Posts Tagged ‘PR’

Eight Easy Ways to Damage Your Brand Image, Lose 1 Million Customers and $8 Billion in Market Cap the Netflix Way

Monday, September 26th, 2011

Blowing up the Brand

Posted by Tom Gable

Recent analysts reports, coverage in the major media and the Twittersphere are being less than kind to Netflix and its two recent corporate announcements: raising prices by 60 percent; and coming back two months later to apologize while announcing the split of the company into two (Netflix and Qwikster). In looking at it from a strategic planning and PR perspective, the best companies incorporate image as a part of corporate strategy, especially when one has built such a strong brand. They do things right and also do the right things. Netflix appears to have advanced toward bursting its own brand bubble through eight easy steps:

  • Raised prices seemingly without much consideration for the existing customer base, its needs, wants, expectations
  • Went for a big number rather than incremental increases
  • Provided a rationale that didn’t ring true and made many long-term customers feel betrayed by the brand
  • Did it all top down and one-way in a CEO voice rather than human voice
  • Didn’t join the conversation; didn’t use social media to actively engage its many audiences
  • Waited a couple of months to apologize and then do it with an amazing lack of sincerity
  • Seemingly as an afterthought, changed a successful business model to confuse customers, analysts, and the stock market
  • Gave competitors openings to attack, reposition the company, declare pricing advantages

And if you are really successful, here’s what you can expect: 50 percent drop in stock price and market capitalization, enmity versus admiration, lack of support in the financial community (buy and sell side analysts), a zillion Twitter and Facebook comments, a Hitler meme or two, and confusion among consumers on how to order and from whom when you split the company, create a new brand name and dilute the brand image.

David Pogue, columnist for The New York Times, parsed the apology:

“Ah. O.K., good. We’ve seen this movie before. Corporation bumbles, apologizes, makes things right. Business schools take note. Life goes on. But this time, Mr. Hastings did not follow the formula. He only pretended to. He goes on to say that the new higher prices will stick — and, worse, Netflix is about to break off its DVD-by-mail feature into a completely separate entity, called Qwikster.”

The PR and marketing blogs offered good insights.  Mr. Media Training cited six reasons why the apology failed.  Liz Goodgold, of Redfirebranding, provided four ideas Netflix should have used before going down the primrose path to greater profits.

In summary, another NYT story delved into the reasons for raising prices (to generate more income for acquiring content from the major studies for streaming). The “self-inflicted” wounds could have been avoided with better planning for an integrated and strategic evolution of what were in actuality major change initiatives at Netflix.

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Posted in Authentic PR, Brilliant Counsel, Client Service Results, Crisis PR, Horizon Management, In the Beginning, Social Media | Comments Off

Crisis PR by Candlelight

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

Romance not included

Posted by Tom Gable

When power went out in our office at about 3:45 p.m. on Sept. 8, we assumed it was the building, or a local substation, which had trouble before. We quickly learned it was a massive outage stretching from Arizona to San Diego and Orange County into Baja California. At 4 p.m., the Gable PR team was alerted by text messages and emails from one of our clients, a major wireless carrier, that emergency response teams were being mobilized on the ground and virtually to deal with whatever issues arose.

We participated in the first client call at 4:30 and would monitor almost every hour into the night. The virtual response team used processes honed in preparing for hurricanes, such as Irene, to keep San Diegans connected. The backup generators and battery systems deployed as designed when the blackout hit. The network experienced a surge in congestion as San Diegans turned to their cell phones to find out what was happening, locate relatives and friends and deal with the complex issues of having no electricity. The tremendous surge in demand resulted in heavy congestion on the network.

The client response team had anticipated this potential pressure on the backup systems and within thirty minutes of the outage had mobilized its service fleets, technicians and other resources and dispatched them to priority sites throughout the county. Since they weren’t sure how long the outage would last, the team secured extra generators from throughout Southern California as additional backup, plus a fleet of fuel trucks to keep them running.

As client emergency response teams and technicians worked around the clock to restore service, the regional PR team asked Gable PR help in creating statements for the media. They wanted to go on record before the nightly news on local television stations, even though the stations might not be broadcasting and the region could still be without power to watch TV.

