CTP hits CES 2010 with Kurzweil’s Blio « Blog

CTP hits CES 2010 with Kurzweil’s Blio

January 14th, 2010

It was quite a week, to say the least. We took a product that didn’t even have a name just two months ago and launched it to great acclaim at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Along the way, we gave it a brand name and positioning, a fully developed web presence and a public relations blitz that made the product the talk of CES among tech bloggers like Gizmodo and Engadget, and traditional media outlets like CNET, CNBC, MSNBC, PC Magazine, Popular Science, Wired, CNN and NPR.

You can’t open your laptop today without reading news about the exploding popularity of e-Readers. In November, Kurzweil Technologies, founded by inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, asked us to help them introduce their new e-Reader product on January 6th at CES. It didn’t have a name. But as something that would redefine the electronic book category, it required a strong, memorable brand that would position it against the established competitors from Amazon and Sony, as well as new entries flooding the market from Barnes & Noble and others.

After researching the category, we came up with the name Blio. Simple, approachable, lively and memorable. We developed a positioning language and tag line that would immediately distinguish the product among the big brand competitors. We created a teaser website to create anticipation for the product launch, and followed it up with a full website to field inquiries generated from the introduction of Blio at CES.

CTP’s PR team also rolled out a focused public relations campaign to create buzz in anticipation of the CES debut and establish Blio as the new benchmark for e-Readers, leading up to the climactic demo of the product by Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer at his CES keynote address.

So, we’ve been busy. But now is not the time for us to curl up with a good book – we still have more work to do. Next, we’ll be supporting Blio’s launch as a branded e-commerce technology that enables major retail chains to sell e-books online. Call it another chapter in the story of CTP.