Content Marketing

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, international supply chain technology company RPM faced a critical turning point. Known for its strong customer and carrier relationships, RPM aimed to transition from startup to industry leader. The challenge? Efficiently conveying its value and expertise to a broader audience while expanding its business model and reach.

To tackle this, RPM partnered with The Pollack Group (TPG) to position RPM as a beacon amidst today's supply chain challenges. TPG devised a comprehensive media relations and thought leadership platform, setting RPM apart from competitors and highlighting its innovative technology and expertise.

Collaborating with RPM's senior leaders, TPG revamped RPM’s messaging platform to identify industry pain points and emphasize RPM’s unique value. TPG crafted targeted news pitches and leveraged supply chain trends to present RPM's executives as the go-to sources for innovation insights. In Q4 2022 alone, TPG amplified RPM's media footprint, amassing over 870 million paid and organic PR impressions, equivalent to $1,397,532 in advertising value. Among the agency’s notable accomplishments was securing coverage for RPM's CEO alongside Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume and President Joe Biden in The Hill. TPG further supported RPM with various communications initiatives, including corporate social responsibility plans, event and award outreach, and industry news monitoring.

Ultimately, RPM successfully navigated the post-COVID-19 landscape, emerging as a true industry leader. The refined messaging strategy and increased media presence effectively communicated RPM's unique value and expertise, distinguished it from competitors, and paved the way for an expanded business model and geographic reach.

The agency saw great success launching and running the social media and digital presence for the ClubCorp Classic, a first-year celebrity and professional golf tournament near Dallas, Texas. Running a 3-month campaign with a 28-day ramp-up period leading up to and during the 3-day tournament in April 2022, the agency generated over 23 million social media impressions, 2 million video views, and 200% follower growth in just four weeks.

The Pollack Group’s social media team tactics included content ideation and calendaring, designing a tournament brand aesthetic and color palette, utilizing copywriting to establish a clear, sharp, fun, and concise brand voice for the event, leveraging social media growth techniques to build an audience of DFW-area golf fans aligning with the tournament’s target demographics, and building a social media presence to help augment ClubCorp’s overall social and digital presence.

Working in conjunction with the client, the agency team established a cadence for social channel content that, when combined with content from celebrities, fans, influencers, ClubCorp members, sponsors, and other parties, created a strong buzz and excitement around the event.

Chess legend Garry Kasparov had a vision to bring chess to the masses so that anyone, no matter their skill level, can create a legacy of their own. He worked with media conglomerate Vivendi to bring his vision to fruition. A community-first platform was developed, where chess lovers of all skill levels can play, learn, and become immersed in the chess experience, complete with matches documentaries, lessons, and a masterclass with Kasparov himself.
 
The agency kicked off Kasparovchess by building a groundswell of interest in the chess community, targeting influencers and chess masters. Subsequently, the agency brought in the mainstream media to have that sector break the news of Kasparov’s involvement with the new platform. Following, it cycled the news through many tech, gaming, business and lifestyle verticals.
 
With Kasparov at the center of the media strategy, providing personal insights on the importance of chess and the community, Kasparovchess’ launch story was pushed through many global top tier media outlets including TechCrunch, Forbes, MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Yahoo Finance, VentureBeat, Cheddar, The Drum, The Guardian, PC Gamer, as well as the major chess and gaming outlets. In a 60-day launch window over 45 individual articles ran, with over 4.5 billion impressions. 

With the passing of the California Assembly Bill 218 in October 2019, the filing deadline for lawsuits pertaining to the victims of childhood sexual abuse was extended an additional three years (however, the statute of limitations for the case of sexual abuse is still for the full lifetime of the victim).

Pearson, Simon, and Warshaw LLP partnered with Boucher LLP to seek out childhood sex abuse victims in order to investigate claims against individuals and institutions within the Catholic Church, religious institutions, school districts, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Hollywood, and the entertainment industry. To assist these firms in finding victims within the state of California, the agency developed and launched a full, multi-tiered lead generation campaign.

