Dethroning King Content: Why Context Should Be Just as Important

“Content is King.”

It’s a phrase PR professionals, marketing gurus, journalists and editors hear every day.

Coined by Bill Gates in 1996 as part of his Internet worldview, it’s worth noting that even back in the 28.8k days of dial-up modems, “content is king” was not all the Microsoft Chairman stressed. Equally important was the context of the material published.

“To be successful online, a magazine, [for instance] can’t just take what it has in print and move it to the electronic realm,” Gates wrote. “There isn’t enough depth or interactivity in print content to overcome the drawbacks of the online medium.” 

Nearly two decades after Gates wrote those words and their meaning still resonates. Not only is context important between print and online, all the digital mediums such as email, social, mobile and so on require different methods of user engagement.

In other words, one size does not fit all.

One of the most obvious rules of thumb: lengthy copy should be presented on lengthy screens, tablet-sized or greater. Smartphones, even those with 6-inch screens are too small for maximum user enjoyment. Even the definition of “long copy” is relative to the medium. Chances are that anything over 500 words in mobile format pushes the limit.

But it’s more than that.

Ideally, PR teams should be large enough to include channel-specific content writers. Or at the very least, content writers should have the freedom to discuss with in-house or outsourced social media experts how their content could best be adapted to fit channel needs. Repackaging a 3,000-word whitepaper into 120, 140-character tweets might “get the job done” in the strictest sense, but it may miss the mark in terms of user engagement.

Successful tweets are not article or presentation bullet points. They’re conversation starters; unique insights or observations that spark genuine debate and feedback.

Maybe “dethroning King Content” is a little harsh. After all, establishing proper context would be impossible without the raw materials of content already laid out. But how those knowledge building blocks are assembled and presented to the right audience on the right channel is critical if PR executives (and any communications professionals) are to use the web and its many channels to their fullest extent.

Public Relations to the Corporate Executive Rescue: Proving Our Worth in Innovative Ways

A recent Booz & Company study finds that a company’s internal message is being lost and that business leaders are finding themselves worried over a variety of communication-related issues. Chief among them:

·         64% said they had too many conflicting priorities

·         54% do not believe their company strategy will lead to success

·         53% did not believe their corporate strategy was understood by employees

·         33% felt company strategy and company capabilities were aligned

While these internal struggles often make our jobs as PR professionals more difficult – how can we draft an effective press release if the company doesn’t know what it wants to say or how to say it – I believe it’s also a valuable opportunity for our industry.

Always eager to demonstrate our communications worth, as PR agencies we must market ourselves as objective strategy sounding boards as well as networked media professionals. To some extent we do this all the time – hand-holding and coddling our most challenging clients.

But rarely do we market these evaluative skills up front. Too often we fall into the trap of “yes-ing” clients to death, spinning our wheels in failed response to internal client confusion. Considering all the talk of late of how PR agencies must adapt to new realities (faced in some cases, with the severing of 80-year-old client-agency partnerships), becoming diversified communications agencies versed in multiple channels and multiple ways of telling a compelling story might be only the beginning. Add to that our very adept skills at executive coaching and direction-finding and we may yet turn an internal corporate disadvantage into a new PR agency strength.

So has your PR agency already taken on new responsibilities as a quasi-executive coach – a prospering industry in its own right? What, specifically, are you doing to achieve that aim? And how are you balancing these expanded responsibilities with traditional PR? Share your trials and tribulations with the ThinkInk PR community in the section below.

Facebook Flatlining? My Prognostications for the Social Networking Behemoth

It might still be the world’s second-most-popular website with 700,000,000 unique monthly visitors – behind Google’s 900,000,000. But, as history has taught us, it’s usually when you’re flirting with the top that the bottom drops out.

And when it comes to Facebook’s dominance, the digital Visigoths are amassing on the web’s virtual borders.

Who are these digital invaders? An expanding list of mobile messaging apps like Kik, GeeVee and WhatsApp, among others, that are growing increasingly popular with tweens and Millennials. Kik, for instance, launched in 2010, now boasts 40 million users, GeeVee has quietly amassed several million users since 2011 while WhatsApp recently became Canada’s top paid downloaded iPhone app. Once Facebook’s most coveted demographic, the 15-25 age group is starting to bypass the originally built-for-desktop/laptop site, calling the website decidedly un-cool. Does Facebook think that its “F-phone” might stop the bleeding?

Even in our age of instant communication, it’s amazing how fast the conversation has shifted. Just last spring media outlets were writing about the time when Facebook would reach the billion-member mark. The early call was for last August. Instead the feat was achieved in October. Not bad for a nine-year-old company.

Fast-forward six months and now a Google news search returns dozens of articles hinting at what I think will be inevitable, the flat-lining of Facebook. Even with an encouraging Q4 earnings – revenue was up 40% from a year ago – the stock is down 1.4% and profit margins have narrowed sharply as spending increases. To me, this sounds like an engine being pushed to its limits – running hard and fast until breakdown. In other words, Facebook’s present business model is not sustainable.

As with many other great empires, Rome’s final downfall might have come from without – the real Visigoths, a Germanic tribe, conquered it in 410 AD – but the beginning of its end came from within. Facebook has become too big and its autocratic intrusion on our privacy, culminating in a $15 billion class action lawsuit, bears ironic resemblance to any super state’s trampling of peoples’ rights.

