Wall Street West Connects Pennsylvania With Finance Leaders

Wall Street West, a federal and state-funded program in northeastern Pennsylvania created to develop a total back-up solution for New York City financial institutions in the event of disaster, needed to position itself to financial services firms as an ideal location for data back-up. But key audiences perceived the region among key audiences as a former coal-mining district with little to offer financial services companies. Peppercom was brought on to create strategic branding for the organization.

Peppercom jumped at a unique opportunity when Wall Street West prepared to announce its partnership with Level 3 to build a fiber-optic line connecting the region with lower Manhattan, allowing for synchronous data transmission. Leveraging this announcement, we partnered Wall Street West with Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell's office for a regional media event and New York City media tour. Initial efforts focused on securing advances to key media outlets, including Bloomberg and the New York Times. Moreover, Peppercom invited northeastern Pennsylvania media to attend a press conference around the announcement, and aggressively pursued general business and trade publications on the day of the announcement.

On the day of the announcement, Wall Street West was featured in Bloomberg, the New York Times, Associated Press, MSN Money, NY1, Today in New York and Dow Jones, resulting in over 40 million impressions in one week. We also achieved a tremendous spike in Web site traffic and received inquiries from key prospects, including Goldman Sachs, Fitch, Mack Cali, TD Ameritrade and Bank of New York.