Our objective with this campaign was to achieve editorial placement in trade and industry journals. We anticipated that this coverage would position David Elkind and Freddy Sweet, who work together as Live Wire Media/Elkind + Sweet Communications, as experts in the field of character education, and would impart more credibility than advertising. In addition, this public relations endeavor would be more cost effective and valuable than advertising. It was expected that media coverage would also generate inquiries and sales of the related video series.
We directed our efforts toward an audience composed of prospective video purchasers by targeting well-respected journals read by educational decision-makers, as well as educators and other administrators. Publications which published the articles such as “The Socratic Approach to Character Education” included Educational Leadership, California Educator, Learning, Creative Classroom, and Middle School Journal.
Through pitch letters and proposals, we offered a variety of articles with Elkind’s and Sweet’s bylines, which focused on topics that were also issues in the video series. The articles contained “nuts and bolts” how-to information, and shared findings on how to communicate character education effectively with specific age groups of children.
While Elkind and Sweet wrote the articles, Phyllis edited them and communicated with the editors (pitching, following up, keeping track of deadlines, sending manuscripts and photos).
