Monday, October 23, 2006

No Comment = I'm Guilty

During a recent media training session I wanted to make it cleNo Commentar  what message saying "No Comment" sent to the public, so I wrote the following on a white board:

No Comment = I'm Guilty

When a charge is leveled against you and your answer is no comment, everyone who reads/sees/hears that automatically assumes that you are hiding something and are therefore guilty as charged. I don't know which lawyer came up with that phrase, but it's time to rid it from the American lexicon.

Guess what? The media agrees with me. Check out a recent blog post from Lou Raguse on KELO-TV's Inside the Newsroom blog. In that post, he discusses a story he aired on a city counselor who settled a sexual harassment suit but maintains his innocence. Had that counselor declined to comment, everyone would have known about the settlement and naturally assumed that he did it. But since he went on camera to explain his side, the viewing public is forced to consider the possibility that he did settle only to avoid an expensive court fight.

Here's Lou's synopsis: There are two sides to every story. Too often only one side is willing to explain their position. Fortunately, that wasn't the case this time. Unfortunately, Lou also said that he usually gets a refusal to comment from those the "negative" side of an issue.

The next time you're confronted with bad news, try telling your side of the story. You never know. The public just might believe you. Alternatively, you could just let them know you're guilty and say "No Comment."

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Sometimes it takes a story

Sometimes, especially when something is new, it takes a story to really explain it and get a consumer to take action. Let me explain.

Over the past several months, I have been seeing more and more compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFL). The little bit I recalled included some benefits that motivated me just enough to decide to replace all of my regular lightbulbs...right after they burned out.

But then something came along that sped up my timetable. That something was an excellent story by Charles Fishman in Fast Company Magazine: How Many Lightbulbs Does it Take to Change the World? One. And You're Looking At It.

The story clearly spelled out the benefits of the CFL for the consumer: the bulbs use 75-80 percent less electricity and last 6-8 times as long as incandescent bulbs. That means that the more expensive CFL bulb pays for itself in five months, while lasting five years.

So I'm saving money, which is nice, but the story goes on to tell me how I'm not only saving money but also doing my part to save the planet. Here's the motivator:

...if every one of 110 million American households bought just one ice-cream-cone bulb, took it home, and screwed it in the place of an ordinary 60-watt bulb, the energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people. One bulb swapped out, enough electricity saved to power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island. In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads.

In other words, the CFL gives me a painless way to save the environment. Where do I sign up?

But it took Fishman's story to bring home a point that advertising for the product could not. If you look at the package from GE, you only get one side of the story: the savings to the consumer. Eyeballing the package tells me that the bulbs last five years, use less electricity and all eight will save me a total of $300. Is that enough for the consumer to shell out the premium price? It wasn't for me.

But the story was. The following weekend I drove to Sam's Club and purchased enough CFL packages to replace every lightbulb in the house. My wife thought I was crazy...until she read the story and found out that I was saving money and the environment. If GE can get their advertising to tell the story as well as Fishman did, maybe more people will replace their bulbs.

Monday, August 7, 2006

Wikipedia and reputation management

It all started when someone decided to have fun with a Wikipedia entry. Nothing new, right? It happens all the time. But this entry happened to be about Stephanie Herseth, the lone member of the US House of Representatives from South Dakota.

The wiki-hacker claimed Herseth was pro-life (she's not), pregnant (she's not) and engaged to her campaign manager (she's not). The false information was taken down quickly, but not before it got a little more interesting.

Herseth is in a (very non-competitive) race for re-election this fall and her opponent's campaign manager couldn't leave the Wikipedia reference alone. He emailed it to several political bloggers...one of which happened to be the blog of the Rapid City Journal...who posted the full text of the email on the blog...and then defended their decision to do so.

As local political blogger Pat Powers noted, whoever put the false information on Wikipedia didn't do Republicans any favors. Neither did her opponent's campaign manager because now the discussion is about his email, rather than what they want to discuss. Not surprisingly the Herseth campaign has sensed the momentum in their favor on this issue and is calling for the campaign manager to be fired.

