Technology development case study: gemprint

CVF Technologies

Summary:
CVF (AMEX: CNV) is a technology development company whose principal business is sourcing, funding and managing emerging pre-public technology companies with significant market potential. CVF's holdings include seven companies involved in information technology and environmental products/services. Our mission was to increase the visibility of CVF companies Gemprint™ and Ecoval™, while also heightening brand awareness of the parent company.

Strategy:
DDC structured an international campaign for CVF’s Gemprint centered around the company’s proprietary “diamond fingerprinting” technology.

In a segment on NBC’s Law & Order, which played in January 2001, the Gemprint process was used to confirm the identity of a piece of jewelry recovered from a crime scene. This resulted in a murderer being brought to justice. In real life, the patented Gemprint diamond identification technology has been accepted as irrefutable evidence in courts of law since 1983 (The State of California v. Maki et al), and the FBI and Royal Canadian Mounted Police recognize it as a bona fide ID method for diamonds.

Gemprint is the only hope for recovering a diamond that is lost or stolen. It can also help to establish a diamond’s source and thereby contribute to stemming the flow of “conflict diamonds” from undesirable sources. Gemprint executives participated in an OST-sponsored meeting at the White House to present their plan for a “Green Diamond Alliance” to combat the flow of blood diamonds out of Africa. All of these elements made for a compelling story with a long shelf life.

The Ecoval campaign was equally timely. Research from an independent lab established that the company’s all-natural, non-toxic commercial insecticide, Nature’s Glory™ was effective in killing adult mosquitoes, including those carrying the deadly West Nile Virus. We focused on New York media since Ecoval was presenting their findings to several New York City departments for use in the West Nile virus mosquito abatement program.

Results:
Millions of readers/viewers learned about the revolutionary Gemprint laser ID system from articles placed in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Reuters, Macleans, Investor’s Business Daily, NY Daily News, Essence Magazine, the Gannett news wire, and from back-to-back appearances on CNNfn’s Business Unusual and Bloomberg TV’s Small Business Show. Jeff Dreben, Chairman was featured in the New York Times’ “First Jobs” column in September 2001.

Millions learned about Nature’s Glory from segments on the CBS Early Show and Dreben’s appearance on CNNfn’s THE N.E.W. Show and their online story, “Fighting against insects: Next generation technology in the fight against disease-carrying mosquitoes."