Challenge
To position City CarShare, the largest nonprofit carsharing provider in North America, as a company that practices green lifestyle habits (i.e. walking to work and taking public transit) and to generate media coverage for Earth Day 2014.
Strategy
Landis’ strategy was to “create” City CarShare news to leverage for Earth Day. Landis crafted a survey for City CarShare employees to obtain information about their normal commuting habits and discovered that every staff member either walks, bikes or takes public transportation to work, which directly supports the nonprofit’s mission.
Landis found these results newsworthy and pitched the San Francisco Examiner’s transportation reporter to write a feature story for Earth Day. Originally, the reporter was not planning to publish an article related to Earth Day, but Landis provided interesting story elements, a spokesperson and supporting ideas, which helped the reporter successfully pitch the story to their editor. Landis arranged interviews for the transportation reporter with City CarShare employees as well as the organization’s CEO. Each staff member was asked to discuss their commuting habits and how it ties in to City CarShare’s mission.
Results
The feature story by the transportation reporter appeared in the San Francisco Examiner (circulation: 80,939; unique visitors monthly: 115,374) on Earth Day (April 22nd) 2014. The print and online article included a photo of CEO Rick Hutchinson exiting the Montgomery Bart station on his way to work and highlighted City CarShare as a company that practices what they preach. City CarShare was pleased with the results and leveraged the article on social media as their primary Earth Day post.