Case study: Gadget Glamour

Client: Gadget Glamour

Work: B2C; offline and online media relations campaign.

Duration: 3 months.

Date: Winter 2010.

Background: Founded by Yorkshire designer Rick Jesse in 2010, Gadget Glamour creates and sells decorative skins and decals for iPhones, iPads, laptops and games consoles.

The Gadget Glamour ranges feature themed artwork and downloadable, matching wallpapers. Designs range from fairytales to candy stripes and polka dots, with custom designs created to order.

Tinderbox Media was appointed in September 2010 to devise and launch a three-month consumer PR campaign for Gadget Glamour.

Objectives:

With only three months to create a buzz around Gadget Glamour, Tinderbox Media created an online and offline PR strategy for the company that had five main aims:

• To raise awareness of Gadget Glamour and its products by securing coverage in targeted online and offline media.
• To raise awareness about Gadget Glamour among female iPad and iPhone owners.
• To secure backlinks where possible to the Gadget Glamour site, complementing an ongoing SEO campaign.
• To drive targeted traffic to the Gadget Glamour site.
• To drive sales of Gadget Glamour products!

Strategy:

Tinderbox Media’s three-month consumer PR campaign was tailored to target female gadget enthusiasts in the 14-40 age bracket.

We split target media into four key groups:

• Online: the top tech/gadget blogs aimed at women.
• Online: women’s lifestyle blogs & other online publications.
• Offline: newspaper sections and glossy magazines targeted at girls and women aged 14-40.
• Offline: other. Selected tech, gadget slots and broadcast slots.

Tinderbox Media launched three initiatives:

1.       The creation of an Online Media Pack:

The Online Media Pack included:

• Four short YouTube videos, filmed and edited by Tinderbox Media, which demonstrated how to apply Gadget Glamour stickers and decals to iPads, iPhones and laptops.
• Tailored press releases, with full pricing information.
• A gallery of downloadable images.

2.       Product Drops: Tinderbox Media identified key female technology bloggers and relevant national journalists in order to send out samples of Gadget Glamour products to these bloggers and journalists. All send-outs were accompanied by the Online Media Pack.

3.       Competitions: Tinderbox Media also ran Gadget Glamour product competitions and giveaways via key online channels including targeted blogs.

Results:

Tinderbox Media secured 54 pieces of coverage – against a target of 9 pieces of coverage.

Highlights of the campaign included coverage of Gadget Glamour on 30 commercial radio stations across the UK and a front-of-book spot in Cosmopolitan.

So how did we do it?

Well first of all, our blogger outreach campaign went above and beyond to provide bloggers and journalists with all of the necessary information about the brand and position Gadget Glamour as unmissable web destination for female iPad and iPhone owners.

The combined effort of our Online Media Packs and Product Drops allowed a dialogue to develop between Tinderbox Media and key journalists, particularly around Gadget Glamour skins that would fit and suit their particular iPhone or iPad model. We then sent out tailored skins suitable to the tastes and product models of these journalists, along with an easy to follow online tutorial demonstrating how to easily fit their skin.

This personal dialogue provided us with the opportunity to send these journalists a copy of our press release, detailing all necessary information about Gadget Glamour and the pricing of their products. This tailored introduction to the brand really worked, and with coverage appearing online, offline and on broadcast channels country-wide, the proof, as they say, is in the pudding.

Our focus on competitions and giveaways of Gadget Glamour products also helped to secure coverage, and translated into 30 pieces of broadcast coverage on radio stations up and down the country. With the prize advertised a £50 voucher to spend on the Gadget Glamour website, listeners across the UK were subjected to information about the company and the URL of the site.

By this point, new coverage was appearing almost daily across both online and offline channels. The online coverage meant that we were able to secure backlinks to the Gadget Glamour website, including a high profile link on the Daily Telegraph website. Not only great for the on-going SEO effort, but these links and coverage drove targeted traffic to the Gadget Glamour site. In fact, we are told that the offline coverage in Cosmopolitan drove in record levels of website traffic – the majority of which translated into sales of the featured leopard print skin!

Finally, by positioning Gadget Glamour as an unmissable web destination for female iPad and iPad owners, our short-term PR campaign has had a long-term impact. Our Cosmopolitan coverage still features on the main panel on the homepage of the Gadget Glamour website and the leopard print skin is still a favourite with consumers.