Last Monday, IBM's 1.4-ton super-computer Deep Blue, flanked by several security guards, was loaded onto an 18-wheeler for its journey back to the company's office in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., where it's now being reconfigured for its new owner whose name had yet to be disclosed as of late last week.
Apparently, the new owner doesn't want the publicity. Unlike IBM.
Michelle Sawatka, a senior account executive and one of the lead PR staffers on New York-based TSI's Deep Blue PR team, told us on May 14 that media measurements linked to Deep Blue's match with chess genius Garry Kasparov will probably exceed last year's match with Kasparov (who won last year) when more than a billion impressions were generated.
We, at PR NEWS, find it difficult to fathom that Deep Blue's new owner - who Sawatka said paid more than $1 million for the powerhouse numbers cruncher - wouldn't seize on this media opportunity the way IBM did.
(In fact, IBM hasn't been shy about seeking this media blitz, which has so far landed the company a five-inch notebook worth of clips that are being reviewed by three full-time TSI staffers. Those articles will be added to what is turned over by IBM's clipping service Burrelle's.)
"The main reason IBM did this was because it expected to generate the interest that it did," mused Sawatka, who added that 120 journalists attended the pre-event press conference on May 1.
Reporters were from CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox; Russian and German TV stations; the L.A. Times, the San Francisco Chronicle and The Washington Post; and National Public Radio, to name a few.
TSI and IBM also set up an on-site press room that served as a media center where international media outlets were courted and where U.S. editors and reporters convened while the match went on.
Ironically, even though Deep Blue's new owner hadn't gone public as of May 14, it stands to reason that publicity seekers worldwide would try to capitalize on the showdown between man and machine.
On May 13, Club Xiang Qi Ltd. reported that it would pay $1 million to the IBM Deep Blue Team if its computer can win a Chinese Chess tournament against a human master selected by the club.
Sawatka told PR NEWS several days after Kasparov lost the final game that the company didn't have a response yet to the club's challenge. (TSI, 212/696-2000)