. The Transom .

Changes to The Transom

2009-02-23T08:06:00.000-08:00

It's been far too long since my last post, both because I'm also now writing our agency blog (www.caccauldron.com) and for a personal issue that has now come to pass. I am committed to continue The Transom but am going to expand it to not just marketing issues, but greater business issues of the day.

As such, I had the opportunity to present a social media workshop to the Missouri Credit Union Association last week. It was both a rewarding and engaging experience and while I passed on a lot of useful information to the attendees, I also learned a lot about the workings of credit unions and how they differ from traditional banks. One of the key similarities to the credit union business and my business of public relations, is a complete lack of understanding by the vast majority of potential customers, or potential members in the case of credit unions. There is a clear financial advantage for most people to use credit unions, yet the overwhelming majority of people do not. There is a clear advantage to utilizing a more robust public relations approach to marketing, yet most companies fail to understand.

When it comes to public relations, most people have the Hollywood understanding of the business - media publicists or spin doctors. While there are a few of these rats running around calling themselves PR people, in truth they are publicists, and there is a big difference. And when it comes to credit unions, most people still think of them as exclusive, private organizations that only 5% of people can get in. In reality, more than 80% of consumers qualify for membership in a credit union.

I would bet that most people would do themselves a favor by exploring a little intellectual curiosity every now and then. Stop and ask yourself, is this the best way to do it or am I doing it this way because everyone else does? Is this the best place for my money or my budget, or am I spending it like this because it's what I am familiar with? Those companies and people that choose to do a sliver of homework on the subjects find great benefit in their new choices. I bet you can too.

Tips for Holiday Downtime

2008-12-16T08:35:00.000-08:00

Many businesses shut down operations or have so few client obligations that the days can be pretty slow for those of us that find ourselves at work when everyone else is on vacation or closed for the holidays.

This year I’d like to offer a few tips on how to spend a few minutes a day getting more up to speed with the world of social media. When your co-workers or clients come back after the holiday, you can impress them with your now-working knowledge of the subject.

Tip #1 – Do a Google blog search (http://blogsearch.google.com) on your company, your competitors or your products. Read through some of what’s being said. Write down the name of the two blogs that have the most discussion about your search. Come back a day or two later and see how the conversation has progressed.

Tip #2 – Go to http://search.twitter.com. Search using the same criteria as Tip #1. You are now searching Twitter for what people are saying in real time. This should give you a glimpse of the conversations happening about your company, brand or competitor that you couldn’t have known about before.

Tip #3 – Visit Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org). Search for companies, brands, people, etc. Encyclopedia Britannica is 97% accurate. Wikipedia is 94%. If your company or major products aren’t listed, ask your PR department why. In 90% of Google searches, Wikipedia information shows up in the top five results.

Bitten by the two-headed snake

2008-09-08T13:13:00.001-07:00

There is a saying in our agency about being 'bitten by the two-headed snake.' It's an entertaining story and an example of how our business sometimes works.

Several years ago we represented ConAgra. During one particularly bad summer in St. Louis, the largest local food bank announced that it was nearly out of food and as a result, hundreds of homeless people and those dependent on the food bank would be left to fend for themselves. We told ConAgra about the situation and they decided to deliver three 52' trailers full of food to the food bank. This represented hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of food the company was donating - a very worthy media story.

We contacted all the local media and let them know when the drop would be made. We had a lead executive come in from Omaha for a speech. We directed camera crews where to go for the best shots of the food being delivered, and had the mayor lined up to talk about the food crisis in the city. It was beautiful. Until the day of the drop...

Our press conference was scheduled for 11:00am. We had confirmations from every TV station, every paper and radio station that they would attend to cover the event. At 9:00am that morning, the St. Louis Zoo announced that it had found a live two-headed snake and would be showing it off at, you guessed it, 11:00am. And because the media think that a freak of nature is a better story than a company literally saving the lives of hundreds of helpless people, we got shafted on our event. The local business journal was the only media to attend and cover the event. The Zoo was front page news for two days.

Ever since that day, when something happens that you can't control no matter how good or compelling a clients' story may be, we say that we were 'bitten by the two-headed snake.'

Say what?

2008-08-26T15:02:00.001-07:00

For a tour that is, in reality, struggling to compete for sponsors and ad revenue, the LPGA's latest announcement is quite a shock. As of next season, all players will be required to pass an oral English exam. Apparently, too many foreign players were winning events and sponsors didn't like handing out trophies by way of an interpreter.

It seems an odd move to me, given the fact that so many foreign players have done very well on tour. Both the PGA and LPGA tout how 'international' they are, thus the most dominant tours because 'this is where the best from around the world come to play.' If the players fail the test, they get suspended.

The last time I checked, hitting a golf ball from here to there in the fewest number of strokes doesn't require an English proficiency. What is going to be the rule for players who are deaf and have to use sign language? Will they get automatic suspensions?

This just reeks of an American tour being threatened by 'foreigners.' If the LPGA didn't want interpreters helping the golfers with interviews, maybe the American players should take some swing lessons from the Koreans and get in the winners circle more often.

NFL reputation keeps getting better and better

2008-07-16T11:13:00.001-07:00

Just when I thought the reputation of the NFL couldn't get any worse, I read about its latest venture. The NFL has actually hired 'experts' to spot and stop players from flashing gang signs during televised games. This of course leads one to believe that a) many NFL players are active gang members, b) the gang activity is so rampant that 'experts' need to be hired to spot it, and c) did I mention many NFL players must be active gang members?

For a league that spends millions of dollars in advertising trying to convince the public that it's players are socially responsible, active in the community, and good people, it sure seems like a waste of money. I guess they got the 'active in the community' part right, they just didn't expect gang activity to constitute "the community."

And they didn't explain who these 'experts' are but I'm dying to know who promotes their services in such a way that is searchable for something like this. Can you imagine the interview process? An NFL executive sits across the table from the candidate quizzing him by flashing gang signs. "What's this mean?" "Who am I dissing now?"

Ridiculous.

The Greatest Marketing Challenge of the 21st Century

2008-07-15T10:55:00.000-07:00

Because of the recent InBev acquisition of Anheuser-Busch, we get to sit back and watch probably the greatest marketing challenge of the 21st century. On one hand, we have an iconic American brand that stands for America as much as it stands for beer. It has been family owned and operated since before the Civil War. It positioned itself against its competitors as truly American when they were bought by foreign interests. It is currently running advertisements all over creation claiming to be "The Great American Lager." It is, as its recent acquiring CEO Carlos Brito panned it, "America in a bottle."

Now on the other hand we have Mr. Brito's company, InBev, an international beer behemoth that is known for keeping brands but destroying acquired companies through extreme cost cutting and cultural gutting. Through whatever reasons, AB let itself be put in the position to be acquired, and InBev was as prepared as any company to do it. Striking quickly and openly, InBev got its trophy.

So the great marketing challenge of course is how to convince the American public that now being owned by a foreign company is a good thing and Budweiser is still the King of Beers, American, family-oriented, etc. Of course, the stockholders don't care. They just made a pile of cash. But is that worth an iconic American brand?

All eyes for the next 12-18 months will be on Anheuser-Busch InBev's marketing department and agencies as they try to achieve the nearly impossible.

InBev vs. Anheuser-Busch: Which Buffett Are You?

2008-06-17T14:54:00.000-07:00

As with most great debates, the InBev / Anheuser-Busch potential buyout ranks up there with most presidential political discussions, at least here in St. Louis. I just learned that two influential heavy hitters are on opposite sides of the debate. On the side of InBev, throwing his weight behind the merger is icon investor Warren Buffett. On the side of Anheuser-Busch is icon crooner, Jimmy Buffett, which begs the question... which Buffett are you?

Sarah Steelman: gun provider for minors

2008-06-13T11:43:00.000-07:00

Sarah Steelman, who is running for Governor in Missouri, just bought her 13-year-old son a rifle. In fact, she brought the media along for the shopping spree just so she could make a point about her belief in the second amendment. After a brief speech on why hand cannons are a good idea for any American, she let her young boy pick out a stick of death. I wondered about this curious action that some would call a monumental lack of judgement or parenting, so I went online to www.sarahsteelman.com to check out her beliefs. Turns out her website lists only three at this point, gun control not being one of them. So I called her office. I wanted to ask if she had bought her 13-year-old son a cell phone yet. I'm guessing not, which makes it only more ridiculous that any child would own a gun before a phone, but that's just a guess. No one at her office answered. Probably out teaching her son how to kill things. If you want to call her office and ask, the number is 573-635-5385.

The curious part about her beliefs is that she is (obviously) pro gun, but also very much pro-life. This position has always perplexed me as a voter. Is she saying that we shouldn't kill unborn kids, instead waiting until they are older so they can be shot?

In terms on managing a reputation, whether on a campaign trail or not, hawking your 13-year-old son for purposes of publicity ranks right up there with selling your grandmother for prostitution. And in terms of her priorities, check out what's working on her site. There is nothing under News/Events. And apparently she only cares about three issues. But if you want to send her money or be a volunteer, both of those sections are working perfectly. She might think she knows how to manage Missouri, but until she figures out how to manage her reputation, she isn't getting my vote.

Papa John's customer service gets an A+

2008-06-12T08:56:00.000-07:00

After ordering two pizzas online for my staff last week from Papa John's, I was told that delivery would be within 30-45 min. Ok, not too bad. I ordered at 11:45 and expected delivery sometime around 12:30. Well 12:30 comes and goes, and then 1:15 comes and goes. I made a call around 12:45 and was told it was already on its way. Finally, at 1:25 the pizza shows up.

But that's when the bad news ended. I went online to the PJ's customer feedback section and filled out my complaint form. Thinking this would get me nowhere, since that had been my historical truth with any other company, I explained the situation in detail, more for my venting purposes than expectations of anything on PJ's side. I hit the Submit button and went back to my cold (but still tasty) pizza.

About two hours later, I received an automated email saying my complaint was received and sorry for the inconvenience. I assumed this was the end of the line. I was wrong.

The next day I received a call from Papa John's corporate office saying how sorry they were that I had a bad experience. I was told my complaint was sent to the local store of purchase and that I could expect a call in the next few days. Yesterday I received a call from the store manager saying that she was out of town last week, but just got back and say my complaint. She apologized for my experience and immediately offered two free pizzas for my trouble. I didn't even have to pay twenty-three cents. Free!

So let this be a lesson to other customer facing organizations. Whether you sell pizza or widgets, there are two key lessons here that Papa John's aced. First, have a place for customer feedback. Nothing is more annoying than wanting to complain and not being able to. Second, actually follow up with upset customers. I didn't ask for or expect free pizza, but PJ offered it because they want my business and knew I was upset.

Will I order from Papa John's again? You bet.

"Adverleading" and the NBA Finals

2008-06-09T05:26:00.000-07:00

In watching game 2 of the NBA Finals last night, I recognized another example of the difference between today's advertising and PR. This example isn't limited to the NBA, but most professional sporting events. Many major American professional team sports (NBA, NFL, etc) have professional cheerleaders. One could argue that their purpose would be to lead the crowd in cheering for their team. One could further argue that it's their responsibility to get the crowd pumped up. However, professional sports cheerleading and advertising share similar traits.

First, no one goes to an NBA game to watch the cheerleaders. We're there for the game. The game and the players are the PR. The cheerleaders and stadium announcer are advertising. Sure, the cheerleaders are fun to look at and provide 'entertainment' when there is a break in the action, but they don't really serve their original purpose. Take last night for example. Kevin Garnett of the Boston Celtics goes in hard and slam dunks over Kobe Bryant, drawing a foul. It was a critical point in the game. As he walks toward the free throw line, he waves his hands in the air, signaling to the crowd to get louder. And the crowd responds. Why? Because their player is a) talking directly to them, b) genuinely wants support, and c) is the reason the fans are there in the first place. So why aren't the cheerleaders effective? Because no one pays attention to them. We know they want us to cheer. They are paid to, theoretically, get us to cheer. It's overt sales.

Advertising has the same dilemma today. It used to work. It used to be persuasive. Today it's mostly just eye candy. The world has changed. "Adverleading" has not.

How much does service cost?

2008-06-05T15:05:00.000-07:00

A little while ago I went car shopping with a friend. He was looking at a Honda and a Ford. Long story short, we never made it to the Ford dealership because he bought the Honda. But what struck me about the Honda dealership was their service... or lack of service.

Once we parked and walked into the showroom, no one greeted us, the receptionist at the desk made eye contact but didn't say hello or get up. Several salespeople were in their offices, yet no one came out. We snooped around and sat in the Honda S2000 (my friend's eventual purchase). After determining that he wanted to take a test drive, I walked up to the receptionist desk and asked if any salespeople worked here. She turned to the first office on her left and asked loudly, "Dave, are you busy?"

"Are you busy?" Did she really just ask if someone was too busy to sell a car? The service bar was set and never went north of mediocre from there on out. But the car won the day in my friend's eyes, not the 'service.'

I drive a Lexus. Until the Honda visit, I didn't fully appreciate the service that goes with that purchase. I'm always greeted promptly, offered a beverage or if I'm waiting, an office in which to make calls or plug in my laptop. There are complimentary soft drinks, coffee, tea and bagels. When I'm speaking with anyone from the service tech to the salesperson, I'm always treated promptly and with respect.

I know that Honda isn't Lexus. But does it cost that much more to have your salespeople show interest, to make the customer feel, oh I don't know, appreciated? Honda failed that test miserably. And that's partly why brands like Honda, Ford, or Nissan will be stuck in lower priced markets. It would cost next to nothing to improve customer service and would allow them to charge a premium.

InBev puts Anheuser-Busch reputation to task

2008-05-29T09:55:00.000-07:00

Being located in St. Louis, I hear more than the normal amount of chatter regarding the InBev merger with Anheuser-Busch. Some would call it a takeover, but that's just semantics. In my opinion, this deal puts AB's marketing reputation to the test. Should it go through, will Budweiser still be the great American beer? Or will it be the once great American beer that now takes orders from Europe? This also brings up a few questions, most noticeably, does the average beer drinker really care? In the short term my vote is no. The taste of the beer will remain unchanged. The additional distribution channels will make it more available. That's all good. Where AB beer drinkers will start to see change is in the price, and the marketing. Remember how much flak Miller got when it was bought by SAB? AB can no longer play the American marketing game. It won't be credible, and it might even turn some people off.

August Busch IV has openly said he isn't real keen on the idea of a deal with InBev. But the financials make a lot of sense so far and AB shareholders would make a good lump of cash. But the brand would be forever changed. Thus the balancing act that AB must perform: maintain the heritage of the brand, or live by the numbers. As a Cardinals fan, I don't think I could get used to the team playing in InBev Stadium...

(note to all in the know... I'm aware AB no longer owns Busch Stadium. Cut me some creative license slack)

I work in the Kleenex industry

2008-05-08T13:01:00.000-07:00

I was reminded today of how it feels to be Kleenex. You know, the brand name that everyone uses to describe facial tissue. There are other brands in this category of course. Google is quickly becoming one. When telling someone to perform a web search, how many times do we say "just Google it?"

When reading a story about Papa John's selling 23 cent pizzas in Cleveland, I scanned down through the comments. Most of them were benign, saying how great or horrible the pizza was. But a good 25% of them pointed out what great 'free advertising' or 'advertising gimmick' this was for Papa John's. Many cited how the lost revenue from the pizzas would be made up by the free advertising.

