Future or Flop: What Wearable Tech Means for Public Relations

In the 1989 blockbuster “Back to the Future Part II,” the movie’s main character, Marty McFly, finds himself in “far off” 2015 where he and the audience catch a glimpse of the future. 

While flying cars don’t dominate and wheel-less skateboards don’t exist as depicted in the film, there’s a piece of fake future technology that’s already right at home in 2014: wearable “smart” technology. In the movie, Marty, played by Michael J. Fox, is seen sporting a talking, self-drying jacket.  

From smart watches and Google Glasses to fitness trackers, intelligent t-shirts and bras, wearable technology continues to gain momentum. The transition from smartphone to smart coat (or anything else deemed intelligent) stems from a drastic drop in the size and cost of data sensors as well as an increase in data storage capacity, processing power and the battery life of Bluetooth-connected devices.  

These sensors track what’s increasingly called biometrics. Calories burned, steps taken, heart rate and even perspiration and sleep patterns can be analyzed by sophisticated sensors. Linked to a smart device, consumers have access to an enormous amount of personal data, which they can use to make behavioral changes to improve their health or lifestyle. A smart tennis racket or smart golf club can analyze your swing and send that data in real-time to another smart device for readout; and ‘course correction’ if your swing sucks (as mine does).  

At the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, wearable tech appeared to be the biggest showstopper. 

But does such prominence guarantee the technology’s success? And, placing my PR hat back on, what implications, if any, does wearable technology have for the communications industry?   

There’s no doubt wearable tech has a future –even if many current examples have been criticized for being ‘half baked.’ Some smart watches, for instance, have been compared to smartphones with a wristband. Function has to become fashion-friendly and this is happening, albeit slowly. Intel recently announced that it was teaming up with boutique retailer Opening Ceremony to design a smart bracelet, while chip-maker CSR and Cellini Jewelers have created a smart pendant that lights up when receiving notifications.  

Wearable tech works because of the ongoing data revolution. Just as retailers crave a more granular customer picture in an effort to personalize experiences, consumers desire more data for similar reasons. Knowing that you’ve only taken 1,000 steps in a given day and burned 500 calories, or that your home uses 10% more electricity than it needs, all helps to improve consumers’ daily lives. It’s as if big data is becoming domesticated and made user-friendly. 

As people become more comfortable with the tracking, recording and analysis of large real-time data sets, it’s likely that our clients will expect a similar degree of metrics tracking the success of their campaigns. And if some of these wearable tech companies become clients directly, you can be sure they’ll want to feature campaigns of people using –and benefiting from – the gadgets they sell. While many will become more comfortable with big data in their lives, not all will embrace these Big Brother-like technologies. That means we’ll likely have more PR fires to extinguish as there may be a vocal minority of smart device detractors, eager to attack our newest and potentially most promising clients and the products they sell. I suspect such developments will keep our jobs rather exciting in the year ahead.  

With a New Year ahead of us, there’s plenty of time left to convince wearable tech skeptics. After all, our jackets may not be self-drying or talking yet, but you can be sure such advancements aren’t far off. 

New Year’s Resolutions for PR Agencies: 6 Steps to Evolve the Perfect Client-Agency Relationship

In a perfect world, public relations would involve a simple relationship between client and agency. The client would respect and trust the PR agency to maximize opportunities and not just reduce risk. And the agency would make sure the client stays involved in strategies and decisions. Sadly, this is not always how things go in the PR world.

What lessons and resolutions can agencies and their clients take into the New Year to make public relations a smoother and more effective collaboration? Here are 6 steps:

1. Root the client- agency relationship in trust:  Building a strong foundation from the get-go is key to a dream relationship.  The client signed your agency for a reason. Know what that reason is and make it the foundation of your relationship.

2. Figure out where your agency stands with the client: Is it more like a partnership or a division of roles? Will your agency be an extension of the client’s in-house team? Or is your agency playing more of a crisis management role?  Knowing the answers to these questions and relaying your expectations to the client leaves no room for doubt or unmet expectations.

3. Lay the groundwork for transparency, polite pushback and unvarnished feedback: PR is often about describing a client or their campaign in the best light possible.  Some call it spin. Whatever it’s called, the PR-client relationship must be robust enough to weather contentious moments when creative differences emerge. In the event of creative differences, it helps to remember that the client is challenging your ideas, not your agency.

