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Case Study: PR Newswire’s MediaRoom Service Helps the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Communicate More Effectively with International Media

Overview
CME (www.cme.com) is the world’s largest and most diverse financial exchange.  As an international marketplace, CME brings together buyers and sellers on the CME Globex® electronic trading platform and on its trading floors.  CME offers futures and options on futures in these product areas: interest rates, stock indexes, foreign exchange, agricultural commodities, energy, and alternative investment products such as weather, real estate and economic derivatives.  CME is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. (NYSE, NASDAQ: CME), which is part of the Russell 1000® Index and the S&P 500® Index.  CME has a robust Web site, but no section dedicated to the media, which made it difficult for reporters to find information in an efficient manner.  CME needed to create a dedicated media section on their Web site that they would have full control over, and not have to rely on the IT department to update the content.    A long-time client of PR Newswire, CME was introduced to PR Newswire’s MediaRoom service and immediately recognized it as the solution to meet their communication management challenges.

Objective
CME’s main objective was to create a single location on their Web site to direct reporters who were in need of information on the Exchange.  The wanted to incorporate the most up-to-date communications technologies such as RSS and podcasting, but most importantly, the communications department wanted complete control of the content, from writing it to posting it and editing it at a moment’s notice. 

Target Audience
Although the primary audiences for this new section of CME’s Web site was intended to be media and analysts, CME also wanted to be able to provide information that was relevant to customer/member, academics, researches, analysts and employee audiences on an as needed basis.

Research
Prior to launching this dedicated section of their Web site, CME did a communications audit with reporters to find out what information they would like to see on the site. CME also worked with the marketing teams and product managers to determine how they could collaborate on product and service launches.  Based on the information gained from the audits that were conducted, CME was able to determine what links and information would be useful.

Solution
PR Newswire and CME worked together to identify the various assets within PR Newswire’s MediaRoom service, a strategic public relations tool that assists communications professionals in managing their online media relations, that would benefit CME.  Using MediaRoom, CME now has full control over the posting and editing of content in their online ‘press room’.  Through a password-protected interface, CME’s director of communications populates the press room with corporate background materials, high-resolution images, fact sheets, executive bios, downloadable press kit documents, key press clips, and also provides reporters with the opportunity to add themselves to an opt-in mailing list and request an interview with an executive at CME.  CME also benefits from the automatic posting of news releases to their press room, each time they issue one over PR Newswire, a trait that other online media room services cannot offer. 

Results
This was the first time non-media (analysts, customer/members) could receive news releases in real-time.  The communications team can now drill down to what people are linking to (most and least) and develop and build areas of interest based on the information. The Exchange has also been able to promote use of the RSS feed as another alternative way to receive news.   Since March 2006 CME’s media room has grown nearly 100% in unique visitors per day.