By the end of Crossed’s campaign, the company had reached a potential global audience of over 3.6 billion people, resulting in approximately 2.78 million views across more than 460 published articles.
Project Overview
Crossed is the brainchild of Manny Manzel (Co-founder & CEO) and Conor Crighton (Co-founder & COO), two visionaries driven by a shared frustration with the superficiality of modern social and professional networking apps. With a mission to revolutionize how people connect, Crossed is a beacon of authenticity and proximity, emphasizing genuine encounters over mindless swiping.
Where Manny’s unique vision and innovative mindset were instrumental in conceptualizing the combination of digital and physical experiences in new and exciting ways, Conor’s ability to transform ideas into tangible products was crucial in Crossed’s development. The co-founders believe their app will break down barriers in social and professional networking, providing realistic opportunities for more rewarding connections.
By leveraging innovative geo-proximity technology, Crossed facilitates meaningful connections with people you’re crossing paths with in real life, helping to foster friendships, romantic relationships, and professional opportunities that truly matter.
Client Goals
Launching a new app requires investing a significant amount of money, time, and effort to create a fully functional final product. As such, the team at Crossed wanted to ensure they were putting their best foot forward by hiring Otter to help create hype around the app to make it more well-known.
Since the app was still in its beta stage when Crossed’s media campaign kicked off, the team also needed to generate user feedback on their experience with the app, whether positive or negative, to build a product their target audience would want to use and spread the word about. However, since the main demographic of Crossed’s beachhead was college students, both our team and theirs had to ensure these users understood how to protect themselves when using the app through its built-in safety features.
The Strategy
Obtaining positive hype and user feedback from US-based college students was pivotal to the early success of Crossed’s media campaign. These two components would allow their team to fine-tune the app into one that could be used by college students to replace traditional networking and dating platforms.
To achieve the company’s goals, our team worked alongside them to generate visibility on their media coverage through:
- Focusing on Crossed’s Tech: Positioning Manny and Conor as visionary entrepreneurs and co-founders in the geo-proximity tech sector.
- Outbound Pitches: Utilizing a mix of local outreach and top-tier publications.
- Publishing press releases and other content: Highlighting Crossed’s in-person events on college campuses, and assisting their team before and after each event.
- Media Outreach: Contacting student publications and magazines with ties to the Southeastern Conference (SEC).
- Pinpointed Messaging: Targeting college students aged 18+ with topics referencing pop culture, relationships, and fostering professional connections to generate brand awareness.
Success
Thanks to our comprehensive media campaign for Crossed, the app quickly became a hot topic of conversation on college campuses throughout the Southern and Southeastern US. Furthermore, the extensive media coverage we created for Crossed and its co-founders helped instruct its target market of college students about the app’s built-in safety features and how to best protect themselves when using it in their daily lives.
Since the start of its campaign, Crossed has received incredible success. Following an immediate hit in Yahoo! Finance, other notable publications soon followed, including Life and Style, La Inquisitor, WFLA, New You, Her Campus, and others. As a result of this media coverage, Crossed and its team obtained the user feedback the app needed to advance from its beta stage to a fully-fledged relationship and networking platform.
