Could PR industry do some crisis PR in post-BP mess?

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Now that the BP oil leak has been stopped —or so we hear today — has anyone considered that it may be time to create some good juju for PR, after what BP has successfully done in maiming the industry?

Many of us PR and non PR types have railed against the dark stain that BP’s oil spill is leaving. I have tremendous respect for those who handle corporate PR whether they are consultants or internal PR folk. It’s a tough job getting the organization to say it as it is, and to stop publishing mindless statements just for the sound-byte effect.

So I was hoping to see a coalition of PR agencies coming together, perhaps under the umbrella of PRSA, and the CIPR (British PR association), to bring in some of the largest booms (thought leaders) and heavy equipment (smart technologies) to stop polluting our pristine beaches (er, reputation).

PRSA’s mantra is “Advancing the Profession and the Professional.” Looks like the industry has been mugged by flaks who are effectively planting land mines along this path. Search for BP at PRSA’s web site and you see articles such as “Can the BP brand survive Tony Hayward?” I was hoping to see some folks come out say why “BP’s PR has been toxic for their business.”

Meanwhile BP continues to write about its wonderful response about how it is “Flying higher to get closer to spill response,” and its sea bird rescues.

And nobody in the PR industry seems to mind.

Blogging and micro-blogging, joined at digital hip

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

I can’t stress enough how easy it is to connect the dots between your communication channels using digital media, if you plan ahead to do so.

Passport To Digital Citizenship
To “Tweet or Not To Tweet?”  |  2nd Webinar in the 6-part series on Social Media

I pointed this out toward the end of the webinar on Monday (it was Sunday night here in Arizona) as Steve England, Gary Campbell and I were presenting at the second webinar on social media.

While Steve was presenting I took this photo of one of our screens (the one bringing in a Skype video feed from the venue in Colombo). Here’s what I did:

Notice the attendees who had logged in –visible on the bottom left of this photo. Also, on the right is Tweetdeck, through which we were monitoring the hash tag #USELK2010 that we were using for the event.

Cross-posting this from the webinar blog.

How do you market a BP gas station?

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

It must be one of the toughest brands on earth to market right now: BP gas.

Don’t you think this corny use of Elvis is a true mark of desperation?

Interestingly, boycotting BP gas stations may sound like the right thing to do -emotonally — but I’ve heard it said that BP actually sells gasoline to non-BP branded stations.

I wonder why the independent BP station owners have not come out with an information campaign about their local roots, to ward off more boycotts.

Meanwhile the BoycottBP Facebook page has some 800,0000 people ‘Liking’ it, and 26 albums of photos. Maybe it’s a toxic brand to even get close to, but I wonder why some PR firm doesn’t reach out and assist this helpless group of  independent station owners.

To Tweet Or Not To Tweet?

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Ah, that is the question, isn’t it? Especially for many people still wondering if there is any value in jamming conversations into 140 characters of less. I tend to tell people that just as sending post cards, or having non-stop IM chats with six different people throughout the day have different value for different people, so too Twitter.

But — huge BUT here — it’s time to consider Twitter as less of a marketing device, and more as a listening tube.

In the second of a 6-part webinar series I am conducting (check previous one) this one will be appropriately called To Tweet Or Not To Tweet.

Here is my co-presenter, Gary Campbell on the subject.


Live blogging, Wimbledon style

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

A lot has happened since I played a bit of ‘media tennis’ in 2008, watching Wimbledon . IBM had introduced the ‘Slam Tracker’ and I was toggling between the TV coverage on NBC,  watching the scores update online, and listening to ‘Radio Wimbledon’ streamed over the website.

This year, I find the live blog adds a new ‘camera angle’ so to speak. Check this one, covering the women’s game with prose like this about Tsveti Pironkova, who went on to beat Venus Williams:

“Tsveti is tserving up a tstorm. Strong but above all accurate. Bepa’s not getting a look-in at all and is totally on the back foot as Tsveti is following up her services with deep ground strokes.”

Enter the Red Button: The media is also covering Wimbledon in new ways. Take the case of BBC. For those of us in North America who don’t have the interactive TV experience that the Brits have had (I’m talking pre-internet, analog interactivity of Ceefax etc) there’s something called ‘PLASMA teletext content management solution.’

Today there’s the service known as the Red Button from BBC INteractive (BBCi). It is complemented by the functional red button on the new remote. Viewers watching Wimbledon, could select to watch the game from different courts, or engage in a discussion online.

