Truth in advertising

Expedia, Orbitz, Starwood, Hilton.... They're all the same. Even American
Airlines think that OTAs stink.. Misleading pictures (no one ever gets that
room on the home page), "special" rates that morph into a different deal
when you actually book, the small print that tells you the wi-fi will cost
$18 a pop, homogenized call-center service, and all the other nonsense that
makes booking a hotel stay a rather miserable experience.

Then, of course, there is the location itself. You wouldn't think that a
hotel would intentionally misrepresent its location, would you? Would they?

Well, yes, they did.

The "they" I'm referring to is the Sheraton Skyline in London, at Heathrow
Airport. But not really at Heathrow Airport. Close, sort of. A bit. Not
really.

I arrived at Heathrow. Hotel booking form in hand, I searched for the
Sheraton Skyline, London Heathrow Airport "situated just minutes from the
airport." Was I in the wrong terminal?

I looked, and I asked, and I looked until finally I realised the hotel was
not at the airport. Outside perhaps, just down the street? I read the
booking form again... "Just minutes from the airport" so I hopped into a
Black Cab and off I went, expecting a short cab ride. $55 later I arrived at
said hotel, "just minutes from the airport."

I don't usually blog about personal experiences of this nature, but it was
simply too great an opportunity to talk about the prevalence of misleading
information online. Or, in fact, every medium.

As consumers, we've come to distrust a lot of advertising. We've come to
distrust a lot of media.. To be sure, there's a lot of rubbish and
misinformation out there. Even Apple is in on it, destroying our trust
thanks to its private army of app developers collecting our personal data.
And soon, when our Facebook pages become flooded with social media spam,
we'll come to distrust that space too.

But to mislead customers about your business's location -- so you can
increase the chances of bookings -- that
is the ultimate trust-breaker.

When I complained to the front desk, they told me to ring the corporate
booking centre. When I rang the corporate booking centre, they more or less
told me to go to hell. My hotel "at the airport" turned out to be a false
economy when I added the cab rides and wi-fi charges..

So the moral of this story isn't don't stay at the Sheraton Skyline (well,
perhaps a bit). It's about not believing everything you read. Not even an
address can be counted on as accurate these days. Research, ask questions,
never assume that what you see online is what you'll get, and triple check
the address.

Because there's no truth in advertising anymore.

Goodbye 2010, The Year Of Austerity

And I'll bet you all thought 2009 was a killer.

Initially, I believed that 2010 would be a game-changer year. I was convinced that budgets would creep back up again, clients would become a bit more cheery, gloom would be banished to the South Pole and that the new normal would be, with our newly honed set of values, a well-balanced fabulous.

Well, it delivered in part. Twenty-ten has certainly been a game-changer of a year, but not in the ways that most of us (in our PR world, at least) had expected.

The "new value system" that we were looking forward to never really materialized. Instead, it seems we have collectively created a skewed perspective characterized by fear, hopelessness -- and some would add xenophobia (fear needs a scapegoat, right?) as evidenced by the most divisive political climate this country has seen in decades.

But I digress ...

The transition into austerity this year has proven to be a double-edged sword for our industry. Fiscal concerns have moved us into positions we had not encountered before. Through trial and error, we've redefined our own values and are now managing resources in new and effective ways that are paying off. But it hasn't been easy.

I'd like to share some of what I and my team have learned from a year of austerity.

Never be desperate

Some of the worst client hires -- yes, we hire clients -- were made this year, in the name of billings and cash flow. Forget the saying that cash is king. We found out the hard way that some clients ended up costing us far more than we could have imagined. "I'm Sorry We Hired You" is not a healthy way to view your customers. No price (or client) is worth the sacrifice of your mental health or employee morale!

Focus your efforts on the markets you know best

You can't be all things to everyone. Really. Focus on what you know and improve on that knowledge. Focus on what you love, and your passion and dedication will become contagious. Specialize and own your space. We got rid of practice areas that were either unrelated to our core offerings, or were already too crowded. As a result, we've gained recognition by becoming very focused on several industries -- it was the best move we made.

Which brings me to...

Learn to let go of crap, traditions, and fear-based "playing it safe" actions

We all know that change is hard. Adapting to new ways of doing business and handling clients in a more-for-less climate is difficult for most people. Turning down or letting go of business -- even if it's not good for your agency -- is really hard. But still, we need to find courage to embrace change and evolve with the marketplace. There's no point in wasting time and energy in thoughts of how it used to be. Whatever it was, or will be, it won't be that again.

More lemonade making

The proverbial lemonade stand has grown. We've learned to make do with a whole lot less of everything -- time, money, sleep, holidays, shoes -- the list goes on. But a few things we cannot do with less of are ideas, creativity and motivation. Without more of these in our profession, we are doomed.

Austerity measures are counterproductive 99% of the time

When you limit your thinking or reduce it to "just get by," you will never, ever grow or get out of that place. To become more efficient is one thing, but to operate from a cheapskate stance is another. In 2010, the worst year of our trading, we expanded our staff, locations and client service offerings because we couldn't run our agency in pause mode. Think big, but take responsible risks.

Communicate, communicate, communicate

With clients, staff, stakeholders and, well, everyone you meet. People appreciate honesty and authenticity. They also want to be communicated with, not at. Small gestures of authentic, personalized communication will go a very long way -- especially if you have bad news.

Get off the downbeat bus

We are in the business of image building and shaping perceptions, so liven up, people! No one likes hanging out with a loser. Recognize that there are so many opportunities to be had, or created and carpe diem already. To be sure, the PR industry will go through some significant changes in the coming year, but we are ready.

So goodbye and farewell, austerity, and welcome, 2011, the year of new opportunities and reinvention.

I Still Love You!

Dear Blog,

It’s not you, it’s me.

I just wasn’t feeling the same way about you, so I decided to take a break. Just a little time to think things through. You know, you and I were so close for so long. What was it, a year? I couldn’t throw it all away. I thought that maybe a little distance would do the trick. What’s that saying, absence makes the heart grow fonder?

Well, it worked. I came back to you. I missed you. Did you miss me?

I promise not to disappear again. Really. I’ll be good and post regularly… starting tomorrow, maybe.

Will Give Good Coverage For Free Stay

Perhaps I'm a killjoy, but I don’t like it when other people get freebies. And especially when those freebies take the form of a hotel room. And especially when the free hotel room is in exchange for media coverage. It came to my attention that a tourist bureau (to protect the guilty, I’m not naming names) frequently sends out requests to hotels and their publicists looking for exchanges. Media fam tours are one thing, this room-for-free-media-coverage is something else entirely.

