With the heat of the election cycle coming up quickly after Labor Day, it’s more important than ever to get your communications right in order to persuade voters to cast their ballot in your direction.
And especially if you’re an underfunded campaign, it’s critical to think “outside the box” in order to garner the attention of reporters, bloggers, and social media “influencers” – what’s known as “earned media.”
To give you an idea of how to think and what to do when crafting your messaging, here’s a great example courtesy of marketing copywriter Bob Bly…
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When my son Alex was 7, we bought him one of the first Giga Pets.
“Giga Pets” were digital pets–also known as virtual pets or artificial pets. They displayed a crude line drawing of a friendly little creature, on a palm-sized video screen attached to a key ring.
In addition to being a fun novelty, Giga Pets were made, supposedly, to teach youngsters responsibility. You see, kids had to push buttons to feed and otherwise care for their digital pet.
If your child didn't feed and clean up after his pet properly and on schedule, the electronic creature would get sick and even die.
Well, Alex was so pleased and thrilled with his new toy that he held on to the Giga Pet when he went to pee… and promptly dropped it into the toilet.
Being a good dad, I immediately plunged my hand into the piss-filled bowl —and snatched up the pet, whom Alex had named “Gigee.” But the water had quickly and sadly rendered the Giga Pet inoperative, and Alex was visibly upset.
“C-c-can we bury G-i-g-ee?” he sobbed. “Sure,” I said.
To console him, I dug a shallow grave in our back yard … buried the ruined device in it … and used a brick as a headstone, which I painted “RIP Gigee” in bright red. I then sat down at my IBM Selectric typewriter–and quickly banged out a press release that began:
“MICROCHIP GARDENS, WORLD'S FIRST ‘GIGAPET CEMETERY,' OPENS IN NORTHERN NJ
“When seven-year-old Alex Bly's Giga Pet died after he dropped it in the toilet, he couldn't find a place to bury it. So his father, NJ based entrepreneur Bob Bly, created Microchip Gardens… the world's first Giga Pet cemetery… in the family's suburban backyard.”
Silly, right? But on a lark, I mailed the press release to a handful of newspapers serving the NJ area.
To my surprise, a reporter from the New Jersey Herald called and asked to come out to my house to visit the Giga Pet graveyard and interview me. That weekend, the feature section of the NJ Herald ran a full-page article – all about Microchip Gardens!
Today, marketing “gurus” act like “telling stories” is a new idea that they alone invented. But we old-time marketers have been using stories to promote and sell products since God spoke to Moses!
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