Silicon Valley Open Studios Connects Bay Area Residents to Original Art
Situation & Challenge
For years, hundreds of artists in the Peninsula and South Bay have opened their work spaces to the public during the annual Silicon Valley Open Studios (SVOS). The annual event, held the first three weekends in May, is a major forum for established and emerging artists. However, as a “soft” news event, SVOS struggled to get the attention of traditional and online media.
Goal
The organization wanted to increase awareness of the event to encourage visitors and potential buyers to view the art.
Tactics
To maximize exposure, Kay:
- Wrote a news release and distributed it throughout the Bay Area
- Directly contacted key media with information about the event and about the local artists
- Arranged interviews for reporters with selected artists
- Distributed the event directory to key reporters
- Supplied high-res versions of the artwork
- Arranged interviews and forwarded information as needed.
Results
Kay has worked with SVOS since 2014. In that time, the event has been featured in major local media, including:
- The front page of the Silicon Valley Community Newspapers group, which includes the Almaden Resident, Cambrian Resident, Campbell Express, Cupertino Courier, Los Gatos Weekly Times, Rose Garden Resident, Saratoga News, Sunnyvale Sun and Willow Glen Resident
- Almanac News
- Burlingame Voice
- Campbell Express
- Content
- Half Moon Magazine
- Half Moon Bay Review
- KQED-FM (NPR) The Do List
- Los Altos Town Crier
- Mercury News
- Metro
- Mountain View Voice
- Palo Alto Weekly
- Patch.com
This campaign won gold medals in the 2015 MarCom International Awards (an international competition that “recognizes outstanding achievement by marketing and communication professionals”) and in the 2015 Hermes Creative Awards competitions.
Client Testimonial
“Kay recently worked with us to promote Silicon Valley Open Studios, a non-profit organization that hosts open studios during the first three weekends of May in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. Artists open their studios and invite the public to get a close personal look at their work. This event takes from Burlingame to Gilroy, which is a huge area to cover. Kay worked with us to promote the event to the major publications in the Bay Area. For a soft news event Kay was able to get us excellent coverage in the San Jose Mercury News (Sal Pizarro’s “Around Town” column), we were mentioned in KQED’s “The DO” list, there was a terrific article in the Palo Alto Weekly and we had front page articles in nine Silicon Valley Community News Group newspapers, not to mention a number of Google Alerts. Kay is easy to work with and is a true professional who really knows her business. I would recommend working with her to anyone.”
Christine Oliver
Impact Communications and marketing director, SVOS
