Strategic Public Relations

BOOK REVIEW: Can We Do That?!

Just finished reading Peter Shankman’s book, Can We Do That?! It covers a lot of ground from PR basics, media relations and events to creative thinking, crisis communications and account management.

Shankman’s conversational style makes it an easy read (no small feat for non-fiction). His hard-earned experiences recounted in the book make it credible (no small feat for a business book). The end result is an entertaining read I recommend checking out.

That said I define some words differently than Shankman. He calls certain PR tactics—stunts. To me stunts are tactics lacking strategy. Stunts are for Evel Knievel. So we exchanged five questions and answers via email.

1) SPR: Every tactic, no matter how creative or bombastic, should be driven by a larger strategy. Your thoughts?
One of the first rules in the book - PR for the sake of PR is a waste of time. Consequently, a PR stunt for the sake of a PR stunt is a waste of time. If you're not getting people thinking, reacting, and talking about your COMPANY, and not just the stunt itself, you've wasted money.

A great PR stunt is part of a larger strategy, that's already working 100% at getting the press you desire and results you want. It's only after that's implemented that you can say "OK, let's see what ELSE we can do."

When we did the Yarn Bus for Flying Fingers, we were already in a massive pitch mode for the previous six months, having landed everything from local TV to morning shows, about edible yarn, only at Flying Fingers. The bus was the secondary component in an already great story.

2) SPR: Tell us about the book. What's your elevator speech for it and why should people buy it?
While the book is called "Can We Do That?! Outrageous PR Stunts and why your company needs them," the stunt aspect is only one part of the book, much like a stunt should be only one part of a PR campaign. The real concept behind the book is what I want to simply call "COMMON F*ING SENSE."

It still, to this day, amazes me how many publicists, some with a TON more experience than you and me, still think it's ok to mass-blast a press release to a thousand reporters who share one commonality, that of "breathing," and are then shocked when they not only don't get placements, but get told to get lost.

This isn't rocket science. It never will be. If one person learns how not to be a dumb ass when dealing with a reporter or a client, it was worth writing the book.

3) SPR: What is your advice for selling a new and different idea to a client that they are nervous about doing?
I devote like, half a chapter to getting through a stopper. A stopper is a lawyer, a scared client, etc, someone devoted to killing your awesome idea before it ever comes to life. Famous stoppers include Bill Lumburgh from Office Space and Smithers from The Simpsons.

The key to getting by a stopper is killing them with facts and figures. I call it having to ROAR. Responsibility, Opportunities, Awareness, and Results.

You're gonna have to answer questions like, "how much will it cost? Do we have insurance? Can anyone be killed? What's the downside? What if it rains? How many advertising dollars does this equate to? Who will run it? What if it snows? etc., etc., etc.

The more facts, figures, and answers you can provide WHEN ASKED, the more likely the client will be to say, "OK, they seem to know what they're doing - let's give it a shot."

4) SPR: What are some of the big problems you see that get PR people singled out by media and blogs like the Bad Pitch blog?
Pitching something that has NOTHING to do with what the reporter writes is the biggest one. I'll go on record and say it: Bacon’s Media Map, CornerBar PR and other PR resources ARE NOT THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. THEY WILL SCREW UP. PEOPLE CHANGE BEATS AND DO NOT TELL THEM.

Don't pitch and say "Hey, Media Map says you cover small business. I've got a story about a small business in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. If this is the small business reporter for TIME Magazine, unless that small business in Portsmouth is making a cure for cancer, good luck.

KNOW. YOUR. REPORTER. Don't just email them out of the blue. Try to establish a relationship with them FIRST, before you pitch them. I threw tons of examples in the book about that - people who just simply DON'T FREAKING GET IT, but hit the same reporter, time after time after time, thinking "hey, maybe this time it'll work!" Sigh.

5) SPR: Name one pr campaign out there that makes you think, "Wish I'd thought of that."
Taco Bell's "If Space Station Mir Hits This Target, Everyone in America gets a Free Taco." Brilliant. And Paris Hilton. She's the ultimate PR stunt.

For more from Shankman, check out his blog, PR Differently.

Cross-Posted To The Bad Pitch Blog.

tags | public relations | PR | media relations | media | good pitch | bad pitch | bad pitch blog | Peter Shankman | marketing | CornerBar PR |Media Map | Bacon’s

Second Life’s Ride on the Hype Cycle

Bloglines has brought me several pro and con Second Life (SL) posts to read recently.

SL is experiencing growing pains and will continue to do so considering the media’s ebullient build-up of any topic is usually a set up for a tear down.

