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.