SCHWARTZ CROSSROADS

Salute to Excellence

One of Schwartz's core competencies is helping entrepreneurial companies use public relations to take on larger competitors and win. Earlier this week, at the Sabre Awards in New York City, the Holmes Report recognized Schwartz for not just talking the talk, but walking the walk.

There is no way to write this without coming across as bragging, but in reality I want to call out the great work of my team and our client.

The Sabre Awards are one of the most prestigious awards in public relations. Winners are selected based their strategic approach to public relations campaigns and measureable results.

This week, Schwartz received a Gold Sabre Award for its work on behalf of Digication, an eight-person technology company that set out to change the way teachers teach and students learn and showcase their portfolios. Using a combination of trade media relations and social media campaigns, in less than a year, Schwartz helped Digication grow from a base of about 10 schools to more than 1,000 schools nationwide.

Digication has a great product and visionary founders (both of which help quite a bit), but it faced a challenge many start-up companies face - it had to take on entrenched competition and win. Working together, Schwartz and Digication did just that.

The same held true at the Sabres. Digication and Schwartz were in a category with Hitachi, Rubbermaid and New York Life -- all much larger companies and well-known brands. Yet in the end, Digication triumphed.

Congratulations to a great company -- Digication -- and a great team for showing that with aggressiveness, focus and a commitment to excellence, public relations can have a quantifiable business impact -- and proving once again the revolutionary power of entrepreneurial companies no matter their size.