Media Release to Published Article
My supervisor and CEO of Momentum Forum Events, Barbara McNaught head that two men from Perth were going to attempt to climb Mt Kilimanjara next year to raise money for Breast Cancer research. We immediately contacted the two men to see if they wanted to come on board with Momentum and come to the Pink Ribbon Ball to help promote their cause. The two men, Ryan Thompson and Greg Chapman both from Acton Southern Suburbs Real Estate both agreed to attend the Pink Ribbon Ball in pink suits to help promote their cause and help gain publicity for the ball.
After they agreed, Barbara instructed me to write a media release promoting the fundraiser and the ball. This was quite daunting as I had not written a media release in a long time but was up for the challenge because I knew it would be great publicity for the ball. Once I had completed the media release, Barbara checked it and we had to think of a catchy headline. We agreed on "Men in Pink" and then sent the media release out to Barbara'a media contacts. We sent the media release to The West, The Sunday Times and the Western Suburbs Weekly newspapers.
Almost immediately Linda Parri from The Sunday Times, a sponsor of the PRB replied and said she would love to write an article. We gave her Ryan and Greg's contact details so she could ask them a few more questions and organise a photograph for the article.
A few days later, on the 9th of September, I was reading The Sunday Times when I stumbled upon the article in the Confidential section. I couldn't believe my eyes that something I had written and helped to produce was printed in the newspaper. The article look wonderful, I was thrilled that the hard work had paid off and was in a great position in the newspaper!
More exciting news for Momentum!
Each week it feels as if we are sending out hundreds of sponsorship emails asking organisations to become a sponsor of Momentum Forum Events. Sponsorship is a crucial element at MFE as this makes the events possible. The emails get sent to large organisations including mining and oil companies, banks, car dealerships, wine and beer houses and financial companies. Finally, we got some exciting news! Savoir Faire Cosmetics decided to come on board with Momentum as a Diamond sponsor. Savoir Faire also came on board with the naming rights for the International Women's Day event in 2013 and a Diamond sponsor for the Pink Ribbon Ball 2012 and the Melbourne Cup for Canteen luncheon 2012.
Savoir Faire Cosmetics infuses global expertise with personal experience to fashion a line of cosmetics that delivers what it promises with elegance. Their make up range offers the choice of sheer to intense lasting coverage, ensuring their products re the perfect complement to your everyday life and beyond. They recently gained the naming rights to the Savoir Faire Perth Fashion Week and were the makeup brand used for all of the shows.
After liaising with the Savoir Faire team back and forth over email, the contract was created and once signed, SF officially become Momentum's newest sponsor. This meant I had to activate their sponsorship by putting in place all of the benefits they received as a Diamond sponsor. This included updating the website by putting SF in the competitions pages, adding the SF logo to the PRB flyer, reprinting the flyer with the new logo, sending the new logo in the correct elements to The West and The Sunday Times for the print advertisments and sending out a new e-newsletter announcing the new sponsorship to the data base of 8000 people.
Point & Pay
After a series of advertisements for the PRB were published in The West, The Sunday Times, STE and the Western Suburbs Weekly, the final two were published last week, Saturday the 15th and Sunday the 16th which included the Point & Pay barcode (see image below). This was very exciting as I never knew how the barcode worked but was excited to see if it would see us more tickets.
Now that the final advertisement for the PRB have all been published, we are now still trying to sell as many tickets as we can! The hardest part of my work at MFE has been trying to sell tickets as this year it has been incredibly slow.
I look forward to more exciting news next time.
Elizabeth Thomas
14848799
I look forward to more exciting news next time.
Elizabeth Thomas
14848799
3 comments:
Hey Elizabeth,
Wow! Sounds like you have been very busy at your internship and looks like you are enjoying it, which is fantastic. I really enjoyed reading your blog.
Congratulations on the published media release, and what a great cause! I was also very excited when my first piece got published and seeing the final product in the newspaper! My first published piece was for a not-for-profit that develops programs to help people living with dementia, so I also found it was great being able to help promote something positive.
I had a little trouble writing them at first as well; particularly since I hadn’t done any media releases since PR Media, it took me a while to get back into the swing of things. I also found writing media releases a lot different at my internship then writing them as an assignment. Did you find it quite different from doing it at uni?
I did my internship with Linc Integrated (a marketing and communications consultancy) and I found that each of the clients I did media releases for had to be quite different. I think this comes down to the organisations values and objectives and how they want to be presented in the media. Being in a consultancy we had a huge range of clients so it was interesting to see how you had to adapt your writing to fit with the client to present them appropriately.
When writing them I found that the first par needs to be quite perfect and you really need to get across the point of the release and the most important information, in a very short amount of words. Sometimes I also had to do media releases which weren’t all that exciting so it ended up being quite the challenge finding an angle to grab the media’s attention. Most noticeable though was how much quicker I got at writing them! Rather than spending a few days procrastinating to write them for assignment, I would have to have them ready for approval by the end of the day.
It seems like working on sponsorships has also been a great experience, and what a great result to have helped in getting a Diamond sponsor with Savoir Faire. There is so much competition between not-for-profits to gain funding and support from sponsors so that must have been quite an achievement. I’m also really glad you talked about what needed to happen after this agreement in terms of providing benefits for the sponsor.
Best wishes for the rest of your internship and the rest of the semester.
Laura Tirli
Hi Elizabeth,
Sounds like your experiences at Momentum keep getting better and better! What a wonderful achievement to have a release published!
Well done on establishing the sponsor with Savoir Faire! It is such a great experience to be involved in gaining funding through sponsors, especially the verbal communication required between your organisation and the sponsor.
Your blog was really enjoyable to read, looking forward to the next one!
Thanks,
Alexandra Wheeler (14866393)
Hi Laura,
Thank you for your comment and kind words about my blog post!
It is very exciting to see your work published in the paper, especially, as you said when it is for such a good cause. Yes, I found it very different writing media releases in the real world compared to learning and writing them at university. I definitely agree with you about the first par. My supervisor made sure that I captured the journalists attention in the first par, which was quite a lot of pressure!
I also definitely agree about the difficulties with finding the most relevant and interesting angles. Once I started writing them I found myself feeling more comfortable and confident with my writing.
Thank you for the kind words!
Hello Ali,
Thank you very much for the kind words and for enjoying my experiences at Momentum Forum Events! I look forward to continuing my journey and uploading blog posts.
Thank you,
Elizabeth
14848799
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