4. How, Why, What, When, Where?:  We expect these questions from our clients, but why shouldn’t our clients expect the same questions from us? That means going beyond merely keeping clients in the loop. Explaining the process of why you are doing what you’re doing gives the client confidence in their choice. It’s important to remember that clients are not communications experts. That’s why they’ve recruited your PR firm to begin with. Therefore it’s critical that extra steps are taken to make sure clients feel like they are part of the PR process.

5. Ask questions:  It’s ok to go back to the client with questions if you are uncertain about any information provided. It doesn’t show weakness, but rather, it shows that you are thorough and committed to getting the job done right the first time.

6. Staying two steps ahead:  At any given point, you want to be two steps ahead of your client and their industry. More often than not clients need options and recommendations to determine what they don’t want. While that may be frustrating, keep in mind that they hired your agency. Listen to their needs and they’ll return the favor.

Ultimately, successful PR efforts come down to establishing a strong working relationship between the agency and client. Anyone in PR knows that some clients are harder to work with than others. What can distinguish your agency is how well you handle those challenges and still lead by example as PR professionals. The New Year is the perfect time to go the extra mile and break down these so-called barriers between agencies and clients.

What other recommendations would you add to this list to make the PR agency-client relationship stronger and more collaborative? Share your thoughts below.

A David versus Goliath Battle Comes to Adland, But will Goliath Win?

Every high schooler can recite Newton’s third law of motion: “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

But it’s a rule that applies far beyond physics classrooms. In the advertising world, an attempt at an equal and opposite reaction to this past summer’s mega-merger of Omnicom Group and Publicis Groupe, now Publicis-Omnicom and the world’s largest advertising agency, is already under way.

Like the Alliance of Small Island States or any “big guy versus little guy” organization, several small to mid-sized advertising agencies including Chi & Partners, its media operation M Six, customer relationship shop Rapier, PR agency Halpern and social shop The Social Practice have begun to push back by creating their own joint holding company called The & Partnership, according to AdAge.

Headed by Chi & Partners CEO Johnny Hornby with a North American arm run by Proximity CEO Andrew Bailey (formerly of Proximity Worldwide, an Omnicom company), the new conglomerate is a recognition that small and medium-sized advertising agencies risk losing clients and being squeezed out of the market as mega mergers like Publicis-Omnicom become more common. In reaction, small agencies are fighting fire with fire. 

But are mid-sized mergers really the right solution?

Media analyst and blogger Don Cole doesn’t think so and I agree to an extent. He fears that small to mid-sized agencies won’t have the staffing, creative talent and big data resources to be truly appealing to larger (and more profitable) clients. In the end, mid-sized mergers are like pooling the skills of several minor league baseball teams. More players don’t mean more capabilities. If anything, he cautions, cost cutting (read: layoffs) will be first on their agenda. In this scenario, the Goliath that Publicis-Omnicom has become (and the others that follow) wins out over the smaller Davids.

So if mini mergers aren’t the solution, what is? It’s not as black and white as Don Coles sees it. To return to my baseball analogy, not all minor league players stay minor league forever. Some do make it to the majors. And “making it to the majors” is what all advertising and PR agencies aspire to achieve. While one route to that success is, of course, growing large (and influential) enough to be bought by a conglomerate such as Publicis-Omnicom, another way is to continuously recruit new, young talent and also become expert in specific niche communication fields. That’s what we’re doing at ThinkInk.

It’s important to remember that smaller agencies aren’t devoid of assets. At smaller shops there is often less process, less bureaucracy and less confusion over who has the authority to do what. Small agencies are nimble and can better respond to client crises, when they inevitably occur.

As for The & Partnership, you can be bet adland will be watching its success or failure as closely as it’s watching Publicis-Omnicom. The David and Goliath ad agency battle is just heating up and it’s anyone’s guess which side will win.

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.

“Shane” on You: A Perfect Example of Why the Media Continues its “Flack Attack”

There was I, excited to read another PR professional’s musings on why journalists give us a hard time when it comes to pitches, follow-up emails, do not call times and other various gripes. I was eager for the advice.

Instead I found myself agreeing with the so-called “other side” of  the communications industry. Written by Andy Shane, a PR professional whose resume and personal webpage feels a little light, his recent CommPRO.biz article violated several critical rules if our (PR) industry and our clients are to be taken seriously.

