPPORTUNITIES FOR ICOP TO OWN TOPICS

Looking at the media landscape for ICOP offers two extremely valuable perspectives into which outlets and reporters are covering news in the office sector, as well as which topics are driving coverage. Westbound performed a preliminary audit of the media coverage on topics that are highly relevant to ICOP, including business resources, customer success, future of work, workplace wellness, sustainability, and corporate news.

Besides gaining intelligence on outlets and reporters, the primary goal of the exercise is to map white spaces of differentiation that ICOP can own in the media.

Here are key observations from evaluating hundreds of pieces of earned and owned media from the last 12 months from ICOP and three key competitors (CBRE, Hines, and Kilroy Realty):

Hands down, ICOP leads the other three players in its promotion of customer success stories; ICOP featured 17 stories during the past year, with CBRE featuring 2 customer successes, Kilroy 1 and Hines 0.

Only ICOP offered any content on business resources such as a hybrid workweek toolkit; local and state programs, small business grants, and loans to help the effects of the pandemic; and tips for workplace design.

ICOP addressed the Future of Work with 17 pieces of content, including a New York Times article on why office buildings are in trouble. CBRE and Hines had three such articles, and Kilroy had 1.

None of the competitors have secured coverage or produced dedicated pieces on workplace wellness, representing a huge opportunity for ICOP.

Only ICOP and CBRE (3 articles each) have discussed sustainability, also offering an opportunity for ICOP to claim a leadership position.

The vast majority of coverage and news from CBRE, Hines, and Kilroy Realty is transactional and earnings announcements.

With a dedicated thought-leadership program, Westbound sees a tremendous opportunity to position ICOP and its designated spokespersons as expert resources to the media on the topics of important business resources to attract and retain workers, how the right office space drives customer business success, workplace wellness for customers and their workers, sustainability in the office, and other trending topics (effects of technology in the workplace, how to scale a business from flex-space to larger workplaces, and more).