There are eight million stories in our naked city. How do we get our message heard? It starts with a strategic plan.
When the Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals began working with Maddie's Fund on its first year application in 2003, and first conceptualized how it would reach its goal of saving all healthy and treatable dogs and cats in NYC's shelters, it developed a 10-year strategic plan as part of that application. One of the core objectives of the strategic plan is to raise public awareness of local shelters and rescue organizations and the animals in their care.
In 2004, our first full year of operation, we set out to raise public awareness through adoption events, particularly events in high-traffic City parks. The Mayor's Alliance and the rescue groups and shelters that participated in the events brought banners, brochures and handouts, buttons, and other give-away items – all intended to spread the adoption message and imprint their names in the consciousness of the New York City public.
Cued by our strategic plan, we used advertising to draw crowds to our events. We bought print ads in citywide and neighborhood newspapers. We placed free postings on web sites and in event calendars of widely read publications like Daily Candy and Time Out New York. We emailed posters to volunteers to distribute within their neighborhoods.
Early on, we felt that advertising provided the most cost effective means of promoting our events and, in turn, our mission. Using both paid and free advertising, we gained two important benefits. First, we maintained control of the message that was disseminated and, second, we knew up front the exact cost of each placement. Additionally, by advertising pet adoption events, we were in fact promoting multiple ideas: (1) New York City's homeless animals need loving homes; (2) it's better to adopt a pet from a shelter or rescue group than to purchase from a pet store or breeder; and (3) there are plenty of shelters and rescue groups in the community that offer wonderful animals for adoption. Our thinking was (and still is) that the more the public is exposed to the adoption message and the more familiar people become with rescue groups and shelters, the more likely they will be to choose adopting over purchasing their next new four-legged family member.
By 2005 – our Year One of the Maddie's® Pet Rescue Project in NYC – we rolled out an aggressive advertising campaign. We advertised our events in 19 different local newspapers – generating more than 8.5 million reader impressions. We took our adoption message to the streets of New York with our outdoor "Vacancy" GoPoster campaign, developed by filter New York, a talented young agency with an upbeat, alternative style. The "Vacancy" campaign simultaneously promoted the concept of pet adoption and our adoption events, and garnered more than three million viewer impressions daily for the three-month period in which it ran. A corresponding "take-one" postcard (GoCard) campaign in restaurants and other business throughout the city achieved an additional 1.7 million impressions. Additionally, pro bono placements of our "Vacancy" adoption ads in magazines increased viewer impressions by another 200,000. And our three public service announcements promoting adoption, developed for the Mayor's Alliance by Rational Animal the previous year, reached thousands of New York City's television viewers in 2005.
That's a lot of advertising for a young not-for-profit organization. By year's end we took a hard look at our results. Despite the high number of viewer impressions our ads created, we felt we were not seeing the significant increase in the number of event-goers over previous years we had expected. An informal poll at several adoption events revealed that the majority of attendees were not lured by our ads but instead were "walk-bys." And weather conditions the day of an event appeared to hold the real key to attendance numbers.
We also examined our PR efforts, which until now had been minimal – limited largely by the fact that our small staff did not have the bandwidth to tackle the New York City PR arena. To achieve broad distribution, we disseminated press releases for our events via Business Wire, an online distribution service. But aside from an occasional newspaper article by one of the pet-friendly reporters who followed our progress, we were not gaining much exposure in the press. We recognized that to compete in New York City's densely cluttered and highly competitive media market, we needed to adjust our media strategy.
Since by now we were augmenting our newspaper advertising efforts with other media, we made the decision to cut back dramatically on our newspaper buys in Year Two and channel those dollars toward other promotional efforts. In 2006, for example, we partnered with the City of New York to produce a dog licensing campaign that placed high-impact poster ads on bus shelters throughout the city. Our advertising partners Jay Sharfstein and Chris Brignola of filter New York provided the concept and creative for the campaign pro bono. We negotiated favorable production costs, and convinced the City to donate the ad space. We also began running 30-second radio spots promoting adoption events and the Maddie's Spay/Neuter Project on WABC Radio – placements we received at no charge to us, thanks to the interest of a strategically placed Mayor's Alliance enthusiast at the radio station.
And we began to explore PR alternatives. We recognized that the media market in New York City is huge, and most non-profits don't have the budgets to compete. But we also recognized that people generally pay more attention to media stories than to paid advertising. And we felt that we could more effectively get our message out, and achieve "more bang for our buck" with a PR approach.
What were we looking for in a PR partner? Someone with solid media contacts. Someone with the skill and experience to identify media opportunities, to create media opportunities, and to respond quickly when an opportunity arose. We wanted someone who understood our organization's goals and objectives, and who could develop angles and pitch stories that would grab the attention of the New York City media.