Another shortcoming: the digital soapbox that Facebook became, with people collecting fake friends like poker chips, may finally be coming to an end. Maybe we’ve all just moved on and the cultural pendulum is swinging back to a desire for smaller groups of actual friends. You know, people you might actually meet in person and actually know, not just “like.” Apps like Kik, GeeVee and WhatsApp are also great for young users as they avoid cell phone data network charges and it’s a little harder for hovering “helicopter parents” to join social messaging apps. And forget about prospective employers snooping around too.

That said, it’s not as if Facebook is going to unfriend itself anytime soon. A recent Reuters article is right to point out that the many Millennials turning to this new breed of mobile messaging apps haven’t abandoned Facebook – yet. But the true canary in the coal mine will be tracking how their usage patterns change in the coming months and years. And you can be sure Facebook is well equipped with its prodigious metrics-gathering ability to learn its fate long before it’s sealed.

Even then, though, the great Facebook empire may still fall, as all empires do.

Do you think Facebook is flatlining? I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

‘Going Rogue’ Again? Keeping Client Communications In Check

With a title like the above, you might think we’ve returned to the days of Sarah Palin’s memoir, Going Rogue: An American Life. 

But this time I’m not talking about a “mavericky” Alaskan -- who, along with a very talented PR machine, masterminded a brilliant and profitable 15 minutes of fame. I’m talking about the client-PR agency relationship and how, despite living in an age of instant communication, some maverick-prone clients fail to keep their PR agencies abreast of what they are planning to say, how they plan to say it, which media outlets they’re talking to and who’s writing what. It’s as if we’re being undervalued -- a topic I discussed in a recent blog, Proving PR’s Business Value Easier Said than Done, But Not Impossible.

A recent AdAge article also addresses this growing advertising agency concern, citing data from The Bedford Group that finds the average client-agency relationship length has fallen to under 3 years versus 7.2 years in 1984 -- a drop of almost 60% over three decades.

What has changed and why is this happening?

Even my agency has not been immune to so-called rogue clients. A press release gets drafted without our knowledge. A media interview is conducted without our review and the client is caught off guard. Each scenario is a potential PR minefield.

Notice in the preceding paragraph that I was very selective in my language, as all PR execs should be. At no point did I say “without our consent” or “without our green light” -- and I think that’s the problem right there. Turf wars between agency management/oversight and client control. Considering that client-agency relationship lengths are so short, we must do everything in our power not to step on clients’ toes, or we may be perceived as know-it-alls.

Trust me, we’re not. And in the power struggle that communications can become, clients have the final say.

That said, there is a reason why we call the client-agency arrangement a relationship and not a doctor-patient review. Clients come to us for creative ways to improve their brand, not reinvent it. They’re not sick. They’re not dying. Agencies are integral to this team effort. And that collaboration, as I addressed in another blog, begins with thinking about clients less as machine-like conglomerates, and more like individuals with communication needs that must be met, not serviced.

So what we have here are two partners failing to communicate -- one that is perceived to be micromanaging (the agency) and one that’s looking to preserve its own voice. As AdAge rightly points out, technology ironically hampers our communication efforts as excessive emails and meetings trump genuine correspondence and conversations, watering down the quality of our time together.

And since this article began with a political reference, I’ll begin my wrap-up like this: agencies and the clients they represent need to press the “reset button,” remembering to be transparent about what each side plans to do and when they plan to do it, within reason. It’s a building block of trust and mutual respect. PR agencies are there to help, not hurt. And we can only do that when clients are honest with us and we are aware of their intentions. Likewise, agencies must involve their clients actively in the communications and PR outreach process.

Of course, this advice won’t stop all instances of going rogue, nor will it consign the occurrence solely to our industry. Sometimes, for very deliberate reasons, clients employ elements of surprise to their communications advantage, keeping everyone but their innermost circle in the dark. The recent shocking resignation of Pope Benedict XVI demonstrates that even inner, inner circles aren’t always privy to the thoughts of one individual.

In most cases, as seems to be the case with Alaska’s former governor, going rogue helps no one, not even the so-called “maverick.” Fittingly, like the drop in client-agency relationship length, Palin’s Amazon book price has fallen 60% too.

Does your agency have a going rogue problem? Inspired by the data gathered from The Bedford Group, I’d like to begin collating my own research on the client-agency “going rogue” phenomenon and report our findings in a follow-up article. Beyond the suggestions I have offered, how does your agency address the problem? Are there examples of a contentious client-agency relationship being healed by an attitude adjustment? Any particularly jarring “rogue moment” that caused your agency to put its foot down and change communications course? Lastly, like a heart attack, are there any warning signs that rogue has arrived? I would love to hear about your experiences with clients “going rogue.” 

This article originally appeared on Marketing Daily on 03/06/13. 

Tainted Horsemeat Turns PR’s “Gallop” to a Slow Trot

You have to wonder if the corporate executives dealing with Europe’s horsemeat food crisis haven’t just thrown their hands up in sardonic frustration and shouted “it was horsemeat, people, not horse s***!”

