Inserting Our Client into the National Dialogue

In 2018, Amazon.com announced it had chosen New York City as the location for one half of its second North American headquarters (HQ2). However, by February 2019, Amazon had pulled out of New York.

Meanwhile, as part of its marketing plan, Aqua had positioned the City of West Palm Beach as an obvious choice for Northeast businesses looking to relocate thanks to the City’s incredible, warmer weather, and pro-business government and incentives. Long before Amazon even announced plans to build HQ2, Northeast businesses were already relocating to West Palm Beach. So, when Amazon announced it too would be leaving New York, we acted immediately and jumped at the opportunity to invite Amazon to West Palm Beach, and insert the City into the national narrative.

It was our incredible speed in responding to the situation that made this tactic work. Friday night our PR team realized that with Amazon leaving New York City, if West Palm Beach were to “formally” invite them to relocate HQ2 to the City with a mock “open letter,” then that could possibly get people talking about and interested in West Palm Beach. By Saturday morning, Aqua had approval from the City’s Mayor to write the letter. By the end of the day Saturday, the initial strategy and release documents were sent to the client for review. The Mayor gave approval on Monday, and by the day’s end we started getting our first coverage.

Aqua’s central tactic was for the City’s Mayor to address Amazon President, Jeff Bezos, in a fake “open letter” inviting Amazon to relocate from New York to West Palm Beach. The letter would explain that the decision to leave NYC was understandable, and one that West Palm Beach has been advocating to businesses for years. Therefore, Aqua crafted the tongue-in-cheek “open letter,” and made it public for general consumers, mass media, and all potential/prospective new businesses to see.

Aqua’s central tactic was for the City’s Mayor to address Amazon President, Jeff Bezos, in a fake “open letter” inviting Amazon to relocate from New York to West Palm Beach. The letter would explain that the decision to leave NYC was understandable, and one that West Palm Beach has been advocating to businesses for years. Therefore, Aqua crafted the tongue-in-cheek “open letter,” and made it public for general consumers, mass media, and all potential/prospective new businesses to see.

• Utilizing PR Newswire’s National Press Release Distribution Service to allow our story to gain targeted traction across a wide spectrum with a national audience via third party coverage.
• Distributing a regional pitch allowing us to penetrate the local/regional South Florida market with our news while offering media interviews with the City Mayor who we had available to address the City’s reaction to Amazon HQ2’s pullout.
• Developing Talking Points/Backgrounder for the City’s Mayor to review prior to conducting interviews with the press, enabling us to communicate key points that would prove useful and effective during interactions with the press.
• Leveraging paid media to secure a massive Times Square short-term media placement that would allow us to reach consumers in an engaging, exciting, and effective way via non-traditional marketing tactics in the NYC market where long-term advertising media buys disseminating similar messaging were already in place.

Continuing to gain traction over the next 24 hours, the City of West Palm Beach owned two 28×46 foot and 36×33 digital boards in the heart of New York City’s Times Square displaying a gorgeous hi-resolution image of the West Palm Beach waterfront with the call-to-action: “Relocate to West Palm Beach, Florida, ‘The Wall Street of the South.’” Within 72 hours of activating the campaign, the Mayor of West Palm Beach had an interview exclusive with USA Today.