Yesterday two exciting football playoff games graced CBS and FOX and like millions of diehard Americans, my iris and pupils were Krazy-glued to the TV.
The hype coming into the two games all centered on the following:
- Quarterbacks: Favre, Favre, Favre – Age, ability, going against his favorite team growing up. Peyton – Best QB Ever? Sanchez – Rookie QB following the path of Broadway Joe. Brees – stellar year for a team whose region was decimated by Katrina
- Running Backs, Wide Receivers: Peterson. Bush. Addai – All Unstoppable.
- Teams: Colts, Saints, ALMOST undefeated. Jets – Happy and lucky to be there.
- Coach: Rex Ryan making the playoffs (and beyond?) in his first year at the helm.
These story lines plus countless others are good, but time and again, the position that gets overlooked because it is not sexy to the media is the kicker.
You can see where I am going with this.
In the Saints-Vikings game, the score see-sawed and went into sudden death. The plays on the ground and in the air failed to produce a score for both teams. When the Saints were in field goal range, they brought in Garrett Hartley.
Who?
Yes. You read it correctly, Garrett Hartley. An undrafted guy who wound up getting picked up by the Broncos, essentially for the practice squad, then subsequently cut. And it didn’t stop there. Earlier this year, he was given a 4 game suspension for utilization of a banned substance. That put the kibosh on his starting job and it wound up going to the aged John Carney. Fast forward and Hartley gets his first opportunity 12 games into the season.
Yesterday, Hartley kicks four routine points after touchdowns -- merely doing his job. Then, the dynamics of the game changes with the opportunity to win. He’s called upon with 40 yards, separating heroism and being a goat (sadly, Favre got that award with the errant pass in the 4th Quarter with a few seconds remaining). Hartley plies his craft and the pigskin sails through the uprights. Saints win.
Now, prior to the game, Hartley’s name, if mentioned at all was in passing. Yet, he was an integral member of the team that was overlooked. If any reporter sat down and spoke with the kickers instead of going after the glamour stories that everyone was covering, they would have been thought of as a genius with keen insight.
We often have the same conundrum in PR. Trying to tell the obvious story is easy. Looking for a nuance that isn’t obvious, yet palatable to the media is the hard part. When we find it, and they bite, we are on to something and that is the key to success. Sometimes it is pure luck, but good PR requires GREAT thinking.
So, take the extra time when working on a pitch or an idea for a client. Take a 360-degree approach and then take another 360-degree approach to the idea you came up with. A good tangent is better than a run-of-the-mill story. If you can get the media target or analyst to admit (usually to themselves), “why didn’t I think of that?” – then you have done your homework.
Remember, as PR professionals, we are always 40+ yards away attempting to get our good story beyond the uprights of our intended media target. Our clients know we score the points and when it comes down to pressure and skill to craft a good story.
Kick away! (But with accuracy).
1 comment:
This man is a genius.
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