So, for the first time since writing on classic Olivetti manual typewriter in the Saigon Bureau of Stars and Stripes during a wartime blackout, I composed by candlelight. This time, I had the benefit of laptop computing. I monitored the regular update calls by the emergency response team on a landline and gathered color for future reports. The local utility warned that the blackout could last a day or two. To ensure our client was on record as early as possible, a draft statement entered the approval chain (PR, technical, legal, etc.) by 9 p.m. By 10:15 p.m. it had been approved and distributed via email to regional media, with follow up calls to the daily newspapers to see if anything else was needed.

Fortunately, power started being restored by 11:15 p.m. in some areas. My power kicked in at 1:15 a.m. The county was almost 100 percent restored by 6:00 a.m. We drafted copy points on the details of the emergency recovery effort and began responding to media queries by 9 a.m.

We had switched to the cloud from our own server, so could access client and agency files via the Internet, including media lists (we had been without email before for three days when a flood knocked out power to the substation serving our office).  Now, for a couple of lessons learned:

  • Whether you are on the cloud or not, have backup copies of media lists on your laptop, or home system, or both; plus printed copies
  • Use landline phones (I used the fax line phone)
  • Text don’t call on your cell phone
  • Have at least one extra laptop battery (or a second laptop)
  • Have a battery-operated radio to monitor news, disaster reports
  • Keep a detailed chronology and save your copy after every sentence
  • Have printed copies of media lists at home and office
  • Know the email addresses the media use for breaking news (e.g. cops@nctimes.com; breaking@uniontrib.com; desk@kfmb.com)
  • Use a hashtag for Tweeting about the incident (#sdblackout)
  • From a standard disaster preparedness standpoint, have flashlights, extra batteries and even camping lanterns for light
  • Drink lots of water
  • And have a good bottle of wine handy to sip late into the evening

 

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Posted in Authentic PR, Client Service Results, Crisis PR | Comments Off

Biggest Issues for PR 2.0, 3.0 and Beyond?

Monday, August 8th, 2011

Future PR News?

Posted by Tom Gable

In advance of a workshop on “Managing For Results” at the annual PRSA Counselors Academy spring conference, I conducted a survey of attendees on the most important issues facing agencies in the U.S.

The survey listed 25 current issues and trends in the public relations profession. The top rankings from the Counselors Academy workshop were:

  1. Connecting PR to the C Suite
  2. Demonstrating ROI
  3. Measuring Results
  4. Providing Authentic, Strategic Counsel
  5. Mastering Social Media
  6. Recruiting and Retaining Talent

The survey has just been updated to include PR practitioners on the client, agency and academic sides of the desk. Please provide your input so we have a large sample size to work from. A link to the survey is being posted here and also linked to from different professional groups and sites.

Many thanks, in advance, to all who participate. Results will be shared in articles, future workshops for the PRSA Counselors Academy, and in the Fifth Edition of The PR Client Service Manual, Managing for Results, to be published later this year.

 

 

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Posted in Authentic PR, Client Service Results, Horizon Management, News and Media, Social Media | Comments Off

Mastering “The Accidents of Style – How Not to Write Badly”

Tuesday, July 5th, 2011

Words for the Wise

Posted by Tom Gable

This classic book by Charles Harrington Elster contains 350 of the most-committed errors in writing.  It starts with “every day or everyday” and strides quickly and eloquently through conundrums and confusing choices PR and news people face every day (this is correct!).  A few:

  • A lot or alot
  • Can not or cannot
  • Anyway or any way
  • Their, they’re or there (This includes a sample of the Elster humor that runs through the book: “There is no there there,” wrote Gertrude Stein in a rare moment of lucidity at the end of one of her notoriously incoherent sentences.)
  • Imply or infer
  • All right or alright
  • Be careful with Very
  • Avoid the lazy mechanical use of Basically (when you see an adverb, kill it; good tight writing has no unnecessary words)
  • Misuse of less for fewer
  • Overuse of Impact (The sad thing is that this powerful word, which traditionally connotes considerable force, has lost all its forcefulness through incessant repetition.  The only power impact has retained is the ability to cause a headache.)
  • Penultimate does not mean Ultimate or Final

Elster quotes several of the classic tomes, including “The Elements of Style,” “Simple and Direct,” “The Careful Writer” and the “Dictionary of Troublesome Words.”  He uses turns of the phrase and creative metaphors and analogies to make his points with clarity and humor. The book is highly recommended for anyone (versus any one) interested in honing their wordsmithing skills.