So move aside Andy Shane, here are mine:

Rule #1

Get to the point – fast. At nearly 800 words, Shane’s article does a lot of rambling, repeats a few points concerning the need for “compelling narrative” and offers little concrete advice or action steps. 

Rule #2

Limit clichés, use correct grammar and don’t make ‘Writing 101’ errors. This last point really bugs me and it’s a rule we all learned in…well…grammar school.

Shane writes: “We are using the media – and the inherit third party credibility – as a way of telling our story to our real audience.”

Correction, I think you meant “inherent,” as in “innate” or “inseparable element,” according to dictionary.com.

He goes on to write: “As pitches are being flushed out, consider.”

Strike two. Pitches are fleshed out, not flushed out – unless they’re really terrible.

I’d like to tell you mistakes like these are rare. But even as a PR professional, there’s no way to spin this. Mistakes like this do crop up all the time. Whatever value Shane’s article originally possessed is instantly cancelled out.

Great pitches are more than compelling narrative. They’re also about crisp, clean writing, free of embarrassingly sophomoric mistakes. Journalists like to say, “Let the copy sing.” Very often our industry’s jargon habit interferes with what could be a lovely client voice.

So “shane” on you, Andy. I know we can do a lot better in putting the “flack attack” to rest.

The Dangers of Only Looking Ahead

As an outdoors runner, I learned very quickly that it’s dangerous to only look ahead.  In the hour or so of my daily pavement bashing, I try to solve the world’s problems, plan out my day and tackle a few challenges looming at the office – all in my head.  In this state it’s easy to lose myself and only see what’s right in front of me. Doing that prevents me from seeing what’s coming up behind – or from the left or right. 

Simply put, if I don’t look around while I’m running, I could be dead.

Sadly, this form of myopia is something I’m seeing more and more. Today’s drivers, in their rush to get to work -or wherever else they’re going - no longer look around at a STOP sign. They might look one way or another. But rarely do they scan the entire road. Instead, motorists are distracted, on the phone and not paying attention. If it wasn’t for me paying attention to their driving, it’s very likely I’d be dead.

But you know, it’s not just on the roads that this is happening. I’m seeing the same tunnel vision in our PR profession where, if something isn’t obvious or right in front of someone’s nose, they don’t bother to look around for either a solution or come up with an answer by themselves. Fueled by a society where we’re plugged into dozens of alerts, multiple screens and a barrage of information being pushed and spoon fed to us every second, we’ve stopped seeing the big picture. We’re cherry picking our news, biting on teeny snippets of information that inform all our knowledge and only looking at what’s directly in front of us.

For more on Multitasking, social media, and distraction, check out  Journalist's Resource.

The danger of doing this is that we’re missing out on everything else. In the PR profession, not having a complete picture of what’s happening ‘all around’ a client’s business or their industry puts us at a significant disadvantage. We’re not able to make intelligent decisions because we simply don’t know what else is going on that could impact their business or our campaign.

So the next time you come to a STOP sign, don’t just look ahead. Take a moment to look all around.  Yes, it could add another 5 seconds to your commute, but you might see something you didn’t know was there. You could learn something new or revisit something you had forgotten, like what to do at traffic signs.

For more on traffic signs, especially for those friendly Florida drivers, refresh your memory here.

Or you could be encouraged by someone, like I was, to write about your experience.  We live in a distracted world that will only become more distracting. As PR professionals, our ability to have both a razor-sharp focus and see everything around us – not just what’s in front – will be the differentiator between great communicators and mediocre ones who stop short of true inspiration.

Reimagining the mobile-enabled PR agency of the future

“Publically traded diversified energy company.”

Try texting that while juggling other tasks. It is how New Jersey’s largest utility company, Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG), describes itself.

Basically it means PSEG subsidiaries – there are four with names too long to write: control power generation, distribution, line maintenance and infrastructure investment. In non-jargon speech, it means they are almost a monopoly, overseeing nearly all aspects of the energy universe.

But PSEG’s success got me thinking. How can public relations agencies corner their own communication market, becoming “diversified communication companies” along the way?

Energy to change

PR agencies can do that by broadening their offerings and by becoming true information access, distribution and generation conglomerates. What will be their “power lines” – their message distribution medium?

Mobile.

Two recent articles speak to this need but tackle it from different perspectives.

Earlier this spring, The New York Times advertising columnist Stuart Elliott reported on the rebranding of PR powerhouse Fleishman-Hillard turned “FleishmanHillard” and highlighted how the brand is becoming “an integrated marketing communications agency.”

