Public Relations

Case Study

Promotion

Spangler Candy Company

About Spangler Candy Company

• Spangler Candy Company, an US based company are producers of iconic American candy such as Dum Dum Pops®, Circus Peanuts® and more candy canes than any other company in the world.

PR Challenges For Spangler Candy Company

• Spangler Candy Company hired Landau Public Relations to ensure that each of the products receive fair attention from the media.

• The aim was to make consumers aware of the milestone while connecting them with the sweetness and fun that Spangler candy represents, reminding them that products like Dum Dum Pops have been a wholesome part of American life for generations and encouraging them to participate in the celebration though creative, sales-oriented tactics.

Promotion Strategy

Promotional Strategies include:

• “Make Life a Little Sweeter” Contest – A contest was conducted wherein people were asked to write a 200 word essay about someone who like lollipops , winners were given cash prizes and candy’s which gave them additional media opportunities in their hometown and nationwide.

• Media Relations -A fun, colorful press kit was sent with a bag of lollipops to print, TV and radio nationwide to round-out the campaign. The press kits included information on the company history and brands, facts about Dum Dum Pops flavor rotations, new flavors introduced for the 100th anniversary and a contest announcement. In addition, a wire release was distributed, and b-roll footage and script of candy production were created and sent to select TV stations.

• Connecting with Consumers:

• They brought company’s Drum Man Mascot to highly-visible locations to hand out lollipops and draw people into the Spangler candy experience.

• Two mascots (Drum Twins!) participated in the International Twins Day Festival in Twinsburg, Ohio, and distributed 18,000 lollipops.

• The Drum Twins also marched in the Double Take Parade alongside the Lollipop Van and with wagons full of lollipops for the crowd. They distributed information on a “Make Life a Little Sweeter” contest with the www.dumdumpops.com URL.

• The Drum Man handed out 25,000 lollipops in New York City’s Times Square, Bryant Park and Grand Central Station as well as to crowds gathered at “The Today Show” and “Fox & Friends” studios.

Results

• Efforts reached more than 25 million readers and viewers in three months

• A national TV hit on “The Today Show” with Willard Scott saying happy birthday to Spangler and showing an image of the Drum Man and Hilary Duff exclaiming, “I love Dum Dum Pops!”

• National wire story by the Associated Press that received 147 pickups

• About 175 newspaper articles in three months, including The Houston Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, Columbus Dispatch, Tampa Tribune, Rocky Mountain News and Seattle Post Intelligencer

• National print in Woman’s World and Continental magazines, which stimulated contest entries

• About 2,100 contest essays from all 50 states .• A feature in Girls’ Life magazine on the remarkable youth

winner’s efforts to help foster kids and local features on the other contest winners

• Coverage in Brandweek, the candy trades and other retail publications like Drug Store News

• More than 70 online mentions, including USAToday.com and About.com

References

www.LandauPR.com

Crisis

Johnson & Johnson

Background of the case

• In 1982, Johnson & Johnson (J&J) faced a major crisis that had the potential to send the company into financial ruin.

• Sealed bottles were tampered with and extra-strength Tylenol capsules were replaced with cyanide-laced capsules.

• These bottles were then resealed and placed on shelves of pharmacies in the Chicago area. Seven people died as a result. Tylenol was called upon to explain why its product was killing people.

Tylenol Strategy

• Company Chairman James Burke immediately formed a seven-member strategy team with the goal of determining how best to protect people, how to save the product and to alert consumers nationwide.

• Consumer safety was their first priority.• They stopped the production of the company.• J&J used both public relations and advertising to

communicate their strategy, keeping customers informed .

• They setup helpline numbers to answer customer queries and concerns

• They established a toll-free line for news outlets. This line also included taped daily updates.

• They held press conferences at corporate headquarters and set up a live television videofeed via satellite to New York.

• The chairman went on “60 Minutes” and the “Donahue” show to share the company’s strategy

• J&J presented an industry first — triple-safety-seal packing that included a glued outer box, a plastic seal over the bottle’s neck, and a foil seal over the bottle’s mouth. Tylenol released the tamper-resistant packaging just six months after the crisis occurred.

References

• European Journal of Scientific Research ISSN 1450-216X Vol.27 No.3 (2009), pp.358-371 © EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2009

• http://www.eurojournals.com/ejsr.htm

Adverse Publicity

EXPOSED: The Secrets Behind ´Brand Shilpa Shetty

'Controversy queen' in the making

• Shilpa had been Dale Bhagwagar client for five years, and it was only during and after the 'Big Brother' reality show in UK that the publicist took extra interest in her branding, and that too, at an international level.

• However, no one can ignore the calculating methods

used by her publicist to keep Shilpa in news 24x7 and brand her as a 'controversy queen'.

PR took full advantage of his freedom

• The Mumbai-based publicist had been closely following the show's developments through the daily news and video capsules put up on the Channel 4 official website.

• Dale received 10-15 calls from top of the line UK journalists and TV reporters and addressed each and every major channel and paper in UK while Shilpa was in the House .