Someone show me the advertising that Papa John's is getting from this.

I see a crap-load of publicity, but not a single ad. And that's when I started to feel like my industry was like the branded snot rags. People make use of what we do every day. They count on us, depend on us, expect us to be there. And then they call what we do, 'advertising.' (sigh)

Oh well, back to Googling...

What to do when objectives don't gel with preference

2008-05-05T15:09:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wanted a pair of shoes that looked really great, but when you tried them on they hurt like crazy? You then have to make the form vs. function decision. Look great in pain or be comfortable in lesser appealing shoes. Sometimes the same happens in the PR business.

We worked with a cell phone company that was headed by an older guy who loved seeing stories about the company in the newspaper. Loved it. Thought it was the most important coverage. And we scored some really outstanding local and national print coverage for him during our relationship with the organization. But we also got a lot of great local and national broadcast and online placements. In fact, probably three times more than print. And we got ultimately got fired because of it.

The problem was the company, under the direction of its fierce tempered CEO, was entirely focused on newspaper coverage, because that's what the CEO read. Pay no attention to the fact that the very people buying the phones and service plans could barely read, much less sat down to read the paper. The company's consumers listened to the radio, watched TV and went online. In a traditional demographic study, 10% of the target audience group read a paper on a 'semi-regular' basis. Yet that's where we were instructed to target our efforts, with the objective of increasing sales.

When brought up, countless times, that this was not in the best interest of the company objectives, we were told to just bring in the print because that's what was important, statistics be damned. And because we constantly fought for a little thing I like to call 'reality' we ended up losing the business and the relationship.

When it comes to marketing 'shoes' you can only last in the painful eye-catchers for so long. And you'll know when that time comes. It's when you have to walk the talk. The rest is just show and tell.

thanks to Jon Sloane for the idea

The tide might finally be turning with B2B social media

2008-04-24T13:58:00.001-07:00

I had the opportunity today to speak to members of the IABC St. Louis chapter (International Assoc of Business Communicators). The topic was how to use social media to advance business goals. I'm always amazed at the number of people in our business who don't know about, follow, or participate in social media and use the many tools available. But today was different. It seemed that most of the attendees were past the "what's a blog" stage and wanted to know how to take these tools and use them.

I had some great side conversations about what companies are doing, struggles they are coming up against, and ideas about how to use social media as an alternative. The one overwhelming feeling in the room was that businesses shouldn't get into social media just for the sake of it. It seems the tide as finally turned from every company jumping in without a strategy or understanding to pulling back and saying, "what's the real business reason we're doing this?" And that's a good thing.

The Marketer's Gardener

2008-04-15T20:22:00.000-07:00

Listening to the radio today, I heard a woman talk about gardening and the joy it brought her. She described the feeling of her fingers digging into the soil, the smell of the crisp air, the sense of peace she received, and how she felt closer to God and to life. Now I must confess, I don't feel this way about gardening. I find it annoying, difficult, frustrating, and incredibly boring. I'd rather smash a hammer into my skull than do planting, pull weeds, pluck vegetables, flowers or anything else that resides in dirt.

However, the feeling she gets from gardening, I get from other activities, like golf. I enjoy the sense of nature, the sounds of birds chirping in the early morning or late afternoon, the time to get lost in thought, and all the other aspects of the game that make it one of my most favorite activities. And I understand that to some people, they would rather hammer their skull than play a silly game like golf.

And thus I'd like to introduce a rule of marketing that is often overlooked, ignored, or simply not believed. You can't please the marketer's gardener. I've tried gardening. I honestly tried to enjoy it. But it sucks. You couldn't pay me to do it.

All the best marketing in the world isn't going to get me to like gardening. If I'm the traditional marketer, and I get feedback that Client X doesn't like gardening, I might try to change my message, or my delivery method, or some other waste of time and money that will end up with the same result. I don't like gardening.

And yet marketers try so hard, in fact many consider it a challenge, to try and convert a non-believer. New ads are created, more focus groups formed, new research, blah blah blah. Anything will be attempted to make me a believer. But you know what? Gardening sucks.

There are a lot of customers out there. Many semi-non-believers that will benefit from creative marketing with a new angle of attack. Some will convert. But save your time and money on the marketer's gardener. All you'll get is worms.

Kobe Bryant makes image blunder - le'ts focus on the real problem

2008-04-11T07:31:00.000-07:00

We already knew that Kobe Bryant's judgment wasn't the greatest after his Colorado-mistress reputation and relationship disaster. In the face of that situation, and the need to rebuild his brand as a reputable and trustworthy sports figure, you'd think he would go out of his way to not put himself in a position to look foolish. However, numerous jokes and one-liners about the kind of players that populate today's NBA aside, Kobe has done it again with this video released on YouTube.

In it we see Kobe hawking his latest sneaker (doesn't EVERYONE have their own shoe these days??). He straps on his boot and mutters "don't try this at home" under his breath. He then walks a few steps away, signals to someone and leaps over an Aston Martin as it tries to run him over. After much celebrating and chest bumping with his boy, he looks in the camera, says "that's how we do it" and then again, "don't try this at home," as he walks off camera.

Amazingly, the online debate right now is whether or not the video is real and whether or not he actually pulled off the stunt. To me, the discussion should focus around a professional athlete seemingly putting himself in the face of death and giving a lot of good kids a really bad idea about recreating the stunt. How long will it be until we read about some young boy killed after getting run down by a car attempting to do the same stunt? It's just stupid on the part of Kobe to use his reputation for this. Sure it's impressive. Sure it's a cool trick. But he's a finely tuned professional athlete that jumps for a living. The high school kid that has half Kobe's vertical leap and probably twice his brains is gonna get flattened.

Bad move, Kobe. By showcasing your ups, you highlight your judgment, or lack thereof.

Branding: Shifting gears

2008-04-07T10:13:00.000-07:00

Marketing is sometimes a reflection of life in general. You try to build relationships with people, get them to trust you, show them you're worthy of their time and attention, and then if successful, try to maintain that brand loyalty. But sometimes you lose their trust and you market to them in ways that they don't like. It is during these times that your brand equity is put to the test. If you were good to them before, if you did your best to provide a good product, perhaps they will continue to listen to your message and not write you off completely.

Too many times marketers will try to oversell in the wake of a big snafu. Sometimes it's best to just ride it out and let the customer remember the good 'ol days. Things weren't always bad. All brands change in the face of profits, generations, or culture. Sometimes you lose certain demographics in that change. Sometimes they follow the brand.

Many brands have thrived when they take a new marketing direction. Some fall flat on their face because they failed to plan or were naive to the market. Before taking a brand in a new direction, make sure you know what you're getting into. Loyal customers are loyal to the brand they know, and you'll need to make them loyal again to the reinvented one.

Brand equity - a business insurance policy

2008-03-10T18:33:00.000-07:00

Potential clients and people outside the industry ask me all the time, is there really anything to what I say about the value of brand equity or is it just marketing speak? Consider this recent news that involves Tiger Woods, arguably the hottest brand on the planet.

Tiger is part of a national promotion from Buick that has the prize of a 9-hole round of golf at Torrey Pines with Woods as your caddie. That's right, the greatest golfer the world has ever seen, the man who commands more than $100 million a year in endorsement deals, one of the only people on the planet who is recognized by nearly everyone in any nation, will huff your bag around for 9 holes. Some would ask, why in the world would he lower himself to this position of servitude? Why would he devalue his brand by going from star athlete to Sherpa Woods?

Because the equity in his brand turns this potential negative into a positive that adds more equity to the brand. Now consider a lower equity player pulling the same stunt. Let's pick on Jay Williamson, an exceptionally nice man, fellow St. Louisan, and nearly moderately average professional golfer. If you're saying, who's Jay Williamson, you're not alone, but check out pgatour.com. He's a real guy.

So let's say Jay pulls this stunt and Buick makes the same promotion, offering to have Williamson on your bag. First of all, the promotion would read, "PGA TOUR veteran Jay Williamson" or "PGA Tour professional Jay Williamson" will carry your bag... etc etc. There would be that disclaimer of having to tell people a) who is he, and b) why they should care. In Woods' case, everyone already knows that a) he's a PGA Tour player, and b) they would give their left arm to meet him.

Additionally, reactions to Williamson on the promotion would likely be greeted with thoughts of, "Gee, he must be hard off to lower himself to this stunt," or "someone is desperate for publicity." Not so in Woods' case. His brand is so money that he could offer to mow your yard and people would pay thousands to see it.

So does brand equity work as well for law firms, or manufacturing companies, or retail stores as well as it does for Tiger Woods? You bet it does. Work on building your brand equity today to save, and make, time and money tomorrow.

The difference between what companies say and what they want

2008-03-09T08:42:00.000-07:00

This probably falls under the 'repeating the obvious' category, but I feel it's worth bringing up. We have recently been involved with several new business pitches, from very large opportunities to fairly modest. In almost every instance, what we are told the client-to-be is looking for is in fact not at all what they really want. This can cause many problems, most obviously hiring a firm that will do what they were told, but not what is needed. It also wastes an incredible amount of time on both the agency and client side. When the client is putting together an RFP, it's usually written in marketing-speak. That is, the client wants this or that from a marketing perspective. They want to see examples of good creative, they want an understanding of our understanding of strategy, they want to see past media results, etc etc.

What I see very few, if any, clients doing is really checking references. Sure, they all ask for three references, but I've yet to run across more than one company that has actually called any of our references. Not that past performance is a huge indicator of future results, but working relationships and the personal nature of our business would suggest a need for a few questions to people that worked with us previously.

Additionally, very few clients focus on business results. Sure, they want to see them, but it isn't usually a part of the discovery process. They are more excited about what kind of success we've had with which media outlet. What they should be concerned about is whether or not we made an impact on our clients' business. The rest is just dressing. Either we helped a company grow or we didn't. Sometimes helping a company grow can mean keeping it from shrinking, but that's another topic altogether.

So this is a call to all potential clients out there asking you to please look at what's really important instead of what's easy to glitz on a PowerPoint presentation. Everyone has fancy show and tell. Not every firm has measurable results. If you're just getting stacks of clips or anecdotal responses to program effectiveness, you're wasting a lot of time and money.

Breaking news that really isn't

2008-03-06T08:32:00.000-08:00

It isn't often that I pick on Edelman. I mean, its a huge company that wins a lot of business and generally does good work. But as with many large businesses, such pressures can lead to questionable decisions and morally wrong actions. Edelman has suffered its fair share of each.

Edelman just released some news informing the world that it has merged three of its digital lines of business into one new unit, Edelman Digital. That's not real exciting news. What's interesting is this new LOB's revolutionary new mission to provide 'authentic communication.' Lets pause for thought....

So Edelman, the world's largest independent PR firm, has just realized the key to the game is actual honest to God authentic communication and not just a bunch of bullshit spin. Let's pause for thought...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I'm happy to see one of my competitors finally understands what we've been preaching for more than five decades. No doubt Edelman will have enormous clout and resources with the new digital division and be able to wow and impress clients with its digital wizardry. But what a cool thing to actually use it for authentic communication! Why didn't we think of that? Oh wait... we did.

Social media hides hidden talent

2008-03-01T11:18:00.000-08:00

I had the privilege to speak at an American Marketing Association student conference last week on the topic of social media and its impact on business. Seeing as I would be presenting to 135 current college students, I anticipated some interesting questions about various social media applications and tools, perhaps several that I wasn't familiar with. To my surprise, the majority of students were not only not currently taking advantage of social media, but were largely unaware of it. As an example, I asked for a show of hands of who had never heard of Second Life. At least 90% of the hands went up. How many had their own blog? About two. How many read blogs actively? About two. How many watch videos on YouTube? Nearly everyone. How many post videos on YouTube? About four. How many utilize RSS feeds? Hardly anyone.

And then the kicker... how many actively use Facebook/MySpace? Everyone. Initially I was shocked and thought that these are the very people who are best equipped to use and understand this technology. I mean, our business uses nearly all of it and we're hardly cutting edge. I told them before I left that I felt they were, as an age group, at a disadvantage. Because of their age, when they enter the workforce there is a certain level of expectation that they understand this stuff or are familiar with it. Most older people think it's nothing but stuff for the 18-30 crowd.

After some more thought, it occurred to me that perhaps these students don't know what they know well. As an example, hardly any hands went up for active users of blogs, podcasts, and RSS. But when you consider that Facebook is largely a grouping of all of these functions, these students are very adept users at technology they don't know the name for. In Facebook, you have a blog option, or even can use the Wall function, get updates on all your friends automatically anytime they change their profile, status, add pics, etc, and can easily post and share photos and video. This is in itself using blog, podcast and RSS technology, just under a brand-friendly name.

Maybe it would help these kids to understand they know more than they give themselves credit for.

The new dumbest thing I've heard

2008-02-01T09:25:00.000-08:00

A bill was introduced in Mississippi that would make it illegal for restaurants to serve people who are deemed obese. This has got to be the most ridiculous idea ever. First of all, I'm not sure how it can be constitutional to keep paying customers from being served because of their weight. If we're going to keep fat people from eating, why don't we keep smokers from smoking, or alcoholics from drinking?

Maybe we should pass a law that says ugly people can't attend parties, dumb people can't repopulate the world, and old people can't drive. Well, that last one might not be such a bad idea...

This is just too dumb to keep talking about. The author of the bill, Rep. W.T. Mayhall Jr., clearly doesn't have enough to do down there in the South if this is the kind of project he's working on.

Time for me to go get my Big Mac.

Using the tools at hand

2008-01-31T12:35:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Stephanie Flynn, director at Cushman/Amberg

How do you reach an audience today? Is it through YouTube? Facebook? MySpace? Or simply your website?

With the continued public interest in YouTube and online mediums (ex: the CNN YouTube debates), I am curious…How do you reach an audience?

From a playground manufacturer and a nozzle distributor, to a cooking school and a ritzy hotel, our company has not only utilized blogging, MySpace, and Facebook, but we have also worked in YouTube, putting the site to work, and our clients are having a blast with it!

Yesterday, we had a “new media” opportunity with a local television station, KSDK-TV (NBC 5). They arranged a live-chat session online with local financial experts to discuss the threat of a recession and what that means locally. One of our clients, a bank, was able to be a part of this chat, additionally conducting a taped interview of which the video clips were posted on the website and used on the 10 p.m. news. Talk about great cross promotion!

As our industry moves forward online, we as public relations consultants have a duty to learn how to use these tools and implement them strategically in our communications planning. Not only do we have a duty, we have an opportunity to formulate various ways to use tools in the industry for future PR consultants.

As an agency, we have been utilizing these tools when it makes the most sense, and see the future only getting more 'online happy.'

Will you use the online world for your practice?

Possibly the worst TV ad ever

2008-01-22T05:24:00.000-08:00

I've seen it so many times now that I have to say something. It's possibly the worst, but definitely the most annoying, TV ad I've seen in a long, long time. It's for Yellow Book. It starts out with three idiots sitting in a room saying, "How are are we going to improve sales this quarter?" One of them suggests asking the 'Ad Guru' who happens to be washed out actor David Carradine, apparently still trying to grasp the last shred of Kung Fu-ness that he can. It derails into dialogue that goes like this:

David C. - The first path, Yellow Book.
Hack Actor 1 - Of course, Yellow Book! What about the internet?
David C. - The second path. Yellow Book .com.
Hack Actor 1 - What about those search engines?
David C. - The third path. Trust Yellow Book to put your ads on powerful search engines across the internet.

