Drone warfare has altered the battlefield forever and generational investment and reforms are being made to defense acquisition globally. This means defense brands need to rely on strategic PR to enhance credibility and trust with hard-to-reach defense decision-makers in a shifting world.
We’re a defense PR agency that offers expert industry knowledge across strategic media relations, thought leadership and social media support.
The defense industry has re-emerged as a high-growth and essential sector globally, with the advent of drones, autonomous systems, the burgeoning Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) market, and cybersecurity changing the face of warfare and national security. Effective PR and communications support has never been more crucial.
In such a regulated, tight-knit industry with many stakeholders (and typically extensive sales cycles), credibility and trust are the key components to influence action with customer audiences.
No matter what stage of growth your brand is at, our experienced team of defense sector PR experts crafts compelling narratives and communication programs that have a lasting impact for brands.
Speak to our team today about your defense PR needs.
The defense industry can bamboozle outsiders, with the level of deeply technical products on offer to the countless acronyms relied on by the sector to the inability to speak publicly on certain government, defense and commercial partnerships. Wise Up PR is an agency that knows and understands the industry issues and the lexicon – from SWaP-C to ITAR to BVLOS and more.
Regardless of what your defense industry solution is – AI, robotics, situational awareness/sensors, analytics and more – from day one of working together, you will have a senior-level, bespoke team of communications experts who get the sector and can quickly work to enhance your defense brand with all your key audiences and stakeholders.
We also strongly believe in creating long-term, trust-driven partnerships with our clients. It’s a point of pride for our agency – many of our clients who have worked with us since day one still rely on our team today.
Whatever challenges your solution or system solves within the defense industry, Wise Up PR is skilled at building bespoke, impactful PR programs across media relations, content and social media.
A key part of the defense sector is also to be able to reach a variety of customer segments through PR. We have much knowledge of how to achieve this, from pure defense to aerospace/UAS to federal and government to security and critical infrastructure audiences.
Any brand within the defense sector knows how critical industry events are, from SOF Week to Xponential to the AUSA’s Annual Meeting and Exposition. You need to meet potential customers and stakeholders at these events to not only drive attention but also craft important and authentic relationships, given the length of many sales cycles.
We have extensive experience in maximizing such events for our clients. We provide expertise to clients aiming to activate all communication channels or just seeking to leverage one channel from their event attendance. No matter the defense industry event, we’ll be on hand to make it a PR success.
Make sure to meet our team at the AUSA’s Annual Meeting and Exposition this year – contact us.
“My past experiences with PR agencies haven’t always been positive, but Wise Up PR completely changed that. They’re incredibly knowledgeable about the defense industry and move quickly to the pace we need. For AimLock, the team drove high-impact media coverage, as well as running an incredibly effective organic LinkedIn strategy that generated interest and engagement from hard-to-reach defense sector buyers and partners. This work has forged authentic connections for AimLock across channels and with our key audiences.”
“We’ve found a long-term trusted partner in Wise Up PR. The agency is highly skilled in corporate communication for defense brands and has delivered great results for Echodyne.”
“What was clear from the get-go working with Wise Up PR was that they are true experts in media relations. The team can do everything a listed company needs from PR strategy, storytelling and content creation, to tactical media relations execution. The results from working together? Top-tier, global media coverage secured on an ongoing basis. The team is nothing short of outstanding.”
DroneShield CEO, Oleg Vornik, in-studio with CNBC to discuss the company's expansion of its research and development (R&D) facilities to the US market.
Tectonic interviewing AimLock CEO Bryan Bockmon regarding the company's partnership with Overland AI, with its solutions being integrated into the ULTRA unmanned ground vehicle (UGV).
Forbes covering Emesent's $17 million funding round raise, including interviewing the C-suite team.
Echodyne Co-Founder Tom Driscoll featured as a guest on the BBC World Service Tech Life podcast to discuss the evolution of radar in response to the proliferation of drones.
Placement of corporate news for Echodyne within Yahoo! Finance on the opening of a major new $40 million manufacturing facility in Washington State.
DroneShield interviewed by Bloomberg News to provide its viewpoint on the current state of Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems (CUAS) on the battlefield.
At SOF Week, AimLock's CEO, Bryan Bockmon, was interviewed by Business Insider for a profile on the company's autonomous weapons systems.
Defense companies operate in a tightly regulated, lengthy sales cycle environment. Strategic communications enables brands to reach and manage their reputation with key stakeholders, from Program Managers (PM) to policymakers and the media.