Arrows and accolades aside, let’s apply SL against Gartner’s Hype Cycle. Tom Murphy (my second favorite Irishman ;-) conducted a similar, pragmatic exercise in September of 2005 to gauge the evolution of an array of PR tactics. Was SL even on our radar at the time?

DISCLAIMER: Second Life was humming along for quite some time before mainstream marketers joined the grid. And while most veteran residents consider this entrance ham-fisted at best, this exercise does not take early SL history into account.

We’ve passed the peak of inflated expectations—during which SL brought us a virtual millionaire and even helped determine TIME Magazine’s “Person of the Year.” But IMHO it’s still early and we’re not in the trough of disillusionment.

If When SL reaches “the slope and the plateau,” I think marketers that created an SL presence as a stunt for short term awareness will be gone.

The remaining brands will more closely align with residents’ real world demographics. They’ll also understand the opportunity with SL is not to simply mirror brands from real life, but to take advantage of SL and extend brands in ways they cannot in the real world.

SL residents help illustrate my point. How many real world folks can fly, teleport and completely alter their physical appearance with a few clicks and keystrokes?

What's your take on marketing's flavor of the month, er, Second Life? Where do you think Second Life is on this chart?

UPDATE: Linda Zimmer at Business Communicators of Second Life joins the discussion here .

tags | public relations | PR | media | Second Life | advertising | marketing | social media | branding | brand

Four Links — 12.29.06 — The Good, the Bad, the Year Ahead

1) Best (and Worst Ads) of ‘06   The Wall Street Journal
Careerbuilder’s Monk-e-Mail is singled out as one of the best ad tactics in 2006.

2) PR Missteps and Masterstrokes   BusinessWeek
Are we talking dancing, golf or public relations? Also check out Wired for its annual Foot-in-Mouth awards highlighting “the lamest quotes from or about the world of technology.”

3) The Crystal Ball: What’s Ahead in Ads   The New York Times
No surprises here. Considering the sources are from Madison Avenue, better late than never.

4) 2006 Top 10's   Frank Barnako’s Media Blog
“End of the year ... people on vacation ... newsrooms across America are quiet except for cries of, ‘There is NO news.’ So columnists turn to the traditional crutch, the Top 10 list.”

tags | public relations | PR | media relations | media | best of 2006 | worst of 2006 | advertising | marketing | Careerbuilder | monk-e-mail

Friday Flickr Fix – 12.22.06 – Free Smells

Posting early due to the holidays.

Jimmy John’s is a take out sub place. Why should I head down the street to Jimmy John’s when I pass Subway and Quizno’s en route? The food is about the same quality and price.

Not for free smells, but for the experience.

Jimmy John’s has attitude. It shows in their signs and in details like menu copy, uniforms and packaging (get some Jimmy Chips with your sub). This all works together to differentiate them from all of the food choices I walk past to get to them.

Brands typically look for bigger, better, faster, louder, more or NEW! to differentiate themselves. But sometimes it can be as simple as offering free smells.

Free Smells uploaded by prblog

tags | advertising | marketing | branding | brand

Smirnoff's Smart Guerilla Marketing

Earlier this week, I came upon a demonstration in the heart of downtown Cincinnati.

It turned out to be a guerilla marketing tactic for Smirnoff Vodka entitled Save the Mistletoe.

The perturbed gentlemen to the right is supposed to be dressed as mistletoe. He may be perturbed because he looks like he's headed to a Halloween party dressed as the swamp thing.

When some kids stopped ice skating to heckle him from across the square, I decided to tip off Adrants to Smirnoff's campaign.

Within a few hours of the Adrants post, I received an email from a representative with DIAGEO North America, Smirnoff's manufacturer:

Was this a joke, or did this actually happen?

Any time we hear about anything connected with our brand and children, we take it extremely seriously. We've taken great pains to ensure that as few people under the legal drinking age as humanly possible are exposed to the campaign.

If something has occurred outside our control in which kids were inadvertently exposed to it, I would very much like to know about it

To their credit, this was an immediate and impressive response. I assured DIAGEO that no children were involved in the mistletoe march. I doubt highly any of the ice skaters knew it was a Smirnoff event or who/what Smirnoff is for that matter.

But this shows how thorough Smirnoff is in their execution of Save the Mistletoe events. From planning and execution to tracking and responding to buzz, Smirnoff seems to have all of the right steps well-thought out.

tags | public relations | PR | guerilla marketing | save the mistletoe | advertising | marketing | Smirnoff | branding | brand

10 More Flickr Hacks

One of my most popular posts is 10 Flickr Hacks. Here are 10 more Flickr Hacks that you’ll find just as useful.