It then shows the three idiots dancing to a graph showing sales are off the charts over the next quarter.

So many things are wrong with this ad. First of all, "trust yellow book" is about the worst expression I would use in an ad. It's already begging for credibility and now you're asking me to trust that something will get done. Nuh-uh.

Finally, 'powerful search engines across the internet?' Are we all stupid or something? Can't they come up with something better than that?

What would happen in a PR strike?

2008-01-16T15:01:00.000-08:00

Everyone seems pretty intently focused on the writers strike that has caused our favorite shows to be delayed or pushed off for a year or more. We thought this mess would go away in a few weeks, but now it looks like the end is nowhere in sight. So that got me thinking… what if every PR professional went on strike?

For starters, you’d have a lot of journalists scared shitless. Who would provide them with roughly 70% of their story leads, facts, background information, interview access, or exclusive information? What would they do if all of a sudden, gasp, they had to do all the background work themselves? We’d have a lot of speculative stories or coverage of pretty boring events that news media are invited to (read: grand openings, news conference, book signing, etc).

Next you’d have the financial investors that wouldn’t have a lot of information to go on because all the analysts would actually have to do research themselves. Jim Cramer’s producers would have a lot more work to do finding information on pressing companies and stocks.

Let’s not forget the corporations that, when faced with a product release, crisis, community relations event, or sales push would be pretty much left out to dry. I guess they could try to advertise their way out of a crisis. I can see the CEO of a major company whose product just inadvertently poisoned thousands of innocent babies going on TV and saying, “Our product doesn’t suck. Really! You can trust me!” Brilliant.

Whether you want to believe it or not, public relations influences things you do and think every day of your life. It is one of the most underappreciated, yet incredibly effective marketing functions. I’m not suggesting we go on strike (our union isn’t quite as well organized), and I hate to equate us to the waste management industry, but without us, your life would get a lot more rotten. And it probably would start to stink after a few days.

The electric slide

2008-01-16T06:27:00.000-08:00

The one factor facing most companies as both the greatest opportunity and greatest threat is the online world. I speak with so many companies that don't truly understand both sides of this equation but believe they are doing 'enough.' Those that don't feel they are doing enough either don't have a sense of urgency to capitalize on opportunities or don't see the threats as real.

Mostly, I think companies fail to see what can be done. The opportunities to reach very specific groups of people are so abundant that it seems silly not to embrace it. Simultaneously, erroneous material or speculation can spread like wildfire. But here's the catch that most companies don't realize. Not being engaged or involved actively does not mean it won't bite you in the ass. You just won't realize it until it's too late, and then you're farther behind the 8-ball.

I've seen company after company stick their head in the sand and try to 'wait it out' or ignore problems that spread online. This is just disaster. I equate it to them being the last kid to break down and buy a DVD player because they thought VHS would survive and DVD was a fringe market. Well the online world is today's DVD player. Don't get stuck with VHS.

A Starbucks for the rest of us

2008-01-08T07:17:00.000-08:00

So McDonald's decided to open up coffee bars inside its stores to compete with Starbucks for high end coffee experiences.

Pause for laughter, I mean reflection.

On the surface this looks like a pretty bonehead move by Ronald and Co. Big Mac's and Caffe Latte's go together about as well as democrats and republicans. Technically they are both digestible, but you wouldn't consume too many, and certainly not at the same time. And they both can give you upset stomach.

But back to the food products. On the surface, I equate this to Tiffany's putting in a drive-thru window in their stores. Ritz-Carlton putting a sign out front that says 'Buses Welcome.' Maybe even Nike changing their slogan to "Just Try a Little Harder." You just won't see it.

However, when you dig a little deeper it isn't a completely ridiculous play on the part of McDonald's. While I doubt McD's will steal a substantial number of regular Starbuckers, they might attract the Starwannabes. We might not be able to play golf like Tiger Woods, but we can wear the same Nike shirt. Same concept for McDonald's. They will attract the emulators.

I happen to think this move will go over as well as the Hula Burger, but I've been wrong once or twice before. It's just a hard fight when you try to mix apples and oranges. Or the sophisticated coffee shop with the dirty kid infested playgrounds serving wafer-thin burgers. But who knows. Maybe we'll see the turtleneck wearing sophisticates planting themselves in McD's sipping a latte and wolfing down a Big Mac while they search for the WiFi.

The grand opening that wasn't - Lumiere Place Casino

2007-12-20T05:42:00.000-08:00

Opting out of the VIP event and choosing to experience the opening of the new Lumiere Place casino with the masses, I realized that the people in charge of casino marketing were either incredibly brilliant or remarkably stupid. As someone who pays attention to local news, it was hard not to miss advertisements for the new casino. Billboards, inserts, and a rather obnoxious wallpaper on stltoday.com touted the opening of the greatest casino outside of Vegas. Through all the hype and fanfare, through all the ads, one thing was still missing. What was there at the casino that was all that different than the others in town? All I knew was that it was a) new, b) hired only attractive people, and c) was new.

Upon arriving, the line to get your My Choice card (a stupid Missouri loss limit requirement) was so ridiculously long that people were waiting longer more than an hour. My group decided to leave the casino, walk the quarter-mile to the President Casino, get our card and hike back. The President, you may recall, is the casino that is now owned by Lumiere's parent company and will no doubt be shut down shortly. The lines at the President were, of course, nonexistent.

Upon returning to our original destination, we stood in yet another line for about 10 minutes waiting to have our ID's and cards checked. The lines were out the door and people were less than excited about the wait. But once inside, the casino looked more like a Vegas casino than anything else in town. Huge open floor plan, somewhat modern design, cool lights.

My first goal was to verify what I was told about the casino. Was it new? Check. Did they hire only attractive people? Well.... to some extent. There were attractive women walking around in skimpy and revealing outfits, but it wasn't exactly like walking into Hugh Hefner's place.

After a few strolls around the casino campus I was able to spot many of St. Louis' popular names all out for the grand opening. Bill Donius of Pulaski Bank fame was rolling at the two deck blackjack table. Issac Bruce was spotted. Most of the top lawyers in town were there in full black tie garb.

I ended up playing blackjack and doubled my money in just under 30 minutes. Clearly an abnormal night for me. I'm usually donating money to the house, not walking away with it. There were obvious kinks to work out with the staff. My drink was delivered to the wrong table, then it was the wrong drink. The dealer wasn't quite up to speed with the whole addition thing. The lines for nearly everything were long indicating that planning ahead wasn't quite as important as hyping the opening.

In short, the casino itself is cool. Will I make a special trip downtown just to play there. No. Do I think most people will. Probably not in the long run. For all the glitz and hype, for the cool design and spacious floor, it still isn't enough to get me to drive past two other great casinos - Harrah's and Ameristar. Maybe I'd have a different opinion if I'd been told more about what Lumiere had to offer other than it being new. But as it stands, it was a fun one night event. I came, I saw, I left.

Guest Post - Tom Amberg

2007-12-18T09:26:00.000-08:00

I asked Tom Amberg, president of Cushman/Amberg Communications, to write a short reaction to an event he recently attended. It follows...

_______________________________
I had occasion the other night to attend a PR Leaders reception at the Freedom Museum of the Chicago Tribune. The small group of agency principles heard some remarks from Harris Diamond, the CEO of agency giant Weber Shandwick. In his remarks, Harris referred to himself as a "spin doctor," and noted that while some objected to the phrase, he had enough longevity in the industry to appreciate that at the core of it all, that's what we really are.

A few verbal objections from some in attendance led him to amplify on it. "We are advocates for our clients, and we're paid to tell their story," he said. Media are paid to be objective, he noted, but public relations professionals are paid to promote the interest of their clients, with the proviso that it must always be done honestly and in good faith.

It's hard to object to his reasoning. We are advocates. What we don't like is a phrase that sounds quite pejorative and implies that as "spin doctors" what we're really doing is twisting the truth. Every profession seems to have its' pejoratives -- lawyers are sharks or ambulance chasers, news people are hacks, doctors are quacks, etc. Sometimes a phrase hits a little too close for some. There are "spin doctors" in the bad sense in public relations, just as there are hacks in the news business. It's just a phrase. Let's move on.
__________________________________

The balanced opinion that isn't

2007-12-10T10:46:00.000-08:00

I recently submitted a commentary to a well known newspaper, on a topic of their request. The topic was the proliferation of 'new media' and the use by companies and individuals to promote products and services through these new channels. Part of that commentary dealt with the abandonment of traditional print advertising in favor or more online or word of mouth marketing efforts. This of course, is the truth.

However, my submission was sent back and asked to be 'tweaked' so as not to come out and say that advertising in certain print publications, namely the one I submitted to, is a bad idea. Forgive me for thinking that commentary was more than my opinion and perspective. I didn't know I was supposed to be writing my opinion in the way the paper wanted it.

It's a shame that certain media are all too comfortable spitting out editorials and opinions when it suits them, and squashing the balanced opinion when it differs from their interests.

Watch this if you want to feel smart, or ashamed

2007-12-01T07:22:00.001-08:00

I came across this video this morning and it is just a pathetic display of the kind of examples our country chooses to make famous, throw money at, and care about. Kellie Pickler, now on my list of "Dumbest People Using Up Good Oxygen," showed off all .0002 ounces of her brain with the following:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANTDkfkoBaI

The absent generation

2007-11-30T07:21:00.000-08:00

I read a lot about how the Millennials don't know what they don't know, have a sense of entitlement, don't know what hard work is, etc etc. It seems that everyone who isn't a Millennial takes some kind of pride in talking them down. The big discussion now is how to relate to them. How to communicate with them to have them fit in to the workforce. Stories are passed around about how they ask for management positions right out of school or expect to be paid six-figure incomes for a job worth thirty grand.

One thing that I find missing from this conversation is the Millennials' response. So I guess it isn't really a conversation. Who, or better yet where, is the voice of this generation. Why aren't they fighting back? The 'elders' would tell you it's because they are a) lazy or b) don't care what we say about them. There are valid arguments on both sides, but at this point it seems only one side is doing the talking.

Sometimes when you aren't looking, the client is right

2007-11-21T05:24:00.000-08:00

I had lunch the other day with a colleague who works for a competing agency here in town. Just a social thing. We got to talking about client service and different philosophies on how an agency should project itself in client-facing situations. She went on and on about how her agency rarely, if ever, supports a client-initiated idea. Their M.O. is to either change the idea, talk about all the difficulties with it, or reject it outright. Since this seemed a little, oh I don't know, asinine to me, I asked why. She said the clients pay them for good creative ideas and execution. If the client starts realizing that they are coming up with successful and good ideas, they will lose faith in, and support for, the agency.

Now, on the one hand, I could see where you don't want to just be an order taker and execution team. Any monkey with a drum can do that. But to reject most ideas just because they didn't come from you doesn't make any sense. How many potentially great ideas were squashed just because the agency didn't think of it first?

Our belief is that great ideas can come from anywhere, and if you're working as a team, shouldn't that be the most important factor? We're not going to sit around and wait for our clients to bring us great ideas, but we're sure as hell not going to reject a good one just because it wasn't ours. An agency's job is to help advance the client's business, not be the gatekeeper of good ideas.

IM's could be hurting our kids

2007-11-15T09:38:00.000-08:00

Newsflash - technology makes life easier and quicker. No kidding, right? It might also be restricting you from developing as a person. USA Today released results from a poll that show teens are using instant messaging to keep out of "OMG" moments. They use it to ask for and reject dates, break up with people, and generally communicate altogether. The problem with this, of course, is that they are not developing the emotional skills, or even emotional courage, of actually talking to a person face to face. Expressing an opinion or position on a subject is much easier when you are not within physical proximity of another person to witness their potentially negative reaction.

I can't imagine any girl that would agree to go out with someone when asked over IM. To me, there's no romance in it, or much investment on the guy's part. In fact, part of what makes a guy attractive (I'm told) is the courage it takes to come up and speak to a girl face to face. Any idiot can send an IM or text with a catchy line, but does that cut it for today's women? I hope not.

I'm all for technology, but when it allows a person to develop inside an egg that doesn't prepare them for the real world, it's doing a disservice. Can you imagine a young employee that doesn't know how to communicate with his/her boss except through the safety of IM? That kid wouldn't survive very long in the real world. It takes guts and communication skills to make it. Neither of those are fostered through IM or text.

Don't bite the hand that feeds you. This means you, Chris Anderson

2007-11-07T04:57:00.000-08:00

I know there is a secret love hate relationship between PR people and the media. We rely on the media to act as the delivery mechanism for our information, and they in turn rely on us for story ideas and in most cases, content. (a WSJ study done several years ago found that over 65% of all content in newspapers was influenced by PR efforts) We love to get upset with them when they don't go for our pitches, and they love to call us hacks and idiots for not 'understanding them better.'

So I understand the unwritten rule that we both think the other is less than perfect, but it's a dirty secret that we keep quiet. Until now. Chris Anderson, editor at Wired magazine, called out 300 PR people for sending him information that he didn't want. Granted, they should have done their research and sent the information to the right person at the magazine, but he called them out for it publicly and posted their email addresses and put them on a black list. Is public embarrassment the way to solve his little "I get too much email" problem. Calling these people out publicly was crossing the line and extremely unprofessional. He could have easily just blocked their email addresses and be done with it. But he went public.

The equivalent fight from our side, of course, would be to print a list of every dumbass journalist that got the facts wrong, called the company or product by the wrong name, or just flat out can't write to save their life. And believe me, there are tons of them. As the WSJ study indicates, they rely on us for two-thirds of their content. Think of it as McDonald's coming out and saying that hamburger meat should be banned. Not exactly a smart thing to do. Chris doesn't have to worry about me sending him any 'email spam' for content ideas. And from what I've read so far in reaction to his antics, most of my colleagues won't be either. Good luck with your fish wrapper, Chris.

Remember when people used to just get fired?

2007-10-30T08:05:00.000-07:00

It was reported today that Merrill Lynch CEO Stan O'Neal will 'retire' from the company after taking the blame for billions of dollars of write offs for bad debt investments in the subprime market. And that's just in the third quarter. It's expected that another several billion will have to be written off in the 4th quarter. O'Neal's backers will say he turned the company around after 2001 and built ML to a powerhouse. Of course, he cut 20,000 jobs in order to do it, but those are just details.

So what does Mr. O'Neal get for admittedly running the company into financial strain, putting 20,000 people out of work, and losing money for millions of investors? Only about $200 million in severance. The ML board was so mad at him for talking to Wachovia about a potential merger that they wrote him a big fat check and took his key to the executive bathroom. Wow, they sure showed him.

All this does for Merrill Lynch is what it did for Home Depot when Nardelli took his millions and left the fledgling company - give it a credibility black eye. If you're a ML client that just lost a chunk of your savings on O'Neal's gamble, wouldn't you be a little upset that you are left with nothing and he walks away with $200 million? What kind of message does that send to ML stakeholders? It's a clear one - customers and clients are not priority number one.

