The Goal: Outposition Microsoft's Windows CE product campaign with a Palm III grass-roots product reviews program. Counter and clear up the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) that had been injected into the handheld market and specifically targeted against the Palm III, the market leader.
The Scenario: It isn't easy being number one—especially when Microsoft is number two. Palm Computing, Inc. and A&R Edelman had first-hand experience with the Microsoft's impressive PR machine when Palm Computing launched the Palm III. At the same time that press reviewers were putting their hands on the Palm III, Microsoft was announcing Windows CE devices that they dubbed "Palm-killers." The handheld market was heating up as one of the technology industry's fastest growing market categories, and the stakes were high.
The Challenge: Though the Microsoft Windows CE devices did not ship at the same time as the Palm III, we had reason to believe that Microsoft aimed to stall stand-alone Palm III reviews in favor of comparative reviews against CE devices (which didn't ship until months later). They also used an aggressive "more is better" messaging strategy in positioning their devices directly against Palm Computing's streamlined and efficient product design. We needed to act fast to squelch the potential negative impact against the Palm III, and to ensure that the strength of Palm—its simplicity—wasn't lost in the FUD or misunderstood in the face of feature-laden CE devices.
The Approach: A&R Edelman proposed and executed a product reviewers media tour designed to reach top computer industry influencers and national media with messages that they could translate into meaningful product analysis criteria. Together with the project marketing team at Palm, we composed a competitive positioning presentation on how the Palm Computing platform compared to Windows CE. We included research data and test results for areas including ease of use, speed, battery life, memory, and platform proliferation.
Armed with solid data, we scheduled one-on-one meetings across the country to accomplish four clear goals:
Our meetings were to the point, beginning with the question, "What is Palm doing to compete against Microsoft? We're here to tell you." We aimed to nip Microsoft's "more is better" strategy in the bud.
The Results: The results of the Anti-FUD tour were immediate and spectacular. The Palm III product review coverage was extensive, focusing consistently on the tremendous benefits of the product's design simplicity, as contrasted with the feature-rich approach of the CE devices. Walt Mossberg, personal technology columnist for the Wall Street Journalpublished a column on why the Palm Computing platform was superior to Windows CE. Business Week's personal technology columnist Steve Wildstrom published a similarly strong and passionate column on the same topic. "Good Morning America" and the "Today Show" both ran segments that included superior positioning for the Palm III. PC Week revisited its lab tests comparing the two platforms using the Palm evaluation criteria. PC Magazine took a "second look" at the Palm III and dubbed it better than any of the Windows CE devices. The Washington Post product review compared the Microsoft devices negatively to the Palm devices.
Many top-tier daily newspapers such as Atlanta Journal Constitution, San Francisco Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, Detroit Free-Press, New York Daily News, New York Post, Newark Star-Ledger, Boston Globe, Seattle Times and .Baltimore Sun began running more news of Palm developments more often. In this increased coverage, they stopped predicting the Palm platform's eventual downfall to Windows CE's "PalmPilot-killers" and instead wrote about the specific product-based reasons for Palm's runaway success.