At the heart of the Sara Lee Mama Sagas campaign to promote its packaged deli meats were several partnerships, namely the collaboration between Sara Lee and O’Malley Hansen Communications. Leveraging Sara Lee’s insight into its customers and relying on OHC’s innovative and strategic PR initiatives were what made the campaign ultimately successful. Here’s some insight into making those relationships work:
• Be prepared internally: It’s important for Sara Lee’s brand marketing and corporate communications teams to be on the same page before work starts with an outside agency, says Sara Matheu, director of corporate communications at Sara Lee.
• Bring in the brand: Matheu encourages Sara Lee’s PR agencies to work very closely with brand teams, which results in cohesiveness and open communications between the agency and the brand team.
• Insist on excellence: OHC’s partnership with video sharing platform MetaCafe was a great alliance, says Todd Hansen, principal at OHC. “They are very good at collaboration and in developing really smart platforms that work,” Hansen says.