In 2008, SS+K was awarded the Gold Bulldog Award for Excellence in Media Relations and Publicity for our Four Points by Sheraton Chief Beer Officer campaign. The campaign was recently featured in Bulldog Reporter’s February e-newsletter as the PR Campaign of the Week. Check it out below to read more about what the author calls “a step-by-step recipe for effective media relations brand building.”

PR Campaign of the Week

Searching for the Chief Beer Officer: PR Contest Brews Huge Media Success for Hotel Brand

Bulldog Reporter

Frank Zeccola

February 9, 2009

If you think you have a dream job, you should meet Scott Kerkmans, whose official title is Chief Beer Officer, or CBO. Just don’t be fooled: It’s no drunk’s job. Kerkmans’ position requires as much expertise, experience, talent and hard work as any high-paid CEO, CFO or CMO. And his contribution to his company’s brand value has been priceless.

In fact, Kerkmans’ quest to become CBO of Four Points by Sheraton hotels represents a brilliant case study for communications professionals who want to build great brands through media-relations campaigns. Furthermore, an analysis of the work of New York-based PR firm SS+K, who designed the contest that chose Kerkmans for the CBO position, offers a step-by-step recipe for effective media relations brand building.

The challenge: Build brand awareness for an unknown hotel chain through the launch of Best Brews. SS+K was retained by Four Points in 2006 to launch their “Best Brews” program, which featured a selection of local, craft, premium and imported beers at Four Points hotels across the country. The menu included some of the best beers in the world as recognized by the beer aficionado community: Anchor Steam and Fat Tire from the U.S., Guinness Stout from Ireland, Chimay Red from Belgium, and others.

“It was an expensive program and involved a number of groups and partners,” says Heather Geisler, SS+K’s VP and group director. “Four Points was proud of the program. They wanted to use it to better connect with their key audience of male business travelers and establish a leadership position among that audience.”

However, Four Points faced several inherent brand challenges in terms of awareness and differentiation. “Many people hadn’t heard of Four Points,” Geisler says. “Everyone knew Sheraton, but not Four Points by Sheraton. So a big issue was brand awareness: How do we create a distinct identity to differentiate Four Points from Sheraton?”

They would do exactly that through a PR campaign promoting the launch of

Best Brews. But initially, Geisler and the SS+K team felt that the launch of a new hospitality offering was not newsworthy enough to capture the national spotlight. “When you hear a company say, ‘We’re now offering beer,’ it’s not extraordinarily special,” she says. “We wanted to make sure that this PR launch reflected the depth of the program itself.”

The strategy: A multi-phase contest to hire the Chief Beer Officer. The idea for a Chief Beer Officer had been suggested by a previous PR firm that had worked with Four Points. However, “They hadn’t developed more than the basic idea,” Geisler says. “There was no strategy or execution plan. That’s where we came in.”

Geisler and her team began thinking about ways to leverage the catchy, quirky and surprising idea of hiring a Chief Beer Officer. “The idea was to use the creation of the ‘ultimate dream job’ as a way to find someone who could be an independent voice to talk about the Best Brews program,” she says. “This would allow us to gain credibility within the beer aficionado community.”

Geisler admits, “Before this campaign, I didn’t even realize there was a beer aficionado community. But there are many experts and blogs that write about craft beers, as well as the best destinations for beer and many high-end restaurants that offer upscale beers. The CBO was a way for us to tap into that subculture.”

To fully exploit the idea, SS+K came up with the idea to launch a national contest to find the best fit for the CBO position. However, the contest had to be handled delicately and professionally: “It was important for applicants and the media to know that this was a real position with real responsibilities,” Geisler says. “The CBO’s job would be to visit and taste at beer tastings, help consult with future menus and be the media spokesperson. We had to stress that, yes, this is a dream job, but it requires a high level of expertise.”

In addition, the CBO contest would have to tie directly to the larger positioning of Four Points’ “Simple Pleasures” program. Simple Pleasures also includes a specialty pies program, some betting programs and others pleasurable activities and offerings for business travelers.

“We wanted to make sure that Best Brews helped reinforce the position of

Simple Pleasures, which was the larger positioning of the program,”

Geisler says. “We had to make sure the CBO aligned with this program and helped support it.”

Drinking in media relations success: SS+K looks to the blogosphere. The key to success for this campaign hinged on tapping the beer aficionado community. To do that, the first place to start was online: “We really reached out to the online beer community early,” Geisler says. “We did a lot of research. We spent about two to three weeks just reading beer blogs to understand the language and the topics they talk about. We also had an existing relationship with the Brewers Association, which educated us. They were also important as a voice for targeting the applicants.”

