Case Study: 3rd Stone Design

BACKGROUND

3rd Stone Design – a product design, strategy and development company – strives to always create products that both meet consumers’ needs and maintain environmental consciousness.

In order to encourage healthy eating, 3rd Stone Design designed PlanetBox, a safe, nontoxic lunch box made of stainless steel, which includes compartments to guide a wellbalanced, proportioned meal, while also eliminating the waste caused by standard plastic lunch boxes. Not your old fashioned metal lunchbox, PlanetBox delivers lunch transportation for the green generation.

CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES

Since its launch, PlanetBox enjoyed rapid growth and received positive reaction from customers. 3rd Stone Design successfully secured some coverage from bloggers and online editors, while a working relationship with a national home furnishings retailer generated exposure, too. But 3rd Stone Design was looking to spark even more customer interest, generate even greater online visibility for PlanetBox and drive traffic to their website, their primary communications tool for media and consumers. Though they explored traditional advertising, 3rd Stone Design was looking for different, more cost-efficient methods to reach new audiences.

SOLUTION

While familiar with PR Newswire, 3rd Stone Design had not enlisted their services before. After coming across PR Newswire’s self-service iReach service through prnewswire.com and further researching it through PR Newswire’s customer service team, they deemed it a user-friendly, cost-efficient alternative to costly, traditional advertising. Through iReach, the online distribution platform, content is distributed to over a thousand online destinations, is hosted on PRNewswire.com and is optimized for search and social sharing.

RESULTS

In June 2011, 3rd Stone Design issued a release over iReach entitled, “PlanetBox Makes USDA MyPlate Easy” and had superb results, immediately noticing the effects. First and foremost, PlanetBox noticed a 20-30% uptick in website traffic after the release was distributed. The release itself received nearly 800 online views on prnewswire.com and 169 clicks on links in the release. 3rd Stone Design strongly believes that including a multimedia asset, in this case a photo of the product, tremendously helped increase awareness. 3rd Stone Design received numerous praises from customers – another strong metric of success – who shared their experience with PlanetBox, describing how it makes food preparation easier and more enjoyable.

The company plans to regularly utilize PR Newswire’s distribution services to send out quarterly announcements of new programs, partners or products, and build awareness about the company with interesting and engaging content.

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