Best Practices

Will PR and the media call a truce?

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

The dust won’t settle for awhile since WIRED Editor Chris Anderson announced last week he was “banning” lazy PR people who pitched him with irrelevant stories. First strike and they’re history.

The discussion has got interesting. Here’s one, where Brian Solis asks if PR and media could sign a peace accord of sorts. He says:

I promise to fix this problem among those with whom I work with and can reach. I will also work with others whose voices are trusted among PR practitioners and their peers within the communities in which they seek guidance.

All he asks is that Anderson remove the list of names from his blog so as not to give the offenders a public shaming.

Anderson, however, is unapologetic:

Many people wrote to apologize, promising to reform their ways, and asked to be taken off the list. I’ve written to all of them to thank them for their commitment to change, but I’m not going to undo history.

Solis then brings up another uncomfortable topic –unethical cut-and-paste reporters. But outing them is not necessary, he says.

Terrific post, Brian.

State Department’s blog could be more bloggy

/ Angelo Fernando / 4 Comments

“This blog does not represent official U.S. Department of State communications.”

And yet, Dipnote is the voice of the State department, and the “official blog” which just started it’s blog last month. The disclaimer, notwithstanding, is just a way of saying it does not over-ride the content on the office site.

The blog has lofty goals: “to create a more secure, democratic, and prosperous world for the benefit of the American people and the international community.”

A breath of fresh air? Definitely. Especially when public officials are allowed to speak (their minds?) on topics on anything from Darfur, the Afghanistan situation, the Dalai Lama’s visit, and even Blackwater.

The good thing is that they have posted not-so favorable comments, and commentary reflects an international audience. One post from Rafael Foley in Iraq had over 360 comments. What’s not very clear is how much of censoring and editing is done to comments (even it has a seven-point comment policy) since I notice a few instances of using ellipses.

If Dipnote aims at some degree of transparency, why not officially represent the department? Why not expand its offering so that people could leave questions for an official to respond? With RSS feeds it could then reach out to a wider audience. Interestingly, the main State Dept site allows you to ask a question from an official or ambassador. But the transcripts of responses somehow come across as canned policy statements. Dipnote could make these officials come across as being more human.

Lessons from Forrester’s Groundswell Awards

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

In July, Forrester Research put out a call to organizations using social media to submit their work for the what they called the Groundswell Awards. These were anything innovative by way of blogs, wikis, and communities to achieve some goal.

Last week, they announced the winners. In the seven categories (Listening, Speaking, Energizing, Supporting, Embracing, Managing, and Social Impact) there were unexpected winers. Meaning, some of them were probably so focused on their niche, we didn’t hear much about them.

Alli Research Community (Alli being a Glaxo Smith Kline dietary product) was a finalist in the listening category. In the Managing section, Avenue A Razorfish won for a wiki, and many may remember the ‘design a border fence’ campaign from Brickfish.

To me there were two lessons worth taking away. It was all about focus and participation. Marketing groups tend to lose sight of these two elements.

Focus: It’s easy to set aside the rifle and grab the shotgun because many people are still operating in the mass media/mas marketing mode. Also, there are often too many fish to fry. Too many goals, too many audiences to ping, too many middle managers to keep happy. Chevy Aveo’s Livin’ Large was focused on students. Narrowly focused on seven campuses, in fact.

Participation. Allowing people to collaborate is messy, doesn’t work to plan, and makes the ‘gurus’ look incompetent –especially when the best ideas come from people without marketing or design in their title. We cannot know what kind of content showed up on Avenue A Razorfish’s wiki (it’s a private wiki) but with 6500 pages of content contributed by employees, and 2000 blog posts, it was most unlikely to have been oozing in HR-speak.

Social Media Press Release becomes major tracking tool

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

From time to time I have been covering the development and adoption of the Social Media Press Release. A lot has happened since Todd Defren of SHIFT Communications came up with a great wish-we-thought-that-up-first idea.

But unless you dig deep into the press releases of companies you’d never know who’s using it. I found this one at Ford Motor company, using the SMPR template for its Ford Focus.

It’s got all the (standard) elements of a press release and more. Much, much more. The links, attachments, visuals and navigation give it the feel of a micro-site. They integrate well with the company site (for those concerned about branding), enrich the social experience (to Flickr photos, and the YouTube video on brand ambassadors) and add entry points for feedback and conversation. This is especially valuable for journalists looking beyond the happy CEO statement, to check the pulse of the market.

You could bet all these internal and external links, and commentary gets tracked by their SEO agency, PR agency, and ad agency giving the marketing folk a daily or even hourly reading of who’s looking at what.

Free copywriting seminar

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Who is this guy and why is he giving away free advertising advice?

If you’re a copywriter, you may want to check this out. Trevor Crook, an Australian writer, is giving away a copywriting seminar. It’s called the Copywriting Blueprint Formula.

The catch? Apparently none. He simply believes in the pay-it-forward principle, and expects everyone who listens to the 10-part audio seminar (downloadable MP3files) to share the knowledge. In a world where everything that could be is “monetized,” it surely stands out. Check it out!

Thanks to Lee Hopkins, a fellow IABC member for the tip.

Interesting crowdsourcing experiment on radio

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

I am working on an article on citizen journalism, and came across this experiment being conducted on the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC.