The Pollack Group began the campaign by developing and launching a website for victims to learn about California Assembly Bill 218, as well as the law firms' partners who will be representing them, and what the contact points are for users to email or call for more information. Additionally, over 1,000 profile pages of abusers with their published information from court documents were created for the website. The agency also produced a commercial shoot with Raymond Boucher explaining the Bill and how the class-action lawsuit settlement against the Catholic Church in California will help victims. Finally, a 12-month online ad campaign was created, which managed to seek out leads of victims through Google Ads, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, including geotargeting the cities outlined in the Catholic Church settlement case.

The campaign successfully added clients to the law firm's class-action lawsuit, keeping the clients' security and confidentiality intact.

As unhappy as Americans were about wearing face masks altogether in the time of Covid, they were even more unhappy with wearing ill-fitting and uncomfortable ones, whether made from cloths or disposables.  Something had to give for the safety of all.
 
And just in time, Medicevo, entered the market with its revolutionary Graphene Face Mask. What it needed most was to build awareness of its  Bacterial Filtration Efficiency (B.F.E.) of 98% -- better than N95 respirators – and is reusable up to 15 wears. Medicevo sought out The Pollack Group to support its goal of becoming a true lifestyle brand, while prioritizing rapid brand awareness and sales conversions. To promote widespread adoption, The Pollack Group implemented a mask sampling and education campaign, sending masks to journalists and influencers, and leveraging a national MAT release.
 
Over the course of several months, the agency’s LAB186 digital marketing and content production studio worked through the challenges of maintaining COVID-19 safety protocols to develop high-quality, engaging content for digital marketing and advertising. While Google and Facebook heavily regulated face mask commerce,  the agency was able to circumvent this, launching several successful campaigns, showcasing diverse models and trendsetters who possess enviable style to make the masks look cool, different, and fashionable. The collective efforts successfully increased brand awareness, interest, and website traffic.

Bingo Blitz, the world’s #1 bingo mobile app, enlisted Sprinkles Cupcakes founder Candace Nelson as both a spokesperson for the game and also a character in the game. Bingo Blitz developed a new game feature where users will be able to tour across Europe in Candace’s food truck to earn more points to play Bingo. In order to finish the game’s development and to create social media and marketing assets, Bingo Blitz hired the agency’s LAB186 to produce all need video and photographer assets. The agency used its green screen studio to produce footage and photos that will be used within the game and also on social media to promote the game and the new game feature. Production included pre-production planning, prop acquisition, production budget management, green-screen shooting and color-correcting, as well as production management with the client.

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LEO, a U.K.-based entrepreneurship and leadership marketing company, leads thousands of members from all over the globe toward personal and professional success. The immense, but tightly-knit, community meets online to share resources and grow with one another. It takes a village to manage all of the social media properties and disseminate information to members while at the same time attract other entrepreneurs to become members. The agency serves as that village, managing all levels of the many social media properties that support LEO’s many organizations and companies including digital currency organization LEOcoin and crowdfunding platform LEOcrowd. A healthy mix of organic and paid social with concurrent influencer marketing creates a broad ecosystem of touchpoints and interactions for members and prospects alike.

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As it transitioned from corporate housing provider to global hospitality brand, leading hotel and serviced apartment provider Oakwood looked to the agency to manage its social media presence and engage its followers worldwide. Oakwood’s global communications team needed a social media strategy that engaged Oakwood’s guests, associates, partners, and leaders in the travel and hospitality industries.

The agency focused on three objectives: building brand awareness and community engagement; generating conversations around industry trends and advice; and sharing brand and property initiatives to drive business leads and bookings. The social strategy also included thought leadership, specifically managing the LinkedIn presence for Oakwood’s CEO, ideating and creating content highlighting property signings, openings and employee initiatives, and offering a C-Suite perspective on travel trends and news throughout the pandemic. The agency consistently grew Oakwood’s social media presence on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, executing a content strategy highlighting the brand’s 80+ global properties across 12 countries. In 2022, Oakwood was acquired by The Ascott Limited.

Every Holiday Season, the retail space is littered with circulars, web ads, commercials and sponsored content, all claiming to have door busters, bundles and the ‘best deals’ of the season. Numerator (formerly Market Track), the leading provider of market intelligence solutions, had a wealth of untapped data that was able to determine how these competing retailers, products and brands were being advertised, priced and promoted both in-store and online. The agency was able to leverage Numerator’s data and expert commentary to position them as a thought-leader and expert source in the retail space both during the holiday shopping season and during other key retail events such as back-to-school, Halloween and Amazon's Prime Day. As a result, the agency was able to secure coverage in Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and Associated Press, as well as trade coverage in eMarketer Magazine, Advertising Age, Retail TouchPoints, just to name a few.