There are three important new media lessons here for anyone who cares to learn them. First, the Wisdom of Crowds is real and represents a new kind of information and fact exploration process. In the old days (only a few years ago) someone would research a story for days, weeks, months, even years before publishing the definitive account in a newspaper, magazine or book. If you wanted to respond to that account, you had to do the same thing yourself and it was very difficult to correct a story once it was published.

Today, the quest for the facts starts out in the open with a blog post or a Wikipedia entry. Everyone can read that information and respond to it. Eventually, the truth is discovered, as it was in this case, through the participation of a large group of people, like a virtual party. That's why Wikipedia is always among the most-searched topics on the net. That's also what makes blogging so difficult for most people to understand. Any one post may not be completely accurate, but is rather part of the process of getting at the accurate account. Sure, there will always be those who abuse the system, as there were in this case, but those people are typically found out and appropriately flogged.

Second, the Internet is not nearly as anonymous as you think. If I were you, I would avoid emailing anything you don't want the entire world to see. Bad email pitches can find themselves on the Bad Pitch Blog or posted on another blog that (at last count) had 80 comments. And by the way, your computer has a little thing called an "IP address" that leaves a convenient trail for people to follow. As we learned from the Cluetrain Manifesto and Adam Curry, there are no secrets, only information you don't yet have.

Third, you have to participate in the online conversation. If you don't, the party will start without you and how many of the millions of people online do you think care about your reputation? That's what I thought.

Friday, July 28, 2006

Did I send a New Media Release?

As mentioned previously on this blog, I am a faithful listener to For Immediate Release, which most people (including me) consider to be the best Public Relations podcast. I mention the podcast because they have led coverage of how the press release is being adaped for new media. Specifically, FIR has added a separate podcast called the NMRCast, with NMR standing for New Media Release.

A release from Shift Communications jumpstarted an effort to develop a template of the Social Media Press Release and now there is a Wiki and a del.icio.us tag. Much of what they're discussing is giving the press release more multi-media that is usable by bloggers and online journalists and making it more discoverable through the use of social tagging, RSS etc.

But I sent a release on PRWeb this week that I think accomplishes most, if not all, of what they're talking about with the new media release. In addition to all of the event information, my release included numerous social tagging features, an RSS feed, trackbacks, a PDF version of the release, links to a previous press release from the client of mine, a photo, a downloadable logo and even a podcast interview with me that can be retrieved from iTunes. It also gives me statistics so I can see the number of page views, which was substantial. It was perfect for my client which has online and social media as a significant portion of their overall marketing plan.

Does PRWeb cover everything that's being discussed about the new media release? According to a release from the company, they clearly think it does. What do you think? If you're a blogger or online journalist of any kind, is there anything else that you'd like to see from a press release?

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Nobody goes there anymore; it's too crowded

That famous quote from Yogi Berra certainly applies to a favorite restaurant of ours: Sushi Masa. Despite very little advertising (I think the Yellow Pages might be it), they're always full.

In fact, the best advertising for this sushi hotspot is the queue of people that forms every day (see photo) just before it opens for lunch at 11:30. Their 15-20 tables are usually gone before the line is...and if you don't get there by 11:30 (sometimes 11:20), you won't get in. But the sushi is worth it, so the locals continue to wait in line for a chance at one of the tables.

The response of the average restaurateur to turning people away might be to expand...our open a second location...or a third. Not here. Their positioning seems to be a dose of exclusivity with a bit of the "best kept secret" thrown in for good measure. A large part of that aura is the daily queue. Do they make their patrons wait outside so passing drivers in downtown Sioux Falls will see the line and perceive the restaurant to be the popular stop? I doubt it, but if so, it seems to be working. It may seem weird for an advertising blog to ask this question, but: is your brand too accessible? Could it use a dose of exclusivity?

