Strategic Public Relations

Secrets and Lies

This is not a political post, or a movie reference. It’s a quick follow up to Tom Murphy and Phil Gomes discussion on over promising to a client and not delivering.

Both Murphy and Gomes note that promising specific editorial coverage to a client is stupid and irresponsible. I will add that the Public Relations Society of America considers it unethical.

The public relations industry complains it is misunderstood and wonders why it does not always get respect, or a seat at management’s table. Well, if you are contributing to the confusion by promising something you cannot deliver, you should not wonder so much.

Gomes also brings up an excellent point that a national business media placement might pump a client's ego, and your clip report, but will it sell their product/service? At the end of the day, that's what we're trying to do. A hit in the Potato Grower won't impress your friends, but it might do wonders for your client's sales.

Super Bowl Marketing

Super Bowl commercials are sometimes more exciting than the big game itself. As a marketer, it is a great way to see how creative our industry can be. If only this creativity was applied to the Super Bowl logo.

I’ve vented about this Roman numeral nightmare in the past. This year others are pointing out a variety of issues the cumbersome logo creates.

Behind the scenes, the Association of National Advertisers unveiled its research on the client/agency relationship.

The report states too many agencies express creative arrogance. Research specifics will tell more, but I’ll note that creative arrogance is directly tied to great creative.

Creativity is driven by passion and intertwines with all sorts of emotions and behavior, including arrogance. Eliminate this and you eliminate great work. The client/creative struggle is a necessary evil. Not to mention, clients pay agencies to do great work...not to be humble.

Research Sells the Story

We are all familiar with the value of research. Awhile back, I stated research fuels publicity efforts more than the planning process. This is because research can make for a golden news opportunity.

Well, if research is gold, than conflicting research must be platinum.

Media outlets report conflicting research all the time. So which report is right? Well, most likely, both are accurate. A closer look at specifics—survey type, sample and sample size for example—will clearly show how each piece of research supports each story. Some research news I found today details another media strategy—build it up, then tear it down.

Case in point: the Atkins Diet. You would have to be living in a hole to escape the assault from the low-carb regime. Updated packaging, new products, special menus and every third news report tell us carbohydrates are evil. The Atkins Diet has assumed a train of influence that seemingly extends to infinity as everyone hooks up their car to its success.

The media can take a lot of the credit for this success as it misconstrues its meat-centric tenets. An all steak diet makes a great story. And new research that calls Atkins into question makes an even better story. We saw this same approach with the fat-and cholesterol-free fads.

Build it up, then tear it down is not limited to diets. Howard Dean was initially publicized for his extensive Internet-based campaign. Dean was harnessing the power of the Web and riding it all the way to the White House. Well, that story turned into how a scream and the Internet were his demise. New Hampshire may tell a third story.

But I digress. When you are planning your media relations efforts and consider research to sell the story, consider conflicting research. It could transform your story into a t-shirt, a bumper sticker and even a way of life.

Brand Play

The battle for customer attention continues as marketers seek out new ways to grab your attention and traditional approaches bring diminishing returns. New approaches range from conventional—finding new ad real estate and new tchotchkes—to controversial and fun.

We’ve all seen the Orbitz banner ads that encourage you to belly flop into the pool, hit the baseball or throw the snowball. Gartner analysts see this blend of advertising and entertainment increasing. Advergames are a new advertising option and an extension of edutainment.

Our agency has created edutainment games designed to reinforce key messages in a fun and engaging way. An example might be a game designed for a client’s sales force to conduct new product training. It is no surprise to see this tactic extended to customers, as traditional advertising gets noisier, and seemingly nosier, than ever.

In fact, PhaseOne Communications has quantified the ad clutter on television in a new report. The research shows that the number of primetime commercials nearly doubled in the last 20 years. For every three hours of programming, nearly an hour of this time is filled with ads. Wow. TiVo will be glad to hear these statistics.

And this saturation will escalate. In fact, advertisers are now placing these costly television spots online to leverage their investment and fully surround specific audiences.

These "advancements" increase the public relations challenge and its importance. More paid advertising means less room for editorial content. Our pitches are now competing for an even smaller piece of real estate. This does not mean ads are taking our place—quite the contrary.

Third party, editorial content (media relations) is key to bringing credibility to advertising. This content serves as a brand's credentials—proving out advertising messages with specific examples. And as any disciple of integrated marketing will tell you, these tactics work best when they work together.

Blogs: Grass Roots Power

Finally, we see a positive news article showing the possibilities of blogging. It is no surprise this piece comes from the Online Journalism Review.

In the article "Iranian Journalist Credits Blogs for Playing Key Role in His Release From Prison," Mark Glaser interviews Sina Motallebi. Motallebi credits his release from prison to "Iranian and American blogospheres coming together to get publicity and thousands of signatures on an online petition."

Here's the bottom line from Glaser: "Call them self-referential. Call them elitist. Call them blowhards. Call bloggers whatever you want, but you can't deny that they can make a difference, especially when they band together for a serious cause."

Martha Stewart & Public Relations

The mini-blog is now live. So click here for more information on Martha Stewart & Public Relations. Or, sigh in relief as there will be no more Martha Stewart-related posts on this blog. It's a good thing.

I suspect the new Martha blog will be temporary. Once the trial ends, I will certainly stop updating it.

