One Friday afternoon, Microworkz.com moved up the launch of their new low-cost WEBzter PC family ($299) by six weeks. In response, the Rainier PR team leapt into action with a press release and immediate calls to our media contacts. The result was an overnight sensation that literally crashed the Microworkz.com web servers with more than 7.4 million hits in a single day.
Results: Massive Same-Day Attention and More
Immediate on-line feature article hits for Microworkz.com included CNET, Newsbytes, PC World News, Dow Jones Business News and Excite. By Tuesday the agency got Microworkz.com on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, a feature story in The New York Times, plus daily top-tier coverage in almost every major city.
By the weekend, Rainier secured almost 100 TV and radio hits, including CNN and the major networks. News magazines started coming in the next week and Rainier got Microworkz.com in Newsweek’s Cyberscope, and Time Magazine’s “Your Technology” sections. Meanwhile, Rainier developed a national advertising campaign that ran in PC sector publications and People Magazine.
Rainier’s campaign resulted in over 70,000 orders for WEBzter PCs in the first month following the product’s release.
PR coverage from Rainier’s campaign included:
- 269 print outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, Business Week and the New York Times
- 329 online pick-ups, including Cnet and Zdnet
- 123 TV and Broadcast reports, including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, CNBC and FOX
Creative Tactics: Inventing the “Digital Divide”
The $299 price was an obvious differentiator for the Microworkz product, but Rainier advised going to market with a much bigger message. “By introducing WEBzter at $299, we put Web access within reach for a huge number of people that just couldn’t afford it before,” said Microworkz president, Rick Latman. “We priced our computers at a point where we could effectively demolish the socioeconomic barriers between the ‘data-haves’ and the ‘data have-nots.’”
The creative approach conceived by Rainier was the first-ever reference to what would become known as the “digital divide.”
