Publicity and Media Events

Sierra Communications publicity efforts have been literally out-of-this-world!

As a part of the McDonnell Douglas aerospace team in Florida, Susan Kohl organized a division-wide art contest that resulted in one employee's watercolor painting being flown on the space station Mir. It was one of only twenty pieces of art from fourteen countries flown as part of the world's first art exhibit in orbit. In addition to getting widespread media coverage for employee/artist Amy Zofko, Susan also arranged for the first Space Shuttle crew to rendezvous with Mir to take a photograph of Amy's art while in space. The picture you see here is a result of her efforts.

Other award-winning media events include:

Metricom's wireless Santa Stations

In the fourth quarter of 1997, Metricom was in a quiet period as it focused on developing its next-generation, high-speed wireless network. Local media coverage had diminished considerably. The Christmas season was rapidly approaching, and the company wanted to end the year on a high note.

Metricom set up two "Wireless Santa Stations" in front of the Santa House at Valley Square Center, in San Jose, on the day after Thanksgiving. The stations consisted of a podium, a laptop and a wireless modem, and enabled children (with the help of their parents) to e-mail Santa three Christmas wishes, free of charge.

The Wireless Santa Stations received news coverage from four San Francisco Bay Area network-affiliate television news stations, continuous coverage on the #1 news radio station, chatter from local disk jockeys, and an above-the-fold, three-quarter page newspaper article with photograph and graphic recreation of Metricom's Santa Web site. The potential reach of the media event was nearly 500,000 San Francisco Bay Area residents. Most significantly, there were 896 modems purchased, 450 modems rented, and 1,346 subscriptions sold from Thanksgiving until the end of December. The total revenue generated was nearly a half a million dollars.

At the end of a very successful day, the team realized that it also had a list of the top ten holiday toys. A press release was written and distributed, which resulted in even more positive media coverage for Metricom. This media event received a PRSA Compass Award.