What does this mean? Hint: it sounds a lot like “diversified energy company,” just dressed up differently. It means expanding the agency’s focus largely from traditional earned media to include paid media (advertising), owned media (think branded content and blogs) and increased capabilities to use social media as a critical storytelling medium.

Each of these examples rely – or should rely – heavily on a communication company’s mobile presence and that of their clients. 

Read the rest of the article on Mobile Marketer.

Beaming Mobile Messages To Your Brain

A couple of months ago some commuter trains in Germany made global headlines: a rail operator’s passengers were treated to a “marketing wonder” of windows beaming advertising messages directly into the brains of said passengers who’d happened to place their weary heads on the glass.

Called bone conduction and already used in military applications and hearing aids, early reviews of this new type of use have been mixed. Not surprisingly, the ad agency BBDO who produced the ad campaign for Sky Deutschland called it a success. Of course they would. But many responses from a Mashable article read more like: “Is this for real? Just stay out of my head. This kind of invention must be BANNED.”

I agree to a point. It is disturbing how technology this pervasive can be abused. Don’t we have enough bombardment of ads already across multiple screens and devices?

But less than two months later, there’s growing (indirect) evidence of a perceptual shift. A new Harris Interactive poll found that consumer interest in mobile advertising offers has increased sharply since 2009. Nearly half, (45%) of mobile phone owners said they were at least somewhat interested in receiving mobile alerts about new products, sales and/or promotions from preferred brands, compared with 26% of respondents who felt similarly in 2009. And of those more recent supporters, 78% said they found location-based advertising particularly useful.

Does this mean brain beaming advertising glass has silenced its detractors? Um, no. But in light of this new data, it’s not that hard to envision a future where location-aware smartphones (or wearable gadgets) will work together with personalized advertising delivered on glass in trains, buses, planes and on walls in airports, incentivizing even more purchases and “brand/brain engagement.” That includes physical purchases as well as in-app buys. In other words, “mobile” advertising doesn’t always require a mobile phone. And as smartphone adoption rates rise, consumers will grow increasingly comfortable with seeing advertisements everywhere they look.

Is there a safeguard against the world becoming one giant digital billboard?  Permission-based advertising – a point the Harris study was quick to address. Consumers must have the ability to opt out of these types of marketer outreach.

Replacing my marketing hat with that of a PR professional’s for a moment, talking glass and mobile advertising appreciation also underscores another need.

PR agencies must make mobile the connective communications tissue of their client engagement and media messaging. Considering mobile devices’ reduced screen sizes, that means thinking smaller; telling client stories in bite-sized nuggets. It also means stepping up the ways in which we promote the importance of mobile messaging and mobile advertisements to clients from the start of our relationships.

“Smart” glass may have yet to hit its stride. But Harris Interactive data confirms that mobile really is everywhere and the pushback from round-the-clock advertising is eroding faster than many communication professionals originally thought. 

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.

Dunkin' Donuts Brings Home the Bacon, Ditches Bun, Turns Heads and Stomachs

Sometimes the proof is in the pudding. Other times it’s in the doughnuts – and the fried eggs and bacon that will soon come in all its artery-clogging goodness on a sliced sugary rounded pastry.

Mmmmmmm, hungry yet?

That’s what the fast-food chain Dunkin' Donuts is saying as it unveils its Glazed Donut Breakfast Sandwich. The 360-calorie bun-less monstrosity follows in the footsteps of other successful sandwiches like KFC’s “Double Down,” which replaces bread with two giant pieces of fried chicken and Taco Bell’s recent launch of Doritos Locos Tacos, which as the name implies, replaces a standard Taco Bell hard shell with a giant Dorito – which it wants us to believe is crazy. Which it is.

Of course, there’s a lot to chew on here. And whether Dunkin’s move should turn heads (think: positive) or churn stomachs (read: negative) is up for debate.

On one hand, Dunkin' is being daring by being blatant and transparent. No matter how many egg white options are added to the menu and no matter how many calorie counts are posted, Dunkin' Donuts is not a health food brand. Nor is any fast-food chain for that matter.  And no one is forcing consumers to make unhealthy purchases. They’re just providing increased culinary options goes one argument. But in light of America’s and the world’s ongoing obesity epidemic – according to the British medical journal The Lancet, obesity is a bigger health crisis than starvation – a campaign this brazen feels more like going down with a sinking ship.