So much is wrong with this...

2007-10-24T13:08:00.000-07:00

Why stop at one branding message when you can have two? That seems to be the thought process behind the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission when they unveiled the new slogan for the city - "St. Louis. All Within Reach." By itself, it isn't all bad. But when you consider that just last year the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association (RCGA) unveiled its new slogan for the area - "St. Louis. Perfectly Centered, Remarkably Connected," it seems a bit confusing. Are we nearby or are we connected to something?

Even more confusing is the CVC's reasoning for the slogan. It wants to send out a 'unified message.' If that was really the case, why not stick with the existing slogan by the RCGA. We all know it's costing enough in marketing dollars to promote the Perfectly Centered slogan. Why not expand on that if we're trying to be unified. Call me crazy, but different doesn't equal unified. In addition, "All Within Reach" doesn't exactly state the truth for those of us living in the city. The highway 40 construction certainly doesn't make downtown within reach of much. Throw in the not-so-terrific-or-timely-or-reliable public transportation and the slogan should have been, "St. Louis - Check Back in 10 Years."

The only thing going for this new slogan is the logo. It kicks ass.

Short Hairs of the World Unite!

2007-10-08T11:53:00.000-07:00

I think marketing in the US has become too segmented. We now have an audience and a subsequent media outlet, for reaching anyone with any interest. Case in point, walking through the halls at work today I noticed a magazine on a colleague's desk. It's called "Short Hair." Yes, there is an actual magazine for people who have, like, want, know someone who has, or are generally interested in, short hair. To me, that is just incredible. I'm betting if you dig deep enough you could find the "Left-Handed Tooth-Brushers Digest." It's just too much.

Do we as a society want to be grouped and segmented so much that we associate ourselves with smaller and smaller groups of people? It's bad enough that we only consume the news we want to consume, with RSS and personalized home pages, but now we further distance ourselves from our neighbors. Can you just call yourself an American? How about a Floridian or a Republican? There isn't one title that suits you, I get that. But do we have to get to the level of hair? In the ridiculous world of segmentation and over-analyzing demographics, it would be nice if people paid attention to more than just their personal interests. Just think how much we could accomplish if the short-hairs and long-hairs came together for the greater good.

The bottom line with social media

2007-09-19T12:33:00.000-07:00

I just finished giving a presentation to the St. Louis PRSA chapter on Social Media and its role in business strategy. There were a lot of great questions at the end and I think people walked away with a little more to think about than before. That was a goal. There is so much potential out there right now and we just have to maximize it.

One point that I made in haste, but it worth repeating, is the real goal of any social media campaign. That is, you have to be able to show that it affects the bottom line or sales, whatever that measurement of sales is for a particular company. Some measure it in revenue, some in leads, some in web traffic. However you do it, it has to be effective. Otherwise it's just a fun way to waste time.

US Cellular: When ad slogans contradict reality

2007-08-23T05:58:00.000-07:00

Cell phone carriers make big claims. They come up with catchy jingles and tag lines. At some point, the tag lines and jingles should probably reflect reality more than a sales pitch. Case in point, US Cellular's tag line is "We Connect With You." The company's new advertising slogan is "Wireless Where You Matter Most." Sounds safe and reassuring. If I have a US Cellular phone, I'll be connected and it will work everywhere, right?

Not exactly.

Keegan Hamilton reported this month that when it comes to 911 calls from your cell phone, there's a good chance the dispatcher won't know where you are or have your number. Hamilton's example was forty days of recorded cellphone calls in St. Louis county to 911. Each call followed the same pattern: urgent pleas for help followed by 10 - 15 seconds of dead silence. The problem is in a chip that US Cellular has in their phones that is supposed to actually help 911 dispatchers use GPS to identify a caller's location. The catch is that in order to do that, the audio connection is disabled.

Now I'm not real smart, but it seems to me that hearing what a panicked caller says might be slightly more important that waiting 15 seconds to pull up a longitude and latitude location. And even worse, dispatchers are hanging up on callers because they think the connection has been lost or it's one of the hundreds of wrong numbers or prank calls they get every day.

As for their advertising claims, it appears that US Cellular isn't exactly 'wireless where I matter most,' because when I dial 911, it's a pretty high priority. And if they are dropping voice capabilities during my 911 call, they aren't exactly 'connecting with me.'

Of course you can't hear me now. It's because I just switched to T-Mobile.

An argument for generalist firms

2007-08-01T13:45:00.000-07:00

I recently went through a new business pitch with a company looking for successful creation and execution of a communications strategy. We went through our song and dance and showcased some successful campaigns with companies in very similar, but not identical industries. They raved about the case studies, saying it's what they were looking for. It went very well and I'm anxious to hear back from them soon. However, just near the end of the meeting, a gentleman sitting across from me raised the following concern.

"My only fear is that you don't have recent experience with the inner circle of our industry."

OK, normally that's a valid concern if you're looking to hire a plumber. You don't ask a veterinarian to come in and give you a bid on replacing your sink. In our case with this company, the work is nearly identical, just in a different industry. I equate it to replacing a sink in a house vs. replacing a sink in a hotel room. Not much difference and a competent plumber should be able to handle both assignments well.

A point I raised was that he made so many congratulatory remarks over our case study examples. When we started with those companies, we didn't have experience with the 'inner circle' in those industries. And yet the results turned out extremely well. In addition, they had been with a specialty 'inner circle' agency for 8 years, and now they were looking elsewhere because results weren't there. Why couldn't we deliver the same results for his company that we had delivered for the case study companies?

The answer: We can! With few exceptions, most of our work is based on the successful execution of a sound strategy. It's no longer about how well you know the assignment editor at XYZ or that you used to work with the writer at ABC magazine. Those relationships will help get you in the door, but they don't mean crap if you can't deliver the goods. The media wants, and needs, smart stories. Companies need agencies that can help them tell their story in a way that's going to drive business results. That's what we do. Period.

There is a place for niche specialty firms. However, in this particular case, it was proven that that approach wasn't working. Maybe it's time to try something new.

Pinnacle CEO's 'Worst Comment Ever' Submission

2007-07-29T12:57:00.000-07:00

A contender for 'Worst Comment of All Time' is today's quote from Pinnacle CEO Daniel Lee. In a Post-Dispatch story, Mr. Lee discusses the option to keep the President Casino, recently purchased by Pinnacle, open and operating right next door to the soon-to-be-opened Pinnacle Lumiere Place Casino. While many people see it as redundant and silly to have two casinos owned by the same company operating within a quarter-mile of each other, Mr. Lee sees it differently. He states, "it gives us a little bit of an edge that most people in the state don't have. You can lose $500 at Lumiere Place and walk two blocks away and start gambling again at the President."

Wow.

I'm so glad Mr. Lee is considering giving me the opportunity to come to his place of business and explaining how I can lose more money than by going to any other property in the state. Thanks for clearing that up, sir. If Pinnacle has a PR firm, they just got an "F" for media training.

The future of the Internet

2007-07-20T04:54:00.000-07:00

At some point, we should sit down and think about the future of the Internet. What is the next evolution? How can it possible get better, not just faster? Speed will be a measuring stick for sure, but what about the experience and the functionality of the Web? Everything since the dawn of time has evolved and the Internet will be no different. A colleague told me she thought Second Life was the future of the Internet. Having people 'inside' the Web interacting and experiencing more than just a static two dimensional page was the future. In that future, we would no longer simply view a page, we would be inside it. Content meets experience meets interaction meets sharing.

I have to admit, it sounds great. But is that the future of the Internet? I don't think so. I can't picture my parents, barely able to navigate the most basic sites now, navigating their avatar around the 'new Web' in Second Life. The current Web is easy. Type and address, get the information. No moving parts. No flying. No trying to figure out how to walk around an island without getting stuck. The future Web in Second Life would confuse too many people.

However, that kind of thinking about the Internet of tomorrow is absolutely on the right track. I think it will be a blend of the current Internet and something like Second Life. Getting into the content, in some form, will make sense. Being able to experience the content, and engage other viewers while doing it, will be the future. The applications for learning and sharing are endless in an Internet like that. Making it easy enough for the masses will allow it to succeed.

Wanting to be here

2007-07-16T06:53:00.000-07:00

Have you ever worked with someone that you knew didn't really want to be there? They showed up day in and day out, did their job more or less and went home. They'd occasionally make snide remarks and usually had a pretty bad attitude about the company in general. Their work was just good enough that you didn't want to see them go.

This kind of person can kill a company culture faster than you can blink. When things are good, they feel so-so. When things are bad, they go into overdrive with negativity. For management, it's sometimes hard to spot these people right away. Usually it takes that person's co-workers to come forward and either call them out, or help them change for the better. This is not dissimilar to the military. A drill instructor can identify the problem and as a result of the problem, the entire unit gets punished. It's then up to the unit to 'motivate' that person. It could work the same way in corporate America (minus the military forms of 'motivation' of course).

Final thought: When things are good, everyone takes credit. When things are bad, your best people work harder. You worst people complain.

Racing in circles

2007-07-06T06:54:00.000-07:00

Word just came out that Barack Obama has raised more money in six months than any other candidate before him, pulling in approximately $58 million bucks. Not far behind, Hillary has accumulated something in the neighborhood of $53 million. It's predicted that both candidates will end up raising close to $100 million before it's over. That's a lot of money, but where does the bulk of it go? Advertising. What's the one thing advertising lacks? Credibility. Kind of ironic, isn't it?

Of course some money is spent on staff, travel, security, etc etc. But the bulk is spent on those lovely campaign TV spots that start out aspirational and end up combative and reactive to every other candidate's ads as election day gets closer.

I think we are starting to see a trend away from the traditional campaign -30 and -60 second TV spots, but they will still be heavily utilized, because let's face it, the majority of voting baby boomers and older still think social media is what happens in communist China.

You would think that running for the highest office in the land would be a call for communicating credibility and trust. Using the medium with the lowest level of credibility doesn't speak volumes for their common sense.

Thanks to Naomi Davis for the idea...

Twitter me this, Madam President....

2007-06-27T05:48:00.000-07:00

Most people I talk to felt that Hillary Clinton's YouTube video announcing her campaign song was very well done, clever and successful. I can't argue that it was well done, I mean, that's what a professional production service will do for you. But I have to question why it was done, what it will accomplish, and what it means for future campaigns.

My first thought after seeing her series of videos was, "are we looking for a president or an Academy Award winner?" Does it not seem strange that presidential candidates are now trying to sway voters with catchy marketing videos and less about what they stand for and what they plan to do about the country?

Then there is the theme of the video. It was a nod to the series finale of The Sopranos. Granted, the finale of that show was widely watched, but it's a show about a dysfunctional family that cheats the government and kills people. In addition, only people who can afford HBO watch the Sopranos, so she's not exactly targeting the middle or lower class. Interesting choice all around.

Finally, what did it accomplish and what does it mean for future campaigns? It told me she has a clever marketing person on staff, that neither she nor Bill are good at acting, and that she was trying to raise her 'cool' factor among younger voters. I hope that this isn't a trend for the future where candidates feel like the only way to get our attention is by crowding into our social media spaces and putting on a show. That's why I watch Saturday Night Live, not why I vote for a president.

In the future, look for presidential candidates to have music videos on YouTube, souped up MySpace pages, asking you to be their friend on Facebook, and Twittering while on the campaign trail.

Hooter's the next Chucky Cheese's?

2007-06-23T12:38:00.000-07:00

In yet another example of how not to try and change a brand image, Hooters has released new advertising trying to show the restaurant chain as family friendly, all about the food, and the fun. The ad spots go so far as to show the Hooters waitresses and label them as 'girls next door.' I don't know about you, but if that's the case I must live in the wrong neighborhood. The spots spend 94% of the -30 and -60 seconds highlighting food options, showing parents with their kids and logo shots. Only 6% of the time is spent on 'the girls next door.'

Hooters has created such a solid brand by focusing on what it does best and why people visit the restaurants, it confuses me why they would want to change. It is even crazier to believe they can change our perceptions by running these far-flung ads. Doesn't exactly carry the level of credibility needed to change my mind, or anyone else's.

Wall-worthy marketing

2007-06-08T10:08:00.000-07:00

There is a trend I've noticed among restaurants and small businesses that highlight a simple truth about the value of advertising vs. public relations. On the walls of many restaurants and small businesses are framed copies of large newspaper or magazine stories about the business. Usually it is a story about the opening, in the case of restaurants, but often in businesses it is a series of reprints from prominent media or trade magazines.

This leaves one wondering, "why don't they prominently display their advertising in a similar manner?" Of course the answer is very simple - credibility. The restaurants and businesses know that third party endorsements by way of the media are much more credible than self-promoting advertising.

Which again leaves one wondering, "why do so many businesses spend so much money on a marketing function that isn't wall-worthy?"

What's our problem?

2007-06-07T05:28:00.000-07:00

Many would argue, and I have been one of them, that the biggest problem facing the PR industry is the pathetic display of writing ability among our ranks. Clearly, it is a problem that needs fixing and given the text and IM world we live in, I'm not sure it will get better anytime soon. I think the problem with the industry, in terms of overall industry growth and acceptance, doesn't involve writing. It involves measurement, research, and client education.

In the last two weeks I sat before current clients and discussed new ideas for a program. They loved it and asked who could implement it. Um.... we can. They had no idea about the breadth of our capabilities because for so long we'd been pigeon-holed into one area. And we had failed to continually show them what we can do across the board. Sometimes biannual 'update' meetings are a good idea just to keep top of mind and present new capabilities and ideas to current clients. Organic growth is always better and easier than non-organic.

Measurement and research are two areas that advertising wisely jumped on long ago. The PR industry is still lacking in how to effectively prove that we can move the needle. Yes, there are good ways to measure some functions, but for many agencies, it's a leap of faith and client satisfaction with media results, or attendance at an event. Not exactly groundbreaking information.

In addition, I think we've priced ourselves the wrong way. We're not selling widgets, we're selling ideas and the execution of those ideas. Why then, do we charge by the hour? Because we don't have good measurement to show value. Value in reputation, value in brand building, value in the intangibles. Until we address those issues, it's going to be an uphill climb for the industry to realize phenomenal growth.

CSR gets lots of attention, little respect

2007-05-08T10:39:00.000-07:00

It's very popular to have a CSR strategy (corporate social responsibility) in place these days. Companies are touting how charitable they are, or how green they are becoming. Green has even emerged from the CSR umbrella to form its own strategy. It used to be not too long ago that being green was the environmental part of CSR. Now it's too popular not to be it's own buzzword.

Citigroup announced today that it will be spending $50 billion (yes, with a "b") over the next ten years on CSR initiatives. Bank of America has committed $20 billion over the same period. That's a lot of money. But what does it do for these companies. Well for one thing, it gets great press. Who doesn't want to be known as environmentally friendly or have a reputation for giving back to the community. Well, I don't.

Giving back to the community implies that you first took something. Would I celebrate the character of a man who took $100 from my wallet, but came back and gave me a buck? Gee, thanks. Companies need to be doing these CSR initiatives because it's the right thing to do - for the environment and for the stakeholders. Let's not pretend that corporations, even in CSR initiatives, don't have stakeholders to answer to. It's fine to tout our CSR plan, but it better be reflected positively somewhere in the bottom line.