In PR, as in life, timing is everything. And so it was with our success in finding a PR partner. In January we were contacted by a member of the public relations firm M. Silver Associates (MSA), a mid-sized firm that was handling PR for New York City's Chinatown, and publicizing its Chinese New Year. Patrick Kwan, the agency's account executive, a long-time animal advocate, invited the Mayor's Alliance to participate in the world-renowned Chinatown Parade. To commemorate the Year of the Dog, Patrick wanted to create the first ever Dog Parade (a parade within the larger Chinatown Parade). We were thrilled, as were our member organizations. Several of them brought dogs, banners and volunteers and joined our six-foot Maddie mascot in the parade. As the dog parade ambled through the winding streets of Chinatown, thousands of onlookers cheered them on. The press took notice, and our adoption message, as well as the participating shelters and rescue groups, received coverage on television, radio, and in print – for a total of more than seven million impressions.
Needless to say, we – and NYC's animals – had found our PR partner. We signed a contract that commenced on April 1, 2006. With the engagement of MSA, our combined annual budget for advertising, public relations, and marketing (including printing costs) for the first time reached six figures. That might sound like a lot, but actually it is only 3.5 percent of our total annual operating budget. Now we were a player in the combative New York media market!
Developing a New PR Plan
Thanks to the foresight and strong conceptual abilities of the original Mayor's Alliance team who developed the Alliance's 10-year strategic plan, (including Mayor's Alliance President Jane Hoffman, Consultant Ellen Celnik, and Janell Granier, future Director of Programs), with guidance from Maddie's Fund, the PR plan we developed with MSA flowed effortlessly from our 10-year strategic plan. The process of developing the PR plan was direct: We explained to our new PR partners our goals, objectives, priorities and strategies, and MSA crafted a multi-pronged plan to take our messages to the people of New York City – and beyond.
The four core objectives stated in our 10-year strategic plan provided the foundation for our new PR plan. Those objectives are:
- Increase the number of adoptions;
- Decrease animal homelessness;
- Raise public awareness of local shelter and rescue organizations; and
- Strengthen the current efforts and resources of Alliance Participating Organizations (APOs).
MSA translated those core objectives into specific PR objectives:
- Create awareness that will engage New Yorkers in a partnership with the Mayor's Alliance for a humane, no-kill New York;
- Increase attendance at the organization's collaborative adoption events;
- Build awareness of the Picasso Veterinary Fund and the Maddie's Fund Spay/Neuter Project;
- Highlight Maddie's Fund's contribution to the Mayor's Alliance's efforts for a humane, no-kill New York;
- Increase knowledge and support for Mayor's Alliance issues; and
- Secure support, funding, sponsorship, and volunteers.
It was clear that MSA understood our mission and shared our enthusiasm to transform New York City into a no-kill community. Having already demonstrated a keen interest in our goals and the ability to gain media attention for the Alliance's and its member organizations, the MSA team quickly came up to speed.
We invited the team to meet with our Alliance partner organizations to hear first-hand their stories about their life-saving work. Patrick encouraged the groups to remain in close contact with him and alert him immediately whenever they had a story he might pitch to the media.
Hitting the Ground Running
Within two weeks of the start of the engagement, MSA scored its first media hit. It was in connection with a story that received national coverage: Molly, a cat who lived with the owner of a small store located in an old building in Greenwich Village, became trapped behind a brick wall at the store. For days, rescue efforts failed to lure her from her prison, and it was only a matter of time before Molly would succumb to starvation. With 24-hour-a-day media surveillance outside the store, our PR team seized the opportunity to gain attention for kitten season and the many kittens born in New York each year needing homes. The story was picked up on the AP wire where it achieved national exposure. (Fortunately, Molly was rescued and lived to enjoy her media celebrity.)
Soon after, MSA pitched a story about fostering animals. With summer just around the corner, they took a creative approach and posed the question: what might a NYC school teacher do during summer break? The answer: provide foster care for a homeless animal awaiting adoption. This angle caught the attention of three local publications. Then CBS 2 News picked up the story and featured a Mayor's Alliance founding member, the Humane Society of New York, on its prime time "Family First" segment.
Our PR team also succeeded in gaining coverage for Mayor's Alliance / Maddie's Pet Adoption Festivals. Our Central Park event received on-air coverage by NBC, CBS and Fox 5 News. When the New York City mass transit evacuation plan became a hot topic in the news, MSA pitched a "microchip your pets" angle and secured a spot for Jane Hoffman on NY-1, a local television station.
