The Ford Plantation

Goals: The Ford Plantation sought a strategic, multi-media campaign to target potential new home owners and club members and to increase positive club branding on a local, regional and national level.

Background: One of the nation’s leading luxury communities and private sporting clubs, The Ford Plantation in Richmond Hill, Ga. has been honored by Town & Country, Travel + Leisure Golf and other top national publications for its outstanding homes, amenities and lifestyle. However, with any exclusive club, the window of opportunity to hit the right high-end target audience is narrow, creating the ultimate challenge for any PR or marketing firm.

Target Audience: Affluent adults and families in the market for a primary or secondary home who enjoy an active lifestyle and would benefit from the various club amenities that include championship golf, fresh and salt water fishing, boating, equestrian pursuits, sporting clays, racquet sports, fitness training, swimming, hiking, biking and multiple naturalist programs. Specific georgraphic markets included Atlanta, New York and Chicago.

Communications Objectives: APR developed a strategic and comprehensive press and social media plan that specifically targeted local, regional and national exposure for this award-winning community.

Results: Through persistent, extensive and effective story pitching that included remarkable weddings held on the property, extraordinary homes, fascinating club members, special member events and outstanding property personnel, APR secured ink coverage in South Magazine, Décor Magazine, National Allure, Coastal Living, Savannah Magazine and Homes on the Water Magazine. In addition, APR launched The Ford Plantation on Facebook and Twitter, as well as landing a once-in-a-lifetime event in partnership with acclaimed Garden & Gun, where more than 60 high-end prospects were courted at an all-day extravaganza at The Ford Plantation property.

APR also connected and reserved prominent ad placement at the most competitive pricing in Connecticut Gold Coast Magazine, Hamptons Magazine, Savannah Magazine, Atlanta Homes & Lifestyle Magazine and at kiosks in the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport.

HunterMaclean

Goals: In order to grow the presence of firm partners, associates and practice areas on a local and regional level, HunterMaclean sought in-house PR and marketing support to aid in ongoing media efforts, as well as strategic business development and community relations.

Background: HunterMaclean is the largest law firm in the state of Georgia outside of Atlanta. With more than 50 attorneys operating from offices in Savannah and Brunswick, HunterMaclean offers one comprehensive source to handle a full range of legal needs.

Target Audience: The firm’s primary focus, while intensely geared towards local and regional markets, has broadened over the years to include a national presence in select firm practice areas.

Communications Objectives: APR developed a full-scale public relations effort, which includes securing ongoing media placements featuring the firm’s partners and associates, as well as implementing a customized strategic business development plan-of-action for the firm’s various practice groups. With APR’s unique breadth of community relations, counsel on corporate sponsorship efforts and community events is essential to ensuring high-profile participation and added value for the firm and its top clients. In addition, APR provides ongoing copy assistance, including web and collateral materials, to maintain consistent firm branding. APR has consistently secured approximately $300,000 in ROI annually for HunterMaclean.

Results: As one of Abshire PR’s longest standing clients, HunterMaclean has received consitently positive media coverage on a local and regional level since 2002. The nationally-acclaimed law firm has been featured on a local and regional level through secured press placements in Savannah Magazine, South Magazine, Savannah Business Journal, Business in Savannah, Savannah Morning News, Atlanta Journal Constitution, The ABA Journal, WTKS-Radio, WJCL, WTOC, and WSAV. Most recently, APR pitched and secured several national articles featuring the firm’s IT attorneys in Tech Journal South and CIO Insight.

APR also helped develop what has become a cornerstone in the firm’s branding and community commitment with the launch of the HunterMaclean Critical Issues Forum, which unites area business leaders and political officials to develop potential solutions to important community challenges in areas such as transportation, education and economic development. Past speakers have included U.S. Congressman John Barrow, Savannah-Chatham Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Thomas Lockamy, Savannah Mayor Otis Johnson and Savannah Economic Development Authority President Steve Weathers.

