What is News?
Building a brand is all about visibility and credibility. The way to do this is keeping yourself in front of your target audience. Traditionally, companies have used advertising in order to stay visible. However, in a tougher economy the push to lower costs is on and the first budget to be impacted is the one for advertising and marketing. If you're not visible, how do you move your product or sell your service?
Enter public relations. A simple public relations tactic for keeping an organization visible is to get nominated for an award. It doesn't have to be fancy or hugely high profile like the Oscars - it could be a community award. Simply being nominated allows an organization to showcase their key messages and talk about their philanthropic/community outreach activities.
One of Strategic Communications Solutions' clients, the Courage Brothers' Polar Bear Dip for World Vision, was recently nominated for the International Award at the Oakville Spirit Awards. The nomination allowed the Polar Bear Dip to communicate the event's key messages about raising funds for fresh water in developing countries. These messages were communicated to hundreds of people who came out to the awards dinner as well as the wider community through local media (who were there taking photos and writing a story). Being nominated is great. And, if you win...you're now "the award winning...". And finally, the best part, you don't need to hire an expensive PR company to do this, you can arrange it all yourself. |
