Bospar, the boutique PR firm that puts tech companies on the map, is celebrating its five-year anniversary. On January 1, 2015, two tech PR veterans came together to launch a boutique agency with a national footprint – by being entirely virtual. Without the limits of physical spaces, Bospar has been able to expand to 15 locations, including Chicago, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, and the Washington, D.C., area. In addition to serving American companies, Bospar now also represents clients in Hong Kong, India, Israel, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
“As they celebrate their five-year anniversary, I hope Bospar continues to ‘live long and prosper,’” said actor, activist and social media icon George Takei, who worked with the agency on an award-winning product launch. “In this era of fake news, it’s important for media professionals to behave ethically and professionally while delivering results that will help their clients go where no one has gone before.”
“Congratulations on your fifth-year anniversary,” said Ann Sung Ruckstuhl, CMO of Unisys, a Bospar client. “It’s been a pleasure working with this innovative, agile and oh-so-creative PR team. Here’s to another successful year ahead.”
“When Bospar started as an all-virtual firm five years ago, we heard, ‘You can’t grow a firm of any size on that model,’” said Chris Boehlke, a Bospar principal. “We now have a staff of over 30 people. Even more impressively, we’ve had almost zero turnover in those five years, proving that we’ve created a working environment that people overwhelmingly prefer over traditional brick-and-mortar organizations. We’ve had to rethink what virtual means and build out a whole new model of a virtual work environment. This is what makes Bospar truly different and worth noticing.”
The industry has definitely noticed. PRWeek named Bospar its Outstanding Boutique Agency for two years in a row: 2018 and 2019. PRWeek also named Bospar a finalist for Outstanding Small Agency for 2020. The Bulldog Reporter awarded Bospar with both a gold and silver medal in the category of Most Innovative Media Relations Campaign in the 2019 Bulldog PR Awards and awarded the agency nine awards the year before. The 2019 Muse Creative Awards gave Bospar its gold medal for Bospar’s “Say San Francisco” campaign and its silver award for work with George Takei and the House of Cats app. PRNews named Bospar a top place to work in 2018.
“There were frankly a lot more awards we could have mentioned in this press release, but I worried readers wouldn’t get to my quote,” quipped Tom Carpenter, a Bospar principal. “The reason why Bospar is award-winning is due to the fantastic partnership of our colleagues and our clients. The reason why Bospar pursues these awards is that we believe we need to practice what we preach. We need to be a role model in PR, from award entries and media campaigns to social media activations.”
Bospar offers the following practices: consumer, developer, enterprise, fintech, health tech, investor relations, and security. The agency expanded its social media offering, providing backlinking, influencer relations and robust new analytical capabilities. Bospar also extended its content team so that clients have access to content creators from coast to coast.
“We find the Bospar content team to be a real differentiator in the market – and I should know, because I was a Bospar client two times before I joined the company,” said Tricia Heinrich, Bospar’s Chief Content Officer. “At Bospar, veteran professionals, with years of editorial and marketing experience, develop our clients’ content. That’s important, because we find that in this media landscape, content is more important than ever before.”
Bospar is committed to making its staff the best it can be. Bospar has strengthened its commitment to diversity with new hires. Its staff includes people with Hispanic, African American, Indian and Asian backgrounds, as well as individuals from the LGBTQ community. The agency participates in AfroTech, the National Hispanic Journalists Association and the National Lesbian Gay Journalists Association. Bospar’s fun committee, tasked with providing more glue to Bospar’s virtual workplace, launched a series of holiday parties, a virtual Halloween pumpkin carving contest and summer Fridays so staff can take time off to be with their families.
“Our primary goal when we launched Bospar on January 1, 2015, was to create a boutique tech PR firm that could take on the toughest jobs and deliver the most spectacular results,” said Curtis Sparrer, a Bospar principal. “But our secondary goal was to create a modern work environment that wouldn’t demean people with open offices but instead provides them with space to think and the flexibility to handle any family situation. I’m grateful for every client and every colleague who has helped us realize this vision, and I’m looking forward to perfecting it in the years to come.”
