Media Relations Archives - Page 4 of 5 - Wellons Communications

Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s know how to spice-up their brand image

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Wellons team

With so much advertisement constantly being produced, it can be difficult to target a specific demographic and receive the response your advertisements look for – difficult, that is, for everyone except Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s.

Known for their racy ad campaigns featuring young female pop-culture icons, Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s once again proved that they know who their target audience is, and they know how to capture their attention.

In the most recent Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s campaign, Sports Illustrated model Kate Upton appears in a classic drive-thru setting, eating a spicy Southwestern Patty Melt. The ad features Upton reacting provocatively to the “hot” sandwich, prompting many ad viewers to feel the heat.

Considering that the fast-food chain ads are targeting men ages 18-34, it’s no surprise that the campaign generated a lot of internet buzz. In fact, the campaign has been so popular that Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s have enjoyed more than 120,000 new Facebook fans, a 104 percent increase in website visits and more than 5,000 Upton-and brand-related Tweets since the campaign launched.

The success of the campaign is an excellent example of how knowing your target audience and establishing your brand can propel any company into superstardom. What Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s have accomplished is the difficult task of successfully targeting a very specific audience in such a well-developed way that a small portion of the population generates the most social and website traffic.

Without an understanding of their target audience, the amount of success Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s have received as a result of the campaign would be impossible. Establishing a brand and staying true to that brand also factors in to the success of the campaign. The inclusion of young pop-culture females in their advertisements has become a staple in the Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s brand, and it is created quite a buzz.

Wellons Communications helps tell your story in 2012

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Wellons team

The New Year is right ahead. Have you drafted your story/vision for the coming year?

It’s likely that you have a story to tell and may not even realize it. Many businesses have stories about their progress, new programs, expansions or cool new ideas of how to get things done. Journalists, bloggers and even your Facebook fans love to learn what you have planned.

Communicating often – whether to your employees, your customers or your future customers – pays consistent dividends.

One of our clients recently remarked, “I had no idea what we were doing was even remotely newsworthy.’’ The comment came after she was profiled in the most highly sought after trade magazine for her industry.

Stories worth telling net business results, either with direct impact to the bottom line or a priceless boost in credibility.

We are experts in developing and promoting businesses’ stories. So if you don’t know your story yet, let us help.

What do the media and hurricanes have in common?

Posted on August 30, 2011 by Wellons team

Unpredictability is the rule of the game when it comes to hurricanes…..and the media.

This past weekend, the media rushed to call Hurricane Irene a once-in-a life time storm – a major hurricane that would race up the eastern seaboard and wreck havoc on all along its path.

In many ways, Irene lived up to its billing. Just ask the millions of people still without power or the good citizens of Vermont who are still sopping up the damage from massive flooding.

Yet the same media that staked out weather teams ready for wall-to-wall coverage did not appear satisfied with the multi-billion dollars of destruction. As soon as the storm cleared the U.S. border, many news organizations switched quickly from forecasters predicting gloom to news writers asking why the gloom and doom didn’t meet the forecast.

Only the media could create so much noise and then turnaround and complain that the noise was too loud for the result.

Hurricanes have been – and always will be – unpredictable. You never know what path they will take or how hard they might hit their target. Unfortunately, the same can be said for many members of the media.

The take away: Prepare as best you can. Whether with hurricanes or media relations, it is best to have a firm plan in place for when the storm hits your business.

Something to quack about

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Wellons team

Aflac duck When the world gives you lemons, you make lemonade. Consider what Aflac is now doing. Last week it fired Gilbert Gottfried – the voice of its famous duck – who was ousted for making insensitive remarks on Twitter about the disaster in Japan. Now, Aflac is quickly looking for a new promotional campaign. They are opening up the new voice to a contest. Interested quackers can submit a 30-second audio or video file doing the Aflac squawk at www.quackaflac.com.

This shows two things:

1. Aflac quickly turned a negative into a positive

2. They continue to promote their brand.

Best of all, they got great PR out of it. The note about Aflac appeared in the “Life” column of the USA Today this morning. Now that’s something to quack about.

