“We had already been working regionally for more than 15 years, establishing contacts with journalists and media from various countries,” Bal explained. Among the success stories of the agency are for example Equifax, Kia, Galicia Seguros, Grant Thornton, Tiendamia, Remax Premium, Retargetly, Law Offices of Carla AnzaldiTreggo, Verbatim, Infobip, Avantrip, Rodar Electric, Fundación Bitcoin Iberoamérica, etc.
These years gave them the impetus to position themselves outside of Argentina and for the agency to become known thanks to the companies’ own recommendation. “Seeing that we had the need of clients to be in a more face-to-face way to strengthen their communication strategies, we embarked on this aggressive expansion, which also includes other continents”, remarked the CEO of GMB Press.
In fact, the agency has already managed to captivate a company based in Dubai, a startup located in Spain, a logistics company based in China, a US law firm and another company located in Panama.
“By having an international presence, we are becoming better known to the radar of the big brands,” admitted Bal, who has in his extensive curriculum the achievement of having been the press agency for KIA Motors for 16 years. “Having loyalty like this is a record for any agency,” he pondered.
GMB Press is also a comprehensive content producer, which stands out for having a team of professionals that is involved in all areas of the organization: press, advertising, social networks, events and marketing. “We were in charge of campaigns that in 48 hours appeared in more than 250 Latin American media,” he exemplified.
Martín Bal is convinced that the secret to his success is due to the fact that he managed to put together “an agency with journalistic DNA” that generates high-impact content. “This vision sets us apart in the market because we have a team made up of prestigious journalists and communication experts, who understand what the strategy for each company should be, from the key messages we want to communicate to what are the best ideas to convey them” , sentenced.
As milestones, during the pandemic, for example, they worked with a lawyer for more than 12 countries, disseminating a class action lawsuit against China and the WHO for Covid-19. But he also remembers that they had very diverse experiences during all these years: “we were the agency that launched the first virtual supermarket (LeShop); Also, press of a variety of brands very different from each other, such as Tulipán condoms, Farmacias Central Oeste, Grupo Marquez, Coppel, U. Maimónides, College of Surgeons, Buscapé, Cetelem-BNP Paribas, Provincia Leasing, HTC, Ashley Madison, Coby, among others.
Far from feeling like a “boss”, he shows himself to his team as a “leader” and works alongside them, getting involved even in the smallest details. “I am not only waiting for the contents to be pressable and publishable, but also for the titles to be clear and precise in order to make life easier for journalists,” said Bal, who before landing in the field worked “on the other side of the counter” as website editor, producer and radio and TV host.
Another of his strengths is that he knows the media map like nobody else and transmits it to each member of his team. He is a director who is in every comma, in every title and loves to talk about the “10 press commandments” on his social media. “It is essential to know what each journalist writes about in order to send her accurate information from her section. He tried to make the information valuable to him and not end up in a deleted message tray. Differentiating the different groups of professionals in the same medium, even in the same section, is to understand that some like to tell stories more and others to make reports based on statistics”, he asserted regarding the information that he sends to each one. from them.
At GMB Press they are committed to a personalized and non-robotic relationship, with “1 to 1” shipments. They seldom resort to mass mailings because these tools usually end up arriving as spam. They are very careful in that aspect and how to treat each journalist, from the human and professional side, how to treat them.
“When I founded the agency I was inspired by the movie ‘What they want’. I really liked that concept. Understand what journalists want from us as press agents and offer it to them. We seek to solve their work in a friendlier way and think of attractive summaries that become their next notes citing our clients”, concluded Bal.
by CEDOC
