Presidential pizza: a PR success story
Some of our great PR ideas happen in the most interesting places. For Jackie Wright, owner of Rainmaker Communications, it was all about pizza and our future president as she sudsed up in the shower. Her timely and tasty plan was to create some buzz for her client, Streets of New York. “I called the COO of Streets and said ‘Hey, I think we should put together some type of promotion for Streets of New York selling Presidential Pizzas.’ But, I also wanted to do something that would allow people to express their vote and support their candidate.. all at the same time.”
Jackie didn’t put the release on the wires, but instead pitched local TV and print media. From those placements, the word spread like wildfire and more than 60 media outlets picked up the story, including CNN, which ran it at least eight times yesterday. [Link here: cnn_10-7_5pm_streets_of_new_york3]
Presidential pizza: a PR success storyIn honor of the upcoming Presidential election, Streets of New York restaurants will be offering two Presidential pizzas to customers interested in supporting their candidate of choice.
From October 3 to October 24, guests may order either the John McCain pizza or the Barack Obama pizza, each for just $19.50. At the end of the three week promotion, sales will be tallied and the presidential candidate who received the most sales will have a portion of the proceeds donated to his campaign.
In honor of John McCain, an Arizona resident, the presidential pizza will consist of cheese, pepperoni and onions, his personal favorite. The Barack Obama pizza will consist of cheese, ham and pineapple, an homage to his home state of Hawaii.
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Comments
October 9th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Nice work, Jackie! Genius idea – can’t wait to go grab a pie and cast my vote. I’m dying to know which one wins! Keep us posted.
October 10th, 2008 at 9:14 am
I don’t know why but I get all my best thoughts in the shower and the car.
October 10th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Being the broadcast media monitor for Rainmaker, I’d like to update those number to 89 markets with hits continuing to come thru this morning.
Our congratulations to Jackie on a terrific job!
Mike
Media Watch AZ
October 10th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Ooops…I lied. Over 160 outlets across the country as of this morning.
Very Nice Job!
October 10th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Obama is a Illinois senator, shouldn’t the pizza have sausage instead of ham?
October 10th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Hmmmm…Wonder what kind of additional media bump would come from customers asking for a third pizza variety…Neither Candidate… with proceeds going to the Food Bank or other charity.
October 10th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Thanks to everyone for their kind words! It has been a whirlwind these last few days. And the Obama pizza has ham and pineapple because we wanted to pay homage to his home state of Hawaii! Don’t forget to stop into your local Streets of New York and cast your vote!
October 13th, 2008 at 11:22 am
I saw this story when it ran locally and thought to myself “genius!” A great promotion to come up with and congrats on the media success!
What would the Sarah Palin pizza have on it?
-Joe
October 13th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
This is a great idea. My first reaction and the reason I didn’t recommend the story: it promotes an illegal act.
“At the end of the three week promotion, sales will be tallied and the presidential candidate who received the most sales will have a portion of the proceeds donated to his campaign.”
This would be a corporate contribution or a contribution made by one person in the name of another. Either way, it’s a serious violation of the federal elections laws (http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/citizens.shtml).
October 14th, 2008 at 8:09 am
Joe,
The Sarah Palin pizza would have moose meat of course!
Len