Pink Overload: What’s Happened to the Breast-Cancer Awareness Movement?

Pink ribbons, pink cars, pink kitchen mixers, pink vacuum cleaners, pink knives and now, pink guns?

That’s right, breast-cancer awareness guns. Truly inasane.

Don’t get me wrong. I have no objection to breast cancer-awareness campaigns in and of themselves; it is a worthy cause that may help save some lives by spotlighting the importance of early screening and does bring emotional support and fellowship to many suffering from breast cancer.

What truly bothers me is that the movement has morphed into a commercial behemoth - a massive money-making, cash-raking frenzy that makes the month of October look like someone hosed it down with Pepto-Bismol. At nearly every fundraising event and in every related media campaign you see evidence of massive corporate sponsorship. There’s Ford Motor Company’s “Warriors in Pink” clothing line, entire Japanese trolleys wrapped in ads for Avon’s pink-beribboned product line and Yoplait’s “Put a Lid on It,” for example. Here’s a spot of bitter irony: when Yoplait first launched that campaign, they were making the yogurt with dairy from cows injected with a growth hormone that has been linked to breast cancer. At least General Mills pulled the hormone from Yoplait after activists started making noise about it.

With the seemingly endless millions flowing to this movement, it’s clear that some are profiting big. But are we really any closer to finding the elusive cure? I recently wrote about Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s disastrous attempt to pull Planned Parenthood’s funding – which the group uses to provide potentially life-saving breast-cancer screenings to low-income women. Wow. Just, wow.

Another gripe with the pink-ribbon overkill is that it overshadows so many other worthwhile causes and nonprofits – groups that do incredibly valuable and needed work in their communities – that are barely noticed and chronically underfunded. At the ThinkTank, the arm of ThinkInk that works with nonprofits. Unfortunately for many of them, their funding dried up as the recession struck and donations dwindled, forcing them to eliminate PR – which is what keeps them in the public eye – from their meager budgets.

It’s heartbreaking that so many great community programs delivering vital services such as medical care for the poor, food assistance and transitional housing, but lacking the visibility of the charity giants, languish in obscurity.

I absolutely support raising funds for breast cancer research as well as early-screening awareness, and I have nothing but good wishes for the many women who have survived, or are currently battling, breast cancer. But the actual impact of the movement as it stands today hardly seems commensurate with the eye-popping river of money it pulls in.

So let’s try and find other causes, other non-profits that desperately need our help in order to help others.

Because their missions matter too, you know?

Why Do Some Sabotage Their Own PR Efforts?

If you are in the PR profession, it’s very likely that you have experienced the following scenario: a prime client insists on micro-managing visibility campaigns to the point where it’s almost impossible for us to work, or to focus on the strategy and execution of big ideas, instead of sweating the small stuff. Forget about achieving the results that are expected of us.

The PR industry is not alone in this dilemma: creatives and marketers join us in the struggle of extracting project briefs from some clients, or getting campaign details approved, or media interviews scheduled in a timely manner. And then there is the next-level challenge — the client that consistently misses top opportunities, cherry-picking interviews and walking away from top-tier placements because they can’t see the big picture — all while grumbling about farfetched initiatives planned to avoid the next kerfuffle.

I touched on this subject in a previous post over a year ago, and it continues to baffle me today. So why do companies hire us if they want to control what we do, never fully trusting us to be the experts that they hired us as?

Which also begs the question: “How do they stay in business if they micro-manage all their external resources and consultants?” It turns out that a lot of them don’t.

Hiring for All the Wrong Reasons

Companies don’t sabotage their own campaigns intentionally. It usually starts off with someone in management who thinks that their ideas are well-placed and timely; their interview rejections justified and reasonable — even if these decisions contradict strategies that have been well thought out and agreed upon. They are the CEO, after all. They have reasons and the need for hiring PR professionals, yet don’t end up taking our advice.

Why? Here are a few of my thoughts on why a company so interested in preserving its own good ideas would bother to look outside its own little bubble.

