Strategic Public Relations

Your Brand Stinks

OK, maybe it doesn’t. But Fast Company reports that perhaps brands should smell. Their August issue looks at how companies are using scent to help distinguish their brands.

And we're not talking cars and perfume. The fives senses are being used more and more to help define a brand. What color is your brand? Recent research tells me that it is probably blue. What does your brand sound like? Starbucks asked this question and the company is reaping the rewards.

The New York Times sees this as part of a larger trend. It reports that in the late 1990’s large budgets funded advertising and marketing. Now companies are taking new approaches to brand building.

”People have to have faith to create a brand. Take a cup of coffee. Someone had to believe you could take it and create a perception of uniqueness around something generic, and command a premium price. You can't start with the research. You have to believe you can do it and then do it. You can then measure whether you succeeded or not. A cup of coffee is sold everywhere in the United States for 50 cents. Someone had to believe they could make it a little stronger and sell it a different way and get $1.75. That doesn't start from the research.”

If you haven’t asked yourself these questions, maybe you should. Odds are good that everyone on this list has answers to the questions above.

This goes for professional service companies too. Every company has a lobby, meeting space and many sponsor events. Consider how your brand lives in these spaces and immerse your customers in a distinct experience that will build their loyalty and keep you competitive.

p.s. To those hoping to find the sweet smell of success…remember there is a fine line between a scent and an odor. Just remember that Febreeze is scented to eliminate odors.

tags: public relations, media relations, PR, advertising, marketing, branding, brand, design

What mood is your blog?

LiveJournal is mining the 100,000 daily blog posts generated across its network to track the emotion in their corner of the blogosphere. This modern-day mood ring, The Moodographer, can be found here.

Now I'm willing to bet that bloggers are a cranky, whiny bunch more often than not. However the mood was quite the other extreme on July Seventh.

So building on Moodographer, what will we see next? Blog biorhytmns? And does this spell the death of the horoscope? GASP!!

Media Training In Action

The U.S. housing market is on fire right now and garnering a ton of media coverage---positive, negative and wry. A related story on NPR’s Morning Edition offers us an excellent example of media training in action.

Douglas Duncan, chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association is commenting on the surge in sales. The 2.5 minute interview starts out easily. On the third question, 1:15 into the interview, the reporter questions mortgage bankers’ role in helping inflate the market. Duncan’s response navigates this easily and it is obvious that he has prepared for the interview.

It’s not as bombastic as an interview with Matt Lauer, but it is worth a listen.

Speaking of the Today Show, if Douglas Duncan gets the Gallant for media training, Tom Cruise gets the Goofus.

tags: public relations, media relations, PR

12 News Release Alternatives

Amy Gahran has requested some alternatives to the news release. Here are a dozen blog/RSS-free ideas to consider.

1) Infographic: USA Today seemingly owns the infographic because snappy visuals help show the news instead of simply telling it. Research results work well in this format and stand out from the other news competing for column inches.

2) Advertising: Paid placement can be very useful if you want complete control of the message and when it appears.

3) News Story: Your job is far from over after the first editorial placement. Sending a story you've placed to non-competitive media outlets can be very effective, assuming you have a unique follow-up angle. Your news has already been vetted at this point and can help create momentum.

4) Bullet Point: Can you get your news across in a sentence or two? You should. Concise, substantive writing goes a long way in the attention-deficit-driven world of media relations.

5) Haiku: Creative writing might work, but what if you're announcing an acquisition?
        Procter and Gamble
        acquired Gillette to grow
        and be number one.
Needless to say, you'll need background material to support news poetry.

6) Podcast/mp3 File: We're all listening to podcasts and can think of news that might be effective in this format. If everyone listened to their news releases before sending them out, I suspect their quality would improve dramatically.

7) Phone/E-Mail: Phone and e-mail are sometimes used in tandem with news releases, but consider using them to simply continue the conversation you've created with your key news contacts to create bigger stories. How many news releases have landed you on the cover of a magazine?

8) Picture: Well, they are worth a thousand, but consider how a picture might be used as a teaser for your news. You can photoshop a unique URL into this engaging, visual clue that offers more information. This also allows you to track media interest. If personnel photos were still sent out as prints, you could easily create a cutline for them that would eliminate the need for the accompanying release.

9) Cell Phone/Blackberry: If your reporters use text messaging, you are probably using it to connect with them on important news. The Vatican began doing this in 2003. If your key reporters prefer quick, hand-written notes sent via carrier pigeon, invest in a rooftop coop.

10) Flash Animation: With apologies to Tom Murphy, a flash animation might help announce your company's new CEO. Create a timeline outlining each CEO's tenure and their major accomplishments.

11) Fact Sheet/Backgrounder/Media Kit: Gahran offers up a fact sheet as an alternative to the news release. All this really does is eliminate the painful, contrived quote and our other favorite news release clichés from the raft of poorly-written content choking the wire services each day.

12) Well-Written News Release: The news release is on my list because the 11 ideas above might only work with specific types of news (Have you tapped into poetry to announce financial results?) A news release is versatile enough to announce just about anything. It isn't sexy or groundbreaking. But it can be effective.

At the root of all the drama sparked over this little document is the fact that it is content quality, and not its format, that is the real issue. I read Gahran's blog, Contentious, for the posts that can help improve writing. She is focused on creating better content so I'm not sure why this debate has so much fire and momentum.

tags: public relations, media relations, PR, advertising, marketing

The Public Relations Piñata

OK. As of this morning, I've counted about a half dozen people using public relations as their piñata in the blogosphere.

I'm not giving them Google Juice by singling them out; but some of these folks enjoy taking a whack at my industry of choice on an ongoing basis. And some of them dangerously resemble that which they condemn. Hey, it's good content and even better links/search results/traffic.