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When Blink Health, a technology platform that consumers use to get their medications at lower prices, turned to the agency to support its new campaign offering prescribed medications for free, we chose to focus on visual assets. We developed two videos: one for use at launch, to support news- and social-media outreach, and another one a couple of weeks later to reinforce messaging.

The first video was shot at Blink’s offices in Soho and involved all of the company’s employees, showing their enthusiasm for the important ways the company helps patients. The second, a stop-motion treatment, boosted awareness of what Blink Health can do. The videos were a hit on social and helped drive traffic to Blink Health’s site and increased users of its innovative app.

SodaStream has become synonymous for disruptive marketing video campaigns. April Fool’s 2017 was no different, with the agency playing an integral role in the development, logistics and coordination and media distribution of the launch of a new faux brand of condensed sparkling water by Paris Hilton: NanoDrop. We helped develop the initial concept that led to the creation of NanoDrop and secured Paris Hilton to appear in a spoof video that conveyed brand messages. In addition to acting as a liaison to secure Paris for the campaign, the agency coordinated negotiations between talent managers and PR reps, agents and SodaStream—as well as exclusive media interviews with Paris’s team, agency partners and SodaStream corporate HQ in Israel. The PPMG team was also responsible for drafting talking points for Paris’ interviews, creating a global press release announcing the gag, and arranging for global PR coordination. On launch day, the PPMG team conducted outreach to health & wellness, marketing & advertising, food & beverage and corporate business verticals, securing more than 712 million media impressions.

Before the global water scarcity and drought crisis reached its present fever pitch, the 75-year-old irrigation manufacturer understood that it faced a potential environmental crisis perception — simply for being an irrigation company, which carried an implication of wasting water. The agency positioned the company as a thought leader in water conservation as it relates to the lawn and garden industry, and created a new campaign coined “The Intelligent Use of Water.” We developed a roadmap for a sustainable, multi-pronged program with multiple touch points that included industry white papers, bi-annual Intelligent Use of Water global summits, film competitions, awards programs, partnerships, grade school curriculums, Tournament of Roses Parade participation and more. Its position as an industry leader in landscape water conservation insights, was solidified.

Punto 2012, a Mexico City-based company with years of experience in online marketing and SEO for restaurants, quickly realized that the .com space was too crowded; the search for restaurants was too difficult if they had long, complicated domain names. They saw a need for food-related businesses to form their own Internet “neighborhood” and from there, bought the .REST and .BAR domain names; .REST is the abbreviation for “restaurant” in more than 30 languages and more than 50 countries. We developed and executed an aggressive media relations strategy and thought leadership platform, coordinated with the agency’s Worldcom partners in six countries. Additionally, all partner agencies sought strategic partnerships with influencers, such as food bloggers and TV hosts, and restaurant associations across the United States.

PowToon, a software that puts the power of animation into anyone’s hands, took its latest interface deep into the Hadza region of Tanzania to see if people who have never been introduced to technology can create cartoons. They found animation to be a universal language and a strong tool of communication. The resulting two-minute video, released on PowToon’s blog and social media channels was geared to influence the influencers about the power of animation. It chronicled their journey, which began with a desire to test the software’s ease of use with the world’s most isolated tribe platform, and evolved into an exploration of the human spirit and the unifying power of communication through art. Of note, the PowToon explorers learned about Hadza’s serious healthcare issues facing the region and were able to connect them with local doctors who previously had been unable to reach them. The agency counseled PowToon on the release of a video and used it to raise awareness for the power of animation and how technology can bring people together.

