Never Give Up

I visited the local office of a group of radio stations a couple of weeks ago. After a brief explanation of our survivor project, the receptionist gave me the name of the people to call in their marketing department. When I called them, they referred me to their PSA (public service announcement) department. The PSA guy asked for as much info as I could give him in about a minute, then suggested I send him an email explaining the project so he could talk with others on their staff about it. I worked up an email, explaining it and the benefits to the stations for participating. I even called the marketing director at their affiliate stations in another city that had participated in a similar project by another photographer. I never heard back from him. I called to follow up and got his voice mail. I never got a call back.

So, I did some research and found there are actually several companies that own networks of radio stations in this market area. Yesterday, I visited another one of these networks, and it was a totally different experience. The receptionist immediately started thinking through to whom to refer me. They were in a meeting. But the meeting broke up a couple of minutes later and she found the right person and I got to speak with him on the spot.

He was very interested and began talking about how to make it work. He also asked if I could write something up he could share with the staff. I already had it and pulled it from my pocket. He was thrilled, and talked about having me in the meeting when he presented it to the staff.

It isn't a "done deal," so I won't name the stations yet. But it was very encouraging. I'm glad I didn't give up after the first network dropped the ball on it. (And if this one doesn't run with it, I still won't give up.) But, right now, it looks like they're going to go with it. Good publicity for the project will only make it more effective at raising money for cancer research.