Promote – within six weeks - a Valentine’s Day event for a company which had never officially launched to the media. The goal was to drive customer registrations for the February 11, 2003 Cupid Party, to be held in 57 cities nationwide to help thousands of singles meet someone to date in time for Valentine’s Day. When attacking this campaign, we knew that we were faced with a number of obstacles, least of which was the fact that dating services in general have always faced a rather unsavory reputation. That, combined with incredibly tight deadlines, an overcrowded marketplace and unstable world news that threatened to overshadow many of our efforts, left little room for error.
Branded the event the "Largest Dating Event in History," and developed a solid campaign around a set of story ideas and communications tools that would allow 8minuteDating.com to blanket the press. Focus on good old-fashioned story development, creative angles, aggressive and responsive press relations, and attention to detail (from lighting recommendations and outfit suggestions, to transportation to studios for interviews). Position 8minuteDating.com executives as dating experts, and showcase the benefits of speed dating over other dating services, such as Internet dating. Establish 8minuteDating.com’s reputation as a trusted and sophisticated national company, not just a regional dating service. Build brand recognition of 8minuteDating.com with customers, national and local press and new business partners.
Adhere to solid PR practices, but also use a staggered press release and media alert blitz - including pre-coverage/attendance of events by reporters, creative cross-masthead outreach, and promotion/coordination of “customer success stories” and other creative pitch angles. Rather than simply pitching reporters to attend the Cupid Event, strategically place stories prior to the event, in order to really meet 8minuteDating.com’s goals – customer registrations and a hugely successful event.
PerkettPR exceeded all PR goals and secured an extended contract with 8minuteDating.com. Within six weeks, PerkettPR secured more than 100 pieces of coverage, including 67 broadcast hits on popular shows such as Dr. Phil, National Public Radio, Fox News, CNN and more, and top-billing on NBC’s Today Show’s month-long “Dating Game” series.
Katie Couric of NBC’s Today Show attended, filmed and discussed the experience of attending a New York event, and chose a date for her friend. 8minuteDating.com took a clean sweep of NBC’s Today Show’s six-week “Dating Game” series, where a designated bachelor and bachelorette each chose one date from a field of candidates presented by three services. Both contestants chose their date from 8minuteDating.com over all the contestants presented by the other services. This solidified our messaging that speed dating is better at making a match for singles than competitive services such as Internet dating or blind dates.
Such coverage helped drive a 20 percent increase in registrations in the months of January and February, which was a company record; and sent 2,800 participants on more than 11,000 dates on one night. 8minuteDating.com customers have gone on more than 100,000 dates so far in Q1 ’03. Since working with PerkettPR, the company has expanded from 27 cities into 56 cities across the U.S.
TV coverage on at least 67 stations across the country including: Cedar Rapids, Peoria, Oklahoma City, Baltimore, Charleston, Las Vegas, Raleigh/Durham, Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point, Providence/New Bedford, Salt Lake City, Jacksonville, Buffalo, Erie, Sacramento, Tucson, Louisville, Ft. Meyers, Nashville, Boston, Baton Rouge, Memphis, and more!
(Interesting note: PerkettPR had also secured stories with Dateline NBC, Primetime and Connie Chung, however these segments were all cancelled before filming took place, due to more pressing news events, such as the Iraq war, that required re-allocation of resources such as film crews.)
