Overview: In 2010, Intuit, maker of products like Quicken, TurboTax and QuickBooks, was at a crossroads: the company had long-established and successful brand and product recognition amongst influencers, customers and key stakeholders as a maker of desktop software even as senior leadership was commencing on a strategic path to leverage its innovation culture and drive a business transformation to cloud and mobile services. . Within this context, the company’s external communications objective was to begin transforming this market perception: to recast company in the eyes of its constituencies as a premier, innovative growth company with advanced mobile and cloud products that would delight customers and help define their changing workplaces and lifestyles.

The Challenge: Intuit needed to communicate the details of its business transformation strategy to key media, analyst and financial influencers, audiences who had grown accustomed to “business as usual” and a standard parade of senior executives armed with carefully scripted message points.. The company tasked Access with assisting in the development of a communications plan that would move beyond traditional media engagement and dissemination of messaging into the marketplace via “talking heads,” and focus instead on actually showing influencers of the transformation underway, letting them “experience” it in ways that would bring Intuit innovation to life.

The Plan: Intuit and Access brainstormed the concept of the “Innovation Gallery Walk,” an immersive experience that would bring the Intuit products and solutions to life and demonstrate their ease-of-use and practicality with the environments that today’s consumers and businesses engage. Two events were planned over a six month period designed to reach and attract influencers in New York and San Francisco. Among the key elements of the Innovation Gallery Walk were:

• Exclusive look at Intuit’s innovation pipeline. More than 20 product offerings – more than half of which haven’t been seen beyond Intuit’s walls – that spanned all business units and product types. Innovations shown would go beyond the flagship products of Quicken, TurboTax and QuickBooks.
• Interact with the best and brightest product managers and engineers. Direct access to the talent and engineers responsible for the transformation at Intuit.
• Access to executives from the C-suite, including the Founder, CEO and CTO. Provide an environment that allows attendees to directly interact with Intuit’s C-suite, including the Founder and the CEO.

Success Metrics: The Intuit-Access Corporate team drove dramatic impact across media, business and corporate reputation audiences.

• Impactful media coverage: More than 40 pieces of coverage, nearly 95 percent of which were feature stories that focused wholly on Intuit leadership, products or services. Coverage spanned multiple products and executives totaling more than 80 million impressions in outlets including TechCrunch, MIT Technology Review, Reuters, Time and Fortune.
• Changing the conversation within key constituencies: More than 250 influencers from leading media outlets, analyst firms, financial analysts, customers and partners experienced Intuit’s innovation pipeline and directly interacted with the people responsible for the transformation at the company.
• Carrying the message to new audiences: More than 5 speaking opportunities at leading conferences aligned with key Intuit platforms across the mobile and innovation spectrums.