Episode Summary
Most PR wins are hard to see in real time. The brand building, the reputation work, the slow accumulation of coverage that eventually shifts how a client is perceived. Those results are often invisible until long after the campaign ends. Mitch Leff's World Cup campaign for the city of Decatur, Georgia was the opposite. The goal was clear: get people to the square. The measure of success was visible from day one. And by the time the Indigo Girls closed out the 34-day Watch Fest on the last night of the tournament, Mitch and his partner Kim Speece had delivered 170,000 attendees, daily media coverage for every single day of the World Cup, international press from Japan's Asahi Shimbun, features in Southern Living and Garden & Gun, and the best sales month in 29 years for one of Decatur's most beloved bars. Even more amazing, they did as two independent practitioners. There was no junior staff, no agency overhead, just decades of experience, meticulous timing, and a daily 8:30 pm video blast to TV stations so that the morning shows always had something to run. In this episode, Mitch joins Karen and Michelle to walk through how the campaign came together, how they set expectations without a baseline, how they managed story angles that didn't pan out, and what it means for the case that independent practitioners can do what large agencies do and do it with excellence.
Episode Highlights
[01:48] Saying Yes Without a Budget, Scope, or Timeline: Mitch's colleague Jen Johns called in the fall of 2024 with an idea for 34 days of World Cup programming in Decatur's newly renovated town square. No budget confirmed, no scope locked, no clear timeline beyond 'the World Cup is happening.' Mitch said yes anyway, drawn by the scale of what it could be and the relationship with Jen, who he'd worked with through years of sports-adjacent clients. His first proposal didn't even have a budget number in it. The plan and the funding came together in the months that followed.[04:00] Working Backwards from the Event: How to Build a 14-Month PR Timeline: Mitch and his colleague, Kim Speece sat down in spring 2025 and mapped the entire campaign backwards from the final night of the World Cup. Every announcement got its own milestone: the overall program launch, three separate band announcements for the headline acts, a cluster announcement for the smaller supporting performances, and a commissioned economic impact study from a professor at Emory's Goizueta Business School scoped specifically for Decatur. Each milestone had a deadline, and every deadline was worked backwards from the one that followed it.[06:10] When a Story Angle Doesn't Pan Out — and When Something Better Shows Up: Mitch had planned for the volunteer story as a strong visual element: hundreds of community volunteers being trained and deployed, a natural human-interest thread. It didn't work as well as expected as the training sessions were smaller and less visually compelling than he'd imagined. At the same time, an unplanned opportunity arrived on a Sunday morning: a founder of REM posted that he'd be sitting in with Drivin N Cryin at the Watch Fest the following evening. Mitch had an updated media advisory out that Sunday afternoon. The lesson he draws: you plan the story angles you know, you stay close enough to what's actually happening to catch the ones you didn't.[08:39] Turning a Crisis Risk Into a Proactive Story: Heat was on every event organizer's mind during the 2026 summer. When Atlanta media began running stories about fans passing out at Centennial Olympic Park, Mitch had a different story ready: everything Decatur had done to prepare. Misting stations. Shade coverage. Water stations. Paramedics and fire department staff on site, including the fire chief. He pitched the preparedness angle, booked the interviews, and turned a potential crisis narrative into a positive feature about a city that had planned ahead.[13:56] Setting Expectations and Baselines When You're Starting from Zero: The newly renovated Decatur Square had never hosted an event of this size. The fire department estimated a capacity of around 5,500 people. That became the planning number. For media expectations, Mitch told the client they should expect three of Atlanta's four TV stations at the launch press conference, plus the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and local radio. They got all four stations, an advance story in the AJC, significant radio coverage, and international press. Once it became clear that Decatur had a more organized and sustained program than any other city in the region, Mitch revised his projections upward, telling the client they'd get more coverage than originally planned, because the program itself had earned it.[16:00] Building Media Relationships Six Months Before You Need Them: One of Mitch's core principles for event PR: never let a reporter first hear about the event when the event is happening. Every journalist who might want to cover the Watch Fest knew about it six months in advance. The outreach spanned local, statewide, regional, national, sports, and travel media. The Chamber of Commerce, the Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Mayor's office, and elected officials were all on every distribution list, because they were fielding calls from other media and amplifying the reach. By the time the World Cup started, the reporters already knew. Mitch's job in the final weeks was to give them content, not context.