Archive for June, 2009

Got ROI? Or how much for 5,000 bags of dead bugs?

Monday, June 29th, 2009

sadgrashopperjurvetsonPosted by Erin Koch

A few weeks ago, we received an unusual package here at Gable PR World Headquarters: a sealed plastic package filled with chocolate covered grasshoppers. Of the many things we receive in the mail and via delivery each week, this really jumped out. The payoff?

This past week, The Wall Street Journal venture capital blog explained the (highly successful) stunt: a company called GotVMail was rebranding itself as Grasshopper Inc., and trying to reach entrepreneurs (many of whom were recently out of work) with their call-forwarding and phone answering services. The packaging that came along with the chocolate covered locusts included a link to a Web site and a video on YouTube.

But here’s what really made our antennae stand on end: as reported by the WSJ blog, the cost of the bags of bugs (mailed to 5,000 influencers) was $67,353! The return on the investment: 150,000 views of the video, nearly 1,000,000 people reached via Twitter, and even requests to show the video at conferences. More importantly, the phones and in-boxes at Grasshopper Inc. are buzzing (or humming as the case may be).

This is an excellent example of the exponential power of a creative idea, leveraged with good PR (Gable PR had fun in leveraging ideas for two very different clients — Proflowers and Digital Microwave; consumer or B2B, creativity works). $67,000 spent on advertising would have amounted to little more than a shrug. Yet the same amount invested in a creative PR idea yielded fantastic results and media and blog coverage that spread across the land … like a plague of locusts.

Photo by Jurvetson

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A Nation of Leading Providers and Solutions — PR Releases Full of It

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

Posted by Tom Gable

PR critics and luminaries regular report on best practices, smart case histories and trends to follow for better results, such as improved use of social media. There is also the dark side.

As reported earlier, David Meerman Scott analyzed 711,123 press releases distributed during 2008 by North American companies. He filtered for 325 gobbledygook phrases and issued a report. The top 10: innovate, pleased to, unique, focused on, leading provider, commitment, partnership, new and improved, leverage, and 120 percent. Inc. Magazine followed with its own list of bad buzz words.

In tracking jargon usage since the 1990s, I found the most-used but lowest-value terms over time have been leading providers and solutions. The former faded for a short time following the Internet bust but is now making a major comeback. So we set up news alerts on the term and searched daily on Business Wire and PR Newswire for 30 days. We found from 50 to 150 leading providers emerging daily from every industry, niche and specialty, with 5,017 occurrences on PR Newswire alone.

Most offered no validation on their claims; they were clearly undifferentiated. A few did provide market share and revenue data for support. The throwaway claims were also tied to providing seamless, end-to-end solutions for the next generation. Here are a few samples from the research. And if anyone, other than the entity that issues the release, can provide the name of just one of these leaders, please post a comment and you will be entered into a drawing for a bottle of 1989 Clerc Milon, an excellent vintage from a fine Bordeaux chateau.

Big claims and glaring generalities (all preceded by “leading provider of”):

…end-to-end web hosting services…
…managed business solutions and system integration services…
…wireless broadband solutions…
…affordable easy-to-use enterprise-class systems management software as a service…
…consulting, technology, and business process outsourcing services…
…next-generation networking solutions, today announced that it is experiencing widespread acceptance in …
…end-to-end strategic human resources, payroll, and talent management solutions…

Some haven’t got there yet, but are optimistic:

…ideally positioned to become the leading provider of innovative solutions for the treatment of bifurcation vascular disease…

A popular approach is narrowing the realm to claim leadership in smaller segments:

…research and measurement services exclusively for the exhibition and event industry…
…high-quality lenticular large format and custom-printed plastics…
…advanced editing systems for the corporate, broadcast, postproduction, and new media industries…
…mounting solutions for the residential, commercial, CI, security, and pro audio/video markets…
…EPON (Ethernet Passive Optical Network) chips for the deployment of triple-play services in FTTx broadband access networks…
…integrated CAD/CAM solutions for mold, tool and die makers as well as manufacturers of discrete parts, today announced that …
…hip-hop ring tones and mobile content…
…market-proven products and technologies for unified visual communications over IP, 3G and IMS networks…
…onboard retail technology and solutions to the passenger travel industry…

The creative challenge is the break through the clutter with positioning that can be clearly validated over time with what engineers and scientists call proof of principle. In lay terms: walk the talk.

