Company: M Booth and Associates
Company Description: For two decades, M Booth & Associates has specialized in building strong brands to help our clients grow and lead their markets. Honesty and integrity in our relationship with our clients and their constituencies is at the heart of everything we do.
Nomination Category: Media & Marketing Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Communications Campaign of the Year - For-Profit

Nomination Title: M Booth & Associates’ “Make Mine a Million $ Business Communications Campaign” for American Express OPEN

1. Describe for the judges the objectives, activities, and results of the nominated communications campaign (up to 500 words):

Make Mine a Million $ Business was launched in 2005. Below is a description of
the campaign from July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008.

American Express OPEN is committed to increasing the number of thriving,
women-owned businesses in the United States and partnered with M Booth &
Associates to secure breakout media visibility for the Make Mine a Million $
Business (M3) program. Fewer than 3% of the country’s more than 10 million
businesses owned by women gross more than $1 million in revenues (compared to
6% of men).

M Booth secured breakout national media visibility for the program by celebrating
the successes and challenges of women entrepreneurs at the grassroots level,
surveying a 60,000 strong M3 database to provide fresh content on issues facing
women entrepreneurs, including work/life balance, growing a business while
raising a family and off-ramping. In order to maximize coverage across categories,
including primarily in women’s media, entrepreneurial similarities/differences were
also explored based on age and ethnic background.

A cornerstone of the campaign’s success as strategized and executed by the M
Booth team was the economic impact women entrepreneurs currently make in the
US economy and in their individual communities. From surveying the M3
community it was uncovered that their total employment of about 200,000 would
rank 20th if placed on the Fortune 500 list. And reaching the goal of helping one
million women build million-dollar businesses would contribute more than $700
billion to the US economy while creating more than 4 million jobs—just the
economic stimulus America needs at a time of economic downturn.

Nationwide and state-based competitions are held to recruit the most promising
women entrepreneurs into the program. The M Booth team makes use of the
events to build key media relationships that will trigger coverage of OPEN, the
program and women business owners. Top print editors and local broadcast
announcers are invited to chair panels at the event and/or provide keynote
remarks. Immediately following the events, an intensive media relations campaign
is undertaken to secure regional coverage for individual awardees as well as
national visibility.

The “Million-Dollar Business Club” or program awardees that have grown their
businesses past the vital million dollar revenue mark are positioned as success
stories and promoted individually to a varied group of media contacts at national
business and women’s interest outlets, as well as within their hometown media
markets. The awardees’ million dollar achievements provide relevant case studies
and supplement American Express OPEN expert comment on an array of themes
covered by the media.

Keeping up with the news cycle, M Booth maintains a routine proactive outreach
effort, where awardee stories and key learnings are repackaged and offered to
media contacts by individual story topic. With entry into the Make Mine a Million
$ Business Program, awardees are media trained, assume the role of program
spokesperson and are interviewed around newsworthy topics within their personal
and professional relevance areas. Popular pitch topics include: working in a non-
traditional industry and women who employ their spouses.

2. List the URLs (web addresses) of any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that you would like the judges to see that support your entry. IMPORTANT: List each URL on a separate line, begin each URL with http://, and enclose each URL in square brackets. For example, [http://www.yourcompany.com/pressrelease.html]:

Press Release – May 8, 2008
Million-Dollar Club
http://home3.americanexpress.com/corp/pc/2008/mm_million.asp

Sacramento Bee – February 4, 2008
“Young Woodland restaurateur gets big-time help for expansion”
http://www.sacbee.com/103/story/684148.html

Entrepreneur Magazine – January, 2008
“Open to Advice”
http://www.entrepreneur.com/magazine/entrepreneur/2008/January/187704.html

Associated Press – December 4, 2007
“Ladies Who Launch”
http://www.thetandd.com/articles/2007/12/08/business/12855864.txt

Orange County Register – July 30, 2007
“Million Dollar Goals”
http://www.ocregister.com/money/kamarei-business-million-1791219-program-women#

3. Provide a brief biography of the person or persons who lead the team that created and carried out the nominated communications campaign (up to 100 words):

Mark Schroeder, Senior VP and Director, Corporate practice at M Booth &
Associates, leads the Make Mine a Million $ Business communications team.
Since launching the initiative for OPEN as a pilot program in 2005, M Booth &
Associates has played a strategic role in shaping it to maximize awareness and
participation by women entrepreneurs across the country. Prior recognition for the
team’s work for American Express OPEN on this campaign includes the PRSA-
NY Big Apple Award in 2007 and MarCom Creative Awards in 2006 and 2007. The
campaign was featured as a PR Week case study in June 2007.