If you haven’t noticed by now, we really love PR. In fact, the only things we love more than that are integrated communications as a whole and helping out our community.
Go figure that we’d get the chance to do all three of those things at once! When we heard about Healthy Battle Creek and the impact it could have on the lives of so many people, we had to be part of it.
The What and Why
Healthy Battle Creek is a community initiative that was developed as part of the State of Michigan’s Coronavirus Task Force on Racial Disparities (created per Executive Order 2020-55) to address historical and systemic inequities in communities of color. This collaborative community effort was granted over $225,000 in funds to distribute vital personal protection resources to help the fight of COVID-19.
Our work with Healthy Battle Creek and New Level Sports Ministries began in October 2020 in preparation for a large-scale PPE distribution event for the Washington Heights community in Battle Creek. After the main event on November 21, our focus shifted to public relations and social media engagement.
The Need
The goal of this campaign was to secure local and regional media coverage announcing the distribution of Healthy Battle Creek’s 1,200 Family Resource Kits. These were available for free to people in the Washington Heights area. We also aimed to highlight the disproportionate effects of COVID-19 on communities of color and help cross the barriers to accessing physical and mental health care.
In a collaborative effort, other local community organizations used the drive-thru event to disperse over 40,000 points of food before the holiday season to those in need.
Our Kickass Approach
We approach every project we take on with 110% of our effort. Healthy Battle Creek was no different. We knew this initiative would be life saving and we needed to work as effectively and as quickly as we could.
Any campaign of this caliber requires strategic research, a thorough strategy and exceptional project management. These elements became increasingly more important in the face of a pandemic like COVID-19. Our process for success in this campaign included:
- Bi-weekly meetings to identify goals and understand organizational messaging
- Extensive research to identify applicable media targets in the local and regional markets
- Creation of multiple press lists
- Ongoing media pitching and follow up
- Creation of press releases, media alerts, and a branded media kit
- Additional creative assistance
- Creation of media/segment talking points
- Coordination of all media interviews
- Real-time monitoring of earned media coverage and ongoing campaign reporting
- Direct mailers to over 3,500 people in the Washington Heights area
- Digital ad creation and maintenance
- Social media content creation and calendar management
- Social media monitoring and response engagement
How We Crushed It
Although this event was positioned directly before a holiday weekend and surging COVID-19 cases in the area were overtaking the news cycle, we were able to secure six statewide pieces of earned media before the event occurred. We were able to secure coverage in a variety of regional publications with total impression numbers surpassing 5,420,900.
Not only that, but all 1,200 Family Resource Kits went to people who needed PPE before the holiday. Now we’d call that a success.
Ready to work with a team who puts you first? Get in touch. We’d love to learn how we can help you.
