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Inspekto – a Stone Junction case study
26 February 2021
Quality assurance (QA) and manual inspection cost the manufacturing industry billions. Relying on the human eye for inspection is often unreliable, businesses needed a better strategy to avoid these losses – enter Inspekto.
Inspekto has launched the world’s first Autonomous Machine Vision System (AMV). The new S70 technology self-sets, self-learns and self-adjusts, adapting to cumbersome light conditions and both pre-programmed and unique faults. Pretty cool, right?
Stone Junction was tasked with convincing the manufacturing industry that AMV was the logical progression for QA, while also promoting trust and reassurance in the Inspekto brand.
With links in both Germany and Israel, Inspekto needed a PR agency with experience in international media relations. Combined with Stone Junction’s knowledge of industrial automation PR, the partnership was a no-brainer.
Objectives
- Establish the AMV technology and its benefits by achieving 60 clippings across the UK, US and Germany between August and December 2018
- Launch Inspekto at the VISION trade show, arranging 20 journalist interactions or interviews
- Create a sales funnel to support Inspekto’s growth and investment, generating more than €500,000,000 worth of leads at VISION
As the first PR agency for Industry 4.0, Stone Junction knows a thing or two about manufacturing technologies. That said, convincing industry leaders of AMV’s superiority was crucial to campaign success. In order to provide Inspekto with a succinct brand image we conceived a single trademark for the company – the best in the world for AMV.
Strategy and tactics
The campaign was split into three target markets; potential customers and relevant media, potential investors or financiers and finally, potential buyers. A clear and aggressive message was determined – SI is dead and AMV is the revolution.
The campaign could be deconstructed into four main phases: preparing the media and the QA market for a new category, drip-feeding crucial AMV concepts to the media including Plug and Inspect and Total QA, press releasing the S70 technology teaser to the media. Nothing specific just enough to prepare the market for the upcoming change and finally, the official launch on 6 November 2018. The launch was accompanied by a press conference and speaking slot, giving press opportunity to interview Inspekto.
Implementation of tactics
Pre-launch a series of aggressive opinion pieces were produced linking to the growing inferiority of SI and human quality assurance.
Subjects included causes of poor quality (COPQ) and operational efficiency, challenges of machine vision and the death of system integrators.
As interest peaked, a press release announced Inspekto’s launch, the definition of AMV and the technical details surrounding ‘Total QA’ and ‘Plug and Inspect’. This established the company’s position within the quality assurance industry whilst preceding their future product launch.
By October investors such as Grazia, Steinbeis and Planven were announced, all multinational heavyweights within the manufacturing industry. Over 100 telephone pitches to journalists were made following this release, all inviting international media to attend Inspekto’s VISION exhibition. No specific information about the S70 technology was released before launch in order to generate maximum interest.
At VISION Inspekto dominated the conference centre; graffiti banners, floor tile promotions, a ceiling blimp – all to promote Inspekto and AMV. Press conferences, media one-to-ones, speaker slots and a journalist tour where organised to finally announce, Automated Machine Vision. S70.
Measurement and evaluation
Objective one:
- Delivered 110 clippings across nine countries reaching 4.1 million people. This exceeded the original target by 83 per cent
- Secured 20 clippings which went to print across ten full pages with an audience view of 772,000,000
- Achieved 75 website backlinks, driving the newly launched Inspekto site to a domain authority of 21 from zero in nine weeks
- Automated machine vision was featured on the front over of SMT Global and Packaging, with several third-party institutions, such as Beckhoff and Control Design, referencing the technology in their content
Objective two:
- Post-launch, 42 clippings were generated in November in preparation for Inspekto’s VISION announcement
- Through curation of journalist relationships, 27 members of the press toured Inspekto’s stand, 12 attended the press conference and we achieved seven one-to-ones. This exceeded the target by 130 percent
- Achieved multiple press features. In the official post show release VISION stated, “Inspekto… was overwhelmed by the interest the visitors showed” Additionally, we delivered a four-page spread in Machine Vision Professional’s VISION feature – the largest for a non-advertiser
- Martin Buchwitz of Inspect – a leading machine vision magazine – commissioned seven articles following Inspekto’s VISION journey
Objective three:
- Achieved sales leads for over 450 facilities, extending Inspekto’s commercial footprint by €500 million
- For every €1 spent on PR €21,975.74 was added to Inspekto’s commercial footprint
- Inspekto CEO, Harel Boren, attributes 100 percent of launch success to the marketing and PR designed by Stone Junction
- Instigated investment enquires from multinational conglomerates and several investment funds
- The machine vision industry now accepts that AMV is possible, something the media had yet to admit previously.
Richard Stone is the Founder of Stone Junction, a specialist technical PR agency delivering international and digital PR and marketing services for scientific, engineering and technology companies.
He knows quite a lot about automation technology – go on, ask him. I dare ya – and would love to chat all things tech PR no matter the time of day.
If you want Stone Junction to take over your technology PR campaign, then why not email him on richards@stonejunction.co.uk or call +44 (0) 1785 22516
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