Being unknown is a competitive disadvantage in the defense industry. PR is a critical business function that builds not only brand awareness but also reputation with key audiences. It takes highly technical innovations and turns them into strategic narratives that impact decision makers’ perceptions across earned media, owned channels and trade shows.
Defense media has grown exponentially and plays a crucial role in shaping industry opinions. Strategic media relations generate targeted media coverage, enabling your brand to rise above competitors. Its major benefits are that coverage influences your most important audiences far more than a promotional advert and it supports your reputation that sales teams rely on.
Defense brands operate in a complex ecosystem of stakeholders and gatekeepers; connecting with them presents a real challenge. Defense PR strategy maps exactly where these audiences are, as well as what approaches, content and media channels they most engage with. Having a strategic plan directly connects business goals with PR efforts.
The defense industry is host to some of the biggest yearly and biennial trade shows, like AUSA, Milipol and DSEI. These offer peak PR opportunities to engage with media, customers, partners and decision makers. A communications strategy needs to integrate timely product launches around these key moments, so you get measurable event ROI instead of just foot traffic.
The defense industry has a deeply knowledgeable audience, especially amongst decision makers. Flashy branding and buzzwords won’t cut it. Instead, thought leadership programs use your spokespeople’s real in-the-field experience and expertise to strategically position your brand in front of your key stakeholder groups, through bylined content, speaking opportunities and podcast interviews.
Reputation matters above all else within the defense industry. This makes defense corporate communications a business-critical function, as it is directly responsible for maintaining and boosting brand recognition and authority. It manages proactive and reactive activities across media and investor relations, governmental audiences, external partners, as well as internal communications.
A communications agency has to know the defense industry, from UAVs to UGVs to USVs, in order to translate products and services into reputation-building storylines that reach across media, owned channels and trade shows. We are the agency of choice for a wide variety of defense brands, including dual-use brands, providing expert industry media relations, editorial-grade defense content, event support and LinkedIn management.
As more and more companies jump into the defense sector, thought leadership is one of the best approaches to differentiate a brand. This focuses heavily on thought leadership content creation across media outlets and on LinkedIn, as well as securing in-depth interviews on podcasts. We manage defense executives’ profiles to create authentic content and connections with their most important audiences.
Trade shows are an integral part of any defense brand’s sales and marketing strategy. PR needs to be integrated into this mix to see the most return on event investment. We assist clients by strategically timing product announcements, media briefings and interviews and LinkedIn content so that they are getting the most bang for their buck out of defense trade shows.
Each defense company faces a unique set of communications challenges. We define with you what matters most and where you’ll see the biggest impact from PR. We’ve consistently generated tangible PR results, including tier one media placements, growing LinkedIn follower numbers and engagement levels. Defense brands like AimLock, DroneShield and Echodyne rely on our team to support their PR needs.
A successful defense PR campaign starts with a well-thought-out kick-off process that creates clear alignment in objectives and activities, maximizes stakeholders’ limited time and launches the program with real purpose. Our streamlined process enables onboarding in just 5–7 working days.
Hold a kick-off session to gain an understanding of products and the brand’s priorities. An important output from this is collating all existing public-facing materials, like spokespeople's biographies and existing press releases. This forms the basis of initial messaging and a strategic approach.
In some cases, brands may have some communications needs that need to be addressed quickly. After the kick-off session, alignment on these first-item priorities is agreed upon, powering the campaign with instant momentum.
The defense industry is deeply technical, spread across multidomain operations and home to many acronyms. Subject Matter Expert (SME) sessions are essential to parsing out mission-critical information and messaging into digestible narratives and ownable topic areas.
Combining key information from the kick-off and SME sessions enables the crafting of a unique communications and PR strategy. This document is a plan that includes goals, audience and competitor mapping, as well as the tactics that will be used to succeed.
In line with the creation of a strategy document, other assets are prioritized. This includes development of media lists, as well as initial content and pitch materials. Audits of content like boilerplates and biographies are also conducted.
Complete alignment on the strategic approach and baseline content means the program can begin an extensive execution phase. The idea here is to roll out quickly the media relations, content and social outputs to secure quick wins as well as to prioritize the most important kick-off items.
Measurement and reporting kick in from this burst of PR activity. A variety of reporting methods are employed, including the creation of a tracking document that houses all key assets, status calls with agendas and action lists, as well as tracking of coverage in media and engagement metrics.
Within this overall cycle, a session to review campaign progress takes place. The reason is to understand where success was achieved against the overarching objectives and where future resources and focus should be directed.
