Connecting
Summer (Q2) 2010
This Summer Communication Strategies newsletter includes:
Case study on social media: customers’ voice creates growth
PRspective: BP’s trouble is not about public relations
Awards: “Best PR” photo in Times Square; 11 awards
Three new clients
Institutional rebranding via engagement and conversation
Situation: Upper Iowa University (UIU), founded in 1857, is a Fayette, Iowa-based private university providing undergraduate and graduate degrees to 6,000 students at campuses and centers worldwide. UIU in 2005 hired a new president and wanted to build its brand and increase enrollment. UIU sought a public relations firm to help them get [...]
Smashburger sizzles into Iowa
Situation: Smashguys, LLC, the Iowa franchisee of Denver, Colo.-based Smashburger, a fast-casual restaurant designed to be everybody’s favorite burger place, retained Hanser & Associates to manage their day-to-day communication and marketing in Iowa.
PR Action: Smashburger’s first Iowa location opened in September 2009 in West Des Moines. To build pre-opening awareness and word [...]
Express bus service builds explosive sales and profitability
Situation: Paramus, N.J.-based Coach USA, a subsidiary of UK-based Stagecoach Group, turned to Hanser & Associates in 2005 to launch Chicago-based megabus.com, the first company in North America to offer intercity express bus service with fares as low as $1 via the Internet. Megabus.com launched service in March 2006 from its Chicago hub to eight [...]
Building public consensus regarding health priorities
Situation: Polk County Health Department is charged with delivering public health services in Iowa’s most populous county and implementing health improvement programs as defined in an ambitious ten-year plan. Elected officials and Department management were charged in 2008 to create a new road map – Healthy Polk 2020 – to identify future health priorities while [...]
Hospital mergers improve profitability
Situation: Catholic Health System, a five-hospital healthcare-provider network in Western New York, was under significant financial distress in 1998. Shrinking Medicare reimbursements coupled with shorter patient stays and fewer overnight admissions due to new technologies and therapies had put Buffalo, NY-based CHS at a crossroads.
Management at CHS decided to “retask” three hospitals – providing [...]
Public input supports city’s parks plan
Situation: Hanser & Associates was retained in 2000 to support the City of West Des Moines’ Parks staff and their landscape architecture consultant, Dunbar-Jones, to gather public input for updating the city’s Parks Master Plan.
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Public input supports community/performing arts center
Situation: Hanser & Associates was retained in 2004-2005 to manage the overall process of forming an advisory committee and supporting all of the work of the committee – to assess the feasibility of a Community Center and Performing Arts Center that would be jointly operated by the City of West Des Moines and West Des [...]
International media relations drives record sales and profits
Situation: Scottsdale, Ariz.-based RSC Equipment Rental, the leading provider of equipment rental services for the construction, industrial/petrochemical, manufacturing and government sectors in the United States, Canada and Mexico, sought to increase awareness of the benefits of rental equipment vs. ownership.
PR Action: Hanser & Associates created an international media relations program targeting national trade and mainstream [...]
PR/labor relations during strike maintains customer relations
Situation: In 1998, Denver, Colorado-based Qwest Communications International (then named US WEST) was faced with a labor strike by 36,000 members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA). In Iowa, 1,900 workers were off the job. In CWA, US WEST was dealing with a respected, savvy organization. Hanser & Associates was retained by US WEST [...]