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    Far West Meats – Get’s Media Coverage

    Written by Admin on . Posted in Case Studies - Portfolio, Dameron Portfolio

    Where’s the beef? At Far West on Saturday in Highland
    Contra Costa TimesFar West Meats President Thomas Serrato talks bout some of the equipment at the newly rebuild Far West Meats plant in Highland. From 9 am to 3 pm Saturday, …

     
    FAR WEST MEATS CELEBRATES WITH FREE BARBECUE
    Highland Community News“Far West Meats stocks only the highest quality grain-fed, naturally aged, trimmed to perfection, Premium Choice Northern California Beef.
    Far West Meats Celebrates with FREE Barbecue

    “Far West Meats stocks only the highest quality grain-fed, naturally aged, trimmed to perfection, Premium Choice Northern California Beef. We also carry the best …

    www.dameroncommunications.com/…/far-west-meats-celebrat…
    Where’s the beef? At Far West on Saturday in Highland – San Jose …

    HIGHLAND – Far West Meats, the 90-year-old meat-packing company that saw its structure gutted by fire two years ago, isn t done yet.

    www.mercurynews.com/…/wheres-beef-at-far-west-saturday-h…
    Far West Meats extends invitation to free barbecue on July 14 – Topix

    Far West Meats President Thomas Serrato, explains the scene of the newly rebuilt Far West Meats plant in Highland on June 7. Far West Meats President …

    www.topix.com/forum/food/bar-b…/T1OVLK1K3VJTE140P

    Case Study: Grand Opening Of Salvation Army Hospitality House

    Written by Admin on . Posted in Case Studies - Portfolio, Dameron Portfolio

    Community support was overwhelming when the new Hospitality House held a grand opening in January. Volunteers are now needed to help children in the shelter’s computer lab and media center. Photo by Chris Sloan

     

    Media Relations  – Non-Profit Organization
    Grand Opening Of Salvation Army Hospitality House
    January 15, 2010

    Objective: As part of our ongoing role as the Salvation Army’s public relations provider, we were given the task of event planning and arranging media coverage for the Grand Opening of the Salvation Army’s Hospitality House emergency family shelter, which took place on January 15, 2010. The Hospitality House was remodeled after the San Bernardino Corps purchased the building from another arm of the Salvation Army, the San Bernardino Adult Rehabilitation Center.

    Tactics: Our media relations strategy began in 2008, when the San Bernardino Corps first purchased the shelter from the Adult Rehabilitation Center. After the first release, we began consistently mentioning the upcoming move in our press releases about other events. For instance, in the press release about the 2008 Red Kettle campaign, a holiday fundraiser for the Salvation Army, we mentioned that the Salvation Army would need more money in 2009 due to this planned move.

    Throughout 2009, we continued to frequently mention the upcoming move in our press releases, and we issued additional press releases specifically about this topic.  This included one press release for another client, the Art Institute of California – Inland Empire, whose students had worked with the Salvation Army to create a design scheme for the shelter’s new library and computer lab. Finally, in the first week of January, 2010 we sent out a media advisory so that all of our media contacts would know the Salvation Army planned its grand opening on January 15.

    Results: The initial press release resulted in stories published in the Press-Enterprise (Riverside), the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, the San Bernardino County Sun, and the Inland Empire Business Journal. In addition, the San Bernardino Sun did two stories about the Salvation Army in December 2008 that mentioned the upcoming move.

    By the summer of 2009, the local media was keenly aware of the upcoming move. In August 2009, the Press-Enterprise contacted us, requesting a tour of the work in progress. This resulted in a 72 ½ inch story and photo on the front of the Local section. After this was published, additional tours were arranged for the Sun and for a reporter from the Inland Empire bureaus of Channels 2 and 9, resulting in additional media coverage from those outlets. New Frontier, a newspaper for the Salvation Army Corps in the western United States, reprinted the Press-Enterprise story, along with a sidebar we had produced about State Senator Gloria Negrete-McLeod touring the under-construction shelter.

    Our final tactic, the media alert sent out the first week of January 2010, resulted in pre-event coverage from the Press-Enterprise, and post-event coverage from the Press-Enterprise, the Sun, New Frontier, Highland Community News, the Rialto Record, Colton Courier, El Chicano and Inland Empire Weekly and the website Eventful.com.

    Additionally, in February 2010, the Sun arranged to have a reporter and a photographer spend the night at the shelter, which resulted in an 80-inch story, a 30-inch sidebar, two sidebars of 20 inches each, and a 14-inch sidebar.

    Case study: City of Rialto

    Written by Admin on . Posted in Case Studies - Portfolio, Dameron Portfolio

    Work has begun to ease congestion on the Riverside Avenue bridge over Interstate 10 in Rialto. Harber Construction workers Saul Castenoa, Jacob Gracia, Janie Barralaga amd Bruce Siekierski remove the railing of the old bridge. The City of Rialto will close this five-lane bridge in April to replace it with a nine-lane bridge. It anticipates finishing the project in early 2012.

