Red Fan Communications

Communication doesn't scale when it lives with one person.

Kathleen Lucente sat down with Adam Horner on The CTO Playbook to dig into why building a bench of technical communicators is a leadership capability, not a soft skill. The CTOs and senior technology leaders who earn a real seat at the table aren't just the smartest in the room. They've learned to speak the language of everyone around them, from the C-suite to the boardroom.

The episode gets into why that shift is harder than it sounds — and what it actually takes to build it.

Listen to the full podcast:

TCP - EP86 - Kathleen Lucente What if the most underused asset in your tech organization is your voice?Build your own CTO Playbook at www.theCTOplaybook.com — the leadership pla...

What does it look like when a global brand shows up in a creator's world without overshadowing it?

That question was at the center of a fireside chat at last week's Asia x Austin Summit, a SXSW official event at the Long Center. Red Fan's Kathleen Lucente moderated a conversation with Allison Robl Stransky, CMO of Samsung Electronics America, and the stories she shared were worth sitting with.

Nearly 3,800 Olympic athletes were equipped with Galaxy phones to tell their own stories from the Village to the podium. High school students used AI to build oral cancer screening apps. Audrey Nuna, the Korean-American singer-rapper now known worldwide for her role in KPop Demon Hunters, built an entire Samsung campaign around her personality and her heritage, and it resonated because it was real.

In every case, the technology stepped back. The humans were the story.

Allison doesn't measure success in KPIs. She measures it in the moment someone sees themselves in a story and shares it. That's a standard worth borrowing, whether you're running a global brand or building one.

Thank you to Helen Haman, Mark Duval, and the Greater Austin Asian Chamber of Commerce for including Kathleen in this year's program.

Don’t pinch—pitch. 📨

Happy St. Patrick’s Day from the Red Fan team! 🍀

Founded in 2015, Hyliion was more accustomed to accelerators and pitch competitions than earnings calls and bell ringings. That had to change fast.

Red Fan activated a full-scale communications program that put Hyliion in front of investors, analysts, and industry press simultaneously.

Four months. One public listing. One story told right.

The result:

• 1,800+ media mentions
• 400% web traffic increase driven by earned media
• Coverage across Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Yahoo! Finance, Forbes, CNBC, Barron's, and more
• Successful October 2020 public listing

The best activations don't just generate coverage. They build market confidence.

How we did it: The Red Fan Impact Engine™
https://bit.ly/4kuqHuJ

Read the full case study: https://bit.ly/4qyZyIn

Distilling complex technical differentiators into messaging that lands with consumers and financial analysts alike?

Red Fan gave Austin Capital Bank the foundation to challenge what people think a community bank can be, and what problems it can solve. Positioning built for multiple audiences and the AI systems serving them.

Driven by the Red Fan Impact Engine™

Read more: https://bit.ly/4rcINnk

In 2020, Hyliion was competing for attention against Tesla and Nikola—two brands with massive consumer visibility and deeper media footprints.

Red Fan diagnosed the competitive landscape and found the differentiator: renewable natural gas is the only electrification path that can reduce or negate carbon emissions in commercial transportation.

The result:

• 289% share of voice increase against direct competitors
• 1,800+ media mentions
• Brand positioning established around technology differentiation, not hype
• Notable coverage in Bloomberg, WSJ, Forbes, CNBC, The Verge, and Reuters

The right diagnosis turns a crowded market into a clear lane.

How we did it: The Red Fan Impact Engine™
https://bit.ly/4kuqHuJ

Read the full case study: https://bit.ly/4qyZyIn

There's a window between signing and closing where most acquirers go quiet. Legal says wait, the deal team focuses on closing, or everyone defaults to silence.

Meanwhile, your best talent is updating their LinkedIn and customers are fielding calls from competitors. The narrative you didn't shape is already taking hold.

Kathleen walks through the four clocks running in every M&A.

Read it here: https://bit.ly/4aD8Qyl

Going public is a company-wide event. The communications strategy has to match.

In the four months between Hyliion's S**C announcement and public listing, Red Fan embedded across the entire operation. This wasn't a PR retainer. It was full integration into how the company showed up to the market.

The result:

• 1,800+ media mentions in target publications
• 400% increase in web traffic driven by earned media
• 289% increase in share of voice against direct competitors
• Coverage in Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Forbes, Reuters, and more

When the stakes are this high, communications can't sit on the sideline.

How we did it: The Red Fan Impact Engine™
https://bit.ly/4kuqHuJ

Read the full case study: https://bit.ly/4qyZyIn

The biggest PR agency consolidation in a decade is happening now.

The strategic logic makes sense — holding companies have too many agencies serving overlapping markets. But the timing is worth paying attention to.

The work clients need most right now (precision positioning for AI-driven search) requires exactly the opposite of what massive, standardized agencies produce.

Kathleen explains what to look for in a communications partner when the stakes are high and the landscape is shifting.

Read it here: https://bit.ly/4aDOJjt

A 6 a.m. call is rarely good news. When Kathleen picked up the phone in Hong Kong, a Bloomberg reporter was on the other end — asking about layoffs no one had told her were coming.

That was the moment she learned what every acquirer eventually discovers: in M&A, the communications plan you don't have will write itself—usually by someone else.

She breaks down the four stakeholder clocks ticking in every deal and why the most successful acquirers treat comms as deal infrastructure, not an afterthought.

Read it here: https://bit.ly/4aD8Qyl

Fluence doesn't just sell LED lights. They help cultivators maximize yield and profit—and the communications strategy had to reflect that shift.

Red Fan activated a thought leadership program that positioned Fluence's team of plant scientists, photobiologists, and career cultivators as the go-to experts for the entire horticulture industry.

The result:

• 1,600+ media mentions in target publications
• 25% share of voice—highest among competitors
• Two new manufacturing facilities opened (China and Mexico)
• CEO and subject matter experts positioned as industry authorities

The best positioning doesn't describe what you sell. It redefines what you are.

How we did it: The Red Fan Impact Engine™
https://bit.ly/4rk61Z0

Read the full case study: https://bit.ly/4tvTCTd