Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Hi! Make the event exciting with competitions and plenty of give aways/ prizes.
The grand prize could be the treadmill itself.
You could create an event around ' the journey' theme..a kind of treasure hunt perhaps with a difference. Where each 'stop' would involve use of treadmill. As the 'treasure' gets closer, the exercise becomes more intense.
Good Luck with the launch!

Don't forget to promote the reason people buy treadmills in the first place -- to help them with their fitness programs. Invite reporters and/or celebrities to use the machine for a week, maybe taking them on a virtual run or walk with it. You can record videos of their use (inviting media, of course, to do their own stories), and post them on social sites.

Maximize use of statistics that promote use of treadmills...now's a good time, at least in the north and midwest in the United States, as weather gets colder. Maybe with your machine, they'll enjoy a winter like none other because they actually use and like your machine!

So many possibilities... good luck!

Affluent career minded individual with a passion for fitness already have a treadmill. What is it about your new product that will entice them to replace the one they have? Have you done any market research with folks to find out what they dislike about the treadmill they currently use? Can you position your new product in such a way that the target consumer will be convinced that your treadmill will solve that problem?

Perhaps you could get a couple of hundred people to agree to swap out their current treadmill for yours. Take a "before" picture of each of them. Send trucks to collect the old treadmill and deliver/install your new one. Let them use the new treadmill for a couple of weeks, then bring them and their old treadmills to a public venue. Make a giant mountain of the discarded treadmills, and take a group photo of testers. Also create a giant banner of the aggregate weight loss for the two hundred testers and unveil it at the event.

You should have your testers blog and tweet about their experience using the new treadmill during the two weeks, and give away a couple of "around the world" journeys. One trip to the person who gets the most people following their tweets/blog about using the new treadmill, and another to the tester who loses the most weight (as a % of their body weight) during the two weeks. You could also give away five treadmills at the event to promote a big crowd.

You should also get an organization involved who is concerned about the environmental impact of discarded treadmills. They could use the event to highlight their proposal for best use. I'm sure there are some recycling options that are better than dumping them into landfills. The giant mountain of two hundred old treadmills as a backdrop will make a great visual to inspire people to contact your cosponsoring organization rather than leaving their old treadmills out for the trash man.