Recycling. If it was exciting in years past, it certainly isn't now. Green news is mostly old news, but that didn't stop the State of California from giving it one more go.
Surprise: It worked. Led by Riester~Robb Public Relations in Los Angeles, the California Department of Conservation (CDOC) actually scored significant media
coverage for its recycling campaign, and it even managed to convince people to turn in their empty bottles. The trick was to get past the hackneyed tree-hugging banter and make
the story personal.
"The old-school message of telling people about the billions and billions of bottle and cans that were winding up in the trash wasn't working," says Dave Reiseman, associate
director of public relations at Riester~Robb. "People in California had become apathetic toward recycling. Recycling rates were on the decline. Recycling had kind of been pushed
to the back pages."
In an effort to turn the tide, Reiseman in mid-2003 looked for an image that would convey a more personal message, and he found it in L.A.'s omnipresent water bottle. "The
sight of someone with a water bottle in one hand and a cellphone in the other has become ubiquitous," he says. "When we were filming b-roll for this, we actually saw someone try
to answer their water bottle."
That angle rang an immediate bell with reporters. "It could easily resonant with the media, just because it was something they recognized as being true," says CDOC spokesman
Mark Oldfield. "It allowed us to position it as a trends story."
One image does not a story make, however. To flesh out the message, Reiseman drew heavily from CDOC statistics, culling and massaging whatever numbers would help drive home the
point.
"They had all the hard data and the hard numbers in terms of what was or was not being recycled. Our part was to talk about how we could make this a little more digestible, a
little more exciting for the media," Reiseman says.
So the PR shop converted tons of plastic into meaningful numbers. "People are throwing out 74 million extra-large t-shirts, and they are throwing out however many square feet
of carpet by not recycling their bottles," Reiseman says. "They will ditch enough plastic in the next 10 years to build a two-lane highway, six inches deep, stretching the entire
California coast."
He continues, "Reporters absolutely ate that up. It gave them new quotes, new sound bites, new ways of talking about recycling."
Need more meat? How about a 10-page document detailing the recycling situation? The PR team wrote it, and the CDOC put it out as an official state document. "This was something
for the media to sink their teeth into," Reiseman says.
To get the ball rolling Reiseman and his colleagues gave the report as an exclusive to Los Angeles Times reporter Miguel Bustillo, with the hope of using the high-
profile local paper to garner national attention. "Once the story broke in Los Angeles, we had calls from ABC, NBC and all the affiliates from around the state.
Newspaper reporters called from all around the state. It was like the floodgates opened."
AP picked up the story next, and the national calls started coming. Reiseman and his colleagues were ready, having already lined up a satellite media tour, including an
interview with CNN Headline News, set to happen the day Bustillo's story broke. CDOC Director Darryl Young played spokesman for the bulk of the satellite tour.
It proved to be a marathon. The PR executives stayed up all night, first in an L.A. studio, then in Hollywood for the CNN broadcast, then back to the studio for an Asian media
tour. No sleep for 36 hours, but such is the price of glory: bleary eyes and dirty boots. "Probably the hardest thing was standing a landfill for an hour trying to get the b-roll
shot," Reiseman says.
In the end, the effort paid off. Besides the sheer volume of media coverage, there was the sheer volume of plastic. One recycling center in San Diego had been taking in 20 tons
of plastic a month. During the month of the campaign, that number went to 40 tons, and now it holds at 60 tons a month. Statewide, recycling is at a historic high.
The CDOC now is looking ahead to glass as its next recycling showcase, and that suits Reiseman just fine: "We've already been in discussions with a beer manufacturer and I can
say this: If it's a choice between standing in the middle of a landfill and standing in a brewery...well, we are very enthusiastic about working with them."
Contacts: Mark Oldfield, 916.445.0608, [email protected]; Dave Reiseman, 310.628.2087, [email protected]
It's Not Easy Selling Green
How do you make an environmental pitch to a green-weary media? Dave Reiseman, associate director of public relations at Riester~Robb, offers these tips:
- Make it personal. Tie the story to consumers' everyday lives. Stay away from the abstract.
- Timing is everything. Well, at least it helps. "To improve the odds of a story getting big coverage, it's critical to find a way to make it timely," Reiseman says. "In
the case of the water-bottle campaign, summer was coming, it was about to get hot, and consumption of water bottles was ready to explode. I'm not so sure we would have gotten as
much coverage if we had done the campaign in winter." - Give reporters something to sink their teeth into. Facts, stats, third-party testimonials. Compelling information can take your story from appearing as just a simple
mention to full-fledged feature coverage. - Give a call to action. People are tired of being "guilt"-ed into being eco-friendly. A lot of old-school coverage lectured, but didn't tell people how they could help.
By providing simple, realistic ways to get involved, you give a reporter another reason to publicize your initiative.