Absent that, there is an answer to all your needs for seamless solutions to any creative, positioning, differentiation, public relations, marketing communications, reputation or crisis communications issues. Contact Gable PR, the world’s leading provider of PR services headed by a left-handed former journalist of Chickasaw Indian extraction with offices in the 92108 zip code and 619 area code.

 

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Posted in Authentic PR, Brilliant Counsel, Client Service Results, Clutter Busting, Hype Free PR, jargon | 2 Comments »

Reading Between the Tweets; Managing Multiple PR Channels

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

Scrutinizing social media

Scrutinizing social media

Posted by Liz Dill

Julia Angwin, a senior technology editor at The Wall Street Journal recently posted a column entitled, “How Are You? No, How Are You Really?” which takes a look at the disconnect between status updates from friends via social networking sites and the reality she discovered when she talked to them.

After thinking she was up to date on her friends’ lives from their tweets and status updates, she realized after performing an experiment by calling several of her friends that she was wrong. According to Angwin, the digital small talk didn’t make up from the real small talk she was missing out on. She learned quickly that most people are “self monitors” and were managing their public image by not posting unfortunate events or telling the full story. She concluded that, “It’s not that digital small talk is deceitful (although some probably is). Rather, it creates a cocoon of information that may not paint a full picture of the truth.”

There are several good takeaways from this article from a PR perspective. First, what is being said on Facebook and Twitter does not give an entirely accurate representation of what is being said or going on in the “real” world. On the posting side, don’t assume that because you tweeted about something that all of your core constituents got the message or believed it. When planning a media relations or marketing communications campaign, don’t focus only on the social media world. Think strategically on how you incorporate social media with traditional media and all other potential tools and tactics for your program. Work backward from your targets. Where do they get their information? Manage the channels. Lastly, on the receiving end, don’t take for granted that you have a clear picture of a company, issue or person by reading status updates. There’s only so much you can jam into 140 characters or short updated on LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace and other social media sites.

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U.S. Fights Taliban with PR; Iran War Coverage Goes Online, Personal

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

Posted by Liz Dill

The United States is trying a new tactic in the war in Afghanistan: Public Relations. According to a story in the AFP, the U.S. intends to devote more money and manpower to the “information war” in Afghanistan. The emphasis on public relations comes amid concerns about the effect of civilian casualties from U.S. air strikes. Civilian deaths topped 800 last year and the Taliban has actively sought to exploit public outrage over the casualties, which often happen because the Taliban uses residential and business areas as its staging grounds for terror.

One of the key tactics in the campaign will be to be to tell the news first. In the past, the U.S. was in reactive mode, responding to the Taliban’s comments. Now, the U.S. speeds to tell its story pro-actively and in real time with radio transmissions, a new website updated daily with press releases and audio cassettes passed out by hand.

This new campaign shows just how effective strategic public relations can be in influencing opinion and countering rumors and propaganda. The campaign will be crucial to convey the role of the U.S. to the Afghan people and to gain back their trust. It shows how being consistent and straightforward in telling your story and not letting others tell it for you can influence perception and pre-empted negative attacks. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in influence long-term perceptions of the U.S. while leading to defeat of the Taliban.

Simultaneously, online reporting and social media now serve as the top sources of news on the crisis in Iran. As reported by MSNBC, the Iranian government has shut down the international press corps from covering the post-election crisis. It notes that rapid reporting through online channels (blogs, video sites, Twitter and Facebook) is keeping the world informed of the growing torment. The Iranian government, now losing its total control of messaging and news, is threatening online users with prosecution and even execution for “incitement.” Will micro-blogging and social media bring down a government?

