This locution has never been more appropriate than in the world of public relations. In this blog post, I’d like to share a recent example where the virtuous cycle played out and Con-way wound up with the kind of air time and public accolades that money can’t buy.
While many companies shy away from PR or it’s slightly smaller counterpart, media relations, I content that those companies who do, will be left behind. In studies from universities and in books from marketing thought leaders, media relations is widely believed to be at least as effective as advertising.
There are two fundamental differences. First, you have less control over your message in the media relations world. While you can issue press releases until the cows come home, you’re going to have to give up some control and place a subject matter expert on the phone in an open-ended question and answer session with the media if you really want to get ink. And, while there are rare occasions when editors will misquote, more often than not, the preponderance of the blame is due to a lack of coaching and preparation.
The second reason is the one I really want to dwell on in this porting. I think that many organizations shy away from PR because it requires long-term commitment and a willingness to invest consistently. But, as the following will show, if you drill enough holes and you drill them in the right places, you will hit oil.
Case study: Con-way Freight
In 2006, it became obvious that Con-way was serious about supporting our employees who were serving our country and fulfilling their obligations in the National Guard and the Reserves. As the war was heating up, it also became clear that there would be an increasing demand for longer deployments, less forewarning from the military of impending deployments, and therefore greater stress on our employees and their families.
Con-way stepped in and took positions that went above and beyond the letter of the law. By equalizing salary differentials, guaranteeing jobs when our citizen soldiers returned to being citizens, and maintaining strong ties with our deployed employees and their families, we just thought we were doing the right thing. As we made the initial announcement, we had some limited media pick-up. We we’re expecting some interest given the timeliness of the story and the war we were fighting.
Our position and the media began to steamroll. Gary Frantz, Con-way’s director of media relations continued to extend the life of this platform for us, by getting then one of our senior leaders went on to testify at a senate hearing on the topic and the burden that good employers should bear.
Shortly thereafter, one of our employees nominated us for the Employer Service to the Guard and Reserve’s (ESGR’s) Patriot award and we were fortunate to be one of the 15 companies nationwide to be recognized for this honor. This award was presented in the oval office and became a catalyst for additional thought leadership.
Then, one day an researcher at CBS’ 60 Minutes was looking into the long term effects of the changing military staffing model in this country. He came across Dave Miller’s testimony and asked if we’d be willing to discuss it on one of their segments. We agreed and this past Sunday, about 14 million viewers of 60 Minutes were shown minutes of Con-way during primetime hours.
While none of these efforts were undertaken in an effort for us to convince our Executive Team of the value of good PR, the advertising equivalency of $885,000 is a great testimony to the power of PR and the sequence of events helps illustrate that in PR, success does breed success.
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