The face of advertising fundamentally shifted with the success of native advertising, but not without kickback from the industry. Native advertising pioneer, MGID, although globally successful, needed better access to the competitive US marketplace.  MGID had to first deliver the message that it drives authentic traffic to websites, ethically. The agency introduced them to the trade group IAB, where they worked with industry leaders on developing ethical and technical standards for native advertising.  Subsequently, we placed op-eds and articles in high profile advertising trades, to persistently combat negative stigma as well as position MGID as an expert on profitable advertising. We also leveraged MGID published data and survey results that keyed into entertainment trends for placements in that industry trades. MGID has grown to be a force of influence in the advertising marketplace and a thought leader on native advertising for advertisers, publishers, and consumers.

Every Holiday Season, the retail space is littered with circulars, web ads, commercials and sponsored content, all claiming to have door busters, bundles and the ‘best deals’ of the season. Market Track, the leading provider of market intelligence solutions, had a wealth of untapped data that was able to determine how these competing retailers, products and brands were being advertised, priced and promoted both in-store and online. The agency was able to leverage Market Track’s data and expert commentary to position them as a thought-leader and expert source in the retail space both during the holiday shopping season and during other key retail events such as back-to-school, Halloween and Amazon's Prime Day. As a result, the agency was able to secure coverage in Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and Associated Press, as well as trade coverage in eMarketer Magazine, Advertising Age, Retail TouchPoints, just to name a few.

Recognizing that in today’s marketplace, a global reach in sales, marketing and distribution is essential for any property’s success and growth. L.E. Hotels, a hospitality brand that represents a “limited edition” collection of independently owned and operated properties, reached out to the agency to create a program that would link all of its properties across 18 countries through a global marketing program, and support each individual property’s particular needs and challenges. The program included quarterly regional promotions, trade and local media relations, blogs, newsletters brimming with company and member news and travel/tourism trade shows, as well as social media and native advertising. We also sought out Millennial-focused media outlets and scheduled editorial desk side briefings as a way of maximizing the individual property’s visibility. 

Making a film for a green cause requires an imagination…and talent. Long before it became common practice to crowdsource for talent online, we tapped social media to invite filmmakers around the world to enter Rain Bird’s Intelligent Use Of Water competition for the best short films that would portray the urgency of the global water scarcity issue. The experiential campaign included a microsite and digital communications to engage Millennials on Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. We tapped into online forums for filmmakers. Grassroots efforts included street teams sent to 40 schools nationally to promote the competition to students, film professors, and with the American Film Institute and American Cinema Foundation. We received 87 film entries in three months, showed finalist films at a guest-only LA event and awarded monetary prizes for top winners.

The Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the USC Marshall School of Business is comprised of international scholars and experts that had remained largely un-recognized or unknown outside academia. In order for Greif to raise its visibility among major business schools’ rankings and list position, we needed to bring the attention to its stellar faculty. We launched a media outreach campaign to re-introduce Greif through its faculty’s accomplishments. We targeted individual judges who influence national university rankings and a developed a comprehensive informational campaign to reach them, and placed bylined op-eds in major local and national business publications. After garnering national coverage, Greif was ranked by Success Magazine as the number one program for entrepreneurial studies in the country.

High school students have traditionally relied on college counselors to guide their futures. Enter Destination-U (D-U), an online higher education-matching service aimed at the mass college-bound Millennial audience that analyzed students’ unique needs and attributes. We needed to establish credibility for the developer and CEO, Toby Waldorf, a certified college consultant, as well as tout D-U’s innovative research and proprietary algorithms that made it a valuable tool. So we “piggybacked” onto national news about declining college graduation rates and conducted a satellite media tour, and developed a content strategy that included social media, digital and word-of-mouth communications and a mat release program focused on matching students’ personal college satisfaction metrics vs. searching just for traditional college attributes. We also penned several op-eds under Waldorf’s byline.

More than 40,000 commuters drive through Century City every day, causing tremendous traffic congestion in Los Angeles. The Century City Transportation Management Organization (CCTMO) was organized by area business leaders looking to increase awareness of the benefits of alternative transportation.

We created a commuter’s resource platform, Commute 90067, and launched an awareness campaign about the benefits of alternative transportation for commuting. The platform efficiently charted out bus routes, paired carpoolers and organized vanpools.

The Commute 90067 campaign included traditional and digital advertising, transit and street pole advertising, street team marketing, incentives, and events. Additionally, we developed partnerships with commercial real estate companies and their business tenets to communicate Commute 90067 to their staff through meetings and incentive programs. The extensive awareness program enabled CCTMO to reach its goal of reducing traffic into and out of Century City by 12,000 cars.

