Leading up to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, we receive a ton of press announcements for a variety of products, big and small. One of the more intriguing of this year’s bunch was STM’s “Levitating” backpack. Here is the CES meeting pitch we got from STM’s marketing firm, Asylum PR:
“…CES is about to be invaded by a magical haunted backpack! No, this is not a stint done by a Las Vegas magician; STM has created a backpack that has levitating powers. You can casually toss your bag onto the counter, the back of a chair, and then when it hits the floor; you can now pay no attention to any damaged goods. Instead of cringing and hoping no damage will be done, ditch the basic purse or laptop bag for one that levitates fragile electronics inside it so they are safe even when the bag is dropped. STM Bags has created the drifter backpack with a floating pocket inside that is lined and padded for electronic devices. If you drop the bag, the pocket will remain safely suspended inches above the ground…”
The marketing firm also sent us at least nine official press releases on behalf of STM, touting the Drifter backpack’s levitating abilities thanks to its “floating pocket”. Between the aforementioned invitation and all of the press releases, we were intrigued and excited. How did they engineer this seemingly-miraculous levitation?
Well, the simple answer is that they didn’t. Our reporter approached the Radtech booth, where STM had setup their meetings and was shocked not to see the backpack anywhere! Oh, here it is (look closely)…
That’s right, it’s hiding under the table, almost out of sight. Our reporter thought something was weird and proceeded to the meeting. Excited about this new tech, he asked them about the levitation and an unnamed booth rep responded with “It doesn’t levitate, it was a typo. It was supposed to say linear.”
A typo? Linear?!? Well, I have nine press releases and a custom-written invitation from Asylum PR touting a magical, levitating backpack! Not to mention that a “Linear” Backpack doesn’t really make sense at all. To top it all off, the marketing rep was nowhere to be found and, according to my reporter, they looked for about a half hour to find them, coming up empty. Something tells me that we are not the first people to cry foul over this matter. Much like showing an “in-game engine demo” of a highly anticipated video game at E3 only to find out that it was not at all the same engine or code as the released product (Gearbox Software, lookin’ at you), it is an absolutely irritating and awfully-deceptive bait and switch practice.
Does the blame fall on the shoulders of STM or Asylum PR? That, I cannot say – but, it does reinforce the axiom, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Well, I was that sucker, and I wanted to see a backpack that levitates the tech gear inside.
We reached out to Asylum PR for comment and will update this story when we receive it.
**UPDATE Feb 1, 2015 – They didn’t care to respond.
