Overview
A leading hospitality company specializing in premium dining and retail experiences needed expert assistance to generate positive attention in business, consumer, and trade media. They contacted The Harbinger Group (THG) to showcase their strong leadership, business strategy, corporate culture, and philanthropic efforts. THG accepted this challenge to bring the company’s CEO and their work—both in the industry and the community—into the media spotlight with a comprehensive earned media strategy.
Our Strategy
Before diving in, The Harbinger Group needed to thoroughly understand and capture the company’s CEO and his transformational leadership journey’s narrative. As an entrepreneurial trailblazer, the CEO pioneered the company’s ascent into the hospitality big leagues through bold vision, an innovative mindset, and a progressive data-driven culture. Our earned media strategy was to first complete thorough research and then implement techniques drawn from our findings and infuse them with our team’s creativity.
Research
In order to work within the tight three-month timeframe, we worked to rapidly comprehend the CEO’s disruptive strategies, which bucked industry conventions and fueled the client’s market leadership. This included grasping how the CEO developed a culture of embracing ideas from all levels and leveraging analytics in groundbreaking ways for strategic decisions.
The Harbinger Group kicked off the media relations engagement by conducting in-depth discovery meetings with the client’s communications leadership team to be the foundation of our earned media strategy. During these working sessions, we aimed to thoroughly understand the client’s origin story, competitive differentiators, organizational culture, business philosophies, and overall strategic vision as shaped by the CEO and leadership team.
Armed with these insights, we formulated an earned media strategy and a crisp messaging platform that would resonate with target reporters. From there, we conducted a comprehensive media audit examining recent coverage and editorial calendars for their competitor set within the sports, entertainment, and hospitality industries. By understanding how and where competitors were covered, we gained insights into relevant reporters, story angles, and messaging that resonated.
Techniques
Our team quickly immersed themselves in the client’s pioneering leadership narrative, determining which facets would captivate the media, and bring this story to life—positioning the CEO as an inspirational market innovator.
To organize and ensure each pitch angle was on target, THG created a comprehensive media matrix outlining themes, objectives, story angles, target media, timing, and more for each potential opportunity. The team developed nuanced pitches articulating the client’s leadership vision, entrepreneurial spirit, and commitment to service excellence. An key part of our earned media strategy was to develop pitches integrated with key messages and customized for relevant Chicago, national and leadership trade reporters.
When interviews were secured, THG prepared the CEO with briefing documents, potential questions, and message-bridging techniques to convey the leadership story. The team also met with him to practice and prepare for interviews. This preparation built confidence and refined messaging.
Creativity
Rather than taking a one-size-fits-all pitch approach, THG developed sharply customized narratives based on the reporters’ specific interests. THG selected different facets of the client’s leadership and culture to highlight in a relevant, engaging way for each media target. Our guided discovery sessions with leadership team members provided the contextual insights to make the pitches authentic and multi-dimensional.
As part of a broad earned media strategy, The Harbinger Group also implemented a strategic earned media campaign to drive interest in the client’s annual holiday meal donation for Chicago residents facing food insecurity. Rather than focus solely on the amount of food prepared, THG showcased the dedicated volunteers and the client’s evolving commitment to address contemporary community needs. This multifaceted approach made the enduring tradition feel fresh and compelling.
THG also leveraged the client’s role as the premium food and beverage provider for a major event in 2024 as an opportunity to capture the attention of a key media target: the Chicago Tribune. The team secured an on-site interview with the Tribune reporter as he participated in a menu tasting and talked with key executives.
Our Results
During a three-month period, THG’s experienced team of earned media experts executed a robust earned media strategy with the campaign encompassing strategic messaging, targeted pitching, and interview preparation. For the work focused on executive visibility efforts for the CEO, we successfully generated positive profiles of the CEO and company culture in high-value Chicago and leadership trade media, including WGN-AM, Crain’s Chicago Business, Authority Magazine, Adam Mendler’s Leadership blog, and the Strategy & Leadership podcast—and a feature in the Chicago Tribune.
For the media outreach surrounding the client’s Thanksgiving meal preparation for those in need, THG generated 36 stories across broadcast, digital, and print media in just four days—shattering previous outreach records. Our team ambitiously secured this coverage with only a one-week lead time by staying focused on our earned media strategy and executing quickly.
