Naper Settlement

An outdoor history museum in the heart of downtown Naperville operating for over 50 years, the organization positioned itself as a hub for the community to gather, connecting history from past to present. Through a variety of initiatives, earned media values and event attendance increased while mitigating crisis situations.

Read the case studies below!

10th Annual Oktoberfest

Earned Media, Event Activation

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Through a multi-pitch process, I secured ABC7 as a broll segment and WGN for a live remote placement two years in a row (2018 & 2019). This was the first on-site news coverage the event had ever received.

For the 10th Annual event in 2019, we featured multiple event offerings through a series o f morning segments with WGN – including shots showcasing themed pinball, food and beverage, pumpkin carving, and a stein holding competition. The team received high compliments from the news crew for our creativity, organization, kindness, and efficiency throughout the shoot. The event earned a total of 25 broadcast hits and 15 news articles, with an overall value of $194k and 19.6M impressions.

Oktoberfest saw its highest attendance in 2018 and 2019 compared to the previous five years, with record breaking attendance in 2019. Many guests surveyed cited WGN news as the reason they attended the event.

50th Anniversary
Wedding Celebration

Earned Media, Event Activation

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The Naperville Heritage Society, the administrator of the museum Naper Settlement, celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2019. The Naperville Heritage Society rescued a local church from demolition in 1969, relocating it to the grounds of the museum. This church – Century Memorial Chapel – is now a wedding venue and has married thousands of couples over fifty years. To leverage the 50th anniversary, we celebrated these couples with a vow renewal celebration.

I spearheaded the entire publicity stunt including crafting a multi-tiered strategic plan to locate couples and gauge interest, pitching the call for submissions, managing the influx of couples and subsequent RSVPs, conceptualizing and coordinating the event logistics, organizing the event itinerary & press visits day-of, and securing pre-event and post-event coverage. We had 450 couples from twenty-two states initially reach out from the first call in the media and renewed the vows of 158 couples at the event with their loved ones in attendance.

Throughout the campaign, we received fifteen placements, including on WGN Radio, WGN News, ABC7 News, Daily Herald, and Chicago Tribune - totaling $115k in earned publicity value and 11.6M impressions. A social media experience on-site during the event garnered 81k impressions and reached 51k people. This increased brand awareness– publicity value was 16.5x the original investment for the event– and led to an increase in wedding leads and bookings for the Chapel.

Civil War Days Departure

Crisis Communication

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After a five year decline in revenue, attendance, and participation of volunteer re-enactors, Naper Settlement decided to sunset its Civil War Days event in 2019.

A month before the announcement, a nearby Civil War re-enactment in Lake County, Illinois was cancelled amid tumultuous circumstances. It went viral across the country, creating more than $1.26 million in press damage.

Taking that into account, I crafted a multi-pronged communications strategic plan for our announcement, complete with a timeline and strategy for the press, key community stakeholders, our re-enactor volunteers, members, and donors; talking points for staff and board members; and social media responses.

This approach minimized impact, with the museum only receiving local coverage totaling $55k and 6M impressions - a mere fraction of negative coverage compared to the same announcement one hour north of the museum. We received a handful of comments via social media and e-mail compared to the 1,500+ on Lake County's social media channels.