    Case Study:              MEDIA RELATIONS
    Client:                     CITY OF RIALTO
    Introduction: In 2010 and 2011 we provided a campaign to increase favorable media coverage for the City of Rialto, working primarily with its Redevelopment Agency. We developed a series of seven press releases for the Redevelopment Agency highlighting upcoming projects and existing city assets for which the agency had helped secure funding.
    These press releases are posted  at: http://www.dameroncommunications.com/category/rialto/

    • “Rialto Stepping Into Economic Success,”
    • “Route 66 Sporting New Pavement In Rialto,”
    • “Fergusson Park in Rialto Gets $6 Million Upgrade,”
    • “From Blight To Burgers,”
    • “Rialto Eases Congestion With New Freeway Bridge,”
    • “North Rialto Poised For Development,”
    • “Community Theater In Intimate Setting,”
    • “Rialto Makes Foreclosed Homes Great Places To Live”

    Research and
    Planning: We met with Redevelopment Agency Director Robb Steel and his designees to obtain the specific information for the press releases. We had already obtained information about the city from having worked with Council Member Deborah Robertson and former City Manager Henry Garcia on previous projects.

    Execution: We released “Rialto Stepping Into Economic Success” on Sept. 16, 2010, “Route 66 Sporting New Pavement in Rialto” on Oct. 1, 2010, and “Fergusson Park in Rialto Gets $6 Million Upgrade on Oct. 5, 2010.” Rialto Redevelopment Agency asked us to hold off on projects later in October 2010, but allowed us to resume work in 2011.
    We then released “Blight to Burgers” on March 2, 2011, “Rialto Easing Congestion With New Freeway Bridge” on March 15, 2011, “North Rialto Poised for New Development on March 24, 2011, “Community Theater in Intimate Setting” on April 25, 2011, and “Rialto Makes Foreclose Homes Great Places To Live” on May 20, 2011. We released these stories to both local and Los Angeles media contacts, and through wire services.

    “From Blight to Burgers” came on the heels of less positive publicity, especially in the San Bernardino Sun, about Rialto’s decision to spend Redevelopment Agency funds on a project that will bring In-N-Out Burgers to that city. The earlier publicity made it appear that Rialto had subsidized the restaurant chain. Our press release brought attention to the current state of the property and the need for Rialto to spend redevelopment funds in order for it to be anything other than a vacant lot. At the time we wrote the press release, a former fire station stood on the property. This fire station was in great need of modernization, and its location near the 210 Freeway made it difficult for firefighters to safely exit the fire station onto Riverside Ave. Since this property had so many problems, the city had decided to build a new fire station (now open) elsewhere. Yet, in order for any other development to occur, $2.4 million to purchase adjacent property, demolish the fire station and upgrade infrastructure for the entire area had to be invested. It also brought to the public’s attention that In-N-Out would be one of three restaurants on the property.

    Evaluation: The San Bernardino Sun’s story derived from “Rialto Poised For Economic Development” went off our intended message. The press release highlighted recent and upcoming economic developments, including green industries Enertech (opened a plant in Rialto in March 2010) and Rentech (plant under construction at the time), and also highlighted Rialto’s proposed master-planned Renaissance Rialto, which will bring both retail and industry when developed in coming years.

    The Sun’s story instead focused on the city manager’s optimism that when the economy improves, the City will not miss out on economic development opportunities, because it has launched a more aggressive and professional approach to marketing the city. Although its focus was elsewhere, the Sun article mentioned all of the projects in our release, and added one more, the proposed Lytle Creek Ranch.  The Rialto City Manager, Henry Garcia, was so pleased with the Sun’s article he arranged to have it placed on the City of Rialto’s website.

    Stories focusing more on our intended message appeared in other local media, including the daily Riverside Press-Enterprise, its weekly Spanish-language publication La Prensa, and several other weekly newspapers in the Inland Empire.

    “From Blight To Burgers” resulted in Sun reporter Jim Steinberg interviewing both Robb Steel and Fernando Acosta, the property developer the Redevelopment Agency is working with to sell the improved property to three restaurants. When Steinberg interviewed him, Acosta had reached a point in the negotiations he could name the second restaurant, Miguel’s Jr. Also, the city had just torn down the old fire station, highlighting the need to turn the freeway-frontage pile of rubble into something more attractive. Steinberg’s article focused on the intended goal of the press release, highlighting the likelihood of three new restaurants coming to the property, and listing the same necessary property improvements we had highlighted in the press release.

    Steinberg also interviewed Steel regarding “Rialto Easing Congestion With New Freeway Bridge,” which resulted in two stories, one shortly after the release was issued and another about one month later when Rialto began demolition of the old freeway bridge.  Both stories conveyed the intended message of our release, which is that the new bridge would be far more efficient and attractive, and worth the expense of the project and the inconvenience of detouring drivers away from the Riverside Ave./Interstate 10 interchange for seven months.

    In addition to writing stories that explained Rialto’s message clearly, Steinberg on two occasions contacted Dameron Communications for information about City of Rialto projects we had not been hired to promote, as they did not involve redevelopment funds. We were able to assist Steinberg by encouraging the appropriate city officials to speak to The Sun about these stories.  Due to our work positive stories regarding city projects continues in the Sun in recent times.

    All stories the Sun wrote about Rialto during our campaign also appeared on such news sites for the San Jose Mercury News, the Long Beach Press Telegram and the Contra Costa Times.

    In addition, websites such as Topix.com have generated their own links to these stories, while our placing the releases through wire services has resulted in publication on hundreds of websites worldwide, and in some cases, in periodicals related to the topics of a specific release.