It goes something like this:

Mr Ben D. Rulz, and Miss C. Sponger are coming to [insert city here] and are looking for accommodations (read: free) at high-end venues in exchange for very positive media coverage and a high profile feature naming FREE HOTEL as the place to stay in [insert city here].

Does it bother you, or am I just being a stickler?

Perhaps I am (and probably still having holiday withdrawals), but how is it ethical to promise such a superlative endorsement without experiencing the hotel first? How can a journalist promise positive media coverage when he or she doesn’t even know which hotel will respond to the request for free board? And how objective is the writer if his or her trip was funded (even in part) by the host?

How about revealing this freebie to readers - to whom a journalist’s responsibility should be – that your arrangements were based on a barter? I’ll definitely be reading travel reviews and destination recommendations with very different eyes from now…

Despite what I just wrote, I do have a free week in mid-January – in case the tourist bureau is reading -- and the hubby and I would simply adore a romantic get-away, and a massage, and open bar. And I probably don't have to remind all of you 5-star hospitality venues reading this that there will be some stiff competition for the Valentine's romantic get-away dollar this year. Oh, and did I mention I'm in PR, well connected and might be able to get you into a magazine or two?

Your Brain on Ads

Hello!

Vanessa is taking a break this week, so the following post comes to you courtesy of me – Katie Norwood. Nice to meet you all!

Vanessa and I were exchanging thoughts last week about a New York Times article that looks at “neuromarketing,” a new science that uses neuroscience to analyze people’s responses to advertisements, products and promotions. Neuromarketing testing techniques are poised to mine the untapped resources of the unconscious to help marketers understand more of what makes consumers tick. Perhaps predictably, marketers have embraced the science, the idea being that by learning how advertisements effect consumers’ brains, they will be able to tap into consumer’s subconscious in order to market more effectively, and sell more products.

Angling to maintain a competitive edge, a number of major corporations including Google, CBS, Disney, Frito-Lay and A&E Television have already embraced the neuromarketing techniques to test consumer impressions and responses. And they’re not alone in their support of the science. Proponents of neuromarketing contend that traditional market research methods are less effective because they are only measure participants’ opinions and impressions on a conscious level; and considering only 2% of the brain’s energy is expended on conscious activity and the rest is mainly devoted to unconscious activity, the importance of exploring the untapped unconscious is certainly significant.

A Controversial Approach

Technologically innovative though it may be, neuromarketing has been met with opposition from some consumer advocate groups, who have been quick to term the technique “brandwashing” – a clever combination of branding and brainwashing. Consumer groups have expressed concerned that the technique could be used to exert excessive influence over the subconscious mind, shaping consumers into robots without their consent and without any regard to the ethical implications of such action. However, as Singer’s article notes, scientists have expressed doubt that neuromarketing can trigger brain activity that can directly influence consumers’ buying behavior. The human brain, it seems, is much too complicated for such trickery.

But if neuromarketing could directly influence consumers’ buying behavior – what would happen then? Perhaps corporations would embrace neuromarketing wholeheartedly. Perhaps, over time, traditional advertising would be deemed outdated and obsolete.

On the other hand, if neuromarketing was able to successfully circumvent adults’ rational mental defenses, it might not be legally protected in the same way that traditional advertising is protected. And it might not be ethical.

What do you think? I’d love to hear what you think – you can reach me here or directly at knorwood@thinkinkpr.com.

In Response to Word Crimes

I received a number of responses to my Committing Word Crime post last week, and not all of them in agreement with me.

My columns are designed to do just that – start dialogue and debate - and confirm why it’s so important not just to provide “how-to” advice, but to delve into deeper issues -- like word usage – for us to think about, and think about how this impacts our (PR) industry and what we do.

This particular column came about from frustration and tiredness. I was reading press release and after press release all using similar “positioning” and opening lines… “XYZ, the leader in XYZ, announces it breakthrough leading-edge innovation platform/solution that will transform XXX.” At the same time, a number of clients insisted upon using hyperbole-laden phrases in their messaging and I just threw my hands up. I thought to myself “every company is now a leader, every company displays thought-leadership. Every company is the first to, blah blah, blah. Where’s the creativity, or differentiation folks?”

It is hard to keep coming up with new insights, and that’s exactly why we are seeing the same words used the way they are. It’s also a reflection of the overwhelming speed of our communication cycle and the volume of content that is being created.

What words can we use that will make the most impact? How can we get through all of this content and information?

It is a struggle, to be sure.

But in this discussion, there’s no right or wrong answer. I do believe, however, that through sheer overuse the value of certain words and phrases becomes diminished. Perhaps you also cringe at the words paradigm, synergistic, and out-of-the-box, that were some of 2004-2005’s buzzwords?

The same thing happens each year, and so most likely we’ll revert to the words we used in 1998-1999 next year, as they’ll feel sort of new again?

As one writer said, "language is to be used." I agree. It just should be used creatively and meaningfully.

In Social Media We Trust?

Marketing companies are now offering a new service: social media coverage in the form of front-page placements on websites like Digg and sponsored tweets from Twitter “power accounts” yielding hundreds of thousands of followers. The cost of this service is cheap and the promised exposure is enticing – but is it all ethical? That is the question asked by Forbes’ Elizabeth Woyke in a recent article, “$240 To Place Story On Digg Front Page: One Marketing Firm’s Pitch,” and it’s not an easy one to answer.

Some have argued against the pay-for-play model that is slowly becoming prevalent across social media networks, but on the other hand, social networks need a way to make money and if companies are transparent in their dealings, is there anything really wrong with this model? As much as social media has been discussed over the past few years, it is still a burgeoning phenomenon. Social media is evolving, and because there is no formal regulation – yet – us marketers are learning and making up the model as we go.

A Mutually Beneficial Relationship

The survival of social media networks is entirely dependent on its users – if there are no users, there is no network. Sites like Digg and Reddit are completely dependent on user-generated content. Meanwhile, companies seeking increased visibility may opt to use PR companies to generate and distribute content on their behalf, or set up a corporate social account in order to share content. Social networks need content and companies want exposure– marketing companies that offer to connect the two are, in a sense, facilitating a mutually beneficial relationship (while charging a fee, of course). Is this not a win-win scenario?

While marketer’s ethical conduct in regards to social media is a topic that is still somewhat new, the issue of pay-for-play in media sponsorships has long been the subject of debate and industry scrutiny. Five years ago, advertisers were faced with considerable pressure as product placements were being written into television and movie scripts. Last year, it was the “Mommy Bloggers” who were called to task failing to be transparent in their product reviews and their “sponsors.”