 

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Social Media the New Sock Puppet? Or Part of a Strategic PR Tool Kit?

Thursday, June 16th, 2011

Tool Time

 

Posted by Tom Gable

The blogosphere, Twittersphere and mainstream media are waking up to the fact that the hot new item they fell in love with not too long ago is starting to remind them of infatuations of old. The packaging might be brighter, more exotic and stimulating to the senses. But this hot new item could be a time sink; with hours and days disappearing with little of value to show. Yes, the titillation has been stimulating. But could this hot item simply be distracting us all from more serious, important and strategic activities?

Sound familiar? Remember the first encounter with The World Wide Web and Mosaic (pre-Netscape)? Then came Netscape, email, Yahoo, Google and a million new websites that bragged about capturing eyeballs (but no income), ad infinitum. Many firms, Gable PR included, succumbed to the siren songs of the web. So many pretty new faces are now tired or gone. Is the hot new item – social media – heading for the same fate?

Experts seem to agree that we are seeing the evolution of the social media phenomenon into the development of a commoditized set of tools to add to the PR arsenal for strategic use as needed.

Peter Shankman, of HARO fame, wrote that he would never hire a social media expert, and neither should you.

“Social Media is just another facet of marketing and customer service. Say it with me. Repeat it until you know it by heart. Bind it as a sign upon your hands and upon thy gates. Social Media, by itself, will not help you. We’re making the same mistakes that we made during the dotcom era, where everyone thought that just adding the term .com to your corporate logo made you instantly credible. It didn’t. If that’s all you did, you emphasized even more strongly how pathetic your company was.”

The Sysomos blog offered this guidance:

“In simple terms, social media as a standalone activity is coming to an end. If you are a social media consultant, you need to be really, really good at providing strategic counsel, as well as have in-depth knowledge of the tools and services need to execute tactically. For everyone else, they will need to offer than just social media strategic and tactical services. Instead, they have to offer services that embrace communications, marketing and sales strategies and goals.”

Even Steve Rubel, who grew up being a social media consultant and blogger ubber alles, noted that:

“It was fun while it lasted. But I totally agree that the future is all about integration. We need more systems thinkers who can see the big picture.”

I led a workshop at the recent PRSA Counselors Academy annual spring conference where we discussed PR as the ultimate platform for building image and reputation and social media as part of the tool kit.

The metaphor was PR as the Internet of communications. PR starts with a solid, authentic foundation using traditional methods (e.g. Media relations) and then layers on new applications (websites, email), leverages off other platforms (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and connects with people from all angles to move perception and behavior in the desired direction.

The senior PR counselors attending the workshop agreed that the “start” button for authentic PR was strategic planning brilliantly synchronized to support client business and marketing goals. The strategies, tools and tactics can be far-ranging to support building reputation and driving results with multiple target audiences. The obvious basic list included internal relations, pro-active media relations, social media integration, special events, breakthrough promotions, cause marketing, community relations, trade relations, investor relations, speaking engagements, conferences, trade shows, crisis PR and issues management.

In delving deeper into the hottest topic – the social media component – the Counselors discussed media disintermediation and the rise of what was characterized as the PR Publishing House – a powerful emerging force in marketing communications and public relations. Think of PR as content developer for many communications products, all integrated within unified themes. PR pros serve as creative directors. They develop their own editorial calendars and control multiple channels that bypass traditional media filters. When done strategically, the work of the PR publishing house advances education and knowledge, building trust and credibility through authentic conversations in a human voice that build long-term relationships.

What’s next? The gurus noted the end of the social media gurus, which does have a touch of irony to it. The workshop talked about communications at the speed of light and the two-second news cycle. There will surely be new layers of digital tools that drive faster actions and forms of communications we haven’t yet imagined. And it will be up to the PR pros to manage those new tools within a brilliant strategic context.

