Case Studies:
Business to Consumer
Heavyweight Measurement
Pivit sales prove PR effectiveness.
How do you show the effect of PR on sales? It is probably the most difficult to attain, yet most desired, measurement goal. (See The Measurement Standard newsletter articles "How Do I Use Measurement to Show a Link between PR and Sales?" and "Using PR to Drive Sales in the Current Economy.") The most straightforward way to prove the PR-to-sales connection is to examine a situation in which nothing but PR affects sales. For example, when the launch of a brand-new product is done without advertising. That is just what happened with the launch of Pivit, a new balance board designed for practicing the skills needed for extreme sports such as skateboarding, snowboarding, and surfing.
A BIG Event
The goals of NMC Partners, the agency responsible for the launch of the new Pivit board, were to create instant brand recognition, to influence retailers to add Pivit to their product line, and to drive direct sales of the product from the company’s Web site. Because this was an almost new product (previously, it was sold only at The Sharper Image) and no advertising was involved, NMC knew that all sales could be attributed to their PR. Their inspired solution included a “balance off” between huge sumo athletes atop the boards at the South Street Seaport Sharper Image store in New York City.
The PR Program
Starting in June 2002, NMC Partners executed a variety of tactics, including a long lead print media campaign, the placement of 16,000 posters of a sumo wrestler riding a Pivit, a satellite media tour, and, finally, the retail event featuring balancing sumos challenging kids to Pivit. The event at the South Street Seaport provided valuable B-roll footage of the wrestlers challenging each other to do tricks on the Pivit.
The Results
The results, to quote ESPN’s SportsCenter, were “stunning.” Broadcast coverage included more than 667 airings, including almost all of the top 100 markets as well as national media such as ESPN SportsCenter, CNN Headline News and Good Day Live!, and reached more than 35 million viewers. See some results—and Piviting wrestlers—here. Web traffic on the Pivit Web site increased dramatically and consistently throughout the campaign. An especially large spike in Web traffic was reported after the Pivit sumo event.
Pivit sales went from close to zero at the start of the campaign to a peak of 1,000 per week at the height of the 2002 holiday season. The Pivit sumo event led QVC to offer the company a segment to sell Pivit on a primetime broadcast the week before Christmas. In 2.5 minutes on QVC the company sold 1,400 boards. In fact, Pivit sold out its entire inventory. That’s a sales goal any PR program would be proud to achieve.
—Thanks to Kathleen Buczko of NMC Partners for submitting the material for this article.
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