John Hancock All-Star Fanfest
Chicago Hosts Baseball Heaven On Earth

In spring 2003, Chicago buzzed with plans to host Major League Baseball's 74th All-Star Game and fans couldn't wait to be a part of the magic. The feature attraction during All-Star Week is the John Hancock All-Star FanFest (JHASFF), a 350,000-square-foot fan convention that brings the world of baseball to the host city for all fans to enjoy - not just the lucky few who are able to obtain tickets to the big game. Major League Baseball asked Public Communications Inc. (PCI) to take on media relations surrounding the event in an attempt to drive more than 80,000 people to JHASFF at McCormick Place over five days. Several challenges arose as planning began for the 13th annual JHASFF including high expectations lingering from the previous year when Milwaukee set record ticket sales in 2002 and saturated the media market just 1.5 hours north of Chicago. An even bigger challenge was getting consumers to choose FanFest - an indoor event in July - from among the variety of choices for summer outings including Taste of Chicago, museum exhibits, concerts and beaches.

PCI revamped Major League Baseball's public relations plan that had been passed down from previous years and tailored the 2003 program to fit Chicago and Midwest media.

PCI made more than 1,000 media contacts through mailings, calls and emails ranging from travel magazines to national wires and local broadcast to community weeklies in an aggressive media campaign that began in February and continued through the close of FanFest in July. Contact with long-leads and in-flight publications launched the campaign, followed in March and April by pitches to sports editors developing Baseball Preview and All-Star Week special sections for Chicago's daily newspapers. Editorial meetings for MLB executives were coordinated at the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times and the Daily Herald in May. PCI continued to build interest and maintain media coverage by inviting cameras and reporters to JHASFF talent auditions and volunteer recruitment at U.S. Cellular Field and secured more placements for MLB's Roadshow presence at the Taste of Chicago in June. PCI created media opportunities in the course of the busy campaign including a 16-hour media tour with the World Series Trophy when it was delivered the day before the JHASFF Sneak Preview press conference on June 18.

PCI generated feature stories to run opening weekend by inviting local media and their children to attend hard-hat tours to preview JHASFF during its final days of construction while vendors, historians and production crews prepared for the opening. The PCI media team also booked appearances on television morning shows every morning the week leading up to the opening to encourage ticket sales. PCI also developed a special human-interest story around Ken Hubbs, a former rising star with the Cubs who died in a plane crash in 1964. PCI worked with the Hubbs family to tell the story of how Hubbs' glove and ball with which he won his first Golden Glove Award would be handed over to Ted Spencer, chief curator at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, and installed into a FanFest display for all of Chicago to see. PCI offered the story exclusively to Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown. PCI then leveraged the column by staging the donation of Hubbs' ball and glove to the Cooperstown collection the morning the column ran.

Media relations efforts were credited with a successful opening but much more still needed to be done. PCI coordinated live remotes for four television stations on opening morning. The team also managed on-site media relations for the five-day event escorting news crews from local, Midwest and national media and arranging radio interviews for baseball legends including Andre Dawson, Steve Garvey and Jack McDowell with sports shows around the country. PCI handled special requests by the client to secure business-related stories for top executives by coordinating interviews with CNBC, CNNFN and Fox News Channel.

More than 84,000 guests experienced "baseball heaven on earth" at the John Hancock All-Star FanFest and Major League Baseball credited PCI with the most extensive and well-executed media relations program in the event's 13-year history. PCI's media relations efforts generated more than 490 media placements reaching an estimated audience of 84 million.

Media highlights include national coverage with USA Today, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, the Today Show, CNBC, CNNFN, Fox News Channel and the Weather Channel, six Associated Press stories and photographs that were picked-up by numerous regional newspapers and blanket coverage in the Chicago market including 75 articles in the four major Chicago dailies live and on-site television appearances with every Chicago network throughout the week of the event.