Work / Case study
The brief
In April 2023, Citizens Financial Group engaged Quarter Horse to serve as a strategic media partner to work alongside its other agencies to raise the profile of Chair and Chief Executive Officer Bruce Van Saun. Earnings coverage is table stakes for a bank of this size, but Citizens had struggled to build meaningful relationships between Van Saun and the media outside of major company news and material events.
What we did
- 01
Corporate Communications Strategy
Over a 16-month period, Quarter Horse worked with the bank’s corporate communications team to develop storylines that gave Van Saun a reason to engage with the media outside of financial news. We used those storylines to secure in-person meetings with reporters at top-tier national business publications.
- 02
Executive Visibility via Proactive Media Relations
By giving reporters access to the CEO once per quarter, in addition to earnings-day interviews, we secured feature-length profiles in CNN, Fortune, Semafor, Axios, and Forbes, as well as repeated, extended broadcast appearances on CNBC and Bloomberg TV—all unrelated to earnings and other material events.
Real impact
The reporter relationships Quarter Horse initiated and nurtured through both earnings and proactive media interviews paid off when Citizens did have news to announce. Reporters at outlets including WSJ and Bloomberg covered announcements that might otherwise have received attention primarily from trade publications.
Quarter Horse PR
Communications for purpose-driven companies. Brooklyn, NYC.