Sunday, July 9, 2006

PC strikes back at Mac attack!

Fresh Glue is evenly divided among Mac (Greg Veerman) and PC (me) users. It is for that reason that we had much different reponses to the most recent Mac ads, which were designed to "take the mickey" out of PC users. Well, the PC has issued its response...but it didn't come from Microsoft (although it should have) or any other PC company. It came from my favorite video podcast, Best Week Ever.

This strikes me as the perfect response to the Mac ads and it took someone other than a PC company to come up with it. Take that Greg Veerman and other Mac users! We're not going to just sit back and take your abuse any longer!

Sunday, June 11, 2006

2006 Innovative Marketing Conference

The Columbia Business School hosted the 2006 Innovative Marketing Conference last week. I didn't attend and it turns out I didn't have to. The entire conference was blogged about on FC NOW and several of the speakers were interviewed by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson of For Immediate Release. Other bloggers, such as Lois Kelly of Foghound, filled in thoughts of their own. The list of speakers was impressive and included names like David Weinberger of Cluetrain Manifesto fame, Larry Weber of Weber Shandwick, Joseph Jaffe and Burger King CMO Russ Klein.

I have spent much of my weekend reading about the conference and listening to the interviews. If you're in marketing, advertising or public relations--and want to be in five years--you would be wise to do the same.

Perhaps due to my background in public relations, I found Weber's contributions particularly interesting, especially his interview with Holtz and Hobson. FC NOW had several posts on Weber, attributing the following comments to him:

Marketing's role is to create content that contributes to the conversation.

His favorite marketing word is engagement; his least is advertising.

Creativity will raise its head 'big time' in the next three years. 'Campaigns, content and delivery' are the next wave of getting one's marketing message out. Creativity's going to be about creating webisodes and podcasts that are funny, amusing and can be shared.

"Brand is the dialogue you have with your constituents."

There's a rough transcription of his speech and the web site for his new company can be found here.

I also enjoyed the interview with Johnnie Moore and John Winsor. Johnnie blogged a little on the conference here. In their interview, one of the Johns said something like: "a couple of years ago, companies were concerned about losing control of their brand, now they're saying 'I'm losing control, what the hell do I do?'" A major theme of the conference appeared to be getting on board with the emerging social media before you get left behind.

Next year, I think I might have to attend this event. On second thought, I got most of the content through the blogs and podcasts I listed above. Also, by staying home, I didn't have to miss any of the World Cup. Go USA!

Friday, June 9, 2006

World Cup Ad Watch

Don't bother calling me today because the chances are good that I won't answer my phone. I'll be at the local pub watching the biggest sporting event in the world: the 2006 World Cup. I've only been getting excited about this for the last six months and now it's finally here.

Partially responsible for my excitement are the excellent ads that ESPN has been running for the World Cup. If you haven't seen them yet, be sure to go over to the site they've put up: One Game Changes Everything. It's hard for me to be objective, because I love the game so much, but if the ad about the Ivory Coast doesn't give you goosebumps, you need to check for a pulse. Here it is:

Doesn't that make you want to watch? You can follow the action on the blogosphere at the excellent Deadspin or at my favorite soccer blog: Caught Offside. If you're looking for the view from the ground, try WorldCupBlog. I'm keeping up with the latest news about the event at ESPN's Soccernet. Their Gamecast is essential in case I'm forced to return to my desk before the game ends.

We'll be tracking some of the other ads we like (unless we're too busy watching the matches) so leave your suggestions (and your predictions) in the comments below. Game on!

Sunday, June 4, 2006

Consumer Generated Single

What are you doing to engage the consumers that find their way to your web site? What are you giving them that makes them want to return? tell their friends? post something on Myspace?

Jars of Clay clearly spent some time thinking about engaging viewers of their band web site. In addition to great design, their site has a lot of the things you'd expect to find on the web site of popular musicians: multimedia, band bios and journals, an email list to sign up for, a fan site, a Myspace page and even a charity.