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Using Social Media in PR: Be Transparent, Authentic and Connect with Your Communities

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

wizardPosted by Krista Rogers

Are you the real-deal or a social media wizard behind a curtain?

People are looking to make a real connections with organizations. They jump online and join Facebook fanpages because they want to show support and stay informed. They follow companies on Twitter to track news and conversations. They read and admire your blogs when they are no longer solely about your products, but provide information and insights they take them to a higher level of understanding and knowledge.
Social media provides great tools to instantly bond with your audience, share information and interact with your supporters. However, communicators need to recognize the potential for abuse of assumed blogger-to-audience trust.

During a recent PRSA teleconference, participants debated the ethics of hiring social media mavens, paying for positive comments and employing ghost Tweeters. The unanimous response: it is all about disclosure. Retain authenticity and trust by being transparent about the source of those 140-character updates.

The Blog Council, a group of senior executives in charge of social media at some of the largest corporations in the world, created a “Blogging Disclosure” statement to share the best social media practices with the online community. Points discussed in the disclosure include:

1. Disclosure of Identity
2. Personal/Unofficial Blogging and Outreach
3. Blogger Relations
4. Compensation and Incentives
5. Agency and Contractor Disclosure
6. Creative Flexibility

An Associated Press story exemplified how easy it is to abuse audience trust and the dangers of when they revealed the identity behind a blog that told a story of a woman who chose to carry a terminally ill child to term. She garnered a genuine following online and prompted supporters to promise prayers and send gifts.

“But the story that drew nearly a million hits to her Web site was a lie. The blogger who identified herself online as “April’s Mom” is actually Beccah Beushausen, a 26-year-old social worker from the Chicago suburb of Mokena.”

Reputation can be forever damaged if you don’t protect the authenticity of your online relationships and remain transparent and honest. But unfortunately you have to maintain a high degree of skepticism about others. Look behind the post for possible motives and unauthentic behaviors.

Fraud and phonies are now discovered and revealed faster than ever. The phenomenon of Twitter has knocked down the walls of publicists and spin-meisters, giving the world instant access to the ins and outs of trends in society, celebrity lives, news, disasters and more. Famous for his full-disclosure tweets, Shaq posts tweet-ups, meets with his followers and has closed the big gap between famous to fan communication with his 1,274,280 followers who appreciate his authenticity.

That’s not always the case. According to the New York Times expose on ghost Twitters stars such as Britney Spears, Fifty Cent and Kayne West have admitted to paying for twittering thumbs, blogging and social media management to the disappointment of thousands of followers. To give them some credit, at least they told you. In the end, it’s your choice as to whether or not you want to continue following someone knowing that you may not be hearing the authentic thoughts of your favorite brand or celeb, but rather a social media wizard behind a curtain.

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Posted in Authentic PR, Brilliant Counsel, Client Service Results, Hoax and Fraud, Hype Free PR, Social Media | Comments Off

The Elevator Pitch: Reaching VCs, the Media and Others in 60 Seconds or Less

Monday, June 15th, 2009

Posted by Tom Gable

In the halcyon days of the late 1990′s Internet boom, venture capitalists were receiving thousands of business plans a month for creating the next zillion-dollar commercial use of the Web. Most of the plans were scanned and dumped in minutes. Phone calls asking for a meeting or even minor feedback were not returned. The joke (perhaps with a bit of fact included) was that desperate entrepreneurs would ride the elevators in buildings housing the VCs in hopes of a chance encounter, leading to development of the so-called elevator pitch.  Guy Kawasaki and his colleagues at Garage Technology Ventures even conducted seminars to help the uneducated and unconnected learn how to craft plans and pitches.  Their advice on the elevator pitch: assume short buildings and fast rides.

