Bob Osmond is the President of Racepoint Global, the Boston-based earned-first B2B technology communications agency founded in 2004 by Larry Weber. Osmond brings more than twenty years of integrated and award-winning marketing and public relations experience across leading B2B and consumer technology and services firms. Racepoint operates across technology, healthcare, life sciences, public policy, and consumer brands with three regional corporate accounts (global, Europe, Asia).
The Interview
Q: Tell us about your agency's mission and the types of clients you serve.
A: At Racepoint Global (RPG), our core mission is simple: we help clients navigate and succeed by shaping conversations that matter. We aspire to tell stories about technology's role in supporting humanity and we work with clients across sectors to help them establish competitive differentiation that drives business impact.
Q: Key trends in B2B technology?
A: Live streaming tech to engage with audiences — industry events have transformed. Travel bans and social distancing forced conferences like MWC, CES, and VMworld to become virtual. VR technology is having a moment as virtual events become the new norm in 2020. HTC held its Virtual Vive Ecosystem Conference (V2EC) 2020 in March. Contactless technology is also having its moment — retail and payment technology is expected to see a rise in adoption, as more people are using mobile devices to pay for goods and services.
Q: New challenges from the pandemic — how has Racepoint overcome them?
A: A lot of our media interactions are driven by events, conferences, and tradeshows where we get to meet reporters, analysts, and influencers face-to-face. A global public health crisis calls for different approaches. For a major tech client, we coordinated virtual meet-and-greets between reporters and company spokespeople through virtual cocktail hours — we sent Moscow Mule kits to everyone. An e-learning tech client took what was meant to be their annual in-person conference and converted it to a digital 24-hour learning experience. RPG amplified event messaging to drive media coverage and registration.
Q: Tips for making virtual events successful?
A: You can't just take what was originally meant to be live, in-person content and put it online. Our client organized virtual break rooms organized by job roles or topics of interest. This allowed networking and discussion even when everyone joined from home. Virtual events also flatten the barriers of time and space — for the 24-hour client event, we had speakers from all over the globe, none of whom had to travel.
Q: What benefits can agencies bring during these times?
A: Businesses need to be authentic, sensitive, and helpful — while not being overly promotional. Agencies bring perspective and outside-in thinking. Our job is to use peripheral vision to give clients good guidance about where and when to engage. Business hasn't stopped, it has changed. An agency's job is to help clients navigate change in authentic and purposeful ways, keeping them focused on the hero of their story: their customers.
Q: Where do you see the future of the B2B PR industry?
A: Virtual tradeshows, industry events, and meetings will be the norm for the foreseeable future. Enterprise buyers, in particular, will rely more on third-party validation to build confidence. For PR practitioners that means revving up the content engine, leveraging earned media, customer success, and reviews programs, and amplifying these assets with a multi-channel approach.
Bob Osmond is the President of Racepoint Global , the Boston-based earned-first B2B technology communications agency founded in 2004 by Larry Weber . Osmond brings more than twenty years of integrated and award-winning marketing and public relations experience across leading B2B and consumer technology and services firms. Racepoint operates across technology, healthcare, life sciences, public policy, and consumer brands with three regional corporate accounts (global, Europe, Asia). The Interview Q: Tell us about your agency's mission and the types of clients you serve. A: At Racepoint Global (RPG), our core mission is simple: we help clients navigate and succeed by shaping conversations that matter. We aspire to tell stories about technology's role in supporting humanity and we work with clients across sectors to help them establish competitive differentiation that drives business impact. Q: Key trends in B2B technology?
A: Live streaming tech to engage with audiences — industry events have transformed. Travel bans and social distancing forced conferences like MWC, CES, and VMworld to become virtual. VR technology is having a moment as virtual events become the new norm in 2020. HTC held its Virtual Vive Ecosystem Conference (V2EC) 2020 in March. Contactless technology is also having its moment — retail and payment technology is expected to see a rise in adoption, as more people are using mobile devices to pay for goods and services.
Q: New challenges from the pandemic — how has Racepoint overcome them?
A: A lot of our media interactions are driven by events, conferences, and tradeshows where we get to meet reporters, analysts, and influencers face-to-face. A global public health crisis calls for different approaches. For a major tech client, we coordinated virtual meet-and-greets between reporters and company spokespeople through virtual cocktail hours — we sent Moscow Mule kits to everyone. An e-learning tech client took what was meant to be their annual in-person conference and converted it to a digital 24-hour learning experience. RPG amplified event messaging to drive media coverage and registration.
Q: Tips for making virtual events successful?
A: You can't just take what was originally meant to be live, in-person content and put it online. Our client organized virtual break rooms organized by job roles or topics of interest. This allowed networking and discussion even when everyone joined from home. Virtual events also flatten the barriers of time and space — for the 24-hour client event, we had speakers from all over the globe, none of whom had to travel.
Q: What benefits can agencies bring during these times?
A: Businesses need to be authentic, sensitive, and helpful — while not being overly promotional. Agencies bring perspective and outside-in thinking. Our job is to use peripheral vision to give clients good guidance about where and when to engage. Business hasn't stopped, it has changed. An agency's job is to help clients navigate change in authentic and purposeful ways, keeping them focused on the hero of their story: their customers.
Q: Where do you see the future of the B2B PR industry?
A: Virtual tradeshows, industry events, and meetings will be the norm for the foreseeable future. Enterprise buyers, in particular, will rely more on third-party validation to build confidence. For PR practitioners that means revving up the content engine, leveraging earned media, customer success, and reviews programs, and amplifying these assets with a multi-channel approach.
Written by
EPR Editorial Team
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