In other words, since we’re all going to eat ourselves to death anyway, why not enjoy the party? As I used to say as a young child before each meal, two four six eight, tuck in, don’t wait!

In order to be successful and not perceived as gluttons for….gluttony, Dunkin' will have to carefully calibrate its PR message, poking fun at its own campaign, but also knowing when to be serious, stressing healthier options.

So tell me know what you think. Is Dunkin’s move a PR slam dunk? Or has the brand’s bottom line sacrificed all of our waistlines? 

Measuring a Measured PR Response: Disarming the “Pistol Pastry” Incident

OK, we all know too many sweets can cause cavities and tummy aches, but the following “sweet tale” is ridiculous. In March of this year, 7-year-old Josh Welch, a second-grader at Park Elementary School in Brooklyn Park, Md., was suspended for two days after he nibbled his breakfast pastry (similar to a Pop-Tart) into what at least one teacher and the assistant principal thought looked like a gun. A letter from the school went home to parents describing the incident, informing them that counselors would be on-hand if their children needed further assistance.

Fast-forward to May 2013 and Josh is back in the news. This time he’s been awarded lifetime membership into the National Rifle Association, thanks to the efforts of Anne Arundel county Republicans.

I’ve made this appeal often, but it bears repeating. Public relations and proper messaging is all about calibrating one’s response. While the US gun debate is no laughing matter – New York City just endured a weekend where 25 people were shot and six killed – suspension of an elementary school student isn’t trivial either. Overreaction to the “pistol pastry” left a critical opening for pro-gun Republicans to respond with equal farce.

Now, a very serious matter has been turned into a joke.

But what’s your take on all of this? Was the Park Elementary School response valid? Can something as dangerous as gun violence still be lampooned? And what do you think young Josh – now 8 – learned from the incident and incident response?  I’d love to hear your views on this very divisive topic!  

R.I.P. D.I.Y. P.R…Why Press Release Production is Harder Than You Think

I’ve been seeing a growing number of articles questioning whether companies, particularly startups, should be saving money by acting as their own PR firms. It’s interesting to note, too, that many of these articles have been written by PR consultants and small-business coaches-cum-authors. Just saying…

Dallas Mavericks owner, investment tycoon and Shark Tank star Mark Cuban got a rise out of the public relations industry in early 2012 when he was quoted as saying that startups shouldn’t hire PR firms to manage their messaging. And there is some logic behind that.

After all, the arguments against a startup or small company hiring a PR firm come down to the expense of a retainer fee and possible extra billings. With limited funds and irregular cash flow, this view is understandable. There’s also the nagging question of whether the communication services provided correlate into direct ROI.

Naturally, I don’t subscribe to this view. Of course, not every company needs PR assistance. But in an increasingly crowded startup and small business space – employing nearly half of the US private sector and responsible for 60% of all new jobs in the last two decades – getting noticed is a matter of corporate life and death.  

Sometimes professionals are what are needed to get the job done. Actually, it’s a lot like plumbing. Fixing a toilet with duct tape and paper clips will only get you so far. And press releases –central to what our industry produces – are liable to end up in the loo if they’re poorly written.

But love them or hate them, the press release, which appropriately starts with the same letters of our profession, is our calling card. And sadly, I’ve read thousands of press releases that fail to inspire. In fact, we have two former reporters on staff at ThinkInk who have attested to the daily barrage of bad press releases they were subjected to during their journalistic careers. One (who shall remain nameless) even admitted to turning them into paper airplanes and flying them around the newsroom.

Underscoring the point: about a week ago I received a press release – from a man I’ve never heard of at a company I’ve never heard of – announcing that his company won an award which I’ve also never heard of. Just out of PR curiosity, I checked the name of the company president, who is quoted in the release, against the name of the company’s media contact. It turns out it’s the same guy.

To be fair, it’s likely that the company president is so busy actually running the company to put much thought into how he’s telling its story. And that’s exactly the point. This is a communications job for communications professionals. Leave it to us.

After all, there is such a thing as a professional press release. And it starts with an effective headline and email subject line. Both should rely on the tenets of solid journalism: concise noun-verb sentences attracting eyeballs. The body of the release must be story driven; something that evokes a human emotional response. It doesn’t have to be profound. But something like a humdrum building expansion and lease renewal all of a sudden gains added relevance when that client-serving news is anchored to, say, an entire urban core’s renaissance. Placed in that context, a press release transforms from self-servicing copy into another form of narrative writing.