Over the years, teams at Gable PR have worked with a variety of start-ups in crafting their pitches. In thinking about short buildings and fast pitching, we found the elevator pitch structure to be a good discipline in also preparing for media interviews, getting attention during the first 30 seconds of analyst presentations or speeches, or being ready for chance encounters at a trade show with a potential partner or financier.  The following provides easy steps for crafting a pitch that runs 60 seconds are less, about right for a short ride:

TAG LINE/SOUND BITE – The opener – an instant picture or quick summation of your positioning. What you do, what you stand for, to what effect and why it’s important. One sentence is best. Practice with people who don’t know what you do and keep honing this one sentence (two at the most) until it rings like Shakespeare.

PROBLEM, SITUATION ANALYSIS – What exists – the pain or problem you solve?

DYNAMICS AND OPPORTUNITY – Quick historical overview of how it got to this point, how the challenge has been addressed, what is the sweet spot for your company or organization (keep it to three important points, no more!).

WHAT (solving the problem) – Your company (or organization) has been working X years to plan for and develop D, E and F to solve the problem, take advantage of the market opportunity and grow and succeed over the next Y years.

OVERVIEW FROM 30,000 FEET – We have done it: the macro view, the big picture of how your great concept all comes together and grows market share, sales, traffic, profits, benefits the community, whatever – the BIG PICTURE vision of future success.

SO WHAT (Benefits) – You will succeed because of the creative planning, results and ultimate value you deliver. Create a mental picture of the benefits to science, patients, customers, the world. If there is a good case history, cite the proof of principle in a sentence or two.

THE TEAM – The team includes executives with national credentials in A, B and C. It has a combined ZZ years in the industry, has built MM, helped YY other companies or institutions grow and knows the market and how to provide an expanding array of products and services to help it succeed.

THE CLOSE (call to action on the elevator) – “We have the people, the plan and the commitment to succeed. I can provide incredible detail that I believe will convince you to invest, interview, buy, etc. How about a follow up meeting? Where would you like to meet? What else can I provide?” Ask questions that take it to the next step!

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Authentic PR or Pseudo-News Flurries and Diversions, ala the Nixon White House

Thursday, June 11th, 2009

Posted by Erin Koch

In today’s “information overload” environment, it is obvious that PR agencies must be selective about what qualifies as news. At Gable PR, we often have to provide the journalists’ perspective and tell our clients no when they suggest that “let’s do a press release on that!” Of course we do it tactfully, applying the “so what, who cares” test. Why? Because just like in the story of the boy who cried wolf or the start-up from the Silicon Valley that cranked out one release a day for months before collapsing, the media will ignore the missives if they are too frequent (or too frequently irrelevant). Much better to be highly selective, or authentic. And to target the media who are most likely to care.

This week, Slate.com had a particularly relevant example, from well before the age of information overload. It turns out that in his final days, Nixon’s press office bombarded the national media with press releases from every Cabinet department in the hopes of somehow pushing the impeachment news off the front pages.

It didn’t work, because the news wasn’t authentic. The media instantly recognized this and continued following the scent of the real story.
So if your company has a “major” product development or if you’re “incredibly excited” about a “transformative” new employee who has joined your firm, that’s great! But before sharing this “news” with the world, give some serious thought as whether or not anyone else will really care. It just might make more sense to go after the spotlight when you have something more “shine-worthy” and truly exciting to the news media and outside audiences.

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Hired Thumbs: Companies, Stars, Governments Looking for Social Media Mavens

Monday, June 8th, 2009

Looking for Work

Looking for Work

Posted by Tom Gable

In March, we covered an emerging PR position: the ghost tweeter. Now, it seems the trend is toward creating public social media positions where the job description includes blogging, tweeting (or twittering as the case may be), posting to YouTube and other online activities. Not only are the jobs available, but clever marketing people are using those very tools to generate buzz and more resumes than they would have had otherwise.

The most recent example is Murphy-Goode Winery in Sonoma County offering $10,000 a month to a person to generate buzz through social media for six months. Tina Susman covered it in The Los Angeles Times. The winery set up a site for applications and held auditions in New York. More than 900 have posted to the site and if you have several hours to burn, the postings range from creative to outrageous (applications close on June 19).

