By Jenny Littewood, Director, Strategy
W.C. Fields once said, “Never work with children or animals”, but he was an actor, not a photographer or TV producer.
In our world of media relations, children and animals are vital ingredients (sorry!) and certainly do help to sell a story as demonstrated by our work on FarmDay.
For the last four years we’ve been promoting this national not-for-profit initiative established by Deb Bain, a sheep and wool producer from Skipton in Victoria. Her aim is to connect city families with farming families so that they can learn first-hand where their food and fibre comes from.
Rural and regional media have always been keen supporters of the event – they see a greater relevance particularly if a local farmer is hosting a city family.
Gaining the attention of metro media has been much more challenging and has required many different angles and pitches – some have worked, others haven’t.
We don’t delude ourselves, FarmDay is what we call a ‘soft story’. We also know newsrooms, producers, chiefs of staff and picture editors are inundated with approaches, many from PR companies like ours.
So how have we generated coverage for FarmDay in metro media? In the space I have here I can’t detail our communications strategy of course but I can share with you the three ‘Ps’.
Persistence certainly plays a big part. We might be knocked back by the producer on one radio show but that won’t stop us pitching to another.
Personalising the information to the media outlet rather than sending generic material also pays huge dividends we find.
And lastly, in the case of FarmDay, is pictures. Yes, the tabloid media still loves a great photo of children and animals as illustrated in yesteray’s Herald Sun!
