Ciena Corporation has been through a rebirth in the past two years. As an optical networking supplier to telco customers, Ciena saw its revenues plunge with the collapse of the telecom industry in 2001. Since then, the company has re-emerged as the network specialist, expanding beyond its optical roots and further into supporting high-value applications and expanding networking possibilities like those for voice-video-data triple play, IPTV, storage extension and broadband service delivery.

In July 2004, Ciena turned to Hotwire to provide pan-European communications support for the corporate repositioning efforts, which included a heavy focus on Europe as a future growth market for the company. Ciena’s strategic objectives in Europe were to achieve recognition for its repositioning beyond optical infrastructure and its new focus as the network specialist. Beyond that, the company aimed to establish key partnerships in the enterprise and telecoms markets and raise its visibility among these peer groups.

At this point, Ciena had little share of voice in the European networking market. To address this challenge, Hotwire developed an issues-based PR strategy to support Ciena’s re-establishment in Europe. Having identified storage networking as one relevant issue for Ciena and its customers, Hotwire commissioned independent research into the views of IT directors across the UK, France, Germany and Spain on storage, business communication and regulatory compliance. The survey of IT directors at companies with more than 1,000 employees revealed that more than three-quarters (76%) of respondents believed that data storage is critical to enterprise business continuity, but that 52% didn’t know or disagreed that compliance was forcing the increased uptake of data storage networking. The data showed that the majority of IT Directors in Europe lacked insight into how legislation – such as the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act and Basel II – may affect them and their corporate network requirements.

The survey results enabled Ciena to establish stronger relationships with trade and business media across Europe. Major European print and online coverage has appeared in titles including Computer Weekly, Silicon.com, The Register, Funkschau, IT Week, Financial World, CIO online, Silicon.de, SNS Europe, 01 Réseaux and Journal du Net. In addition, Hotwire has conducted further PR activity for Ciena as part of an ongoing brand awareness campaign and achieved coverage for the company in the media, including the national and broadcast press, such as Reuters, CNBC Europe, Bloomberg and La Tribune to name just a few.

Hotwire’s profile-raising tactics and strategy to reposition Ciena has helped position Ciena to win new business in Europe and further its credibility with key customers. In the second quarter of 2005, BT selected Ciena as a preferred supplier for its 21st Century Network (21CN), using Ciena’s optical switching, optical transport and Ethernet platforms. French telecommunications carrier Cegetel chose Ciena’s optical transport systems in January to increase capacity and improve reliability in its national long-haul network, while later in the year Deutsche Telekom-owned T-Online selected Ciena’s optical transport solutions for its network in France.

Ciena Corporation has also returned to growth during the period of the campaign, reporting revenue increases during the fiscal second quarter of 2005 of 39% on the same period in 2004.

Ciena PR Manager Nicole Anderson said of Hotwire’s campaign: “Hotwire has proven to be an important extension of the Ciena team in Europe in positioning us as the network specialist and heightening awareness of our business and success. Through the planning and execution of a diversified communications programme, Hotwire has raised market visibility of Ciena meaningfully and communicated our strategy to target audiences effectively across the region through key media.”