MAKING IMPRESSION

Savvy shops turn the best promotion strategies into public relations events.

Ask Doug Dome about the Birthday Cake War and his face lights up.

Sara Lee Bakery celebrated its anniversary last year by giving away free slices of cake to people who visited Chicago’s Cultural Center on their birthday and entered a drawing for a free cake.

Dome, whose Dome Communications agency ran the p.r. campaign, was ecstatic when First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton chose the Cultural Center for her own 50th birthday party. Sara Lee nailed a deal as baker of the Official Birthday Cake – then got a challenge from Chicago institution Ely’s Cheesecake. Some arm-wrestling ensued (hence, the “War”), and Sara Lee won, cooking up a 300-pound, six-foot cake. For weeks, the company teased Chicagoans about what mystery details would be etched along the edge of the frosting.

Here’s the best part: Clinton forgot to blow out the candles.

Dome caught the gaffe and, from the party, phoned the producers of Oprah to offer a scaled-down cake for Clinton’s scheduled TV appearance the next day. Dome staffers were at Harpo Studios at 4 a.m. to slice cake for the audience and cross their fingers that Oprah would have the time – and the inclination – to give Clinton a second chance at the candles (and mention Sara Lee as “America’s Bakery” to her 22 million viewers). Oprah did, Clinton did, and Dome was over the moon.

And you thought promotion was a detail-crazy discipline.

“The brand manager thought I was nuts,” recalls Dome, who made Sara Lee bake two full-size cakes but got millions of dollars in media exposure from what started with a $100,000 radio budget. “I just kept saying, `You have to picture the back end. That’s what makes it all come together.'”

Two Ps in a Pod Public relations shops are doing some great promotions. These agencies have honed their ability to take brand events to the street, meeting consumers face-to-face as well as through newspapers and the evening news.

P.R. is more akin to advertising, both of which have their roots in media. But these days, it acts more like promotion. The key is consumer interaction with the brand – the kind of branding-through-relationship-building that distinguishes the best promotions today.

“P.R. is two-way. It’s about listening and responding,” says Ray Gaulke, president of the Public Relations Society of America, New York City. “Listening isn’t as important in advertising.”

At the same time, p.r. retains the distinct value of third-party endorsements: the Today story about Cindy Crawford’s sweeps with Special K, a minute with Oprah or Rosie O’Donnell. As consumers become more cynical about marketing, they’re more inclined to buy into what they see as an unbiased media endorsement. “Media’s impact on consumer opinion is second only to personal recommendations from family or friends,” says Doug Spong, president of Carmichael Lynch Spong, Minneapolis.

Consumers’ ready access to information puts them in control. Mark Curran says that makes p.r. the most nimble marketing discipline. “The fluidity of information and [the easy] access to it has shifted power to consumers,” says Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide’s managing director-global marketing practice. “P.R. is more flexible, and can shift more quickly” to respond to breaking news on a brand (think Firestone) or capitalize on an unexpected event – like the First Lady forgetting to blow out the candles.

P.R. spending rose nearly 30 percent to $2.45 billion last year, reports the Council of Public Relations Firms, New York City. Still, the average P.R. budget is only 10 percent to 15 percent of ad budgets and as much as 25 percent of promotion dollars.

Measuring results – beyond collecting press clips – is still an imperfect science. The Council of Public Relations Firms is working with Boston University mathematicians on a model for the best balance between p.r. and ad spending, measuring the value the former adds to the latter. In the meantime, most p.r. shops stress quality media coverage, and count how many consumers interact directly with the brand. For integrated campaigns, many executives work with promotion and ad agency partners to set measurement criteria up front.

A look at 10 recent campaigns lends evidence to the notion that blending p.r. and promotion can produce top-notch branding strategies. (Note: public relations agencies played a lead role in each effort. )

McDonald’s Millennium Dreamers McDonald’s and marketing spouse Disney wanted a Millennium event that only two giants could stage: A two-day summit of 2,000 kid leaders at Disney World. Adults nominated kids they admired, and a panel of judges including United Nations officials chose 2,000 from 90 countries. The “delegates” attended seminars, swapped stories, and rode the rides.

Golin-Harris, Chicago, helped plan the summit, then worked with McD’s communications and marketing staffs and promo shop Simon Marketing’s Oak Brook, IL, office to pull it off. (Simon took the lead on rules and regulations for the contest.) Nomination forms were distributed through restaurants and schools, tapping the chain’s “remarkable on-the-ground presence in so many countries worldwide,” says Ellen Ryan Mardiks, Golin-Harris worldwide director of marketing and brand strategy.

