Parker Group - campaigns

Parker Group’s client ABAQUS underwent a name change to “Abaqus” finite element analysis software within the SIMULIA brand portfolio of Dassault Systèmes. Working with the Pawtucket, R.I. headquarters for SIMULIA, Parker Group was challenged to keep the integrity of the Abaqus product while promoting the SIMULIA brand, both within the United States and internationally. Parker Group had successfully promoted Abaqus’ industry leadership throughout the design and engineering world when it was a standalone company. Now the challenge was to rebrand Abaqus under the SIMULIA name.

Excellent awareness of Abaqus had already been built in the eyes of editors through Parker Group’s media campaign in the years leading up to the acquisition. We devised a public relations program founded on the company's strengths: its customers and its technical superiority in the analysis industry. Abaqus customers come from every sector of engineering. They include automotive and off-highway manufacturers and suppliers, aerospace and defense firms, makers of consumer and medical products, electronics companies, raw material providers, and companies in the oil and civil engineering industries.

We researched Abaqus customer achievements in a wide variety of application areas, such as automotive brake squeal, consumer goods packaging, medical stents, hot-rolling of steel, and so on. We wrote case studies that described these achievements, and opinion bylines that defined important trends in simulation. In conversations with trade magazine editors and reporters, we explained how Abaqus analysis software helps engineers develop products that meet demanding performance requirements. We put editors directly in touch with FEA experts who could clarify the intricacies of the analysis discipline.

Our outreach to ABAQUS customers yielded article placements in all the top engineering print publications, including feature articles in Mechanical Engineering, Machine Design, NASA Tech Briefs, Product Design & Development, Automotive Engineering International, Design News, Desktop Engineering, and IndustryWeek.

The goodwill and strong media relationships that Parker Group built for Abaqus are now the foundation of the successful rebranding of our client under SIMULIA. The well-known Dassault Systèmes parent company name further supports the market leadership of SIMULIA/Abaqus. We coordinated a series of exciting new product releases and case histories in the spring of 2007, highlighting SIMULIA as Dassault Systèmes’ brand for realistic simulation based on the Abaqus product suite. We followed up by inviting editors to Providence to tour SIMULIA headquarters and talk about the new Abaqus products. Editor awareness of the SIMULIA name in connection with Abaqus is growing, while innovative, credible customers across all engineering industries continue to tell the story of Abaqus, now rebranded as Dassault Systèmes’ SIMULIA.