I'm happy we've discovered ways to be CSR-friendly AND make money in the process. Because if we hadn't, no one on Wall Street would be throwing money at it.

An example of how not to make a point

2007-05-02T05:04:00.000-07:00

There's no need to read between the lines when people make poor quotes in the media. Whether you're a CEO or resident expert, no amount of "it was taken out of context" can help your case when you botch an interview. That's why preparation is so important and why media training should be a required course for any company spokesperson. Take the following example by St. Louis Cardinals GM Walt Jocketty. Commenting on the suspicion of alcohol in the very unfortunate death of pitcher Josh Hancock, Jocketty said:

"We're not trying to cover up this thing. A lot of stuff is unfolding, and we're learning it as it comes out. But we're also trying to respect the family and their wishes. Once the entire investigation is done and we get the facts, then we'll be able to react to it and determine what we have to do, and what we have to say."

Translation: We're trying to cover up this thing until we can figure out how to protect ourselves.

In all honesty, you can't blame Jocketty. It's his job to play defense for the organization in times like this. He could have come off much cleaner, and more sincere, if he had been more honest and direct and said something like, "At this point, we're cooperating fully with the authorities in this investigation. Once we know what really happened we'll be in a position to respond. Out of respect for the family and the organization, it would be inappropriate to speculate what may or may not have happened."

Unfortunately, many executives only look to the counsel of their public relations staff when they want to boast about something good. But communication is a two-way street. Take advantage of it in the good times, and in the bad.

Are you creating Bubbas or Tigers?

2007-04-30T06:12:00.000-07:00

I wrote an article for PR News last week on how managers need to do a better job of developing their staff. It was edited slightly for publishing, but here is the full version.

B2B always isn't

2007-04-11T09:13:00.000-07:00

You have probably read a lot lately about the A380 aircraft from Airbus. This double decker airplane can haul up to 853 passengers and is the largest commercial aircraft ever built. Airbus calls it the future of their company and the future of air travel. Designed to help move large amounts of people through congested airports, it is aiming to reduce airport 'clutter' at the gates and in the skies.

Boeing, on the other hand, has come out with the 787 Dreamliner. It's a smaller craft than the A380, but can carry more passengers in a more fuel efficient manner than previous planes. Boeing is betting its future customers want something more like an affordable Dreamliner than a giant A380.

Something else is interesting in the approach of the two companies. Boeing won the marketing game. Boeing called its new plane the Dreamliner. Airbus called it an A380. Which would you rather fly? Boeing set up a highly interactive, informative and entertaining microsite for the Dreamliner (www.newairplane.com). Airbus didn't. Boeing is promoting the craft to consumers as well as airlines and governments. Airbus is only marketing to the potential buyers.

This difference of approach can translate to many other kinds of businesses. For example, in the commercial playground industry, the vast majority of companies market only to the buyers - landscape architects, park directors, hotels, etc. However, recently some of these companies have started to recognize the value of marketing their products to the end consumers. While not directly engaged in the buying process, they are stakeholders and influencers of the buying decision, as well as more loyal customers down the road.

Many so-called B2B companies could benefit from studying Boeing's approach to marketing the Dreamliner and remember the entire scope of stakeholders and influencers, not just the direct buyers.

The evolution of advertising

2007-04-11T05:17:00.000-07:00

I have been hearing a lot lately about the so-called evolution of advertising. More and more ad agency CEOs are beginning to describe their businesses as marketing communications, new marketing, etc. What they are really saying is, advertising isn't working for our clients, so we're going into something else. It used to be that ad agencies didn't have any in-house public relations staff. All 'earned media' was handled by someone on the account team that usually amounted to a poorly written news release about the latest and greatest ad campaign. But now, these same ad agencies are seeing their budgets cut and the dollars flowing to agencies that can show credibility and a connection with stakeholders. And that would be PR firms and online specialty shops. I won't say the day of the 30-second TV spot is dead, but it certainly is dying.

What does this mean for those of us who have been performing in this area all along? Opportunity. We will see agencies come into competition for the same business and absolutely fall flat on their face because they don't know PR like we do. It would be like me trying to sell Tiger Woods a golf lesson. However, there is also great risk. Advertising is loud, PR is quiet, so to speak. If we as a profession allow these ad agencies to come in and define PR in a way that benefits them, we are in trouble. Historically, we haven't been great at generating an understanding of what we do. Advertising has done that well. If they successfully define us in the minds of our clients, we're dead.

Now is the time for PR to shine. The market is ready and willing to listen. We have to be the ones talking.

College degree shouldn't be prerequisite for respect

2007-03-22T05:22:00.000-07:00

We spent some time working with a client who was in the field of career education. Some call it vocational education or a trade school. This particular school offered degree training in everything from HVAC, welding, and electrical, to cosmetology, professional cooking, and court reporting. During our ongoing research about these fields, one unfortunate trait seemed to run constant throughout - graduates of these programs, and thus the people who work in these fields, have the stigma of being social abnormalities because they didn't graduate from a traditional four-year institution with a bachelors degree.

Plumbers, electricians, and court reporters, among others, don't get the same level of respect as a 23-year-old kid that just graduated with a degree in business. Somehow in our society, a bachelors degree has become equated with success. And yet, only 25% of the adult population in the United States has a bachelors degree. Many of those graduates aren't even working in their field of study.

In other societies, people in all professions are treated with respect. Goat herders are given the same respect as accountants or consultants because the society recognizes every job has an importance in their life. Without electricians, we'd be in the dark. When your AC goes out in the middle of the summer, you don't need someone with a bachelors degree. You need someone who is skilled in their craft. I would like to see our society give a little more respect to the jobs and professions that while not as socially glamorous as some, still are critical to our way of life.

CBS coverage of NCAA basketball tournament pathetic

2007-03-15T17:10:00.000-07:00

CBS has completely blown it in terms of NCAA basketball prime time coverage on the first day of the tournament. Why, I ask, would they attempt to show four games simultaneously? I was hoping to watch the Duke/VCU game, as advertised in my market. Well thanks to CBS' decision to capture as many advertising dollars as possible, I got to watch bits and pieces of three other games I could care less about.

And to just add insult to injury, consider its brilliant decision late in the first half. VCU had just made an incredible six point run to tie Duke with 24 seconds remaining in the half. Duke brings the ball down court and is fouled while shooting a 3-pointer with 1.2 seconds on the clock. As the player was going to the line, CBS cuts away to the Sports Desk to talk about the Ohio St. / Central Conn. game.... STILL ON HALFTIME. No cut-away to another game in progress. Just cut-away from the most exciting part of the game. Absolutely brilliant.

So why does this belong on this blog? Instead of really caring about the viewer and what the viewer wants to see, CBS went for the profit. They could have shown these other three games on ESPN or FSN, for some ad-dollar sharing and a kickback. Instead, they want all the money and decide to run four games on one channel. Customer service at its most stupid.

Defender of the brand

2007-03-15T05:50:00.000-07:00

There is something that I think most communications practitioners fail to keep in mind when working on behalf of a client. We are the defender of the brand. If you work for Hewlett-Packard, everything you do, say, write, etc. somehow influences the HP brand. The decisions we make when working on messaging, events, and partnerships all do one of two things - they either add to the brand or take away from it. Make sure that whatever you do on behalf of the brand is adding to its value. It's hard enough to build a brand, but nearly impossible to rebuild it.

Could I have the best job in the world?

2007-02-28T08:08:00.000-08:00

I'm often asked why I love my job so much. While the specifics of my job are very fulfilling, I enjoy the business of public relations even more. For those students searching for a reason to look at the field of public relations, consider this:

Access - Very few professions outside of PR allow you the opportunity to counsel senior managers and C-level executives on a regular basis about issues influencing their business. Access to these individuals is rare for most, but in PR it is critical and expected.
Knowledge - In an agency setting, a PR professional will usually work on a handful of client accounts. We get to learn the behind-the-scenes information about a wide variety of industries. In just the last year I've had the chance to learn in-depth information about coal mining, wireless telecommunications, playground design and selection criteria, risk management, luxury hotel operations, soyfoods and their health implications, and much more. For those with a thirst for knowledge, agency PR is a fantastic choice. If absolutely nothing else, you'll kill at cocktail party small talk.
People - The people who choose public relations as their profession tend to have certain commonalities. I believe these are a thirst for knowledge, a love of influence, an outgoing and robust personality, and the ability to learn and adapt quickly. Not a bad set of skills to have for your peer group.
Results - I can't tell you how fulfilling it is to see the results of your labor put to good use. We counsel companies about the most important issues they face. When our advice is taken and acted upon, it is a feeling a great pride that we have contributed to the positive outcome of that counsel.
The Profession - I've never witnessed another profession with such strong ties among the membership. I speak with other agencies on a regular basis about issues facing the industry, best practices, agency management, etc. As a group, we are constantly sharing and learning from each other. I have people all over the country, and the world, that I can call on with questions, advice, or just to share a joke.

I would love to hear thoughts from both PR insiders and other professions.

Tiger Woods as my CFO

2007-02-26T06:00:00.000-08:00

This post will be somewhat limited to the St. Louis area in terms of name recognition, but the concept is relevant across the country. Last week Karen Foss was hired by Ameren UE, our local electric utility, as its new vice president of public relations. Ameren has come under some fire in recent years for increasing prices, decreasing responsiveness, and the debacle at the Taum Sauk reservoir. So what better way to combat a growing image problem than bring in some fresh blood to lead the communications, right? Sure. Only one problem. Ms. Foss has no public relations experience. Zip. Nada.

For 25 years Ms. Foss was a television anchor woman in Kansas City and St. Louis. Granted, she was one of the more respected, well-liked media personalities in the area for a long time. But a public relations whiz she is not. In the announcement, Ameren stated that Ms. Foss would have a team of eight reporting to her. Can you imagine what they must be thinking, knowing that the intern probably has more PR savvy than the boss?

Why would Ameren make this bone-headed move? Because its heart is in the right place, but its brain took the day off. Hiring someone with a strong media background is a good move for most any PR firm. That experience can add valuable insight to a media relations team. But hiring someone ONLY because of media name recognition and having them lead the communications efforts with no real knowledge of PR is a clear-as-a-bell sign that you're looking to buy some credibility. And folks, you can't buy credibility. In this case, Ameren did the exact opposite of what it set out to do. When we see Ms. Foss being interviewed on TV about why Ameren screwed up again, are we going to believe that she speaks for the company, or as a hired celebrity? I think it's the latter.

Ameren essentially turned its communications effort into an ad campaign. Hire a well-known personality and have them say great things about the brand. Entertainment up, credibility down. Well done, Ameren. I expect its next hire to be Tiger Woods as CFO. Why? Because he's got a lot of money, which must make him overly qualified for the CFO seat.

Timing is everything. Just ask Lisa Nowak.

2007-02-09T14:58:00.000-08:00

It's never a good thing when someone dies and this post is in no way intended to express an opinion either way in the recent death of Anna Nicole Smith. It does, however, provide me an opportunity to point out a tactic of the communications business. This tactic is utilized by most top agencies and most major companies in their communications work. What's the tactic? Timing your news.

I can think of two people who are rather happy Anna Nicole Smith passed away when she did. Lisa Nowak and Michael Devlin. In case you have been living under a rock, Nowak went AWOL from NASA on an attempted murder spree and Devlin made national headlines in the abduction and sexual assault of two young boys.

Smith's death has taken the front page news away from these two. While her death was unexpected, it served the same purpose as a planned news release. For example, if a company has bad news to report, right now would be a great time. If it's great news, I'd wait until Monday. On a slow media day, a news report about a company missing earnings might be page one stuff. On a day that has breaking news, it ends up on page 20. Mission accomplished for the company. Great communicators know how to time the news. Unless it's critical or breaking news, it can end up where you want it more times than not.

The reverse is also true. We had a major client event scheduled for 10am. Every TV station and print media in town was confirmed to attend. We had planned it for months. So what happened that morning? Saddam Hussein got pulled out of a hole in Iraq. Of course, our client got zero coverage.

Timing. You can't always make it work to your advantage, but you can do better than hoping.

Pretty soon college tuition will be on eBay... too late...

2007-02-06T06:23:00.000-08:00

Oklahoma Wesleyan University has put one year of college tuition up for bid on eBay. I hope for their sake this is a publicity stunt and not the beginning of a trend. Why do I say that? A university attracts students based on a number of factors, not the least of which is reputation and prestige of the school. Now we all know that Oklahoma Wesleyan is not Harvard, but it's not ABC Community Tech either. So it seems that by hosting an auction for a year of tuition, room and board the school is cheapening its reputation.

I'm all for utilizing new media and new marketing initiatives, but only if it adds to what you're doing. In this case, I give OWU an 'A' for effort, but a 'D' for execution.

Super Bowl ads fall a little short

2007-02-05T05:24:00.000-08:00

For the first time in a long time, the actual battle on the field kept my attention more than the battle on the breaks. The spots this year as a whole were just not as sharp, not as funny and not as motivating as in the past. One big disappointment in my mind was FedEx. Last year FedEx ran a spot that featured a caveman. This year it was set on the moon. Same basic situation, same predictable ending. Instead of a caveman getting crushed by a dinosaur, an astronaut gets hit by a passing meteor. Good for a quick chuckle but then you realize it's pretty unoriginal. Even Anheuser-Busch had its share of repeat losers. Last year we saw a donkey wanting to run with the Clydsdales. This year it was a homeless mutt wanting to ride with the dalmatian.

Some would argue this is consistent branding. I argue that it's just plain uncreative. The Super Bowl is unlike any other advertising opportunity on the world. I expect a little more than repeat themes. Maybe FedEx and Anheuser-Busch couldn't afford great ads this year since their budgets are being spent elsewhere. AB is pouring money into its new online "network TV," while FedEx is delivering the PGA Tour a check for nearly $50 million to be the title sponsor of the FedEx Cup.

Emotional branding hidden in plain sight

2007-01-25T04:52:00.000-08:00

Last night I was driving my daughter home from ballet practice and we passed the local fire station. Out front on the station's illuminated sign read, "SCHOOL HAS STARTED. WATCH FOR CHILDREN." This might be the kind of message that some people have come to expect from fire departments. But if you think about it, the purpose of the fire department is to put out fires. Pretty cut and dry. Yes, they show up to auto accidents, but primarily in case your Nissan Altima's 16 gallon fuel tank decides to explode. They perform a variety of tasks, but first and foremost they simply put out the fires.

So where am I going with this? Emotional branding. The fire department I drove past is doing a good job of emotional branding. They could have put anything on that sign. It could have had fire prevention tips, or congratulated one of their own for 10 years of service. It could have warned us to not play with matches or to keep our logs in a safe place. But what they did was remind us to be mindful of the children who will be on our streets and in our neighborhoods more this time of year. Everyone knows the fire department is going to put out fires. Everyone knows not to play with matches. So they went one step further and reminded us of something bigger than themselves. Watch out for kids. Be a little more careful when you're driving down the roads. Shouldn't that have been the sign in front of the police station?

