Sometimes it’s pretty straightforward.
Just about every company does something inherently newsworthy from time to time – launch a new product, say, or undertake an important venture in the community. In situations like these, the job of the public relations professional is clear-cut: to help ensure media coverage – and the right kind of media coverage – for the company’s activities.
But most companies, naturally enough, would prefer to see their name appearing out there in the press on a more or less ongoing basis – and in a positive light, of course. Which presents a somewhat more complicated challenge.
Just how do pr practitioners maintain high media visibility for their clients in between the hard news announcements? With the competition for coverage increasingly fierce, it’s clear that some real creativity is needed to cut through the clutter at the assignment desk.
Jennifer Rideout, senior associate at Temple Scott Associates in Toronto, says imagination is essential, because you’ve really only got the time it takes a reporter to walk from the fax machine to the garbage can to grab their attention.
A company or brand, Rideout says, must be positioned in as many different ways as possible to appeal to as many different media as possible. After all, she says, a pr firm can’t go back to the same media outlets time after time and expect them to continually report on their clients.
One particularly challenging assignment that Temple Scott faced last year was the promotion of The Walt Disney Co. (Canada)’s animation studio in Toronto.
The studio had been unable to open its doors to the media or the public when it first opened, because of an immediate product deadline. By the time Disney was ready to publicize it, the studio had been open for 16 months. Not the kind of story likely to make an assignment editor’s heart beat faster.
Rideout says that by talking to the Disney people and analyzing all the various features of the studio, Temple Scott was able to come up a news hook: Aside from the Burbank studio, the Toronto facility is the only member of the Disney studio family capable of doing direct-to-home video as well as feature film projects.
That, she says, was enough to generate coverage not only by Canadian media, but by The Los Angeles Times as well.
Tom Haibeck, president of The Haibeck Group in Vancouver, says a public relations firm needs to have a close, ongoing relationship with the client company in order to see those opportunities for coverage, and take the proactive steps necessary to make it happen.
The Haibeck Group has adopted just such a proactive approach on behalf of its client NovaBrik, a Vancouver-based building supply company.
One of the big issues in the local news lately, Haibeck explains, has been ‘leaky condo syndrome.’ A number of Vancouver condominiums built in the last 10-15 years have suffered severe water damage due to a construction flaw that causes leaking from the walls.
NovaBrik produces a brick facing that can prevent leaking. So Haibeck has taken the opportunity to position its client as offering a solution to this much-publicized problem.
One approach that can yield particularly strong results is to present a client company’s representatives as ‘thought leaders’ on important issues of the day.
Toronto-based pr firm Cohn & Wolfe uses this tactic with one of its major clients, Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group.
Stuart Wilson, vice-president and director of the corporate/public affairs practice with c&w, says Deloitte regularly issues major studies on various industry sectors, which are of inherent news interest. But in slower periods, c&w will study news and current events, looking for opportunities to position Deloitte executives as expert commentators. It’s a technique Wilson calls ‘guerrilla public relations.’
When, for example, Eaton’s filed for bankruptcy protection last year, Cohn & Wolfe put out a media alert offering Deloitte’s experts as a source of commentary.
To help keep Deloitte top-of-mind with busy journalists, Cohn & Wolfe recently created a tool for their benefit: a laminated board listing key contact names and their area of expertise. It went out to members of the media accompanied by a stress ball that featured the words ‘Deadline Stress?’ on one side, and an invitation to contact the experts at Deloitte & Touche on the other.
Catharine Heddle, a consultant at Toronto-based Environics Communications, agrees that establishing a client company’s executives as commentators on news and issues can help sustain visibility in the media.
Other tactics that Heddle recommends to clients include organizing seminars and community forums, and taking advantage of speaking opportunities. She also monitors the editorial schedules of various publications. If there’s a report or supplement coming up on a subject area in which a client has relevant expertise, she’ll offer to provide articles or commentary.
When infectious disease management became a hot topic in the media last year, Environics moved quickly to position its client Bayer as a leading source of knowledge and expertise in the field.
With Canadian newspapers full of headlines such as ‘Drug-resistant bug shows up in local hospitals,’ Environics worked with Bayer on efforts to help both physicians and journalists understand the issue of ‘antimicrobial resistance’ – that is, the failure of antibiotic drugs to treat infection.
The first step, says Environics vice-president Jennifer Schipper, was Bayer’s sponsorship of a conference on antimicrobial resistance, organized by Health Canada and the Canadian Infectious Disease Society.
Environics provided journalists with a written report on the proceedings, while supplying physicians and pharmacists with a cd-rom developed by Bayer that explained their role in helping to keep the problem in check.
Dan Tisch, also a vice-president with Environics, says that when clients aren’t making news, he looks for opportunities to take their messages to new audiences.
One of his clients is Telesat Canada, a 25-year-old satellite communications company that has had limited visibility for some time now.
Recently, Environics kicked off a multi-tiered program in an effort to get Telesat’s name into the news. The program includes a contest asking Canadians to help name Telesat’s new direct-to-home broadcast satellite, which will be launched this fall.
The winner, to be announced later this month, not only earns the privilege of naming the satellite, but will have his or her name placed on it as well.
More than 36,000 proposed names for the satellite have been received so far, and a panel of celebrity judges is now considering the short-listed entries.
Since the program was launched in November, Tisch says, the media have received regular updates outlining the progress of the contest and listing some of the more imaginative name suggestions – among them The Celestial Maple and Itzarze (‘it’s ours, eh’).
Also in this special report:
– Coles Notes contest a hit: Media pounced on story of search for first edition p.23
– Clients demanding more than media relations: p.24
– PR, American style: Mounting a public relations effort south of the border needn’t be a daunting task, provided you know what to expect p.25