In 2010, APR was awarded the “Legal PR Award” by PR News for organizing the Critical Issues Forum on behalf of HunterMaclean. The synergy between firm and community created by this special event has had a lasting positive effect.

As one of APR’s current clients, our firm continues to develop creative and unique ways HunterMaclean attorneys can foster lasting client relationships, as well as new client prospects. HunterMaclean’s Women’s Initiative is yet another example of this type of creative tie into the community. Each quarter, this invitation-only women’s networking event is hosted by HunterMaclean’s female attorneys at a corresponding female-owned local business and allows women professionals across multiple industries a chance to further expand their contacts and potential business leads in a casual, fun environment.

Garden City

Goals: Garden City enlisted APR’s help to re-brand this Georgia municipality, generate positive press and increase the public’s perception of Garden City as a community that is on the rise.

Background: Garden City, Ga., a municipality located adjacent to Savannah, Ga., experienced a major perception problem throughout the last decade. Originally named Industrial City Gardens, the community’s population shrank due to increased success of their largest employer, Georgia Ports Authority, which currently ranks as the fourth largest container port in the United States and the largest single terminal operation in North America.  Traditionally, the port and heavy industries like pulp/paper mills and container facilities have anchored the city’s economy, leading to the perception that Garden City was an industrial wasteland lacking any cultural interest or progressive leadership.

Target Audience: APR primarily focused the rebranding message directly to Chatham County residents, local business, political leaders and Georgia state officials.

Communications Objectives: APR developed and implemented an ambitious rebranding effort for Garden City emphasizing the community’s multi-dimensional identity, underscoring its diversity and professionalism, as well as its legacy of community pride and family. APR’s key objectives include identifying and promoting key messages about Garden City’s progressive new brand to target audiences through traditional media outlets, direct mail, the Internet and social media channels. These efforts specifically included local print and electronic media outlets, Georgia business media, municipal trade publications, area columnists, radio talk show hosts and social media networks.

Additional strategies also included promoting key government, business and community leaders as the faces of the new Garden City in a coordinated campaign in local and statewide media. The main focus centered on maximizing the opportunities to share “good news” about Garden City with area residents and community leaders on a consistent basis.

Results: Throughout the two-year media blitz and PR campaign executed by APR,  Garden City was able to earn a Georgia Planning Association Award for the Garden City Town Center and to secure a $1 million neighborhood stabilization grant. In addition, Garden City attracted 80 new businesses in 2009, marking a significant 30 percent increase in growth, despite a downturn in the national and regional economy.

APR planned and executed the grand opening of the Garden City Town Center — a $30 million mixed-use complex that now serves as the “heart and soul” of a new downtown — which features a new City Hall, visitors center and Town Green, police academy, plus future plans for a library and 800,000 square feet of commercial, retail and residential development. The Town Center project was completely funded from the sale of the original City Hall property to Georgia Ports Authority with no additional costs to residents. As a result of APR’s strategic, consistent and comprehensive media relations campaign, Garden City was successfully transformed to meet the changing needs of this progressive Chatham County municipality.

APR secured a feature story about Garden City in Georgia Trend, the state’s leading business publication, highlighting the municipality’s accomplishments and new attitude, and also successfully nominated Brian Johnson for Georgia Trend’s annual “40 Under 40” issue spotlighting top emerging state leaders under the age of 40. APR also pitched and secured an article in the American Public Works Association Reporter, positioning Garden City as a national leader for its innovative stormwater utility user system.

In addition, APR drafted energetic web copy for a newly-designed Garden City website; launched a Facebook page for Garden City; generated healthy discussion by implementing an important online forum for Garden City residents to share their concerns as well as their civic pride; developed a multi-stage direct mail campaign emphasizing Garden City’s state-of-the-art public services, quick police response time, professionalism and lack of property taxes.

