Case in point: Kainos – why investment news is about more than money

Funding and investment stories provide a great opportunity for brand building and establishing credibility. Money sells, right? But journalists are bombarded with funding news at every turn – you need a really good story behind the numbers to get noticed.

Our client Kainos made a strategic commitment to invest £10 million into the advancement and scaling of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI). Yet while this is a huge sum of money, in the same month competitors like Wipro had announced its commitment to investing $1 billion in AI across the next three years. It was clear we could not just rely on the money to tell the story – we needed to dig a little deeper.

The first stage – as always with PR – was to listen and probe. What would this investment enable Kainos to do? What is Kainos already doing in this space? How might it impact the local economy? What were the societal impacts?

Kainos is a huge UK success story in the tech space, with a stellar reputation, which is always a great starting position. And given Kainos’ roots in pioneering technology enablement, specifically in the AI and GenAI space - delivering work across complex organisations such as the United Nations, the Ministry of Defence and HelloFresh – we had a great story to tell. The next stage was to think about who would write the story to ensure that we got the right information to the right people. Who has covered Kainos before and is familiar with the company? Who writes about investment stories? Who is big on AI? By tailoring pitches and angles we gave ourselves the best chances of success.

The last stage was the execution. Allowing plenty of time for pre-pitching and interviews under embargo was key. And as always with Spark, this goes beyond just sending out an email – picking up the phone, calling people, trying multiple angles and multiple journalists, constantly refining until we hit the right spot.

As a result, Kainos had five interviews that all converted to coverage with BBC NI, BBC Radio Good Morning Ulster, Irish News, Business Post, and IT Channel Oxygen. Overall, we secured 18 pieces of original coverage across business, tech, and channel media, along with five syndications – including nine pieces of national coverage in titles such as the Irish Sunday Times, Yahoo! News and Belfast Telegraph.

Peter Connaghan, Brand and Communications Director at Kainos, commented: “This was a significant investment for Kainos and a line in the sand for the future direction of the company. It was key that we made a big splash. We value Spark’s ability to help us shape our story and effectively position it within the right media outlets, always delivering solid results.”

If you need help to tell a compelling story around your investment news, get in touch at [email protected]