• Believe it or not, Dale had so much faith in Shilpa that while she was in the House for a month, he catered to the entire print, television, radio and internet media, holding SIX Press Conferences (four in Mumbai, one in New Delhi and one in Kolkata) to address various controversies she was facing in the House

Defending Shilpa tooth and nail

• He always spoke like a man possessed.. possessed about building an unshakeable brand out of Shilpa Shetty.

• One of the reasons why the publicist would have gone into such a PR overdrive could be the fact that he was himself getting fabulous mileage out of this whole Shilpa hype.

Scheming for Shilpa!

• Richard Gere clasped and kissed Shilpa Shetty at an event in New Delhi. He was there to promote AIDS awareness, and ended up being talked about for all the wrong reasons. This turned out to be another golden chance for Dale and he made sure it was exploited to its fullest PR potential.

• He organized a huge Press Meet exclusively for all national TV channels, where he had Shilpa come before the media and strongly defend Gere, while Dale repeatedly blamed the media for unnecessarily hyping up the incident, harping that "three pecks on Shilpa's cheeks don't deserve national attention".

• He actually managed to turn the controversy into an issue. An issue so big, that some political parties hit the roads, burning effigies of Shilpa in protest of the incident, while the publicist might have smiled from his air-conditioned office. It was like a mission accomplished

Result

• Apart from sending out press releases to his media list almost every day during the entire year, he set up media reps in New York, Colorado and London, and lost no opportunity to turn every minor incident and achievement of the actress into so-called 'News' and 'Gossip'

• Shilpa became a name well-known to a major part of the world, and was termed 'the face of Bollywood'

• He made sure Shilpa stayed on the top of news all the time.

References

• www.dalebhagwagharmediagroup.com

• http://www.planetbollywood.com/displayArticle.php?id=s070808104840

New Image

Dove Campaign for Real Beauty

Situation

• The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty (CFRB) began in England in 2004 when Dove’s sales declined as a result of being lost in a crowded market.

• Unilever, Dove’s parent company, went to Edelman, its PR agency, for a solution. Together, they conceived a campaign that focused not on the product, but on a way to make women feel beautiful regardless of their age and size.

• CRFB aimed not only to increase sales of Dove beauty products, but also targeted women of all ages and shapes.

The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty

• It is a global effort that is intended to serve as a starting point for societal change and act as a catalyst for widening the definition and discussion of beauty. The campaign supports the Dove mission: to make women feel more beautiful every day by challenging today’s stereotypical view of beauty and inspiring women to take great care of themselves.”

• In addition to changing women’s view of their bodies, Dove also aimed to change the beauty market. In an industry where the standard of beauty is often a size two blonde supermodel, Dove distinguished itself by using models that ranged from size six to fourteen. CRFB abandoned the conventional cynical method of portraying “perfect” women as beauty role models

OBJECTIVES: • Increase sales of Dove beauty products and new product lines

• Create dialogue, debate, and discussion about the true meaning of beauty

• Attract national TV and print media coverage

• Gain local press attention in the hometowns of models featured throughout the campaign

• Drive users to the CFRB Web site to share their thoughts and opinions about the campaign and beauty stereotypes

• Create a call to action for consumers to join the movement through website pledge that activate a donation by Dove for self-esteem awareness programs

Strategy

• IN THE NEWS:Press Coverage :

• After CFRB was launched, a slew of press was devoted to the ads in the campaign. The campaign was featured and debated across both print and broadcast media. CFRB was featured on national morning shows such as

Good Morning America, The Early Show, and The Today Show.

• CFRB was written about, debated and the press received responses from

the public in the form of letters, online voting, and message boards.

• PRWeek named CFRB the Consumer Launch if the Year 2006 in the article “Edelman and Unilever-Dove: Campaign for Real Beauty.”

• In a January 12, 2007 article in Women’s Wear Daily, Michelle Edgar described the efforts of Dove in introducing Pro-Age Campaign. In the article, Edgar included quotes from the marketing director of Dove, Kathy O’Brien, describing Dove’s mission and describing the success of the campaign thus far.

• USA Today featured CFRB in an article about Dove’s 2006 Superbowl ad. Writer Theresa Howard called the ad “inspirational

Press Vs. PR Message • According to PRweek, the publicity for CFRB generated more than 650

million imprints during the summer of 2005

Of the 22 articles collected for this project:

• 18 directly discussed some aspect of an ad made by Dove for the CFRB.

• 10 had a direct quote from someone representing Dove or Unilever.

• 17 used some element of a press release to add to their story.

• 7 mentioned the CFRB website

• 6 mentioned the Dove Global Study and/or used statistics from the study.

• 17 articles covered CFRB positively, praising the campaign.

• Only 5 articles criticized the campaign.

Result

• Dove effectively reached their target audience through their tactics and programming.

• Dove was able to understand the feelings at the core of their audience. They connected on an emotional and personal level with women of many nationalities, races, beliefs, sizes and ages.

• The Campaign for Real Beauty shattered the stereotype of the size zero, blonde, perfect model. CFRB made a splash; it did not enter the market quietly. Commercials, billboards and magazine ads soon had the media and households across the United States buzzing

References

• http://psucomm473.blogspot.com/2007/03/dove-campaign-for-real-beauty-case.html