When Taiwan's Dialogue Technology Corporation, led by CEO Jack Lee and based in Sindian, launched its Flybook laptop computer in 2004, sales were flat at first. Fast-forward to 2006, and publications like the New York Times and Wired magazine are suddenly talking about Flybooks. When Newsweek magazine chimed in with another glowing review, it was due to PR help from Ontrend International, the Taiwanese-led New York public relations firm that created the promotional campaign for the trendy made-in-Taiwan computer.
"Celebrities have already embraced Flybook by Dialogue, a Taiwanese company," noted a February issue of Newsweek, calling the gadget "so hip you'll never want to tuck it in your briefcase again." What the news magazine did not mention in its brief item was that Ontrend International is run by Taiwan-born, Dutch-educated Sun Chih-chin, who has helped steer several hard-to-pigeonhole brands to international prominence with an experienced, savvy team in Manhattan.
To find out how Flybook got such a hip, cool cachet in the international marketplace, Taiwan Journal interviewed Sun via e-mail to ask about her upbringing in Holland and her experiences promoting the laptop computer.
Sun, 37, was born in Taiwan, she said, but grew up in Holland from the age of three, after her family moved there in the early 1970s. She founded Ontrend International in New York in 1998, after running a Dutch computer-hardware company with her brother.
When asked how she became interested in marketing and public relations, and why she set up shop in Manhattan, Sun replied: "Setting up Ontrend in New York was a response to my recognition of the needs of many firms, global ones and North American ones, for guidance in these areas. I had a feeling that there was a viable yet less-costly alternative to traditional, by-the-book marketing strategies that some companies were still using. So our team at Ontrend lets clients benefit from our marketing expertise and PR skills. And interestingly enough, Ontrend is now becoming a recognized brand itself in the marketing field."
Sun said she saw the potential of the Taiwan-made Flybook computers from Dialogue and repositioned them in a bold marketing move. Several column-inches of good media coverage followed her promotion of the device as a fashionable, must-have item. After meeting Dialogue CEO Jack Lee at Computex 2005 in Taipei, Sun was asked by Dialogue to become their marketing manager for North America, an assignment she took on with her customary enthusiasm and pizzazz.
According to a company spokesman, Dialogue focuses mainly on mobile-computing and human-interface technologies. While the Flybook computer has been one of its greatest and most visible successes, the company also makes accessories and modules, including PenMount, a touch-control human-interface object.
When asked how she conceived of the Flybook campaign and how she assembled her team, Sun said, "Well, as a young woman working in the technology field, I knew from my own experience that many women's needs as consumers were not being met, especially by national and international electronics chain retailers. When I first saw the Flybook, I knew right away I could reposition it in a way that would be perfect for women with a non-conventional retail distribution campaign. So we went with Barneys New York as our first and only U.S. retail distributor. What woman does not like shopping at Barneys?"
The Barneys move worked, Sun said. "We marketed to a whole other consumer niche than most technology brands do. And most of all, we made Flybook immediately stand out to the desired customer, and to our competition as well."
The thin Flybook has an 8.9-inch screen, comes equipped with a touch-screen panel and can run on Bluetooth and WiFi, according to a company spokesman.
Sun, who still manages to visit Taiwan once or twice a year, believes that the best products and concepts sometimes get lost in the marketplace because of a lack of proper marketing and promotion. So she likes to skipper Ontrend by picking products that have potential and then marketing them to the most appropriate niche target consumers. Sun's firm recently hit the PR jackpot with a big New York Times story about a trendy new product it is representing: black toilet paper. Designed and created by a fashion firm in Portugal, the chic black wipes are all the rage in Madrid, and recently made their debut in the United States.
Flybook received great press in the pages of the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune and Newsweek, among other publications, Sun said, because she knows how to make an impression with her savvy public relations skills.
"First of all, we had a great product with Flybook, and then it was easy for Ontrend to promote it in our unique way because of our personal contacts and our reputation in New York," Sun said. "We were able to get Flybook into the hands of influential American celebrities like actors Rosario Dawson, Heather Graham and Elijah Wood, whose use and endorsement definitely helped spread the word worldwide, and the media reported on our successes.
