Our Clients > Horizon Software

Challenge

• Horizon Software, the worldwide leader in technology for food service operations, wanted to grow visibility within school systems as a company on the forefront of tackling childhood obesity. Horizon needed a cost-effective way to introduce MealpayPlus – a system that allows parents to make payments for their student’s meals at school online and enables parents to track their children’s cafeteria purchases.
• Horizon wanted their campaign to generate interest from school administrators, teachers, food service directors, as well as parents.

Solution

• Developed an extensive program that introduced MealpayPlus to consumer media outlets working on articles and segments related to childhood obesity.
• Expanded the campaign to include targeted trade publications to reach purchasing decision makers and key influencers in the education market.

Results

• In month one, Horizon was covered in more than 300 broadcast and print stories, including: Good Morning America, Fox News Live and CNN, front page coverage in The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, an Associated Press story and coverage in The Orlando Sentinel, Seattle Times, St. Paul Pioneer Press, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, T.H.E. Journal and eSchool News.
• Over 100 school administrator and parent requests the weekend after the Good Morning America segment alone, in addition to a significant increase in web traffic.
• Continued campaign momentum by generating media attention for the founder and CEO of the company, Bob Williamson. BLASTmedia secured extensive coverage in Inc. Magazine, BusinessWeek, Yahoo! Finance and MSN. When Mr. Williamson appeared on the homepage of MSN, he received over 400 emails in one day, many of those requesting speaking engagements.
• Over 3.3 million students in over 300 school districts now have access to MealpayPlus accounts. Since engaging with BLASTmedia, Horizon has seen a 175% increase in new accounts and a 35% increase in revenue.