Tucson tragedy provides insights to solid media relations

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Wellons team

The series of press conferences after the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others at a congressional meet-and-greet over the weekend was a study in proper media relations and crisis communications.

Especially well done were the media briefings from the University Medical Center in Tucson . The doctors walked the fine line between giving the facts, but also respecting the privacy of the patients.

Business owners can learn a great deal about media relations by watching breaking news and how it is handled. The briefings handled key point of media relations very well, including:

Stick with the facts
Protect the business. In this case, the medical center protecting the privacy of the patients was masterfully done.
Answer the questions. In the press conference I viewed, never did the words “no comment” come from any spokesperson.
Well-briefed spokespeople. The spokespeople also kept control of the media by keeping the briefing to a limited number of questions.
Keep everyone informed. The hospitals and law enforcement agencies promised updates as events changed.
What is next? Each of the briefings ended with announcing the time of the next briefing so the media can plan schedules.

Briefing the media takes balance, but winning media friends starts with giving the facts of the story in a timely manner.

Goodbye 2010, Hello 2011

Posted on December 31, 2010 by Wellons team

Goodbye 2010, Hello 2011

We at Wellons Communications would like to thank all of the other marketing firms around Florida for taking the holidays off. This week has been one of our best weeks of the year. The holidays are a great time to get stories placed because the media- both traditional and digital-are dying for news.

If your business has an evergreen story or a story that just might not make the cut during the busiest times, you should think about holiday time distributions. You won’t always get the biggest readership, but having that bird in the hand – a placement that will live on the internet and draw people back to your website at ANY time of year – is better than no media hit at all.

A news cycle does not take a holiday. A good PR firm should respect the news cycle and continue to work every angle, every day, in trying to help the clients get their message out.

The best holiday present you can give a business is not a card or peaches from Harry & David, but a hit that will drive business in the first quarter of the year and live on the Internet for weeks come. We had a bounty of placements ranging from USA Today, Today’s Show, front page of St. Pete Times, Home and Away Magazine, Creative Loafing and Green Car Report, just to name a few.

It has been a very happy holiday and we hope that you and your business have a very prosperous new year!

What is a press release worth?

Posted on December 30, 2010 by Wellons team

The value of a single press release varies. But like a good stock pick, a well written properly targeted press release often produces results. Wellons Communications is one of the few major public relations agencies in Orlando and Central Florida that offers project work on a single press release.

It is part of our commitment to serve new businesses, entrepreneurs and companies that might need a marketing push every once in a while.

A single press release can:

Properly optimized, press releases can provide online marketing support for your business. One of our clients recently received a request to bid on a major project because the company found their press release on the web.
A press release provides credibility. Do you know that people are more apt to read information in press rooms than other marketing material – even if it is your press release?
Press releases provide off page support to your web marketing progress. Another of our single press release users received more than 3,000 new hits to his website because of the press release.
Last, but not least – a press release can still deliver the baseline facts that journalists, bloggers and consumers are looking for when it comes to news. A business in Tampa used a single press to tell the community about their liquidation sale and they received coverage by nearly every media in town. The ROI on the press release was more than 30-1.

Remember, results do vary – but for the search engine boost, branding and awareness, a press release consistently pays nice returns.

To learn more about what press releases can do for your business, please feel free to give us a call at 407.339.0879.

New York Times, Today Show and TheHappyLitterBox.com – What a sweet smelling week

Posted on December 7, 2010 by Wellons team

Logos for blog This past week, Wellons Communications had interest from everyone from the Today Show, CNN Headlines News, the New York Times and down to TheHappyLitterBox.com.

Which one was most important to our clients – all of them!

In the age of Google, web searches, hyper-niche audience and social marketing, every media hit can have great value because you never know which one is going to reach your customer. Obviously, people like the New York Times and Today Show have the advantage of a few million more customers.

However, if your client sells a natural crystal that keeps pet odor under control around the cat box – a potential media mention in TheHappyLitterBox.com can have you coming up smelling like roses.