But Jars of Clay have taken engagement one step further. Fans who come to jarsofclay.com get to decide which song from the latest album will be released as the next single. You can vote here. But what if you haven't heard all of the songs from their latest album? They've got it covered. They're all there for you to listen to. That's right...all thirteen songs from the album Redemption Songs can be listened to in their entirety online.

But, you might ask, how will they get fans to buy what they can hear for free online? Well, I just purchased my copy. Why? Because I want to get it in my mp3 player.

What do your site visitors get to vote on? Are the polls meaningless, or do they get to decide what the next production extension will be? Do they get to pick a new color? retail location?

Incidentally, I voted for "I'll Fly Away." Leave your vote and thoughts in the comments section below.

Friday, June 2, 2006

Content is King (and Queen and Jack and Duke and…)

Recently, I was conducting a media training session for a local CEO. As I was preparing for the training, I was going over notes from past session and reflecting on one change that has occurred in the curriculum since I started teaching people how to handle media interviews.

In sessions from years ago, I spend a significant amount of time coaching trainees on the differences between the different kinds of media: broadcast and print. The reason for spending time on that material was the fairly common belief that different mediums needed to be approached in different ways.

In the recent session, the amount of time spent on this topic was reduced to a handout containing tips for how to dress for a television interview. The reason for this is an observation that the digitization of content has blurred the differences between the different types of media.

Let me give you a couple of recent examples. Our local newspaper, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, has started posting video interviews alongside their print stories that are reproduced online. Years ago, the newspaper was solely a print medium, but today their stories are posted online along with additional background, relevant links, additional photos and broadcast elements like audio and video interviews…even podcasts and RSS feeds.

In a similar fashion, television news is no longer just a broadcast medium. For years, TV news crews have been posting print versions of their stories on the web. Our local CBS affiliate, KELO, refers to their web site as their seventh broadcast of the day. Although their web sites typically aren’t as robust as TV, almost all radio stations have some kind of news presence on their web site.

In addition to the seismic shifts in mainstream media outlets, new media bring a number of other new considerations to your interview. A DVR can be used to capture your TV interview and post it online for everyone to see. Blogs can interact with the online version of your print interview and provide additional commentary that you hadn’t considered. And, of course, search engines create a permanent record of everything you’ve ever said that can and will be checked to see if it contradicts with your current comments.

Instead of focusing on the blurring distinctions between different types of media, I impress upon my trainees the importance of their content. Because you don’t know exactly how or where your comments are going to appear, focus almost exclusively on the content of your message. If your content is good, the context will matter less, whether that be a newspaper, TV news, a podcast or an online message board.

This coincides with the latest reading I’ve discussed in a recent post. In the third to last paragraph of “Life After the 30 Second Spot,” Joseph Jaffe writes: “Above all, content will remain king—now more than ever.” I couldn’t agree more.

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Does your marketing plan include free ice water?

As previously mentioned, I took a vacation on the other side of the state last weekend. A stop we made both directions will be familiar to all South Dakotans and road warriors everywhere. Wall Drug has been an institution in this state since it was founded by the Hustead family in 1931. Pictured to the right is the third generation, Ted Hustead and yours truly (on the left).

To say that theirs has been a non-traditional marketing success story, would be like saying that the Pope is Catholic. Their first breakthrough came in 1936, when the struggling drug store came up with idea of luring travelers by providing free ice water and letting them know about it with road-side signs. It transformed them overnight to a South Dakota success story.

Today, although they have a web site, their marketing plan still primarily consists of free ice water and signs all over South Dakota and all over the world. My personal favorite is the sign at the South Pole (pictured to the left). The other thing Wall Drug has benefited from is about "a million dollars in free publicity." The publicity machine cranked out another success story over the weekend, when Wall Drug was featured in the USATODAY Road Trips. In Gene Sloan's article for the largest newspaper in the country, Hustead is quoted as saying: "Sometimes it's hard for us to understand what it is that our customers really love about this place." It's not hard for me to understand. I came for the pancakes (which are the best in the world) and the donuts (of which they serve more than 4,000 per day).

