In Bloom at the International Floriculture Expo

The International Floriculture Expo has been taking place at Chicago’s very own McCormick Place this week. This is the first time that the expo has come to Chicago, and the 3rd Coast PR team was excited to climb on board to support this international trade show for florists with a local media outreach effort!

Competitors in the IFE Iron Designer Competition

We took the time to really look at all the things that the show had to offer, so that we were able to prepare a strategic approach for consumer media outreach. It was a tricky angle as the show was not open to the public, rather all of the people in the floral business. So pitching consumer media with trade news was a challenge we were ready to take on!

A feature of the IFE that stuck out to us was the Iron Designer Competition. This “Iron Chef” style competition, which has been taking place for 9 years, was our key to the many media placements that we secured. The theme for the competition was just unique enough to present something that nobody has really seen before: incorporating produce into floral arrangements. That’s right! Onions, peppers, squash, tomatoes, lemons, corn, you name it, you can put it with flowers!

Working with two local competitors that we message trained to be the spokespeople for the Expo to give it that local Chicago hook, we worked with them to provide the media with timely floral trends and angles as well as beautiful visuals for the broadcast segments.

Some of our media highlights include:

Television:
CBS Chicago
NBC Chicago
WCIU You & Me This Morning Show

Online:
NBC Chicago’s Worth a Trip blog
More than 15 local calendar listings

Print:
Windy City Times
My Suburban Life 

Jackie Kling of Epoch Floral on WCIU

Joe Lesczynski from Phillips on NBC Chicago

Joe Lesczynski from Phillips featured on My Suburban Life

And more to come!