Edelman Public Relations Worldwide's Chicago office accepted a mighty challenge when it signed on to promote the launch of Dairy.com. Behind the scenes, the Web site was backed
by more than half a dozen competing dairy companies, yet the first-ever online dairy exchange still had to come out of the gate with a consistent message.
In addition to forging that unified message about the efficiency of an online dairy exchange, the PR team had to win the trust of dairy farmers and other interested parties. In
an industry steeped in tradition, the idea of an online commodities brokerage was a hard sell.
"When you have perishable products being traded online, it raises a lot of questions, just because that is not the way this business is traditionally done," says Edelman VP
Sheila Gregory.
How to win trust? Ask trusted voices to speak for you. "We had the support of Dairy Farmers of America, as they were one of the founding partners," Gregory explains. "That was
critical, because it meant that even individual farmers would be able to use the site as easily as the corporate conglomerates."
The PR pros directed attention toward the long-time industry players who would be serving on the site's board of directors. "We had people designing the exchange who had long-
term experience in the industry," which in turn helped reassure farmers and other stakeholders, Gregory says.
The farmers still were concerned that the big dairy conglomerates funding the site would have too much control. Thus the PR team's communications also were geared toward
"demonstrating that there would be a separate, independent management group that would not be employed by Kraft or any of the other large conglomerates," says Gregory.
Playing Nice With The Competition
To ensure that the founders were all on the same page, Edelman developed an Intranet site where all parties could keep tabs on the evolution of logos, test-site pages, media
kit materials and so on in the weeks prior to the launch.
The agency also planned a day-long media training session for executives from the founding partner-firms. They spent the morning refining key messages and the afternoon
developing answers to anticipated questions. Later that day the executives met one-on-one with Edelman media trainers, and the training wrapped up with a mock teleconference.
"A lot of them knew how to talk about their individual business, and they had to change their mindset in order to talk about this," says Gregory. "We wanted to be sure that all
the messages were consistent and that the press would be getting the same story from everybody."
On July 26, 2000, Edelman distributed a release and followed up with a teleconference for 25 analysts. Major players like Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns participated, drawn by
the involvement of the dairy industry's top players.
Edelman followed up with a media teleconference - a last-minute affair that nonetheless drew big-league media. Again, "it was the names of the companies involved that did it"
says Gregory.
Selling Neutrality
Even with competing executives sharing the podium peacefully, the Edelman team still faced the challenge of convincing potential traders that the efficiency of the site would
justify the cost of becoming involved. The team secured third-party endorsements from experts at Cornell and the University of Washington.
"Those people can be really difficult to track down, and they also need to have a good understanding of the new company," Gregory says. "We gave them all the information ahead
of time, so that they could provide valuable feedback to the media."
Results
The placeholder Web site created by Edelman (the functional site would not launch until after it had generated enough attention and interest within the industry) received 780
visits on launch day and 24,175 more thereafter. Forty dairy trades featured stories about dairy.com, producing more than 1 million impressions, and among the wires, dailies,
business, new economy and technology press, dairy.com received 6.3 million media impressions. The launch also won broadcast coverage on radio (Wall Street Journal Radio Network)
and TV (CNBC's "Power Lunch").
Plus, the fully-functional dairy.com site is still up and running - which in dot-com terms these days is a legitimate measure of success all in itself.
(Contact: Sheila Gregory, 312/233-1226, [email protected])
Campaign Stats
Edelman staff on this campaign:Mark Shadle, EVP/GM; Sheila Gregory, VP; Kelly Harder, Account Supervisor ; Wendy Gallwas, Senior Account Executive; Julie Helmstetter, Account
Executive; Laura Battle, Intern; Piot Uzarowicz, VP-Edelman Interactive Services; Adrienne Gawlowski, Account Manager-Edelman Interactive Services
Campaign timeframe: June 2000 - August 2000
Budget: $161,000
The Final List of Players:
On some issues, Gregory admits, there was little her firm could have done to make things go more smoothly. The final list of partners had not been named until the wee hours of
the very morning of the launch, "and we needed to know who was on board before notifying the media," says Gregory. "Not having all of the partnerships completely ironed out made
it very difficult," she says. To deal with the uncertainty, the team had several versions of the press kit ready, with some names included or other names left out.
In the end, dairy.com was launched by an impressive conglomerate of dairy industry players, including:
- Kraft
- Land-o-Lakes
- Dairy Farmers of America
- Suiza
- Dreyer's
- Schreiber
- Dannon
- Leprino
Edelman received an Honorable Mention in the PR NEWS Platinum PR Awards Startup category in 2001 for the launch of dairy.com.