When the city of Beverly Hills, renowned for its special glitz worldwide, turned 100 in 2014, it wanted to celebrate in a big way. A  block party was staged on Rodeo Drive, creating a family-focused experiential event replete with a commissioned birthday cake by agency client Luxe Rodeo Drive Hotel, created in partnership with famed pastry chef Donald Wressell of the Guittard Chocolate Company. The staggering 4,000-pound chocolate cake that depicted Beverly Hills City Hall and Rodeo Drive served 15,000 people, which generated hundreds of millions of earned media impressions as well as social media mentions. To build up momentum to that day, we “seeded” media stories, planned mini events, held a cake-tasting preview for media, showed off with a 3-D model of the cake design and shot a video of the “making-of-the-cake” — a time-lapse video that wowed viewers around the world when released.

To broaden Al & Ed’s, California’s largest mobile electronic retailer, past that of a specialty retailer, we sought out cooperative brand partnerships that offered a new distribution channel for visibility. We designed multi-channel marketing programs that would reach audiences of both entities, and focused on raising awareness for high profile vehicle customization to support both new franchisees and customers. We secured a 2-year “Back-up to School Safely” program, where Ralphs shoppers who purchased 7UP products were automatically entered to win one of 50 Back-up Safety Cameras. As part of the promotion, Al & Ed’s ran safety clinics and displayed vehicles at prominent Ralphs locations. We also partnered with the California Highway Patrol, FREE-FM’s Adam Carolla Show, Santa Monica Subaru, Raging Waters and the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Crucial.com, a division of Micron Consumer Products and a leading online retailer specializing in computer memory upgrades, needed to increase awareness of their do-it-yourself memory upgrade as an easy solution for computer problems that plague consumers on a daily basis. In Phase 1, we utilized consumer survey research, satellite and ground media tours, media mailers, infographics and aggressive media relations strategies, to speak to the computer-induced frustration and stress that results from an underperforming computer, with the easy solution, of course, offered by Crucial.com. In Phase 2, the agency commanded audience attention through creative campaigns such as “Love Your Computer”, “Get Tough on Your Computer”, and the nationwide search for the “Official, Unofficial Office Computer Go-to Superstar” – and resulted in over 100 million media impressions.

National Public Gardens Day was all about fostering public programs, resources and educational initiatives to instill the importance of environmental preservation and landscape water conservation. In partnership with American Public Gardens Association (APGA), the agency created an annual National Public Gardens Day to inform of the vital role of APGA’s more than 500 gardens and arboreta in promoting environmental stewardship, plant and water conservation and education. On-the-ground agency partners were tapped in five markets to stimulate local interest and support a national media outreach program. On the pre-celebration day a Satellite Media Tour was launched together with a government outreach program and an expansive social media component. The result was a staggering. The 782 million media impressions promoted ecosystem management and the efficient use of water.

Strict regulations, required compliance and data security concerns have kept financial services technology in the stone age, for innovation is very risky and costly. Docupace’s turn-key Straight-Through Processing product eliminates those challenges. The company needed to raise awareness with a very niche audience and tapped the agency to develop a long-term comprehensive public relations and digital marketing strategy that would rebrand it as a cyber secure and compliant financial tech firm. We redesigned and implemented a new website, coordinated an advertising campaign, built content marketing, including strategic native advertising, and launched a thought leadership platform — all targeting the C-suite of financial services. Docupace entered the marketplace en force and saw strong growth in the marketplace. Docupace became a trusted FinTech leader for financial services firms.

With more than 2.5 million men and women serving in the armed forces and more than 4 million family members, the troops and their families depend upon the USO for critical programs and support. While the USO thrives through donations from major corporations and strategic partners, the agency, as their agency of record, saw an opportunity to tap an under-represented source of income through grassroots individual fundraising. Events such as Barbecue for the Troops, (leveraging the quintessential summer backyard barbecue), and Dance for the Troops, targeting school dances and New Year’s galas, were designed to mobilize individuals into throwing fundraisers in their local communities. Each campaign was supported with media relations, strategic partnerships, and organizational outreach.

