Sheffield Garden Walk and Festival

Tercet worked for several years with the Sheffield Neighborhood Association to promote its annual Garden Walk and Festival, one of Chicagoís oldest and largest neighborhood events. Tercetís publicity efforts over time produced dozens of media placements for the event, which has directly contributed to attendance and revenue numbers rising steadily. Due to the Associationís non-profit status and an over-crowded summer festival schedule, Tercetís primary challenge was to make the best use of fairly limited resources to generate as much pre-event publicity as possible and attract the number of people needed to reach the Associationís revenue goals. Tercetís approach to PR for the Garden Walk has been simple but structured: play up the eventís status and multiple unique aspects through distribution of a series of documents, including a calendar item, preview news release and wrap-up news release, and thorough media follow-up.

Common Sense Solutions (CSS)

After successfully completing a brochure for this mid-size software systems consulting firm, Tercet was asked to develop and implement the companyís first-ever comprehensive public relations program. The owners were particularly interested in identifying speaking engagements with Chicago-area chambers of commerce and professional organizations, and cultivating relationships with local business and technology writers. Because CSS had no history of prior PR efforts, we realized that their program would have to be well planned and executed in order to yield the results the company wanted. The subsequent multi-step publicity program Tercet created and launched was designed to move CSS logically toward increased public relations activity, beginning with competitive and market research, the development of targeted media lists and a multi-tiered database of potential speaking opportunities, and refining the overall company message.

Pulp Couture

PULP Couture received considerable publicity during its launch at the National Stationery Show in New York with the help of The Tercet Group. Tercet approached the media with a variety of news items from PULP and story ideas about the new company and its dynamic owner, Jennifer Rapp. This approach resulted in multiple articles about the company in industry and local consumer publications, including the Chicago Sun-Times, Todayís Chicago Woman, Giftware News and Greetings, Etc. One of PULPís goals that Tercet met was to receive exposure in industry publications in order to attract the attention of retailers and sales representatives who would be interested in selling the companyís products. Tercet also created PULP Coutureís media kit that served as the companyís main promotional tool, as well as the template for PULPís sales kits developed later in the year. Furthermore, Tercetís outline served as the basis for a sustained publicity program for all of the companyís numerous new product lines expected to be introduced throughout the year

R3 Systems Group

It is fairly unusual for a non-public company without a history of public relations efforts to gain a lot of media attention with its first publicity push. In the case of R3 Systems Group, a west-suburban IT information recovery company, in just three months The Tercet Group was able to have the year-old company featured in a number of prominent media outlets, including ePrairie.com, Chicago Sun-Times, Crainís Chicago Business and The Suburban Business Ledger. When R3 relocated its headquarters, it hired Tercet to conduct a short-term public relations program aimed at generating as many placements about the company as possible in a range of local business publications. Beyond the news of the relocation, Tercet was able to capitalize on R3ís unique business niche and the timeliness of its services due to growing concern over the growing problem of proper handling of sensitive information contained on the hard drives of discarded computers. The resulting exposure helped increase awareness of the company and position several of its managers as local experts on the issue of proper IT asset management to all media outlets for future articles.

vive la femme

Tercet began working with vive la femme shortly after the boutique opened its doors in Wicker Park. Owner Stephanie Sack turned to Tercet to help increase vive la femmeís exposure in local media and drive traffic to the store which is located on a very trendy, yet fairly remote, stretch of North Damen Avenue. The initial public relations thrust targeted local media outlets and played up the unique angle of vive la femme being the only boutique in Chicago for young, stylish, plus-size women, as well as highlighted the ownerís vibrant personality. Results poured in quickly, and in the first five months of the program vive la femme was featured in 17 media outlets, including the ABC-7ís ì190 North,î CLTVís ìMetromix: The TV Show,î Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago-Tribune and the Reader. Phase Two of Tercetís PR plan for vive la femme was geared toward positioning the boutique on the leading edge of the plus-size fashion industry and resulted in placements with such high-profile national outlets as the New York Times and Lucky.

A Dinner to Die For

Retired businessman and first-time author Harry Burker turned to Tercet for public relations support for his newly published novel, a psychological thriller titled A Dinner to Die For. The main goal of this program was to create a media kit for Mr. Burker to distribute to potential publishers during the annual National Book Fair in Chicago. Tercet created a kit that included a news release, author bio and other support materials, as well as alerted many of the attending media regarding the bookís presence at the show and Mr. Burkerís unique path to becoming a published author.

National Multiple Sclerosis Society Greater Illinois Chapter

Tercet worked with the NMSS Greater Illinois Chapter to promote their annual Dinner of Champions, an event that raises millions of dollars for MS research. In addition to contacting the Chicago-area media regarding the event itself, Tercet wrote the script for the evening and helped coordinate on-site activity before and during the Dinner. In addition, one year Tercet also successfully arranged publicity for the Dinnerís keynote speaker, David Lander ¨ñ better known as TVís ìSquiggyî from ìLaverne & Shirleyî ñthat included a live interview on WGN-AM radioís morning drive.

Skinnyguy.com

Because skinnyguy.com was a start-up company, the biggest publicity challenge for this account was establishing name recognition in an already crowded local dot-com field. In addition to distributing news releases to targeted media nationwide, Tercet took advantage of the unusual name and ownersí roots in the Chicago area to set-up interviews with local IT publications and columnists. This effort resulted in several article placements, thereby increasing awareness of Skinnyguy.com in both the companyís target customer audience, as well as the general business community.

Soulthreads

In order to help this unique, web-based, lifestyles company gain recognition among its target audience, Tercet developed a multiple-part publicity program that coincided with the companyís official launch, beginning with the distribution of a launch-themed news release to a nationwide group of publications and online sources. Tercet rounded out the publicity program by negotiating and establishing web links between soulthreads.com and several related sites.