Actually, people love Wall Drug because it provides a completely authentic customer experience that makes people (like me) want to tell others (like you) about it. Throw in some free product, a heavy dose of guerrilla marketing and more road-side signs than BP and what you have is a genuine purple cow. Some 20,000 people come through their doors every day and Ted tells me that business is booming. I'm not surprised.

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Attention = the new commodity

Ahhhh…vacation. I took two days off before Memorial Day Weekend to give myself (and my family) a five-day weekend. We spent the time in the Black Hills of South Dakota, which is one of my favorite places in the world (pictured to the right). We spent time fishing, hiking and soaking up the sun well off the beaten path.

In addition to the rest and relaxation, I caught up on some reading—two books that are relevant to this blog: All Marketers Are Liars by Seth Godin and Life After the 30-Second Spot by Joseph Jaffe (many thanks to Joseph for supplying us with a copy). I’d been meaning to get to these books for a long time and this vacation supplied me the time to get to both.

With the proliferation of blogs, I’ve noticed myself spending less time with books. It just seems that by the time a book comes to print, everything included therein has probably been covered by the blogosphere. However, this particular vacation I was without an Internet connection and my Treo was out of range, so I was forced to read the old way…and was rewarded for doing so.

One thing that jumped off the pages of these two marketing texts was the importance of gaining the attention of the consumer. The cluttered media landscape (which is rendering the 30-second spot irrelevant) has led to the “attention economy” with time “the new currency” states Jaffe. Rather than ROI, we need to focus on the “consumer’s ROA: return on attention."

Godin calls attention “the unstated precious commodity” and tells marketers that they “can no longer force people to pay attention.” Both authors reference the effectiveness of “permission marketing,” the title of a previous Godin book, and Jaffe calls for the introduction of “permission advertising.” The permission is necessary because marketers waste the time of today’s time-pressed consumers at their own peril.

Both authors see attention gained in similar fashions. For Godin, attention is earned from the consumer by telling a compelling story that does not conflict with their worldview. Jaffe urges advertisers to get attention by crafting advertising that is real, relevant and beneficial to the consumer (hint: it’s tough to do that with a 30-second TV ad).

This is consistent with what our agency regularly discusses with our clients. In our view, the first job of good advertising is to stop the consumer and get them to pay attention. The consumer is not looking for your ad; in most cases they’re actively trying to avoid it. That’s why they signed up for the “Do Not Call List,” bought a DVR and installed Google pop-up blocker. An ad can’t convince its target to do anything if it doesn’t first get someone to pay attention and today that’s harder than ever to accomplish.

I’ll be blogging more about these two texts in the coming days (perhaps even review them), but I first wanted to highlight a theme or two that was present in both. Following all the vacation reading, I have a lot of thoughts to share with Fresh Glue readers.

Incidentally, public relations pros have joined advertisers in discussing the importance of consumer attention. In a presentation titled “Communicating on the Read-Write Web” by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson, of For Immediate Release fame, attention is called “the scarcest resource.” The presentation is well worth the read.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Podding along

I have always been a massive consumer of media. It's probably what got me into public relations. When my friends were listening to AC-DC, I was listening to talk radio. When I had a job that required a lot of windshield time, I became a regular listener of audiobooks. I always had a shower radio so I could catch the local news every morning before I got out and started watching CNBC.

But, my busy schedule frequently does not mesh with the media schedule so that I can watch what I want, when I want to. Many others are in the same boat and that's why the DVR has proliferated so quickly: it puts the consumer in charge of the schedule. That's also why I like podcasts so much. I subscribe to my favorite podcasts on iTunes, which downloads the latest episodes to my computer. I then copy them to my mp3 player and listen to them whenever and wherever I desire. I listen while I'm driving, cleaning the house, mowing the lawn and biking or running.

