Digging Out A Story ...

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Most of our client campaigns include the mainstream media as a target audience.

More than the sheer reach, there’s a certain cachet that comes from landing in Fortune, The New York Times or TIME.

Which brings me to a specific article in TIME with the headline, “Made (Again) in the U.S.A. Why firms like Jarden are bringing work back from China.”

To appreciate the storytelling techniques applied by Jarden, it’s useful to understand a little bit about Jarden’s business.

In short, Jarden manufactures goods ranging from that always exciting product category called sponges to canning jars to football helmets. The products might be labeled by a third party or one of their own brands.

Jarden Firm

There’s a reason no TV show exists called “Real Executives of Rye, New York.”

That’s what makes cracking TIME so impressive.

Rather than extol the joy of canning your own fruit, the company packaged a story that plays counter to the perception that stuff can get made cheaper in Asia.

In contrast to outsourcing manufacturing for the supposed benefit of cheaper labor, Jarden has started to insource and bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.

Jarden tells its story with numbers:

“This year Jarden will insource $100 million of goods, about 4 million items …”

and with anecdotes:

“That includes worth carbon-fiber softball bats, now in full-swing production in Caledonia, Minnesota,; marine-antenna castings in Greenville, S.S.; Quickie mops and brooms that have swept into Lumberton, N.C.; and a new line of Rawlings footballs that will touch down in Springfield, Mo.”

Naturally, I like the clever verbs.

But the real key to the story lies in positioning Jarden as a symbol of an industry trend.

Consider this-

Only 1% of Jarden’s workforce or roughly 200 jobs have been added from insourcing.

It’s the idea that this could be the start of manufacturing jobs returning to the U.S. – with data quantifying the increasing cost of overseas labor and the increasing cost of shipping – that landed Jarden in TIME.

Trends, not products, resonate with the mainstream media.


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