Then there’s the podcasting and ‘radio’ coverage –a.k.a. Radio Wimbledon. Once again a great blend of behind the scenes information, rather than the volley-by-volley coverage we tend to get. This is how the blogosphere can provide a richer experience, whether you are at or following a conference, or an international event. I’ll end with this bit of writing by one Matt Hill, from the Radio Wimbledon blog:

Me? I sit in a small, windowless room at the end of the day and put the highlights together with a popular song. And I love it. This is for two reasons:

1. I suffer from chronic hayfever. I hate the grass, and the grass hates me.

2. It’s my chance to inflict my preferred music on everyone else.

In the end, this year, I settle for the live radio —that you can listen to here. As one listener’s commented (read on air by the broadcaster) “Who needs NBC, when we can have Radio Wimbledon.”

Are you more social today than you were two years ago?

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Questions like this come to my mind as I walk into any office, and see people slouched over their iPhones, BBs and laptops. I get a passing nod and try to not butt into what’s apparently some very exciting Twitter chat.

Or when you watch teenagers in a room chatting while multi-tasking, infatuated by each other’s screens.

I advice people on how best to balance digital and analog, so I come across these complaints and concerns a lot. Which is why I am anxious to see how Social Media Day, today pans out.

We are meeting  up -um, tweeting up — in Tempe this evening, at Madcap Theater.

I highly recommend this contrarian idea about today, if only to help you think about what the social part of social media is really about.

Crowd-sourcing employees in Phoenix

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Incentives and employee motivation go hand in hand, as we have been noting here.

So this story strikes close to our heart, since it is right here in Phoenix. It’s not some hi-tech company doing this. It’s the City of Phoenix!

You may not hear the word ‘insourcing’ often, because its evil nemesis outsourcing gets so much of press. But drawing ideas from the well that’s within the organization is often overlooked. Often there are no mechanisms in place for ideas to bubble up, resulting in apathy or timidness in generating suggestions.

This story by Lynh Bui today (in the Arizona Republic)  talks of 25 out of 175 ideas being implemented in 2009-2010. That’s about a 11 percent success!

Now what if the City of Phoenix was to open up the valves in the employee idea reservoir, and say, aim at generating 720 ideas next year (a measly 60 a month). That same 11 percent rate would then triple the number of implemented ideas.

Incentives are great. But many employees don’t always wait for these to get started. Bui’s observation is spot on: “Employees aren’t necessarily turning in ideas just for the awards.”

Responding to Social Media Naysayers

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

This is the first article in a series in my new column for Financial Times, in Sri Lanka.

———————————————————————————————-

The two questions you’ll get asked the most, should you ever bring up the topic of social media at a senior staff meeting, are (a) “Aren’t these things a total (insert rude word here) waste of time?” and (b) “What are the chances of someone saying something that will damage our brand image?”

Now if you were fool enough to have been the one to broach the subject, my guess is that you would have already done some homework on the subject. If you have not, I hope this column, and the series I am kicking off called Social Media Onramp, will help you when you are in the social media strategy hot seat.

The last time I talked to a group of senior managers on this topic of whether or not to engage in social media, there was a gentleman in the corner of the conference room snickering about Twitter, and another lady offering her ‘expert comments’ on why Facebook posts could be legal nightmares.

Indeed there is always someone like this in any organization! Whether you’re talking of a new logo or a new CRM measure, Mr. Naysayer will always raise his hand and launch his intellectual torpedoes that take the discussion nowhere.

But in this case, rather than ignoring him or becoming confrontational, the best way to turn the discussion into something more productive is to relate social media to an activity everyone at the table loves, or loves to hate: Marketing. And no, this is not a diversionary tactic.

Marketing, you see, has a lot in common with social media. Let’s just focus on the social side of things for a moment. Marketing happens to be the most social activity your organization has embarked on, because it is all about building connections between a product or service, and a person with real needs, fears, hang-ups, friends, eating habits, limited attention span etc.

Continued here – PDF document

Upcoming – next week: “Print Vs Digital Plot Thickens … Online!”

Social Media Meetup in Tempe!

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Once again, Fred Von Graf is pulling together a great event with his outfit Social Media Arizona (SMAZ).

It’s the Tempe Social Media Day Meetup at MADCAP Theater from 5-7 p.m.

Here is what it’s all about:

You get to take the MADCAP stage and deliver “a verbal, in-person Tweet about why you love your favorite social media tool and talk about something great that happened because you used it.”

There’s live music, food and prizes.

Details here:

RIP, Melville Assaw

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Former Peterite, and an early stalwart in advertising in Sri Lanka, Mel Assaw passed away yesterday.

He founded Mel Ads in 1971.

For a short time I worked at Mel Ads in 1985, and will always remember how he encouraged young people to push the limits of how they think of copy and creative concepts.

Being a great artist himself, he had an intuitive grasp of how powerful imagery works in the realm of marketing.