Relevancy and Transparency

In these dealings, what’s critical is transparency – and relevant, meaningful content. Provided that companies fully disclose that they have sponsored the content, and that the content is useful and interesting, users won’t really care where it is from. The second that consumers believe that they are trying to be swindled by false or inauthentic content, the company’s brand reputation will be shot. Consumers will read sponsored content if it is relevant and engaging – but what they won’t stand for, and shouldn’t stand for, is having their intelligence insulted, free content or not.

What is your view? Do you care if someone has paid to take top-billing on a blog or a social media site if what they are delivering is of use, value or meaning to you?

Location-based marketing is poised for growth

Executive summaries of industry research reports are not necessarily documents one expects to mine for great writing.

But I came across the following sentence good enough to “borrow” in a recent report by market researcher Borrell Associates:

“Mobile marketing is where Web marketing was in about 1996: plenty of excitement, lots of experiments, general agreement that it will be Really Big, but not much data to provide visibility into how it will all unfold.”

OK, maybe it is not Hemingway, but I thought it was spot-on.

Locating potential
I also thought this sentiment was particularly apt for location-based mobile marketing and advertising, which this publication and others has been touting as the next big thing in the mobile landscape for some time.

Now, with the news awash in reports of Starbucks and L’Oreal entering into a six-month trial with O2’s location-based mobile advertising service, it seems like location-based marketing is finally starting to unfold.

Starbucks and L’Oreal: that is big. But is it the Really Big that we are talking about? And if not, what will it take to get there?

The fact that these brands are gearing up to participate in location-based marketing is indicative of the strategy’s potential.

Certainly, this potential has driven interest in location-based marketing since technology first enabled the prospect of it.

Reaching consumers where they are most likely to commit to a purchase, at the precise time they are in the proximity? And circumventing the time and distance inherent to most traditional marketing and advertising which targets consumers mostly in the home?

Why would marketers not jump at that opportunity?

Continue reading here.

Committing Word Crime

This article originally appeared in MediaPost on November 10, 2010
Perhaps it's a little early for the annual Best Of/Worst Of lists, or a look back over the year just squandered. But why wait until December or even January to protest the overuse and abuse of words whose meanings have been diluted and diffused with every re-churned blog post, hash tag, social media release or hyperbole-laden marketing/PR piece?

Don't get me wrong, I love a good metaphor as much as the next writer, but can we push the envelope just a bit farther? Yes, it seems we can and so I would like to propose a collaborative effort with MediaPost readers to create an extensive list of the most meaningless words of 2010.

Following is my "starter-kit" of most meaningless word usage this year - your comments and additions are welcomed.

1. Leading
Add "thought leader" into this mix. Firstly, who decides this? Is there a contest? And who is on the panel? At least "4 out of five dentists" leaves room for discourse. Until there are legal ramifications for falsely claiming "leader," it is quite meaningless and nobody is fooled (for long).

I propose to replace this with thought-trailers; those who pick up the crumbs of the thought-leaders and do something useful with them. I also call it the "Hansel and Gretel method of creativity."

2. Social media
Although it's a useful "platform" (see #7) can we please stop talking about it now? Even my 87-year-old granny in Bulgaria has a profile, so cut it out. Now, show me the companies that are managing their social media presence in a meaningful, measurable and profound way, then we'll talk. In the words of my hero Anthony Bourdain, "Social Media This!"

Which brings us to ...

3. Strategic
Whose meaning is generally not stretched. Its usage does adhere to the literal definition, but like solution, it has meandered into the buzzword arena and through sheer overuse fails to instill confidence. To a word-weary customer, it could well flip on the trickery switch. Use sparingly.

4. Cutting-edge
Everything is cutting-edge, stop insulting our intelligence.

5. Offline
Simply put, this means "in reality." This becomes confusing to those of us who spend so much time here online (where the really interesting things happen.) The other day I had the pleasure of being driven as opposed to driving, and so could enjoy the scenery. Gazing out the window, I marveled at how three -- dimensional the clouds looked - until the driver kindly pointed out that they appeared that way because they actually were three dimensional -- in reality. I should be driven more often, it's enlightening.

6. Apps
More lazy nomenclature. MIS-apps? Per-apps? ...Apples? What's 3 more syllables in the great scheme of things? Find the time folks, find the time.

To continue reading, click here.

Communicate or Die Mr. President

In the vein of all things political this week, I've been looking at the impact of paid media on the elections. No need to point out that the Dems got absolutely hammered by digruntled voters. But was it the misleading ads, the relentless tea party coverage and the extreme soundbytes from the extreme right polluting our eardrums that have contributed -- to what I believe -- is a temporary demise?

Or could our polarized, 24-hour/cable news cycle have tipped voters over the edge?

Or perhaps it was the billions of dollars that under-the-radar orgs like
American Action Network, or American Crossroads pumped into the most heinous ad
campaigns that, anywhere else, would have led to massive libel suits?

The answer is all of the above. And more still, the lack of communication from Mr. POTUS and Co.

Like millions of Americans, I fell in love with the new vision being sold to us in 2008. I don't believe that vision has changed drastically. But what's clearly lacking is communication from the White House - and from our President.

Working in PR, I know too well that when a company you work with cuts back on the communication, or "goes dark" for a while, this is exactly the time that eager competitors pounce - and find their spot in the limelight. Sometimes deservedly so, other times not.

We've seen that spending $140 million doesn't assure a win (too bad Ms.Whitman), but consistent communication does.

So Mr. President, here's my PR advice to you right now.

Communicate with your people, or die.

Because sorry won't be good enough in 2012.

No Frills Language

I subscribe to a great blog, "Life In the Boomer Lane." Her posts are just
hilarious and deliver a lovely little dose of reality every day, or so.

I'm not in the boomer lane just yet but seem to share and/or relate to some
of this blogger's experiences. I've always felt I was an older person trapped in
a younger body.Proof perhaps?

One of Renee's posts last week had me in absolute hysterics - Six Word Memoirs.
Apparently the AARP recently published memoirs from the senior community. Hers
was a cracker, but the premise of such an exercise got me thinking about the
current trajectory of our language, being reduced to 140 characters, or short
bytes that can be digested in 30 second spans - the most time that people have
available before moving to the next post.

In other words, stripping everything superfluous, discarding the verbose
and really, communicating in the most rudimentary way. It can be unintelligible
and selfish at times. No frills indeed.

I will be exploring the meaning of words - the frilly and not so - in my next
MediaPost column, but in the meantime here are a few of my six word memoirs:

- Started way too young, oh well.
- Ahead of my time. Cliche? Yes.
- Still learning to walk the walk.
- Lots of frequent flier points accumulated
- Tinting hasn't affected my brain cells (I cheated here)
- Round the way girl lived here.
- Most obnoxious line used, "Google Me!"

What are your six words?

