Case Studies
American Chemical Society
Brand Awareness for a Leading Association
Situation
The American Chemical Society’s (ACS) Publications Division faced a major challenge: Due to increased production costs and an internal decision to align the price of its journals with those of its commercial competitors, ACS had been raising its journal prices significantly for five years in a row.
At the same time, special libraries, which made up an essential percentage of the ACS customer base, were having their acquisition budgets cut. Special librarians began voicing their complaints about pricing at trade shows, and ACS began to lose its customers, market share and reputation for value.
Objectives
- Create awareness within the library community that ACS journals still provide the best value in science publishing.
- Communicate to the library and science communities that ACS’s Publications Division remains on the cutting edge of integrating technology into the publishing process.
- Use branding techniques to create a consistent design and image for all of the Publications Division’s marketing materials.
Tactics
Boscobel created the Publication Division’s first comprehensive and fully integrated communications program to help put ACS back in touch with its library customers. The program consisted of a direct response print advertising campaign and a proactive public relations effort. All of the components of the campaign communicated the same message: “The American Chemical Society is a quality organization that provides valuable scientific information at a price that is still 50 percent less than competitive publications.”
Boscobel also developed trade show support materials, including posters and coffee mugs featuring scientific minds such as Sir Isaac Newton, Linus Pauling and Madame Curie. These posters and coffee mugs were reprinted and redistributed for several years based on their extraordinary popular demand.
In addition, an issue paper, “Will Science Publishing Perish? The Paradox of Contemporary Science Journals,” was written and disseminated to key audiences, resulting in extensive coverage.
Results
The public relations and marketing efforts were a tremendous success and, according to ACS leadership, did much to help improve the Publishing Division’s brand among subscribers. As a testament to the campaign’s success, ACS soon recruited Boscobel to help the association market its extensive product line – including 29 scientific journals – around the world.