According to an article in the New York Times as posted on this blog, only two CEOs from Fortune 500 companies blogs – only one of those blogs on a regular basis. So, is CEO blogging at these huge companies ever going to happen?
I asked my good friend, Jesse Moore, who is a retired marketing / PR guru, what he thought. Jesse’s not a big fan of the blog. He said “the more effective CEO is going to be the one that’s walking around and not sitting in front of his damn computer blogging.” As much as I hate to admit it, he’s right. Although he’s right, I think that we are going to see more and more CEOs blog on a regular basis.
The job of the CEO is as much communicator as anything else. (more…)
One of the challenging things about social media is the measurement of those that blog / podcast and those that read and listen. Our friend, Fard Johnmar of Envision Solutions and The Medical Blogging Network are conducting a survey of healthcare bloggers. (more…)
Managing a crisis is never an easy task (although many of us enjoy the challenge). I always tell my clients to address the issue quickly and “fix” the problem (or address the steps that will be taken to resolve the problem in the future) in the initial statement.
Whether or not you like Mel Gibson, he’s given us a good example of quickly quelling a media crisis. Let’s break down his statement. First, and most importantly, this was released less than 36 hours after the incident. He also released it over the weekend. Typically, timing like that is good because coverage will be lighter over a weekend since many news outlets have fewer staff available to cover stories.
After drinking alcohol on Thursday night, I did a number of things that were very wrong and for which I am ashamed. I drove a car when I should not have, and was stopped by the L.A. County sheriff’s. The arresting officer was just doing his job and I feel fortunate that I was apprehended before I caused injury to any other person.
Mel retells the story. A good idea where rumors could get started around facts in an incident. He immediately admits shame and remorse. He’s admitting that he did something wrong right up front.
I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested, and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable. I am deeply ashamed of everything I said.
Also, I take this opportunity to apologize to the deputies involved for my belligerent behavior. They have always been there for me in my community and indeed probably saved me from myself. I disgraced myself and my family with my behavior and for that I am truly sorry.
Mel really put it out on the line here. He outlines his mistakes and is upfront in calling his actions “despicable.” Ok, John Q Public, disagree with those last two paragraphs. You can’t. Nearly everyone reading that statement agrees 100% with Mel. It’s hard to be angry with someone that you agree with.
I have battled the disease of alcoholism for all of my adult life and profoundly regret my horrific relapse. I apologize for any behavior unbecoming of me in my inebriated state and have already taken necessary steps to ensure my return to health.
Finally, Mel tells us how he’s going to address the problem. He’s a little weak here by just saying “already taken necessary steps,” but we can all assume that he means he’s going to some sort of rehab.
In all, I think Mel handled the situation well. He covered the issue and told us what he is doing to make sure it doesn’t happen again. If I’m a reporter, what can I say on Monday? Not much. Mel has covered the story and unless he makes more news (gets arrested again or publicly checks into a clinic), this story is dead. That’s a win for Mel. When we have a crisis, that our job too. To cover the story so that by the end of the day, the story is covered completely and, most importantly, is over.
Is podcasting a viable marketing tool? The answer might seem obvious you and me, but many companies just don’t see it. Even when it fits perfectly in their marketing strategy, lots of companies are unwilling to move into podcasting. John Havens has written a great post on Adotas about this, and he gives some good reasons to podcast that every corporate marketer should be aware of.Â
In addition to his reasons though, I would like to add this: podcasting provides a powerful, simple and cost-effective way to pull customers to our message.
Here’s why this is so important. We all know that marketing is changing, and it will change even more as technology moves forward. It’s becoming more and more difficult to push our message to customers because our customers are filtering out more and more of what comes at them. So, instead we need to get our customer to come to us - in effect, we have to pull them to our marketing message. (John Hagal gave a great presentation on this at the 2006 Innovative Marketing Conference - you can hear it on the For Immediate Release site).
So how do we pull customers to our message? By giving them interesting and relevant content - content that they want to receive, that they will actually seek out and spend time with. Of course, this content can be created and made available in different ways - print, radio, TV, Internet, you name it. But one of the least expensive and most effective ways happens to be… (drum roll here)… podcasting. Eventually, even the most unwilling companies will come to understand this. The trick is to help them grasp it sooner rather than later.
Interesting article from Forbes contributors Marc E. Babej and Tim Pollak.
It seems that there is a new trend in advertising. In the “old” days, good advertising transcended reality while today, good ads are realistic. They point to a few popular examples including the Jetta safety ads and the NY anti-smoking ads. Why more reality? Babej and Pollak discuss the rise in reality TV, and I would add our obsession with watching “real” videos over the ‘Net.
Does this mean that advertising has to be real now to be effective? They don’t say that in their article, and I don’t think that it does either. Each product is different and requires a different advertising strategy. We pitched a large television network an idea for a very “un-real” campaign. We think that it would work because it stands in stark contrast to other types of advertising done for similar networks. Perhaps what makes these ads work is not that they are real but they are different from what we would expect to see.
As Larry always says, “different isn’t always better, but better is always different.”
