I have never been a fan of\nreality TV. I think that I have seen one series of My Kitchen Rules and a\ncouple of episodes of Master Chef.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That all changed a few weeks ago when I had a bad riding\naccident and couldn\u2019t do much but sit quietly for a while. I ended up watching\na lot of Netflix, and due to my pain levels could not cope with anything more\ntaxing mentally than reality TV. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still I got sick of them pretty quickly and kept moving\nfrom one show to another. It was Fashion Fund that struck a chord and led me\ndown memory lane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fashion Fund is a competition where ten designers get to\nwork with the biggest names in the business in the hope of becoming the Fund\nDesigner of the Year – an award that comes with $400,000 and a one-year\nmentorship with some of fashions biggest luminaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bit that interested me was in the first episode. Applicants\nhad to make their pitch to be in the competition. 200 applications were\nwhittled down to 50 and then to ten. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I loved some of the pitches. They were delivered to the\nFashion Fund building and distributed amongst the Judges. They were not there\nto make their pitch personally \u2013 their application had to do that for them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ones shown on TV, (which mostly comprised of the ten\nsuccessful applicants) were sophisticated, beautiful and told a story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They had to capture the judges\u2019 attention and\nimagination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The concept reminded me of the pre-digital days of the media release<\/a>, where, depending on the pitch we sent the media something, (such as a gimmick) to emphasise<\/g> the product, the issue or the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the case of my work, which was often more about advocacy <\/a>than product, finding something witty or clever that would help to tell our story helped enormously. I clearly remember a women\u2019s health campaign where a colleague rolled up the releases and inserted them into speculums and delivered them to media and to members of parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Businesses still do this today, the fashion industry in\nparticular, and often via digital tools. Episode one took me back to the days\nof tangible three dimensional products that could be picked up, put down and\nmoved around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think about including something that will surprise your\nmedia outlet, blogger, influencer in your next pitch and if you have access to Netflix,\nI recommend watching the first episode for examples of beautiful products that\ntell a story and set out to impress and influence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did a quick google for modern examples of tangible\n\u2018things\u2019 to go to media and here are a few finds:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wunderman\u2019s UK <\/a>office created a range of tree decorations made from tampons and sent out to clients, influencers and media. When the gift was shared on social media tagging the agency, they pledged a box of period products to charity Bloody Good Period.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A T shirt<\/g> can tell a million stories as Danny Sullivan tweeted with Microsoft\u2019s Scroogle products having a bit of a dig at Google. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can probably imagine various  situations where a witty and relevant t shirt slogan\nmight grab attention from the media \u2013 just make sure that it is relevant to the\ncampaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This mystery box is a great example of including a few small\ninexpensive products that tell a great story of a neighbourhood, but could easily\ninclude items to tell a broad range of stories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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