1) Flickr Mashup: Create a Flickr music video using PhotoStory 3 or iPhoto. Putting a slide show to music is easy and can really help get your point across.

After hunting for Flickr swag online, I realized Flickr Fanatics make me look like a hater in comparison. To shine a light on these passionate consumers, I created a video tribute and posted it to YouTube (Music via Mashuptown).

2) Tell A Six Word Story: A Story in Six Words is a Flickr Group based on a challenge to Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway was once prodded to compose a complete story in six words. His answer was "For sale: baby shoes, never used." Hone your writing and photography skills and submit some of your stories.

3) Give the Gift of Flickr: Turn your photos into a perfect-bound book or a poster for the perfect gift. QOOP offers several ways to cost-effectively turn pictures into presents.

4) Get Published: The San Francisco Chronicle’s Flickr Pickr publishes an image each week in its print and offline editions. Just tag your images SFChronicle 96Hrs to be considered.

5) Hang Wallpapr: Serve up as many as 100 wallpaper-sized Flickr images at once to give your desktop background a new look.

6) fd’s Flickr Toys: fd's Flickr Toys turn your Flickr account into a production studio.”Warholize” any image (gnome kidding). Create a motivational poster—or not so much. Download a Flickr Profile Widget to show off your Flickr stats. fd has nearly 30 toys to play with, showing the potential of Flickr’s api.

7) Serve up Sets on Site: Pictobrowser serves up photo sets using a piece of easily-generated code you can paste into a blog post or web site.

8) Easy Image Search: Flickr Leech makes finding the perfect image fast work by serving up 200 image results at once. “Flickr Leech: Because Paging Sucks.”

9) Search & Associate: The Flickr Related Tag Browser serves up pictures in the middle of a tag cloud. This helps you find photos associated with your search which can be very helpful.

10) Flickr Swag: The last tip is a plea for Flickr Swag. I know it’s out there. I’m interested in stickers or pins to add to the collection. Show me the love!

tags | Flickr | hacks | social media relations | YouTube | swag | marketing | consumer-generated media

Five Things Meme

Pete Blackshaw, CMO of Nielsen BuzzMetrics, tagged me for the Five Things You Don’t Know About Me meme.

Since I’m always looking for content, I’ll oblige.

RUN: Ran a marathon in 95; I run sporadically, but track it closely having run nearly 2,000 miles since starting in 94.

WINE: I don't drink, but I enjoy helping my father in law make wine. He's a first-generation Italian and we grind up 32 cases of grapes in four hours to begin the process.

STEEL: The ulna on my right arm has a 10-inch stainless steel plate attached to it by 13 steel screws. It symbolizes a tragic, life-changing event that took place nearly four years ago.

HYDRANTS: In college, I worked on a summer crew for the Hamilton County Water Works, scrapping fire hydrants, clearing brush from storm runoff creeks and helping install hydrants. I know more than anyone cares to know about fire hydrants as a result.

NDD (Navigational Deficit Disorder): Born and raised in Cincinnati, yet I can still get lost. I'm terrible with directions and can never remember street names.

The last time I did this, I didn’t tag anyone else. This time, I’ll ask Tom Murphy, Trevor Cook and Scott Baradell to overshare the joy.

Tri-Boro's Zinfandel Grapes uploaded by prblog

tags | public relations | PR | five things meme | Pete Blackshaw| Tom Murphy| Trevor Cook | Scott Baradell

Blending YouTube into Brand Awareness

Coke just unveiled a joint marketing effort with YouTube to expand its presence online. Perhaps Mentos opened Coke’s eyes to the potential of social media?

Smaller, faster brands are using YouTube to create a broad presence online from relative obscurity. Consider Blendtec. Its Will it Blend? series is hilarious. They test a blender with extreme objects, including a handful of ink pens, golf balls, a crowbar and, as you see above, even an iPod.

The spots to date average 270,000 views apiece and all of them drive viewers to a Will it Blend web site. According to the site, Blendtec even did a demonstration on The Today Show a few weeks ago.

The demos remind me of the classic Bass-O-Matic skit from SNL. Will it Blend host and Blendtec CEO Tom Dickson could just as easily be doing these demos on The David Letterman Show.

Blendtec Marketing Manager George Wright discussed the campaign with Strategic Public Relations via email.

SPR: It's unconventional for a home appliance manufacturer to take an approach like this. Please give me some background on the Will it Blend series.
Wright: Tom Dickson, Owner and CEO of Blendtec has been performing extreme tests on Blendtec blenders for years. It is not uncommon for Tom to take a 2x2 board and jam it into a blender to test the durability of the motor, bearings, coupling or blade.

