For 4.5 years, Anita de Graaf has been ultimately responsible for Hoffmann's communication activities. It is therefore not surprising that the enthusiastic marketing and communication professional regularly calls for help. In the PR area, it was up to nxt agency schoon to win a media stage for Hoffmann in a three-month pilot.
Hoffmann, based sixty years ago, has traditionally been a corporate investigation agency. Indeed, fraud, extortion and integrity violations are unfortunately a real danger for organizations. In the event of incidents, Hoffmann provides a quick and good solution to limit the damage as much as possible. Hoffmann can also be called in to prevent incidents. Some of the possible services: fraud and integrity investigations, corporate thefts, testing and setting up corporate network and information security, but also research into and preventing unwanted behavior in the workplace.
It was precisely that last area of focus that reinforced the importance for a PR strategy. “More and more reports are appearing in the media about unwanted behavior in the workplace. Many of the large companies that have exposed unwanted behavior in the media are organizations for which we have conducted the research. This elicits a lot of reactions, both positive and negative. Apart from not having the manpower to respond adequately to everything, we are unable to respond to many messages due to the sensitivities of information from our research and privacy protection. That's why we benefited from making noise in the media about our work ourselves using PR,” says Anita.
The help of nxt agency was brought in to make this sound and to respond to the many media reports. “I knew co-founder Remi Kuchler from the past, so the step to work with nxt agency was quickly taken. We set up a three-month PR pilot highlighting two of Hoffman's topics. With a focus on transgressive behavior in the workplace in both subjects, we generated a lot of media reach and got a media platform that we used to have less.”
Specifically, the pilot has led to a media reach of almost 50 million spread across various media, including nu.nl, NRC, and The Entrepreneur. And that tastes like more. “We really liked the collaboration. That's why we've also chosen to extend the pilot! Because nxt agency is a smaller agency, the lines of communication are short and we switch easily with each other. For example, together we have a WhatsApp group where we can communicate quickly. Nxt agency is also always available. We have achieved good goals and the cooperation is great!”