My big fat mobile app/from Mobile Marketer

As the marketing clock inches closer to Thanksgiving and the holidays, it seems that the rush is on to bring out yet another mobile application – which has become almost as ubiquitous as the mobile device itself.

There are roughly 250,000-plus applications in the Apple App Store, ready and waiting for download to the more than 30 million iPhone subscribers.

But it is not all about Apple.

The average Android user has, at any given moment, about 25 applications on that device, and the number of applications downloaded by any smartphone user across any platform – BlackBerry, iPhone, Android – has increased almost 23 percent since December 2009.

However you slice or dice it, that is a lot of applications.

For advertisers and marketers, that is a lot of impressions and interactions. And those, of course, are worth a lot of money.

What led me to explore the explosion of applications in this column was actually my last opinion piece, “5 arguments on why mobile is indispensable to marketing plans”.

No sooner had my column come out than a surge of mobile application developers began contacting me. Some admitted to openly copying others, and they all wanted help in promoting their next best thing.

So this trend of marketers and their client companies rushing into the mobile apposphere is hardly surprising. In fact, it is to be expected based on the above numbers. This is the future of marketing, right?

As with many trends – even viable, sustainable ones – the impulse to anoint The Next Big Thing is quite irresistible....

To continue reading, click here.

Outside The Cubicle: When Creativity Kicks In

The work I do takes me to a lot of different places. I get to travel a great deal - which is both tiring and fun - but I wouldn't have it any other way.

What I’ve discovered when I'm on the road (or in a cab, or on the runway or at 35,000ft), is that being outside the proverbial cubicle feeds my creativity.

Being untethered to a desk and away from a routine working environment somehow unleashes a different part of my thinking process, one that is unencumbered by the barrage of calls and emails that I deal with at ThinkInk on a daily basis. Armed with my blackberry, laptop (and now iPad), I’m able to churn out an incredible number of articles, new ideas and projects to get started on.. So many, in fact, my office dreads when I go away now because I come back with so much more to do.

And not a minute seems to be wasted while I'm on the road; emails are answered, documents are checked, files are saved and work caught up on.. Alas, now I’m desk-bound again and the cycle starts all over.

Do you find yourself more creative away from your regular work environment? More productive even?

Here’s a short visual “diary” of the last trip, courtesy of my phone.

Bye bye beach


View from my London office – grey skies, what a surprise!


Luna the dog (my son’s charge for a day)


Streets of Toronto


Night time in Toronto


Interviewing Richard Cushing at the GuestLogix User Group conference, Toronto

Cheesy smiling with John Devin at the GuestLogix User Group conference, Toronto

Night out with the boys in Toronto – Jason and Richard at the GuestLogix User Group gala


Vieux Montreal – thank heavens for sunshine!


Atwater Marche – YUMMMMM


Brunch at Thursday’s, on Sunday


Montreal’s main thoroughfare in Chinatown.


And yes I did manage to work in between all that… I’ll be posting conference pics very soon.

DIY PR: Leave It To The Professionals

My original post appeared in MediaPost's Marketing Daily on October 14, 2010.

When I was a young adult, I did what many Australians do -- go travelling. I eventually settled in London, in a quaint little town called Richmond Upon Thames. Beautiful in the summertime; miserable, grey and cold for the remaining 10 months of the year.

It was at this time that I discovered the concept of DIY, do-it-yourself home improvements. Temples devoted to all things home decorating were popping up everywhere. The home improvement center, it seemed, was becoming as ubiquitous as the English pub.

It was also around this time that the ghastly trend of sponging paint blobs onto walls took hold. Like the recent trend of becoming a foodie, back then it was being a home decorator. Garden pots, flowerbeds, wallpaper and mouldings. Easy-care, faux wooden treatments and under-floor heating -- I was going all out. My Aussie feet couldn't stand the British cold. Thankfully, I stayed away from refurbing the hot water system, but my home had begun to resemble a construction site. My tiny Victorian cottage was in various states of "improvement," -- my decorating talents and skills having reached their respective limits long ago. It was time to call in the professionals, or risk turning my digs into home decorating hell.

WHY IT PAYS TO USE PROFESSIONALS
My short-lived calling as a DIY home decorator taught me a valuable lesson. When you need something done for which you do not possess the requisite skills (or time), seek out a professional.

This applies to virtually every industry I can think of: auto, legal, real estate, medical and so on. I can't imagine performing a root canal on myself any more than I can imagine fitting and aligning new tires for my car.

Why then should PR be any different? It is a skilled, bona fide profession, and it takes years to learn the "tools of the trade" and then continuing education -- applying learned theory to an ever-changing reality, to help companies and brands build relationships with their public.

THE PROVERBIAL PLASTER OF PARIS

And so I was somewhat offended by the following quote: "PR Agencies Are Dead, Handle Press Yourself," posted on Business Insider by the president of a networking site. I'm going to call him Mr. X -- no need to give him unwarranted PR -- who had the following to say:

"When you had to go through mass media, there's really a handful of media outlets or influential/important reporters. Because there were so few of them that had the ability to publish, there was this whole layer called the PR industry. Well, (now) everybody has the ability to publish. You engage in direct conversations with both traditional journalists and bloggers through the Web. As long as you are willing to be more open and sharing than in the past, now it's much more of a conversation." Mome again?

EVERYONE IS NOT AN EXPERT

To read the entire article on MediaPost, please click here.

You Can't Have It Both Ways, It Seems - from Media Post

I'm going beyond the press release and into advertising territory in this column, after a recent article in The New York Times' "On Advertising" column grabbed my attention. It discussed the trials and tribulations of a new female "enhancement" product that is having a hard time getting airplay. Pun very much intended.

Most readers of that article would surmise that its purpose was to highlight the disparity between what is acceptable in advertising -- or not -- when it comes to "our" sexuality, as well as the double standards that exist within the advertising world today. To me, the article also raises another red flag: the very aggressive and divisive political atmosphere that has engulfed our country when it comes to women's choices and the freedom and control that we have over our bodies. And let's not forget the media cohorts, either. However, as this is not the appropriate place to discuss political issues, I won't. So let's go back to advertising.

Advertise like it's 1959

When it comes to today's media market (or did I mean to say meat market), one could argue that society has progressed a great deal since the early days of television and print advertising, à la "Mad Men." More and more, we have been exposed to TV shows, commercials and ads that feature interracial families, homosexual couples (albeit male, predominately), and an altogether a more laid-back attitude when it comes to discussing and displaying things of a sexual nature. This, however, is not the case when it comes to female sexuality -- which seems to be as taboo as ever if we take the boycott of this female product as an indicator.

Zestra Essential Arousal Oils, a product designed to enhance the female sexual experience, is struggling to find networks or publications that will run its ads.

