KRAFT FOODS’ HUDDLE TO FIGHT HUNGER
PR 101

The following is an overview of Public Relations, which includes background information on the basics of PR, as well as some tools and tips to help you leverage this channel to generate awareness for your initiatives.

First and foremost, PR is:

  • Earned, not paid for
  • Credible
  • Tells a story; and
  • Extends the reach of other marketing disciplines like advertising

PR is not

  • Guaranteed coverage
  • Always positive, because of lack of control over the media; and
  • It doesn’t always come easily and without significant effort

The ultimate goal of any PR campaign is to reach a target audience, which in your case, is your local communities.  To do that, you can work with a variety of media outlets to deliver your messages, such as:

  • Television.  Depending on the size of your market, you may have as many as six or seven local television affiliates, like NBC, CBS, ABC and FOX – or you may have none.

More often than not, these affiliates have several newscasts throughout the day like a morning show, noon news, early evening and then a 9, 10 or 11pm newscast.  To try and get a story covered on a television newscast, your best bet is usually to pitch your story to the news assignment desk, or the producer of one of their newscasts that regularly feature guests, which generally is their morning or noon newscasts.

  • Newspapers.  Most major US cities have a daily newspaper, as well as a weekly newspaper – of course, some larger markets like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles have more than one daily newspaper.  Smaller communities will sometimes have a daily newspaper, but sometimes just a weekly newspaper.

The size of your market will dictate the complexity of the news staff responsible for publishing your local paper – larger daily newspapers may have a staff of a few hundred, while smaller dailies and weeklies may only have a few reporters.

Before pitching any story to a newspaper, it’s best to try and determine the section of the newspaper you think your story is best suited towards – which could include the metro section, community calendar for events or even local sports – and then target a specific editor to cover it.

  • Radio.  Radio offers a large number of formats that can help you target specific audiences, including all news and talk formats, as well as specific music formats like Country, Classic Rock and Top 40.

Most radio stations have a news director that you can always send information to, but you can also pitch the producers of specific shows on the station for guest appearances and/or events.

  • Web sites and blogs. As you all know, the Internet has spawned a variety of different sites that cater to very specific audiences.  Finding appropriate sites and blogs to carry your messages can be challenging, but you usually can find sites and blogs that feature local information where you can potentially share your message.

Following is a few tools of the PR trade that practitioners use to interact with media outlets:

  • Key Messages.  These are usually three of four simple sentences that convey the most important attributes of your story.  We’ve provided you with these messages that can be customized for your local organization and events [add link].
  • Press Materials.  There is a variety of different types of press materials that PR practitioners utilize, but the most common are a press release, media alert and fact sheet.  We’ve posted a few for you to customize for your local market [add link].
  • Spokesperson.  Identify a person within your organization who will feel comfortable with a reporter and is also well versed on your organization, as well as the Huddle to Fight Hunger.  This person will need to convey the key messages about your Huddle to Fight Hunger initiatives, as well as answer subsequent questions from a reporter about your organization and events. 
  • The Pitch.  This is the art of trying to sell your story to a reporter, editor or producer.  Some reporters may hear dozens of pitches every day, so the job of the PR practitioner is to make the story interesting and relevant for the editor, as well as his or her readers, listeners or viewers.

That begs the question, what things do you do are relevant to pitch to a reporter?  Probably more than you think.

Some specific examples that might be worthy of a PR campaign are volunteer initiatives with your local food bank, winners of special Huddle to Fight Hunger branded awards and other activities to support the campaign.

Of course, we couldn’t cover everything about PR in a three page document, but hopefully these insights, coupled with the template materials we’ve provided on the site can help you rally your community to support Kraft Foods’ Huddle to Fight Hunger.