On Monday, March 1, our agency President, Noreen Heron, was honored with the Massage Envy Chicagoland 2016 Street Fighter of the Year Award. Massage Envy has been a client for over a decade, and we wanted to share the beautiful speech given by the Franchise Director, Peter Carlson, at the awards ceremony.
What is the definition of a “street fighter?”
Merriam Webster: a tough belligerent person a political street fighter
Dictionary.com: a person whose style of fist fighting was learned in the streets, as opposed to a trained or proficient boxer.
Your Dictionary: Someone who takes part in Street fighting
Both Urban Dictionary and Wikipedia reference the video game that Nate Hudetz most likely plays…
Street fighting in the Massage Envy world takes outside the box thinking, non-traditional ways of getting business, Chair events, community events, etc.
Danette Mertz came in a number of years back from Potomac Yard in Arlington, Virginia to share best practices at the old Doubletree. She & Amani would approach people in shopping malls, churches and many other public places to hand out guest passes for their clinics. Lots of effort put in to go out and grass roots get guests & members… and if you worked for them, it was part of your job description.
We have had some very successful street-fighters in our own region; Rose Clancy with Dan’s Candy, Lori Gentile with a community bake sale and Michael Weiss supporting the fight against Autism are some that come to mind. I could go on and on!
I’m not sure we have ever had any one person who has done this for our brand more than this person:
Rather than read to you the laundry list of the millions of impressions she scored for us this year, a few legendary ones through-out her tenure stand out:
Coming up with a strategy to advocate to our legislatures to change the therapist time to get licensed through an op-ed article in Crain’s featuring a live story shared by Matt Klemp.
Getting nine live cut-in’s for the Yee’s Grand Opening from FOX TV centered around our Susan G. Komen national fundraising efforts.
Back to back years, getting -count them- 3 to 4 (each year) major Chicago TV & Radio segments for National Relaxation Day!
…and just off the wire this afternoon, scoring a live segment on WCIU for ways to cope with Stress for Tax Day!
It’s not just the out of the box things she produces, it’s getting through the clutter for our final gift card push the week before Christmas and scoring segments on major TV & Radio around the stress of the holidays and the benefits of massage therapy around that.
This person is more than a street fighter, she embodies what my old General Manager, John Remes used to say at KARE11, “one way or the other!”
She could run for Mayor in this town, she’s loved and treasured by her clients and the media.
No one that I know cares more about our brand and how we can make it grow here in the Windy City more than Noreen Heron!
Please, let’s give an incredible Chicago warm thank you to our very own street fighter, Noreen Heron!