Be a dear and pass the Pepto-Bismol please!

Seriously, though, it’s cold comfort for the millions of Europeans who’ve been left with an unsettled stomach over the unfolding food scandal. And while there’s been a concerted effort on the part of Burger King, Tesco, Nestlé and others to address the meat recall across the continent – including the suspension of IKEA’s famous Swedish Meatballs – it hasn’t prevented social media from turning the crisis into one of misappropriated humor. There’s also been plenty of finger pointing at the failure of Big Business to protect the quality of the products they distribute, no matter where their third-party processing and distribution operations may be located.

And while that story was souring hearts and stomachs, another communications problem was gathering momentum stateside: the Newspaper Association of America, the New York Times and other newspapers joined The Associated Press in support of its lawsuit against Meltwater, a company that tracks and monitors media stories as related to client needs, but allegedly copies whole article leads and headlines without paying proper licensing fees to the AP.

Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Whether Meltwater wins or loses the eventual lawsuit probably doesn’t much matter in the court of public opinion. As a media agency they’ve only furthered the age-old belief that the PR industry is filled with nothing but “hacks and flacks.” 

Both stories reminded me of a more encouraging PR Daily article by Dorothy Crenshaw, CEO and creative director of Crenshaw Communications, named one of PR’s 100 Most Powerful Women by PR Week. Her article, How to Think Like a PR Person, articulated some of PR professionals’ most valuable skills. And by doing so, underscored that proper PR executive-think is very similar to the standards journalists hold high. In reality, this is a recipe that also works for corporate execs independent of their communications partners – something the horsemeat industry and Meltwater could learn from and use right now.

Crenshaw’s most relevant points included:

·         Think in sound bites: Talk about food for thought. This isn’t just a good idea for pitching media. It also helps condense one’s thoughts into step-by-step processes, more like an equation. When a company is in crisis mode, as IKEA and others are, this is particularly important.

·         Media training is essential: For similar reasons , media training is also about clarity of thought and preparation for difficult questions – ideal for Twitter and 140-character space restrictions – whether the questions are coming from news outlets or everyday consumers.

·         Voraciously consume media and content: Note, this does not say, “voraciously copy and paste media content.” For PRs pros this boils down to what I call “news aggregation with a point” – embrace the hyperlink, attribute constantly, and draw conclusions from the data used, helping prevent Meltwater-like accusations. (Exactly what this post does) From a corporate standpoint, knowing the news helps put immediate successes or crises in perspective.

·         Look for trends: Trends help connect the proverbial dots and can help draw conclusions from the above news consumption and content. For instance, if I were representing IKEA or another food brand right now, part of my voracious consumption of news would include data on the last time a food recall of this magnitude had occurred in Europe. I’d also be clamoring for positive data showing that incidence of these events has fallen to their lowest level in decades and the number of people taken ill has been negligible. Such trends help blunt the emergency of the immediate.

As I wrote earlier, whether it was horse meat or horse s*** doesn’t much matter to those affected by the tainted products. Hopefully this new week will see PR’s trot return to a gallop as communications and corporate executives consider this advice. Take that from the horse’s mouth and not from its rump!

Tuesday’s PR Lesson: Flood Your Clients with Facts and Figures

I love it when a progression of news stories works out like this... Yesterday, I posted a blog about how PR companies can learn to speak the economic and business language of their clients, adding to their marketing skill sets. My advice boiled down to this: become your enemy. Or, in Star Wars geek-speak, PR execs must learn to use “the force” to understand the mindset of their number-crunching counterparts, essentially getting inside their heads.

I also suggested the recruitment of business-background employees, expanded roles for in-house accounting departments and the taking of free online economic courses which have gained not only popularity of late but also legitimacy as quality teaching vehicles.

But there are other ways to demonstrate PR’s worth. It’s time for a little bragging so get out your batons.

Today, while traditional newsrooms have atrophied, PR has helped blur the lines between paid media, earned media and owned media. According to the latest estimates, the ratio of public relations professionals to journalists has increased from 1.2:1 (in the 1980s) to upward of 4:1 in 2010. Meanwhile, The Holmes Report, which ranks PR firms, estimates global PR revenues at $10 billion per year and Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a media investment group, predicted US PR spending would rise 8.3% in 2012 to $4.2 billion. Between 1997 and 2007 average agency salaries went from $38,735 to $50,499. Clearly we’re doing something right.

Then there’s recent acquisitions news with AdAge reporting that PR buys are “red hot” this year.  While AdAge was quick to point out that some of the recent buying frenzy was spurred by expected tax code changes, it reaffirmed that much of the interest lay in advertisers and marketers realizing the value of what PR companies bring to the table.

Phil Palazzo, founder and president of mergers-and-acquisitions consulting firm Palazzo Investment Bankers sized contemporary PR up like this: “PR agencies have become very adept at delivering strategic and targeted solutions over multiple channels – varying from experiential to crisis to social media to events – and for that reason they've been capturing a growing share of marketing dollars." 

Go us!

Of course, industry snapshots, in isolation, do little to convince a potential client of your agency’s worth. But whether it’s drafting that initial proposal, the weekly phone call, or the periodic visit to client headquarters, infusing your written and spoken narrative with these industry facts, can’t be a bad thing. There is a reason why pack mentality works. If everyone is choosing PR firms, why aren’t you, goes the implied subtext. The next step is placing what your individual firm does in the context of this macro-industry data.