When Sanyo Corporation tapped the agency to introduce their new Xacti Sound Recorder, we recognized that adoption without trial first would be near impossible; after all, the market was already flooded with recorders that claimed to be the best. So we targeted musical influencers to review the product and encouraged them to spread the word within their own networks to advocate for the product and brand organically. We reached out to musicians across all music genres, from rock to classical, music educators, songwriters and performers. After that, we engaged music fans and consumers through an agency-designed microsite and online contest. In just four months, 50 media outlets requested the unit for review well before the product even rolled out to market.

Fiesta Parade Floats (FPF), a 35 year-old builder of parade floats for the annual New Year’s Day Rose Parade, had kept a relatively low profile despite having assembled a team of world-renowned design and floral technology experts. We leveraged every opportunity to maximize media exposure by expanding the focus beyond the parade itself and on to the development of the floats from the float design and construction process through the final pre-parade flower decorating. Over five years of working with the local, regional and national media — the last week of the year, working from 4 am to almost midnight, daily — FPF was catapulted into the limelight by an enchanted media.

The Santa Monica Convention and Visitors Bureau (SMCVB) wanted to brand its city’s as California’s quintessential beach city as well as a world-class travel destination. Moreover, it wanted to entice worldwide tourists to visit Santa Monica, and have them increase their visitors’ stay, thereby promoting expenditures and supporting local establishments. Specific programming for specific audiences was created, such as the “Fun in the Sun” and the “Endless Summer” as travel and tourism promotions; “Sandy Monica” Mannequin promotion, in support of the new Santa Monica Place opening; the “Surfing Santas” promotion in support of the holiday season; a “Blogger Beach Contest,” as well as group FAM Trips for culinary media, bloggers, among others. A media outreach blitz triggered 400 million national and international.

The challenge for Luxe Hotels was to design an experiential and lifestyle synchronized communications platform that was workable for both Luxe Hotels (branded properties) and L.E. Hotels, a collection of premier independent hotel properties worldwide, across 31 countries. Multi-channel digital communications streams had to work in concert with each other regarding overall positioning and messaging, and needed to be dynamic by design, addressing different audiences from various angles. The programming was designed to be foundational and sustainable, as the brand expanded. We implemented an overarching brand platform and specific programming per business unit, that included a Brand Share of Voice and Consumer Engagement as well as Partnerships and Quarterly Engagement, Influencer Marketing and Special Promotion programming that would be tied to seasonal happenings, news cycle or opportunistic events.

As a company, SodaStream is synonymous with innovation. The agency focused on this innovative trait to rebrand SodaStream -- away from soda and toward sparkling water. Moreover, it keyed into the global environmental concern of pollution to push the company to the front and center of the news, and also created the news through creative campaigns and by partnering with celebrities.

Based on environmental research that noted that each SodaStream prevents 3,700 disposable plastic bottles from polluting the environment, SodaStream took a public stance against plastic bottle pollution with its unifying environmental message to encourage consumers to reduce their single-use plastic consumption.

The agency worked to hijack news cycles and insert SodaStream into the global pollution discussion, all while highlighting SodaStream’s health and wellness and environmental benefits. Leveraging “competitor blasting” commentary such as, “Bottled water is the biggest marketing scam of all time,” the agency secured CEO interviews with top tier business outlets.

In creating the news, the agency invited journalists and influencers to a global environmental clean-up where SodaStream debuted “the Holy Turtle,” a 1,000-foot contraption that cleaned pollution on the ocean’s surface. Additionally, SodaStream and Oceanic Society created a 20-foot art installation of the Statue of Liberty, trapped on top of a 40-foot x 20-foot steel structure and packed with single-use plastic bottles, displayed in Flatiron Plaza in Manhattan, NY.

SodaStream partnered with celebrities including Paris Hilton, Reza Farahan, Mayim Bialik, Thor “The Mountain” Bjornsson, Jillian Michaels, and Rod Stewart to craft viral content highlighting the plastic pollution problem. The Pollack Group team played an integral role in the development, logistics, coordination, and earned media of these campaigns, all of which highlighted SodaStream’s ability to carbonate tap water without contributing to the plastic pollution epidemic.