I have to say that Zestra's commercial is really rather lame, especially compared with ads for same category products like KY gel and Trojan condoms. It's a number of middle-aged women talking about their diminishing sex drive due to getting older and having children. Hello out there -- there is nothing remotely "inappropriate" about either, and I can very confidently make this statement as a mother of two almost grown-up children, and as a woman approaching the company's target customer's age.

The company has had its ad pulled from prime time on most major networks -- the very same networks and stations that run male enhancement ads for Viagra and Cialis ad nauseum. Even Facebook pulled the ads after just a couple of weeks.

In the end, Zestra has had to settle for the graveyard shift -- after midnight -- when its target audience is fast asleep, dealing perhaps with hot flashes and worries about their university-bound children and the associated financial obligations. And I can tell you, that is definitely not sexy, on air or in real life.

So why this double standard? Why is it okay to publicize men's sexual needs, but not women's?

Looks like we can't have it both ways

What this situation makes apparent is that while we have become more accepting of certain social issues -- we have no problem watching "The Situation" get his rocks off with several females at a time -- there is still an enormous double standard in acknowledging the comfort level of women's sexuality, in any medium. While we seem to be perfectly fine with ads showing women as sex objects (Heidi Montag, Kim Kardashian, et al.), it suddenly becomes unacceptable once real women start discussing their real sexual needs and desires.

Since when did American media become uncomfortable with recognizing the sexual needs of women equally? Are we less progressive than the Europeans, or even the British -- supposedly prudish -- who quite openly discuss sexual topics like S&M and sex toys in their daily papers?

Watch the ad and tell me what you think. Is it so racy for prime time compared with its male counterparts? Are the networks right to ban an ad like this? And what message are they sending to American women?

Zuckerberg's 100M: Just another Facebook PR opportunity?

According to critics, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is attempting to counter the potentially negative PR fallout from upcoming film “The Social Network” with the announcement of his hefty $100 Million donation to the Newark School Board.

Well, so what? There are millions of young celebrities (Lindsay Lohan, the Kardashians, Heidi Plasticbody, Paris Hilton et al), who have made an absolute mint off of a public who puts them on the cover of US Weekly and keeps them in Halston originals without donating any noteworthy portion of their mostly unmerited wealth to charitable causes.

Yet the media is going after Zuckerberg, who, at 26 years of age may be the youngest philanthropist to donate $100 million to anyone, much less a school board in a depressed area who is in desperate need of it. I have to ask, what's happened to our own values if we chastise a successful American entrepreneur for this? Something is decidedly wrong here.

Instead of bashing him or deriding his gifting by dismissing it as a PR move, why is the media not lifting him up and making him a great example of what young celebs who meet with good fortune can do with their bling? This could well set a trend for the rest of Generation Y – wouldn’t that be great? Instead of Paris Hilton sticking dollars up her nose, she could think about supporting kids’ programs that teach them how to avoid substance addiction, or even mentoring kids to become entrepreneurs instead of clueless heiresses. That would be novel.

At a time when our country is being forced to rethink its values, Zuckerberg's donation stands as a very relevant, much needed and marvelous gesture – at least in my humble opinion.

So why the sour grapes, critics? Almost everything seems to be written off as a PR move these days, but why single out Zuckerberg’s move - one that will bring so much good to so many kids (let’s not forget the community, teachers and parents) who also deserve a chance in life?

I see this as a wonderful example of "what goes around comes around". Good on ya Zuckerberg!

And THANKS.

On Customization

In the world of consumer products and services, new trends are emerging all the time – almost every second it seems. And after 15 seconds, it’s already old.

On Monday, everything is “better, more enhanced,” and by Friday, consumers are gravitating (back) towards something smaller, sleeker and shinier.

Of course, it’s a given that anything high-tech or “smart” like cars and phones is where we are headed, but what are other emerging trends? A recent article in the Wall Street Journal says that now, it’s all about customization.

According to Sarah Needleman @ WSJ, business experts are claiming that more consumers are buying more custom-made products. One 27-year-old New Yorker paid $1,250 for a custom mattress that he designed and purchased on Create-a-mattress.com.

And it doesn’t stop there. Customizable products are popping up all over the place. Check out a company called Rickshaw Bagworks – I just customized a cover for my iPad (and no, I did not get paid to write that!)

If you can buy it, it seems you can customize it.

But let’s think about it…. Customizable products are more laborious and expensive to build, right? So, how does this model work given today’s economic climate? “Experts” believe that it is the economy that is the contributing factor to the growth of this trend. That and companies like TreeHouse Logic who are developing the back-end technology so that you and I can beddazle our toasters. And while customized products may seem a little more expensive than off-the-shelf, they still don’t compare with spending big bucks on luxury items (jewelry, cars, and lavish vacations). We still gotta have a little luxury in our lives, and customization is filling that spot.

What about the business model, is it sustainable, profitable? Startup costs are reduced as most of these businesses operate solely online, with limited inventory and a JIT mindset. Quoting from the WSJ, Dace Venture Finances stated that the number of custom businesses they finance has gone from just one or two to thousands in a very short time. Customizable.com also stated they currently have 1,000 listings, up from just 300 in 2009.

Maybe I’m on to something.

21st Century Hotel Public Relations: 10 Approaches Your Granddad Never Thought Of

I wanted to share a great article written by TravelInkd’s Jennifer Rodrigues for Hotel Business Review on the future M.O.'s of hospitality PR. The content is relevant, though, to any industry working its way into the new millennium.

The practice of public relations for hotels, like the practice of public relations for all industries, has steadily evolved over the years. In the last decade, however, change has come much more rapidly. The channels of communication have opened wide, and what was once a single three-branched media river has multiplied (or divided?) into thousands of individual streams. Through these streams flows a volume of information no one thirty years ago could have even begun to fathom, let alone process.

This means there is a wealth of public relations strategies available that leverage the nature of this information delivery delta. For lodging, an industry that sometimes seems hopelessly tethered to past practices, these strategies and tactics can appear daunting, foreign, or even irrelevant. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Hotels are entirely capable- one might even say well-poised - to execute 21st century public relations strategies. Because the core product hotels are delivering is an inherently personal one (the guest experience), it lends itself to well-targeted, personalized communications- which, of course, are the hallmark of 21st century public relations.

So without further ado, here is our list of ten next generation public relations approaches hotels can and ought to be exploring right away. Some may not be revelations in the truest sense of the word (anyone not running a hotel from a cave in Antarctica knows about Twitter and Facebook), but all of these are strategies that hotels in general have not engaged to their fullest potential.

Tweet!