It may astound some clients, but PR communications have been around since the days of classical antiquity. And if you go back further, information management and agenda-focused storytelling have been central to businesses for as long as business has existed.

So, the next time you find yourself on that unpleasant client call (admit it, they do happen) take some inspiration from this blog and flood ‘em with facts and figures, remind your clients that PR’s worth is often a lot more than what industry metrics state and prove to them why their business cannot live without yours.

What role do launch events play in a mobile device’s success?

The following article by Chantal Tode, Associate Editor of Mobile Marketer, originally appeared on Mobile Marketer on 10/23/12.

Apple is expected to launch the so-called iPad mini today at what will likely be a well-orchestrated event showcasing how the product impacts consumers’ lives. The company is the acknowledged expert at using such events to drum up excitement for its products although other manufacturers are increasingly copying the strategy.

Apple has nearly perfected the launch event, using them to drive anticipation and keep its name and the product in the news for months. More recently, the strategy has been adopted by Amazon, Samsung, Google, Nokia and Microsoft, among others, who are looking to drive product sales but have not yet perfected the strategy.

“Apple has been doing these events for many years – they were kind of a hallmark under Steve Jobs, who was a true impresario of these product introductions as theater,” said Noah Elkin, principal analyst at eMarketer, New York.

“Others have studied at the feet of the master and have begun to put on events of a similar caliber,” he said.

“The ones that we’ve seen in the past year from Amazon and Microsoft clearly read from a similar script in terms of how the product is being introduced, what the focus of the event has been and the similar cast of characters that appears at these events.”

The mobile experience

Apple’s events are successful for a variety of reasons, including that they focus on the mobile experience over the technology itself and they help build a feeling of community around the Apple brand.

The attraction of these events for manufacturers is that they can garner a lot of attention from analysts, the media and consumers and, hopefully, help drive sales.

For example, Samsung launched the Galaxy Note last year at the IFA in Berlin last year and sold 5 million units between the start of Q4 2011 and Q1 2012.

 Amazon held a launch event for the Kindle Fire HD in September

When well-executed, these events can play a key role in the success of a new product launch.

Some of the key characteristics of Apple’s events that can serve manufacturers well is dedicating a good amount of time to showing product details – more than is possible at a trade show – and bringing in guest speakers.

A key focus for Apple’s launch events is to focus on how a device will improve a consumer’s life over product specs.

“Other manufacturers are trying to follow Apple’s lead because they see how effective it is,” Mr. Elkin said. “Amazon at its recent Kindle Fire event listed relevant specs but really tried to emphasize its ecosystem of content, which is its key competitive advantage in the marketplace and probably the element that is most relevant and compelling for a consumer audience.”

Getting it right

Manufacturers are also following Apple’s lead when it comes to the script for these events and bringing on stage various members of the team who have been involved in some aspect of product development, who each have their own role in the event and who work well together.

For a successful launch event, it is also crucial to insure the presentation media are working perfectly and in sync.

“These things make for a great launch event – which not only garners attention for the product, it also boost the reputation of that company by making it look competent and efficient,” said Vanessa Horwell, chief visibility officer of ThinkInk PR, Miami Beach, FL. 

“Today’s tech bloggers and media are ruthless when it comes to imperfection or flaws,” she said. “Mobile companies should know this and must be prepared to deal with a media ‘assault’ if the launch of their product is premature.”

While manufacturers can reap many benefits from a big launch event, there are also some potential pitfalls.

For example, technical glitches during an event can undermine a brand’s attempt to present itself as a technology expert.

Companies can also run into trouble when they make claims that are not true.

For example, at an event in early September, Nokia showcased photos and a video that it said were captured by the brand-new Lumia 920 using its PureView camera.

However, bloggers quickly discovered that the video and photos were shot with other equipment. As a result, Nokia found itself forced to apologize and launch an internal probe to address the mishap.

“It is very difficult to conceal anything in today’s day and age,” eMarketer’s Mr. Elkin said. “Reporters and bloggers are going to turn the device inside out and are going to investigate every single claim about its superiority.

“In the case of Nokia, the images that were posted, which turned out not to have been shot with that particular smartphone camera, forced it to make an embarrassing retraction,” he said.

Maps mishap

In other cases, a feature talked up at launch event simply may not live up to expectations.

For example, at the recent launch event for the iPhone 5, Apple talked up its new Apple Maps, which is replacing Google Maps. When Apple Maps’ performance did not meet expectations, Apple CEO Tim Cook issued an apology.

“The one potential danger is that when you do one of these big launch events is that because you are bringing a lot of attention to your brand and the product, it sets the expectations of the audience at a very high level,” Mr. Elkin said. “If in the case the product fails to live up to expectations created at the launch event, it can put the brand in a very difficult position.”

Despite, the potential pitfalls, these launch events are likely to continue to proliferate because they can help a company make its executives seem more approachable.

The danger is to make sure the product represents a big enough advancement to warrant its own special event.

