Paula Newbaker
Washington, D.C. - Pittsburgh, PA
Strategic Communications
PR & Marketing
Content Provider
Voiceover Talent
Broadcast Producer
E-mail: pnewbaker@gmail.com
Phone: 412-721-9864
Case Study in Effective Brand Communications
By Paula Newbaker
Introduction
The Enough Project is a campaign of the Center for American Progress. Its mission is to prevent genocide and crimes against humanity in five African nations. This high-profile group garnered the attention of traditional and on-line press the world over, with 20 – 50 major press hits per week, up to a dozen Youtube videos garnering over 20,000 hits weekly, a half-million views to the website, with 10,000 social media conversations weekly. This coverage promoted breaking international news, a half dozen campaigns, and as many events on a weekly basis, many with celebrity involvement.
The Christian Companion is a guide written for the Christian community, a relatively new audience, written to accompany the New York Times best-seller Not on Our Watch, by Enough Project Co-founder John Prendergast and actor Don Cheadle. The Companion was written by two Methodist ministers.
Message and Strategy
Along with the United Methodist Church, promote the book as an additional way for the community to become involved as activists. On-line marketing strategies, pitches to major religious traditional and on–line press, and a press conference would promote the book and its messages.
Tactics
Pre- press event marketing efforts included sending the book to individual churches, building a dedicated webpage and linking to appropriate websites, press outreach, and developing collateral materials such as a fact sheet, laminate card, bookmark, press sheet, church bulletin insert.
Campaign website
Campaign collateral
Press Event
A live press and teleconference event was held at the United Methodist Church building in Washington, D.C. The book authors, the co-founder of the Enough Project, and the campaign manager were the principals. Five-hundred religious press were targeted, with a special focus on small-town and Bible Belt media outlets. The event was videotaped and the video and subsequent podcast were used as a promotional tools.
Radio Media Tour
The Christian media market has a large presence on small town radio. An outside vendor, Tobin Communications, was hired to do a radio media tour. National faith-based and major market Christian stations and shows were also targeted. The tour was done by teleconference with the co-founder of the Enough Project and the two book authors.
Special Media Outreach
Special outreach was done to Michael Gerson, an influential Evangelical Christian, op-ed columnist at The Washington Post and senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations.
Video & Podcast
The press event was videotaped in its entirety. The authors were interviewed separately.
The full press event, event highlights, author interview highlights, and a podcast of the full event were produced.
View the videos below:
Web & Social Media Marketing
The videos and podcast were placed on the dedicated Christian Companion page, the Enough website, the United Methodist Church website, You-tube, I-tunes, and Christian sites such as GodTube, Holypad, JCFaith, and Xianz. Two e-mail blasts offering the guide, along with video links, were sent to faith-based organizations and reporters. Conversations were initiated on Facebook and My Space. Church bulletins were targeted for placement of promotional information.
Sample online press mention:
Small Niche, Big Results
Despite the inherent challenges of reaching a niche audience, the Enough Project Christian Companion campaign was a smashing success. Here are a few highlights from the media outreach campaign:
Earned media coverage in 12 major niche media outlets, including;
- United Methodist Reporter- KZUM Radio- Catholic News Service- Justice News Service- Church World Service- Arabherald.comRadio Media Tour
- 13 radio stations at all market levels- Total listening audience of over 500,000Online Media
- Thousands of podcast listeners- Hundreds of viral video views- 5,000+ visitors per week on MySpace page