MediaWeek has a new article outlining research from Mediamark Research Inc. According to the research
11.2 percent of adults report having a DVR up from 8.6 in the Fall
DVR households are 23% less likely to be heavy TV viewers
DVR households are 43% more likely to be heavy readers of magazines
DVR households are 40% more likely to be heavy readers of newspapers
DVR households are 81% more likely to be heavy Internet users
DVR households more upscale than the entire adult population
Communicators take note! To me this looks like the profile of a social media user. They might be fast forwarding through commercials, but they are paying attention to media relations initiatives and social media. Advertising is not dead, it’s just shifting its focus. TV is still a major player in an advertising mix, but will it always be that way? No. The DVR is giving us television when we want it – just like YouTube and iTunes and Google Video. This study does not imply that DVR users are less plugged in, it tells me that they are even more aware of products and services than are their commercial-watching counterparts. We need to recognize that the DVR gives us more opportunities to reach our audiences, and it forces us to be more creative with our television promotions.
Relay for Life raises $40k in Second Life, TiVo gives advertisers more viewer data, Coke opens some night clubs, Jeep launches jeepcompasskaraoke.com and John interviews Fard Johnmar about Jupiter Research.
4:20 Relay for Life raises $40k in Second Life
6:56 TiVo gives advertisers more viewer data
8:56 Coke opens some night clubs
10:43 Jeep launches jeepcompasskaraoke.com
13:40 John interviews Fard Johnmar about Jupiter Research
As always, we want your feedback. You can send audio comments or email comments to our feedback email.
The Second Life Relay for Life is over. That’s the even hosted by the American Cancer Society that found its way into the virtual world of Second Life. You can read all about it here and here.
The headline is (as it should be), the event raised nearly $40,000. But, I think that the $40k is just the tip of the iceberg for the event. Of course, everyone who has ever mentioned Second Life in a blog has a post about the SLRFL. Think Wired will say something about it? How about the Wall Street Journal? The press that the American Cancer Society will get from this single event, will far exceed the $40k that it made. Now, across the country, people who have never heard of the Relay for Life (it is a real event after all) will now be aware of it. When they hear about their local Relay (yup, there is probably a RFL in your home town), they will be more likely to participate. This is a huge win for the ACS. Or course, it’s also a huge win for Linden Labs and agencies that are working to get companies to look at SL for marketing opportunities.
Well, Time Inc. is folding Teen People according to this Media Week article. According to the pub, this is the second teen mag to get the axe in three months. They are going to keep the Web site active.
Do I think that teens care less about stars than we did? Heck no! I think, however, that ’stars’ is a much broader term, and Teen People didn’t address the new stars for the new teen. So who are the stars? Of course, you have the “regular” stars, but you also have the people who have made themselves stars on YouTube and MySpace. There isn’t one hit band any more. There are tens of thousands of bands that are downloaded at iTunes by teens that are “hot.” One magazine cannot cover the wide range of stars because there are just too many of them. Assuming they build their site to allow teens to participate in talking about the people they want to hear about, they might have something good there. I guess we’ll see.
With the discussion about the hRelease or the New Media Release as some people call it, it has made me sit back and think about the media releases that we send out on a regular basis. (If you haven’t seen the PDF of a proposed template for the hRelease, it’s here.)
If we are going to change the press release, let’s look at who our audiences are. Remember, we are not writing a release for our health or for the sake our our client, THE MEDIA is our audience for a media release. Of course, every publication, station, outlet, site, etc. is different. For the sake of argument, I’m going to try to group some media into large groups so we can decide what these groups need and how we as the public relations professionals are going to meet the needs of our audience.
Remember, I work at an ad agency so we typically generalize when looking at target markets. I know that every reporter is different…
Young, Hip, National Reporters: Not only do they live in the information age, they are a big part of what’s driving it. I’m not going to go deeper, because, they are the group that the hRelease is really targeted at.
Old School National Reporters: This segment throws away more media releases a day than most of us see in a lifetime. He / she will not be printing / broadcasting what we write verbatim unless it’s a quote. They look at press releases to find stories that they can expand on and create something new. He or she is an expert in the trade and is the holy grail for PR people. He / she uses a computer, but is more comfortable on the phone or on the street with a notepad.
Are they ready for the hRelease? I think that they want some aspects of the hRelease but have no use for the RSS feeds, Technorati tags or a del.icio.us page.
Small Town Reporters: Sure some of them want to write their own stories, but they have too much work to do in a small amount of time. It’s not unusual for them to take a media release “as is” and print it.
Are they ready for the hRelease? They look for a pitch – not a release – to choose their stories. Sure an hRelease is helpful for them, but only once they are working on the story. They need a “traditional” release on a day-to-day basis because frankly, they don’t have the staff to write all of the news.
Online “Reporters”: One of the big selling points for the wire services a few years back was that your story was definitely going to be on Yahoo, Google, etc. Your clients loved it too – getting a link to their story on a national Web site.
Are they ready for the hRelease? Nope. Stories on these sites are for reading by the consumer. If it’s not in narrative form, it doesn’t make sense.
So what are you suggesting, John? I am in complete favor of changing the media release. Just as the hRelease, it doesn’t meet everyone’s needs either. I think that we need to explore a hybrid of the best of the traditional and the hRelease. In the mean time, we can use both, but let’s give each audience the kind of release the they need to do the job.