Throughout the agency’s tenure as SodaStream’s agency of record, the agency secured multiple trillions of impressions in consumer, lifestyle, business, health and wellness, and marketing coverage for the brand, culminating in its four-dollar billion sale to Pepsi.

Carrington Holding Companies, a B2B real estate and mortgage company, asked the agency for help in transforming their business model in order to reach an underserved market of home buyers — namely, those with credit challenges. We first created perception surveys to gain a greater pulse on this market segment. Based on reaped results, we broadened their Internet storefront to meet the needs of this new customer, which included instant prequalification, affordable payment methodology, engaging digital communications and a chat room for local insights and advice. Tapping their rich database of facts and figures, we developed an infographic that honed in on trends affecting the real estate and mortgage markets. Following a multi-media campaign in which Carrington was positioned as a thought leader for this market, the company achieved wide penetration into the underserved market.

Digital marketing expert and customer service guru, Jay Baer, tapped the agency for media exposure and thought leadership strategies to increase coverage of his new book Hug Your Haters: How to Embrace Complaints and Keep Your Customers.  Written as a response to the rise in online complaints, Hug Your Haters argues that the mindset to “pick and choose”  when to respond to criticism is an incredibly costly mistake for many businesses. By leveraging the breaking news cycle of high-profile business blunders together with available data points from Jay’s research, we created a whirlwind of interest, which led to byline opportunities and the positioning of Baer as a sought-after resource to the media through his ongoing expert commentary on specific statistics within the food, hospitality, travel, retail, and airline industries.

Bob Evans Farms (BEF), a leading producer and distributor of refrigerated breakfast and dinner convenience food items, retained The Pollack Group (TPG) in 2016, initially to leverage the brand's philanthropic "Our Farm Salutes" (OFS) campaign, which entailed providing meals and donations to programs that support the military, active-duty veterans, and their families. In addition, TPG secured a partnership with The Gary Sinise Foundation, producing a variety of Public Service Announcements (PSAs) featuring actor, activist, and director of the Foundation, Gary Sinise.

In support of OFS, TPG conceived the idea to paint the original Bob Evans Farms barn, an iconic symbol in Rio Grande, Ohio – purple, representing the color of all military branches. The purple barn visual, attracted significant media attention from regional news, military media, and food trade outlets. Results from data indicated an uptick in favorability perceptions for the BEF brand.

Following the media success of OFS, BEF expanded the program in 2021, utilizing TPG for its Heroes to CEOs (H2C) program. TPG focused on the H2C’s 2021 and 2022 winners to garner regional and national media relations. The agency booked The Today Show in November 2021, highlighting Ryan Onda, winner of H2C, among numerous podcast interviews, local segment appearances, and more. In addition, TPG penned a MAT release on how military service prepares veterans for leadership business roles, which resulted in over 180 million impressions.

The OFS program laid the groundwork for a broader FY22 Breakfast Innovations public relations campaign. TPG leveraged editorial media interviews to encourage Life Hackers and Young Achievers to try BEF new breakfast solutions and encourage repeat purchases of BEF grocery food items. Creative concepts were crafted and implemented for BEF news hook creation, disruptive event(s), and strategic influencer partnerships. 

TPG also developed and implemented an “always on” PR plan that increased household penetration for BEF grocery items. To further engage with consumers interested in BEF refrigerated breakfast items, TPG conducted a survey that polled over 1,000 working Americans to better understand their breakfast preferences, before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings were favorable to BEF and the success of their heat-and-eat products were distributed in a MAT release, securing over one million impressions.

TPG arranged for BEF and the Gary Sinise Foundation to join forces again, released a series of new PSAs, and offered Gary Sinise as a source on various national news segments. Sinise detailed the hardships veterans have as they acclimatize back into civilian life after service, and how the Gary Sinise Foundation, as well as BEF, were working to improve their conditions upon returning home. In addition, Gary Sinise was invited to speak on top-tier media outlets such as FOX News, MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Yahoo Finance, and KTLA.

TPG played an integral role in increasing BEF’s overall brand awareness and household penetration by leveraging elevated earned media impressions, resulting in an ROI of 2.40 for BEF’s Q1 and Q2 in 2022 alone, as well as a netted a $1.79 contribution per dollar spent on PR efforts.