Using PR to Achieve the "Impossible"--by Changing the Nature of the Dialog

The power of public relations - you can make a difference!

(Shel Horowitz's Frugal Marketing Tip, April, 2000)

NOTE: This month's topic was chosen in part because of some reader feedback that I was too negative in my March issue, in which I tore apart a press release for being untargeted and ineffective. I promised that reader I'd talk about positive PR. So you see, your opinion counts with me—a lot!

This is a true story (the short version). One Friday early last November, our local paper ran a front-page story on a ghastly proposal to fill a precious local mountainside with 40-60 trophy homes. Several conservation and land management experts were interviewed in the article, all of them wringing their hands and saying what a shame and that there was nothing they could do.

As it happens, I live on the other side of that mountain, just two miles from the proposed development. I thought, 'of course there are things we can do!' So with my background in marketing/public relations and community organizing, I set to work.

I caucused with a couple of friends and we set a meeting date a few weeks ahead. I agreed to host the meeting. Over the weekend, I wrote a petition and a fact sheet. Monday, I put these up, along with the meeting date, on a page of my website. Tuesday, I sent out press releases announcing the first meeting of "Save the Mountain" and started fliering the neighborhood and calling prominent residents about the proposed development—and the meeting to oppose it.

Immediately, we started getting press. That first press release led to the first of about 60 separate articles, not only in the two major dailies, but also several community weeklies. I sent several more press releases over the next few months, many of which ran verbatim in the newspapers. I and other members of the group also did about four radio and eight TV appearances.

70 people showed up to the first meeting, and another 30 called to say they wanted to attend but had a conflict. More people came to subsequent meetings. In all, around 150 people have come to one of our meetings so far, and at least 40 have taken an active role. We also canvassed the town, and when the Planning Board held its first hearing, a turn-away crowd of 475 (by the Building Inspector's estimate) showed up—nearly 1/10 the population of the town! for over an hour, citizen after citizen came forward to bring up technical and environmental and public safety issues. Not one person spoke in favor of the plan.

Meanwhile, the press had taken some initiative. They interviewed the developer and ran a big profile, which raised $1000 for our group in the week following publication (all together, without even doing any fundraising events, we've raised over $12,000 for our own account and another $2000 for a state land purchase account—a successful strategy to get state officials in Boston to take notice of the doings out here). The paper did a series on the ownership of the mountain range, showing specifically which parcels are at risk. And just last week, they ran an editorial endorsing some development restrictions we have coming up at Town Meeting, and encouraging the other towns where the mountain range lies to adopt similar protections.

When I first started making my initial phone calls, there was a lot of hopelessness; no one thought we had a chance. But with a well-honed PR campaign coupled with a high level of citizen involvement, we totally turned it around. When the preliminary plan came up for a vote, the Planning Board voted 5-0 against—and laid out their justification in a four-page letter that drew heavily from the arguments we had raised at the public hearing. 300+ people were there to witness the vote, and we gave them a standing ovation. We also turned in over 3500 signatures opposing the development.

Of course, we're not done yet. Now we'll be organizing to get out the vote for Town Meeting—where every registered voter in the town has the right to come and vote. If we can pass the warrant articles, this and future projects will have a much harder time defacing our mountain range. If you'd like to monitor our progress or read about what we've done in more detail, please visit http://www.savemtholyokerange.com

So remember—you CAN change the discourse! Public relations is a powerful tool for creating citizen involvement, raising and addressing issues, and moving toward a better world. If that's not a positive example of marketing, I don't know what is!

[HAPPY POSTSCRIPT In December, 2000, the state of Massachusetts purchased the land by a friendly eminent domain taking, protecting it forever, with help from a generous donor who cited our efforts.]

Thank you reading this back issue of Shel Horowitz's Monthly Frugal Marketing Tips, published every month since May, 1997; please click here to view the complete archives, grouped by subject. Shel is an internationally known copywriter and marketing consultant, author of Grassroots Marketing Getting Noticed in a Noisy World, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First and several other books, and creator of the Frugal Marketing web site. Please click here to contact Shel.


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