The new Strategic Public Relations blog, complete with RSS feed, is currently in beta testing. You'll hear more about that yet this month. In the meantime, stay right here for current posts. Now I have to go register the two new sites with about 40 gajillion blog search engines. Oy.

Search Engine Strategy

Tired of the G-Word yet?

Well, the nifty tool known as Google is keeping public relations interesting. In fact, several public relations blogs recommend we learn search engine strategy. This tactic is part art, part science and ALL moving target. The rules dictating which sites appear high in search results change as quickly as search engine strategists learn how to bend these rules in their favor.

But there are several approaches to Web content a public relations person can take to ensure their client's site appears higher in search results. Some of these tactics involve more formatting than editing, but they are critical as paid search engine listings are increasing.

Paid search engine listings make an already competitive piece of real estate—the first page—an even tighter space to appear in. As these pages show more paid listings, ads and sponsored results, search engine strategy will help attract target audiences to Web sites.

This is just one more reason to make friends with your agency's media planner. Work with your media planner to determine if paid listings make sense for your search engine strategy.

The media planner overseeing your clients' ad buys can prove invaluable to nearly every public relations effort. They offer the media advertising revenue—online and offline. As a result, they can negotiate value-added services along with ad space. From research and event sponsorship to use of an opt-in mailing list, the value garnered through a media buy can boost the effectiveness of public relations tactics.

I'm not referring to media relations, rather, access to publishers' resources that help promote public relations efforts. "Church and state" should remain separate.

Trade Show Gravity

You will likely find a trade show at the center of the business to business marketing universe. Trade shows bring an entire industry—from manufacturers and customers to media and industry influencers—into one spot to learn what’s new and what’s next.

Trade shows hold more influence on the b to b purchase decision (56 percent) than even the Internet (46 percent) according to Hill & Knowlton research. In my experience, trade shows are usually one of the top three lead generators for b to b marketers. It is also one of the top three marketing expenditures.

Why are they so important?

Brand Awareness: Think about it. To sell our products and services, we employ an array of tactics to reach each specific target audience. A trade show brings nearly every audience—external and internal—together for a few days. It is key that your brand is represented at these shows.

Product Development: Trade shows drive product development. It offers you the chance to unveil a new product in front of the entire industry and give customers, and prospective customers, another reason to purchase.

Lead Generation: Trade shows offer the best opportunity to narrow the purchase decision. Complex, considered purchases are made by an average of seven people. A high level of evaluation and due diligence is conducted to ensure the best choice is made. Trade shows allow customers to do all of this at once and in person.

Sales: Depending where a customer is in the purchase decision cycle (from awareness, interest and evaluation to preference, trial and maintain), they may be at the trade show to make the purchase.

We’re seeing an increase in trade show marketing—hopefully another sign the economy is recovering.

A colorful example is this year’s Auto Show. This leviathan is three-weeks long, with each audience segmented into specific attendance schedules. GM realizes it takes more than a slick tchotchke to generate booth traffic...especially at a show of this magnitude. GM began promoting itself well before the show, first with the American Revolution campaign. Then it went all in, announcing a $50 million car giveaway billed as the “largest in industry history”.

GM is clearly being aggressive to stand out from competitors at the show. Brand awareness will be high, but will new, and free, cars stimulate sales? Clearly GM hopes so. As we discussed before, car manufacturers face a unique set of marketing challenges and opportunities. The Auto Show offers impressive examples of how they respond.

More to the Point

David Byrne may be the best thing that ever happened to Power Point. Case in point: CNN updates us on Byrne’s use of Power Point to create modern art (emphasis on modern).

We first learned of this back in August from Wired magazine’s point/counterpoint.

When CNN wonders if Power Point makes us stupid. Google’s Peter Norvig notes that people, not Power Point decks, drain the life from a meeting. I agree, but still offer up B 2.0’s helpful tips on how to make 2004 more Power Point friendly.

Round out the Old, Round up the New

It gets pretty quiet in between Christmas and New Years…even in the media. At year’s end, we see a lot of roundup stories. From the "best of the year" to the "year in review," it is interesting to look at a year's worth of news and comment. Not to mention, it makes wrapping up a year's worth of work easier in an otherwise slow news period.

In the trades, on the other hand, we see supplier listings. Supplier listings are editorial-free, advertising-driven phone books that no one really references in the coming year—despite what the ad reps might tell you.

But I digress. This year’s roundup stories are mostly product-related. This is a boom and a bust for public relations folk, depending on who you are.

Boom: Ad Age singles out the top ten product launches of 2003.

Bust: Fortune singles out 2003’s best technology, as well as a product of the year (which is also tech-related). But Fortune then goes on to name the worst technology of 2003?! eek. This helps show that all publicity is not good publicity.

It is a shame Fortune singles out Diebold's paperless voting considering the impetus for creating this technology was more intense than a million hanging chad bonfires. But this article is unfortunately the calm before the storm for Diebold. After this article ran, USA Today reported on some security flaws with the paperless voting system.

Self-Policing roundups of note: LA Times journo, David Shaw, conducts a review of his industry. And Tom Murphy at PR Opinions has created a comprehensive public relations year in review.

This rounds out your roundup of, uh, roundups? Enjoy.