Making connections with new press
Precor wanted wider visibility with a tech and digital health audience. Voxus put them in the spotlight at CES.
Hello digital world
Over the years, Precor® has invented entire fitness equipment categories that are now commonplace, including Elliptical and Adaptive Motion Trainer (AMT®). So it’s no surprise that the company now finds itself pioneering another new category – Networked Fitness – that promises to have a significant impact on consumer lifestyles and health.
Given this story, Precor wanted to introduce itself to the larger consumer tech and digital health media landscape by leveraging the grand CES stage for its launch. Forgetting for the moment the fact that it had never before been to a show like CES, three main challenges stood in the way. First, the company would not be unveiling any new products, or even have some ‘can’t-believe-your-eyes’ demonstration, both hallmarks of the CES show. Second, it had one small booth among a sea of other vendors. Third, limited resources meant Precor had to focus on impactful media results, not volume, as the pre-registered press list alone is more than 2,500 contacts.
Fortunately Precor had already engaged Voxus to get the word out.
Use CES to reach consumer tech and healthcare press
Voxus had been working with Precor to promote networked fitness to an existing industry audience of equipment resellers, trainers, health and fitness clubs, application and content developers, etc. So when the company decided on CES as a venue to reach a larger consumer audience – despite the fact that they wouldn’t have any major news – our first job was to craft a unique overall story and identify needed supporting points. We knew competitors were likely to focus on traditional “sparkly” but shallow CES demos, and we wanted to take a different tack. Our strategy was to tie into a larger meaningful theme that Precor could own for its launch: the growing personalization of health and fitness, and how networked equipment, applications, content, workout data, etc., were now coalescing to empower consumers.
Story telling vs. show and telling
Voxus also helped Precor set a specific launch objective for the show: make connections with new consumer tech and healthcare press. To get in front of these contacts, we eschewed the mega-sized “pre-registered press list” in favor of more labor-intensive coverage and affinity searches. This had the added benefit of unearthing influencers not attending CES that were equally or even more important to brief than those signed up to attend. And because CES is incredibly noisy, we began outreach almost two months before the show to arrange phone briefings and booth meetings. Speaking with select press pre-show also helped ensure appointments would not be missed or cut short due to the hectic nature of the show.
Better preparation leads to better results
Despite the fact that the company’s main competitors were at CES with bigger news, Precor managed to garner the lion’s share of show coverage. Voxus helped the company land 15 total media briefings and 24 original articles and videos. Precor achieved its goal of establishing new relationships with editors at consumer tech publications including Consumer Reports, GigaOm, PC Magazine and TechHive, and healthcare news sites HealthGauge, HealthLeaders Media and InformationWeek Healthcare. And the company’s activities at CES spilled over from these outlets to be picked up across mainstream news sites, such as Associated Press, AOL, Huffington Post, USA Today and The Washington Times. Total impressions for coverage reached a whopping 30 million.
