The waiting game. (August 15, 2005)

By Erica Iacono

For long-term campaigns, the payoff can be doubly rewarding.
In 1996, when Burson-Marsteller won an RFP to work with the American Battle Monuments Commission on the future World War II memorial, one of the agency's main objectives was that it would be able to see the project through to completion. Taking advantage of the long timeline, Burson's first order of business was to clarify some misconceptions about the memorial to get the fundraising effort under way. "We had to battle the public and media issues while also trying to raise money," says Libby Schnee, a director in Burson's public affairs practice.

One of the key messages was that 1,100 members of the WWII generation were dying each day, without a memorial to call their own. The agency also used Tom Hanks as a spokesperson and capitalized on the success of Saving Private Ryan to draw attention to the effort. In fact, during his acceptance speech at the 1999 Golden Globe Awards, Hanks gave out the 800 number for the memorial, resulting in more than 30,000 phone calls. "That was a turning point for awareness building," Schnee says. Ultimately, the committee raised $195 million, far more than the original goal of $100 million.