The winery got the idea from Queensland, Australia, which invited people to submit videos for “The Best Job in the World” — spending six months as caretaker of a palm-fringed island in the Great Barrier Reef area, surrounded by azure sea, and using blogs, video updates, photo diaries and other online media to promote tourism. Susman reported that more than 34,000 people applied for the roughly $120,000 job.

Lessons learned: getting creative in the use of social media and video for something as mundane as advertising for new hires can have significant impact. Is YouTube the new Craigslist?

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Leveraging Twitter: Authentic Voices Lead to PR Success Story

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

PRSA Silver Anvil

PRSA Silver Anvil

Posted by Erin Koch

Ever heard of Anvil? You will soon. (Actually you just did.) The Canadian metal band, active since 1978, is on the verge of a major breakthrough with the release of a documentary on their history: Anvil! The Story of Anvil.

How did a band that toiled in relative obscurity for over thirty years suddenly rocket into the public consciousness? The answer is Twitter or, more precisely, the authenticity of Twitter. As reported last week in this delightful story on American Public Media’s Marketplace, the release of the film has been promoted heavily by celebrities with significant numbers of followers on Twitter. VH-1 provided DVD copies of the film to its stars: John Mayer, Joel and Benji Madden (from Good Charlotte), and others. The celebs watched the DVD, enjoyed it, and tweeted about it to their thousands of Twitter followers who are themselves talking up the film and going to theaters to see it.

Why did this work? And what are the lessons for PR agencies’ use of Twitter and other social media? The key was the authenticity of those promoting the film. VH-1 did not request that its stars provide positive reviews and did not provide monetary compensation. They simply provided the product, and let the reviews speak for themselves.

This is precisely the appeal of sites such as Twitter and Facebook: personal thoughts, impressions, and recommendations direct from people that the target audiences know, trust, or just admire.

Agencies that make use of these social media as conduits for authentic voices will be successful. (And their programs are likely to receive awards, such as the Silver Anvil – the industry’s highest honor, photo above.)

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Posted in Authentic PR, Client Service Results, Leverage, Social Media, The Light Side | 1 Comment »

The Google View of the World; Positive News for PR

Monday, June 1st, 2009

Posted by Tom Gable

What is Google thinking? Members of IPREX, the global network of independent PR firms, held its annual meeting in New York City recently and toured the Googleplex, spread among some 1 million square feet of office space, some reclaimed from old warehouse space. Although different from the mother ship in California, the NYC version had many of the same elements: spaces for collaboration, open environments and a supportive creative culture.

After a brief tour, Ellen West, director of global communications and public affairs, and Lisa Green, senior manager of agency relations, provided an update for the more than 60 PR professionals from around the world on the current thinking at Google about areas that impact PR and the new world of 24/7 news cycles.

Trends, things we know to be true:
1. Offline and online interact
2. Video is enabling rapid response
3. Wisdom of crowds can drive innovation
4. Mobility is important
5. The internet is social

On No. 1, 67 percent of online search is driven by offline information. Think of Oprah and KFC. Think about product recalls. If you have an offline issue, you need an online strategy. Targeted campaigns and themes sites can help to address issues and raise trust in a brand.

On No. 2, 80 percent of Web users watch video. Use it for interaction with people with similar interests. Use video to respond immediately in a crisis, in rebuttal to inaccurate news or blogging.

On No. 3, a good case is Johnson’s Baby Channel. The community is providing content everyone can benefit from.

On No. 4, mobility, search on mobile phones is a major growth area. Think about small headlines.

On No. 5, more people are getting more connected, in all age groups.

During a subsequent brainstorming at Gable PR, we looked at new ways to conduct ongoing research on trends to find new ideas for our clients. Compare companies, compare products, compare share of voice and amount of coverage. The evidence can be great for helping show a client what is happening in the market and encourage new creative and strategic approaches for communications.

To paraphrase Ernest Hemingway, it’s a moveable feast. The PR profession has the opportunity to take a lead in promoting social media and other emerging technologies to clients, to the ultimate benefit of their businesses.

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