GMG Public Relations and Risa Hoag developed, produced and directed this advertising campaign for the SUEZ Conserve Rebate program. (SUEZ is now Veolia)

 

Dary Rees International

An excellent example of GMG PR creativity is our ‘News Conference in a Box,’ which was awarded the first of two Best of Show awards we received from the Advertising Club of Westchester. We were asked to generate business coverage for our client’s home products company in anticipation of going public. We did some research and discovered that she had used a little-known government program to expand overseas. We used that angle and created a news conference in a box. We filled it with a bottle of champagne, cheese and crackers, and one of the client’s fun champagne glasses and colorful cheese spreaders. Follow up was easy as most of the publications called us! There were over 320 entries for Ad Club awards that year. We were chosen unanimously by a prestigious board of judges because our “news conference in a box was not only unique in its execution, but was successful for the client,” garnering a 41% placement rate, including Fortune, Entrepreneur, Success and Executive Female.

Scotland Tourism Board

The Scottish tourist board (VisitScotland) enlisted our services to help promote tourism to the country as well as the Annual Tartan Day in the United States and the world’s largest pipe and drum parade to raise money for Marie Curie Cancer Research and Gilda’s Club Worldwide. The goal was also to increase awareness of travel to Scotland. We worked extensively with VisitScotland to organize street teams to promote not only the parade but travel to Scotland as well. Our public relations efforts garnered a feature story on CBS Sunday Morning about the evolution of the kilt. The story highlighted scenes from Edinburgh, a segment with the best-known kilt maker in Scotland as well as an interview we arranged with Sir Sean Connery. The piece was viewed by more than 4 million people. We arranged additional interviews with The New York Times, Travel & Leisure, Travel Agent, Bride’s and Bridal Guide, all featuring travel to Scotland.

When tourism suffered because of hoof and mouth disease, The Scottish Tourist Board again turned to GMG PR for assistance. They gave us 60 days to obtain as much press as possible about positive tourism events in Scotland. Over a two month time period we obtained more than 900 radio placements nationwide and over 200 newspaper and magazine articles including four placements in The New York Times.

The Wartburg

We generated thousands of placements for this 140-year-old elder care facility including coverage on all the major New York area news networks. For the opening of their new assisted living residence we highlighted their attention to detail by mailing green-polka-dot boxes that begged to be opened to media throughout the target area. Each box contained a plain brown potato and a cover letter explaining how ‘residents will never find anything other than fresh vegetables at The Wartburg.’ That promotion garnered a coveted New York Times story along with several local media placements and sales inquiries skyrocketed after the articles appeared. We generated a feature story in The New York Times every year for The Wartburg since we began working with them in 1997.

Auberge Maxime

An upscale French restaurant in Westchester wanted to bring in some new faces to their restaurant. We suggested a “Taste of France” evening. With the chef, we planned a seven-course meal and decided the ‘French Chef’s Wife’ would explain the origin of each dish as we ate. The evening received extensive coverage in the local papers as well as coverage on local TV. We filled the restaurant that evening and inspired many diners to become new ‘regulars.’

IMAX Theatre

In ten days we organized an "IMAX Action Summer" to increase ticket sales at an area IMAX Theatre. We managed to secure eight summer Saturday activities for kids, including a Broadway star to teach jazz dance, a laser tag game, gymnastics and kickboxing demonstrations and a junior-challenge obstacle course. We generated attendance through a grass-roots approach of distributing flyers by hand to the public and mailing out press releases to the media. We also partnered with a party company that agreed to distribute 5,000 balsa-wood airplanes with “IMAX Action Summer” printed on the wings and coupons for IMAX tickets included in the packaging. Not only did the media cover the event, but there were great turnouts on Saturdays and an increase in ticket sales overall. To extend the coverage we recommended that IMAX donate 10 cents of every ticket purchased to Special Olympics. The summer promotion raised over $4,000 to support Special Olympics athletes in the area.

EastRidge Properties

EastRidge Properties wanted a fun idea to launch the first freestanding day care center within an office park in Westchester County. We suggested they create the longest paper-doll chain on record and use it in place of a ribbon to cut on opening day. We then carried that theme through by making invitations for the media out of paper-doll chains, and putting images of paper-doll chains on T-shirts and coloring books for the kids. We then located 100 feet of rolled paper and began carefully cutting the chain. The children finished it by drawing their images on each paper doll. The mayor and the kids cut the paper-doll chain in front of a cheering crowd on opening day. The promotion received huge press and a letter of recognition from the Guinness Book of World Records.

We also assisted EastRidge with their efforts to create a tenant cookbook with all the proceeds going to charity. More than 100 recipes were submitted and a wire bound cookbook was created and sold throughout the Westchester community. We chose a small charity that wouldn’t normally benefit from such a large corporate effort and every dollar from book purchases was given to HeartSong generating more than $5,000 in donations in one month.

Morton's The Steakhouse

We have undertaken several unique initiatives for Morton's The Steakhouse for both the Hackensack, New Jersey restaurant and the White Plains, New York location. Recently we developed and implemented "Foam War", a program to introduce a local New Jersey brewed beer to the Morton's bar menu. We invited five local breweries to submit a beer to the contest which we then promoted throughout New Jersey. The breweries were also asked to send email blasts to their customers, distribute flyers and encourage voting in the restaurant. The promotion has received great media coverage and will continue to receive coverage as we introduce our new Bar Bites menu with the Foam War winner. The program is so successful that we were asked to replicate it in White Plains.

We recently organized a cookbook signing for the founder of Morton's in conjunction with Barnes & Noble in The Shops at Riverside. The book signing received extensive coverage in the NJ media and as a result the cookbook is being featured in several New Jersey magazines.

Recently we were asked to assist with creating an event for Big Brothers to launch a new campaign in Brooklyn. We could think of no better partner than the new Morton's The Steakhouse in Brooklyn. We worked with Morton's and Big Brothers to create a five hour sidewalk event which attracted thousands of people and media to the site (directly in front of Morton's) and generated over 100 Big Brother applicants.