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Posted in Authentic PR, Brilliant Counsel, Clutter Busting, Horizon Management, In the Beginning, Social Media | 4 Comments »

Media Tweetups: beyond digital – valuable face time with followers, media, new connections

Wednesday, June 1st, 2011
Hello my username is... tweetup

Going Live!

Posted by Trish DaCosta

Tweetups with the media are my new favorite thing as a PR professional. When I heard NBC San Diego was hosting a Tweetup to “meet their followers,” the PR light bulb over my head turned on immediately: this would be a great chance to kick off relationships with the news team! Having just started at Gable PR two weeks prior, I was eager to build the relationships that could benefit our clients and the Tweetup could be a good start.

Tweetups are a somewhat odd concept. The host can be anyone or anything – a company, a celebrity, bar or restaurant, news organization, or a random party organizer. Moreover, objectives can vary considerably. NBC San Diego did a stellar job indicating the purpose of the event which opened it up for just about anyone to attend. Others use the occasion to ‘celebrate’ a milestone, such as getting 500,000 followers, or promote an event, grand opening or other milestone. Whatever the reason, the Tweetup is prime networking time, and here’s why PR Pros must get on the guest list:

  1. Meet new people, or more specifically, media people who could one day be essential to your work.
  2. Build existing relationships with industry insiders or media.
  3. Make connections with potential new leads. Who doesn’t like new business?
  4. Generate buzz for yourself, your company, and your client. A fellow Tweeple in attendance might know that editor you’ve been trying to reach for months. She can formally introduce you. Or better yet, you can meet the editor face-to-face and tip her off on an exclusive right then and there with your client. Win-win!
  5. Practice your pitch. Hey, now is the time to fine-tune your presentation skills, which should come in handy when you reach out to editors over the phone.

The Tweetup is far more than a social mixer; it’s a watering hole of eager, hungry professionals all looking to make some kind of connection. Attending one, or several, gets your name out there to potential new businesses, editors, and mentors. Don’t rule out Tweetups that may seem irrelevant to your company either. You may work strictly in fashion PR, for instance, but that lifestyle editor you’ve been trying to reach may very well be attending a Tweetup party focused on technology. You never know who’ll be in attendance. So make the time to go, grab your smart phone and your business cards and get going. Oh, and don’t forget to tweet about it, too.

Check out pictures of Gable PR at the NBC San Diego TweetUp on our Facebook page and on NBC San Diego’s website

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Posted in Client Service Results, Clutter Busting, News and Media, Social Media, Team Play, The Light Side | Comments Off

PRSA Counselors Academy Confab Drives Authenticity, Values; Sharp Contrast to Facebook-Google PR Fiasco

Saturday, May 14th, 2011

PR Pros

LAKE LAS VEGAS, Nevada – Senior counselors from throughout North America gathered here May 12 through 15 for the annual spring conference of the PRSA Counselors Academy, which produces a content-rich program each year aimed at sharing knowledge and setting new standards for the public relations profession.

The program was packed with sessions on the importance of PR evolving as a vital, authentic, strategic force in helping clients of all sizes build long-term images and reputation. Experts covered how to translate solid corporate values to many audiences and walk the talk with no empty claims or unethical tactics.

This was in sharp contrast to the negative coverage being given one of the larger PR firms in the country, Burson-Marsteller, for launching a whisper campaign on behalf of an unnamed client (later revealed to be Facebook) to get media to report that a Google Gmail feature ostensibly trampled the privacy of millions of Americans and violated fair trade rules. The PR fiasco soon blew up and was covered in USA Today, Media Bistro, New York Times and many other outlets.

There was concern that the Burson fiasco would be damaging to the overall image of the profession. But this dissipated as the counselors delved into the programs that demonstrated the growth of the profession in driving strategic and authentic PR programs for clients of all sizes, shapes and needs.

Yours truly was part of a workshop that included a focus on image as a part of corporate strategy. Establish strong core values – what do you stand for – and then demonstrate proof of principle over time (e.g. if you are a high-quality, community-oriented company, how do you demonstrate those values?).