I'm drafting specific responses to some of these threads (that pesky day job is getting in the way, the one where I actually practice public relations). In the meantime, I want everyone to know that I am proud to be a member of the public relations industry.

My career in public relations allows me to work alongside talented, creative people who also wind up teaching me about words like integrity and character.

So go ahead, have another swing at us. This metaphor has you wearing a blindfold but maybe it should be a pair of blinders instead?

tags: public relations, media relations, PR

PR Pro Needs Liver Transplant

Please note the following urgent request for help.

"Shari Kurzrok, a 31-year-old VP at Ogilvy PR Worldwide, will die within days if she does not receive a liver transplant. Information about a liver transplant referral for Kurzrok is at 877/223-3386."

tags: public relations, media relations, PR

Podcasting Spurs a Media 'Land Grab'

Here is a great article from the AP on how media companies are trying to tap into podcasting. My favorite quote:

"While profits remain elusive, there's a bigger prize out there — the company that manages to become the go-to Web site for podcasts could gain enough leverage to strike favorable deals with proven content providers, and generate cash by charging for subscriptions and advertising."

I'm assuming the land grab will spread to business to business content and trade media. This is good news for the leading PR podcast with more than 50 shows under their belt (congratulations Shel and Neville!).

Hopefully this does not encourage a ton of podcast noise as people try and become proven content providers to try and cash in on the demand. I have a face for radio/podcasts, but I think I will use them to punctuate news or content already on this site vs. using this technology frequently.

CNN Seeking Consumer-Generated Media

To help celebrate its 10th anniversary online, the CNN web site has created a special section entitled Online Evolution.

CNN wants to know how the Internet has changed your life. They are accepting submissions here. In addition to the standard, web-based form, they also encourage readers to submit audio, video and visuals to tell their story.

The section is packed full with some great statistics, as well as some historic blasts from the past. My personal favorite is the list of bombastic dot com ventures that went belly-up. Perhaps this is because I am still in PR group therapy, along with Jeremy Pepper, working through my dot com days?

Regardless, be sure to submit your CGM to this roundup. It should be interesting to hear the podcasts submitted, if only because of the 1MB audio file restriction. Is it me, or is the literary equivalent of a 1MB podcast a haiku?

tags: public relations, media relations, PR, marketing, consumer generated media

Attack of the 50 Ft. Blogger

A picture IS worth a thousand words, right? Well, I should have used this one during the recent news release is dead/dying brouhaha. Just head over to this handy site to make your own.

Now to be fair, Steve clarified that he does not think that blogs will kill the news release. But there are plenty of other casualties in the public relations industry:

RSS vs. e-mail/e-mail newsletters,

full feed vs. partial feed,

even the industry itself has been declared dead a few times.

Will podcasting be the next new media to take down an older, more-established technology?

Now we can simply post a pic, share a moment of silence and move on. Think of the time we'll save.

This bookmark has been sitting in my favorites for awhile now. I'm afraid I am unsure who should receive the hat tip for pointing me to it. Drop me a line if you are the blogger in question and I will give you credit.

tags: public relations, media relations, PR

Consumer Impact on Advertising Grows

”I am consumer, hear me roar.”

Consumer impact and influence is growing. The New York Times details how consumers are interacting with advertising campaigns and influencing their outcome. But we’re having an impact further upstream as well…as early as the product design stage. Trendwatching has a thorough analysis of this trend. They call it customer made. It has been around for awhile, but its momentum picked up when a myriad of technologies emerged to facilitate a real dialogue between consumers and corporations.

"Marketing has finally become a conversation. Not between corporations and consumers, but rather a global conversation involving millions of consumers ABOUT corporations. On sites like Planetfeedback.com, on millions of blogs, community sites, forums, viral emails, bulletin boards, and what have you, consumers relentlessly exchange views, complaints, opinions and comments about products and services, about brands, about companies, about YOUR company.

These fickle, wired, empowered, informed, opinionated and experienced holders of a MC (Master in Consumerism) are getting used to 'having it their way', in ANY way imaginable, which includes wanting to have a direct influence on what companies develop and produce for them.

It certainly helps that these same consumers are creative and increasingly have access to professional hardware, software, and online distribution channels to show (and dictate) companies what it is they expect from them, using text, sound, picture and video in ever more powerful ways.

Some companies are also engaging these customers in new ways. These companies are clearly aware that tapping into the collective intellectual capital of their customers yields great creative and 'real' content. However, let's not make the mistake to think that in the end these conversations will all be about communications and branding: how about extending this cooperation with consumers to virtually everything a corporation does, by making the customer an integral part of ALL creative and creational processes?

TRENDWATCHING.COM has dubbed the latter CUSTOMER-MADE the phenomenon of corporations creating goods, services and experiences in close cooperation with consumers, tapping into their intellectual capital, and in exchange giving them a direct say in what actually gets produced, manufactured, developed, designed, serviced, or processed."

If only the TV networks would put this trend into practice. What if the seemingly, creatively-bankrupt TV networks created programs in close cooperation with viewers and produced shows they really wanted to see? Would this approach have stopped "Welcome to the Neighborhood" from being made? Hopefully. The reality series "had people with various backgrounds vie to win a house in a white neighborhood." Civil rights groups stopped ABC from airing the series.

TV networks and production companies could create a series of blogs, or more likely vlogs, that would serve as a test lab to get direct input from viewers on what they want to see on TV and get their reaction to projects before they are giving the green light. Not unlike the open source press release process we’ve seen recently, this approach creates something the public actually wants to see.

Some free advice to Nielsen: leverage your ownership of the TV research and measurement market. Expand into the early stages of programming. Create a blog.

tags: public relations, PR, advertising, marketing, branding, brand, consumer generated media