The six-month effort was led by McDonald’s communications staff under the direction of p.r. executive Kathy Nemeth. “It wasn’t a marketing campaign, but the marketing staff was involved because stores were involved,” Mardiks says. “Different departments may have slightly different vantage points, but the whole picture is [to] celebrate young people. All the departments fell into place.”

Polaroid & Britney Spears To maximize its sponsorship of Spears’ 2000 tour, Polaroid tapped Porter Novelli, New York City, to engage teens at concert venues. Fans waiting in line – for hours, in most cases, to get good lawn seats – had their pictures taken with Polaroid I-Zone instant cameras. The postage stamp-sized photo stickers were placed on a poster-sized fan letter kids could also sign. “We had a lot of 14-year-old boys giving Britney their e-mail addresses,” says Porter-Novelli vp Jeffrey Moran. Totowa, NJ-based Contemporary Marketing, a division of tour promoter SFX, Inc., handled on-site execution.

The posters made great backdrops for evening news stories on Britney-mania, and Polaroid cemented its image as a teen brand. Radio station tie-ins included live remotes and Polaroid-funded concert tickets as station prizes.

Yoplait Expresse General Mills launched yogurt-in-a-tube on the West Coast in September with plans to go national in 2001. Its regional rollout piggybacks local events like arts festivals and women’s expos.

A Yoplait Expresse tent invites women to have their pictures taken for use in making digital mosaics they can own and also have added to Yoplait’s mosaic quilt. Mills also gives out samples. The company partners with a women’s organization in each market to pinpoint appropriate events. Carmichael Lynch Spong, Minneapolis, handles.

Tide’s Search for the Dirtiest Kid in America When Procter & Gamble added “activated hydrogen peroxide” to Tide last year, the detail seemed too mundane to interest consumers. So Tide and Fleishmann-Hillard re-activated Tide’s Dirtiest Kid search, which first ran in 1996. This time, P&G used a Western theme to round up “The Dirty Dozen,” kids ages six to 12 who would compete in a Grand Central Station showdown. Events in 39 cities and promos on Radio Disney invited parents to nominate their kids via essay and photo. Twelve regional winners appeared in a “Wanted” poster in People; readers called a toll-free number to vote for their favorite, and P&G made a donation to nonprofit Give Kids the World for each call.

Fleishmann-Hillard set up an O.K. Corral obstacle course in the New York City train station (picture “Custard’s Last Stand” and you get the idea), and offered Tide samples to commuters. (The nine-year-old who won was nicknamed “King of Mud” by friends even before the contest.)

American Greetings Scream Mail When AmericanGreetings.com relaunched in 1999, it needed a different image from its staid parent. Ogilvy Public Relations came up with Scream Mail, a collection of famous movie screams fans could attach to Halloween e-mail greetings.

Visitors sent more than 10,000 notes-with-nodes, which led American Greetings to reprise the effort for Valentine’s Day as Smooch Mail. Visitors chose a celebrity on the site to give a virtual “kiss” (via mouse clicks), and the celeb who racked up the most mashes got a $25,000 donation to the charity of his choice. Ogilvy insists it was “flattered” when online portal Yahoo launched a similar site months later.

Millenios Takes Manhattan General Mills put no ad budget behind Millenios, an in-and-out cereal brand set for sale only in fourth-quarter ’99. The company tapped Carmichael Lynch Spong for a Times Square kickoff with Countdown Master Dick Clark unveiling the product with a ball drop. The ball opened to reveal a huge box of Millenios, and hundreds of media outlets picked up the photo of Clark and the cereal.

At the same time, Mills sent 300 celebrities a box of cereal and a felt-tip pen; 200 sent back an autographed box for a charity auction on eBay.com. The event raised $50,000 for Boys and Girls Clubs of America. (The top price was $5,000 for Janet Jackson’s autograph). Rosie O’Donnell, who also John Hancocked a box, gave Millenios out to her TV audiences and talked up the auction on-air. General Mills sold through 400,000 cases in six weeks.

Nabisco Refresh the Roll This 1999 effort won a PRO Award as the best multidiscipline campaign (see “An Epidemic of Innovation”). To revive interest in LifeSavers’ flagship five-flavor roll, Nabisco staged a national vote on whether to replace pineapple (found by Nabisco R&D to be “non-compliant” for Y2K) or replace it. TV, radio, and Internet advertising, p.r., a national FSI, and activity in 30,000-plus stores supported. (Don’t know what the verdict was? Check a roll.)

The campaign generated 460 million consumer impressions, including 300 TV and 400 newspaper stories, and earned a Silver Anvil Award from the Public Relations Society of America. More than 500,000 votes were cast, and volume sales of five-flavor rolls rose 10.5 percent in the promotional period. Rogers & Cowan, New York City, worked with Nabisco’s in-house p.r. staff. Westport, CT-based promo shop Ryan Partnership handled advertising and P-O-P creative.

