Terri Waters
Director of Public Relations

Creating buzz-worthy PR

Great Rivers Greenway, the public agency connecting the St. Louis region with paved walking and cycling paths, challenged Geile/Leon to generate publicity for its second annual Greenway Quest. This fun competition encourages people to get out on the greenways and hunt for hundreds of painted “bee” rocks hidden along the 135 miles of trails with a smaller number hidden at the iconic City Museum, a co-sponsor of the event.

 

For the media outreach, we got creative with wordplay (you can’t bee-lieve how many puns we found!). The press release featured this honey of a headline: 250 bees have escaped the hive at City Museum; search parties are needed to bring them home. 

 

After we buzzed the media, reporters and talk show hosts made a bee-line to Dallas Adams, spokesperson for GRG. We set up interviews, did minimal coaching (she is experienced at interviews) and watched her spread her wings like a true queen bee and nail every interview. We could drone on and on about it, but here’s a quick re-cap: Local media is abuzz about The Greenway Quest, it’s listed on all the major event calendars, and people are heading to the greenways like flies to honey to claim their rock and register to win prizes. Operation Honeypot (our internal name for the project) has landed!

 

Here’s a sampling of the media coverage:

St. Louis Post Dispatch
https://www.stltoday.com/pr/entertainment/st-louis-greenways-are-buzzing-with-2nd-annual-scavenger-hunt/article_f679c4b2-4137-11ee-bfeb-ef4120631fae.html

St. Louis Parent
http://3.129.246.20/story/your-familys-late-summer-adventure-2023-greenway-quest

Webster-Kirkwood Times
https://www.timesnewspapers.com/webster-kirkwoodtimes/greenway-quest/article_a48b04ac-3789-11ee-ace4-0f6a71294cf6.html

St. Louis Sprout and About
https://www.stlsprout.com/calendar/todays-events/eventdetail/260072/-/greenway-quest

KTRS 550AM interview with Dallas
https://ktrs.com/jenniferwendy/

Call Newspapers
https://callnewspapers.com/second-annual-greenway-quest-underway/

Fun4StlKids
https://fun4stlkids.com/component/jevents/eventdetail/0/-/-?Itemid=0&lang=en&rp_id=243683

Terrain
 https://terrain-mag.com/great-rivers-greenway-city-museum-greenway-quest/?mc_cid=4870910d00&mc_eid=47eaecd2e7 

Patch
https://patch.com/missouri/stlouis/calendar/event/20230826/0f03ba72-400b-4693-bbb4-ec624376fe46/the-greenway-quest-search-for-painted-bee-rocks?edited=1692999666332

Find out more about Greenway Quest at www.GreenwayQuest.com