It's one thing to construct an entire PR strategy when the client's product or concept is fully executed, and can be seen, photographed, touted on TV and blasted across the Web.
And entirely another when the product simply does not yet exist.
That was the case when New York-based Lou Hammond & Associates, a 14-year-old PR firm with 30 employees, signed on in August 1996 to develop a campaign for a cruise ship that redefines the term luxury.
The ship, called The World of the ResidenSea, to be built by ResidenSea Ltd., will contain 250 luxury homes, ranging in size from 1,100 sq. feet to 3,200 sq. feet, at a price of $1.2 million to $5.4 million apiece. According to its builder, The World will spend approximately two-thirds of the year in port and allow residents to disembark for special events such as the Olympic Games in Sydney, the Cannes Film Festival, America's Cup in Auckland, Carnival in Rio and Monaco's Gran Prix.
Additionally, residents will have "exclusive memberships to the ResidenSea Club, entitling them to use restaurants, bars, a spa and fitness center," on board, and "reciprocal membership to private clubs around the world."
If it sounds too good to be true, that's exactly the reaction LHA president and founder Lou Hammond expected from the media. The three-member team assigned to the campaign developed a PR strategy that was purposely short on hype. To date, stories on ResidenSea have run in 180 outlets in a five-month period, with a reach of more than 29 million.
According to Robert Burnett, president, ResidenSea USA, the campaign has helped generate $100 million in sales for a total of 50 units and $60 million worth of reservations (a $5,000 reservation allows prospective buyers a month to evaluate buying a residence as they initiate the process).
The PR firm has extensive experience in working with clients in the travel and luxury products category, including the Hong Kong-based Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, the Island of Aruba, and Hunter Douglas, maker of high-end window coverings.
Still, the ResidenSea product was in a class all its own.
Says account executive Bettina Prober, "We were concerned that the media might consider it a pie-in-the-sky idea. Nothing like this had ever been tried before. And in this case, we were selling a product before a shipbuilding contract had been signed."
Execs at ResidenSea deliberately eschewed running an expensive ad campaign and decided instead to promote the product largely through a PR campaign, "Basically because [media coverage] is a third party endorsement," says Burnett. "The reporter looks at it, asks questions, and comes to his or her own conclusion - and most of the conclusions have been favorable. We think it's a stronger endorsement than paid advertising."
LHA spent about $30,000 on the campaign, which included costs associated with the press kit, and holding two luncheons for editors in LHA's offices.
Taking ResidenSea Into Reality
Translating the dream into tangible reality for the media became the firm's first order of business.
The press kit included the usual fact sheets and press releases as well as detailed floor plans for the apartments, a reprint of a company magazine article that featured interviews with the principals of the company and the ship's captain, and transparencies of computer-generated pictures of the ship.
LHA systematically target-marketed the story and mailed more than 300 press kits. The first order of business was to establish credibility with readers of a certain ilk.
"We thought, 'Who has the money to [buy an apartment]?," says Hammond. LHA offered exclusives to The Wall Street Journal and Fortune magazine - and both picked up the story.
Hammond purposely did not elect to pitch the story to travel magazines first, for two reasons.
"They have such long lead times and time became an issue," she says, "and, I knew they would talk about the destinations but wouldn't write about the ship until it was built." Late last November, the ship's creators signed a letter of intent with a shipbuilder and announced their intention to deliver the finished product in the year 2000 - a milestone event that LHA successfully pitched as an exclusive to The New York Times in early December 1997.
Keeping The Story Afloat
LHA then targeted newspapers and regional magazines in ResidenSea's top 10 key markets including Palm Beach, San Francisco, Beverly Hills, Chicago, and the greater New York area, and stories ran in the New York Times, Newsday, Miami Herald and others. It also targeted publications "known for their syndication success" and received coverage in regional business publications.
The story ran in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, San Francisco Examiner, Seattle Times & Post Intelligencer and Christian Science Monitor, among others.
Finally, LHA pursued editors at lifestyle magazines. It hosted two lunches at its New York office and featured Knut Kloster, Jr., the man who invented ResidenSea, to be its guest of honor. The luncheon attracted editors from Men's Journal, Conde Nast Traveler, Travel & Leisure, Bon Appetit, Luxe and The New Yorker. One of the invitees, editors from InStyle magazine, though not able to attend, ran a spot on the ship in its "Top 100 Ideas" list for 1998. Future destinations on LHA's PR itinerary include pitching newspapers and magazines that did not pick up on the story the first time.
Lou Hammond & Associates
Founded: 1984
Agency Billings in 1997: $3 million
Number of Employees: 30
(Lou Hammond, Bettina Prober, 212/308-8880; Robert Burnett, ResidenSea, 212/332-1660)