PacBell Pitch Even before the San Francisco Giants moved into PacBell Park, sponsor Pacific Bell wanted to show customers that its naming rights fees were a commitment to the community. PacBell wanted to engage fans, give them some sense of ownership in the park, and boost employee pride. It hired Fleishmann-Hillard to engineer the Giant PacBell Park Pitch, a February-to-April event that took Stitches – the ball pitched in the last game at the Giants’ old home at Candlestick Park – on tour. Fans in 16 California and Nevada cities donated $50 to $1,000 to participate in a mile-long pitch relay that ended with a free FanFest (where less-flush participants could pitch the celebrity ball for free).

By the time Stitches was hurled on Opening Day, 25,000 fans had thrown it 3,000 miles and raised $100,000 for local kids’ sports groups. “They actually touched history,” says Fleishmann-Hillard senior vp-partner Eric Blinderman. Omnicom sister agency GMR Marketing, New Berlin, WI, handled tour logistics.

Quaker Oats Healthy Heart Challenge Quaker Oats Co. got a good news hook in 1997 when the Food & Drug Administration approved the claim that eating oatmeal for one month lowers cholesterol. Quaker adopted Lafayette, CO – home of the annual Oatmeal Festival – for a Smart Heart Challenge. One hundred residents ate oatmeal for a month; 98 of them lowered their cholesterol. The p.r. campaign was so powerful it extended into ads and packaging, with Heart Healthy participants still center stage. Ogilvy P.R., New York City, chose Lafayette because Quaker donated cereal every January for the festival.

Milk Chugs Launch Dean Foods, Franklin Park, IL, launched Milk Chugs in 1998 with a Pittsburgh soccer clinic starring Mia Hamm. Kids stormed the field. The event was so successful that Dean signed on to sponsor U.S. Youth Soccer with clinics and player appearances (sans the then-pricey Hamm) via Dome Communications.

Soccer has become Chugs’ promotion platform. A soccer-ball SLO was floated via Flair Communications, Chicago, and this fall Dean kicked off a 10-city tour with World Cup champs Shannon MacMillan and Carlos Valderrama.

Dean stole a base against Coca-Cola in the St. Louis Cardinals’ Busch Stadium during star Mark Maguire’s slugfest in ’98. Coke has pouring rights, and bristles at other beverage promotions. So Dean pinch-hit with Cardinals Care, the team’s charity: For a $1 donation, fans threw at a carnival-style tower of milk bottles for a chance to throw out the first pitch at a game broadcast on Fox. Dean sampled 12,000 half-pint Chugs, got great visibility, and was out of there before Coke figured things out.

Classic p.r. takes a long view of brand equity, building and protecting a brand’s reputation over a lifetime. Couple that with the immediacy of an event that lets consumers interact with the brand, and you’ve got 21st Century promotion.

It’s the kind of strategy that really takes the cake.

Agency executives comment on: WHY P.R. IS BECOMING MORE PREVALENT: – “It’s a language many more people are comfortable speaking. Companies are turning to p.r. professionals to protect brand image. The answer isn’t always an ad.” – Ellen Ryan Mardiks, Golin-Harris

– “A rising tide floats all boats. There’s an overall increased interest in branding, and high-tech and online companies with lots to spend have prompted others to spend more, too.” – Gerry Schwarz, G.S. Schwarz & Co.

WORKING WITH PROMOTION/AD AGENCIES: – “All due respect, but promotion and advertising haven’t seen p.r. as center of the table. They’re finally waking up to the fact that p.r. isn’t what you do once you figure everything out – it’s part of figuring it out.” – Mardiks

– “We’re flattered when p.r. leads the marketing mix.” – Mark Curran, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide

– “It’s the brand manager’s responsibility to coordinate between agencies. It takes an enlightened and sophisticated client to break down barriers between agencies’ traditional roles.” – Doug Dome, Dome Communications

– “The best events happen when everyone sets strategy together, because then each can put ideas through the filter of their own discipline.” – Eric Blinderman, Fleishmann-Hillard

CONSUMERS: – “If you foster a branded bridge between consumers and their passions, it really bonds them to the brand.” – Blinderman

– “They’re much more receptive to marketing messages if they can interact with the brand on their own terms.” – Curran

CLIPS: – “In the past, money spent on non-advertising channels got a return on investment specifically measured by response and redemption, not by broader branding. In holistic marketing, p.r. becomes more important.” – Dome

– “We’re in a `Prove it’ world. Still, it’s hard to measure any one discipline in isolation. We find ourselves as a cross-discipline team working toward team measurement goals.” – Blinderman

GUARANTEES: – “If you want that kind of control over the media, you need to spend your money in advertising.” – Doug Spong, Carmichael Lynch Spong