Experienced Senior-Level Counsel, Creative Strategies and Proven Public Relations Expertise to Deliver Amazing Results. 

 
 

X2 Communications

Building An Inspirational Culture

The Challenge

With a mobile workforce of more than 100,000 employees spread across the country, how do we help leverage strategic communications at major discount retailer to build an inspirational culture to drive operational excellence, higher sales and improved customer satisfaction?

The Solution

The answer? We created what we called a X2 employee communications program to inspire inspire a X2 commitment (X2 or times 2 – meaning double the commitment) to excellence. The program provided a consistent cadence of timely and actionable information from the head of Store Operations to his leadership team in the field. We executed a detailed content calendar across an array of platforms: Employee intranet site, customer communications portal for store support, a blog (with weekly posts) and monthly newsletter.

The Big Idea

We made it easy for the employees!  

By developing a Customer Communications App, we delivered impactful communications in the palm of their hands via their smart phone or tablet, including: Videos, blog posts and photo gallery featuring in-store recognition pieces. The App also included rapid resources, contests and upcoming events. The program was a hit with employees and drove measurable operational improvements and increased sales.

The Results

This was a unique program was devised to inspire store level execution. Our key measure of success: improving key metrics in the stores critical to sales, profits and overall business success.

  • We focused communications around the goal of improving sales of key paper and cleaning products and achieved the best quarterly comp sales in the paper category in the 2 years!

  • We later focused on in-stock position with the goal of improving on-shelf availability. We sent out fun and inspiring videos, Blogs, Articles on the topic. Not only did we hit the goal, we achieved a more than a 35% improvement!

  • X2 Communications supported a sales contest for socks and underwear Sales were up double digits in the two weeks following the contest launch.

These are just some of the results that validated this unique strategic communications program as a powerful tool for delivering better sales, in-store execution and an improved customer experience. 

 

Day of Beauty

Driving sales with creative pr is a beautiful thing!

The Challenge

In 2015, the Merchandising team at major discount retailer identified a huge opportunity to boost sales of health and beauty products to the fastest-growing market segment in the US: multicultural customers. Over 120 million strong and increasing by 2.3 million per year, African-American health and beauty shoppers who visit this discount retailer generated twice the sales, trips and units than average shoppers. However, the retailer was not capturing its share of this important market segment.

The Solution

The PR team partnered with Merchandising to conceptualize and implement “A Day of Beauty” – a free event at the Music City Center in Nashville to educate consumers about the exciting new multi-cultural health and beauty products at the retailer, gain national earned media exposure and position the reatiler as the go-to store for multicultural health and beauty shoppers.

The Big Idea

The Day of Beauty project employed an array to tactics to achieve the goals!  The project featured a multi-faceted approach of social engagement, traditional PR (including a free in-store magazine), a new product assortment launch and a free event to drive amazing consumer awareness, generate significant media coverage and a measurable sales lift. 

  • The retailer’s new and expanded multicultural health and beauty assortment adding more shelf-space, more products and a broader array range of brands launches in May of 2015.

  • The creation of an in-store free magazine to showcase the new product offerings, featuring health and beauty from expert contributors, highlight great bargains and offering coupons to drive sales hit the stores in July of 2015.

  • R&B Star Chante Moore hosted the inaugural “A Day of Beauty” event which attracted more than 400 guests and featured a musical performance by Chante, free make-overs, dozens of vendor booths featuring hundreds products and free samples from the leading multi-cultural health and beauty brands.

  • The event also featured workshops hosted by 13 leading African-American beauty bloggers who were pitched and hosted by the PR team. The bloggers added great expertise to the workshops and posted, tweeted and Instagramed the event to millions of their followers across the county.

 

Teens Drive Smart

Winning Hearts with Safety Education

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The Challenge

In the wake of the historic Firestone Tire Recall, the Firestone and Bridgestone Brands were under attack. The brands were facing a crisis of confidence with consumers when it came to safety. As a 100-year-old brand with a long history of safety innovation – it was part of our Firestone brand DNA – and our leadership team was determined to leverage our expertise and re-claim our brand heritage, lead the way in safety education and make our roads safer for everyone.

The Solution

Our PR team created a comprehensive teen driver safety education program branded under the banner of “Teens Drive Smart” which included a free hands-on teen driver safety program, an interactive website with a curriculum for high school students including online quizzes/games, a website dedicated to tire safety, a booklet of driver safety information targeted at teens featuring racing legend Mario Andretti and an annual video contest that generated student-produced Public Service Announcements (PSA’s).

The Big Idea

We made a strategic decision to leverage user-generated content to create messages that resonate with teen drivers.

  • The annual video contest (originally branded Safety Scholars and later re-branded as the “Teens Drive Smart” video contest) gave us touch-points to various key audiences; students, teachers, parents and safety influencers with powerful content created by students, for students.

  • At each stage of the contest we received tremendous web traffic and earned media – publicizing the contest, selecting the finalists and ultimately choosing the winners (through online voting) who were rewarded with college scholarships. The contest received more than 1,500 video entries.

  • The “Teens Drive Smart” driver education program provided free hands-on driver training to more than 400 teens and parents each weekend in 15 U.S. markets. Each stop generated significant earned media, especially television since the story was so visually rich. The students shared thousands of posts on their social media feeds providing amazing viral-buzz for the program.

The Results

  • The winning “Teens Drive Smart” student-produced videos were syndicated as PSA’s and in 2011 were aired more than 40,000 times on stations across the country generating more than 600-million impressions with a donated media value exceeding $17 million.

  • The 2011 U.S. “Teens Drive Smart” driver training tour generated 87 news stores resulting in 24 -million impressions.

  • The 2012 “Teens Drive Smart” scholarship video contest was announced April 24 at a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray Lahood. The announcement generated 65 stories generating more than 36-million impressions.

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