Two years after the French Oceanographic Institute located the Titanic wreck with Dr. Robert Ballard, they returned to the site in the North Sea to retrieve the first artifacts from the ocean floor. Almost immediately, the 1987 Titanic Expedition found itself mired in controversy, which quickly escalated into an international media crisis.
Foggia Public Relations was brought aboard to mount the emergency campaign to counter the barrage of negative headlines. After scheduling a press conference in New York, Foggia worked around the clock with the expedition leaders and key scientists to strategically position their efforts and write the media kit support it.
Within days, the expedition was again making world headlines – this time for how it was advancing deep-sea exploration and employing the latest technological breakthroughs in the preservation of the artifacts!At the request of the expedition leaders, Foggia Public Relations next handled the publicity for their live two-hour world-wide broadcast of “Return to the Titanic…LIVE” from France several months later. To mobilize global attention, Foggia staged another press conference – this time in the ballroom of a Paris hotel, where the ship’s safe (encased in an old-fashioned bank vault) was wheeled in by uniformed gendarmes for dramatic effect. A tidal wave of coverage resulted – helping “Return to the Titanic” to become the 2nd highest-rated syndicated television special of all-time.
Years later, Foggia was recruited again, this time to design and implement the pre-opening announcement for the Orlando attraction, Titanic ~ Ship of Dreams. She chose the elegant ballroom of the Peabody Hotel as the setting for a visually-stunning press conference in which over a million dollars of actual artifacts were unveiled for the first time.
As Foggia learned early in her career, often the best way to get your message out is by staging it as an event. When the inventor of the glow-in-the-dark Liquid Light necklaces wanted to make a splash at a major New Orleans trade show, the task at first seemed impossible. In fact, the popular novelty item had been the subject of controversial press at the previous Mardi Gras, when an imitator’s product had leaked, sending users to the emergency room and tainting both brands in the aftermath. Liquid Light’s inventor told Foggia that his product was so safe he would be willing to drink it to prove the point. So Foggia mounted a press conference at his tiny booth and invited all the media to watch him down the mysterious green fluid from a champagne glass. The event literally became a show-stopper as attendees flocked to witness this seemingly foolhardy act. The result: Liquid Light was the biggest news story of New Orleans for the next 24 hours. Even the cab drivers were all talking about it.
From red-carpet movie premieres to headline-grabbing press conferences, Foggia Public Relations has you covered.
Contact us for...