If you're thinking this has no business correlation you would be wrong. I recently spoke with Matt Miller, the CEO of Playworld Systems. Playworld believes that the world needs play. They are advocates for play. They understand what play does for a child from the standpoint of total wellness - physical, mental and spiritual wellness. Oh yeah, they are also one of the largest manufactures of our country's playgrounds. But if you look at their advertisements, they don't show off their latest and greatest playgrounds. They don't remind you of why their playgrounds are safer, more durable, more fun, etc. If you listen to media interviews with Matt, he doesn't talk about playgrounds. He talks about the world needing play. And he doesn't care if you play on his playground or a competitors. He just knows what play can do and is an advocate for it.

That's emotional branding. I feel more inclined to help my local fire department simply because they gave me more than what I expected. I would seek out a Playworld playground simply because I feel their heart is in the best interest of my kids. A lot of companies can, and should, learn from those examples.

The right thing to do doesn't always align with ROI

2007-01-24T07:26:00.000-08:00

Making headlines all across the country was the amazing recovery of kidnapped youngster Shawn Hornbeck. Gone for four years, Shawn is safe back at home with his parents. And now thanks to the generosity of one local homebuilder, Shawn and his family will be living in a much more secure home.

McBride & Son announced yesterday that they will be donating a $300,000 home for the Hornbeck's to be completed by May. McBride & Son has no relation to the Hornbeck's. They just knew they could do something to help. And for that, I salute them.

They didn't do it for the publicity, because let's face it, the donation is really just a local story. So making up $300,000 in publicity value is going to be a stretch. The goodwill generated by the donation, however, could have lasting impact. But at the end of the day, they donated the home because they are good people.

We all have ways we can help others in need. Thanks, McBride & Son, for stepping up and reminding us of that fact.

When less understanding might be a good thing

2007-01-22T15:37:00.000-08:00

I was on a Southwest Airlines flight last week from Tampa to New Orleans. Sitting next to me was your average looking American guy. We exchanged a few pleasantries and then I asked what he did for a living. He flies Learjets here and there for a private company in Tampa. He was a trucker for 18 years prior to switching careers. As he put it, "I used to fly down the road, now I fly through the air." Comforting thought.

He then asked what I did. "I'm in public relations" was the first thing that rolled off my tongue. "Oh, you're a bullshit artist," he said. Amazingly enough, he was not actually trying to offend me, just trying to be funny. I thought about what he said later that night and I came to the realization that, maybe at some level, it's ok that he labels PR that way. The truth is, the work I do influences what he buys, what he thinks, what he talks about, where he goes, etc. He just doesn't know it. I'm the man behind the curtain. And maybe that's ok.

It's clearly a bummer for the industry as a whole to be thought of as bullshit artists, and something we as an industry need to fix. But maybe if he really knew how much the work of our industry influenced his behavior he wouldn't trust it as much. He laughs at advertising because it's funny, but he doesn't trust it. He buys an iPod or eats soy because I tell him to. Right now he trusts me, he just doesn't know it.

Will it ever be enough?

2007-01-07T09:31:00.000-08:00

Will there ever come a time when people finally say, "enough is enough" when it comes to online content? I'm a big fan of sharing tools like open source code, YouTube and MySpace. But something struck me as odd the other day when I logged onto YouTube and watched something as inspiring as a father push his paraplegic son through a triathlon, and then switched over and watched Saddam Hussein be hanged.

Of course, everyone is in an uproar over how the video could be leaked. Please, give me a break. The video was shot with the sole purpose of being put on YouTube. There were plenty of measures that could have been taken to ensure no video recording equipment was allowed inside the execution room. But we want to watch. We have to watch. We now somehow feel like it's our right to watch.

With that right comes responsibility. So far, we're short on honoring that responsibility.

You know you're a YouTube star when...

2006-12-13T04:52:00.000-08:00

Last week I was watching the Nickelodeon TV show Mr. Meaty with my young daughter. For those who don't regularly subject themselves to Nickelodeon, Mr. Meaty is a puppet show similar to The Muppets or some of the characters on Sesame Street. At the end of the show, Mr. Meaty and his friend broke into an exact parody of the now famous Chinese Backstreet Boys, complete with the third, seemingly oblivious friend in the background. If you don't know who the Chinese Backstreet Boys are, you clearly don't spend any time on YouTube or socialize with anyone who does. These video clips have been viewed and circulated millions upon millions of times.

As I sat there watching a puppet pretending to be a Chinese college student pretending to be a Backstreet Boy, something struck me, and it wasn't my daughters sippy cup. This was the first time I'd seen a mainstream television show actually incorporate, and really just plain copy, a parody from a social media site. It wasn't on Leno or CSI. It was Mr. Meaty. Obviously my daughter had no idea of the connection, but to me this was a sign of a coming entertainment revolution. YouTube, and social media as a whole, has largely been contained to itself. Its users largely kept to themselves and if you weren't in the community, you didn't get it. But now it is being embraced by traditional media and incorporated into mainstream entertainment.

If you haven't seen any of the Chinese Backstreet Boy clips, do yourself a favor and watch it here. In fact, go watch YouTube's Most Viewed Clips of All Time and be alert for the next parody on Mr. Meaty.

ChiSox team with 7-Eleven in clock comedy

2006-10-11T18:54:00.000-07:00

The Chicago White Sox announced an agreement today with Dallas-based 7-Eleven Stores that would require starting times at weeknight home games to start at 7:11pm. OK, I've heard of ridiculous sponsorship ideas, but this is borderline comical.

Inc. magazine gets it wrong: Pay-for-placement isn't PR

2006-10-04T18:53:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of Inc. magazine, but when I opened up my glossy October edition I was pretty disappointed to find an article titled. "Goodbye Retainers. Pay As You Go With Results-Based PR."

The feature opens with a horror story of an entrepreneur (Ada Tray) who paid a PR firm the ghastly sum of $2,000 per month and didn't get what she was promised. You can figure out the rest of the story. She fires the agency, hires a pay-per-placement firm and lives happily ever after. (actually, she only got one placement out of the pay-per-placement firm, but she only had to pay $1,000 for that)

These kind of stories make me sick for several reasons. First, let's address the obvious. What do you expect to get for $2,000 per month? In this particular story, Ada thought that two grand would buy all the media in the world. Two grand won't get you an ad in Inc. magazine equal to the size of this sentence. I know the magazine is aimed at small business entrepreneurs, but $2,000 a month isn't a PR budget, it's barely an electric bill.

Ada then refers to what she wants as a "PR firm" when in reality, she wants a publicist. Think about it. Pay-for-placement only encourages a 'PR firm' to get media results. What happened to strategy? What happened to any tactic other than media? PR firms deliver business communications consulting. Publicists only focus on media. Nelly has a publicist. Fortune 500 companies have PR firms.

In addition, nothing in the article addressed the issue of ethics. If the writer, Stephanie Clifford, had bothered to visit the Web site of PRSA (Public Relations Society of America), she would have come across our Code of Ethics. The very first provision addresses the issue of maintaining the free flow of information. How does this relate to pay-for-placement? It tempts unethical behavior, and is therefore unallowed by the Code of Ethics. As an example, let's say I'm a PR guy and my client pays me $5,000 for a feature story. What's the stop me from approaching my media buddies and offering them $2,000 under the table to run my story? Think paying journalists to run stories or promote products doesn't happen or is crazy? Remember Armstrong Williams?

Finally, and I promise I'll stop after this, let's look at advertising, a much more expensive proposition than public relations. Washington University in St. Louis ran a full page ad in Inc. magazine a few pages after the PR story. According to the published rate sheet, a full page ad costs $95,060 to run in one month's issue. Now, I'm not good at math, but that seems like a lot more than $2,000. And let's compare what you get. With a monthly retainer, a good PR firm would contact many media outlets and potentially land several stories. With the ad, you get one page in one magazine during one month. Hell, a full year of PR firm support at two grand a month only costs $24,000. You could pay a PR firm for nearly four years before reaching the cost of that one ad. That's just sick.

Keep the attitude front and center

2006-09-22T05:38:00.000-07:00

People ask me all the time what I look for when I hire new communications consultants into our firm. The first answer is always "intellectual curiosity." If I can't see that you have a thirst for learning and interest in stretching your mind then you won't make it here. Our work demands it.

The other big trait I look for is attitude. Do I mean a positive attitude? Of course. But I also look for someone who has a bit of an edge. I want people who are capable of being passionate about their work and that usually comes out in attitude.

I haven't met a client yet that wants us to be Yes Men or Yes Women. If you don't have a bit of an edge you might just nod your head and do whatever the client wants. Our clients pay us to be their counsel. That means telling it like it is and offering our professional perspective. Sometimes that is in direct opposition to their original thinking. But that's what we're here for.

Katie Couric goes live... and asks for help

2006-09-05T18:29:00.000-07:00

I think it's safe to say that Katie Couric did a good job in her first telecast as anchor of the CBS Evening News tonight. In fact, I thought she did a great job ... until she got to the end.

She acknowledged that many 'fans' have asked her how she planned to sign off. Instead of having something planned, she decided to start a contest. She's asking for viewers to write in and recommend a sign off. If I could equate it to baseball for a moment, that's like Albert Pujols asking for fans to give him tips on his swing.

I can't judge her based on one aspect of the telecast, and certainly time will tell how she does, but I'm just glad the media circus is over.

Customer disservice the Sprint way

2006-08-29T10:37:00.000-07:00

My wife has been a Sprint PCS customer for years. On her last bill, she had 29 separate charges for text messaging to her wireless card (How a wireless card for a laptop can receive text messages is beyond me). I called Sprint to inquire about the charges and ask that they be removed. After a few questions back and forth with very little help, I was given an 800 number to another Sprint technician. I was told to try this second person for help.

I had now spent about 10 minutes on the phone with a Sprint technician who was able to accomplish nothing other than to give me a different number to call (didn't even offer to connect me) and a poor attitude. But here is the worst part: Before I hung up, she informed me of four other offers from Sprint, such as increased internet speed, home long distance and nights that start at 6pm. Then she asked if I would be interested in buying any of those services. Are you kidding me? I just called to complain, Sprint was no help at all, and this is the moment they identify as a selling opportunity?

I declined the offers as politely as possible and called the second technician, who was in all fairness to Sprint, incredibly helpful. The charges were removed and the text messaging fiasco sorted out. I told the second technician about the 'sales pitch' from the first and he told me it was mandatory from Sprint to offer additional services on all customer calls. He said he felt horrible doing it and equated it to 'stopping at a car wreck and laughing,' but was told by his management that is was mandatory.

So I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Sprint has no freaking clue about when to sell and when to shut up and apologize. It also tells me that Sprint doesn't listen to its customer service people. Here you have thousands of employees speaking directly with customers on a daily basis and yet, decisions are being made by executives who never interact them. Brilliant. With customer service like that, we're likely to switch cell companies. Can you hear me now?

Don't pull the plug on traditional media just yet

2006-08-24T12:40:00.000-07:00

With so much buzz lately about blogs, podcasts, RSS and the like, it's amazing that there are people in this world who still read a newspaper, watch the evening news, and listen to the radio. Aren't these dying mediums, replaced by the wishes of iPod-wielding, tech-savvy sophisticates?

Actually, no. Not yet.

A number of studies have recently shown that 88% of the at-work audience have no clue what RSS is. I guess even Really Simple isn't simple enough. Just 22% of adults read blogs and 9% listen to podcasts. And yet the volume of attention given to these new tools is extraordinary.

Companies are falling over themselves to be the first in their industry with a blog or podcast. They want to make sure they are reaching the 12% of people who might be interested in subscribing to the company Kool-Aid. Of course, I'm exaggerating... a little. It is smart for companies to fully understand the best ways to reach their audiences. They just need to make sure the choices are based on expected results, not the communications flavor of the month.

Do I think blogs, podcasts and the rest of the 'new media' will increase in popularity and use? Of course. Are we there yet? Clearly we are not.

Celebrity endorsement should match reality

2006-08-22T06:19:00.000-07:00

Dorin Levin wrote an article on Sunday about how Tiger Woods should be the pitchman for Cadillac instead of Buick. It was argued that, of the two GM brands, Cadillac has the best shot at actually attracting younger buyers with its new, sleek designs of the CTS and STS models. One point that Dorin mentioned, but that I felt needed more attention, was the use of celebrity spokespeople in unrealistic scenarios.

Case in point, raise your hand if you actually believe Tiger spends more time in a Buick than he is contractually obligated - in TV commercials and driving to and from tournament sites. Does he have a stable full of Lucerne's or Rainier's? Not exactly. He is usually spotted driving his Ferrari Testarossa or his BMW 7-series.

I'm not going to argue whether celebrity spokespeople actually drive sales, but in my opinion the use of a celebrity should at least create the belief that he or she uses the product of service. An example: Michael Jordan pushes Hanes underwear. No reason that doesn't hold some shred of believability. George Clooney does voiceovers for Budweiser. Tiger pitches Nike. Catherine Zeta-Jones pushes T-Mobile. These are all believable. Tiger rolling up to his $100 million estate in a $27,000 Buick? It just doesn't quite make it.

As a final point, consider Tiger's other endorsement deals and you tell me which one does fit: Nike, Tag Heuer (switched from Rolex), Accenture, American Express, Buick. Hmmm....

Remember who calls the shots

2006-08-15T05:23:00.000-07:00

Citigroup has decided to pull approximately $120 million in cable and print ad spending for the remainder of the year in order to help boost the stock price. Who was the engine behind this decision? The shareholders.

Disappointed with a stagnant stock price and unimpressed with the results of Citi's nearly $1 billion (yes, with a 'B') annual ad spend, shareholders called for a cut in Citi's advertising. Not that Citi will be eliminating its advertising, just trimming the fat.

What does this tell us about ad spending? It goes back to John Wanamaker's famous quote. "Half of all money I spend in advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."

I applaud the shareholders for forcing Citi's hand. Find a way to use my investment money more wisely than giving it to advertising agencies.

Something is wrong when $225,000,000 can't convince me to buy a car

2006-07-31T05:20:00.000-07:00

Advertising Age released a story about Chrysler and the complete failure of its new commercials with "Dr. Z," Chrysler's chairman, Dieter Zetsche. You would have to be hiding under a rock to miss these spots.

A lot of people will tell you that putting the head of a company in ads will bring some shred of credibility to the message. And in large part, that can be true. The only problem with Dr. Z was that 80% of people believed he was a fictional character and not the head of Chrysler. The response from consumer studies also showed that the message of employee pricing was lost because people were trying to understand his thick German accent and listen to the specifics behind the "German engineering."

And what was the price tag for these ads? $225,000,000

What did Chrysler get for this little chunk of change? How about a 17% drop in sales and 90% decline in profits. To be fair, auto industry sales are off 11% as a group, but that still puts Chrysler 6% behind the industry.

Here's a tip to auto makers and any other company with recurring needs to spend massive amounts of money on advertising: find another way because advertising alone isn't doing it for you.

"Heads Up" - Athletes don't always align reputation and judgment

2006-07-17T04:56:00.000-07:00

I knew that Ben Roethlisberger cracked his skull when he crashed into a car last month not wearing a safety helmet, so I wasn't completely surprised by his latest unbelievable comments about helmet safety. Talking to USA Today, Roethlisberger said he has parked his bike for the season, but still believes that "people should make their own decision about whether to wear a helmet on a motorcycle," and that he "doesn't plan on doing public safety announcements for motorcycle or helmet safety."

