Case Study: publicity opportunities, making lemonade…

Posted on | March 26, 2009 | 1 Comment

Branding Salon is selective in their client list because success is built on relationships, like the collaboration between publicist and owner. MacCallum House Inn & Restaurant owner Jed Ayres recently had a light bulb go off when pondering the increasingly dire figures for unemployment in the country – why not give a free night’s lodging to someone recently given a pink slip and bring up some top job recruiters from the San Francisco Bay area for an evening’s seminar at the same time.

He handed the idea over to MacCallum House publicist and BS member Jude Lutge, who immediately saw the potential in this unique idea, which might sound odd at first. She turned that oddity into an asset that garnered publicity as soon as she sent out a press release across the nation. Branding Week’s Robert Klara picked it up and wrote the article below.

California B&B eyeing an unusual target market: the unemployed

MacCallum_House_Evening copy

Heard about the Reemployment Act of 2009? It’s actually not part of the recently passed economic stimulus plan (though maybe it should be). It’s the latest marketing gambit from California’s MacCallum House Inn & Restaurant, an historic, cliff-top mansion in Mendocino with a Pacific view. When you’re a swish bed and breakfast with rooms that go for up to $500 a night, a 10.5% statewide unemployment rate is not exactly going to help hurl customers at your door. But a few weeks ago, public relations director Jude Lutge decided that maybe it could. Her "Reemployment Act" offer gave the first 15 callers who could prove they’ve lost their jobs in the last six months a free room, plus admission to a job-networking party that’ll be attended by recruiters from top IT firms, including Google. "People really jumped on it," Lutge says of her 30 bookings. The job party is tonight (Thursday), and Lutge hopes it’ll bring relief from what she terms "freakoutnomics." In case not, well, fortunately an ocean view stays lovely even when the economy sucks. Photo: John Birchard.

—Posted by Robert Klara

Published on March 26, 2009 | brandfreak.com

Category: marketing and publicity
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Comments

One Response to “Case Study: publicity opportunities, making lemonade…”

  1. lissa lowe
    April 19th, 2009 @ 8:55 am

    saveconomics! how did the networking party go? would be interesting to hear if connections were made the old-fashioned way. keep us posted!

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