bitsensing is a South Korean radar technology company that was founded in 2018.
The company is particularly unique compared to other companies in this industry as its radar product offering spans three proven and distinct use cases – automotive radar, intelligent transportation systems (ITS)/smart cities monitoring, and sleep and digital health monitoring.
Since being founded, it has raised over $52 million in funding from investors like AF WPartners, Korea Development Bank and Mando Corporation.
Having previously worked with an APAC-based PR agency to deliver an international B2B PR campaign, bitsensing’s team had been underwhelmed in the delivery and results.
It was looking to select a new agency that could immediately support a high-pressure Series B funding round announcement, as well as then create a fully global press office function that was structured in a way to generate ongoing earned media placements that sustain visibility and momentum with key audiences.
The primary objective with media relations was to establish a clear reputation for bitsensing, a South Korean technology company, as a worldwide leader in automotive and mobility tech (as well as two other business verticals) and to reach and influence a range of audiences, including customers, partners and investors.
Impressed by Wise Up PR’s extensive deep tech and sensor experience, bitsensing trusted the PR agency to not only make a success of its Series B funding round announcement but also create a steady drumbeat of top-tier media placements on a global scale.
Having such significant and relevant sector know-how meant the Wise Up PR team was able to jumpstart bitsensing’s PR program quickly and with great impact. Focusing firstly on the Series B funding round announcement, we executed a global media pitching effort across countless time zones, reaching as many journalists as possible to ensure the announcement landed (with pieces secured in TechCrunch, Forbes and many other outlets).
Following this quick and successful start, our team built out a longer-term strategy to directly address the goal of brand awareness on a global scale. We prioritized three key pillars of activity: (i) story ideation of everything happening at bitsensing to ensure we could maximize the company’s news pipeline and pre-plan targeted media outreach (ii) an awards program focused on recognized media properties and organizations (such as CES, World Economic Forum and Forbes Lists) (iii) and finally, an ongoing thought leadership and op-ed program focused on building spokespeople’s industry visibility.
In particular, Wise Up PR devised from the get-go the approach to bitsensing’s partnership with the City of Verona in Italy, where its industry-leading ITS solution was being installed. Realizing immediately how great a story this could be, our team constructed a strategy and narrative built around how smart city technology was making the home of Romeo and Juliet safer while preserving its iconic and historical center.
Backed by insightful written content and visually stunning video and imagery of Verona’s Porta Nuova (where bitsensing’s ITS solution was set up), we once again operated a global media relations push around this story, with pitching efforts spread across all four corners of the globe and beyond media coverage generated, it resulted in tangible business outcomes for the brand.
Our team further cemented bitsensing’s growing reputation with the automotive and mobility industry for two of its most consequential product launches: AIR4D and ADAS Kit. Applying the same strategic framework, we transformed these launches beyond pure product news, into real-world benefits that would appeal to a wider audience of journalists, while also leveraging the strong media relationships established to date by our ongoing activities.
403 Articles
Coverage secured in top technology, automotive and mobility, ITS and business publications.
4
Enterprise-sized sales leads directly attributed to placing bitsensing in media outlets.
51.3 Million
Estimated audience that viewed the coverage generated.
63
Aggregate Domain Authority (DA) score of the publications which published.
3.4 Billion
Combined audience that are unique monthly visitors (UMVs) to the media outlets that covered bitsensing stories.
348,100
Coverage that was viewed via social posts accompanying media articles.
7,900
Organic social posts prompted by the launch media placements.
9
Industry recognition garnered via awards campaign, with accolades secured from leading technology, mobility and health tech awards programs.
Wise Up PR delivered an international media relations program for bitsensing that secured earned media coverage of 403 articles and interviews, viewed by an estimated audience of 51.3 million. The media coverage placements included Euronews, Forbes, TechCrunch, Reuters, as well as key trade titles like Automotive News. The awards program secured nine industry accolades, including CES, Forbes and the World Economic Forum (WEF). Critically, this coverage didn’t just raise visibility; it directly led to four enterprise sales leads for the company.
“The team understands how to navigate media on a global scale, and they secured top-tier media coverage that propelled our South Korean-based brand onto the world stage. This coverage drove significant inbound sales inquiries, while their expertise with running awards programs helped us gain industry recognition that set us apart from competitors. Working together proved the real business impact PR can have.”
Increasingly, PR is borderless. This offers a huge opportunity to companies from South Korea and other nations looking to secure high-profile, reputation-building international media coverage. What matters, especially within mobility, is the solution, its tangible impact and which journalist is being pitched, not where a company is headquartered. Targeting is the critical word here. Blasting out news or pitches that are irrelevant to a huge list of contacts is not going to result in top-tier media coverage; instead, the right journalists need to be targeted with the right story.
The mobility sector is very technical and home to many acronyms. Yet the societal changes being driven by the sector are huge. This creates a clear communications challenge. The only way to succeed as a mobility brand is to tell a human story that wraps your technology around the big, giant problem you’re solving. If you can’t do that, you’ll struggle to break beyond trade media coverage. In the case of bitsensing, we applied this approach to elevate the story to the mainstream. We developed a simple and effective narrative focused on how bitsensing’s ITS solution was changing the lives of over 700,000 people in Verona and bringing road safety into the twenty-first century at the heart of the city’s Porta Nuova, which was first built all the way back in 1532.
Mobility moves. And people love to see things move. On this foundational basis, as a mobility or ITS brand, you should be able to create visually interesting images and video content. When applied to maximizing your impact with media relations, you need to prioritize the ongoing creation of such content and each story you release to media should have at minimum one high-quality image or video. Seeing really is believing and many journalists will push back on receiving marketing material imagery that doesn’t actually show what your solution does. In addition, the benefit of building up a bank of content assets is that they can be reused and recycled on a constant basis to fit your latest media opportunity.
Mobility and ITS solutions capture extensive data. This data, with the approval of partners, or even anonymized, should be part of the package that you bring to media. Given you’re tracking such data, it offers a way to quantify the impact your mobility solution is having and makes your story stronger with data-hungry journalists. In effect, you can bring a case study-style story to media, detailing, in data, the effect your solution is having on our roads, sea or sky.