Podcasts also remove the geographic restrictions that limit content that can be played on local radio. My two favorite podcasts are Across the Sound and For Immediate Release. They are about new media marketing and public relations and technology, respectively. Not exactly topics that would draw radio advertisers in Sioux Falls, but both have carved out large audiences in the podosphere. By the way, the two of them did a Mashup (joint podcast) a few weeks ago that you can listen to here. I'm hoping that its the first of many. To find your favorite podcast, try iTunes or podcast.net.

Now, you can reach that nationwide network of distributors with broadcast information that they can consume on their own terms. Your niche radio show might find an even bigger audience as a podcast. You're only limited by your imagination...so start imagining.

Thursday, May 4, 2006

Man Bites Dog

When you start out in public relations and seasoned professionals (as well as reporters) are explaining to you that real news is the extraordinary, they usually grab for one particular metaphor: 'man bites dog.' Dogs bite men every day, the story goes, so that's really not news. But when a man bites a dog, stop the presses!

That old metaphor was the first thing that came to mind when I heard that the New York Times was searching for a p.r. expert. It seems that amid readership losses and a declining stock price, the Grey Lady wants an expert in crisis communications to help them right the ship. Man bites dog, or newspaper hires publicist. Either way, it reads the same to me.

(Hat tip to PR Machine for the link).

Wednesday, April 5, 2006

Many Shining Moments

Advertising doesn't always have to come in pretty little 30 second spots, full-page ads or tri-fold  brochures. In fact, some of the most effective advertising breaks with convention to forge a lasting, memorable connection between your brand and your audience.

In light of that, it's hard to think of a more effective piece of advertising/branding/marketing than One Shining Moment, the anthem of College Basketball. For the story on the song, click here.

After the (rather boring) game on Monday night, I taped it as I do every year. As a fan of college hoops, it's hard for me to watch or hear the song without getting a few chills. Some people even get choked up. As always, it leaves me in anticipation of next year's shining moments.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

My favorite day of the year

I enjoy a lot of sports, but there are none that I enjoy more than men's college basketball. So today, the opening day of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, is my favorite day of the year.

Why then am I sitting at my desk instead of out watching the games? Because I'm doing both with March Madness on Demand, an advertiser-supported live video feed of the tournament. At the sports bar (or on my local TV) I'm captive to whatever game they decide to show me. Online, I can move back and forth between all the games that are currently being played (with the exception of the local game that is blacked out).

Just some of the major advertisers I saw included AIG, Coke, Dell, Lexus, Microsoft, Nike, Old Spice, Playstation and long-time NCAA advertiser Pontiac. Hat tip to Illini Wonk for the link.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Free coffee anyone?

Starbucks has always been a textbook example of how to build a brand through public relations. Today, they have once again shown why. From 10-noon, Starbucks will host its first-ever "Starbucks Coffee Break" where every one of their 7,500 stores will be giving a free tall coffee to every customer.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Starbucks employees will take coffee to customers who can't make it to the restaurants using mobile-sampling "Venti Vans" and insulated coffee backpacks.

Rather than spend millions of dollars on advertising, Starbucks is spreading their coffee gospel through one of the oldest plays in the public relations handbook: giving away free product. The payoff is in the happy customers and the accompanying media stories, which currently number in the hundreds. What are you doing at your computer? Go get some free coffee!

Hat tip to Starbucks Gossip.

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Pitcher's Beware!

Hardly a day passes without PR pros noting the increased transparency that blogging has brought to corporations and industries. They warn companies to tread lightly in a world where press releases are dissected and corporate spin is unraveled online.