SS+K launched the CBO contest on their website and began seeding the idea with beer bloggers: “Here at SS+K, the key to our overall approach with bloggers is building relationships and being open to their feedback,” Geisler says. “When pitching bloggers, you have to understand that it’s a dialogue. You can’t just push the material out. It’s more of a courting relationship.”

How they pulled it off: “We appointed one staffer who was responsible for blogs. She regularly talked to different bloggers who would explain why they would or wouldn’t write about our various pitches. From there, we were conscious of incorporating their feedback into our future conversations or pitches.”

It paid off: “We won their trust, and that offered a lot of validity to the search for the CBO. We started getting mentioned on a lot of blogs.”

More brilliant strategy: A beer campaign in four phases. “One thing we focused on in this campaign was building a lot of milestones and media touch points into the program,” Geisler says. “There were four phases. The first phase was the launch of the search. We reached out to a lot of blogs and placed a teaser ad at the Great American Beer Festival to drive people to the website.”

Once the applications began pouring in, “We then put out the ‘Last Call for Applications.’ That allowed us to report on the progress of applicants so far and set the final deadline. The response surprised everyone. We received over 7,500 applications from 31 countries. We then went back to the media and said, ‘This is a big deal. If you haven’t covered it yet, you should.’ That landed us a whole new set of media placements.”

From there, SS+K built in a “Final Four” announcement. “We enlisted the final four applications to act as media surrogates,” Geisler says. “They began calling reporters and promoting it in their own markets-because they needed voters. They began reaching out to the media completely on their own.”

Finally: “At last, we made the winner’s announcement.”

The results: Kerchmans rings the opening bell to 350 million media impressions. Scott Kerchmans, a beer brewer and beer magazine publisher from Denver, won the title of CBO in 2007. His first job was to ring the NYSE opening bell to kick off his post. More than 350 million media impressions resulted, including hits in The New York Times, Time, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, CNN, USA Today, NPR and more.

“This campaign brought together a lot of things that make PR a valuable resource-for marketers and the press,” Geisler says. “The press love this kind of fun story. We gave them what they were looking for-but it also great substance. It was inventive and packaged in a way that was digestible to a wide variety of audiences. The story began to take on a life of its own. After we launched it, it was slow for a little while and we had a healthy skepticism. But we knew we had the flexibility to follow up with each phase-and it was exciting to watch it take on a life of its own.”

Secrets for success: Read on as Geisler offers more tips and explains why this campaign won Gold in the Travel, Hospitality & Destinations category at the 2008 Bulldog Awards for Excellence in Media Relations & Publicity:

1. Create the everlasting PR campaign: Include several media phases to extend interest and give the story legs. “Build multiple touch points into your campaign to keep it fresh,” she recommends. For example: “This campaign ran for more than four months. That’s a long time to launch a search for a job opening. How do you keep consumer interest for that long? Our answer was to build in many touch points to evolve the story over time.”

2. Master the art of storytelling: Illustrate value and consumer benefits with human-interest fare and personal stories. “Look for opportunities to tell real and personal stories,” she says. “In order to tout a consumer benefit, you must be able to talk about value. In this campaign, we leveraged the personal stories of the applicants and their relationships to beer to round out the story and highlight the real benefits and values of the program.”

3. Establish relationships with third-party endorsers to buff up your campaign with credibility. “Find credible, independent endorsers to talk about your program,” she advises. For example: “Scott Kerkmans is the publisher of a beer magazine. He’s a brewer himself. He’s the kind of guy who can credibly talk about why this program is important and all the different aspects of it. In addition, we had a great relationship with the Brewers Association.” These kinds of expert, objective, third-party endorsers, Geisler says, will appeal to reporters who need knowledgeable experts and objective opinions to write accurate, interesting stories.

4. Create genuine messaging: Be fun, playful, inventive and creative-but don’t cross the line into silliness. “This campaign was fun and playful-but it couldn’t be silly,” she stresses. “In any campaign-especially those that involve blog outreach-you have to be genuine and you can’t pander to your audience. Beer is serious business to this audience. It’s the same as with wine connoisseurs. We couldn’t afford to be pedantic or make it look like we were a bunch of frat boys. We had to be genuine.”

SS+K is a creatively driven strategic communications firm that develops integrated, multidimensional communications and marketing programs for brands, products, corporations, foundations and non-profits. These programs are always based on extensive research and a simple, strong strategy.