As part of APR’s strategic business development effort, the firm’s principals introduced City Manager Brian Johnson to key economic development authority representatives, local entrepreneurs and area publishers in order to educate them about the new and improved developments taking place in Garden City.

Overall, APR successfully secured positive and consistent press for Garden City in key media outlets, producing an annual ROI advertising equivalent of $520,000.

The Coastal Bank

Goals: With several different community banks located in the greater Savannah area, The Coastal Bank needed a competitive edge to reach beyond their existing customer base. The Coastal Bank enlisted in APR’s expertise to position the bank as the premier “one-stop-shop” financial services institution for small to mid-size businesses and consumers in the area.

Background: Founded in 1954 in Hinesville, Ga., The Coastal Bank entered the Savannah market in 1986 and has since grown to six bank branches located in Savannah, Pooler, Rincon, Richmond Hill and Hinesville communities.

Target Audience: The Coastal Bank’s target market includes individual consumers and small to mid-size businesses throughout coastal Georgia.

Communications Objectives: APR tailored an effective, ongoing public relations strategy that differentiated The Coastal Bank from other community banks and positioned its executives as sought-after experts in their field. This public relations strategy includes executing well-planned media placements in the local area on a variety of topics, creating exciting client-customer event opportunities that increase the level of staff interaction with customers, connecting bank leaders with top speaking engagement opportunities and supporting the bank as an in-house PR department.

Results: In the face of increased local and regional competition, APR has helped The Coastal Bank thrive and enjoy top-of-mind community positioning. As its sole public relations firm, APR has had the privilege of working with The Coastal Bank for more than a decade and has seen the bank through acquisitions, leadership changes and economic challenges.

In 2011, APR started off with a bang successfully nominating Brian Smith as a Savannah Magazine’s “Generation Next: Savannah’s Rising Stars of Business” and has since worked to score multiple ink placements with a regular mortgage column in the Savannah Morning News as well as numerous feature stories in Business in Savannah, Savannah Business Journal, Coastal Courier, Bryan County News, Savannah Magazine and South Magazine.

In 2010, APR secured more than $400,000 ROI for The Coastal Bank. The firm is currently on track to deliver similar results for 2011.

Kessler Collection: Bohemian Hotel Savannah Riverfront

Goals: As part of the Bohemian Hotel’s grand opening, the Kessler Collection hired APR to coordinate and execute all media needs. After delivering major national, regional and local coverage for the hotel’s opening, this public relations project was expanded into full-service in-house PR support for the opening year to help embed the new hotel within the local community and garner regional and national consumer awareness within the vast travel market. The public relations efforts also expanded to include the Kessler Collection’s existing boutique hotel, The Mansion on Forsyth Park.

Background: After the successful opening of the Mansion on Forsyth Park, hotelier and founder Richard Kessler opened a sister hotel property, the Bohemian Hotel, which includes 75 guest rooms, panoramic views from the ultra-chic rooftop bar and terrace, gourmet dining and first-class service.

Target Audience: Local, regional and national tourism-related audiences were the premier targeted focus for all public relations and media related campaigns.

Communications Objectives: APR developed a comprehensive plan for both the Bohemian Hotel and the Mansion on Forsyth Park to aggressively pursue local, regional and national ink as well as electronic and broadcasting placements.

Results: As one of our most successful short-term client public relations campaigns, APR leveraged the Kessler Collection brand to earn the advertising equivalent of more than $376,000 in national media placements, more than $128,000 in regional placements and more than $160,000 in local media placements in just one year.

Some of our most prestigious placements on behalf of the Kessler Collection include feature coverage in The New York Times, Southern Living, Chicago Sunday Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, The Atlantan, Atlanta Social Season, Jacksonville Magazine and Orlando Magazine.

APR also organized two successful press trips, inviting top reporters to experience the Kessler Collection’s Savannah properties in person, and coordinated social media coverage for the Bohemian Hotel and the Mansion on Forsyth Park.