Marine Week Phoenix
Challenge
The United States Marine Corps retained the Ferraro Group Phoenix as the civilian Public Relations firm for Marine Week Phoenix and tasked the team in creating a Communications Plan, connecting public affairs officers to key media influencers prior to the event, securing positive coverage of the campaign to drive traffic to public events and sharing key messages. Local, regional and national media were targeted with an emphasis on broadcast media. Marine Corps Leadership was concerned with: Compressed timeline, little opportunity for its public affairs officers to develop relationships with Phoenix media Largest city the annual event had been held in Valley-wide events much more spread out than previous host cities Schedule of events wasn’t finalized until few weeks prior to event During the campaign an additional issue arose: The I-10 Freeway shooting became breaking news with shootings occurring on every day of the Marine Week Event schedule – monopolized media’s attention and limited vehicles/choppers/camera people available to cover client’s events
Solution
The Ferraro Group Phoenix: Created influencer campaign, drafted communication pieces for CEOs, Head coaches, University President and other of local leaders to help share Marine Week key messages and event information. Helped to secure and then created/wrote (with client) special section with the Arizona Republic to be distributed the Sunday prior to the event kickoff (valued at $30,000) Met with Radio and TV producers the week prior and recorded 10-15 different interviews (per media outlet) to run the week of the event – took multiple Marines in studio to record various voices and perspectives Pre-Booked 30+ in studio and onsite TV/radio interviews that wouldn’t be bumped for breaking news – Pre-coordinated all segment sheets, talking points, visuals Developed daily media alerts to highlight most visual opportunities for television Aggressively pitched pre-event visuals/daily media alerts at 3 a.m. every morning and on weekends when less pitching occurs – Leveraged existing relationships – Made visuals/interviewees available as early as 4:30 a.m. – Continued to follow-up throughout the day and shared additional visuals with afternoon and evening crews beyond the formal media alerts and press releases distributed Arrived early to each event and texted the producers/planner images of what the visuals actually looked like onsite – this helped planners prioritize with the breaking news if client’s visuals were strong enough – This also helped client stand out amongst hundreds of text emails planners received – Recorded video, images for media outlets to distribute if breaking news pulled their reporter off clients’ event Coordinated with Marine Week partners’ various public relations firms/internal teams to leverage relationship and avoid double pitching
Results
At the end of the one-month campaign, Public Relations goals were far exceeded with: PR efforts reached 15.5 Million PR Value of $4.5 Million More than 300 TV, radio, print and online stories generated in one month National pickup from USA Today and national military, non-profit and sports reporters Exceeded client’s expectations
Want fresh marketing stories in your inbox?
Get the weekly email that makes you a marketing genius.
Stay informed and inspired, for free.