SITUATION:

Waste Management of Louisiana, LLC, hired The Ehrhardt Group in 2004 to assist the company with a variety of public relation issues in metro New Orleans and south Mississippi.

The Ehrhardt Group's role with Waste Management expanded in the tragic aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

STRATEGIES:

The Ehrhardt Group developed and implemented media relations and public relations programs on behalf of the company that included media relations, community relations, issues management and public events.

Specifically following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, The Ehrhardt Group implemented a targeted media relations campaign to inform the public of revised collection schedules, company issues and collection information for residents. Tactics included daily collection updates on the unified radio broadcasters feed, regular interviews with New Orleans area television stations an face-to-face meetings with The Times-Picayune to discuss the company's efforts to attract additional workers and equipment from across the U.S.

RESULTS:

• Waste Management officials appeared daily for three weeks on the area's unified radio broadcast feed to provide collection updates.
• The Ehrhardt Group scheduled a series of television and print interviews for Waste Management spokesperson to address resident questions about collections following Hurricane Katrina and to showcase the company's efforts to gather outside human and financial resources to address the post-storm environment.
• The Ehrhardt Group drafted a series of collection updates for the WM website to update residents about collection progress.

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