The Everest Foundation is a nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles known for their commitment to funding innovative research initiatives and medical resident placements, in addition to their ongoing support to underserved communities.
They were looking for PR support to boost awareness of their Foundation and drive media attendance at an event in partnership with the Los Angeles Westside Veterans Administration during coronavirus. Despite restrictions, they secured celebrity Danny Trejo to host the event and provide his famous Trejo’s Tacos to feed the homeless veterans living on the West LA VA campus.
Hosting an event during the pandemic meant that there were limitations to the number of press that could attend, making it critical that we tactically leveraged our depth of contacts to secure attendance of exclusively top-tier media. Additionally, just days before the event, the Foundation received the unfortunate news that the permit to hold the event within the campus was denied. Consequently, we increased our phone outreach efforts, updating interested media with the last-minute address change prior to the event and onsite.
Despite the challenge of securing significant media attendance during a pandemic, along with the last-minute change of address, BG&A exceeded all the client’s expectations. We successfully secured five pre-event interviews with national and local outlets that cover celebrity, sports, and general interest news such as Zero Black Thirty podcast, Barstool Sports podcast – “The Starting 9″, and Good Day LA, in addition to more than 10 outlets who covered the event and interviewed both Danny Trejo and Everest Foundation spokesperson Dr. Michael Everest onsite. These outlets ranged from local broadcast stations including KTTV-Fox 11, KABC-ABC 7, KCBS/KCAL and others; to national media such as Associated Press Television, Spectrum News, and Telemundo; to photo coverage from Getty Images, Associated Press, and Shutterstock; as well as local print publication LA Weekly.