“It’s not easy or cheap to perfectly juggle all these elements and getting them to fall in the right place at the right time,” ThinkInk’s Ms. Horwell said. “Any part of this process going awry hurts the reputation of both product and company.

“And, of course, a company must make sure everything every function of the product – a complex process when you’re dealing with tech gadgets that have a thousand and one features – is absolutely ready for market,” she said.

The following article by Chantal Tode, Associate Editor of Mobile Marketer, originally appeared on Mobile Marketer on 10/23/12.

Mobile is Changing Everything – Except the Direction of Where Donations Go

In January 2010, a devastating magnitude-7 earthquake struck the Caribbean island of Haiti whose epicenter lay just west of its capital, Port-au-Prince.

Within hours, photos and videos of the devastation – entire neighborhoods wiped out, mangled bodies everywhere, a partially-collapsed Presidential Palace and so on were the main story for the world’s news media.

Yet soon after, a second news media narrative began taking shape and this one far more positive. Within two days of the crisis, Americans alone had raised $5 million for the Red Cross’ relief efforts in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country…by sending in small donations via text message.

At the time I praised the work of relief agencies and felt that if there was any relative “good news” (a very relative term considering the level of disaster) it was that Haiti, possibly for the first time, and without question on the largest scale to date, demonstrated to the world the power of mobile giving and how millions of SMS messages containing $10 donations added up. One week after the quake, the Red Cross had raised $22 million through texting alone.

But as the Atlantic hurricane season began unfurling its wrath late last week with tropical storm – now Hurricane – Isaac, media briefly returned to the impoverished land and beamed back disturbing images. In the 959 days since the historic temblor, as the world has been consumed by an onslaught news both serious and silly, I was disturbed to learn that some 400,000 of Haiti’s 9.8 million citizens remain in abysmal tent cities and unimaginable squalor following the quake – not to mention the island nation’s non-earthquake-induced entrenched poverty.

Images like the ones we’ve been treated to again cry out for an answer: why do we as decent, caring and law-abiding citizens allow such poverty to exist? Why can some buy iPads or microwave frozen dinners and why must others survive in shantytowns and consider electricity a “luxury?” More pragmatically, the still-battered landscape and still-battered people deserve another question answered. Where was all that money spent and what good has it done?

Thankfully, all is not bleak. Objective new reports have repeatedly found that much good has come from the relief effort and the money raised. In January of this year the Huffington Post produced an excellent infographic that broke down the numbers. Here are some big ones as of that article’s writing:

• 50% of earthquake debris has been removed and 20% recycled
• 100,000 received homes from the Red Cross
• Of the $4.6 billion pledged by donors, only $2.38 has been spent

This all suggests significant improvement. But the article was equally quick to point out that millions of dollars alone were also spent on advertising campaigns “telling people to wash their hands.” Other news outlets like Global Post attributed the siphoning of funds to Haiti’s notorious black market, proving once again that for many, crime pays. So for all the good mobile donations have done, it seems it did very little in changing human nature, and if anything, exposed in all its gruesomeness, how a survival of the fittest mentality can take on such inhuman qualities.

Two years and seven months after the Haiti earthquake a new threat from Mother Nature is bearing down on New Orleans –a city once brought to its knees by hurricane Katrina. You can be sure as in Haiti, mobile donations will figure prominently there too. But perhaps, we can all learn an important lesson. Money coming in via text, like a torrent flood water, must be controlled so that rather than inundating areas in confusing, haphazard (and dangerous manners) it flows to where it’s needed most, giving government and watchdog organizations time to monitor those who seek to game the system.

Here’s a suggestion: what about SMS giving integrated with social media and photo identification – someway to demonstrate that money that was texted actually goes to a specific person, city, town, or group?

Is this a bulletproof idea? No. But at least it proves that we’re trying and that we’re continuing to find new ways to use new technology. Levee-like controls on mobile giving are a good way to start, even if such safeguards have done little to help Haiti’s 400,000 virtual homeless. But as hurricane Isaac sets course for the Crescent City, another real-world test might be hours away.

Louisianans and Haitians both deserve we get this right, finally.

The Plague of Plagiarism

The following article by Vanessa Horwell, Chief Visibility Officer of ThinkInk, originally appeared on Marketing Daily.

I promised myself I wasn’t going to gloat. One professional’s sorrows are no cause for celebration, especially when discussing an esteemed journalist like CNN and Time magazine star Fareed Zakaria, center of last week’s plagiarism cause célèbre. In fact, many of my MediaPost columns go to great lengths calming the public relations versus journalism debate, draining the back-and-forth venom. You know -- that whole Lincoln-inspired, “we’re not enemies but friends” mantra.

So if this article isn’t a gloat, let us label it a galvanizing call -- a call for both sides of the industry to aspire to the “better angels of our [collective] nature” and put an end to plagiarizing and falsification once and for all.

Considering the almost absurd glut of easily accessible digital information produced on the order of some 2.5 quintillion bytes a day (according to IBM), one would think finding information or becoming inspired with new ways to mold, argue and utilize that data would be similarly limitless.

And maybe that’s part of the problem. Maybe the reason Zakaria is but one example of a long chain of related miscreants is that plagiarism today is as easy as hitting copy and paste. What’s more, in the crowded blogosphere and the 12 terabytes-a-day spewing Twitterverse, opinions -- professional or otherwise -- are about as rampant as Colorado wildfires were back in July. It’s so easy to get "keyboard happy."