[18:00] The Daily Blast That Made Morning Shows Easy to Say Yes To: Two weeks before the World Cup, Mitch and Kim began sending a weekly 10-day look-ahead to media. Once the tournament started, they added a daily blast: a brief note about what happened that day and what was happening the next day, with video of that evening's concert shot and delivered to TV stations by 8:3 0pm. Not a press release. Not even a full media advisory. Just here is what happened, here is what is coming, here is usable video for your 11 pm show and your morning block. Morning producers came in at 2 am and found the clip at the top of their inbox. Channel 69, the CBS affiliate, ran a drone shot of the Decatur Square on most mornings of the World Cup. That daily cadence is what made Decatur reliable, and reliable is what keeps reporters coming back.[20:16] Owning the Last Weekend When No One Else Was Doing Anything: As the World Cup wound down, Mitch checked the schedule and noticed that the downtown Fan Fest ended July 15th and nothing else was happening in Atlanta on the 18th and 19th. He told the client: we can own that weekend. The city of Atlanta ultimately announced a Ludacris concert in Piedmont Park for one of those nights, but the concert ended at 6 pm. The Indigo Girls at Decatur didn't start until 8 pm. Mitch made sure reporters knew that Decatur would be the closing act. Decatur is how the World Cup ends. By the time the Indigo Girls took the stage, the narrative was exactly what he'd pitched it to be.[22:07] Two Independents, No Agency Overhead, One Full Campaign: Michelle raises what the episode is really about: two independent practitioners, no junior staff, no agency infrastructure, and they delivered a campaign that the client said far exceeded their expectations. Mitch explained that knowing when to send a release at 11:30 pm instead of 3 am because you understand how morning producers work, knowing which story angles have visual legs and which don't, and having relationships with reporters built before you need them was the key to success. The budget didn't require a third person, and the experience of two senior people meant the judgment was there from day one. They split the days, set up a workspace on the square for managing other clients, and absorbed the overrun in June and July because that's what the work required.[29:34] What Mitch Is Most Proud of, and What the Numbers Don't Capture: Karen asks the question that goes beyond the data. Mitch's answer circles back to the relationship: a city manager and mayor who were responsive every single day, a client who consistently said the results were beyond what they'd imagined, and a square that was packed night after night with people who'd never been to Decatur before and will come back. The Brickstore Pub's best day in 29 years. A reporter flying in from Tokyo's Asahi Shimbun specifically to cover how smaller cities benefit from World Cup hosting. A morning when Mitch could watch the CBS affiliate run a drone shot of a full Decatur square at 5 am and know that the video he'd sent the night before was the reason it was on the air. And the last 20 minutes of the Indigo Girls set, when Mitch and Kim let themselves feel what they'd built and then started wondering what was next.About Mitch Leff
Mitch Leff is the founder and principal of Leff Associates, an Atlanta-based independent PR firm with more than four decades of experience in public relations, media strategy, crisis communications, and event PR. His work spans sports, government, nonprofit, and corporate communications — including the 1996 Atlanta Olympics — and he is widely recognized as one of Georgia's most connected and experienced independent practitioners. Mitch also leads the Georgia Independent Professionals Group, a community of solo and independent PR and communications professionals across the state. He is an active presence on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook, and is a frequent resource and connector for the Georgia independent PR community.
Website: leffassociates.com/our-team
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/leffassociates
Resources & Additional Information
Decatur Watch Fest 26: decaturwatchfest26.comLeff Associates: leffassociates.comGeorgia Independent Professionals Group: Connect via Mitch Leff on LinkedInSolo PR Pro membership community: soloprpro.comThat Solo Life podcast website: thatsololife.comHost & Show Info
That Solo Life is a podcast created for public relations, communication, and marketing professionals who work as independent and small practitioners. Hosted by Karen Swim, APR, President of Solo PR Pro, and Michelle Kane, Principal of Voice Matters, the show delivers expert insights, encouragement, and practical advice for solo PR pros navigating today's dynamic professional landscape.
Listen to all episodes and catch up on previous conversations at thatsololife.com.
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