Strategy | Advertising Case Studies  | Online Marketing

Friends in Town

It pays to know people in the right places and j. simms agency knows quite of few of them. Being well connected has rewarded us, and more importantly, our clients, with impact placements in a variety of publications and programs.  We’re San Diego’s PR firm; its just what we do. 

US Open Sandcastle Competition
While new and impressive sculptures are carved into the sands of Imperial Beach every year, the event has been around for almost 30 years and local media saw it as old hat.  With a clever pitch to the right person, the editorial staff at the San Diego Union-Tribune saw differently and what resulted was a front page 71.5-inch feature story in the Night and Day section. In 2009, the event scored big with 72 total media hits.

Chula Vista Nature Center

The Chula Vista Nature Center is home to dozens of exotic and endangered animal species and provides environmental education for 65,000 people annually.  Its $1.2 million budget had been largely supported by the city of Chula Vista until 2009, when the municipality found itself unable to maintain its financial support.  Mayor Cox asked j. simms agency to help the institution transition into a non-profit organization by raising public awareness of the center's plight. Working closely with the staff and volunteer board, j. simms shaped the message into one of optimism by first staging a press conference announcing a $250,000 donation.  More positive publicity was generated through a "Critters and Cocktails" special event that raised over $5,000 and was attended by 120 community leaders.  Never shrinking from a challenge, j. simms continues to design and implement the center's aggressive long-term public relations and marketing campaign. 

2009 Little League World Champions

When Chula Vista's Park View Little League won a slot in the Little League World Series, the team was unprepared for the enormous expense and the deluge of news media attention.  Within 24 hours, j. simms stepped in as the team's official fundraiser and bilingual spokespersons.  We managed more than 50 interviews in two weeks, most of which were on live TV and radio. The agency worked closely with Southwestern College to produce a welcome home celebration attended by 9,000 people and 13 TV news stations, which featured a surprise appearance by comedian George Lopez.  That same week, the agency booked the team on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brian.  In the end, by leveraging our long-standing news media and community connections, j simms helped to raise $130,000 to defray the team's travel expenses - more than double the original goal. 

ACCIÓN San Diego Microfinance Summit

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At a time when the economy was in the tank, j. simms faced the task of creating excitement around an event promoting microfinance lending.  While challenging to get people to open their wallets regardless of the economic environment, this timing was especially problematic considering the continuing fall of housing prices and rise in unemployment nationwide.  Through well-placed media relations, the event was an overwhelming success drawing more than 225 people with the venue almost at capacity. Publicity including seven newspaper features, three TV news spots and a radio spot.  Here is a link to one of the news spots:

The Silent
The public premier of this short independent film made by a local high school graduate was a one-night-only fundraiser for his alma mater. j. simms handled all aspects of publicity with the ultimate goal of filling the theater. Well, 27 inches of print coverage and a whopping 4 ½ minutes of local TV coverage later, 163 tickets were sold, raising $3,750 for the school.

SKYBreaker
The start of vertical construction of The Children’s Museum new downtown facility called for a visually creative event to mark the occasion – hence a “sky breaking,” signifying new horizons and the next chapter in the museum’s history. The sky theme was carried through the event with the release of 40 doves intended to draw the crowd’s attention skyward and decorative clouds with handwritten messages of hope and praise from the community adorning the event site. More than 100 museum enthusiasts and community members were in attendance at the weekday morning event. The event generated 10 minutes of radio coverage, more than six minutes of TV coverage and nearly 150 inches in print media. Just over $35,000 from individual donors can be attributed directly to this event.

Wolf Canyon Park Groundbreaking

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j. simms agency’s aggressive promotion of The Corky McMillin Companies’ patriotic Veteran’s Day event at the future Wolf Canyon Park led to a barrage of broadcast media coverage. The event aired on six television newscasts. Nearly 20 minutes of television time was garnered in three cities including San Diego, Bakersfield and El Paso, Texas, three areas where McMillin does business. The groundbreaking event was so well received that the following year the grand opening event was held on Armed Forces Day and more television coverage was the result.

YMCA Member Feature
If you are only as strong as your weakest link, then move over my friend because we’ve got a guy who has lifted 20 million pounds – and, oh yeah, he’s pushing 85. With 19 YMCAs in San Diego County all with relatively the same story, it was j. simms’ task to rise above clutterto get our client, the South Bay Family YMCA, some meaningful placements. Armed with a strategy that stories on how the Y has affected member’s lives will increase membership rates,
we solicited members to step forward with their personal stories. One such story was that of an elderly gentleman named Phil. Despite suffering age-related ailments, Phil said he kept healthy and moving thanks to the Y. The kicker of his story was that he has cumulatively lifted the weight of 2,000 elephants over his 8-year membership. Heartwarming and impressive, the San Diego Union-Tribune ate it up and kept it as an exclusive feature for its South County edition. The South Bay Family YMCA got a story that rose above the clutter and Phil got his 15 minutes of fame.