Katerra – Proactive Reputation Management

Insight

Katerra is an international technology company optimising every aspect of building design, materials supply and construction.  One of the first companies with a local entity to be fully owned in Saudi Arabia as a foreign investment, Katerra is backed by the Public Investment Fund as part of the Kingdom’s moves towards diversifying its economy and to meet the country’s growing demand for housing.

Against the background of the strategic decision for Katerra’s United States and Cayman Island affiliates to voluntarily file for relief under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code, the company needed to reassure the market that this filing did not include or impact the day-to-day operations of international affiliates, such as Katerra Saudi Arabia.

W7Worldwide developed a corporate communications and reputation management strategy that would reinforce confidence and trust in the brand as a solid delivery partner committed to helping Saudi Arabia achieve its Vision 2030 economic and social transformation and help meet the country’s growing demand for housing.

W7Worldwide’s communications strategy and campaign set out to convey the powerful efforts Katerra exerted in KSA to uplift the whole construction sector.  Central to all communications and PR campaigns was the objective of reinforcing trust in the Katerra brand with Saudi target audiences.

Methodology

The concept behind building the communications platform for Katerra relied on several key stages, commencing with addressing the news of Katerra’s US and Cayman Island’s affiliates Chapter 11 filing.  It was crucial to separate Katerra Saudi Arabia from the international news and reinforce the local message of ‘business-as-usual’.

When Katerra shut down its operations in the US while continuing its operations in KSA, W7Worldwide started to plan and strategize how to communicate about Katerra Saudi Arabia and how best to overcome any negative news.

We built on our previous campaign and PR platform created for Katerra and popularized the idea of ready-made 48-hour houses in the Kingdom and the company’s delivery partnership with the Ministry of Housing.

Timing was crucial to protect Katerra’s reputation in Saudi Arabia, responding quickly and eliminating any possible negative perception by demonstrating the powerful positioning of the company, its promising future and advanced technologies.

A deep dive into the solutions provided, to assist with content development. The team gathered all the information available from the client and conducted research with Katerra communications experts to simplify the content into information that would be easily understood by the target audience.

To maximize reach, the creative content and media relations team sought to identify the most effective and influential platforms to disseminate powerful key messages in order to increase the reach and engagement to Katerra content.

Impact

Our efforts produced powerful SEO results with Katerra featuring in the top search results on the first page of Google under key words such as Katerra, Business Expansion and others in Arabic and English.

7,566,040 Impressions

35 of total clippings

Clippings