InfoPrint
InfoPrint Steals the Show at drupa 2008

The InfoPrint Solutions Company sought to maximize its visibility at drupa, which is the worldwide printing industry’s largest trade show. InfoPrint is a joint venture of IBM and Ricoh, and a key objective for Breakaway and InfoPrint’s in-house marketing team was to demonstrate to media, customers and partners from around the globe how successful the venture had been since its formation in 2007. It was especially important to show the tight integration with Ricoh, which will assume full ownership of InfoPrint in 2011.

The conference coincided with InfoPrint’s one-year anniversary, which provided a perfect theme for PR efforts: a celebration at drupa. Our task was to make InfoPrint stand out from the crowd…no small feat at an event comprising 18 halls, with hundreds and hundreds of vendors all trying to capture the attention of press and attendees!

Our Strategy

Aggressive pre-show activity: The team began planning in January 2008, nearly six months prior to the drupa conference, which was held in June. Our first program was to coordinate InfoPrint’s participation during the official drupa “media week” in Germany, where InfoPrint executives made a presentation with parent company Ricoh. In addition, working closely with InfoPrint’s network of agencies around the world, the Breakaway team pursued coverage in all pre-show issues of key publications to ensure growing media momentum and a chance to stand out from the crowd at the show.

Highly visible at-show presence: The team ran a tight PR outreach program in the US, Europe and around the world designed to maximize InfoPrint’s visibility at this very noisy and crowded exhibition. We pitched media, booked meetings at the event, crafted briefing materials for executives, developed a solid pipeline of news announcements, coordinated the “first anniversary party” and secured party attendance. Breakaway staffed the event for a week in Germany, hosting meetings onsite, setting up broadcast interviews, pitching the show daily and much more.

Results

• InfoPrint executives met with over 80 media and analysts, representing over 15 countries around the world
• 70 of these interviews were pre-booked prior to the show
• 22 international media and analysts joined the celebration for InfoPrint’s first anniversary event, despite tough competition from other companies hosting press events on the same night
• We hosted one of the world’s most prominent analyst firms, Gartner, on one of our customer boat trips
• InfoPrint issued five press releases during the two week event, detailing new customer wins, product launches, upgrades and ongoing solutions development
• Pre-show press coverage included an article in the Wall Street Journal as well as many hits in prominent trade and industry titles around the world in countries including France, Spain, Italy, Brazil, Australia, Germany, Russia, and the UK
• Two broadcast interviews were filmed onsite with InfoPrint executives

Back to Case Studies