But that increase in transparency applies to the practice of public relations as well. Once upon a time, the worst possible result from faxing a poorly-crafted pitch was a quick trip to the editor's trash can. But email can be cut and pasted into a blog and a pitcher can bring embarrassment to themselves and their clients. For instance, I'm guessing this post didn't end up in the clipbook prepared for Motorola by their agency. (Whenever I hear examples of bad PR, I think of Stu from the movie Phone Booth shown in the photo here).

Now, there's a blog with the express purpose of outing bad pitches entitled, appropriately enough, The Bad Pitch Blog. Operated by two people in PR (Richard Laermer and Kevin Dugan), the blog outs bad pitches like this one from Stephanie. Unfortunately for her, this example also includes a lesson in SEO. Due to the power of blogs in generating search results, this post is now the top result in a Google search for her name. Good luck applying for that next public relations job, Stephanie.

So, pitchers beware! Your next bad pitch could end up being immortalized on the Internet.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

This water brought to you by...

Part of life today is being bombarded by marketing messages from the moment we get out of bed until we come crashing back at night. But there's always been one sacred place where we are insulated from advertising...the water cooler...right?

Not anymore. A company named AquaCell Media has implemented "Coolertising," where they use advertising on water coolers that are distributed for free to retail outlets, such as CVS and Kmart. Advertisers include Dove and CBS, who was apparently concerned that Survivor's share of water cooler talk was slipping against that of American Idol. (Hat tip to the trend spotters at Springwise for bringing Coolertising to my attention). Dove has apparently seen a 34 percent increase in sales of Dove Cool Moisture as a result of Coolertising. That sounds like ROI, meaning your next drink of water might be brought to you by...advertising.

We can just hear it now: Dasani complaining that AquaCell is destroying their business because Kmart shoppers can get the free water instead of buying theirs. The Water Industry Association of America will take AquaCell to court for water piracy. And consumers, well, maybe they'll appreciate the free water. And there will never again be that awkward silence as two gulping gossips converge on their beverage station of choice. The topic of their conversation will be pre-selected by CBS.

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Monday, February 13, 2006

Who do we trust? Turns out it's ourselves

Are you in the midst of a search for that celebrity spokesperson for a big ad campaign? Perhaps you're facing a crisis at your company and getting ready to trot out the CEO to address the issue? Before you do either of those, you may want to read the 2006 Edelman Trust Barometer.

According to Edelman's seventh annual survey, “a person like me” passed doctors and academics for the first time as the most credible source of information about a company. The rise has been amazing in the U.S., where trust in “a person like me” increased from 20% in 2003 to 68% today. By 42% to 28%, rank-and-file employees are considered more credible spokespersons than corporate CEOs. (Be sure to listen to the accompanying podcast from Richard Edelman on the Trust Barometer).

The average Joe is also trusted more than marketing. A study by Forrester and Intelliseek found that consumers are 50 percent more likely to be influenced by word-of-mouth recommendations from their peers than by radio/TV ads.

So, where do marketers turn in a low-trust marketing world? An article on AdAge.com today says that marketers need to ask “How do we get people talking about our product, learn from what they say and tap their conversation to inform other communications efforts?” As a first step they recommend companies following Amazon and add consumer reviews, ratings and recommendations to their, or their retailers’, Web sites. If your web site has a CEO biography, but no place for customers to comment on/rave about/interact with your company, you've missed the mark.

A recent white paper from Edelman and Technorati credits this lack of trust in institutions as a factor driving the blogging phenomenon. Page 9 of that white paper gives an "Emerging Model" for communicating with your constituents. Among the better suggestions are being more concerned with conversation than control, engaging in external relationships at multiple levels, empowering employees and consumers to co-create and embracing the wisdom of the crowds. All of those tactics are made easier through blogging. If yo'ure not yet in the blogosphere, it may be time to jump in.

But the first thing marketers (and companies and CEO's) need to do is acknowledge the truths in this survey. Why put out people and messages that aren't trusted in mediums that are suspected when it's so much easier to do the opposite? That way, maybe consumers will trust you and people like themselves.

