CASE STUDIES
Here is a look at several client studies:
Jewish Community Housing Corporation
Companion Connection Senior Care
St. Barnabas Hospital (Bronx)
Andover Communications was hired by St. Barnabas Hospital in early 2009 to generate positive exposure for the hospital and update its image. Until then, the hospital had kept a very low profile, and was little known even by those people living and working in the Bronx (certainly less so than the other hospitals in the area, Montefiore, Bronx-Lebanon, Lincoln and Jacobi). In the minds of those residents familiar with the 150-year-old hospital, St. Barnabas was viewed somewhat pejoratively as a “city-owned” hospital (which it is not).
Since then, positive stories on the hospital, its services and its healthcare providers have appeared regularly not only in the Bronx, but also nationally and in New York City newspapers and on television, both English and Spanish language. To enhance the hospital’s image, we developed a “Dinner with a Doctor” series, which has become an increasingly positive way to attract area residents to the hospital and foster positive public relations. The event has featured St. Barnabas doctors delivering presentations on a range of topics, from combating sleeping disorders to treating pain, from common digestive problems to heart disease.
Andover has also developed a videotape virtual tour that focuses on the hospital’s array of services, created campaigns for specific areas (e.g. St. Barnabas’s senior health services) as well as both internal and external cultural competency campaigns, and was behind the push for a much-needed update of the hospital’s website and development of a social media presence. In addition, we have been at the forefront of a crisis communications campaign to balance the negativity fostered by a union aggressively pushing to represent the hospital’s residents.
Jewish Community Housing Corporation back to top
The Jewish Community Housing Corporation, which owns and manages five senior living communities – both independent and assisted living – in northern New Jersey, hired Andover Communications in 2008 to improve its image and put it on the short list of senior housing options. Since then, we have worked with internal staff to develop and implement a strategic marketing campaign that focuses on the JCHC’s two moderate to high-end housing communities – The Lester Senior Housing Community and Village Apartments of the Jewish Federation. We helped identify the key decision-makers – the children of prospects who live within 20 – 30 minutes of the senior living communities in Whippany and South Orange, respectively – and developed ongoing advertising and public relations campaigns focusing on the services and amenities offered, the type of people the buildings attract, and the benefits the communities offer over competitors for those seniors living in homes that have grown too big for them and/or left them socially isolated.
As a result of our efforts, the buildings have continued to maintain a 95% percent occupancy rate in a rough economy despite the competition of facilities that offer upgraded amenities, the difficulties many seniors have in selling their homes, and the average age (nearly 90) of new residents and high turnover rate (less than two years).
Access Wealth Planning back to top
Financial planning and wealth management firms have taken a beating of late as a result of both the recession and the well-publicized scams perpetrated by Bernard Madoff and other financial managers. And while Access Wealth Planning has a strong track record of providing outstanding planning and advising services for a quarter of a century, it felt the need both to break out from the clutter of other firms that offer similar services and to enhance its credibility.
Hired in 2008, we have worked with the Access Wealth Planning team to write and place more than 50 bylined articles that offer information on financial planning and investment advising in consumer, business and trade publications. In addition, members of the team have been regularly interviewed as experts for stories appearing in business, lifestyle and personal finance publications, and on radio and TV programs.
We have helped the firm embark on a marketing campaign targeted to “baby boomers,” those people born between 1946 and 1964, by presenting Access Wealth as an expert in planning for those issues that concern this generation, such as retirement, taxes, college, estate, etc. This has included creating the “Financial Advice for the Baby Boomer” newsletter (which alternates quarterly with the firm’s Advisor newsletter, that we also write and design); producing a radio show called the “Boomer Financial Radio Network,” which airs over WMTR-AM radio; and providing for the ongoing flow of articles on issues impacting this audience.
Companion Connection Senior Care back to top
In 2006, a long-time client of ours in the home care business started a non-medical membership company, leveraging its 25 years of experience and knowledge of the industry into helping entrepreneurs start their own companion/home care agencies. We developed the materials and provided the editorial services needed to sell to prospects; the prototype brochures, collateral materials, public relations materials, etc., these membership organizations could customize for use locally; and the communication materials that would be needed by the central organization to reach them.
Additionally, we were responsible for establishing the kind of credibility for this new company that would convince prospects that not only was this a potentially lucrative opportunity, but that Companion Connection Senior Care was the #1 option in an already crowded field of membership organizations and franchises. This included the placement of stories on our client as an entrepreneur and byline pieces on issues facing the industry in business, lifestyle, entrepreneur and trade magazines.
Today, we continue to work with CCSC to further these messages to the various audiences. This includes the development of collateral materials, membership newsletters, an ongoing webinar series, a video/audio library, membership video testimonials, and a national radio show, hosted by our client. The membership organization today has approximately 200 member organizations in North America, making it the largest of its kind. It has been cited by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of the best and fastest-growing franchise opportunities in the country (even though technically it is not a franchisor).
Kosherfest back to top
Since 2001, we have been responsible for the nearly year-round public relations effort on behalf of Kosherfest, the largest kosher food and products show in the world. Our responsibility has been to take what is a trade show and make it newsworthy not only to the food, restaurant, and food service trade press, but also to the consumer, business, lifestyle and Jewish broadcast and print media –and, more recently, bloggers and other members of online and social media – so that it convinces exhibitors of kosher products in the U.S. and around the world that if they participate in even one show annually, this needs to be the show.
The #1 challenge has been to freshen news hooks for a show and an industry that does not change dramatically from year to year. This has meant working with exhibitors to identify and promote new and newsworthy products and the stories behind them, explore possible trends and opportunities to piggyback off of, and work with show management to develop interesting events. This has resulted in consistent media coverage in such major publications as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Business Week, as well as in daily newspapers, food and gourmet magazines, and on national and New York City television. Most importantly, Kosherfest has continued to grow despite hard economic times, with the most recent shows selling out.
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