"We also placed Flybook with several other top celebrities in New York and Los Angeles, but I cannot disclose all their names for privacy reasons. The celebrity interest in Flybook, however, paid off in spades and brought us a lot of good ink in the press," Sun explained. The media campaign led to one technology writer calling it "the little laptop that could."
"The Flybook from Dialogue belongs to a new breed of convertible ultraportables that pack the punch of a desktop into a teeny package that doubles as a Tablet PC," he wrote.
"Say goodbye to boring gray-and-black laptops," wrote Lauren Mack in Newsweek. "Celebrities have already embraced Flybook by Dialogue, a Taiwanese company. The tiny 1.2-kilo laptop comes in shiny colors like dark blue, dark red, yellow and white. It's also crammed with memory and includes a widescreen display that folds against the keyboard to function as a tablet--stylus included."
David Pogue, writing in the New York Times, also loved the product and told his readers so, noting, "Despite its size, the Flybook packs in more features per square inch than a Where's Waldo poster." Pogue added that the product's marketers were using "an iPoddish marketing strategy, hoping to sell the thing as jewelry. For example, this laptop is absolutely beautiful. Its lacquered, shiny paint job says 'sports car' more than 'Windows box.'"
Kelley Blevins, a public relations expert on Sun's Manhattan team, explained how Ontrend worked its marketing miracle for Flybook. "It was Sun's idea, almost one year ago, to try to promote Flybook as a fashion product that would appeal to women," Blevins wrote in a recent e-mail. "As a woman in a male-dominated industry, she saw an opportunity to capture the female market because of Flybook's unique form and stylish appeal. At the time, Flybook was not new, but because of her directional vision and skill at precise execution, Flybook was able to benefit from the effective and efficient sales, marketing and the PR team she assembled to meet her goal. Today, Flybook has become an icon of hip around the world, and in a very short time span," she gushed.
Although the Flybook was launched by Dialogue in 2004, Sun's team of media-savvy public-relations people launched the product in North America in September 2005, during New York's Olympus Fashion Week. It was a long shot, and nobody knew what the outcome of their marketing strategy would be, but the team was able to turn Flybook into a must-see, must-have, must-be-seen-with modern computer.
Sun is in the business of product PR, and she knows that while press releases and promotional events are always positive and try to put the best foot forward for all the products a company represents, sometimes negative reviews come in from reporters in the field. In the case of Flybook, most of the media reaction in the United States has been positive, with glowing reviews in many major magazines and newspapers. But a few negative reports about the Flybook did come in as well.
"Part of getting any media review at all involves getting products into writers' hands," said one technology writer based in New York. "Sometimes the reviews will be negative or critical. This comes with the job. The key is to shoot for the positive reviews and hope they win the day for the products you represent."
When one media outlet panned the Flybook, Sun and her team took it with a grain salt, telling themselves that, in an industry in which "everything's the same," it is worth the effort to make a product stand out in a unique way.
Reporter Dwight Silverman reviewed the Flybook after attending a computer show in Las Vegas last year. "My eyes were drawn to his notebook computer, a bright yellow ultraportable. It turned out to be the Flybook, and it's one of the coolest devices I've seen at the show."
Discussing Flybook's high price tag, one blogger noted that, "Louis Vuitton may not be the best leather either, but hey--it's Louis Vuitton. I have never heard anyone who owned a LV bag complain about the price. Some consumers of technology products require more than just nuts and bolts. Some even have personal style. Flybook is for them."
"I first spotted the Flybook at a computer show last January, lovingly cradled in the arms of a public-relations person working at the show," wrote another blogger. "The computer was bright yellow--about the color of a 1980s-era Toyota I used to own--and had a compelling design at first glance. After looking at the specs on paper, I immediately contacted the computer company in Taiwan and asked for a review unit."
Sun's public relations campaign paid off. A graduate of the International College of Tunon in Holland, where she majored in public relations and communications, Sun brought her personal understanding about how promotional campaigns work and succeeded in a very competitive field.
When asked what her dreams were when growing up as a teenager in Holland, the Taiwan-born, Dutch-educated marketing maven said, "I always knew that whatever I would choose to do in life, I wanted to make a difference and to help others. I wanted to always do work that was interesting, and useful and do work with a team that has integrity. I would say my dreams have come true here in New York."