Thursday, January 5, 2006

Mea culpas all around

Yesterday I posted on the crisis communications blunder of International Coal Group. One of the worst things for a company about making a mistake in an instance like this is that it extends the life of the story and keeps your bad news in front of the public even longer. It gives you a new set of things to apologize for and new story lines to cover.

Because this news broke so late in the day, it sent newspapers all over the country scrambling to keep up with the changing story. One of those was our local Sioux Falls Argus Leader which put a lengthy explanation of their process on the front page of today's paper. It's an interesting read for those who want a peak behind the curtain of a newsroom. It also keeps the story on the front page for another day.

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Wednesday, January 4, 2006

Coal company bungles crisis

When it comes to mistakes in crisis communications, International Coal Group, who had 13 employees trapped in a mine explosion, may have just set the new standard. Shortly after midnight last night, someone communicated that the remaining 12 miners had been found alive, but three hours later the company announced that in fact all but one had died.

CEO Ben Hatfield confirmed that "the initial communication [came] from the command center. But it was wrong." According to MSNBC News, the call came from the company or the governor's office. The New York Times said word of a rescue spread through a cell phone call from someone at the command center to relatives waiting at a nearby church...not through official channels. The mistake was compounded when the company waited more than three hours to issue a correction, despite knowing that not everyone was alive 20 minutes after the error.

Over those three hours the families of victims went from joy to anguish to anger. They have taken to calling the company "liars" and "evil." International Coal Group is going to find out the hard way that anger turns victims into powerful enemies. Lawsuits, which were likely before, are now certain and will be just as much about hurting the company as helping the victims. After making the correction, Hatfield said "Welcome to the worst day of my life." Indeed.

What went wrong? If initial reports are correct, the company is guilty of two major crisis communications sins. First, they failed to maintain control of the situation. Whether the erroneous communication came from them or not is almost irrelevant. They should have controlled all communications from the command center, something the CEO confirmed did not happen. Second, they failed to designate an official spokesperson. If all communications had come through one person (and audiences had expected that), they probably could have avoided the error or lessened its impact.

These errors are just symptoms of the underlying problem: not having an adequate crisis communications plan. What makes that even more amazing is the highly dangerous work performed by the company and their history of problems. Another sure sign of communications failure is a visit to their corporate web site. As of this post (three days after the incident occurred) there is nothing to be found acknowledging the accident or providing any information to the public. A Google search revealed no corporate response of any kind. This has all the tell-tail signs of a company that was unprepared for a crisis.

What can they do now? It's difficult to say if anything can save their reputation, but there are things they can do to mitigate the damage. First, they need to cooperate fully with all investigations and be completely transparent with the public. This includes the communication error. They must let the public know exactly how the break-down happened. Second, they must show genuine empathy to the families of the victims. They should start with paying for all funeral costs, travel costs for families, etc. It's the least they can do. Third, they must take visible, concrete steps to insure that this never happens to their company again.

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Monday, January 2, 2006

Are you a Spokesweasel?

It's difficult to pick up a public relations trade journal without encountering some hand-wringing over how the negatively the public perceives people in our profession. If you were operating under the belief that those journals were overreacting, pop culture just delivered a slap upside your head.

 tomoprahjump The editors of the Historical Dictionary of American Slang just released their Slang of the Year for 2005 with "Jump the Couch" earning top honors and "spokesweasel" one of four runners up. I would assert that the two terms are not unrelated. The first refers, of course, to the antics of Tom Cruise professing his love for Katie Holmes on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Spokesweasel is slang for a public relations spokesperson.

The relationship between the two is traced to the origins of the first. Most people believe that Cruise's appearance on Oprah was more a publicity stunt than a true profession of love...a stunt dreamed up by a public relations person...a spokesweasel. As long as PR pros orchestrate cynical publicity stunts or dissemble the truth, our profession will continue to be viewed as weasels.

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