HoMedics

CRT/tanaka supports HoMedics with a variety of public relations initiatives designed to highlight the innovation and affordability of the company’s extensive line of personal wellness products. These initiatives include media relations campaigns to promote products to specific media targets; blogger outreach to health, fitness, home, parenting, technology and lifestyle blogs; celebrity endorsements and seeding, including participation in gifting suites and gift bags at high-profile events such as the MTV Video Music Awards and Tribeca Film Festival; and trade show and Market Week support. Between 2005 and 2008, CRT/tanaka increased media impressions for HoMedics by 314 percent, garnering more than 1.7 billion traditional and online impressions.

Challenge

In 2005, CRT/tanaka began working with Michigan-based HoMedics, a company that initially established its reputation as the leading manufacturer of back and body massagers.  The company’s product line includes more than 250 products and spans a wide range of categories beyond massage, including diagnostic health care, weight management, sensory and relaxation, sleep solutions and the home environment. CRT/tanaka’s objectives are to extend awareness of the brand and products beyond the massage category and build HoMedics’ reputation for offering affordable products that allow consumers to proactively maintain their health and well-being.

Solution

The agency supports HoMedics with a variety of initiatives designed to highlight key products efficiently, while underscoring the affordable, innovative nature of the company’s personal wellness products.

• Media relations campaigns promote new products to specific media targets. Given the volume of new products introduced each year, the agency analyzes new offerings to select those that have the greatest media appeal and full distribution/availability at retail.  A series of imaginative editor deliveries help break through the clutter of materials editors receive daily. Efforts also include “desksides” wherein CRT/tanaka staff visit editors’ offices to demonstrate the use and appeal of new products and controlled media vehicles (newspaper matte releases and satellite media tours).
• Blogger Outreach to health, fitness, home, parenting, technology and lifestyle blogs.
• Celebrity Seeding, including participation in gifting suites and gift bags at high-profile events such as the MTV Video Music Awards, Teen Choice Awards, Tribeca Film Festival and Tony Awards. Celebrity endorsements secured include Robert DeNiro, Whoopi Goldberg, Alicia Keys and Jessica Alba.
• Trade Show and Market Week Support at the International Home & Housewares Show, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores Marketplace and Domestics Market week.

Below are just a few of the campaigns CRT/tanaka has created:

HOMEDICS’ RED HOT HOLIDAY

To promote HoMedics’ products as ideal holiday gifts, CRT/tanaka conducted a media blitz targeted to broadcast, magazines, newspapers and Web sites. To underscore HoMedics’ new heat technology, the agency used a “HoMedics Red Hot Holiday” theme in a creative delivery distributed to magazine editors and broadcast producers.  Hero products, including a new heated massage pillow and mini massagers, were placed in a red tote bag with Red Hots and Atomic Fire Ball candies and red tissue. The most important new items – massage cushions with heat – were offered through a redeemable certificate that enticed editors into requesting a sample and entered them into a sweepstakes for a $2,000 donation to their favorite charity. The holiday outreach generated over 200 million impressions in a six-month period, including:

• Broadcast: “Dr. Phil,” “Fox and Friends,” “Good Morning America,” “The View,” “Today Show” and MTV’s “Total Request Live”
• Magazines: All You, CosmoGirl!, Ebony, Every Day with Rachael Ray, Fitness, People StyleWatch, Prevention, Self, Shape and Women’s Health
• Newspapers: Columbus Dispatch, Detroit Free Press, Miami Herald, New York Daily News, New York Post and Oklahoman
• Online: NYMag.com, WeightWatchers.com, Wired.com and YahooTech.com

HOMEDICS’ PILLOW EXCHANGE

Dust mites and their droppings are one of the leading triggers for asthma and allergy sufferers. HoMedics’ DreamShield™ line of protective bedding and pillows featuring tightly woven fabrics act as a barrier to dust mites and provide protection from liquids and stains, and the DreamShield™ Ultra line adds antibacterial protection. Research found that 10 percent of the weight of a two-year old pillow is composed of dust mites/droppings and a mattress will double in weight every 10 years from dust mites/droppings.

To promote these facts and the new DreamShield line, CRT/tanaka developed the HoMedics Pillow Exchange, which challenged editors to find out “what was sleeping in their bed.” The agency sent editors an invitation and oversized authentic lab specimen bags with the request that they send back their current pillow to be tested at a laboratory for dust mites and bacteria, in exchange for a new HoMedics pillow. Editors were also invited to receive lab results from their pillow at a preview of the new line at HoMedics’ New York showroom. The promotion was so successful that it was repeated the following year.

More than 40 editors have participated in the Pillow Exchange and placements include “The View,” “The Montel Williams Show,” Family Circle, Health, Shape, Dallas Morning News and Parenting.com. Media impressions garnered during the two-year period total more than 31 million.

HOMEDICS’ BRÊTHE AIR REVITALIZER

In 2007, HoMedics entered the home environment category with a household odor neutralizer that naturally eliminates up to 99 percent of odor causing bacteria. With many air cleaning products on the market, CRT/tanaka was challenged to cut through the clutter to gain media exposure, drive sales and raise HoMedics brand awareness in a new product category.

Since brēthe only uses water and natural, non-toxic botanicals to make a bad air day better, CRT/tanaka focused on its chemical-free factor, along with its the affordable price. The agency developed a multi-tiered media relations campaign pursuing home, health, “green,” food, pet and particularly parenting stories by asking media to “take the brēthe challenge.”  The agency sent a creative delivery to magazine editors and broadcast producers that included a sample and press materials that detailed the product’s benefits and affordability versus the competition. Each editor was asked to clear the air with the test unit and report their findings in their respective columns/segments. In addition, the agency distributed targeted media pitches to newspaper journalists and bloggers, all of whom received a sample unit upon request.

Hundreds of reporters have quelled the smell. Key placements include: “Good Morning America,” “The View,” Shape, Chicago Tribune, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Yahoo!Tech and Gizmodo. Media impressions generated in the year period total approximately 55 million.

HOMEDICS’ ICUSH MASSAGING CUSHION 

HoMedics launched a massaging cushion with easy connectivity to MP3 players, TVs, Xbox, PlayStation or other gaming consoles.  The product syncs sound to massage vibrations, allowing users to feel the beat of the music, movie or video game. The agency targeted the launch to Gen Y gamers and music fans and secured celebrity endorsements from Jessica Alba, Snoop Dog, Rihanna, Christina Milian, Fall Out Boy, Method Man and James Blake, among others.

Media efforts were directed at tech, gaming and music writers at newspapers, blogs and Web sites. CRT/tanaka’s outreach generated more than 75 million impressions during the six-month campaign, including coverage from YahooTech, Gizmodo, CNET.com, Washington Post, Detroit Free Press, Newark Star-Ledger, San Diego Union Tribune, Star Magazine, Men’s Exercise and HGTV’s “I Want That.”

HOMEDICS’ MASSAGING PEDICURE FLIP-FLOPS FOR BCRF

Through publicity efforts, CRT/tanaka helps HoMedics support products that benefit the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. The agency developed and distributed a creative delivery promoting the company’s Massaging Pedicure Flip-Flop slippers to editors that generated more than 22.6 million impressions over a six-month period in InStyle, For Me, Playgirl, Soap Opera Weekly, Star Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Rocky Mountain News and Tampa Tribune.

Results

• CRT/tanaka has increased media impressions for HoMedics by 314% from 2005-2008 and garnered more than 1.7 billion traditional and online impressions over this four year period.