The Mayor's Alliance continued to gain exposure in the media on such issues as adoption, microchipping, and kitten season. Then, in the first week of June, when gas prices soared through the roof, MSA approached the media with a unique angle – how rising gas prices threatened to scale back the Mayor's Alliance transport van program that was saving hundreds of animals' lives by transporting them from animal control shelters to rescue groups and private shelters. WABC-TV and WNYC New York Public Radio aired the story immediately, but the real pay-off came in July, when it landed the cover of am-NY, one of New York City's most widely read dailies. The following day, the story received a second am-NY cover when the ASPCA, a founding member and major supporter of the Mayor's Alliance, announced it was donating $10,000 to the Mayor's Alliance transport program and challenged New Yorkers to match its donation. An area business joined the effort and launched the "Wheels of Hope" fundraising campaign. As a result of these efforts, more than $40,000 were raised for the program within a matter of days – and at least a million New Yorkers heard for the first time about this vital Mayor's Alliance initiative.
By year's end, we evaluated our progress. It was clear that our move away from newspaper advertising had not hurt attendance at our events, which remained level with the previous year's numbers. And we definitely had strengthened our presence in the media overall – achieving valuable exposure for a range of our initiatives and issues.
Building on Success in 2007
Now in our second year of partnership with MSA and Year Three of the Maddie's Pet Rescue Project in NYC, we continue to rely upon our strategic plan to guide our media efforts and build upon the foundation established in previous years.
We are heartened by the success of our Project and the progress we've made toward our no-kill goal. In 2006, for the first time ever, fewer than half of the cats and dogs taken in by the city's animal control centers were euthanized. This was a major achievement over previous years, when nearly 70 percent and the cats and dogs in our city's shelters were destroyed.
What role have our media efforts played in attaining that success? While it is impossible to accurately quantify the number of lives saved as a result of our media exposure, we are convinced that the additional positive exposure we have gained through the media has been a major contributor to our Project's success. Just consider how many Little New Yorkers might not have gone on to loving homes if the Mayor's Alliance had been forced to curtail its transport van program because of high gas prices. Clearly the outpouring of financial support from our community that allowed us to continue to build momentum for this program was a direct result of a single media story that alone generated more that $40,000 in donations.
Consider another example: When the Mayor's Alliance declared February 2007 "I Love NYC's Pets Month" and, in partnership with MSA, developed a widely publicized campaign promoting pet adoption throughout the city, we achieved our goal of zero euthanasia of healthy cats and dogs in NYC's shelters for the entire month. Here our success was the result of an unprecedented effort among our participating organizations, including NYC's Animal Care & Control, the staging more than 50 adoption events throughout the city's five boroughs, and an intense PR effort that awakened New Yorkers to the importance of adopting from a shelter or rescue group. In publicizing the campaign, we attained an additional goal – an appearance by our six-foot Maddie mascot on the nationally broadcast CBS Saturday Early Show on February 24th.
Among the objectives outlined in our PR plan for 2007, gaining recognition for Maddie's Fund and its role in New York City's efforts to achieve its no-kill goal is an important one. This year we are developing a portfolio of photographic images of our six-foot Maddie mascot, photographed with children of different ethnicities and cats and dogs of varying breeds and looks, to be used for PR and other promotional efforts. We also are looking into gaining a presence for the Mayor's Alliance and Maddie's Fund in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, expanding our Maddie's Pet Adoption Certificate program, and promoting spay and neuter in NYC under the banner of "Maddie's Spring Fix."
In our experience, working with a PR partner has made a decisive improvement in our ability to raise public awareness about our mission, programs, and member organizations. As a result of MSA's efforts in 2006, the Mayor's Alliance and its participating organizations were featured 36 times on television, 3 times on radio, and 179 times in print and online, creating more than 37 million audience impressions – far more than we could have achieved through advertising for the same financial commitment. A visit to our web site's News section gives a sampling of the kinds of coverage our PR partner has achieved for us.
Is hiring a PR partner absolutely essential for your organization? To answer that question, you'll want to assess your organization's access to your local media, and the level of competition in your local media market. You'll also want to consider how quickly you can respond when a media opportunity presents itself. And if obvious opportunities do not present themselves, do you have the ability to create interesting angles for your message that will capture the attention of your local media? These are the areas where a PR partner can be especially useful.
In New York City, we decided we wanted our story to be heard over the 7,999,999 other stories clamoring for attention. Maybe we're not there yet. But we're working on it.
Steve Gruber is Director of Communications for the Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals. He began working with the Mayor's Alliance as a volunteer in 2004, when he helped launch the organizations e-newsletter, Out of the Cage! He subsequently joined the staff and today manages the organization's print and web-based communications, advertising and marketing efforts, Maddie's Recognition program, and supports the organization's development and public relations efforts. Prior to becoming affiliated with the Mayor's Alliance, Steve worked in the corporate arena, writing and managing communications for companies large and small. He also has worked with several animal protection organizations as a volunteer, staff member, and board member.
