When British glass maker Pilkington developed a true
self-cleaning window glass, they launched it in Europe
with the aid of a large international agency -- to little
interest and with minimal result.
So when the time came to introduce Activ™ Glass
in the United States, Pilkington retained LMG to handle
it. Rather than just a domestic program, however we
decided to treat our program as the real launch of "the
world's first self-cleaning glass".
The Dirt Destroyer
Already, some competitors had started making noise
about their own "self-cleaning" glass products.
These were, in truth, little more than "slippery
glass"…special coatings that made water run
off the glass more easily.
By contrast, Activ™ Glass is a highly sophisticated
product that actually uses sunlight – in a process
similar to that employed in Pilkington's solar glass
that generates electricity – to create a chemical
reaction at the molecular level that actually breaks
down organic compounds.
To capture this vital difference, we created a
character we called "The Dirt Destroyer™":
a sun-like creature that "eats" the dirt
off windows.
The Dirt Destroyer™ became a continuing
element of advertising for both
the residential and commercial window markets.
LMG developed ways to best demonstrate
Activ glass' amazing performance, and designed dramatic,
attention-getting displays to accommodate them.
On Top of the World
Then, to give this product the kind of attention we
felt its revolutionary nature deserved, we held a major
press conference to announce it at Windows on the World
in New York City. This was preceded by news releases
with key print media, and followed with a video news
release distributed by satellite nationwide.
The Results:
The New York Times devoted nearly a quarter-page
to Activ™ Glass
CNN's Jeannie Moos made it the focus of a three-minute
feature that almost hourly on CNN, CNN Financial and
CNN International networks for the next two weeks.
Fox News deemed it one of their “Hot Stories
of the Week”.
Over than 300 local television stations around the
country either ran our video news release or
used it as the basis for their own story, and newspapers
as far away as Bangkok carried the story.
And most gratifying to us, this time the international
media jumped on the story, and both German television
and the BBC did features with Pilkington headquarters
directly.
Lead scientist Dr.
Kevin Sanderson, of Pilkington U.K., demonstrates
Activ™ glass' dirt-destroying properties to
CNN's Jeannie Moos.
