With the assistance of Purple Strategies, the public relations firm hired by TWSHO and TWHNC, the facts about the Industry’s reform efforts are becoming part of the public conversation. Our message is getting out and with the new information in the public domain there has been an improvement in the media coverage surrounding the Tennessee Walking Horse Industry.

According to a September 18, 2012 media analysis there has been a 40% improvement in the favorability of the media coverage between August 19 to September 7.  This is a result of the proactive media outreach efforts implemented leading up to the 74th Annual Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration and continuing today.  For the first time ever we told our story and aggressively pushed the facts about the unprecedented safety reforms that we are implementing. It made a tangible difference.

To measure the tone of coverage, Purple Strategies analyzed 200 media clips (73 television, 91 print, 36 online). Each clip was ranked on a scale of one to five with one being “extremely unfavorable” and five being “extremely favorable”. At the beginning of August, the average favorability of coverage on a five-point scale was 2.5 (mostly unfavorable). By the end of the Celebration, the average favorability had risen a full point to 3.5. This increase equates to a 40% improvement in media favorability.

In addition to the improvement in the tone of the hard news stories, we have received great results from our efforts to push human interest stories. These stories included an initiative to contact local newspapers in the hometowns of all the winners at the Celebration. To date, approximately 25% of those newspapers have printed stories about their local winners.
 
This is proof that when we tell our story and inform the public of the facts about our efforts to clean up the sport and protect the horse we win. This is just the beginning and with continued efforts we will continue to see positive results.