Sopra Banking Software · Channel V Media
Breaking Into the U.S. Market
B2B Fintech · U.S. Market Entry
Mandate Owned a U.S. market-entry campaign end to end across nine countries and three languages.
A decade of credibility in Europe counts for nothing in a market that has never heard your name.
Sopra Banking Software is a French company that builds the software banks run on. It is listed on the Paris Stock Exchange, with ten years of global history and a client roster of established banks. In Europe, that record spoke for itself. In the United States, it was a company American editors had no reason to open an email about.
The engagement started as a single project — publicizing the company's annual banking summit — and grew into running all of their press work as their permanent outside team, coordinating across staff in France, the U.K., and the U.S.
01 — The Challenge
Strong visibility across Europe, near-zero recognition among U.S. media and prospects. American banking reporters weren't hostile — they were unfamiliar, which is harder. Unfamiliarity doesn't argue with you. It just doesn't reply.
02 — Validate the Legacy
The first move was to stop pitching the company as new. Ten years of global operating history and a roster of established bank clients already existed; the work was to surface them. Every press opportunity was used to connect Sopra Banking Software to institutions U.S. media already recognized, so the name arrived with borrowed context instead of none.
03 — Benefit Over Features
The pitch moved off what the software could do and onto what it let a bank do: launch new lines of business, open new revenue, win customers. Editors don't print feature lists. They run what changes for the institution and its customers.
04 — One Story, Three Countries
Owning all of their press work meant handling teams in France, the U.K., and the U.S. at the same time — reconciling sign-off chains, banking-regulator caution, and three different assumptions about how much a company is allowed to claim about itself. The narrative had to stay identical in substance while landing correctly in each market.
05 — The Outcome
55 stories placed across 9 countries in 3 languages within the first six months, reaching a total potential audience of 2 million. Coverage landed in The Banker, American Banker, PaymentsJournal, and Investopedia — the outlets U.S. banking buyers actually read before they take a meeting.
We hired Channel V Media initially to help publicize our annual banking summit. We were so impressed that after the initial project we hired them as our PR agency of record… they work with our teams in France, U.K., and the U.S. to execute.
06 — What This Proves
The same translation instinct — making complex, institutional work land with a skeptical, unfamiliar audience — applies regardless of sector. Paralympic sport, a Premier League club, and an overseas software company are the same problem in different rooms: find the context the audience already trusts, attach the unfamiliar thing to it, and say it in a sentence the team can repeat without a script.