This article originally appeared in PR Week. 

Client: Loop (Boston)
Agency: PAN Communications (Boston)
Campaign: Loop Launch
Duration: February 1-March 30
Budget: $25,000

Loop hired PAN Communications as AOR to launch its first mobile payment products — the LoopWallet app and the Loop Fob.

“We were introducing Loop’s patented technology to the marketplace for the first time, and mobile payment is a relatively new concept to a lot of people so awareness is very important to our company,” explains VP of product marketing Jennifer Ni.

Strategy

Agency VP Nicole Messier-Marino says coverage of mobile payment often focuses on technology that isn’t yet available, so the team stressed that Loop’s product would be on the market February 19 and that it works at 90% of retail locations.

Loop’s cofounder and CEO Will Graylin has launched five companies focused on mobile computing, security and payments, and the team capitalized on his experience to drive earned coverage and buzz among early adopters.

“Mobile payment is hot,” Messier-Marino says. “There’s controversy in the space. The startups involved have all looked at it in different ways, so adoption hasn’t taken over. There are early adopters and demand, and we need to keep Loop in the ecosystem of [multiple] industry stories.”

Tactics

A video of real people using Loop at retailer locations was pitched to journalists and bloggers and posted to Loop’s social media channels and looppay.com. Graylin is also featured in the video.

Graylin and other Loop executives conducted one-on-one interviews with tech and consumer outlets nationwide between February 10 and 19.

Reporters got Loop Fobs to review.

Loop executives attended CES (January 7 to 10), Mobile World Congress (February 24 to 27), and SXSW (March 7 to 16).

Though Loop didn’t have a CES booth, the team secured interviews with prominent consumer tech reporters.

Executives and the PR team connected with consumers at SXSW, gave away a few hundred Loop Fobs, and demonstrated the product. Photos of consumers using the product during SXSW were tweeted in real time.

Results

Unique visitors to Looppay.com increased 300% between February 19 and March 1 compared to the same time period the previous month.

“Sales have exceeded our expectations, and a lot of the increased website traffic translated into sales,” Ni says. “Our Loop Fob inventory was quickly depleted during launch week and we had to order a second batch.”

Fifty earned placements ran between February 19 and March 16. About 200 stories have run to date in outlets such as Re/code, Forbes, TechCrunch, The Verge, USA Today, ABC News, and CBS This Morning.

Multiple outlets created their own man-on-the-street type videos of reporters testing the product.

Between February 19 and March 1 Twitter followers increased more than 80% and Facebook likes increased more than 15%.

Future

The team will promote additional Loop “app-cessories” as they become available throughout this year.