Twitter is the ultimate mash-up of personal and broadcast communication. As such, it is the penultimate 21st century PR tool. Tweeting relevant, gripping information is an excellent way to build awareness and engagement among your followers (hopefully loyal, previous and potential guests). It’s also a way to develop an identity through content, or a way to reinforce an existing brand. Where most hotels get tripped up in Twitter is by being inconsistent tweeters, or slow responders. Create a Twitter strategy, and make someone in the marketing and PR department accountable for monitoring your feed and executing the strategy on an ongoing basis.

Facebook (ings)

In terms of identity and brand image control, nothing comes close to Facebook and its siblings (LinkedIn, etc.). It is a platform to put forth the best aspects of a hotel, and a sounding board for new initiatives and consumer interaction. The same pitfalls that affect hotels’ usage of Twitter apply to Facebook: a lack of appropriate commitment, a lack of relevance, and a failure to foster real interaction. As such, the same remedies apply: install a social media point person, have them feed relevant information into the profile, and require accountability for responding to ‘friends’. Again, this isn’t something that you can do just once or twice a week. Social media is a full-time job and a communication tool that needs to be taken seriously or else you risk wasting time and resources, as well as alienating your friends and followers.

Tell Your Own Story

What the social media tools (and the other tools mentioned here) afford hotels is the ability to tell their story on their own terms. This, however, is not limited to social media communications; indeed, the practice of telling your own story is applicable across mediums. This is certainly not a new idea, but it is a concept that has become much easier to put into practice in the last few years. Hotels must become more willing to craft a story around notable aspects of their operations, and effectively transmit that story through multiple information outlets. Now, a hotel can post any story they wish to their Facebook page or blog, but when it comes to convincing a traditional broadcast media outlet to pick it up, relevance, interest and craftsmanship become important. This is where the distinction between a story and an announcement becomes acute, and where hotels need to become aware that telling their own story in the right way to the right person is the only way to get noticed.

You can read the rest of Jennifer's article on the iThinkInk blog here

All Thumbs (and No Brains)

I read a great article in AdAge this week entitled RIP, the Press Release (1906-2010) -- and Long Live the Tweet that beautifully (and comically/tragically) demonstrated how corporations and celebrities are increasingly leaving important (and not so important, but somewhat curious) newsflashes to their twitter accounts instead of their press-release wielding PR professionals.

“The long-suffering, much-maligned press release, I'd argue, finally died this summer, thanks particularly to JetBlue and BP, with a little moral support from Kanye West and just about every other celebrity with thumbs,” rants Simon Dumeno.

I’m partially in agreement.

The deafening death rattle of the old press release is, indeed, winding down, and there’s no stopping technology, or fool-hearty and self-absorbed celebrities, but surely no one could hardly argue that tweeting your own 140 character press releases is the way to go?

The press release had a hard enough time being heard before Twitter and other mediums, and the PR industry is, in part responsible for this. It probably lost a goodly portion of its audience to a lack of discretion in determining what was actually newsworthy – or not. Add to that the advent of the internet, and the industry has had to swim even harder upstream as every fool with a keyboard clamors for their 15 minutes.

But from a PR perspective, in the longer term these wanton tweets are most likely going to generate massive amounts of damage control revenue for my industry, after all, someone has to restore their decorum?

Don’t get me wrong, I know that tweeting has its place in our digital society, but with every “advancement,” we are witnessing a decline in the quality of our communications, the beauty of prose and of rhetorical speech.

Almost a year ago to the day, I wrote an article for MediaPost’s Marketing Daily "You Think You Know PR?": my message is just as, if not more so, relevant today.

Good storytelling is an art and the public’s reality is only, for most intents and purposes, as real as how it is perceived. And WE, PR professionals, still mould that perspective more skillfully than anyone, (whether for positive or negative results).

Good storytelling can incite emotions, can make us buy triple-stack hamburgers when we're not hungry or cause our minds to create fantastic what-if scenarios. Good stories can make us cry, laugh or feel sick. Even better, good stories can make journalists pick up the phone or hit the reply button to our emails, saying, "Tell me more, I want to know." They are the reactions that good storytelling can invoke, and I don't think that's something we can do with a micro-tweet or pushing a one-size-fits-all template that's been approved by corporate because it's safe and sounds good to the CEO.

Stories and storytellers have been around for thousands of years, influencing people and their decisions. Media needs good story tellers desperately, and I believe it always will.

The press release is not dead, as reported by AdAge, but it is being "re-tooled." It’s an evolutionary phase and the fittest will survive. A ground-swelling demand for quality content will occur and we’ll be here providing it long after celebs and corporate drones devolve into 10 thumbed quacks.

You’ve Been Self-Served!

There’s nothing like hard-hitting “studies” to put the fear of God in folks. Who, after all, wants to read that their marriage is potentially doomed, or that their partner might collapse and die of a heart attack, or that their sex life is rather pathetic?

Well that almost sums up a new “study” from the very caring people at Westin Hotels & Resorts. Their “Wellness in Travel” survey tells us that we’ll feel soooooo much better and productive after a vacation. I could have told the marketing people at Westin these obvious facts without their commissioning a costly “survey.”

Oh wait, wait, I already wrote about the need for vacations back in July 2010 (All Work and No Play), but minus the survey.

Of course, Westin’s survey is nothing more than a very common marketing tactic used to publicize an issue or societal concern, in this case the productivity and wellbeing of American workers.

The silly thing about this survey – which is incredibly self-serving -- is that it highlights why Americans aren’t going on vacation – they are fearful about losing their jobs, and that they either don’t have the cash or want to hang on to what little they have left. Staycations are our new vacations!

I don’t know about you dear reader, but if I am already stressed about work and my financial state of affairs, taking off on a vacation is the absolute last thing I would be doing. It’s almost impossible to “check your stress” at the airport with worries like that, don't you think?

And as for experiencing more ‘wedded bliss’ on vacation... you simply save up the arguments over money for when you get back home.

How do you feel about taking time off? Do you feel stressed just by the thought of going away and leaving work behind?

I would love to hear your thoughts.

VH

You Give PR A Bad Name

Another column, another ethics dilemma.

It seems the issue of ethical behavior can't stay out of the limelight right now. While the Democrats are grappling with the newly created Office of Congressional Ethics and two of their own representatives under investigation for, ahem, questionable behavior, the Federal Trade Commission is coming down on PR companies that are misleading the public by posting fake reviews on behalf of their clients.

My thanks to the FTC for giving this rather silent, but ugly, issue the attention it deserves.

A few weeks ago, a PR company was fined by the FTC in what I believe to be a first for the PR world (correct me if I am wrong.) The agency, which shall remain nameless in this column, represented a number of games developers, including the creator of Rock Band. Thinking itself very clever, the agency assigned staffers the roles of guest bloggers and reviewers, who got to work on creating fake consumer profiles and posting glowing but fake reviews.

