There was never any question that Analog Devices (ADI) customer Fishman Transducers had a cool story to tell. The Fishman team employed an ADI Blackfin digital signal processor (DSP) to re-image the psychoacoustic characteristics of acoustic guitars, applying complex algorithms to the vibrational output of piezoelectric bridge pickups.
Many engineers are guitar players, so the story was bound to get trade media attention from that perspective. But for ADI, Rainier’s job was to leverage the cool application to get the client’s key Blackfin messages in front of engineering audiences. Message-rich coverage would point engineers to Blackfin as a good processor choice for their own designs.
Key messages plus top placement
After placing the story online with EDN and DesignNews during the week of CES, Rainier took aim at EE Times, high-tech’s benchmark news publication. The result of Rainier’s pitch, which included connecting EE Times with Fishman Transducers CEO Larry Fishman for vital third-party affirmation, was a powerful article that cited ADI’s Blackfin as the application’s main technology enabler.
The article persuasively associated the Blackfin brand with “DSP,” and underscored primary Blackfin messages including positioning the device as a “convergent processor,” and emphasizing its low power consumption (“longer battery life than any other commercial DSP”).
The story appeared on the EE Times home page, and quickly skyrocketed to the coveted position of most-popular-story.
“This is the kind of surgically precise PR every technology company hopes for from an agency,” said ADI vice-president Jerry McGuire (himself a guitarist). “By getting our key messages in front of design engineers through this kind of media coverage, Rainier helps drive our business objectives – new design wins – in today’s growth markets.”
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