This latest bout of plagiarism serves an important PR lesson -- and a reminder. Too often the "Us" versus "Them" internal communications industry debate is predicated on the false notion that journalists consistently maintain the moral high road or file their copy in a purely agenda-less vacuum. Not true. Journalists can be (and are) every bit as flawed -- tempted by the easy way out of lifting a sentence here, and "borrowing" an idea from there.

That doesn’t mean PR execs are factual saints -- far from it. After working my way up in the industry over the past 20 years, I’ve seen my fair share of beauties. But let us all put our collective journalist caps on for a moment and think about what exactly Zakaria did. The truth is Fareed’s failings aren’t as black-and-white as the copy-and-paste reference above either. Do you really think a Harvard-educated man could be so brazen? And stupid? Not likely.

Plagiarism isn’t always so cut and dried. Let’s remember that it isn’t as if Zakaria lifted verbatim the red-flag paragraph in question of his August, Time magazine column, The Case For Gun Control. There was at least an attempt at finesse -- of covering his tracks, so to speak -- and perhaps a subconscious nod toward rationalization. “How much tweaking and rewording must be done so that what springs forth from my keystrokes will be truly mine and not regurgitated drivel?” he may have well asked himself over and over. And if it were such an easy offense to avoid, it is very likely the topic would not occupy so much lecture time in grad school and undergraduate journalism classes.

Underscoring my point, the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism lists the course “Legal and Ethical Issues” as number two in its roster of five core modules. The description:

“Through a rigorous examination of court cases and ethical controversies, students will learn to anticipate, recognize, and properly address ethical and legal concerns in journalism.”

Whether a class like this goes by formal title or if it comes in a weekly editorial and reporter meeting, you can be sure in newsrooms across America, in papers large and small, similar “rigorous examinations” are being discussed, debated and acted upon. So while Zakaria’s actions weren’t necessarily black-and-white, there clearly was a definitive right or wrong about the issue -- an admission that he was fast to recognize in his blunt apology.

And maybe that rapid-fire apology stemmed from his expectation -- one that is proving true -- that after the tumult settled, after the “fall-from-grace” explosion of 20/20 media hindsight, in the end the professional response would be a proverbial slap on the wrist. After announcing suspensions, both Time and CNN did just that when they quickly reinstated Zakaria.

But month-long suspensions and disciplinary review don’t cut it. If addressing legal and ethical issues are as central to the communications industry we all give lip service to, then the penalties for trampling on those lessons should be equally severe.

Have Time and CNN set a precedent for other journalists? Quite likely. Will plagiarism be going away anytime soon? Not likely. And as for Zakaria, his mea culpa has been accepted by media and the masses and life will go on.

Some have argued that this is much ado about nothing, that writers and journalists are inspired by so many sources it becomes difficult to distinguish where our own ideas and original content intersect and blur with others. As a writer, I can understand this argument.

But inspiration and plagiarism are two different animals. In our age, and in our industries, where we are tasked with creating original, compelling and clever content at breakneck speed, we absolutely know this distinction -- we just don’t care to admit it.

The following article by Vanessa Horwell, Chief Visibility Officer of ThinkInk, originally appeared on Marketing Daily. 

Ecuadoran Asylum or Not, Assange’s – and WikiLeaks’ – Credibility is Shot

In a desperate bid to dodge extradition to Sweden – where he’s wanted for questioning on a sex-crime accusation and which would likely turn him over to the US government – Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder and document dumper extraordinaire has found political asylum in Ecuador.

The WikiLeaks founder, who has been ensconced in the Ecuadoran embassy in London since June 2012, got confirmation today that Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s president, has decided to shelter the beleaguered Assange in his country, believing the latter’s human rights are likely to be violated if English police arrest him.

I absolutely agree with the Miami Herald’s South American Bureau Chief Jim Wyss, Ecuador is a bizarre choice for Assange, (I’ve written about Wikileaks in my MediaPost column back in 2010 and 2011) whose website has  leaked reams and reams of classified government documents, videos and photos. Correa, on the other hand, has a penchant for clampdowns on – and multimillion-dollar lawsuits against - the country’s press.

But in the end it may not really matter, not for Assange or WikiLeaks. At least it won’t matter when the organization is now pulling sophomoric rubbish like faking an article to make it look like a New York Times columnist supports its iffy “mission.”

This summer seems to have been one long string of assorted PR fiascos that, I admit, have been somewhat fun to skewer on this blog. And yet, to the PR professional in me, these calamitous blow-ups still have a nails-on-the-chalkboard effect. I have to cringe.

And cringe I did when I read WikiLeaks’ smug tweeted admission of responsibility for the fake op-ed piece, which has since been taken off the Web, attributed to the New York Times’ Bill Keller. In the bogus column, Keller seems to say that WikiLeaks’ activities should be protected under the First Amendment. Once the article was outed as fake, Keller took to his own Twitter feed to deny any connection with it.

