Amazon ended up with two brides last month in its search for a mate to its Seattle headquarters, dividing its HQ2 between New York City and northern Virginia. But months before, it got jilted by Little Rock, and quite publicly.
Trumpeted by a full-page ad in the Washington Post styled as a breakup letter, city leaders told Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in his own newspaper that Little Rock wasn’t interested in competing for the project. “It’s not you, it’s us,” the breakup note said before concluding “Love, Little Rock.”
The “Love, Little Rock’ campaign, a collaboration between the Little Rock Regional Chamber and advertising agency Stone Ward, was honored last week as a finalist in two categories of the annual PRWeek awards. The categories in the national magazine’s awards program are for “Best Viral” campaign and “Best B2B,” shorthand for business-to-business work.
Stone Ward crafted the tongue-in-cheek campaign, which drew big reactions both positive and negative a little over a year ago, free of charge for the Chamber. The basic theme was that Amazon and Little Rock aren’t the best match, even though both have many good qualities. Stone Ward and the Chamber used the frenzy surrounding the headquarters competition to lay out Little Rock strengths for businesses far more likely to locate here. The idea was to let other cities woo Amazon with promises, tax breaks and fervent pleas while Little Rock reaped a little free publicity.
The strategy worked. Over its first four days, the campaign generated news and digital impressions worth $1.7 in advertising, according to Cision, a tool agencies use to measure “earned media.”
“We had more than a billion impressions, and we were in the top 10 stories on the ABC news website,” said Millie Ward, president of the advertising firm. Looking back, she said the campaign “struck a chord just like any other great campaign strikes a chord — it took a different and entertaining view on the news of the day … on one day when America’s largest cities responded in many of the same ways and channels, Little Rock chose to charmfully contrast its quality of life, people and economic vitality by delivering a simple, authentic message in one unexpected place.”
She said “Love, Little Rock” was mentioned in more than 1,000 print, online and broadcast news reports. Naysayers pointed out that Little Rock didn’t have all the prerequisites Amazon had established for the project, and other critics disliked what they saw as essentially a publicity stunt.
Stunt or not, the attention was undeniable.
“We’ve been able to leverage the ‘Love, Little Rock’ brand at the national level while incorporating it into our Chamber brand,” Chamber President and CEO Jay Chesshir told Arkansas Business. “This positive attention has resulted in a robust year for economic development prospect interest.” He said this week “will be the busiest economic development week of the year as we work significant projects expected to finalize in 2019.”
The PRWeek Awards celebrate top work in the communications industry by corporate, agency, nonprofit and education-related professionals. “Love, Little Rock” is the only B2B finalist in the “Best Viral” category, where Stone Ward will be competing against Gerber, Hidden Valley, IHOP and Red Stripe. In “Best B2B,” Little Rock’s rivals include Businessolver, Clorox, Magisto and Wilsonart.
The “Love, Little Rock” campaign was also honored by the Public Relations Society of America with a Bronze Anvil award, and by the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives with its communications excellence grand award.
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