Late last year Kathy Kiely, vice president of marketing for
Bertucci's restaurant, a Boston-based Italian food chain, was
watching a local news broadcast and saw a piece on the dire
financial straits faced by the Braintree, Mass., school system
(grades K-12). Braintree school officials, looking at a $3.8
million debt, had to lay off 50 teachers and 20 staffers and were
now calling on community members to offset the debt by purchasing
ad space on school bus exteriors. (The Massachusetts State
Legislature passed a bill in May 2002 allowing advertising on
school buses.) The debt had gotten so bad that Braintree had
started to charge students in grades 7-12 $180 a year to ride the
bus to and from school.
The plea struck an emotional chord with Kiely, who knew that
Braintree was home to one of the original Bertucci's outlets. "I
thought it was time to pay back the community, which has been so
loyal to us," she says. The chain, which launched in 1978, and has
89 locations spanning the East Coast, is featured in the April
issue of Child as one of the 10 best family-friendly restaurants in
the nation.
Rather than have multiple, local ads peppering all of the buses
she proposed in a November lunch meeting with Braintree officials -
at Bertucci's -- that Bertucci's buy ads for the entire 30-bus
fleet for a total of $30,000. The money would not go to reducing
the debt, per se, but to rehire a teacher or two lost because of
the debt.
The two sides struck an agreement, and then the PR part of the
campaign -- which Kiely says played a huge role -- got started.
Kiely, along with Bertucci's PR firm Cronin & Company Inc.,
lined up local network correspondents from ABC, CBS, Fox and WB, as
well as reporters from the Associated Press and local newspapers
Patriot Ledger and Braintree Forum to cover the unveiling in late
February of the school bus ads. Coverage from the Boston area, in
turn, led to national stories as far away as Dallas. The event had
a total of 70 media hits for nearly 5.7 million media
impressions.
The PR team also wanted to be sensitive to any potential
backlash -- from the media or parents of schoolchildren -- against
mixing ads with education. (See Sidebar.)
"I wanted to make to sure everyone understood that this $30,000
was going right back into the school, and that the school said, 'We
see this [ad campaign] as a teaching position,'" Kiely says.
Adds Patti Stern, senior VP/PR for Cronin & Company: "We
kept bringing the message back to how the ads are pro-education and
support school programming."
Braintree school officials say the campaign has worked wonders.
"You couldn't ask for a better pilot program," says Peter Kress,
business manager of the Braintree school system, who adds that
since the ad campaign started in February nearly 100 other school
district officials - most of them in Massachusetts, some of them
from out of state, all facing school budget shortfalls - have
contacted Kress to see how Braintree orchestrated the campaign and
whether it can serve as a model. "It's not just an ad but a PSA for
the Braintree's public schools that also gives people a
warm-and-fuzzy feeling about Bertucci's."
Cronin also created talking points for the school's
superintendent and the school committee chair to respond to any
skeptical questions from the media about the campaign. Cronin's PR
also recruited Braintree parents who were willing to talk to the
media about the benefits of the ad campaign plan.
The Bertucci's ads will be running on Braintree school buses
through the end of the school year. School officials will then
evaluate the program, but Kress thinks other corporate marketers
will be eager to pick up where Bertucci's left off. It's a win-win,
what with reducing debt and finding new teachers while
simultaneously enhancing a company's reputation with local
communities. "We're hoping someone will come in here and buy three
years worth of ads."
Contacts: Kathy Kiely, 508.351.2540, [email protected]; Peter
Kress, 781.380.0130, [email protected];
Patti Stern, 860.659.0514, X243, pstern@cronin- co.com
What's Your Backup Plan?
A critical aspect of this campaign was the backup plan -
preparing for potential negative backlash Bertucci's stood to
receive from the community and the media when the advertisements
appeared on school buses. Several factors were critical to the
success of CWC's mission to convey a story that shed a positive
light on Bertucci's and its relationship with the Braintree school
system. Key factors included:
- Design appropriate creative - the bus ads needed to deliver the
right blend of Bertucci's brand and education-oriented
messaging - Public relations pitch strategy - when media inquired about
children being the targets of marketing, the agency's PR team
emphasized that Bertucci's was giving back to the community,
stressed its commitment to education and highlighted the
pro-education advertisement's messages - Spokesperson preparation - the CWC team readied Bertucci's and
Braintree school system spokespeople for negative questions from
the media - On-site in-person media relations - agency representatives
personally worked with each and every on-site media contact to
address sensitivity to the ads and dispel any negative notions
prior to unveiling the ads
Source: Cronin & Company Inc.