HSMAI Marketing Review August 2009 - 16

lorence Quinn’s favorite thing is being creative. This multi-platinum award winning agency chief is driven by the idea that great public relations needs a ‘big idea.’ President and founder of Quinn & Co., whose impressive client list extends beyond hospitality and travel to the realms of real estate, food, wine and spirits, Quinn is credited with bringing creativity to the travel PR world that didn’t exist before. She believes that “A great PR campaign begins with a great concept—something that has never been done before, that makes people smile, that people ‘get’ even if they are not in our industry. Forget the fact that we are travel, think about what’s going on in the world, in your life and the life of your friends.” Today, with endless outlets for publicity, it’s all about image, positioning, timing and imagination. In a perfect PR world, the product is so sought after and special that the buzz happens just for being. “Given that most of us in travel PR don’t have such innately newsworthy products, we need to deliver the initiatives, product enhancements and programs that will generate brand awareness and coverage.” Says Quinn: “PR was backwards; you didn’t come up with the idea and push it out. We look at what journalists would want, what pushes their buttons, and we do it strategically so it advances the client’s message. Today it’s even more important to drive business and operate in the digital world.” To create the concepts that drive the publicity, she scours every piece of literature and Googles into the wee hours mining for that gem of an idea. She approaches PR as an art form, and her unique artistic bent comes from her passion for art (after college she went back to art school on a merit scholarship at the Art Students League in NYC). “We pluck ideas from the media, pop culture and from what’s going on in the AUGUST 2009 • HSMAI MARKETING REVIEW FLORENCE QUINN Recipient of the 2008 HSMAI Winthrop W. Grice Lifetime Achievement Award world and in our own lives.” It’s that ingenuity that keeps the clients coming and that gets the kind of ink ‘to die for.’ Quinn’s dream was to go to New York, where she landed after college and moved from job to job until discovering PR and finding her passion. It was at Jessica Dee Communications, a small, entrepreneurial, womanowned PR firm where this wide-eyed go-getter got her start. The long hours and cramped quarters (in the storage room) didn’t matter; she was in “travel PR.” Still green and barely out of training, she was handed the business for Ramada’s Traveling Woman’s program and recalls “I was like a ‘duck in water. I worked my tail off and loved every minute of it.” It was in those early years, challenged with generating newsworthy storylines for the Novotel New York, a mid-priced hotel in the middle of Times Square, that she realized it would take out-of-the-box thinking to get the media’s attention. Tapping into the mindset of international hotel guests during a presi- dential election, Quinn conceived putting an international ballot box in the lobby and asked foreigners to cast their vote—the results landed on the cover of the Wall Street Journal. Other ideas that ran counter to what everyone else was doing: When NYC hotels did Broadway Show tie-ins, Quinn launched the first-ever Talk Show package. Rather than celebrating Mother’s Day with the promise of long steam roses and a pre-fix menu, Quinn reached out to President Clinton’s mom to find out her son’s favorite boyhood foods and turned it into a salute to Virginia Kelly. When the agency she helped grow from seven to 35 employees was purchased in 1989, she knew it was time to fly solo. Driven by the entrepreneurial itch to start her own company and chart her own creative course, she took the leap. It was then that her unique style of PR creativity really kicked in. With her artsy edge and enterprising spirit, Quinn shunned the corporate approach from the start. The now infamous Dream Room (the anti-conference room) is where staff and clients congregate for brainstorming sessions. And to accommodate the growing staff of big thinkers, The Studio, fashioned after a workshop, is where idea seekers roll up their sleeves and make something happen. What has remained from day one is the purple bohemian couch, a symbol of creativity that became the company mascot and namesake for the Quinn & Co. blog: thepurplecouch.com. Quinn & Co.’s culture is one of teamwork, innovation and accessibility. It’s not uncommon for people to call brainstorms and everyone gathers together or online. There’s training on creativity and ongoing discussions about how to do it better. She credits business trainer Grace Andrews for helping her grow beyond her talent for PR. “Until I met her I did what I was good at and ignored what I couldn’t do—that will get you only so 17

HSMAI Marketing Review August 2009

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