Praxis and Gallus Corporation collaborate on a very unique product launch.

Gallus Corporation, a Swiss company and a partner of Heidelberg, in 2009 introduced a new label printing press at Europe's preeminent trade show in Brussels. The press, which can be supplied with up to 12 print and die stations for virtually unlimited printing variety and flexibility, is built on a chassis of solid granite 12" thick and 20" deep, quarried from the mountains in southeastern France.

The press is so unusual that Praxis developed an integrated campaign to capitalize on the benefits of a press with a technical granite core. Our US client wanted to conduct a very dramatic debut in North America, so we developed a theme around the "Rock Star of Label Printing", and created a road show theme to demonstrate the product from a fully decked out road show trailer. The first stop on the North American tour was scheduled for Labelexpo Americas in September 2010, the counterpart of the European show a year earlier.

Leading up to the show, Praxis developed a series of product and testimonial ads, banners and direct marketing deployments from July through August, and just before the show, Praxis mailed the registration audience a series of emails teasing them with hints of what to expect at the show. The "core" message (ahem) of the ads and testimonials emphasized the ultimate benefits of Gallus' new press, such as easier registration, reduced material waste, better stability, improved job flexibility, faster changeovers, and several new features contributing to environmental sustainability.

Praxis also designed and built a new website for the press, www.therockpress.com, as the destination to capture and convert leads from all the media outreach. In addition, the website, ads, and brochure were translated to Spanish since a good deal of commodity label printing is done in Mexico and other parts of Latin America.

All the kinds of things you'd expect good communications to communicate.

But we did it in dramatic fashion. The client drove the road show trailer to Chicago and parked it in their booth at the Labelexpo show in the Rosemont Center. The whole setting was decorated with road signs touting the new Gallus ECS 340's efficiency, cost savings, and accuracy. The press was demonstrated live several times throughout the show on the stage of the truck so the crowds could all see it. After each show, the audience was invited up on stage to ask questions and see the press up close.

Hundreds of leads were collected from a very upbeat crowd. And now the campaign continues with a North American tour of the "Rock Star of Label Printing," starting with stops in New England and down the Atlantic coast, then west through the southern states, and up through California, Oregon, and Washington.

If you'd like to see this kind of innovation in your B2B marketing, we'd love to talk to you.