How Locus Turned Breaking News Into a Thought Leadership Engine

Overview

Locus, an agentic transportation management system for enterprise supply chains, partnered with PANBlast and PAN UK to strengthen its visibility among supply chain, operations, procurement and logistics leaders across the U.S. and UK.

Rather than relying solely on company announcements to generate coverage, Locus wanted to become part of the conversations its customers and prospects were already following, particularly as tariffs, geopolitical conflict, fuel costs and other disruptions continued to reshape global supply chains.

PANBlast and PAN UK built an always-on reactive media program designed to make Locus executives a reliable source when disruption made headlines. By preparing message points and data-backed insights in advance, the teams could move quickly when news broke while ensuring every response connected back to Locus’s expertise in helping shippers adapt to volatility in real time.

The result was sustained visibility across top-tier business and supply chain media, including CNBC, Inc., SupplyChainBrain, Retail Gazette and Motor Trade News, while strengthening Locus’s reputation as a source of practical insight rather than a company simply looking to capitalize on breaking news.

Challenge

Supply chain disruption is a constant source of news, but it is also an incredibly crowded media conversation.

Locus needed to reach director-and-above decision-makers in supply chain, operations, procurement and logistics, particularly within retail and CPG. These buyers closely follow disruption news, but vendors competing for the same headlines can quickly sound interchangeable.

To succeed, Locus needed to:

Build awareness of its agentic transportation management system and its role in helping shippers adapt to disruption.
Earn coverage in the business and trade publications its target buyers already read.
Establish its executives as credible experts on real-world supply chain challenges.
Respond quickly enough to breaking news to be relevant, without sacrificing the specificity or credibility of its commentary.
Maintain a consistent voice across the U.S. and UK markets.

The challenge was compounded by Locus not having a U.S.-based spokesperson at the time. Reactive opportunities required coordination across time zones and internal approvals, often within hours of a story breaking.

Strategy

PANBlast and PAN UK developed an always-on reactive strategy centered on preparedness, speed and a distinctive operational point of view.

Prepare for the news before it happens

PANBlast and PAN UK continuously monitored business, trade and mainstream media for developments that could affect global supply chains, from tariff policy and UK fiscal announcements to geopolitical conflict and transportation regulation.

Rather than waiting for an opportunity and starting from scratch, the teams built a bank of message points and data-backed commentary around anticipated supply chain scenarios. This preparation allowed Locus to respond within hours instead of days.

Every opportunity was also evaluated against Locus’s broader positioning. The goal wasn’t simply to get a Locus quote into a story. Commentary needed to demonstrate how businesses could practically respond to disruption and reinforce Locus’s perspective on real-time supply chain orchestration.

Turn disruption into actionable insight

The Strait of Hormuz crisis became a defining example of the strategy in action.

When Iran’s supreme leader announced that the Strait of Hormuz would remain blocked following strikes on cargo ships, the teams quickly developed a same-day pitch featuring Locus CETO Nishith Rastogi. The pitch translated the disruption into specific business consequences for retailers. It addressed:

How rising fuel costs could flow through to freight rates within one to two billing cycles
How rerouted shipping lanes could extend delivery times by one to 10+ days
How retailers could face cost increases of 5% to 20% through passed-through surcharges
How better routing, truckload utilization and mode selection could help mitigate the impact

The same approach was applied to other major supply chain developments, including tariff volatility, the UK Spring Statement, EV pay-per-mile proposals and EU supply chain policy.

This created an ongoing stream of opportunities for Locus executives to demonstrate expertise across the issues affecting its customers, rather than concentrating visibility around a handful of company announcements.

Campaign Results

The Strait of Hormuz campaign alone generated coverage in CNBC, SupplyChainBrain and Sourcing Journal, with additional syndicated visibility through Yahoo Finance.

The broader reactive program secured additional placements across:

The program established a repeatable model for reactive PR: prepare before the news breaks, respond with specific operational insight and stay in the conversation as the story develops.

The PANBlast and PAN UK team members supporting the program included Account Supervisor Liam Bailey, Senior Account Director Kerry Marshall, Account Executive Meredith Bushman, Account Manager Becca Williams, Senior Content Specialist Gizzelle Sandoval, VP Kelsey Sowder and SVP Grace Williams.

“What’s worked for us is consistency. PANBlast doesn’t wait for news to happen to us, they keep us ready to respond and keep our name in front of the right people month after month, whether that’s a survey, a reactive quote or a bylined piece. When the Strait of Hormuz situation hit, that preparation showed. We were in CNBC and SupplyChainBrain within hours, not days, and that kind of visibility with the outlets our customers and prospects actually read is exactly the return we look for from PR.” — Aseem Kumar, VP Marketing, Locus