Think about core values as the essential element of building any image and reputation for the long term, like carbon in the universe.

The mission of strategic PR is to delve into the heart and soul of an organization to tell its authentic, credible stories through multiple means and build reputation for the long-term. Agencies use a robust arsenal to achieve the strategic mission, which can include; changing perceptions and behaviors, positioning new companies, repositioning companies that have become stuck, launching new products and services, building brands, managing a crisis, driving value and much more. Processes, built on a foundation of solid values and corporate culture, build image over time.

Other sessions delved into: how to grow counselors, not tacticians; approaches to delivering stellar client service;, integrating new approaches into multicultural strategies; taking control of your reputation in the new stakeholder economy; and new strategies in media relations measurement.

Janet Tyler, president of Airfoil Public Relations, Detroit, conducted a session on value-driven leadership and translating personal values into brand strategies. The concept: establish core values, which are used to build vision and mission. She provide a list of 374 traits, attributes and values and asked the audience of senior PR counselors to identify 20, then prioritize to their top five. From there, she suggested that they adapt those values to the everyday operation of their firms. Her firm, a hot tech shop with some 60 on staff, listed: collaboration, accountability, learning, leadership, service and fun.

Janet said the values are then applied to three key elements for driving the firm: people, processes and performance. The values are used to differentiate and connect with clients. Airfoil also consults with clients getting their values aligned with stakeholder needs – the heart and soul of authentic PR, which was evident everywhere at Lake Las Vegas during the conference and spoke volumes about the profession.

(Search Twitter using #caprsa for running commentaries on the sessions, links to valuable information)

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Reuters DC News Editor Provides IPREX Meeting with Newsroom Insights, Tips

Friday, May 6th, 2011

Quest to be First

Posted by Tom Gable

The information-packed IPREX annual meeting in Washington, DC, drew partners from some 35 cities on three contents to learn from experts and share best practices in public relations and public affairs in closed sessions among this global brain trust. One of the early sessions featured Kristin Roberts, Washington news editor and deputy bureau chief for Reuters. The high-energy journalist started by reading a collection of bad news releases received by her bureau just this morning – several embarrassments, including for major PR firms who did go unnamed.

From there, Kristin offered some quick tips for the assembled PR pros, many of whom were ex-journalists:

  • To connect with the news media, don’t go to the bureau chief of editor. Find the person covering the beat. Do some research.
  • Be straightforward. You have news, you have background, or you have a potential resource for future background on a specific topic.
  • Be persistent if it’s a good story and you don’t get immediate responses to your voice mails or emails.
  • The daily email flow is daunting. Editors will always open email from a trusted source. For others, the subject line needs to be compelling.
  • The news cycle churns by the second. Reuters aims to be first and measures itself against Bloomberg and Dow Jones in seconds.
  • A media outlet might have only a 30-second lead in breaking a story. The great ones can sometimes hold up for a day until the other media catch up, as happened with Kristin in breaking news of the Iraq Surge under President Bush.
  • When managing coverage of the killing of Osama bin Laden, she woke correspondents up all over the world before the President’s talk. The lead writer worked from home, away from distractions. She ran to the office in her running shoes, but got called to the White House because their correspondent was solo and needed help. When asked if she went in sneakers, she said no and gave a fashion tip: she had high heels in her gym bag and kept them everywhere (office, car trunk, home).
  • When asked about Twitter: “I hate it. I am too old for Twitter (she is 36).” She said she doesn’t trust it and isn’t comfortable with it. They double check anything and everything from Twitter that might be a relevant news lead. This includes whether the Tweet is real or bogus.
  • PR is important to the news business. She was amazed that the Libyan rebels had a spokesman in one week and were issuing news releases.
  • Reuters aims to be objective in the news. Blogs are different, where it’s not the content that’s important, but the tone. She admitted to being “snarky” in her blogs, but snarky to all. She bragged that no one knows how she votes, not even her husband.

