<VV> Press Coverage:::::::::::

[Vairtec Corporation]

There is a lesson here for future event organizers.  It is very 
difficult to get the attention of media outlets, be they print, 
broadcast, or online.  You need more than an event taking place, you 
need a "hook" that is relevant to the media outlet's audience.

I know nothing about the Cedar Rapids media market, and I do not know 
what the Cedar Rapids convention committee may have done, so what 
follows is purely hypothetical:  Let's say that the local club has a 
member who owns a Corvair bought new.  That's a "hook" around which you 
can craft a press release that has local flavor.  Let's say that the 
local convention organizers are aware of two members, one in the East 
and one in the West, who were buddies in the Army and who now are each 
driving their Corvairs to Cedar Rapids.  That's a hook.  Let's say that 
Dollie Cole, widow of the man who championed the Corvair at Chevrolet, 
is coming to Cedar Rapids.  That's a hook.

Multiple releases to the same outlets need to be submitted over a period 
of several weeks if not months -- but NEVER the same one twice.  Always 
a new angle, a new hook.  But always the same basic contact info, a 
consistent message.

Often, what will get the attention of an assignment editor is not "what" 
(a Corvair owners' convention) but "who" (Iraq war veteran bringing his 
Corvair to town).

For Denver next year, Steve Goodman is a possible story angle.  He's a 
local guy who has been servicing Corvairs since, well, since forever, 
and now the Corvair convention is returning to "his" town.  Perhaps 
there are Denver-area residents who attended the last Denver convention 
(1981, I think) and who will be attending this one.  Even better if they 
didn't live in Denver then but do now, or the opposite, lived in Denver 
then and are returning now.  And there are certainly Denver-area members 
who will be attending their first convention now that it is in "their" town.

Got a local politician or celeb who owned a Corvair at one point?  Find 
them, interview them, issue a press release.  Doesn't matter if they 
HATED their Corvair -- controversy is good for publicity.

Think about it:  If you were watching the TV, and there was a story 
about the convention of the Barbie Doll Collectors Association, you 
would pay not attention to it -- unless there was a compelling personal 
story connected to it.

Ya gotta think like an old-fashioned "press agent," looking for angles, 
looking for hooks with which to get the media's attention.

--Bob Marlow