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Each summer, as heat and temperatures start to rise, so does Discount Tire’s opportunity to remind drivers across the country about the importance of tire safety. A survey by Discount Tire and the U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association (USTMA) found that 48% of drivers don’t know how often to check their tire pressure and wear of their tire’s tread at 53%. And with AAA predicting the most traveled summer season of all time, with more than 47.7 million Americans expected to travel for the Independence Day holiday, Discount Tire needed a way to stay top of mind when it comes to tire safety checks and driver safety.
Genuine Article has worked for 10 years to bring the leading national retailer more prominence and share of voice in news coverage around National Tire Safety Week (NTSW). In planning for 2024’s NTSW, we evaluated press coverage secured from previous years to determine geographic trends, frequency of interview requests, and gaps that led to press interest not resulting in coverage.
We completed an audit of pre-approved spokespersons across Discount Tire’s 1,200 store footprint nationwide, working with regional leadership in 25 different offices to approve, reapprove, or recommend for training camera-ready store managers. Our efforts would result in 170 store managers, the most of any NTSW in our decade-long relationship with Discount Tire, being pre-approved as company spokespeople ahead of NTSW.
Our objectives were to deliver an increased number of broadcast TV press hits secured and increase the share of voice for Discount Tire among tire retailers during the months of June and July surrounding NTSW. An outreach calendar, talking points, media alerts, and a press release were planned weeks in advance to tailor pitching ahead of expected competition. We also developed an expansive media list featuring more than 4,000 individual contacts across more than 80 DMAs. Discount Tire’s NTSW efforts kicked off with one-to-one outreach sent via personalized email pitches by our team to well over 2,000 local news desks and reporters in 39 states where Discount Tire stores are located.
There was no hard-cost budget allocated for the PR team’s support of Discount Tire’s NTSW campaign — all efforts were purely earned from media placements that resulted from direct one-to-one pitch outreach to local media. During a two-week period before and during NTSW, our team coordinated 33 in-store, in-studio, phone, or virtual interviews between interested media and approved store spokespeople, resulting in at least 20 unique news segments that were viewed more than 11.9 million times. Additional online, radio, and print placements helped generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in ad equivalency value for NTSW-related coverage of Discount Tire.
