KTLA segment
Hot, hot, hot! Celebrity hair colorist Marco Pelusi provides summer hair-care tips (July 1, 2019).
View Marco’s clip here: https://bit.ly/30kneED
In the media spotlight: Hollywood’s most ferocious celebrity
If you have been following the story of P-22, the puma who crossed two freeways to live near the Hollywood sign in Griffith Park, you know this cool cat really clawed his way to the top.
P-22 is one of several tales in a great book from Beth Pratt-Bergstrom of the National Wildlife Federation (NWF): “When Mountain Lions Are Neighbors: People and Wildlife Working It Out in California.”
Working with Tellem Grody PR in Malibu, we got terrific results for the book: coverage by the BBC, ABC-7 in Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Times.
Putting a neighborhood group on the map
Many longtime residents of Venice, Calif., are increasingly concerned about property overdevelopment, mismanaged commercial projects and alleged building code violations by new business owners over the last several years.
So, they took action and formed the Concerned Neighbors of Venice, (CNS). Their grass-roots initiative included drafting multi-tiered communication for a number of stakeholders, lobbying city officials, conducting media outreach, creating a social-media presence, community organizing and hosting fundraising events.
As a result of these concerted efforts, CNS has significantly increased membership and secured pro-bono legal representation by a leading attorney. Additionally, the group’s president has been elected to the Venice Neighborhood Council.
Teleflora: Helping consumer awareness bloom
As part of a two-person team, I built and executed a strategic national PR/communication plan for Teleflora. This included: crafting consumer messaging, providing social-media content and SEO-maximized copy for Teleflora.com and refocusing executive communication to encompass B2B and consumer.
And of course we pitched the media! We secured print, radio and TV coverage to increase brand awareness. Our media-relations efforts generated $4 million/year in advertising equivalency.
We worked with the marketing and advertising departments to leverage a celebrity partnership with country singer Faith Hill, which included a Super Bowl ad to reach consumers before Valentine’s Day and more national TV advertising in advance of Mother’s Day.
Each summer, we promoted Make Someone Smile Week, in which florists donated their time to deliver bouquets to people in need of cheering up – nursing home residents, patients in children’s hospitals and veterans’ facilities as well as recipients of local charity organizations. To celebrate the program’s 10th anniversary and create a media hook, I came up with the idea of selecting 10 florists to receive 10 “Golden Tickets” – 10 checks for $1,000 each to donate to charities of the 10 winning florists’ choice.
Additionally, we planned and attended influencer events. Throughout the year, we worked with florists across the country to market their businesses and attract new customers by leveraging the Teleflora difference (hand-arranged, hand-delivered).
Spreading the word about an amazing ($11 billion!) crop
California’s Central Valley, with its abundant sunshine and Mediterranean climate, yields a prodigious almond harvest each year: about 2 billion pounds.
The state grows 80 percent of the world’s supply and the Northern San Joaquin Valley accounts for one-third of the overall volume. California growers generate about 100,000 jobs and add $11 billion a year to the state’s economy.
We launched a media-relations program to share the good news and got outstanding results from local TV stations and other outlets.
Brand opportunities abound with savvy media training
POM Wonderful 100% pomegranate juice is bursting with natural health benefits. Having created the category, members of the in-house team were tasked with analyzing the product’s nutritional content.
The next step was communicating this information to the media and to targeted consumers.
To that end, we media-trained POM executives so that they were comfortable during interviews, saw the experience as an opportunity and clearly conveyed the brand’s unique selling points as well as its unusual back story.
Fitzgerald Communication 