Public relations team wins for V&T grand opening campaign

A successful public information campaign to spread the word about Carson's City's historic Virginia and Truckee Railroad grand opening were recognized and honored recently.

South Shore Lake Tahoe-based Weidinger Public Relations received four awards, including two Silver Spike Awards and two Awards of Excellence at the Public Relations Society of America, Sierra Nevada Chapter’s 23rd annual awards program.
 
The Silver Spike designation is the highest honor from a Chapter and recognizes outstanding achievement, far-reaching client results, and high standards for quality of work and ethics. A total of seven Silver Spikes were presented to public relations agencies, firms and businesses throughout the Sierra Nevada area for campaigns in the past year. The judging panel for the 2009 Silver Spike awards came from the Utah Valley PRSA Chapter and consisted of PRSA Accredited PR members.
 
Weidinger PR struck silver in the “Special Events & Observances with Budget under $10,000” category for its efforts on behalf of the Virginia & Truckee Railroad for its Grand Opening. The 16 miles of newly restored track between Carson City and Virginia City embraces the area’s rich history and is its latest attraction. Through public relations efforts, awareness for the rides spread among the local and regional community, resulting in the V&T selling out every available roundtrip ticket over the three-month launch.
 
The second silver lining came in the form of a spike presented in the “Special Purpose Video” category, for the viral video campaign, “Become a Granlibakken Viking” on behalf of the Granlibakken Conference Center & Lodge. The campaign achieved viral success with online video results far surpassing expectations stated objectives. Publicity efforts reached 48,138,117 readers and viewers, with video contest entries from applicants throughout the nation. A third component, public online voting to determine a Viking job applicant garnered thousands of votes pouring in for the third Viking to form the Trio.
 
WPR’s American Century Championship entry for the category of “Special Events & Observances with Budget over $25,000+” received the highest award given within the category this year. The success of the celebrity golf tournament’s PR efforts was a collaboration between WPR and Vizion Group of Philadelphia, PA. In conjunction with overall marketing efforts, the PR component of last year’s 20th Anniversary tournament at Edgewood Tahoe broke attendance records with the highest turnout 37,000, or 6,000 more than the previous record. Media efforts resulted in dozens of national television spots, 8 AP nationally syndicated stories and more than 2,800 print articles reaching more than 300 million. The LTVA, NBC Sports and American Century Investments sponsor the American Century Championship.
 
WPR also received an Award of Excellence in the “Overall Campaign with Budget over $25,000+” category, for the firm’s year-round PR programming with the Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority. WPR generated media coverage exceeding $3.2 million for South Shore (based on advertising equivalency: what the same editorial space would have cost if purchased as advertising), including more than 80 articles in targeted outlets with 100,000+ circulation.
 
WPR submitted four entries and won awards for each. “It’s rewarding for the team to be recognized for a consistently high level of achievement,” said Phil Weidinger. “We're lucky enough to delve into the toy box of life to promote the serious business of fun – and we’re lucky enough to have clients who let us get away with it.”
 
Weidinger Public Relations, established in 1985, is a six-person firm with offices at Stateline, Nev., that specializes in travel, tourism, recreation, real estate, special and sporting events. For more information, call (775) 588-2412 or visit: www.weidingerpr.com.
 
PRSA is the world’s largest organization for public relations professionals with nearly 21,000 members in more than 100 chapters representing business and industry, technology, consulting firms, governments, organizations, professional firms and non-profit organizations.