Whoever is tweeting for WikiLeaks actually characterized the hoax as “successful.” Well, I guess if their intention was to blow their own credibility out of the water, then yes, it was very successful indeed. Particularly for an organization which purports to increase transparency and challenge our world’s corrupt power arrangements by exposing their innards, credibility is the very cement holding together the cinderblocks of its purpose.

Without it, the whole house falls apart.

Uncovering the truth is supposed to be WikiLeaks’ entire raison d’ etre. So, when it brags about having fooled the NYT and everyone who pays attention to these issues, it’s cutting off its own nose to spite its face.

After all, what did WikiLeaks really accomplish by pulling that stunt? Did it help itself in any way? No, all it did was tell the world it can create very convincing fake documents.

And that’s just going to make the world think twice about the authenticity of its next document dump. 

No More Bulls#!t: Let’s Just Be Straight With Each Other

Lots of people – in fact, too many people – in the legal, medical, academic, government and other professions like to pad their documents with a level of verbosity (a big word for long-winded) that makes them sound really important.


Here’s an example from the Plain Language Network, the website of the international plain-language movement, taken from a life insurance application form:


Before: If you fail to comply with your duty of disclosure and we would not have entered into the contract on any terms if the failure had not occurred, we may void the contract within three years of entering into it. If your non- disclosure is fraudulent, we may void the contract at any time. Where we are entitled to void a contract of life insurance we may, within three years of entering into it, elect not to void it but to reduce the sum that you have been insured for in accordance with a formula that takes into account the premium that would have been payable if you had disclosed all relevant matters to us.


After: If you fail to disclose any relevant matter and we would not offer you insurance if this matter were known, we may within three years (1) void the contract or (2) reduce the sum for which you have been insured. If your nondisclosure is fraudulent, we may void the contract at any time.

I don’t even want to begin to point out everything that’s wrong with the original wording. It just sounds like gobbledygook. Verbal whiplash. The second is an actual statement that anyone who speaks English can understand. At 53 words, it’s also 54% shorter, but with the same meaning. Just imagine how much paper and gigabytes of data would be saved if all written material could be reduced in half but with greater clarity. Why can’t we just say what we mean and bury the B.S.?


I ask this because I am tired of having to slog through mountains of legalese every time I have to protect my rights to the name of my business, ThinkInk. Or trudge across a swamp of medical-ese any time I or one of my kids has to see a new doctor. Or try to pick out the real meat in client work that a journalist or media outlet would salivate over and ignore some of the bloviated doublespeak.  


It boggles my mind to even try to think how much time – and, after all, time is money – we waste just trying to make sense of the hefty documents that are such an inescapable part of our lives. Recently I came across a Bulldog Reporter article about how the Veterans’ Benefits Administration saved $4.4 million just by editing one letter that was sent to the country’s millions of veterans.


Let me repeat that little jaw-dropper. Revising one letter = saving $4.4 million. Can you imagine the sums of money government wastes just on verbal baggage?


And that brings me back to the world of marketing and PR. Granted, when you are marketing something, B.S. – or its kinder, gentler cousin, “spin,” is almost impossible to avoid completely. But, considering all the documents we produce – pitches, press releases, whitepapers, articles, thought leadership – I wonder how much time and money we, like government, are misusing. Our job in representing clients comes down to shopping a message to media and achieving that goal in the most cost-conscious way possible. Not just for our own budgets, but also for the people we represent.


While many of us may be afraid of sounding unprofessional if we use plain language, I think we’d do well to remember that, in the end, everything we do comes down to communication. Why not try to do that as effectively as possible? All we’d be doing is saving time and money while cutting sesquipedalian language from our copy. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Why 'Good' Press Releases = 'Bad' Journalism

The following article by Vanessa Horwell, Chief Visibility Officer of ThinkInk, originally appeared on Marketing Daily on 3/15/12.

When writing news stories, editors advise young reporters to do the following: stick to facts, don’t opine, place important/newest information high, answer the five Ws, have a solid lead and conclusion, spell names correctly, use conversational language, meet deadlines and hit the word count.

It’s a formula for success that reporters of all ages rely on. More than that, however, the tips speak to the professional evolution of storytelling found to be most effective at getting points across, with a 150+year history.

Seems like a simple formula, right?

Then why do so many press releases I read -- and some I am required to write -- fail to meet these standards? What’s changed in the communications industry that allows for the writing and distribution of such abysmal drivel? And why don’t the rules governing quality storytelling apply to many of today’s releases?

PR is NOT the Dark Side of Journalism - But Some Clients Might Work for the Death Star

Whoa. Three questions in one paragraph -- and a possible clichéd Star Wars reference subhead. That, too, may violate a writing essential -- that a story can be about one thing and should avoid clichés like the plague (cliché intended). Coming from a public relations angle, I can tell you that it’s not as simple as pitting agenda-pushing poor-writing PR professionals against reporters.

Too often the challenge lies with our clients and their expectations. Yes, as their communications team, it’s our job to direct conversation, to craft proper messages and distribute that message through the media in a concise, accurate and compelling manner. But like journalists, we too can’t always claim the moral high road. Clients pay our salaries, just as advertisers pay (or used to pay) journalists. Sometimes we just have to do what we’re told. Most times, we just have to “make it work.”

