Archives: Case Studies

Catholic Charities Brooklyn & Queens faced the challenge of communicating with multiple audiences, each with different needs, across multiple platforms. In addition to providing a place where people in need, donors, volunteers, and advocates can all come engage with CCBQ, they also needed to provide access to over 160 different programs.

Our solution was a mobile-first website that allows visitors to easily navigate through a variety of services based on their needs, making it easy for donors to support CCBQ and clients to get help.

Through the use of Google Tag Manager, we monitor the performance of the site, routinely looking for frustration points where customers leave the site, in order to improve the customer experience.

Visit ccbq.org to see how you might help a person in need in Brooklyn or Queens.

Tags Charities, Development

The Catholic academies of Brooklyn and Queens exemplify excellence in education, but that is a difficult story to position in secular media news outlets.

Our Press Secretary knows how news stories work, having worked on that side of the business for 25 years. Each newscast needs a kicker (feature) segment at the end, and we positioned it perfectly for that. It ended up airing on New York 1, and we also secured coverage on QNS.com: “Queens students sweep top prizes in Diocese of Brooklyn’s annual public speaking contest.”

student and teacher at public speaking competition

Tags Diocese, Education, Schools

Emmy-nominated Ring of Faith is a DeSales Studios documentary that explores the role of religion among boxers. But an interesting topic and an Emmy nomination aren’t always enough to generate buzz.

You have a shiny, new thing. It’s unique, it’s upbeat, it has local and wider interest, you have those involved ready to be interviewed, and you’ve got great video and photos of it. So, what do you do? You write a press release, in hopes of getting a response and ultimately media coverage. But nothing happens. What next?

Realizing that feature stories like this are evergreen, we started leveraging our contacts in the news business. And it simply becomes the art of the follow-up. Our tenacity paid off, and we were rewarded with great coverage on New York 1.

Tags Documentary

Our news outlets, Currents News and The Tablet, broke the story of a scammer posing as priests and trying to get parishioners’ money.

Our Press Secretary and Deputy Press Secretary immediately were on the case, calling the parish priests and trying to get access to the victim parishioners who had been taken advantage of by scammers. It was difficult getting access to the victims–until the Deputy Press Secretary was also targeted by the thief! And to top it off, the scammer impersonated the Bishop himself.

From there, we were able to blow the story wide open. We engaged the media, securing coverage across secular news outlets:

CBS2: Brooklyn Church Parishioners Targeted By Texting Scam Posing As Local Pastors, Bishops

NBC 4 New York: Scammers Take Advantage of Church Goers

NY1 Noticias: (Spanish) Fieles Catolicos son Estafadoes con Mensajes de Texto

Telemundo:(Spanish) – Estafa a feligreses

PIX 11 News: Warning issued after gift card texting scam nets thousands from Brooklyn, Queens churchgoers

News 12 Brooklyn: Police: Scammers pose as pastors, send texts to ask for donations

Qns.com: Diocese of Brooklyn warns several Queens parishes have been targeted by telephone scammers

Daily News: Unholy crooks target Brooklyn and Queens churchgoers in fishing scam by pretending to be bishop

DeSales Media is able to generate coverage of meaningful Catholic stories on behalf of the Diocese of Brooklyn and its parishes. We do this through in-house coverage by our own news brands, and through our Press Secretaries working with secular media.

In the case of Our Lady of the Skies, Currents News first covered the parish, which is a chapel in JFK’s Terminal 4

The Tablet then covered it, and that coverage ultimately led to New York 1 picking up the story.

New York 1 – Catholic Priest Finds His Congregation at JFK Airport

In another case, we put out a press release to alert the media about the big rededication Mass happening at Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary parish. This is a joyous moment in the life of the Church, and we knew it would be a packed house–telling and also showing the true story that the faith is alive and well, even in the hipster-est areas of our own Brooklyn, NY.

Check out the coverage in the Brooklyn Paper – Oh, holy site! Brooklyn bishop hosts ceremony to reopen Williamsburg church

Tags Diocese, Parish

Generations of Faith was the Diocese of Brooklyn’s capital campaign, from 2015 through 2017, which raised $120M+ in pledges, $80M+ of which has been collected to date.

We at DeSales Media created the visual language of the campaign, from conception, logo, fonts, colors and iconography, through execution across many media and formats:

For the full announcement text from the Diocese of Brooklyn, click here. You can still visit the campaign’s webpage at:

https://catholicfoundationbq.org/generations.

Tags Fundraising

“It’s Never Just a Selfie” launched Christmas 2014, encouraging people to return to Mass. The execution was part of a larger campaign for the Diocese of Brooklyn, inviting people of Brooklyn and Queens to find and visit their closest church.

Check out all of the different executions across the campaign at https://dioceseofbrooklyn.org/news/christmascampaign2014.

Tags Promotion

Watch the Colbert Report coverage for “The Original Hipster,” part of an Easter 2013 campaign called “All Faces. Everyday Understanding.” for the Diocese of Brooklyn. The goal was to increase Mass attendance, especially among Millenials.

Hipster Jesus reached 2.6M+ media impressions. You can read Bishop DiMarzio’s article about the campaign, or check out all media coverage from CNN, The Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal, CBS, TIME, and more here: https://dioceseofbrooklyn.org/all-faces-press .

Tags Easter, Promotion

In the spirit of diocesan collaboration, the Archdiocese of New York (from Ulster County to Staten Island), the Diocese of Brooklyn (the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens), and the Diocese of Rockville Centre (Nassau and Suffolk counties) participate in a joint Reconciliation Monday campaign most Lent and Advent seasons since 2009.

Reconciliation Monday, traditionally the Monday of the Lenten Holy Week, has become a focal point of engaging Catholics – practicing and non-practicing – in the Sacrament of Confession, shortly after Timothy Cardinal Dolan was installed as the premiere of the Archdiocese of New York. Nowadays, the Marketing Services team at DeSales Media and the Marketing department of the Archdiocese of New York trade off handling the creative concept and execution, as well as promotion distribution among the dioceses.

But the very first execution predates even the founding of DeSales: the 2009 campaign for confessions, still active at https://soulwow.com/.

Each season, the approach changes, but the invitation remains the same: come to confession this Lenten or Advent season, to prepare yourself fully to receive the True Presence of the Eucharist this coming Easter or Christmas.

Christmas 2017 was a banner season for the annual call to confession, as DeSales renewed its Put Him on Your List campaign–but this time included the participation of all eight dioceses from New York State. Check out the original song by Kei-Landa, accompanying music video and TV ad spot at www.PutHimOnYourList.org.

Tags Lent, Promotion