Sector:
Augmented Reality

Purpose:
To create the workplace of the future

Purpose Superpower:
Distinction

Challenge:
To be seen as competitive to three of the world’s largest companies

Problem:
Meta was a little-known AR company with many large competitors. These included Microsoft’s Hololens, Google-funded Magic Leap, and nascent AR efforts growing at Apple.

As with many new technologies, they experienced many development delays. After many false starts and stops, they were finally ready to launch their product. Then their head of marketing quit six weeks before the launch.

Solution:

Stuart McFaul Associates president Stuart McFaul stepped in as acting marketing VP. He realized Meta had two advantages:

1. 1. They were an underdog to the other industry players, and
   2. Their technology worked.

Stuart knew the key to success was to make Meta DISTINCT from the other competitors. He not only had to get them into the mix, but he also had to find a way to make them both a leader and a compelling competitor.

He first developed a “David versus Goliath” company storyline for the launch. He supported this with proof points for Meta’s superior product development and technology.

He then carefully built a launch plan to demonstrate Meta’s technology to the world. The plan included PR, social media, communications, advertising, and presentation development and training.

Stuart helped to broker an on-stage debut for Meta at the 2016 TED Conference. He and his team worked 24/7 to create a mind-blowing demo showing how Meta’s AR technology could
revolutionize the art of making business presentations.

Leading up to the conference, Stuart and his team engaged and enrolled TED media attendees in the Big Three versus Meta story. The media got so invested with the story that they agreed to attend TED and embargo the news about Meta for two weeks. During the embargo period, they agreed to “tease” Meta in social media to help build social buzz.

This meant significant coverage would appear on the day of Meta’s product launch. It also gave Meta time to brief dozens of other top-tier media before the launch.

Results:
Meta’s TED premiere and subsequent launch was one of the top tech stories of the year. Meta received glowing reviews, which established the company as a tech leader and darling in a space formerly dominated by the “big guys.”

Launch press alone generated over 200 million impressions worldwide. This was a 16x ROI for Meta’s original marketing investment at the time. Later coverage and marketing efforts led to achieve:

• • Over 21 billion media impressions worldwide, with ad equivalency exceeding $31M
  • A series about Meta creating the workplace of the future in Bloomberg, and
  • Attracting new global investors and talent drawn from their competitors.