Situation

Three affordable housing organizations, Home by Hand, Crescent City Community Land Trust and Tulane/Canal Neighborhood Development Corp., merged into a new entity, People’s Housing+ (PH+), a stronger, more effective organization helping low to moderate income New Orleanians. The merger process was made possible by a grant from the Greater New Orleans Foundation.

PH+ partnered with Gambel Communications for a press conference announcing the merger to publicize the PH+ brand, news of the merger and its aims to improve housing for vulnerable families.

Strategy

In partnership with PH+ leader Oji Alexander, Gambel Communications developed a campaign whose goal was to increase positive public awareness for the new organization and its unique program. The campaign’s success would be measured by earned media coverage carrying campaign key messages to target audiences.

Research into housing news revealed beat reporters focused on affordable housing hurdles. Research into logistics of a potential press conference revealed outstanding visuals and innovative approaches. This initial research formed the basis for the plan and execution of the campaign: pitching and securing media outlets’ commitments to attend the press conference.

The campaign key messages envisioned housing advocates pivoting from the models of the past, engaging a new business model and moving forward into a successful future, making affordable housing a reality for generations to come.

The strategy included an orchestrated event plan for the press conference itself as well as media relations leading into the event, onsite during the event and post-event coverage.

Utilizing the key messages and agreed timeline, Gambel Communications planned the conference, selected and coordinated details with all event vendors and pitched media at strategic points in the campaign. First, the team worked with PH+ to determine a highly visual, compelling place to host the conference—an abandoned firehouse that would be the signature inaugural project for affordable housing through the PH+ model. With that location secured, the team next employed vendors that could transform the adjacent vacant lot into a highly professional setting with tent, dais, podium, A/V, seating and branded logo trim.

With the event plan well under way, the team honed in on reporters and news outlets that had written about housing with a pitch aimed to introduce the new approach to affordable housing and offer an opportunity to learn firsthand at the press conference about the new paradigm from its new CEO Oji Alexander, as well as perspectives from Andy Kopplin as CEO of Greater New Orleans Foundation and officials including city council and housing authority leaders.

Results

Despite a torrential driving rainstorm that began just as the press conference started and ended just as the last speaker finished their remarks, the PH+ press conference succeeded in its aims to present a highly professional press conference amid the visual environment of the abandoned firehouse, with media coverage resulting from the event.

As a direct result of Gambel Communications public relations counsel, the PH+ name, image and key messages were consistently covered in local media after the press conference.

• WDSU TV Ch. 6 (Local TV views on original broadcast 7,688; online views 1,007,734)

• The Founder’s Show on iHeart Radio (Desktop and mobile participation 12,857, 115)

• Biz New Orleans (Readership 36,959)

• New Orleans CityBusiness (Readership 23,147)

• Louisiana Weekly (Readership 1,109)