Atta boy, Benny. Way to be a role model. Why seize the opportunity to communicate directly to the hundreds of thousands of kids who idolize your every move about a way to help save their life? Why actually use your popularity as a way to show that, yes, even superstars make mistakes?

And then there is Zinedine Zidane, the French soccer star of World Cup 2006, who rammed his head into the chest of an Italian player after words were exchanged about the integrity of Zidane's mother. Didn't we learn in gradeschool that saying about sticks and stones? Here is Zidane, arguably 12 minutes away from forever being remembered in the same light as Pele and Michael Jordan, and he can't control his emotion. Now all that's talked about is his temper. Yes, he apologized, 'to the kids,' but not for his actions. He apologized that they saw him do it. That's like apologizing that the cops caught you robbing a bank, but not being sorry for stealing the money.

It's sad for me, as a father, to watch when idol athletes only step up to the plate in stadiums.

Television ads are about to get a lot less expensive

2006-07-11T04:49:00.000-07:00

AC Nielsen has announced that starting in November, it will begin to provide TV ratings for commercials. Currently, Nielsen measures a show block in its entirety. If you tune in to watch any part of a show, Nielsen reports you also watched the ads.

This is big news for advertisers. The expected outcome is that many people either change the channel or skip the commercials. Advertisers will then be prepared to negotiate much lower ad rates or will simply put some of their ad dollars where people are going - the internet.

The way I see it, this is good news all around. Television ads are way too expensive given the ROI. Maybe now marketers will look at other ways to sell their products and services that are effective. Internet advertising can certainly be one of those ways, but I see this as a wake up call to many marketing executives and CEOs. Just as print readership has gone from newspapers to the internet, so too are television viewers. It only makes sense that the marketing spend follow the consumers.

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PepsiCo should be applauded for their no-brainer

2006-07-06T20:05:00.000-07:00

Three cheers to PepsiCo for notifying Coca-Cola it had received a letter offering stolen information about a new Coke product. In this day and age of Enron-like corporate ethics, it's refreshing to see a company actually do the right thing.

It is also, coincidentally, the only real move Pepsi could make. Consider if they had ignored the letter or had accepted the offer. Word would have leaked and Pepsi would have been fried. In reality, the Coca-Cola employees who tried to sell company secrets did nothing more than provide Pepsi with an excuse for great free publicity.

Consumer media goes from grade school to graduate school

2006-07-05T11:07:00.000-07:00

I have a theory about consumer media (different than 'news' media) that goes something like this: Consumer media is slowing changing from an informer to an influencer.

Early in its lifecycle, consumer media was largely advertising. It told you things and you listened. Advertising was truth. Then public relations came more into the spotlight, advertising moved into the 'art' category and you could recognize the difference between corporate messaging and honest assessment. Today, we've moved into a consumer-generated media stage, whereby consumers are influenced by the information given to them, but they are responsible for creating the messaging, marketing, R&D and promotion of today's products. Think of it like school. In first grade, your teacher knew all the answers. She taught you that 1 + 1 = 2. That was fact. Then as you progressed through the system, you reached college or grad school where your teacher was more of a guide and less of a body of knowledge. They encouraged you to think on your own and decide for yourself whether or not what they taught was fact. (if you took the geeky advanced math classes like I did you learned that, through geometric proofs, 1 + 1 doesn't have to equal 2.)

Hollywood is a great example of this change. In the past, they put out a trailer, you watched it and decided if you wanted to see the movie. Simple enough. Today, they release a trailer on sites like YouTube and encourage you to modify it or create your own spoof of the movie. So instead of trying to create interest or buzz for the film themselves, the studios let the consumers create buzz for them. There could be 1,000 versions of the trailer out there and that leads to more interest, which leads to more ticket sales.

Of course, not everyone understands how to capitalize on the consumer-generated media phenomenon. The Diet Coke / Mentos 'chemistry set' is a good example. Mentos was thrilled with the news that thousands of videos popped up on YouTube with different versions of the Mentos Volcano. Diet Coke was horrified. Sales of Mentos spiked after the news went viral. Diet Coke's sales remained the same.

My prediction: consumers will have full access to R&D and marketing of products in the very near future and the process will be completely transparent. Companies realize that by giving consumers a stake in the outcome, you are creating loyalty and a sense of ownership. You can't spend enough on advertising to create that bond.

How not to make a city look good

2006-06-29T14:05:00.000-07:00

I saw this ad in the latest edition of Inc. magazine. At first, I thought my hometown of St. Louis had been firebombed or was suffering some major natural disaster. Maybe our local politicians were extremely corrupt and we were spiraling out of control (content for another blog...).

I looked out my window and, thankfully, all was well. We just suffer from an incredibly ignorant advertising department inside the Post-Dispatch. At first glance, you would never guess this ad was promoting the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's classified section. Go there to look for work. More St. Louisans go to the Post classified than any other blah blah blah.

I took one look at this and thought I would see the head of the St. Louis tourism commission on a march to the Post looking for heads to roll. This ad completely undermines efforts made by our city to promote tourism and economic development. Are we in such bad shape that we're hanging a Help Wanted sign on the one landmark that symbolizes national expansion? Did the Post even think before putting this ad out?

Someone needs to explain to me how this city's newspaper would think this ad was good for the city. It doesn't deliver the right message. It doesn't connect with what the Post was trying to do. It gives St. Louis an incredibly poor image.

Congratulations, Post-Dispatch. I'm sure that Lee (and the Pulitzer's) would be very proud that you're doing all you can to run your subscriber base into the ground.

The Ritz-Carlton drives the bus

2006-06-24T11:34:00.000-07:00

On Friday, we invited Brad Cance, general manager of the Ritz-Carlton, to speak to us about how the hotel company has built their reputation for excellence and amazing client service. There are a number of things in place that help perpetuate that kind of thinking, but overall, he said it comes down to the right people.

He quoted Jim Collins' book Good to Great about how you have to have the right people on the bus, and in the right seat. He spoke about how they expect the very best from their ladies and gentlemen, and in turn, treat their ladies and gentlemen with the utmost respect.

That model works for the Ritz-Carlton, it works for us, and it can work for every company regardless of size, offering or location. Problem is, too many companies don't invest the small amount of time it would take to really make it happen. Can you imagine what your reaction would be if you ordered a Big Mac and it was brought to your table instead of plopped down on a tray? What if the guy at Jiffy Lube took 30 seconds and cleaned your air filter instead of trying to sell you a new one? What if the Wal-Mart employee actually took you over to the kids shoe department instead of pointing a finger and saying, "it's on that side of the store."

Little things could go a long way.

Good service isn't expensive, it just requires you to think of your customers' experience and make it one that they will remember. That starts with getting the right people on your bus. Look around your office. Look at the people who serve your business. Should they be on the bus, or at the bus stop?

A lesson on how to blow one billion dollars

2006-06-20T19:25:00.000-07:00

Remember when Europeans really liked America? Yeah, me neither. It's been awhile.

USA Today just ran a story citing several recent studies showing how the reputation of the United States continues to take a nose dive in Europe. In fact, many European countries rank the US as a greater threat to international security than Iran. More than Iran? That must be France talking, right? Wrong. Try England. Germany and Italy ranked us second, one behind Iran. Gee, thanks.

It does illustrate one very important point about communications. If you don't walk the walk, all the talk in the world can't save you from the truth. The US is currently spending over one billion dollars on an advertising campaign to help shore up our image overseas. Wasted money if you ask me.

Instead of cubicles, we'll call them MySpaces...

2006-06-20T14:20:00.000-07:00

Why does every kid right out of college expect to be treated like a 30-year company veteran? Why do they get insulted when I don't include them in decision making? Why do they ask 'why?' so much?

Sound familiar? Get used to it. GenY will rock your world, oldtimer. Most people assume Yers are spoiled or want everything handed to them on a silver platter. I used to buy into that theory. But now I think it's because they are the most entrepreneurial generation, ever. They are tech-savvy, unafraid of change and yearn to learn. They don't necessarily care about doing the entry-level tasks, they just want to know why. A response of, "because I told you to" doesn't fly with this group. That worked for the Veterans and the Boomers. Keep in mind that 50% of the male Veteran generation served in the military, thus spawning military-like corporate behavior. The Boomers just accepted it. GenX created 'Me, Inc.' and the Yers are taking it to a whole new level. There are as many Yers as Boomers. You don't think they have the sheer numbers to move an economy?

Our country has policies and pension plans designed for the Veteran generation. The Boomers didn't change things because they are an accepting bunch. The Xers don't have the numbers (only 40 million) to create change, only support it. But the Yers, at 80 million strong, have the numbers, the know-how and the desire to completely shake things up.

I predict in ten years I'll be working for a kid just out of college, in a virtual home office to support my work/life balance, doing nothing but communicating online. Of course, that's just my theory. I'd love to hear yours.

How Ghana can change your business

2006-06-19T05:59:00.000-07:00

This past weekend provided an example of why you can't always bet on the big name, highest paid, most popular or most expected-to-win team, whether that team is a business or a pee-wee football team.

In the World Cup, there are few surprises. The big soccer nations (Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, etc) always do well. It's almost a tradition. But then there is Ghana. The Czech Republic had the pleasure of playing Ghana, a team that no one picked to make it past the first round. The spread on the Ghana-Czech game was four goals. Ghana was supposed to lose. They were expected to lose. Everyone knew they would lose. But no one told Ghana...

Ghana dominated the game from the start, scoring in the first 2 minutes. They played with more tempo, more enthusiasm and more heart and won the game, easily.

Last night, South Korea was playing the 1998 World Cup champs, France. Again, France was supposed to rout the Koreans. What happened? Korea came out hungry and hot. France came out looking like they expected to win. The result was a tie. A huge accomplishment for the Koreans, and an embarrassing result for France.

In the US Open, after Tiger Woods spent the weekend at home, Phil Mickelson was the top ranked player in the field. He was at or near the top of the leaderboard all week. Vijay Singh, Jim Furyk and Colin Montgomerie were all in contention. So was Geoff Ogilvy. Who? This was Father's Day. This was Phil going for three majors in a row. This was New York. It was supposed to end with Phil holding the trophy. He was expected to be the best. But he didn't win. Ogilvy, who most fans have never heard of, played his heart out and won by a shot.

So what's the moral of the story in the business world? Just because you aren't the biggest, or the marquee company, or the one expected to win, you can. Hunger, heart and determination blow past reputation and ego every time. I'd rather go with a smaller, hungrier firm than a large one that expects my business. Why? Because the underdog isn't going to stop fighting. He won't rest on his laurels. He'll prove that he belongs.

Here's to Ghana, South Korea and Geoff Ogilvy for having the fire to show that it isn't the name that wins you the heart of the people, it's the heart of your people that wins you the name.

When strategy and bank accounts collide

2006-06-18T19:01:00.000-07:00

Watching the U.S. Open today, I was reminded of one of the most confusing marketing decisions in the last few years. Through this year, the PGA Tour has television rights with ESPN, easily the biggest name in sports television. Tournaments would be shown on ESPN for the Thursday-Friday rounds and then switch to the networks for weekend coverage. Made sense.

Starting in 2007 (or '08 - I'm not certain), the Tour signed on for 15 years with The Golf Channel as their television partner. Cable channel to cable channel. Sports channel to all golf channel. Makes sense, right?

Wrong.

One big objective of the PGA Tour, the PGA of America, and the USGA for the last several years has been to grow the game of golf. They wanted to "introduce the game to non-golfers." Someone explain to me how moving away from the most watched sports television network to one focusing exclusively on golfers will introduce non-golfers to the sport. The Golf Channel pulled out their wallet, the PGA Tour threw their grow-the-game strategy out the window, and the sport of golf lost a golden opportunity.

Why CEO's need PR now more than ever

2006-06-13T19:19:00.000-07:00

A lot of talk has been made recently about how kids today get into more trouble than their parent's generation, how our ethics are gone, and how corrupt corporate America has become. That's all a bunch of nonsense. The only difference is that it's 100 times easier to get caught today than it was 'back then.' Kids were just as foolish, our ethics were no better, and corporate America is actually probably in better hands today than 50 years ago.

The reason for all of this is transparency. It's become a completely over-used term, but until something better comes along, I'll run with it. Before, a corporation selected what information it wanted to release to the public to help drive stock prices. Today, information is not only reported by the 'corporate head' but also by the whistle blower in accounting or operations. There is no private information anymore. What's a CEO to do?

The first thing to do is fire your spin doctors. They aren't PR people and they don't know how to operate in today's world. What today's CEO needs is honest communications counsel that understands the business and the effect information has across all stakeholders.

Whew. That's a big role. Welcome to today's public relations.

Luckily there are ways to tell the counsel from the spin docs. Counsel seeks your input and works with you on solutions, even challenging your ideas fiercely to ensure the right action is taken. Spin doctors wait for you to tell them what to do. Counsel brings new ideas and information to you that will be helpful in your decision making. Spinners react to information or downplay its worth. Counsel is worried about the bigger picture. Spin doctors focus on the next five minutes.

CEO's realize that a corporations reputation matters more today than ever. Stocks prices go up and down on information that has nothing to do with finance. The number of job applicants fall over news that Company B isn't properly recycling their e-waste. Having a bank full of good feelings helps offset the occasional bad news. Having no bank leaves the focus only on the bad news.

The reputation of your company and the manner in which you operate isn't a job to be left to the legal department or human resources. It certainly doesn't fall under advertising, although that tool will likely be utilized by the PR counsel at some point. The mighty responsibility of managing your corporate reputation, how the world views and perceives what you do, falls squarely on the shoulders of public relations. In my opinion, too many CEO's can't see past the legal department. Companies aren't letting the people trained in reputation and communications management actually manage the communications and reputation of the company.

Living in a future focused economy

2006-05-30T21:09:00.000-07:00

It used to be that you would wake up, stumble out the front door to get the paper and read about what happened yesterday. You would go to work and talk about yesterday's events around the water cooler. If a story broke after deadline, it wouldn't make it out until the following day.

Today you wake up, stumble out the front door to get the paper and read about what's going to happen today. You go to work and talk about tomorrow's events. If a story breaks late in the day, you're notified on your RSS feed immediately.

We live in a future focused economy.

Because print media can no longer compete with broadcast and online coverage of current events, they must resort to predicting the future. (sidebar: interestingly, the term 'current events' has changed dramatically over the last ten years. In 1995, it could have meant within a week. Today, it means in the last eight hours.) Newspapers use headlines like, "Fed Expected to Raise Rates" or "Bush to Announce Reduction of Energy Plan in State of the Union Address." They aren't reporting what happened. They're reporting what will happen. If only I could take them to the track...

The tradeoff is what it has always been: quality and depth. The quality and depth of the written word is superior to auditory communications. They may not tell you about what happened yesterday, since you already know, but papers can tell you in great detail about why something is supposed to happen.

The reason for all of this (other than the speed of the Internet) is the proliferation of 'news.' As the news business got more and more competitive, news media had to find a new way to differentiate themselves from the competition. And thus, future focused economies were born. The 27/7 cable outlets are content to let the print media own the future driven position since they have to constantly stay on top of breaking stories, often changing the story as the facts unfold.

To be sure, there is room for both old and new methods. However, I'm waiting for the day I see the headline, "Cardinals to Win World Series Next Week: Yankees Stunned."