For about six months, the PR agency owner and her crew duped consumers on iTunes into believing the reviews were posted by gamers for fellow gamers -- people they thought they could trust for an authentic, first-hand take on the game.

Dirty tactics

While the goal of generating positive reviews is clearly a huge focus for agencies involved not only in product-centric PR, but who also earn revenues from product sales (the agency in question earned commission from game sales, so positive reviews + sales = more money in its bank), misleading consumers like this is both unethical and dirty. Actually, let me rephrase: misleading consumers is unethical and dirty, period.

At what point in planning out a client's launch or PR strategy is fraud considered as an active component instead of creative or even traditional approaches? Was it desperation, client pressure or, perhaps, greed that drove this agency to lower its standards -- if it had any to begin with?

Instead of spending six months creating fake consumer profiles and reviews, the agency should have spent its time on:

Creating awareness about the games through clever or even outrageous PR and social media outreach tactics
Encouraging users to post reviews -- positive or not -- via community building, and engaging consumers transparently through social media channels.
Clearly, the agency chose the easy-and-sleazy option instead of relying on talent and good old-fashioned hard work.

The sad part about this type of dirty tactic is that it is so simple to do, and the FTC is going to have a hell of a time policing it. With social media, anyone can create a profile and post countless reviews, potentially influencing consumers.

And that's precisely the point: if any review that a consumer reads is in fact a manipulated, marketing ploy designed to influence a purchasing decision -- by a marketer and not a consumer -- then full disclosure must be given. Always.

Truth in advertising

The FTC makes it very clear that companies engaged in online marketing -- and yes, this does include PR firms -- need to abide by long-held principles of truth in advertising.

"Advertisers should not pass themselves off as ordinary consumers touting a product, and endorsers should make it clear when they have financial connections to sellers."

A PR agency should never be held responsible for the content of consumer reviews, especially in our increasingly social media-ruled world, and our clients must be educated about the actions that agencies can and cannot take, no matter how big the payout or stakes.

Laws have been created to protect consumers from misleading practices. Manipulating and faking reviews is tantamount to fraud and premeditated deception. If agencies and online marketers continue duping consumers in this way, they are cutting off the hand that feeds them. And if consumers can no longer trust review sites or even social media recommendations, then what do we all do?

It’s actions like these that give PR a bad name.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=135621&nid=118525

What I Had For Breakfast: In Pursuit of Less Pay and More Hours - Welcome to The Way We Now Work

Three articles caught my attention in as many days; Harvard Business Review's article Labor Day: Beyond The Barbecue, Labor Day Lament in TIME and Majority of Workers Don't Feel Underpaid in Adweek.

The common theme here is obviously work. How we feel about the way we work, and the fact that most of us work longer hours than ever to adapt to, compete with, and keep up with the technology that chains us to keyboards, phones and laptops. And not necessarily for more money.

Now think about the progress we have made…

Labor Day was originally intended to celebrate the “working class" laborers who built the country (manual workers), but I’d actually consider much of the American workforce as "working class" today. Knowledge workers, officers workers and the rest of us who are always "on" - just because we don't do manual labor, doesn't mean we don't work hard or contribute significantly to the growth of our employers and the economy - especially with so many manual jobs vanishing abroad.

Let’s take a look at a Times freelancer who was quoted in TIME’s post and typically works 65-70 hrs per week. "Your work day is done when your work is done. And the work is never really done. You can’t leave it until tomorrow because you’ll have too much to do tomorrow."

How many of you can relate to that? No sooner have you replied to a few emails and completed a number of tasks than another dozen emails come in - all urgent, all demanding the same, immediate attention. It is a real challenge not to become "inbox-driven."

We can thank technology for this.

Technology has not necessarily freed us to be more creative or to work more efficiently. Technology and work processes continue to demand more of our time and attention, divvying up our focus into so many places all at once. Technology has created a work culture that frowns upon those not connected.

In my world, I have the following going on at any one time: blackberry messages, text messages, various IMs programs running, a mobile phone ringing in between my two office extensions, my personal email as well as my work emails, dozens of news feeds, Facebook, Twitter et al. I’m not on Foursquare yet, but it’s only a matter of time… And this is before I get to my real work. How do I work smarter, not harder, in this environment? Someone pass me the Advil please!

So it's hardly surprising that the average work day has shot up to 12 hrs, or more. How can we possibly accomplish what we need to on any given day with so much noise and so many distractions? Is this what the new normal means?

Did we create it, or did it create us?

What I Had For Breakfast: The Dumbest Marketing Idea Ever

Only a nonparent could design a website for children that "allows them to plan what's for dinner."

The premise of this dumbest marketing idea ever - ZisBoomBah (even the name sounds utterly stupid)
- is that kids get to learn about nutrition as they custom design what they want for dinner.

What a brilliant idea!?1#&#! Kids designing their own meal plan... I can't believe that no one has thought of this before.

Not only does Mom, or Dad, have to contend with holding down a job or two, and cooking after a nice long, stressful day's work, but now little Sally's custom menu selection will miraculously appear in Mom's inbox together with a recipe and shopping list.

"Go on Mom, Dad, what are you standing around for? Go buy these ingredients for my dinner - and make it!"

While I know that feeding children healthfully is a challenge for many parents (I am a parent of two) and that some guidance can be very helpful in making healthier selections, the thought that a young child will be making dinner and shopping choices for their parents is one of the most daft ideas I've ever come across.

Oh, and the website is "sponsored" by food companies and brands, so you know what the real impetus is here: "educate" children about our healthy food products so that Mom will buy them.

Helping kids make smart food choices?

It's nearly enough to put to you off your food!

Truth In Advertising (Fake Reviews, Social Media and PR)

"PR firm settles claims of fake games reviews" read the headlines on several industry websites last week, including TGDaily.com.

A PR agency called Reverb Communications got fined by the FTC over unethical practices: its staff posed as members of the public to post fake reviews of video games developed by its clients. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

According to Mary Engle, director of the FTC’s Division of Advertising Practices, "companies, including public relations firms involved in online marketing, need to abide by long-held principles of truth in advertising."

Thank you to the FTC for giving this ugly issue some attention.

While the goal of scoring positive reviews is clearly a huge incentive for PR agencies involved in not only promoting products, but that also earn a revenues from product sales, the at-all-costs approach is appalling.

It’s a pity this agency lowered its standards - if it had any to begin with - to creating fake profiles and reviews, instead of using its talents to;

a) create awareness about the products through clever PR and media outreach tactics
b) encourage users to post reviews – positive or not - via community building and engaging consumers transparently through social media channels.

A PR agency should never, ever be held responsible for the content of consumers’ actual reviews - especially in our increasingly social media-ruled world.