When I approached Tom about actually filming these extreme blending challenges and putting video clips out on the web, he thought that it would be fun and quickly agreed. We hoped for good results but we never imagined that it would take off and demand millions of views as quickly as it did. Tom loves to say, “Before the campaign started, I did not even know what YouTube was… In fact, when George said we were going to post the videos on YouTube, I said Who Tube?” Now our videos are getting millions of views on YouTube.

SPR: What has the overall response been so far?
Wright: The response has been amazing. Every day, I get calls from people that would like to use the will it blend campaign in a new way. One small example: a police academy in Florida contacted me with interest in the segment on blending mobile phones. The instructor would like to show the mobile phone blending clip as part of the orientation portion of the class, to encourage students to turn off their phones during class.

SPR: What are your metrics for the campaign? Are you meeting them?
Wright: Yes – we track new traffic, unique visitors, web references, media placements, news paper, magazine and television placements. Our results eclipsed our expectations, both in impact, volume and timeframe. The return for the $50 that we spent to produce the first round of videos is staggering. We literally have built a brand for our home products

SPR: Have you seen a direct correlation between interest in the campaign and sales?
Wright: Willitblend.com as well as Blendtec.com are getting an unprecedented level of internet traffic. Even though this is a branding campaign used to drive top of mind awareness, we have already seeing strong sales growth in the fourth quarter for Total Blenders.

SPR: Any lessons you've learned along the way?
Wright: Keep it simple, be clear on your objectives and beware of scope creep!

SPR: Any advice to other companies considering using social media to market their products?
Wright: Any time you find yourself saying “that is cool” – or “I want to watch”, pay attention - you may be on to something amazing.

SPR: What are the weirdest objects people have requested for blending?
Wright: False teeth, toupee, report cards are among the ones that stick out… Many people want to see electronics destroyed… mobile phones, Play Stations, iPods and more.

What I love about this is how Blendtec can do what most other corporations simply cannot will not do not do—let go and assume a more human voice with their customers. In this example we can see the benefits of doing so.

tags | public relations | PR | media relations | social media | YouTube | Will It Blend | Blendtec | advertising | marketing | branding | brand

CGM Makes You TIME's Person of the Year for 2006

TIME Magazine continues to keep it's annual Person of the Year stunt interesting. Thanks to social media technology like YouTube and Second Life, YOU are TIME’s Person of the Year for 2006.

We're looking at an explosion of productivity and innovation, and it's just getting started, as millions of minds that would otherwise have drowned in obscurity get backhauled into the global intellectual economy.

Who are these people? Who has that time and that energy and that passion?

The answer is, you do. And for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME's Person of the Year for 2006 is you.

Wow. They're pouring it on pretty thick. It almost reads like a Bud Light Real Men of Genius spot.

Sure, it's a mistake to romanticize all this any more than is strictly necessary. Web 2.0 harnesses the stupidity of crowds as well as its wisdom. Some of the comments on YouTube make you weep for the future of humanity just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and the naked hatred.

But that's what makes all this interesting. Web 2.0 is a massive social experiment, and like any experiment worth trying, it could fail. There's no road map for how an organism that's not a bacterium lives and works together on this planet in numbers in excess of 6 billion. But 2006 gave us some ideas.

The real genius in all of this is that we will help ensure healthy print sales with plenty of posts just like this one.

tags | public relations | PR | Time person of the year 2006 | media | Time magazine | blog | consumer-generated media | social media

Four Links — 12.14.06

1) Blogging to Jump the Shark
Blogging will pique peak in 2007. Finally!

You know it’s true if the Gartner Gods proclaim it (and old news when the AP reports it).

Math from Steve here. But my favorite quote is from Hugh MacLeod:

It seems all that needs to be said about blogs has already been said, and said well. Now it’s time to stop talking about the blogs themselves, and start finding new stuff to do with them. Blogs are great, but real life is more interesting.”

2) Laughter--the Original Viral
“According to a new study, laughter truly is contagious: the brain responds to the sound of laughter and preps the muscles in the face to join in the mirth.” Here’s hoping your workplace is not the antidote.

3) Google Offers Free Apps for the Enterprise
Wow. “Google Apps for your Domain lets you offer private-labeled email, IM and calendar accounts to all of your users, so they can share ideas and work more effectively.” Via Greg Brooks.

4) FTC to Regulate Blogosphere?
Hopefully they’ll start with PayPerPost. If the FTC does jump into the fray, I’m betting true WOM is up to the scrutiny. More from Pete Blackshaw.

Blogging's Jumped the Shark uploaded by prblog

tags | public relations | PR | PayPerPost | FTC | WOM | Hugh MacLeod | Pete Blackshaw | marketing | blog | Google Apps | Google