When Microsoft Corp. [MSFT] approached Shandwick/New York in November 1996 to promote its new "Barney ActiMates" interactive toy, the firm faced an equal number of possibilities and challenges.
While Shandwick had the leverage of promoting a product by one of the best-known companies in the world, Microsoft was completely new to the toy industry.
And, Shandwick would be gearing up to debut and promote the toy immediately prior to and during the 1997 American International Toy Fair - precisely when thousands of toy companies also are promoting countless new products.
On the upside, the Barney ActiMates - an interactive, programmed plush doll that interacts with TV programming and the computer, was a unique product that had redefined interactivity in toys and created an entirely new product category.
In addition to garnering important media coverage, and driving media to Microsoft's showroom at Toy Fair, Shandwick's initial strategic plan for the launch was meant to establish a long-term presence for Microsoft in the toy industry. Instead of going for the quick visual hit or sound bite, the firm systematically set out to build relationships with analysts in the toy and personal computer industries. The budget for the campaign was $300,000.
According to Eric Slutsky, VP, Shandwick, the firm came up with four PR objectives:
- To establish the company as a new player in the toy industry;
- To build acceptance among the educational community, since the product had a strong educational component;
- To create consumer demand and get awareness going;
- To cultivate a positive relationship with governmental and child advocacy groups to win their support of the product.
The strategy resulted in 1.5 billion consumer impressions for 1997, and 2,000 print and 750 broadcast stories.
To cut through the clutter and create that original buzz about the product immediately prior to Toy Fair, Shandwick decided to aim for high-profile business coverage and target The Wall Street Journal, which publishes an annual story on hot products at Toy Fair prior to its opening.
"We proactively pursued the writers of that article and sent them a product," says Slutsky. "Not only did the Barney ActiMates get a big share of coverage in that article, it was also included in the headline."
Other pre-show coverage included USA Today, "CBS This Morning," CNN, E! Entertainment Television, and ABC-TV's "World News Tonight."
A analyst tour was launched from Shandwick's Seattle office. Together with a Shandwick account exec., a Microsoft product manager traveled to demonstrate the product to six toy and computer analysts at their desks in New York, San Francisco, Boston and Washington, D.C.
"It was very successful, " says Slutsky. "[Subsequently], when the media was looking for what was going to be hot at Toy Fair, they called the analysts."
"It was also a way of eliciting a third-party endorsement, from a source outside of Microsoft," says Caryl Szendsen, senior VP, new media and publishing.
To elicit endorsement from the educational community, Shandwick hired Chicago-based PR firm Grant/Jacoby/Monyek & Associates, a firm with a core competency in the education community, says Szendsen.
To arouse the interest of the consumer media prior to Toy Fair, Shandwick sent 500 postcard-style invitations out that read, "Microsoft + Barney = ?" The postcard resulted in Shandwick receiving calls from and creating showroom tours for 125 members of the media.
Once Toy Fair began, Shandwick staged a bagel and coffee area in the registration tent. The coffee was served in cups that contained the same message as the postcard invitations, and was designed to attract members of the media and retailers who had not yet heard of the product to Microsoft's showroom.
Throughout the launch, Shandwick did not send out press kits or product samples (except to The Wall Street Journal) because it felt that simply reading about an interactive product, or receiving a product and not knowing how it worked, would not be helpful. Instead, it sought to get the media and retailers to the showroom, where six Shandwick staffers and Microsoft product managers and developers led full-blown tours that demonstrated the full range of the ActiMates. It also set up a monitor in the showroom with a two-minute video loop showing kids playing with the product.
Shandwick shied away from using costumed characters and other gimmicks out in front of 200 5th Avenue, the building where many of the Toy Fair showrooms are located.
"We didn't want to go head to head with a gauntlet of characters," says Szendsen. "While those approaches do get [visual coverage] from the media they often don't cover the companies [associated with the product]. And if you just look at a Barney, you wouldn't be able to tell it was an ActiMates. We felt tactics like quick visual hits weren't going to do it justice."
Leveraging the success of the Barney ActiMate launch, this year Shandwick launched the Arthur and D.W. ActiMate at Toy Fair 1998. (Eric Slutsky, Caryl Szendsen, Shandwick, 212/686-6666; Lisa Wolfe, Grant, Jacoby, 312/988-4134)
Shandwick's Objectives
Shandwick created four PR objectives for Microsoft's toy foray:
- To establish Microsoft as a new player in the toy industry;
- To build acceptance among the educational community, since the product had a strong educational component;
- To create consumer demand and get awareness going;
- To cultivate a positive relationship with governmental and child advocacy groups to win their support of the product.
Source: Shandwick