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PR AND DIGITAL MARKETING FOR AGENTS OF CHANGE

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CASE STUDY

PR for Crowdfunding

Wazer

Makers know that it’s hard to cut hard things. Typically one must cut materials like metal, glass or stone by hand, which is long and tedious to say nothing of imprecise. Waterjets are a way to accomplish precise cuts of hard materials at scale, but prior to WAZER the starting price for one was around $100 000.

Mission

We were tasked with handling PR for WAZER’s Kickstarter campaign.

Challenges

This project came with a number of challenges. As is typical, we were one of them. While we have several makers on the team, prior to starting this mandate there was limited internal knowledge of this tech so we had to do considerable homework.

Managing media was complicated by the fact that the client decided to participate in TechCrunch’s Hardware Battlefield just before launching. In the end, the media embargo got broken. (Broken embargoes are the PR equivalent of the “struggle sessions” crafty Maoists devised for their enemies during the Cultural Revolution).

Thankfully in WAZER’s case, the broken embargo did not result in much lost momentum to their campaign, which is always a risk when media drops early.

Response

After some monk-like study, we began pitching demos in San Francisco and New York City. On the roadshow, compelling demos were done under embargo with relevant media. For The Verge, WAZER cut the outlet’s name out of a metal phone case, which made for great social media fodder. At TechCrunch, they cut glass in the shape of a unicorn with the outlet’s logo emblazoned on it.

Results

WAZER came out of the gate quickly, crushing it across multiple marketing channels, including PR. By the 48 hour mark the company raised over $500 000. In the end the company raised over $1.3 million – a huge sum for a niche product.

Our activities led to coverage in over 50 outlets worldwide, among others Engadget, TechCrunch, Make Magazine, Core77, The Verge, Popular Science, NowThis, New Atlas, UNILAD, Uncrate, and The Awesomer.

The media loved the waterjet:
TechCrunch proclaimed that WAZER had brought “water jet cutting from heavy industry to the mass market.”

Digital Trends echoed this, stating “WAZER puts a precision-cutting technology previously only available to a few in the hands of the many.”

Make Magazine gushed “The material options are almost limitless.”

Sample
media
coverage

Make your own batarangs with the Wazer desktop water jet cutter

Engadget. September 12/16

Desktop Waterjet Cutting Comes to Hobbyists With Wazer

Make. September 13/16

Wazer brings water jet cutting from heavy industry to mass market

TechCrunch. September 12/16

Who needs a frickin’ laser? Desktop waterjet cutter slices through stone, steel

Digital Trends. September 13/16

Desktop waterjet cuts almost any material – and expenses

New Atlas. September 13/16

Wazer Desktop Waterjet is a fabricators dream

Slash Gear. September 14/16

CONTACT

Interested in talking about how we can spread your propaganda far and wide? We’d love to help you alter the existing order, defeat the armies of darkness and foment revolution.

Email us at info@properpropaganda.net
You can also call us at

(514) 605 9255

(778) 858 2595