1: A supreme misstep that needs isolation — call in the professionals.

Maybe a firm doesn’t know how badly it has messed up until the legal threats start coming, or there’s an ugly sales dip that has shareholders riled. That’s when the need to call in someone else oversteps the need to micromanage campaigns. For a while, at least…

2: Recent restructuring and little direction — budget changes, hiring-and-firing.

An overzealous primary point of contact — possibly a new hire, perhaps someone who’s feeling pressure in their department — starts to quell campaigns for the sake of their own bright ideas, hoping for some recognition (and possibly a pay raise). This could be ego talking, or it could be fear in a competitive environment.

3: A well-meaning higher-up — not everyone is out to get us.

Someone in management knows what they’re doing — and recognizes that they can’t do everything on their own — but they’re not in charge of dealing with the day-to-day approvals, editing, releases, and interviews. If the “smart boss” was the one you talked with daily, there wouldn’t be an issue — but sadly, they’re not.

4: Power struggles — to seek help or not to seek help?

Maybe somebody got vetoed, and you are the shining cavalry that got called in, much to their dismay. Maybe an entire department got axed, and whoever is in charge now wants to make a point that their group could have done it better. Interoffice politics will almost always affect your dealings, sometimes seriously. Watch your back here because you may be set up to fail.

Apart from firing the misbehavers and walking away, there are a number of ways to compromise (if you want to compromise, that is) when working with a client who is a PR self-saboteur:

• Weed Out Inconsistencies When your company contact is killing ideas and media opportunities (and coming up with their own “great ideas”), try to keep campaigns consistent at the very least. You might find that the same companies that kill ideas and opportunities are extremely prolific when it comes to tossing in-house ideas around. Cohesiveness is a boon, too.
• Increase Communication and Accountability CC, double-check, confirm, and re-confirm. When finger-pointing about missed opportunities comes up, engage in CYA mode. You want to have names of exactly who nixed what and cover your behind at all times. Accountability is critical and it’ll get you to the end of your contract — or to the end of the campaign — without torching your own reputation. Containing sabotage is much better than having people ask: “Who is in charge of this mess?”

There is really only so much we can do for a company that is prone to consistently acting this way. There are fatal marketing mistakes lurking out there, and if the company is truly set in its ways, the mistakes will keep happening again and again. And as much as getting that retainer check was nice every month, you will be glad that the mistakes weren’t on your watch. It’s your reputation — and your sanity — on the line.

I like to think of these types of clients as horses: the ones you can steer to the water, but can never make drink. We may push and force and struggle to get things done with these companies, but in the end they will rear their heads and refuse to cooperate with us. Past experience has taught me (and my still sane team), that the struggle is almost always unsustainable and really not worth having.

Via Media Post: Marketing Daily by Vanessa Horwell – http://bit.ly/op0iml

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.

8 Reasons Why Marketers Should Ramp Up Their Visibility Strategy

(My original article appeared in Mobile Marketer on August 18, 2009)

Are we in the throes of a recession hangover yet? Yes and no, depending on who you listen to.

Recession or not, however, businesses and consumers remain wary and cautious about spending. The road to recovery is likely to be slower than we thought. But as I wrote in my column in Mobile Marketer today, this is precisely the time when businesses and marketers should be ramping up their visibility and getting back on their customers radars.

Why now?

Because history has proved time and again that the bold survive. Knee-deep in the discount dustbins is not a strategic position, nor is being invisible to your customers. Companies that survive and grow are marketing from a position of strength, not a defensive crouch.

A conservative approach, prudent as it may seem after almost a year of negative GDP, is actually counterproductive.

It is shortsighted to view this recession, or any recession, as anything less than an opportunity for future growth. It is impossible to engage with your audience if your brand has gone into hiding, waiting for the markets to rebound.

And it is very hard to make a comeback without being visible or without customers.

Click here to read the article in Mobile Marketer 8 reasons why marketers should ramp up their visibility strategy.