Carlsbad Firm Completes Video Legoland Projects
A couple weeks ago, Canadian destroyer-turned-dive-spot Yukon’s premature sinking did, well, blasted some media plans.
However, the would-be debacle might have made more of a media splash than publicists expected.
“It gave it kind of a quirky little twist that caught everybody’s attention,” said John Freeman, a spokesman for the Oceans Foundation, which had organized the project.
San Diego’s six television stations were planning to tape the event, and newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune were to cover the July 15 sinking event, Freeman said.
When rougher seas pushed more water than expected into the Yukon’s pre-cut scuttling holes, taking the boat down shortly past 12:30 a.m. on July 14, national media picked up the story, he said.
As it turned out, Freeman said, the surprise element to the sinking became a hook for many reporters.
One media outlet that covered it was the BBC in England.
Still, the early morning sinking pushed the Oceans Foundation into crisis communications mode. At 6 a.m. that morning, a press conference was taking place.
Now, the Oceans Foundation will be marketing the Yukon without the involvement of Spear/Hall & Associates, for whom Freeman works. The local PR firm’s contract ran through the ship’s sinking.
Dick Long, the president of the Oceans Foundation and head of the Yukon project, said it’s now up to other organizations to find marketing funds for the Yukon.
Long hopes to see some marketing done by the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau, he said. Also, local diving companies will market on their own, he said.
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Summer Project: JM DigitalWorks recently did some projects for client Legoland California.
The Carlsbad-based company would not disclose how much the children’s theme park, also in Carlsbad, paid for the work.
DigitalWorks videotaped mock media interviews. The company also posted two new programs. The first was titled “Legoland 2000” and featured images cut to a soundtrack, as a tour and overview of the park.
The second, called “Legoland B-Roll,” was a half-hour program that will be distributed to news organizations as additional footage.
Sound Bites: Cypress Radio Networks’ Kevin Barrett, previously the syndicated programming company’s program manager, was recently promoted to national programming and operations manager. County Television Network began airing “Classic Arts Showcase” last month. The three-hour program features clips of ballet, orchestral, chamber and choral music, dance, folk art, musical theater, opera and theatrical performances. Write on the Edge, Inc. in Vista recently won an excellence award from the Virginia-based Society of Technical Communications’ annual technical communications competitions program. Write on the Edge won for a guide it wrote for Hewlett-Packard. Downtown-based Formula PR recently won a Silver Anvil Award from the Public Relations Society of America for the company’s campaign for the Diving Equipment and Marketing Association. AM stations KPRZ and KCBQ, both owned by Salem Communications, recently opened its newly expanded La Jolla offices.
The deadline for the next Media & Marketing column is July 27. Rodrigues can be reached at (858) 277-6359, ext. 107, or via E-mail at trodrigues@sdbj.com.
Sharp HealthCare Moving Into Growing Community
Sharp HealthCare hopes its planned $12.5 million medical clinic in Otay Ranch will attract patients from the rapidly growing community.
The 67,000-square-foot Sharp Rees-Stealy clinic will be the first medical project in Otay Ranch, Sharp officials reported.
Some 10,000 new homes are expected to be built in the area over the next 30 years, said a Sharp spokesman. The Otay Ranch facility fits the organization’s expansionary mission, he added.
Sharp spokesman Jeff Bean said the new clinic will be complementary to the existing Chula Vista clinic.
Sharp Rees-Stealy signed a 15-year lease with developer Pacific Medical Buildings to construct the new facility.
It is expected to open in the spring of 2001.
