Lead with the person, not the produce
A corporate-backed institute enters the childhood obesity debate at a credibility disadvantage. Anything resembling promotion loses the argument outright.
Scope
Media relations for the Dole Nutrition Institute, Dole’s nutrition research and education arm.
Challenge
DNI needed standing in the national conversation on childhood obesity and nutrition. That is a debate where a corporate-backed institute starts behind, because every contribution is read as marketing until proven otherwise.
The constraint was unusually strict: anything that resembled product promotion would not just fail, it would actively undermine the credibility the Institute existed to build.
What we did
Crier led with the person and the programs rather than the produce. We built director Jennifer Grossman into a quotable authority on childhood obesity, functional foods and employee wellness, and made her available for the broad category stories reporters were already writing.
Underneath that, we treated DNI’s own initiatives as news in their own right, giving the Institute proprietary announcements to distribute rather than waiting on other people’s story cycles.
And we worked three beats simultaneously: consumer health, grocery and produce trade, and business and marketing press, so a single program generated coverage in publications that share no readership at all.
Results
The School Salad Days school nutrition program earned coverage across Forbes.com, MSNBC.com, Yahoo Financial News, ProgressiveGrocer.com, the San Jose Mercury News, the Contra Costa Times and the Ventura County Star, amplified by DNI’s recognition at Governor Schwarzenegger’s Summit on Health, Nutrition and Obesity in Sacramento.
The Superfoods campaign drew a Brandweek strategy feature on Dole’s use of fruits and vegetables as media, a Supermarket News trend story on functional foods, a Food Business News feature quoting Grossman, and a nationally syndicated WOR Radio interview with Phil Lempert distributed to 400 stations.
Standing, not just coverage
A USA Today travel feature covered the Dole Wellness Center, a Produce Business cover story named DNI among the twenty biggest changes in the produce industry, Potentials ran a feature on employee wellness and KCAL 9 Los Angeles aired a childhood obesity segment.
Together they did what a product campaign cannot: they established the Institute as a participant in the debate rather than an interested party commenting from the sidelines.
Where it landed
The short answers
What did Crier Communications do for the Dole Nutrition Institute?
Crier Communications handled media relations for the Dole Nutrition Institute, the nutrition research and education arm of Dole, building its standing in the national conversation on childhood obesity and nutrition.
How do you build credibility for a corporate-backed institute?
Lead with the person and the programs rather than the product. Crier built director Jennifer Grossman into a quotable authority on childhood obesity, functional foods and employee wellness, and made her available for the category stories reporters were already writing. Anything resembling product promotion would have undermined the credibility the Institute existed to build.
What coverage did the Dole Nutrition Institute earn?
The School Salad Days program earned coverage in Forbes.com, MSNBC.com, Yahoo Financial News, ProgressiveGrocer.com, the San Jose Mercury News, the Contra Costa Times and the Ventura County Star. The Superfoods campaign drew a Brandweek strategy feature, a Supermarket News trend story, a Food Business News feature and a nationally syndicated WOR Radio interview distributed to 400 stations. A Produce Business cover story named DNI among the twenty biggest changes in the produce industry.
What is executive positioning in PR?
Making a named individual the reportable authority on a subject, rather than pitching the organisation. It works when the organisation itself would be discounted as an interested party, which is the situation any corporate-backed research institute faces.
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