Family Focused

The second-oldest U.S. Navy museum, the United States Navy Seabee Museum, turned to the agency to create brand-new, high-quality informational videos as an added new element for its visitors, as well as to launch new social media campaigns and build an enhanced digital curriculum for students. To support the museum’s mission, namely to “select, collect, preserve and display” historic material of the Naval Construction Force (known as the Seabees), the agency created five videos featuring interviews and 3D-animated graphics as a showcase for guests and servicemen, alike. From showcasing the Seabees’ humanitarian work, to a deep-dive showcasing one of the museum’s specialty vehicles on display, these videos combined creative storytelling with video production capabilities to share with the general public today and for generations to come, the stories behind an impactful military organization.

Click here to view all five videos.

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As LAX and the City of Los Angeles began work on a massive multi-year capital renovation project, it was uncertain what would become of the Bob Hope USO LAX center. Servicing more than 100,000 members of the military a year, the center has become a flagship of Bob Hope USO and an important place for service members to rest and eat while traveling.

Working on behalf of Bob Hope USO, the agency initiated a long-term community-awareness campaign to build grassroots support for the center and to attract volunteers to help with its 24-7 operation. The agency coordinated media days around news cycles that focus on the military, such as Veteran’s Day, Military Appreciation Week, and Memorial Day with in-depth feature broadcasts touring the facility and driving interest in volunteering for the center.

Heart disease has become the #1 cause of death for women. It takes a village to raise awareness that early detection screenings can save lives. Everyone Has A Heart Foundation’s “village” included partnerships with a major health institution, a cardiologist spokesperson, health care networks, local community clinics, women’s groups, religious institutions, and the collaboration of civic, business and community leaders to spread the word within their own spheres of influence. We created a Women’s Heart Day Health Fair, which offered free screenings and educational seminars. Notably, we partnering with the LA Unified School District to distribute more than 450,000 Valentine cards for children to bring home to their mothers, urging them to get heart screened. Shortly after, LA Metro came on board as a marketing partner.

The American public has a love affair with speed. We leveraged that “love” to engage consumers, and spark interest and demand for the one-of-a-kind speed measurement device Pocket Radar: the world’s only palm-sized, full-performance speed radar device. When it launched at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the dual messaging platform that we created had to resonate with two sets of audiences — professionals and everyday consumers. Pre-show, we sent creative media mailers to pique curiosity and generate word-of-mouth buzz. The product’s innovative technology, a break-through Doppler radar sensing and processing system, earned it a CES Innovations Honoree award, which was highlighted and leveraged to secure one-on-one interviews and post-show product reviews. The resulting coverage totaled 202,722,673 media impressions.

The Santa Monica Pier, the West Coast’s last remaining pleasure pier, turned 100 years old. Its rich history conjured up nostalgia of a bygone era. When called upon to awaken memories, our agency brought it all back by engaging the surrounding community as well as national and international tourists as part of the celebration. We launched a nationwide online and offline media blitz focusing on the iconic pier’s legacy and its value for future generations, as well on a series of celebratory events such as the SideShow at the Pier, Schools Out!, La Monica Ballroom Redux and Centennial Day, to gain exposure and get a myriad of stories out about the pier. Social media outreach alone netted an estimated 3 million impressions plus 400 million media impressions.

It’s not easy to get the general public to stop and smell the roses, and it’s even harder to get them to take a look at the stars. So for the launch of Meade Instruments’ ETX-LS telescope at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES), we were tasked with generating interest in the first hands-off, self-aligning telescope among space and telescope enthusiasts, as well as general consumers. We leveraged celestial events and consumers’ innate attraction to technological advancements to reinvigorate interest in backyard astronomy. We positioned the telescopes as forging new frontiers in amateur astronomy and post-CES, managed a comprehensive media product review program. Among others, the earned media included features on the ETX-LS in Wired, PC Magazine, Popular Science, USA Today and CNN.

Actor Gary Sinise is perhaps best known for his role as Lt. Dan Taylor in the iconic movie “Forrest Gump” but also spends significant time serving and honoring our nation’s defenders, veterans and their families through his non-profit organization, the Gary Sinise Foundation (GSF). Operating in a highly competitive arena of supporting veterans and their families, our goal was to raise awareness of the GSF brand and generate market visibility. The focus was on the highly emotional topic of the widening care gap for returning war veterans. A media and thought leadership campaign propelled GSF into being a leading voice in providing tangible solutions to address this issue. A summit was held in partnership with the University of Southern California, resulting in concrete recommendations for solutions, sent to government, business and academic influencers, nationally.

When WHAM-O, makers of the beloved and universally popular Frisbee, wanted to move it from the toy category into a new Frisbee Sport line of products, the challenge was to reconnect with the hard-core Frisbee enthusiasts and create a brand new generation of loyalists eager to experience the spirit of the brand’s competitive roots. Rather than focus on athletes, the agency targeted parents and their young children and teenagers. We developed a family-focused media relations program, timed to peak during the key spring and summer selling seasons, and implemented a junior high school physical education Frisbee sport teaching curriculum, coordinated with the Ultimate Players Association. Midway through the campaign, the Association officially approved the Frisbee Sport Disc for match play.

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.

Shopping for healthy food products at the grocery store can be challenging, due to the overwhelming choices and often conflicting nutritional information. With the introduction of Eaturna’s chef-created, prepared food products, the agency was challenged to cut through the clutter of the competition, and create rapid brand awareness for Eaturna foods in one neighborhood as a trial. The “Eaturnalize your Neighborhood” experiential product launch focused on word-of-mouth marketing, signed pledges committing to healthy eating habits, “Partnership for Healthy Neighborhoods” street teams driving consumer trial, family-focused community events and partnerships where Eaturna food got tasted. Within 60 days, the entire neighborhood had been reached one-on-one and pledged to eating healthy.

Considering that most individuals today spend more time on digital entertainment than on family conversations, the agency developed a kid-focused family lifestyle campaign to ignite renewed interest in backyard astronomy as a “well-spent family pastime.” With the launch of Celestron’s innovative SkyScout Personal Planetarium at CES, instead of just sending media new product pitches, we keyed into the mystique of the age-old question “what is that object in the sky?” while noting that this product could take the “mystery” out of the sky. The agency also leveraged national celestial events to generate curiosity in astronomy, as well as a Boy Scouts of America partnership to attract that particular demographic.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Greater Los Angeles (MAWLA) needed to reconnect with its community and foster new marketing relationships and asked the agency for new concepts. We launched a 60-day campaign, entitled A Season of Wishes™, with experiential and visual elements, called “Wish It Blue,” (the Foundation’s signature color). We did a city-wide alert of the “blue” with a flip of a “virtual” switch turning major Los Angeles landmarks “blue”, including the famed Pacific Ferris Wheel, the Santa Monica Pier, the Queen Mary and the Vincent Thomas Bridge. We created an “influencers” group, the Circle of Wishes, to expand the campaign. MAWLA’s individual heart-wrenching kid-wish stories were spread across the media, with reporters interacting with the children and their families, capturing the stories live on local broadcasting.

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.