In the spirit of #ThrowBackThursday, here’s a real estate PR case study that features a January 2012 article in the Wall Street Journal. The story was a result of the media strategy that Clairemont devised and executed for the client. Our team is proud to continue work with Nash-Newland and Newland Communities.
Client: Nash-Newland
Planning: Newland Real Estate Group based in San Diego and North American Sekisui House (Nash) based in Osaka, Japan formed a new joint venture in 2012, Nash-Newland, and acquired the largest operating portfolio of residential master-planned communities in the United States. The joint venture purchased the interests of the California Public employee’s Retirement System (calPERS) and the American Newland Communities in 28 master-planned communities, located in 15 markets and 11 states.
With the negotiations being highly confidential until the finalization of the agreement, NASH-NEWLAND turned to Clairemont Communications to devise a media relations strategy, counsel executives on when to release information about the joint venture and how to keep it confidential until the right time. Clairemont extensively researched what the real estate beat reporters of these outlets had written, the types of merger and acquisition stories they had produced and their professional backgrounds to determine who had experience covering similar joint ventures.
Objectives: The Clairemont team was tasked with getting news coverage under highly confidential circumstances. Specifically we identified the following as key strategies:
- Break the news in a national business media outlet. NASH-NEWLAND wanted the story to break in the outlet that would have the most significant business impact and reach the most readers without ignoring the other two considerations. Due to the complexity of the joint venture and assets involved, in addition to selecting the right media outlet, we needed to target a reporter who had enough understanding of the real estate industry as well as experience writing about the financial aspects of merges and acquisitions.
- Secure a trade story and garner coverage in five regional news outlets.
Execution: Clairemont was able to get the attention of Robbie Whelman at the Wall Street Journal with our first pitch call to him. Before telling him the companies involved, we could only share the types of organizations and give him an indication of the scope of the deal. He agreed to go under embargo, and from there we outlined the timing of our other outreach around the Wall Street Journal being issued. This included issuing a news release on Business Wire, pitching the story to additional media contacts and NASH-NEWLAND’s priority trade magazine contact.
Clairemont was also responsible for preparing media materials, answering questions from regional and other types of media. We worked with the NASH-NEWLAND executives on messaging, interview preparation, interview coordination and media follow-up needs.
Results: To the satisfaction of our clients, Clairemont secured a spot in the Wall Street Journal – the first choice to break the story- on the front page of the property report section. Additionally, we secured coverage in all of our priority outlets of Associated Press, Marketwatch and Bloomberg, as well as Reuters. Seven total stories appeared in these outlets, exceeding our goal of one national business article.
We exceed our goal of five regional stories with the placement of 11 articles. Additionally, there were 14 various online stories that were based on business and regional coverage.
This campaign earned Clairemont a Best in Division award from Raleigh Public Relations Society and an Award of Excellence from the North Carolina chapter of Public Relations Society of America.
