Your product is fantastic. It solves a problem, makes life easier or is just so much fun to have. It should be flying off the shelves. But often there’s more to marketing your product than just explaining its features and benefits. Just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, today’s consumers want to know who is behind the curtain of their favorite brands. And if they approve, they just may open their wallet. In this example, I worked with Oprah’s producers to share the personal story behind Pine Brothers Softish Throat Drops.
This client knows firsthand the power of publicity. During her latest segment, Victoria Knight-McDowell recalled the experience from her first appearance on The Oprah Show with her Airborne product: “When I was flying home from being on The Oprah Show, I checked in with my husband and the chaos in the office was unbelievable. The phones were ringing off the hook. The internet was going nuts. We were pulling friends, relatives, in-laws, anybody off the streets to help us with this enormous amount of business that was coming our way,” Knight-McDowell recalled.
Of course, she wanted the same for Pine Brothers, a company she and her husband purchased several years ago. I went to work leveraging her original Oprah Show appearance and eventually earned her this placement on the Oprah: Where Are They Know? program. It took an incredible amount of effort and time, but my persistence paid off. I accompanied Knight-McDowell to the shoot. And then, nearly a year later, the magic happened: Her segment aired on national television. Sometimes publicity is quick to appear, other times it takes awhile, but it is always impactful when consumers learn the personal story behind a product.
In this segment, viewers saw McDowell’s kids, her home, her horses but most of all they saw her personality and her passion for her product. There are many cough and throat drops in the market, but now when consumers are standing in front of that colorful display, they’ll have an additional reason to choose Pine Brothers. They’ll know the person behind the brand. That’s a significant competitive edge.
This rich storytelling is not something that can be easily accomplished through advertising. Media coverage is the perfect vehicle for telling our client’s personal story. I’d love to tell your story. Contact our team for a free review and publicity estimate. We believe that your story deserves to be told.