Press Release Dos and Don’ts

Of course, “making copy work” is not like making copy sing -- a nod to the lyrical and rhythmic flow of quality writing. An off pitch release (Not the PR pitch) “creates” news rather than telling something newsworthy. Ask yourself -- if you didn’t work for company X, would you read it? If the answer is ‘no,’ then you’re already in trouble. The solution: clients need to be honest about their announcements. Writing a release about something that may happen in six months is not newsworthy. That’s about as useful as someone planning to be rich by summer.

At most, that’s the kind of company “news” that meets Twitter post standards or a short email blast to client investors. It does not require an 800-word release that causes journalists’ eyeballs to glaze over or public relations professionals to struggle through 17 drafts of a document that has failed to capture the “essence of the company story.” Sometimes what clients say just isn’t that important. Clients need to have the humility and presence of mind to know when to shut up -- or at least respect when their PR staff tells them to.

Press releases also fail because of their language. If you’re writing a release in English, then write in English -- not gibberish. Is some jargon necessary? Yes. But too much and a press release can bury its own newsworthiness.

Print This: PR Professionals and Journalists Play the Same Game on Different Teams

How’s that for a newsworthy press release? But even if we play on different teams -- journalists dig for the news while PR professionals push what they’d like to be considered news -- the rules of the writing game should not change.

Modern journalistic writing evolved from the rigors of changing technology – the telegraph. At a penny a character, brevity was far more important than expressive prose. Combined with the fear of technology failure, reporters were taught to write and report news as if readers only read the headlines and first paragraph. (Sound familiar?)

Today’s hyperactive news cycle and extreme mobile connectivity is the outgrowth of these technological realities. PR professionals, emerging some 50 years after Samuel Morse’s invention, really do know what good writing and storytelling is about.

If only we can teach clients that same lesson, perhaps the PR vs. journalism professional stalemate will be broken –- and great press releases will equal great journalism.

The following article by Vanessa Horwell, Chief Visibility Officer of ThinkInk, originally appeared on Marketing Daily on 3/15/12.

Shame on Lowes for Pandering to Special Interests: When a Home Improvement Giant Could Use a Fixer-Up All its Own

“Never stop improving.”

Well, at least for Lowes, the above slogan parked in bold blue all caps on the top left corner of the home improvement giant’s webpage, it’s an appropriate start.

The question is how will the company’s recent public relations snafu ultimately pan out as their corporate brass has plenty to improve on now. (And we’re not talking basic roof repair) Earlier this week, the shopping behemoth that only days ago was about as far removed from politics as one of its featured bathroom redesigns, has landed itself in quite the brouhaha.

In yielding to mounting pressure from a variety of sources, including our very own Florida Family Association, (more on that later) the company pulled an ad it was running on commercial breaks for The Learning Channel’s All-American Muslim, a new reality TV show that purportedly shows real Muslims going about their daily lives – you know exactly like the rest of us. I don’t know about you, but the very fact that we need a program such as this to allay our tired and torturous fears of the proverbial “other” – in today’s day and age is frightening. But I digress.

As we enter the peak shopping days and weeks of the increasingly secular holiday season, you can bet this communications bombshell was not what Lowes was expecting. Already Google is working its magic. Google “Lowes” and the fallout from the pullout is the fourth hit. And with the decision making front pages news on CNN.com on Tuesday and Connecticut congressman Chris Murphy addressing the matter on the House floor, calling Lowes’s decision a rubber stamp on “basic foundational bigotry against a major American religious group,” you can bet their troubles are only beginning.

From a public relations perspective, this is the kind of textbook nightmare we dread: an apolitical company becoming unintentionally embroiled in a very politicizing and polarizing mess. So all this begs the question, where did Lowes go wrong?

Lowes went wrong by not following the advice I wrote about in my recent Blagojevich blunder post. Louder voices aren’t more credible voices. And while the company continues to say that its ad pulling had nothing to do specifically with the Florida Family Association, a nonprofit whose web “About Us” description says the group aims to, “educate people on what they can do to defend, protect and promote traditional, biblical values,” it seems VERY likely that it was at least a contributing factor to a collection of below-the-radar narrow-minded people and groups.

Shame on Lowes for pandering toward groups that mask McCarthy-style witch-hunting in the guise of religious enlightenment –whether they’re a 501C3 or not.

There’s comes a point in any communications campaign where all the writers, all the support staff, all the leaflet designers, and press release pitchers, must step aside and let the company speak for itself – without the buffer PR teams necessarily provide. While Lowes has been diligently responding via Tweet and in the press, perhaps a more transparent apology would be in order –without our help. Until now Lowes CEO Robert Niblock, 48, has been mum on the controversy.

As Lowes closes out 2011 and opens 2012 searching for repair and replacement parts in its “corporate improvement” aisle, we can all rest comfortably knowing that the modern social media landscape and blogosphere won’t let red meat like this out from under its digital jaw grip easily. And if there’s a communications upside to any of this, All-American Muslim, which has enjoyed modest success with 908,000 to 1.7 million viewers since its November 13 launch, stands to gain at least something of a ratings bump following the buzz.

Then again, the show’s producers probably wished Lowes would never have gotten involved in the first place and “never stopped improving” their advertising campaigns somewhere else.