Client: iWon.com (Irvington, NY)
Client: iWon.com (Irvington, NY)
PR Team: Ruder-Finn (New York)
Campaign:: Launch of iWon.com
Time Frame: July 1999 to present
Budget: N/A (’healthy’)
When Bill Daugherty and Jonas Steinman hired Ruder-Finn to handle their
public relations in July, they did so with a catch: the agency could not
disclose the product until October 5, its official launch date. Everyone
involved had to sign a confidentiality agreement and all documents
related to the project had to be destroyed shortly after review. Even
the name - iWon.com - couldn’t appear in internal communications. It was
called Project Bulldog.
iWon.com, which is backed by CBS to the tune of dollars 100 million, is
an Internet portal, a gateway to the World Wide Web, that runs a
sweepstakes, giving away dollars 10,000 daily and dollars 1 million
monthly. On April 17 (tax day next year), one user will win the grand
prize: dollars 10 million.
So how do you do public relations for a company that doesn’t want you to
disclose its product?
Strategy
Ruder-Finn decided to create a broad-based campaign that went after
consumers, businesses and analysts, with an eye toward driving traffic
to iWon.com.
It also prepared to communicate CBS’ involvement and to continue
generating publicity after the start-up. Ultimately, it wanted to
promote iWon’s brand.
Tactics
Behind the scenes, Ruder-Finn met with Sapient, iWon.com’s technology
provider, to learn the workings, and with CBS, to coordinate
strategies.
’We also wanted to figure out a way to document everything that was
going on prior to launch without having the story come out,’ says agency
SVP Tony Telloni. They approached ABC’s Nightline and offered behind-
the-scenes access to the birth of an Internet company. ABC spent four
weeks with the founders. On October 5, iWon.com held a news conference
at CBS headquarters to launch the site.
Results
The press conference generated stories on the major networks, wire
services and newspapers, including The New York Times, The Wall Street
Journal and USA Today. Total reach topped 50 million impressions in the
first month, Ruder-Finn reported.
Meanwhile, the Nightline piece ’touched upon every one of the audiences
we wanted to hit, whether it was the advertisers, the consumers or the
business press,’ says Ruder-Finn managing director Richard Funess. Tens
of thousands of users registered immediately after the show aired
October 22. As for the business success of iWon.com, ’We’re exceeding
their expectations in terms of unique visitors, numbers and page views,’
Telloni says.
Future
Ruder-Finn wants to portray iWon.com as a fast-growing company and ’a
very credible portal that is amassing a number of unique users,’ Telloni
says. With five months to go until the big dollars 10 million giveaway,
they expect to generate great interest.
