NEX Group plc, formerly known as ICAP plc, is a UK-based business focused on electronic markets and post trade business. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index and employs 1,900 people in offices worldwide.

Problem: raising brand awareness
Following the company’s name change from ICAP to NEX, the communications team wanted to build awareness for the new brand. With a whole raft of new assets and images to support the name change, the firm needed a new way to store and manage these assets in the most efficient way.

Building a robust online press resource
With increasing numbers of journalists and editors requesting up-to-date imagery, the team wanted to build a robust and flexible online press resource. Their current provider wasn’t able to offer NEX the flexibility that the company needed, while quotes for building an online media centre with full CMS (content management system) functionality and distribution were costly and time-consuming for NEX to build in-house.

Solution: custom-built cloud-based media centre
The financial firm turned to PressArea to provide it with a customised cloud-based media centre offering full asset management capabilities. The centre also gave the NEX team the ability to create content and control its distribution, in addition to a journalist enquiry system to manage media interactions.

Centralised newsroom
Integrated within the platform was the ability for the team to build a central repository for all news stories, optimised for SEO, enabling effective content syndication across multiple sub sites.

Several areas of PressArea’s solutions stood out for NEX’s communications team, including:

- A flexible content management system

- Ease of use that supported multiple users - both technical and non-technical

- The ability to create bespoke functionality and custom branding

Outcome: speeding up media management
The launch of its PressArea has saved the NEX communications team valuable time in getting a story out to the media. Through building a central news repository, the NEX team can distribute multiple web assets - press releases, annual reports, brand imagery - from a single resource.

This ensures that the team only has to write and upload a story once to a central resource, greatly improving efficiency.

Head of Communications Paul Grier commented, “PressArea just makes life easier. Our existing provider prior to the launch of NEX couldn’t flex to our requirements. PressArea worked with us to design a customised solution based on our distinct requirements.

“While we could have built something in-house, it would have cost us much more and taken a huge amount of time. Essentially, PressArea is a cost-effective way to manage your media presence.”