Veritasiti

Background:
FamilyMediaGuide.com is a Los Angeles-based company that offers parents comprehensive information about the content of movies, television and video games. It’s a free web site that catalogs the exact amounts of profanity, sex, violence, and tobacco use in the movies, television shows, and video games that kids may be watching or playing. FMG employs trained auditors who literally count and document every curse word, act of violence, sex scene, and instance of tobacco use.

FamilyMediaGuide.com believes the current industry ratings for movies, television and video games are vague and don’t give parents all the information they need in order to determine if a particular entertainment option is suitable for their children.

FamilyMediaGuide.com hired INK to raise awareness of the company both in the general public and within the entertainment industry.

Strategy/Tactics:
INK developed a strategy that would combine a timely news event with an interesting nugget of information that highlighted FamilyMediaGuide.com’s unique content auditing capabilities.

First, we picked a time of the year when many in the news media would be focusing their attention on movies: the days leading up to the 78th Annual Academy Awards in March 2006.

Second, we decided to focus on one of FMG’s unique content auditing
capabilities: counting and cataloging curse words in movies.

Third, we applied the curse counting ability to the movies currently nominated for best picture. That led to a very quick, very simple pitch outlining the Oscar nominee this year that had the most curse words (in this case it was eventual Best Picture winner “Crash” with 182 curses).

We designed a pitch that was strong enough to stand on its own without any additional reporting from the outlets we targeted, but left enough room for comment in case reporters wanted more information from an interview.

We waited to contact the media until the week prior to the Academy Awards when the attention would be at its peak. We contacted entertainment reporters and producers at most of the major national publications.

Results:
We started pitching on the Tuesday prior to the Academy Awards. By the time Jon Stewart said “Goodnight” on Sunday we secured more than 35 million impressions in more than 200 different print, radio, internet, and television stories.

Placements INK secured include:

The Associated Press
MSNBC
Fox News
CNN Showbiz Tonight
CNN The Paula Zahn Show
Christian Science Monitor
London Free Press
The Seattle Times
San Jose Mercury News
Dallas Morning News
Washington Post
KABC-TV New York

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