Kensington was the world’s first manufacturer to debut a docking station based on Intel’s next-generation Thunderbolt 5 connectivity standard. Targeted at professionals and content creators, Kensington’s SD5000T5 Thunderbolt 5 Dock promised to deliver faster speeds and higher bandwidth to support advanced video applications and the rapid transfer of large amounts of data between computers, monitors, and storage devices.
The Challenge of Launching Kensington’s SD5000T5 Thunderbolt 5 Dock
Though the SD5000T5 would not be available until the second half of 2024, Kensington was positioned to be first in the industry to deliver a product based on Thunderbolt 5 technology and a strong product launch would be required to establish Kensington as the early leader in Thunderbolt 5 accessories. Our campaign aimed to establish Kensington as the leader in Thunderbolt 5 connectivity through an aggressive media relations campaign that would generate high-impact earned media, including stories and product reviews spotlighting the world’s first available Thunderbolt 5 docking station.
To accomplish this goal, we established the following objectives:
- 10 articles in top-tier technology publications covering our product availability announcement within the first week of the announcement;
- Five product reviews within the first two months of the announcement; and five articles mentioning Kensington as first-to-market with a Thunderbolt 5 docking station within the first two months of the announcement.
We specifically targeted top-tier technology publications with a domain authority of 90 or higher.
The Campaign
While Kensington’s competitors used CES 2024 to announce plans to launch their Thunderbolt 5-capable products in the second half of 2024, Kensington was the only company to show an actual product. In August 2024, we were provided with five SD5000T5 units in advance of the September 17 announcement date. To maximize coverage on the day of our announcement and give reviewers an equal opportunity to be the first to publish their reviews of the industry-first product, we offered review units to top-tier reviewers with the understanding that their articles would be embargoed until our public announcement on September 17, 2024. Since the SD5000T5 was the industry’s first commercially available Thunderbolt 5 product, none of the reviewers had Thunderbolt 5-enabled laptops or devices that could be used to review the Kensington docking station. We reached out to one of two laptop manufacturers that were shipping Thunderbolt 5-enabled laptops, and arranged for them to ship laptops to each of our reviewers, creating win-win situations for the reviewers, Kensington, the laptop manufacturer, and Intel.
The Results
Within the first week of our product launch, articles featuring the SD5000T5 were published in 15 top-tier tech pubs, outpacing our objective to secure 10 articles.
Despite issues with most reviewers not having access to Thunderbolt 5 devices for testing, we were still able to outpace our objective to generate five product reviews by securing seven reviews. We came up one article short of the five we sought that highlighted the fact that the SD5000T5 was the industry’s first Thunderbolt 5 accessory.
Thirteen articles (37%) were published on websites with domain authority ratings greater than 90.
Our team was celebrated for our creativity by the client and media for reaching out to other manufacturers of Thunderbolt 5 devices to provide the reviewers with products to help them properly test Thunderbolt 5 technology.
Integrity Public Relations was awarded a 2025 PRSA Bronze Anvil Commendation Award in the Media Relations, Consumer Product category.
