Product launches

1. Take for example the relaunch of tour operator Owners Abroad as First Choice Holidays in 1994. In a highly integrated marketing campaign, Hill & Knowlton was faced with the need to create maximum noise and widespread media coverage for a story which lacked intrinsic news value. A travel company name change and brand restructuring essentially was a city/business pages story. So, the consultancy undertook a thorough review of the holiday market and competitors’ activities in order to develop a programme which would successfully differentiate First Choice Holidays from day one. This was essential since the launch of the new company was timed for August when its main competitors also would be unveiling their holiday brochures for the following summer.

2. Working closely with the client and more than six other agencies including Ogilvy & Mather, Promotional Campaigns and Sampson-Tyrrell, Hill & Knowlton used colourful, high profile consumer PR techniques to characterize and extend the personality of the new company and its brands throughout a full range of communications. Objectives for the project included maintaining secrecy of the brands and the plans pre-launch while stimulating interest, making maximum impact at launch across all external and internal target audiences, building a positive new public image and corporate profile, creating a positive buying/selling environment among consumers and the travel trade, and generating excitement and support from all staff.

3. In the absence of inherent news value, an event was created which married neatly with the new company personality and marketing activity, and the ability to generate a high volume of branded news coverage. A celebrity-hosted game show was staged in the four cities of London, Manchester, Glasgow and Birmingham, all satellite-linked. A total of 27 celebrities were contracted to appear. Some 1500 consumers attended the game shows, having been selected through a two-week pre-launch Daily Mirror promotion, and targeted high-circulation regional press and radio competitions. Holiday prizes were awarded to every attendee at the show and there were opportunities to win long-haul holiday prizes at the shows. Over 3300 travel agents attended repeated performances of the satellite shows on two separate evenings. The London game show set also was the venue for a city analysts’ briefing, a press conference and photocall. And, for good measure, the game show was satellite-linked to a staff party at company headquarters.

4. The results were phenomenal, including next-day branded editorial coverage in all national press titles, over an hour of television coverage and 22 minutes of radio coverage, together exceeding total gross impressions of 66.5 million (combined circulation, listnership and viewership figures). An integrated campaign achieved early bookings for First Choice Summer ’95 holidays, increasing by 42.4 per cent on the previous year’s early bookings for Summer ’94 in a market that had grown by less than 5 per cent over the same period. Share price increased as a direct result of the launch day announcement and sales growth.

5. The big bang is one way to launch a new product, but there are other, equally effective ways. When Hill & Knowlton was asked to launch a new soccer boot for international sportswear manufacturer adidas, the brief was complicated by a number of challenges. The brand, which was under new ownership, was perceived as ‘tired’ and, in spite of its formidable heritage, it lacked in contemporary youth appeal. In addition, adidas’ market share was suffering from the encroachment of its main competitors, Nike and Reebok, who were deploying their considerable above-the-line advertising spending power to buy into the soccer market which adidas traditionally had dominated.

6. The 1994 Soccer World Cup in the USA provided a platform from which to refocus the brand’s image among the youth market. Adidas chose this event to launch an innovative new soccer boot, named Predator, which had been invented by former Liverpool soccer player Craig Johnston, together with a range of other equipment produced to promote its status as an official licensee of the World Cup finals.

7. Specifically, the public relations objectives were as follows:

• take ownership of the game of soccer and create respect for adidas within the industry;

• underline adidas’ official licensee status in the World Cup USA ’94;

• communicate the product qualities of Predator – more accuracy, more velocity and more ball swerve;

• reposition adidas to the youth market as ‘cool’, ‘radically different’ and ‘technologically superior’.

The core strategy developed in the UK was as a blueprint to launch Predator around the world and included the use of the World Cup finals draw in Las Vegas in December 1993 as the platform for the official launch. Hill & Knowlton created the ‘unfair advantage’ proposition, based on Predator’s proven superiority, to generate media controversy around the official launch, and leveraged the profile of Craig Johnston as ‘the inventor as hero’, as well as ‘adidas the company’.

The campaign was executed in three phases:

Pre-launch	mid-Nov to mid-Dec 1993	teaser campaign
Launch	17 Dec 1993	World Cup finals draw
Post-launch	Jan to June 1994	maintaining momentum

One month before the World Cup finals draw, a two-part ‘whispering’ campaign was run. Firstly, news was leaked via third parties such as FIFA, soccer’s worldwide governing body, that international players were testing a new ‘superboot’ which would give certain players an ‘unfair advantage’ in the forthcoming World Cup. Reinforcing this rumour, ‘teaser’ paparazzistyle ‘sneak shots’ of professional players testing out a new ‘superboot’ were leaked to the media.

In Las Vegas, a media event hosted by soccer stars was held 48 hours before the Finals Draw to launch Predator officially. The city was the focus of world media attention and provided a captive audience of soccer journalists, and adidas already had an official role/reason for being present as an official licensee of the World Cup, providing the official matchball, equipment and uniforms for tournament officials.

World Television News sent footage of the event by satellite to London where it was incorporated with B-roll footage showing the concept, development, production and testing of the boot which Hill & Knowlton had produced in advance. The completed video news release was distributed to all UK and European broadcasters. The whole process took less than hours. Press materials, together with samples of the boot and official matchball, were distributed on an ‘exclusive’ basis to broadcasters covering the Finals Draw, to provide ‘filler’ material for their event coverage, and FIFA endorsed Predator’s ‘legality’ at the Finals Draw event.

Immediately following the launch, a wide range of activities were implemented to maintain media and public’s interest in the boot until it went on sale in May, and throughout the World Cup in June. ‘Good news stories’ were announced regularly, such as the signing of professional players and the first goal scored in a professional match by a player wearing the boot. Media promotions, both print and broadcast, offered the opportunity to win a pair of Predator boots before they went on sale. One-to-one coaching clinics were held with selected media and contracted professional players to demonstrate Predator’s performance. An ‘April Fool’ photo shoot was staged showing England goalkeeper David Seaman wearing an over-sized pair of gloves – the story being that adidas were now helping goalkeepers to cope with the anticipated onslaught of Predator. BBC2-TV’s QED documentary series produced and aired a programme in April about the concept and development of Predator, focusing on the inventor Craig Johnston.

The impact was excellent. Stocks of Predator boots sold out in the UK two months after they went on sale in May 1994. The strength of the third-party endorsement via media coverage persuaded the ITC, which had no other criteria available, to accept the claims made by adidas’s advertising campaign. The advertising finally went on-air in mid-June 1994. UK print coverage reached an audience of 65 million based on circulation figures, and 71 minutes of broadcast coverage was generated.