Mollie

The Starting Point

When Openers came on board in August 2022, Mollie had limited brand awareness in German-speaking markets and no clearly defined communications profile. The challenge wasn't to introduce a new product — it was to establish a company with genuine depth and expertise as the definitive thought leader for e-commerce and financial services in DACH. And to do it in a media landscape that has little patience for corporate noise.

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What We Do

Building a Communications Architecture from the Ground Up

The first task was strategic clarity. We developed an overarching communications approach built around Mollie's core messages — ensuring that every piece of outreach, every pitch, every placement reinforced the same consistent positioning. Coverage was monitored not just for volume but for message occurrence, giving us a live feedback loop to adapt strategy where needed. From day one, consistency was the foundation everything else was built on.

Turning Corporate News into Thought Leadership

Plain corporate announcements rarely earn more than a passing mention in trade press — and Mollie's ambitions were bigger than that. Rather than defaulting to press releases, we developed a discipline of embedding product news and partnership announcements into broader editorial contexts that journalists actually wanted to cover.

A strong example: when Mollie announced its partnership with Billie, a B2B Buy Now Pay Later provider, we didn't pitch the partnership itself. We pitched the argument — why BNPL matters for SMEs navigating a challenging economic environment — and made the partnership the proof point. The result was substantive coverage that positioned Mollie as a genuine expert rather than a company with something to announce. Every storyline was built on rigorous groundwork: extensive data research followed by focused Q&A sessions with spokespeople, designed to extract expert insight efficiently without overloading internal teams.

C-Level Positioning: Building a Distinct Profile for Mollie's GM DACH

With limited access to global C-level, almost all thought leadership efforts in DACH centred on one person: Annett Plath, Mollie's General Manager for DACH. The challenge was to build a profile expansive enough to earn Tier 1 placements — without being constrained by the relatively narrow pool of payment-specific topics.

The solution was to look beyond the product. Annett's background spanning years at some of Europe's most significant tech companies gave us a rich set of angles to work with. We developed positioning around topics she was both credible and passionate about — female leadership, Gen Z's impact on the workplace, the future of work — opening up outlets like Süddeutsche Zeitung that would have been out of reach with a purely product-led approach. The result was a spokesperson profile that felt authoritative across multiple verticals, not just one.

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Expanding the Playing Field: Making Mollie More Than a PSP

Fintech and e-commerce verticals in DACH are finite. Pitching the same outlets on the same topics week after week quickly reaches a ceiling. To break through it, we combined two approaches: creative ideation and agenda surfing.

On the creative side, we developed employer branding and human interest angles that gave media a different kind of Mollie story — Mollie employees explaining what it's like to relocate to the Netherlands, portraits of staff who balance semi-professional sports careers with their day jobs, and candid accounts of what workation actually looks like inside a progressive European tech company. Each story was designed to establish Mollie as a modern, people-first employer while generating coverage in outlets beyond the usual fintech beat.

On the agenda surfing side, we continuously monitored business, startup, and daily media for the meta-topics gaining traction — and matched them to internal expertise. When AI became the dominant conversation in tech media, we identified data analyst Ryan Chaves as the right voice and placed him in tech verticals with bylines exploring how e-commerce SMEs can pragmatically implement AI and why machine learning has a more immediate impact on merchants than the hype suggests.

What We Move

What started as a brand with limited visibility in DACH has become a recognised voice in the conversations that matter to European e-commerce. Mollie's key messages are now consistently present across coverage. Its GM DACH has a distinct and credible public profile that extends well beyond payment services. And the company has demonstrated — repeatedly, across different topics and formats — that it has more to say than its product category alone would suggest.

In a market where fintech brands struggle to be heard above the noise, Mollie has earned something more durable than coverage: a reputation as a company worth listening to.

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