Manipulating and/or faking reviews is tantamount to fraud, good old-fashioned premeditated deception. And to think this agency created an entire strategy around the concept of duping people.

One has to question the morals of the agency owner in question, and wonder when the duping will strike again?

Companies like Reverb gives the PR industry a bad name. Shame on you.

The Pay For Play Conundrum, from Marketing Daily

The following piece was published in MediaPost's Marketing Daily on August 25, 2010

For the past few weeks, I've been following a discussion thread on a LinkedIn group for public relations professionals. The topic? Pay for Placement, which is really an offshoot of the pay-for-performance model.

In much of the business world, pay for performance (PFP) is quite acceptable. Attorneys do it with high-stakes cases. CEOs and executives' salaries are linked to their companies' and departments' overall performance. I've worked with ad agencies that have adopted (or least experimented) with PFP. Even the humble car salesperson operates this way.

Yet for most of the PR industry, PFP is considered a very bad concept.

That's because the perception of PR is not finite, at times ill-defined and intangible in many instances -- in contrast to, say, creating an ad campaign or defending a legal matter. In both these examples, there are tangible deliverables, an assumption of costs and an element of control.

Ad agencies will create ads and place them. They know exactly when and where their work will appear. Attorneys will build a strong case, prepare bulky legal briefs, go to court and win -- or lose. But in the case of PR, what responsibilities and tasks must a PR agency assume that go into scoring ink? Is it just one description, one objective -- to get placed "somewhere"?

Where does one PR campaign end and another begin when the client brief is simply to increase brand awareness and visibility? And what good is "buzz" when there isn't a strategic approach to managing a company's reputation and visibility? Because you have to assume that a company fixated on a PFP arrangement is not thinking about strategy as a priority.

But that really isn't the point. PFP may have been relevant 10 years ago before social media, blogs and free news content existed. It may well have worked when clients had a very limited choice of national broadsheets, and only a handful of print publications as their holy grails.

That model may have worked when we used to send press releases via fax, but this is now. And PFP doesn't work in PR and media now.

I would be a hypocrite if I didn't admit to toying with the idea in the past. I have been approached by companies burned by previous agencies to work on this basis. Their argument is always "you'll get paid if you get our name in print. That's what you do, right?"

Wrong. We do a whole lot more.

So here are a few arguments for why PFP doesn't work in PR and why you should scurry for the hills if a company asks for it.

1. We don't own media and can't guarantee you a placement in any publication because what we do is earned. We don't live in reporters' pockets -- we "earn" the right for your company or brand to appear in a given outlet. That's why you pay for advertising.

2. We can use our talents, storytelling and creativity to change perception and influence media (and readers), but we cannot force an article to appear no matter how relevant, timely or brilliant you think it is -- ever.

3. We work as much behind the scenes in getting media to pay attention to us and your story, i.e., researching trends, competitors, following reporters for months and of course creating an angle -- or several -- that is newsworthy. This doesn't happen overnight.

4. If we operate with a mindset that is focused on one fixed outcome only -- the proverbial ink -- doesn't it completely miss the point of integrating communications to deliver better ROI and results, which is what businesses are demanding of us now? And how does this affect the rest of the PR/marketing ecosystem; events, articles, surveys, whitepapers, social media and overall representation? Because we usually handle of all those, too.

5. And most importantly, how do we differentiate the value of placements? Is an online article that's been retweeted 4,352 times and lives in perpetuity more or less valuable than a mention in Inc. that is put out in the rubbish next month? Is the print version of The New Yorker more or less valuable than online? Or what about articles that get syndicated: does this mean you will pay for every article that gets republished once or 100 times? Is broadcast more or less valuable than print or online? Or what happens if the company is only mentioned and not "featured"? And what about social media -- is this not a placement as well?

There are so many questions in this case, but only one answer: No to pay for placement in PR.

In the words of Paul Del Colle, a fellow PRNews member: "If PR were a science, then PFP would make sense. If there were immutable principles and predictable outcomes, then PFP would be not only logical but the sole way of doing business." But it's not.

PFP is unethical; it lessens the overarching value of PR as a whole, and makes bad business sense for our industry on every level.

To read the article in Marketing Daily, click here

What Is The New Normal?

Reading an article in the New York Times last week called “But Will It Make You Happy?” struck me as sad, when it should have been uplifting (I think).

Cocooning is nothing new and a return to basics isn’t either. I lived through those phrases during the last recession and look how that turned out. But good on Wal-Mart for finding a way to capitalize on Americans’ desire to stay at home and spend more time with the family. Cha-ching. It seems no matter what the economic climate, most Americans will continue to find fulfillment via way of external sources, i.e., shopping, shopping and shopping. While it’s admirable that people like Tammy Strobel and Logan Smith can downgrade their living needs to just a couple of plates, a cup and a pair of shoes, that is hardly doable for the majority of American families. Besides, where is the balance in that?

And while it’s great to read that “current research suggests, unlike consumption of material goods, spending on leisure and services typically strengthens social bonds, which in turn helps amplify happiness,” will the focus on creating experiences versus the accumulation of material goods continue once the good times roll round again? I am undecided.

Which brings me to the V-shaped economic rebound.

Forbes analysts Brian Wesbury and Robert Stein recently launched a new column. Their prediction, which was released in advance of the official GDP stats last month (read here), told us that we are well on our way to a robust recovery, a V-shaped economic rebound. Their diagnosis included two generally held predictions: that we are bound to slip into another recession, or Depression Part 2, or that the economy is recalibrating to a ‘New Normal’ marked by anemic growth and persistently high unemployment. The latter sounds more like it.

Given that the vast majority of economists and analysts were caught unawares by the global financial meltdown and the severity of the recession that followed, the temptation to avoid the appearance of Pollyannaism at all costs is great. It is hard to argue with the unemployment numbers, which have shown precious little signs of improvement. And it is hard for me to conceive of a robust recovery without a substantial uptick in the number of Americans gaining full-time employment.

I’m no economist, but I think I am seeing more of the New Normal out there than anything else right now.

And then I have to ask myself, what exactly is the New Normal anyway?

You're In the News Baby!

Just about every business thinks theirs is newsworthy. That's why companies like ours exist.

But the problem with establishing what's newsworthy and what isn't comes down to perception, objectivity, good storytelling and knowledge (of media) - which is very hard to do when you're in a vacuum or if you really have no idea about the expectations and needs of media outlets.

My colleague at TravelInk'd, Jennifer Rodrigues, wrote a great piece this week called Is Your Hotel (News) Worthy?. While aimed at the hotel industry, the 10 tips that Jenn writes about can be applied to almost any business.

You can read the entire article at Hotel Interactive here.