Success Stories

iRobot

Entering a consumer market with no existing category in robotic home care, iRobot turned to us. We named their unique product Roomba, devised a plan -- and swept the market off its feet.

The Challenge
Marketing an unknown product in an unknown category to channels and end-users.

Our Role
The Sightline Group served as the company’s Vice President of Sales & Marketing for a period of 18 months.

Key Responsibilities

• Our team conducted research as to the product’s potential to determine if an attractive market existed
• Our experts made the strategic decision to create and introduce a new category, named the new-to-market product, generated awareness through public relations and other efforts, and developed packaging.
• We devised a channel launch strategy that would serve to both build awareness and SELL the product – rather than having it merely sit on the shelf. (Most channel products passively sit on the shelf. Roomba needed to be demonstrated to best show its novelty and usefulness.)

Success Metric

• Roomba has sold more than 2.5m units since September 2002
• In November 2005, the company (IRBT) had an IPO with $600M market cap

The Sightline Group successfully created a new category — Robotic Home Care Products — of which iRobot’s Roomba is the established leader.