As the bank ING DIRECT moved into the San Francisco market in
December 2003, bank executives knew their consumer message cold:
Banking with us is easy, and it can save you money. They even knew
how to broadcast that message. In Los Angeles they had entered the
market by giving away free gas for a day at three gas stations. In
San Francisco they would let everyone ride to work for free on
BART, the local mass transit system.
"What will touch a lot of people? What it is commonality among
residents of this city?" says Ashlee Stokes, head of PR at ING
DIRECT. "Every time we have gone into a market we have found a
partner who shares a common message of cost effectiveness and
accessibility."
Enter Plesser Associates, the New York-based PR firm charged
with drumming up media attention for the free-ride promotion. As
executive vice president at the firm, Kent Holland takes an
extraordinarily strategic approach to garnering media, an approach
that proved effective both in Los Angeles and again in San
Francisco. The basic premise: media feeds off itself. One placement
in the right media outlet can trigger a wave of stories.
In San Francisco that first story had to run in the San
Francisco Chronicle, the one major daily in town. It's also a
notoriously skeptical paper in a city famously resistant to
marketing messages. No sense, then, in going to the editors with a
marketing pitch, or even a banking pitch that veiled only too
thinly a marketing play. Instead, Holland went to BART's PR team,
which was already known to people at the paper, including those
transportation reporters and editors who would cover the story.
"Having the right person make the call, someone they intimately
trust" helped win coverage, as did a promise of an exclusive,
Holland says.
Now comes the ripple effect. Holland wanted an Associate Press
story, but AP in northern California also is "remarkably resistant
to pitches," he says. Rather than approach AP cold, Holland went to
the AP city desk the day the story broke in the Chronicle. "That
made them sit up and take notice," Holland says. This, in turn,
peaked the interest of others in the market. Backed by the AP
story, the PR team started pitching local TV and radio, and
ultimately landed coverage with every single broadcast media in the
area.
If the San Francisco plan was to spread the word from the top
down, Holland's effort in Los Angeles played the same strategy, but
in the opposite direction. "The L.A. Times is absolutely impossible
to pitch on things like this," he says. "The city is so vast and
that paper is so resistant to business pitches, just because they
get so many of them."
The best approach, therefore, would be to trigger a groundswell
among the smaller media, effectively forcing the hand of the bigger
players. It was close: Not until the night before the event did
KABC-TV run a piece about it. But that was enough to get the ball
rolling. Every local TV affiliate showed up at the gas stations to
do live remotes the next day, and in the end both the Times and the
AP ran stories and photos.
All of the media efforts in San Francisco came in support of a
proper show put on by the ING DIRECT marketing department. In
addition to paying the fare Dec. 4, ING DIRECT took over 43 BART
stations that week with orange banners and orange signs and
orange-clad "ambassadors" all proclaiming the message: "Ride for
Free Courtesy of ING DIRECT on Dec. 4."
It made for good graphics and, thanks to the PR team, the media
were there to see it. Plesser Associates estimates that 7.9 million
media impressions were made on potential customers through press
coverage on television (5.7 million impressions), radio (234,000
impressions) and in print (2 million impressions).
For ING DIRECT, the pace of new customer acquisition in the San
Francisco area increased by 92% after the "Ride and Save" campaign,
compared with the previous month. Moreover, the bank reports that
the campaign led to the opening of 7,469 accounts at a cost of
$52.40 per new account, much lower than the expected cost of $110
per account. Among traditional banks the cost per new account is
about $200.
Contacts: Kent Holland, 202.327.5459, [email protected]; Ashlee
Stokes, 302.255.3034, [email protected]
Taking it to the Streets
To get media coverage in large metropolitan areas, Kent Holland
of Plesser Associates recommends a PR plan in which a story can
feed on itself.
- A story in a major daily or wire source will get picked up by
the local news outlets. - The reverse also holds true: A groundswell among smaller news
outlets can trigger coverage in the dailies. - To get things rolling, partner with a respected local
entity. - For media that resist a straight marketing pitch, use a trusted
voice to approach an editor.
Fast Facts: Plesser Associates
Founded: 1992
HQ: New York City
Revenues (2003): $1 million
Number of Employees: 6
Staff on this campaign: Kent Holland, EVP; Jason Chupick, Media
Supervisor; Nicole Erazo, Account Executive
Campaign time frame: November-December 2003
Overall budget for event: $250,000
URL: www.plesser.com