Published before February 2009
“Never in our media strategy would we ever have thought of targeting Marie Claire and we’d certainly never have gone to the magazine looking for coverage,” says Sarah Fitzgerald, Head of Communications at the Motor Neurone Disease Association. “We thought they were only interested in fashionable charity issues like AIDS, Africa or children, and getting in would just be too hard. We didn’t even try.”
askCHARITY.org
It was an out of the blue press request that changed the assumption that their disease wasn’t “sexy enough” to be covered in high quality women’s glossies. A journalist at Marie Claire had sent out a request, through the charity-media connections website askCHARITY.org, looking for women who were bringing up children in difficult circumstances.
The Association keeps a database of case studies, and quickly found someone who might fit the bill.
“We thought of Esther straight-away,” says Sarah. “She was a young woman, so she fitted the profile of the magazine, but for five years she had been living with Motor Neurone Disease (MND). Her relationship had broken down because of the disease, and as a result she was bringing up her son, Josh, by herself. Josh had, in turn, become her main carer.”
Marie Claire loved the idea, and asked the Association to set up the interview, generating excitement across Sarah’s team.
Telling real stories
“Real stories are essential to our PR strategy,” she says. “Getting people to tell their own stories is good for us, good for the media, and for the person with MND too. We know that the disease can’t be the story, but having a terminal illness, and still having a decent quality of life, and making choices about their life, that’s the story.”
The media team took the difficult decision to allow the magazine to work with their case study directly, not trying to intervene in what questions would be asked, or even sitting in on the interview and photography. That was a challenge because people with MND can be quite frail, and Esther was particularly vulnerable as a young mother with a terminal illness.
Briefing the journalist
However, the team did take the time to brief the journalist properly about the disease. They asked them to take their time, give Esther the frequent breaks her condition meant she would need, and to speak loudly and clearly because Esther was losing her hearing. They also briefed Esther about what to expect.
“If you put all these safeguards in place, and trust in the journalist, you can reduce the chance of something bad happening,” says Sarah.
When the article was published, the media team were delighted with the results. Esther received a full-page profile, with a photograph, and the Association got a name check. Their web address was included, and some information about what they do was included in the copy.
Raising awareness
Sarah couldn’t say whether web hits went up as a result – but that wasn’t quite the point.
“If we can raise awareness of MND, we raise awareness of our charity as well,” says Sarah. “We have to raise the profile of the disease, and then there’s a knock-on benefit for us.”
For the Association, this was a real learning experience. The communications team learnt that they need to have confidence in the power of a good story, no matter how difficult the subject matter.
Lessons learnt
“We realise now that we should have been more proactive and approached magazines like Marie Claire with stories like Esther’s in the first place. We’ve learned that it’s useful to have a real stock of young women who are willing to be case studies."
“We’re having really good successes right now with reaching women readers. There are so many women’s magazines out there, each with their own target profile, so the opportunities for coverage are really rich,” Sarah concludes.