Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy
A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.
Transforming America’s Housing Policy
Challenge: Conferences come and go—and they’re notoriously difficult to get media attention for. The Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University wanted to makes sure its conference on housing policy didn’t meet a similar fate.
Approach: Fenton developed and executed a communication strategy for the campaign that included naming and branding the event, “A Crisis is A Terrible Thing to Waste: Transforming America’s Housing Policy,” with a graphic identity and web site www.transformingamericashousingpolicy.org. We reached out to urban planning, real estate, and political reporters by billing the conference as a direct response to the nation’s foreclosure crisis and the collapse of financial institution and emphasized fresh solutions and big-name draws like then-new HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan.
Progress, Accelerated: The conference generated considerable buzz and media attendance by reporters from The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, Dow Jones, Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, NY1 News and WNYC, BusinessWeek, Economist, WBAI, CNBC, and Forbes.com. The policies and ideas put forward at the event continue to shape today’s housing debate.
