London, 12 December 2002 – Hotwire, the European technology PR consultancy, is currently implementing a three-month PR campaign for Elbenwald, the most popular German Tolkien website. Hotwire will be using the launch of the second part of the "Lord of the Rings" movie in order to create awareness of the website (www.elbenwald.com) to generate traffic and target new users to the website. The PR programme will not only target Hobbits, Elbs and dwarves, but everyone who is interested in the Lord of the Rings.

Located in Cottbus, Elbenwald operates the largest online shop in Europe for Tolkien and Lord of the Rings merchandising. With more than 5000 members, it is also the home for the largest German Tolkien community.

"Naturally more and more sites try to profit from the Lord of the Rings-hype. We are working with Hotwire to position us clearly as the market leader in this area with a unique concept combining shop and community," commented Alexander Lapeta, managing director and joint founder of Elbenwald. "We have chosen Hotwire because of their experience with new media clients and the importance they place on campaign measurability."

The successful mixture of shop and community with a website made for fans by fans, is Elbenwald´s USP communicated by the PR programme. Hotwire kicked-off the PR programme two months before the film´s launch to ensure Elbenwald is covered in as many consumer media as possible linked to "The Two Towers". Hotwire also conducts additional PR activities for business-to-business media, communicating Elbenwald´s shop concept and the company´s success.

Ute Richter, regional partner for Hotwire in Germany, is very pleased about the new account: "Elbenwald proves that successful online shops clearly benefit from PR. Within our PR activities we do not rely on buzzwords such as grass roots marketing or guerrilla PR, but focus on good and effective media relations instead."

Hotwire is a European technology public relations consultancy established to provide the technology industry with progressive PR services.

Since its foundation, Hotwire has won a number of prestigious awards across Europe. The accolades include the French Public Relations Top Com d’Or Trophée in the Corporate Business category. Hotwire has also been recognised by the International Public Relations Association when it was awarded Best Business-to-Business Campaign in 2003 for its work with Scottish telecoms company THUS.

Hotwire is headquartered in London with offices in Paris and Frankfurt. The company has six client practice areas: applications & services, consumer technology, digital media, enterprise & electronics, telecommunications, and banking & finance.

For more information about Hotwire, please visit www.hotwirepr.com.