They’re doing a story on price gouging, and put out a call to people to “report” back on the price of three simple items at the grocery store: milk, beer and lettuce. The request went out on Sept 24th, and they have until tomorrow, Oct 4th, to file their reports in, via the web site.
They have to give the following details:

-The prices of these goods
-The neighborhood where you bought them (please give exact address, or at least the block and cross street)
-The name of the supermarket
-Any distinguishing characteristic (e.g. local bodega, high-end retailer, etc.)
-Whether or not you were surprised (yes or no)?

In a previous crowdsourced story in August, they asked listeners to report back on the number of SUVs they saw on their block. See results here. They mapped the data with pin-cushions on a Google map.

A great way to take radio into the web 2.0 era!

Southwest Airlines retakes the story

/ Angelo Fernando / 3 Comments

“The publicity caught us with our pants down, quite frankly. The story has such great legs, but we have an even better sense of humor, so we’re going to jump out there and lower our fares to match the mini skirts we’ve all been hearing so much about.”

What other company could write a more innovative (and credible) ‘manufactured quote’ for a press release than this? This was Southwest Airlines that took back the story when it was widely criticized for poorly handling a situation on board.

Dan Wool at ValleyPRBlog last week wrote about the incident (involving a Hooters girl, and inappropriate clothing on a flight) and the need to apologize. That’s what the airline did.

But it leveraged the incident to issue not one but two press releases, and to lower its fares it promptly called Mini Skirt Fares. Even if someone hadn’t hear of the Hooters girl incident, this is guaranteed to make them talk about and around it.

The first press release was about the apology from President Colleen Barrett. If you’ve ever read her column in SPIRIT magazine, the in-flight pub, you’ll know that Barrett is quite the champion of new PR, and highly aware of the value of social media.

Nor was this a standard apology. Here’s her quote in that release:

From a Company who really loves PR, touche to you Kyla! … As we both know, this story has great legs, but the true issue here is that you are a valued Customer, and you did not get an adequate apology.

There are some valuable firsts here:

1. Communicating with a single customer directly through a press release.

2. Humor from the top of the totem pole in an organization, via a communication tool better known for bland communications

3. Using its positioning – FUN – to address, rather than cover up the incident

4. Damage control, fast –check the Google Juice it’s received

5. The President blogged about the incident right away, as did Brian Lusk whose post had comments critical of the airline.

It’s a classic example of taking charge of the conversation, before it takes off without you on board.

Finally, a code of ethics for pitching Bloggers

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

Will someone please turn off the spigot gushing out naive, formulaic emails fin the name of ‘Blogger Outreach?” They come from junior PR folk eager to generate some buzz from anyone who leaves some Technorati tracks. I get these from time to time, especially when it’s close to a conference I have attended or plan to cover, and very often it’s not even in my realm of interest. Imagine what a full-time writer or journalist has to put up with!

OK, so it’s not gonna happen anytime soon.

The backlash against poorly targeted Blogger Outreach has been brewing for some time. Some, like Weber Shandwick, have been posting guidelines. Others have been incensed, to say the least.

That’s why it is refreshing to see Ogilvy PRs 360 Digital Influence blog, come up with a Blogger Outreach Code of Ethics. It’s appropriately called Take 1. Remember Ogilvy PR comprises both sides of the equation –PR people who pitch stories to bloggers, and prolific, influential bloggers like Rohit Bhargava. Which is what makes this list more attractive to me. I urge you to read the whole list. Among them are:

  • Before we email you, we will check out your blog’s About, Contact and Advertising page in an effort to see if you have blatantly said you would not like to be contacted by PR/Marketing companies. If so, we’ll leave you alone.
  • If you are initially interested in the campaign, but don’t respond to one of our emails, we will follow up with you no more than once. If you don’t respond to us at all, we’ll leave you alone.
  • You are entitled to blog on information or products we give you in any way you see fit. (Yes, you can even say you hate it.)

They invite comments from readers, plan to take the best and in two weeks post an ‘evolved’ version. Probably Take 2.

A very good start to a problem that could otherwise pollute perfectly good, well meaning PR.

There’s another issue that came up based on comments to the post –the eroding wall between promotion and advertising. I will take this up in my next post. Stay tuned.

Preventing ambush marketing at the Olympics

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Coke_flagbearers

Every Olympics, someone tries to ambush the million dollar sponsors.

This time, in Athens, the organizers are making sure Coke, Burger King and other big players don’t get upstaged. See this news report. I grant, they pay big money to be a ‘TOP’ (The Olympic Program) sponsor. In the neighborhood of 272 million Euro. But the brand guardians should guard against stunts that could undermine that reputation.

The article mentions –I thought this was really funny –-being forced to wear your T-shirt inside out, just in case the message was not commercially Kosher.

“Staff will also be on the lookout for T-shirts, hats and bags displaying the unwelcome logos of non-sponsors. Stewards have been trained to detect people who may be wearing merchandise from the sponsors’ rivals in the hope of catching the eyes of television audiences. Those arousing suspicion will be required to wear their T-shirts inside out.”

As Media Culpa, a blog devoted to Media and PR by Swedish blogger Hans Kullin notes,

“I’m sorry, but my soft drink preferences would start to lean slightly away from the word’s #1 brand. This is just not good PR.”

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