These days everyone is so caught up with Twitter and Facebook marketing that it’s easy to forget about traditional press releases and the importance of the major media outlets.
When I was 21 years old I had the opportunity to experience first hand the inner workings of traditional media and the massive scale of cable news.
Arnold Berk is a long time family friend, Korean War veteran, and businessman who built and sold a multimillion dollar tax business.
Arnold called me up in late 2008 during the financial meltdown to discuss a plan he had come up with to help protect Main Street America from Wall Street – he called it “The Berk Plan” (you can see it here). He wanted to know if I was interested in helping him promote it online since he heard that was my world. I agreed to help, I thought his ideas were solid, more importantly my middle name is Burke so I had a vested interest to see it through – even if the spelling was a bit off.
Together we came up with a game plan for marketing, I would handle the online promotion of The Berk Plan and Arnold would take charge of handling traditional media.
To kick things off he decided to take out a $15,000 full page ad in the Washington Post (and paid for it with his own money) to get the attention of our senators and congressmen as well as the major media outlets.
Meanwhile, I managed to get The Berk Plan featured on the frontpage of Reddit.com
After the ad appeared in the Washington Post, we were completely bombarded with comments and emails, as well as inquires from major media outlets. Arnold decided to start giving all of the news outlets my cell phone number and telling everyone I was the official media coordinator (I’m sure he got a kick out of it at the time).
So here I was, 21 years old, getting calls from CNBC and Fox News, having to moderate who gets the exclusive. Arnold was in good hands though because I find myself in crazy situations like this a lot.
After seeing The Berk Plan in the Washington Post, CNBC and was interested in having us on. So the next day Arnold and I went up to New York City, did a press conference outside of the AIG building and then headed to the Wall Street Journal Building where CNBC had a satellite studio that allowed them to stick your talking head on the news.
I can’t quite describe the emotions I felt when we arrived at the WSJ building. It really wasn’t until then that I realized the enormous scale of these major media outlets. Inside the building it was somewhat empty because it was the day before New Years Eve. On our way up to the studio I looked out the window and my heart sank. Literally right next door their was a huge crater where the World Trade Towers once stood.
We were escorted to a room with a bunch of cameras and surprisingly it was just Arnold, myself and the cameraman.
I’ll never forget standing there watching Arnold, thinking that it’s just the three of us and yet this is going out to literally millions of people on the biggest financial news channel in the world at prime time. Even though I was able to get us on the frontpage of major online social sites like Reddit and Digg, this was so much bigger than that.
About 15 minutes after leaving the Wall Street Journal building I got a call on my cell from a lady with Fox News. She wanted us to come on and talk about The Berk Plan the next day on Fox Business. I explained that we were in NYC now and it would be kind of a hassle to come back up the next day, especially since it was New Years Eve. She assured us that they would take care of everything, and even agreed to send a car down to Philly to pick us up.
Sure enough the next day I found myself in a town car with Arnold heading back up to NYC, ready to go through the whole routine again.
The Berk Plan promotion was a success and it’s one victory we achieved almost exclusively through traditional media. Using new media is great for promotion but traditional methods can be more effective depending on your audience. Although some have already declared traditional media dead, that day I learned that in some cases, nothing could be further from the truth.
Awesome story! Just watched the CNBC video and I would have voted for it, great idea.
Awesome article – very cool story!
Hey Kevin,
‘ve had my company featured on the local news and actually had a decent response, sales were up for a few weeks after. Could you recommend a decent press release site that doesn’t charge $300?
It depends on the kind of exposer you want but to go all out and have it sent to the big guys (NYTimes etc..) that sounds about right. I know that some services like PRNewswire offer a discount if you prepay for multiple releases.
Good stuff! Arnold did a great job presenting his plan even though he is not a ‘professional” talkiing head.
You’re right Kevin, Traditional media is indeed a powerful venue depending on the target audience and the message.
Frank gothie
Hey Frank – thanks for stopping by!
Great article Kevin, I always look forward to receiving that feedburner email notifying me of a new post on your site.
Nice post Kevin! I think it is all too easy to forget these days that “old media” still works quite effectively. Don’t think I’m ready for one $15K ad, but I’ve been tempted to check out local newspaper and radio advertising rates for some sites of mine.
Best,
Rob
Just came across this, awesome story… I was actually on CNBC once as well back when I worked in NYC so I can relate. After the whole “experience” I had people I hadn’t seen or talked to in ages contact me to let me know they saw me.
R.I.P. Arnold Berk! – Dwayne