Go Public Relations
Information about how we did some successful media work for a local go tournament.
Setting
The Mannheim/Germany go players hold an anual go tournament which attracts quite few players from all over Germany known as the 'Mannheim Aji'. We wanted to make the public aware of this tournament in fall 2003 through professional media work.
What we did
- Decide which media we wanted to address: We chose three local newspapers.
- We tried to research individuals whom to adress
- We build a public relations folder about our tournament. The folder was a decent professional looking dark grey cartoon folder with a personalized sticker on it and held:
- A letter explaining about go, our tournament and that we expected over a 100 players (eventually 132 players turned up)
- A press release which tried to match the style of an actual article including pictures and web links
- Two issues of the German go magazine
- A paper go set for beginners with a post-it note on it, saying: 'Why don't you just try it yourself?'
- A personal entry ticket with a press ID where we could fill in the name of any journalist
- A name badge in a plastic cover to wear at the tournament
- An introductory brochure about go for adults
- An introductory cartoon for kids
We sent the folder to the three papers a fortnight before the tournament.
Process
- We received calls from all three papers, one even sent a photographer to one of the local weekly events, who took pictures there
- We spoke to each of the press representatives individually explaining about go in general, the go scene in our area and the tournament.
- We invited all of them individually to come to our tournament.
- After the tournament we sent them the 'Banzai' a German manga periodical with Hikaru no Go.
Results
Altogether we archived four individual articles:
- One five columns top of the page article with a full-color picture of two players discussing go
- One four colum top of the page article with a color picture of the tournament
- One little up-front information one column
- And finally a two column article without a picture.
- All of the articles were positive in tone towards go and the tournament, insightful and mostly correct.
Summary
Overall with one coordinated effort we reached four articles for over one million readers in the area. With that we could attract individuals who had never read about go before to visit the tournament and see go in real-life. Unfortunately the outcome in terms of new players seems to be fairly low though.
Discussion
Has anyone else experience with media work? How were the results? For further information please contact info@mannheimer-aji.de
Kind regards