In case you haven’t heard, Apple will be making a little announcement this week.
On Wednesday, the mega-company will unveil the new iPhone5 via a press event that’s guaranteed to generate tons of international media attention.
So how, exactly, does a small, Florida-based technology business compete with the most valued company in history to release news of its own without getting lost in the frenzy?
One of the most anticipated features of the iPhone5, and Apple’s corresponding iOS6 operating system that will be pushed to existing Apple iPhone, iPad and iTouch devices, is Passbook.
Passbook collects and stores digital versions of airline boarding passes, loyalty rewards and theme park, concert or sporting event tickets in one convenient location on your iPhone. No more scrolling through your inbox to find that email from your airline with your boarding pass!
One of the first travel industry suppliers to adapt its product to support Passbook is accesso, a leading provider of attraction ticketing and a Ron Sachs Communications client.
Thanks to accesso’s quick work, 11 Cedar Fair Entertainment theme parks, and the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium will be able to offer their attraction tickets via Passbook the day the new operating system the day iOS6 becomes available.
Working with accesso, we elected to advance news of the firm’s Passbook integration in advance of Apple’s big media unveil. On Monday we distributed accesso’s announcement to reporters and bloggers within the tech, mobile/smart phone and theme park industry, which resulted in outstanding online coverage. The early push also allowed us to position the tech firm as a Passbook expert and interview subject, a designation we shared with consumer print and broadcast media who will be reporting the broader Apple story later in the week.
We also worked with accesso’s clients. Because the push positions 11 Cedar Fair parks and the Columbus Zoo as attraction innovators, we worked with the PR/marketing teams of these attractions to provide talking points and other logistical ideas to help them field media inquiries from reporters in their own markets who will be looking for consumer stories when the operating system is released on Wednesday.
While almost everything Apple does turns to gold, there’s ample opportunity to leverage their PR muscle to generate coverage of your own using the right approach. For Accesso that meant leveraging its intriguing Apple-related product with a great angle and the right media connections for terrific results.
