Mother’s Day
Great news! You work for Smith & Jones Greeting Cards as Associate Director of Media Relations. Your phone number is (555) 555-1234.
For the purposes of this assignment, Smith & Jones is an internationally known maker of greeting cards. It is an international market leader. Because of previous editorial coverage, you know that your target reporter for this assignment knows your company fairly well.
Your goal on this assignment is to get USA Tomorrow, a major national newspaper, to write a story about the origins of Mother’s Day. Of course you want the newspaper to use Smith & Jones experts as its sources. Your theory is that the resulting story in this national newspaper would link holidays, special events and Smith & Jones in readers’ minds. (The reporter’s story wouldn’t need to mention Smith & Jones’ special Mother’s Day cards themselves, though, of course, you wouldn’t object to that.) In a broader sense, your goal is to get people to think of Smith & Jones whenever they think of holidays.
You may offer yourself as an expert. You can also put the reporter in touch with good sources in the Smith & Jones Consumer Research Division.
Please write your pitch to this reporter at USA Tomorrow: Ms. MaryelThompsen. Her e-mail address is mt@USATom.com.
You’re writing to MaryelThompsen because, this past February, USA Tomorrow published her well-researched, entertaining story on Valentine’s Day origins and traditions.
Please go online to gather facts about the origins of Mother’s Day for your pitch letter. For this assignment, you can assume that those online sources are the research archives of Smith & Jones Greeting Cards.