Rio
MP3 Players
In 2002 Rio commissioned Whipsaw to redesign all their products and packaging. Although Rio was one of the early MP3 pioneers, they had fallen way behind, ranked #10 in sales behind their competitors. We created a range of exciting products such as the best-selling Carbon (“Finally the iPod mini has some real competition” stated Cnet); the gloss black Nitrus which had the worlds first 1” hard drive (“the sexiest MP3 we’ve ever seen”, Laptop Magazine); and the 40 GB Karma (“Karma is a marvel of simplicity”, ZDNET). To top it off we designed the packages which were also sleek and sexy. This 2003/4/5 product line up was a hit. Rio rocketed to number 2 behind Apple and revenues doubled each year. The players were praised widely by users and press alike including Fortune, Money, Playboy, and USA Today. Rio eventually sold to D&M Holdings in 2005.
