Creating a Public Relations Event with Sustaining Inertia

Submitted by Mitch Seigel on Wed, 06/01/2011

Like it was yesterday, I remember the greatest retail promotion I’ve been involved with over the last four decades, and it was about thirty years ago.

As a radio station rep, I had a call from a car dealership to come down to the showroom to discuss an idea the owner had for a promotion. I didn’t think twice, got into my car and made it to the dealership in fifteen minutes. To my surprise, the owner of the dealership had placed the same call to three other radio station reps in the market. Each of us represented an AM/FM combination, so really eight stations were represented in the room. For me this was unprecedented, to have competing reps in the same room, and come to think of it, it never happened again in the next thirty years. To avoid accusations of collusion, meetings were generally separate, one rep at a time, but not in this case.

The Meeting to Announce the Idea

The owner of the business welcomed us and started off my saying that we will not be discussing rates of ads or anything to do with money on that day. We were strictly there to strategize on coming up with the greatest sales promotion, and to build a public relations event that would bring business during the event and several weeks after. And that’s what we proceeded to do.

The owner of the dealership was a Ram’s football fan and was upset that the Rams had just lost the Super Bowl to the Pittsburgh Steelers. (Who hasn’t lost to the Steelers in the Super Bowl?) So he wanted to have a “Get Back at the Ram’s and (Ram’s owner at the time) Georgia Frontiere” event. He wanted to advertise on all eight radio stations represented in the room, but that would only be the beginning. We proceeded to build one layer on top of the next, trying to get every possible segment of the community involved. This meant a fun event for all ages, really and truly touching the public.

So what developed? A Georgia Frontiere and Ray Malavasi (Ram’s coach) look-alike contest, a separate contest to win one of two trucks being given away that day, the high school marching band marching down the street to the event, the cheerleaders on hand to excite the crowd, as many high school football players hanging around to add to the atmosphere, two live radio broadcasts by competing country music stations, a live band playing country music, endless gifts given by all eight radio stations other advertisers, and last but not the least, a charity was selected to benefit from donations made that day.

Public Relations Results Like You’ve Never Seen Before (or after)

Thousands, yes thousands in attendance throughout the one day event at the car dealership. 37 cars sold that day to people who said they came because of the event, and another 84 that sold in the next three weeks because it was so crowded the event day, they opted to come back. The event was on a Saturday. The following Monday morning, every radio station in town was talking about this event- more PR ! Several people throughout the community had won prizes at the event and the charity involved was given a handsome donation by the car dealership at the end of the day.

This was public relations at its best. Unfortunately we are moving so fast these days that the depth of this event hardly ever happens any longer, but it can! Think event, think lasting inertia, and you too can have a winner.

What are your challenges when it comes to building public relations strategies for your company? I look forward to hearing your comments.

Until next time…