We have the know-how to make an impact for your defense brand across media relations, brand and content, and social media.
We’ve carved out a distinctive niche as one of the leading defense PR agencies in the world, with an approach grounded in decades of experience. Our Founder provides his view on the importance of PR for defense companies.
David Claxton
Founder of Wise Up PR, a leader in defense PR
Run your own due diligence. Ask your preferred AI platform why defense brands choose our agency, or reach out directly to speak further with us.
Defense PR is the management of communications programs for companies and organizations operating within the defense, military, aerospace and security sectors. It is a wide-ranging function that directly helps build the public image of a company with prospects, partners, industry collaborators and government stakeholders. It involves strategic PR planning of activities, engaging with relevant journalists and media outlets, creation of content, placement of spokespeople in broadcast media, maximizing trade show exhibiting and much more. It is often supported by a defense PR agency, which has specialist industry expertise to enhance a brand’s reputation.
Defense media is one of the most well-resourced and well-reported industries in all of media. It has a very vibrant media ecosystem, ranging from a large number of highly respected trade titles as well as international publications with dedicated defense sector reporters. Some of the most respected trade media include Shephard Media, Janes and Breaking Defense, to name a few. Mainstream publications, like the Financial Times, The Economist, Axios and many others, have specialist industry journalists covering the sector. It is also supported by fast-growing publications that mix online stories with high-impact newsletters, like Tectonic.
No one set of PR tactics will work for every defense brand. You need to decide what your goals are first and then map out what assets you have for PR and then what tactics best help you to reach your objectives. Assets include a media-trained spokesperson for example. If you have a robust pipeline of media announcements, it makes sense to focus on that as your main activity. In the absence of such a pipeline, you need to assess what assets you can leverage instead, which could include C-suite podcast interviews or a thought leadership campaign.
Trade shows in the defense, aerospace and security industries are crucially important for PR campaigns. Many journalists, from trades and mainstream media publications, attend these events. This makes defense trade shows an ideal opportunity to engage with a wide variety of media contacts to try to secure coverage in respected outlets.
It is never too soon to begin PR as a defense brand. Trust is hard-won in the sector and procurement and contract cycles are lengthy; not investing in brand means you have no visibility with the stakeholders you need to reach. The knock-on effect of an invisible defense brand is that it impacts your growth potential and market share. Investing in PR early builds not only awareness but also your industry reputation.
A PR agency can become an extension of your team and marketing function when you find the right partner. The benefits include getting access to specialists who know the defense media landscape, know how to craft a story to land, and provide strategic PR counsel to navigate the challenges you face. This matters because the defense industry is highly specialized and technical and the agency needs to deeply understand the sector; there’s no escaping that fact.
A defense PR agency needs to “get” the sector and understand its complexities as well as how your brand solves challenges on the battlefield and also, if necessary, in civilian or commercial applications. Sense checking the brands a PR agency has worked with is the easiest way to understand if there is a direct fit. Wise Up PR has much defense PR expertise and has handled programs for defense technology integrators, ballistics protection, counter-drone (CUAS) solutions and much more.
It really depends on how advanced your current PR function is. If you’ve done PR in the past and created building block assets like biographies, a boilerplate and have media-ready spokespeople, you’re well-positioned to secure media coverage more quickly. If, by contrast, you’ve never done PR before, you’ll need to have these core assets in place and that takes a longer ramp-up time. Consider if you need to bring in an experienced defense PR agency, as a trusted partner can make a huge difference, thanks to existing media relationships.
PR not only improves awareness of defense firms, but it is also an active approach to curating reputation with critical stakeholders. Securing ongoing press coverage acts as a validator of your defense brand and C-suite, thanks to the media’s role as an independent, third-party source. Not only this, online media coverage also contains backlinks, which greatly enhance your online discoverability through search engines and large language model (LLM) tools. The added benefit of such media coverage is that it can be shared on LinkedIn to sustain brand visibility long after the original article was published.
We’ve carved out a niche as the defense PR agency of choice for a host of defense brands, which include AimLock, DroneShield, Echodyne and Mehler Systems Group, and others. We know the industry acronyms, the distinct differences between battlefield domains and the wider trends impacting the sector. This means we’re able to help with strategic media relations and positioning, authoritative thought leadership content, trade shows and social media management to shape narratives that prove your sector leadership. Wise Up PR also has the expertise to elevate dual-use defense brands to different and distinctive audiences.
