Press Conference Promotes Fulton County Schools’ Receipt of 10K Blue Bird Propane Bus
Last month, we celebrated Blue Bird’s 10,000th propane bus! We joined Fulton County Schools, the recipient of that bus, to host a press conference to get the news out. But this was no ordinary press conference. The school district already had a back-to-school event planned, and we needed to integrate the propane bus messaging — and gain media coverage.
Fulton County Schools’ back-to-school press conference gathered busy Atlanta-based media to provide district-wide news. This year would include Fulton’s announcement of its new propane bus fleet including the milestone 10,000th propane bus.
Usually, our press conferences are solely focused on new propane school bus deployments, not combined with other district news. For this reason, our team — with folks from ROUSH CleanTech, Blue Bird corporate, TSN Communications and Yancey Bus Sales & Service — worked with Fulton’s communications expert, Susan Hale, and transportation director, Sam Ham. Our goal was to complement Fulton’s agenda, but to ensure that the propane bus messaging wasn’t lost within the other district’s news.
To distinguish our portion of the event, we held our press conference outdoors with the 10,000th propane bus on display (the remainder of the event was held indoors). The speakers kept the messaging clear to keep the media’s interest. For example, Blue Bird’s Phil Horlock spoke about the 10,000th propane bus milestone; The Propane Education & Research Council’s Tucker Perkins covered key points about the benefits of propane and the low NOx propane engine; and Fulton’s Sam Ham discussed the fact that the 90 new buses would be Georgia’s largest fleet of propane-fueled school buses with three-point seat belts.
The media’s interest was also held by creating a “photo-op.” The 10,000th propane bus displayed a large, eye-catching banner hung on the side. This promoted the bus and all the companies involved, and created a backdrop for the media to take photographs and video. A propane bus with the green logoed bird is distinctive, and the banner really made it a focal point for the media.
If you have a propane school bus customer announcement or new deployment, and would like help with writing a press release or hosting a press conference, please contact Brian Carney at Brian.Carney@roush.com.
Here are some examples of media coverage of the event:
