Thanks to Publicity Hound Gina Warner of New Orleans, Louisiana, for telling me about a clever publicity stunt that resulted in stories galore in the media awhile ago in the Big Easy.<\/p>\n
Residents in the 5100 block of Cannes Street celebrated the first birthday of a pothole measuring 5 feet across and more than a foot deep. The bash–complete with cake and drinks and a big sign that said “Happy Birthday Pothole”–started at 1 p.m. on the curb beside the home of Walter Smith. Residents even invited New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, city council and the media.<\/p>\n
Smith’s neighbor, Marie McCoy, told the New Orleans Times-Picayune how she knows the pothole is a year old.<\/p>\n
“On September 4th last year, I went to a City Council meeting to give each one of them a (framed) copy of a poem I wrote about the city. Later, (Councilwoman) Cynthia Willard-Lewis asked her aide, Katie Brown, to drive me home. When she dropped me off, she saw the hole and called in and reported the pothole.”<\/p>\n
One year later, the hole is still there. Rather than circulate petitions and complain at city council meetings like everyone else does, the neighborhood threw the party to get attention.<\/p>\n
Is that clever or what?<\/p>\n
Gina says it’s an idea that other nonprofits can borrow when it comes time to generate publicity for a cause or an issue that’s been ignored. There are lots of other ways, too–even for nonprofits on a shoestring budget. Paul Hartunian explained how during a one-hour teleseminar called “Failproof Publicity Strategies for Your Nonprofit<\/a>.” You can read more about what we discussed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thanks to Publicity Hound Gina Warner of New Orleans, Louisiana, for telling me about a clever publicity stunt that resulted in stories galore in the media awhile ago in the Big Easy. Residents in the 5100 block of Cannes Street celebrated the first birthday of a pothole measuring 5 feet across and more than a\u2026 Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","iawp_total_views":1,"wds_primary_category":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[614],"class_list":{"0":"post-172","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-marketing","7":"tag-publicity-stunt","8":"entry"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Joan Stewart","author_link":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/author\/jstewart\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41881,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172\/revisions\/41881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}