Moms who needed a little “me-time.”

So New West decided this would be a good opportunity to reach out to these tech-savvy moms with some old-school human touch.

We teamed up with General Electric to show off some of GE’s new Profile™ Washer & Dryer pairs at the BlissDom conference in Nashville Jan. 27-28. These are beautiful machines, with all the latest technology, including “Overnight Ready” wash cycles that remove so much moisture you won’t even need to transfer to a dryer, plus a SmartDispense™ system that automatically adds just the right amount of detergent or fabric softener.

In other words, more me-time for the launderer.

And what does a busy woman do with a little free time? She goes to the spa! We decided to reach out to conference attendees through a spa atmosphere, complete with skilled professionals to provide neck massages and manicures.

To sweeten the pot even further, GE gave away a gorgeous new GE Profile™ washer and dryer to one of the attendees who dropped by the booth.

Bingo.

“How amazing was that massage? Loved it! Thx to GE, Opryland spa, and #Blissdom,” mommyinsider wrote on her Twitter page.

“I’m in a conference room…make your first stop the @GE suite where you can get a great massage! #blissdom I’ll meet ya’!” tweeted StressFreeBaby.

“Holy cow…I just saw the Bentley of washer dryers. @rationaltunes would die. GE profile (@GE_appliances),” said Twitter-happy looneytunes.

And on and on.

Now that’s what we’d call a clean sweep.

Hundreds of thousands of visitors explored the Kentucky Experience at the FEI Alltech World Equestrian Games.

The last four weeks have been a blur of activity here at New West. And before we light out to our next assignments, we thought we’d catch our breaths for a brief recap.

It all began with the load-in of all things Kentucky into The Kentucky Experience at the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. Two years in the planning, the three pavilions and courtyard gardens welcomed the 500,000-plus people who visited or participated in the Games at the Kentucky Horse Park. From Corvettes to crafts and bourbon to bluegrass bands – every item, every activity and every inch of space was carefully designed, decorated and displayed to showcase the best Kentucky has to offer. For 16 days, the International (and NBC-TV) “sun” shone bright on this Kentucky home! For that work, the Kentucky Department of Travel presented New West with its “Partner of the Year” award.  Thanks for the recognition. It was FUN!

Visitors to the Louisville Water Company's 150th anniversary celebration enjoyed a carriage ride. The historic Water Tower stands in the background.

While WEG was in high gear, we were also helping our friends at the Louisville Water Company prep for a big 150th anniversary celebration. The water branded Pure Tap by New West more than a decade ago was first delivered to businesses in what is now the Central Business District on October 16, 1860. Highlights of the celebration included tours of the magnificent buildings that water company leadership has carefully preserved and maintained over the years (photos) and carriage rides around the Water Tower property on River Road. And through May of 2011, visitors to The Frazier Museum in downtown Louisville will be treated to a display of LWC firsts, facts and artifacts (See http://www.fraziermuseum.org/).

New West helped celebrate a major economic development announcement as well.  Our writers, designers and event management teams helped our GE Appliances and Lighting client orchestrate some world-class good news. It began with an early October announcement at the GE Lighting plant in Bucyrus, Ohio, that will double its workforce over the next two years and ended just last week with the simultaneous announcement at four GE facilities in middle America involving hundreds of millions of dollars of new investment and hundreds of new jobs.

L-R: New West’s Maria Ladd and Becky Simpson, and our client, Steve Fung of General Imaging.

I don’t want to overstate this. I’m not going to say that cookies got us in front of 11 million people.

A client making a quality product, along with good, old-fashioned media relations, were the main ingredients behind our latest success story.

But let’s face it. Warm, chewy chocolate chip cookies, freshly baked and strategically placed every half an hour throughout your trade-show booth (you’re thinking about cookies right now, aren’t you?), can certainly be the – ahem – icing on the cake when it comes to capturing media attention in these days of overworked, underpaid, job-hanging-by-a-thread news people.

That’s why New West likes cookies.

A couple of weeks ago a team of New Westers headed, um, west to Las Vegas to coordinate and staff our client’s booth at the Photo Marketing Association trade show. We did all the usual stuff – preparing media kits, setting up meetings with industry writers, TV shows and bloggers, and working with the client to make sure the booth got finished – but then came the coup de grace: the cookies. So we fired up the portable oven and got to baking.

Within minutes, the smell of fresh cookies, Mom in the kitchen, home and childhood and everything else you hold dear was wafting out into the concrete abyss of the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center. And we saw that it was good. Reporters and analysts and buyers and sellers and, frankly, even our competitors, were suddenly finding reasons to drop by. One reporter in particular came by several times over the three-day show. “Man, those cookies are good,” he’d say each time. And each time we’d talk a little more about business.

A few days after I got home, that reporter emailed me:

Cary:

Gave ya a good ride this week. Thanks for the cookies!

And beneath his signature were the links to his tech column announcement about our client’s cameras – a column that appeared in 30 major newspapers around the United States. Total audience: 11 million people.

Again, I’m not going to say cookies did that. But I do think they greased the baking sheet. The point is, when you want your business to cook, every ingredient is essential.