Find the commonalities in your brand relationships

2006-05-30T20:38:00.000-07:00

Look around your house or your office and make a list of the brand names you find. Some of mine would be: Nissan, Hewlett-Packard, Polo, Nike, Kraft, Crest, Excedrin, Titleist, Ketel One, GE, Sony, etc.

What do these brands say about me? What can you tell me about me, based on these brands? To answer that question, you have to ask 'what are the commonalities in your brand relationships?' Do you look around and see Mercedes, Brooks Brothers and Rolex? Maybe you see Casio, Old Navy and Kia. However, the same person who has BMW might also have Colgate, Fruit of the Loom, and Wal-Mart.

In finding the commonalities, you often have to look beyond the brand and go to what the brand represents. For example, if I have Nike and Snickers, it could mean I want to appear active and fit, but really love comfort and taste. Another commonality is the absence of brands, or generic brands. Do you have brand names on externally focused items like clothing or cars and generic brands for internally focused items like printer paper or a toothbrush?

Looking at your personal brand relationships is similar to looking at your professional relationships. Do you tend to do business with 'brand name' partners and vendors or do you seek out other companies that perform similarly without the cache of a well-known name?

Most people will immediately see the commonalities in their brand relationships. I personally prefer name brands that I perceive as performing well, and prefer generic brands for products or services that are short term or easily replaceable. I know that most brands exist only on a six inch length of space - the one between my ears. But more interesting is how we associate ourselves with those perceptions as well as associate others based on their perceptions.

Another reason why online makes sense

2006-05-22T18:45:00.000-07:00

AT&T just got called out by a former technician who published confidential papers on an online news site, Wired News. Not to go into great lengths about the story, but he basically has documented proof that AT&T was cooperating with the NSA in order to provide private information through 'secret rooms' where all kinds of information about your email messages was being analyzed.

This post isn't about the merits of what AT&T did or even about whether Wired News should have published the sealed documents. This post is about one thought: you better be listening to what people are saying about you online, because your company depends on it.

And not just listening, but being in a position to listen, interpret and respond. Size doesn't matter in this game. Big companies and small companies are equally at risk. A quick example. I heard today at Counselors Academy about a new software product that was reviewed by a USA Today tech editor. The developer of this software was told to prepare his servers for a massive influx of download requests because USA Today goes out to some 2 million readers and the review was five out of five stars. After 24 hours of the paper being published the developer had sold 38 copies. Not exactly the stellar launch he had hoped for.

He decided to try a different approach. He sent the software to two tech bloggers. Just two. After 24 hours of their reviews posting online, he had sold over 3800 copies.

Does this mean that USA Today is meaningless? Absolutely not. Does this mean bloggers are the only way to move product? Absolutely not. It just means, the online world is a powerful force that is at your fingertips and to not be taking advantage of it is like flushing money down the drain.

Lease vs. Buy -- Agency vs. Internal

2006-05-18T13:49:00.000-07:00

We work with a client who is in the business of leasing IT equipment. They are, and I'm not playing favorites, easily the best in the industry. I was recently studying their position on lease vs. buy and it occurred to me that the same concept applies to communications and human capital.

A company has the option to either handle their communications with internal staff or hire an external agency (for reasons of simplicity we won't go into the companies that do both). Excluding a few exceptions, I'm in the lease camp on this one. Think about it.

Hiring (leasing) an agency's human capital (strategy and creativity) keeps things fresh. It offers an outsider's perspective with strategic and tactical expertise. You can update your equipment (change team members, scope of work) as you wish or as needed. You gain the power of flexibility (drawing on the resources of the entire agency).

By keeping your communications internal, you run the risk of thought becoming stale, creativity being squashed because of responses like "we've never done that before," and if your people don't work out, it's expensive and time consuming to replace them. In addition, your team is all you have. You can't draw on an entire group of expertise for assistance.

As businesses ebb and flow between being all things to all people and focusing on core competencies one thing remains the same: their need to communicate with their stakeholders. Agencies have been through it and seen it all and are in the best position to successfully accomplish your communications objectives.

Are you as dumb as your kid?

2006-05-16T11:32:00.000-07:00

Bolt Media recently released a study citing that 75% of 12- to 34-year-olds couldn't name the four major TV networks: NBC, ABC, CBS and FOX. Before you throw your arms up and say the country will soon be run by moronic, uneducated slackers, I have just one thought - so what?

Step back and look at who was studied - 12- to 34-year-olds. Does anyone actually think they spend their time watching mainstream television? No, they're online on myspace.com or searching the Net for clues on Lost. They don't care what network it's on. And why should they?

Fifty years ago... hell, twenty years ago, 85% of TV viewing people watched the networks because there weren't real alternatives. You got your news from Dan Rather or Peter Jennings and you watched M*A*S*H* or Cheers and that was about it. Today kids have (and by kids I mean anyone under 35) the Web, a zillion highly targeted cable channels, iPods, blogs, etc. I would like to see a similar study of 35- to 55-year-olds to see how many could name four bloggers or even define what a blog is. Maybe we could ask them if they've heard of myspace.com or facebook.com.

My point is simply to take these kinds of studies with a grain of salt. Kids today aren't stupid just because they can't name the networks. They don't watch one or two stations like most 50+ 'ers do. They hit 40 different cable channels, 100 Web sites and post on countless blogs. Let's cut them some slack.

The Web and TV viewers. I'm not sold yet...

2006-05-15T08:49:00.000-07:00

There was a great story in today's WSJ Technology section titled, "TV + the Web = ?" that went into detail about the future viewing habits of many Americans. Some predict that the Web will take over television completely, while others still believe the couch potato isn't extinct just yet. Although I do see an Internet/TV revolution coming, I'm pretty sure TV is safe for a while longer.

Can you imagine sitting down to your laptop to watch the Super Bowl? Maybe you didn't have time to watch it on Super Bowl Sunday so you downloaded it from iTunes and watched it 48 hours later on your iPod. Sounds pretty crazy doesn't it?

Whenever the discussion about TV and the Web arises, it quickly turns to two topics - advertisers and time shifting (being able to watch the shows not only when you want, but where you want). The advertising subject is easy - they are constantly trying to find ways to take your money to let you watch the shows you want to see. TiVO worked for awhile in getting rid of ads, but even they are buckling under the pressure.

With time shifting it's a different discussion. There is no doubt that I am now able to download my favorite TV show onto my laptop or iPod and watch it whenever I choose. When I'm traveling, the video iPod is definitely a plus. However, how real is the need to be able to watch all TV whenever and wherever you want? Are we as a culture so out of time that we need to actually be able to watch our favorite shows in the bathroom or on a train or at work?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but outside of news shows, isn't TV entertainment? Are we so busy that we have to find ways to squeeze in our entertainment? I think if we are that busy we need to work on our productivity. Call me old-fashioned, but I rather enjoy plunking down on the couch and zoning out every now and then to whatever mindless show is on. I don't necessarily want to schedule my 'downtime.'

I think at the end of the day, it all comes down to one thing: choice. We can choose to be as busy or as free as we want. While I love the idea of TV on the Web and more choices are indeed a great thing, I have to caution against this getting out of control. I'll be interested to look back one year from now and see what new choices are available and what people are realistically able to handle. If you need me, I'll be the one looking for conversation with a human instead of searching iTunes for the last two episodes of Lost.

Are you not entertained??

An advertising company that got it right

2006-05-11T10:09:00.000-07:00

The British pharmacy chain, Boots, found out they had a big problem. Their service was so bad that even their employees wouldn't fill prescriptions with the company. (sidebar - you know your company is in trouble when that happens. Remember how much chatter there was when it was discovered that Britney Spears, on Pepsi's payroll, was demanding a case of Coke in her dressing room before all performances? Ouch.)

Boots was armed with $120 million in marketing spend and approached Naked Communications, an upstart, but strong advertising agency, to create an ad campaign that would convince customers to use Boots' services. And here is the amazing part. Naked said no.

Boots' management suffered from what afflicts 90% of all other large companies: advertising delusion. I define advertising delusion when a company recognizes they have a major operational problem and their decision is to throw millions of advertising dollars at it. Luckily for Boots' sake, Naked was a knowledgeable agency and had the guts to stand their ground.

After some initial research, Naked realized that the problem isn't with the quality of the past ads or with the frequency, reach, etc. The problem was with Boots. Their service stunk. Naked knew that no amount of advertising could make the problem go away. If you put perfume on cow manure, you still have manure.

Naked started with educating Boots' employees about customer service and implemented programs that would encourage them to succeed. They put up in store ads, games for customers and put employees in special t-shirts to help brand recognition. The result: it worked. Prescriptions filled during the next quarter rose 7%, a substantial rise in their business.

Tip of the hat to Naked for being strong enough to do the right thing.

Technorati Tag: Naked Agency

What do they know in Germany that we don't?

2006-05-10T14:15:00.000-07:00

While driving along the Autobahn last week between Frankfurt and Berlin, I noticed something strange. Or should I say, I didn't notice something along the fast-moving highway. I was commenting to my wife about how scenic the countryside was and feigning knowledge of German architecture when it dawned on me. There were no billboards.

How could this be? How would German's possibly know where to go for the next Big Mac or be reminded to watch the next episode of 24? Who was going to let them know that the next Conoco station was just 24 km down the highway? I was perplexed.

I realized that a higher power had to be at work. I asked our German partner about this phenomenon and he told me the German government knew three things. First, it's dangerous to zip along at 225 km/h and focus on anything other than the road. Billboards would simply cause distractions that would cause accidents. Second, they want to keep their country beautiful. No explanation needed. Finally, German's don't buy into them as valuable marketing tools. They are viewed as an annoyance and 'beneath them.' Consequently, there are numerous jokes at our expense for the abundance of such boards in the United States.

Do Americans really buy into what billboards are selling? Is it a worthy marketing expense? I personally think the first two points justify getting rid of them, but I guess I'm just a softy when it comes to reducing fatalities and improving the beauty of our land.

As a communicator, I'm not ready to completely throw in the towel on billboards, however, one simply cannot argue with the Germans' first two points. They do cause distractions and would you rather read a billboard or look at amber waves of grain?

An update on networks

2006-05-08T20:42:00.000-07:00

I just returned from Berlin were I was meeting with our international partners of Public Relations Organisation International (PROI). After this meeting, I have to say that I believe in our network more than ever.

We meet with our entire partner network once a year and with our region twice. We hosted the international meeting in Chicago last year and our German partner, fischer-appelt communications, put us up last week. It is such an honor to work with these firms around the world. To explain the monumental experience and work each is doing would take more than this post.

Here's a big 'thank you' to fischer-appelt and the rest of PROI.

Time to pull back the curtain on partnerships

2006-05-01T09:12:00.000-07:00

Let me ask you a question, Mr. or Mrs. Large Multinational. If you were going to do business in China, or Germany or India, would you rather work with the small regional office of a large US-based PR firm, like Fleishman-Hillard, or with the largest, most respected local agency in that country? Believe it or not, regardless of your answer, most of you continue to use the smaller, regional offices of US-based companies.

There are a number of reasons for this. You want to only manage one agency. You trust the quality of the US agency. You don't know enough about the local in-country agencies. Sound familiar? Now please allow me to pull back the curtain and let you in on a little secret of the agency world.

You're not getting the best, but you're paying for it.

Agencies like FH, Golin-Harris and the other big guys bill themselves as 'global' agencies. They have offices everywhere from Paris to Tokyo to Timbuktu. But how good are those offices. How good is FH's office in Berlin? I believe it's about 5 people. Not exactly the powerhouse of communications you had expected for a major effort in Germany.

Now take professional networks like PROI, of which I'm a member, Worldcom and Pinnacle. These are made up of mid-sized agencies around the US and sometimes, as in the case with PROI, around the world. Our partner in Germany, Fischer-Appelt, is the largest agency in Germany, with offices in Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg and Dusseldorf. They employ over 140 people. Now that's a powerhouse. Which agency would you rather have working for you?

PROI has only 50 members. We keep it small because we want to know each other and ensure that our quality is the same across the board. I know if I call Adreas at Fischer-Appelt, he will deliver results at the same high level of quality that our clients demand. If I call Yukiko at Asahi Agency in Tokyo I'll get the same thing.

And the best part, my clients still only have to manage one agency - mine. We integrate the process so it's as seamless as working with one large agency. Central point of communication and management, local professionals on the ground delivering results.

In two days I'll be in Berlin for our annual PROI partners meeting. While there, I'll be discussing two new projects with our partner from London and Munich. This approach works if you can answer one question: Do I want to go with a 'name' agency in the US to do my work abroad, or do I want my US agency to manage the process with their local best-in-class partner?

Globalization and flattening the world (yes, a reference to "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman) starts with actually being global, not pushing US thoughts on how to do business to your foreign stakeholders. Go local. Manage centrally. Achieve more.

Newspaper Association of America gets it all wrong

2006-05-01T08:58:00.000-07:00

In the last month or so, the Newspaper Association of America has been running an ad campaign in an attempt to convince advertisers that newspaper advertising is still the way to go. While I believe that newspapers are not dead and advertising in them still makes sense for certain companies and brands, there is one fatal flaw in the NAA's ad campaign - the tagline.

A tagline is supposed to give your potential buyers a lasting memory of your message; the simplest, last thought to get them to buy into what you're selling. Some examples:

"BMW: The Ultimate Driving Machine"
"Nike. Just Do It"
"Beef. It's What's for Dinner"
"Pork. The Other White Meat"
"Wal-Mart. Always Low Prices. Always."

You get the idea. So what does the NAA use for their lasting tagline?

"Newspaper Advertising. A Destination. Not a Distraction."

Wow. I hadn't consciously thought of advertising as a distraction lately, but thanks for pointing that out. Do my buyers look at my advertising and think it's distracting? Is advertising in the paper the right way to go?
These are not the thoughts you want running through the head of someone trying to decide how to spend their marketing budget. In my opinion, the NAA dropped the ball on this one.

This, of course, leads into the discussion of whether leading with advertising is the right strategy for your business or brand. But that's a deeper topic we'll leave for another day...

Companies should pay more attention to conflicts of interest

2006-04-23T13:41:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Journal reported this weekend that Goldman Sachs Group has come under fire recently (and been fired) for their multiple conflicts of interest. How can they give advice in your interest if their corporate investments are in the interest of your rivals? It's no small secret that Goldman Sachs can make more money by 'playing the field,' which is why they risk walking the line of smart companies relieving them of their duties when these conflicts occur.

The same is true when hiring a communications agency. If you are Coca-Cola and hire me to market your product or company, would you feel secure if I also represented Pepsi? I highly doubt it.

Companies today want to hire firms with experience in their field, but not current experience. And that's the catch. Too many communications firms represent competing companies or interests. Why? They are either specialty shops or they have amassed so much experience in one industry they feel it would be a waste not to use it. And that leads to my problem with niche firms. It simply creates conflicts of interest and limits that firms growth. I believe that to best serve our clients, communications professionals have to be very well versed in multiple industries and disciplines. It brings outside of the box thinking and different perspectives to each program. It's healthy for the strategy.

Be warned of the agency that tries to tell you it won't be a conflict because a different team will be working on each account. If push ever came to shove, the client with the biggest budget will win.