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Say It in 140 Characters (Or Less!) – How Twitter Made Me a Better Writer

Monday, April 25th, 2011

Peerless Prose

Posted by Lauren Miller

Your assignment is to write a 1,500-word research paper on a topic of your choice. It’s midnight, you’re tired, you’re at 1,000 words. The paper is due in eight hours. Step one: find a Red Bull and chug it. Step two: dictionary.com and thesaurus.com. Step three: find 400 filler words and phrases. Sleep.

Every college student knows filler words and phrases are an easy ticket to reaching a word requirement on a paper. But in the working world, bosses want tight, concise writing that gets the point across. This means leaving old habits behind and learning how to communicate with clear, succinct messages laced with high-impact words, not air. In a recent Wall Street Journal article about graduate students, Diana Middleton noted that, “While M.B.A. students’ quantitative skills are prized by employers; their writing and presentation skills have been a perennial complaint. Employers and writing coaches say business-school graduates tend to ramble, use pretentious vocabulary or pen too-casual emails.”

Carter Daniel, business communication programs director at Rutgers Business School, said in the same article that, “M.B.A. students often have to unlearn bad behavior, such as using complicated words over simple ones.”

Enter Twitter. Twitter has evolved from a social networking site to a platform used by businesses, PR and marketing professionals, and reporters to connect with their audiences, promote their product or service, source queries, and give the reader a backstage pass to the inner workings of their favorite brands. All of this in 140 characters or less (which can be made more difficult if links are included).

Twitter has added extra discipline to my work as a PR professional and helped me become a better communicator. In honing rambling 20-word sentences to communicate a big idea or insight in 140 characters, I’ve learned how to cut the fluff, choose words wisely, get to the point and better pique my reader’s interest. The same approach is critical in PR when I’m working on a media pitch to connect via email, calling an editor, or drafting a press release. Less can be more. So for whatever the writing or communicating task, think in Tweets for starters. Then soar from there.

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Posted in Authentic PR, Brilliant Counsel, Client Service Results, Clutter Busting, Hype Free PR, Social Media | Comments Off

The Seven-Point Litmus Test for Creating Real PR News Stories

Thursday, February 17th, 2011

Going for P.1

Posted by Tom Gable

Today’s PR University teleseminar from Bulldog Reporter covered “10 PR Power Writing Tips: How to Create Compelling Copy That People Want to Read and Share.”

The panelists were: Michael Smart, national news director, Brigham Young University, and founder, Michael Smart PR; Nancy Brenner, senior vice president, MS&L Global Corporate, New York; Don Bates, APR, Fellow PRSA; academic director, Graduate School of Political Management, George Washington University; and Tom Gable, APR, Fellow PRSA, CEO, Gable PR. Jon Greer moderated.

I’ll provide more details later on some of the great tips from my fellow panelists in such topics as: be an internal reporter; know your audiences; word choice matters; always be concise; make news when you don’t have any; where’s the wow: rewrite, revise, repeat; and commit yourself to continuous improvement. Within that, yours truly covered the Gable PR seven-point litmus test we use as a starting point for issuing real news stories with topical, relevant information and evocative and provocative quotes. Here is the short course, adapted from an earlier PR University teleseminar and workshops at various PRSA and Counselors Academy conferences:

  1. Is it really newsworthy to anyone other than the company and, perhaps, the CEO’s family and a few friends?
  2. How big is the impact: company, community, region, market niche or category, industry, technology or science breakthrough, nation, hemisphere, humanity?
  3. Has the same or similar story already been told (quick database research will answer the question)?
  4. Can the premise be supported by valid data, third party sources, real case histories and ongoing proof of principle?
  5. Does the company have credible “gurus,” or spokesmen and women who can bring the story to life and become valuable and trusted resources for the media?
  6. Can the company be further differentiated by its people, technology, culture and personality? Or if you lined up all the companies in the space would they all look and sound alike?
  7. Can the story be summarized in a compelling headline, Tweet or one or two-sentence sound bite or elevator pitch? If posted through social media, will it generate interest and action (Re-tweeting, links, etc.)?

This quick test can help create a smart, compelling and interesting story or posting that breaks through the clutter, communicates to key audiences and supports the long-term image and reputation of your client or organization.  For tracking Tweets from the teleseminar use the hash tag: #bulldogpr

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