Concerned that the nation was forgetting the meaning of Memorial Day, The National WWII Museum worked with Peter Mayer’s public relations team to craft a poll gauging Americans’ familiarity with the military holiday. The results were unsettling: the poll revealed that 80 percent of us have little or no knowledge about the meaning of Memorial Day. The agency was tasked with bringing these numbers, and the Museum’s ideas for commemorating the day with a special website, to the media’s attention.

The team created a week’s worth of events, beginning with a flag-planting event at Chalmette National Cemetery, and capped by the opening of the Museum’s newest attraction: the John E. Kushner Restoration Pavilion. The building allows visitors the opportunity to go behind-the-scenes as skilled craftsmen and curators restore and repair macro-artifacts, like an authentic PT boat.

The efforts went national and included coverage on network television (ABC’s World News Now), radio (Wall Street Journal Radio), news stories from the Associated Press, USAToday.com, The Times-Picayune, and editorials in newspapers like The Oklahoman. For the Restoration Pavilion alone, the Museum garnered more than $80,000 worth of earned media.