Can a small business hire a team to write these releases in-house?

Yes.

But writing an effective press release is only part of the story. Knowing who to pitch it to makes all the difference. There’s also channel relevance to consider and social media. This mix of writing skills, tech-savvy know-how and networking acumen is critical to what we do, and frankly, why we get paid.

It’s true; public relations services can be costly. And there is often a slow ramp-up period for the selected agency to learn the client’s voice. Unlike newly repaired toilets, ROI benefits aren’t always immediate. But history is filled with examples of PR campaigns that helped turn obscure companies into household names or conversely, re-brand fallen stars.

PR isn’t an instant gratification business. But it is professional in how it operates. To the naysayers who counsel DIY small business and startup PR, I’d urge reconsideration. Your brand only gets one chance to make a first impression. And in the mobile and digital age sometimes your fate is sealed even before that public unveiling.

So if at all possible, leave the PR job to the experts. And if your loo backs up – call a plumber.    

How Nonprofits Can Lose Donors through Lousy Customer Communications

I love little seals. And I am concerned about endangered sea lions, orcas and humpback whales. My view is that a healthy marine ecosystem equals a healthy planet - and we all want to live on a healthy planet. But when it comes to charitable giving, marine life has not been on the top of my donation list.

I actually have a soft spot for the wildlife of Africa – lions, tigers, giraffes, leopards, giant wildebeest, elephants and the caracal cats with the hairy tufts on the tips of their ears. Perhaps it was growing up in Australia and exposure to the harsh outback that influenced my feelings towards these rugged species? And perhaps that’s why, about six months ago, I signed up to support Greenpeace’s efforts on behalf of these species when one of its volunteer members approached me on the street.

Then, for six months, Greenpeace automatically withdrew a monthly donation from my bank account. In that time, I never did hear from the organization once… until last week.

Out of nowhere, I received a random email from a Greenpeace organizer asking me to either physically or mentally (through a petition signature) accompany her to Alaska as she testifies in a hearing related to protecting the Bering Sea and the creatures that call it home.

Throughout the email, which bore the tired old subject line “I can’t go it alone,” she addressed me as “Venassa.”

As a result of that one misguided and misspelled email, “Venassa” is no longer a Greenpeace donor.

Perhaps, as a marketing professional, I am being overtly critical but this was such a customer communications no-no that it turned me off the organization and the missions it supports right there and then.

Rule number one in marketing is get your customer’s name right. Rule number two is be relevant.

Greenpeace failed on both counts.

When we give money or time and effort to a cause we care about, we get something in return. We are buying the “warm glow” that comes from “impure altruism,” a term coined in 1990 by a University of California economist called James Andreoni.

We don’t just do it to support a cause. We also do it because it feels good. And when it doesn’t feel good, we stop.

As a marketer, you have a responsibility to create, nurture and retain a relationship with your customer. Nonprofits have the same responsibility to their customers and that starts by getting a donor’s name right – especially when he or she is contributing to their cause.

Whether you are a for-profit business or a nonprofit, how you speak to your customers or donors matters. A lot. Customers want to feel like you truly value their business or their charitable contributions. When you know their names and what they like and don’t like, it shows you’ve taken the time to get to know them, which leads to a stronger – and longer – relationship with your brand.

Readers, this isn’t a takedown of nonprofits or of Greenpeace. It’s an example of what happens when marketers don’t do their homework: they send their valuable customers right out the door for good.

Now, does this mean I’m going to stop supporting the causes I care about? Absolutely not! It just means that I’m going to seek out other organizations that take the time and care to communicate with me.

What are some of the worst examples of poor customer communications you’ve seen? I encourage you to share them with our community in the section below.

Fantastic Collaboration?! Maybe Giving Up the F-Word Would Have Been Easier Than Ditching the C-Word?

Ahh, C-words and F-words. What a lovely way to start a Thursday blog. But considering the disturbing news week with bombings, poisoned letters and a fertilizer plant explosion, perhaps it’s the perfect time to write a follow-up on these lovely gems of the English language.

In February of this year, ThinkInk launched an experiment: could we, as a company, strike (or reduce to a minimum) usage of the word ‘client’ from our copy –especially if its usage was meant to devalue, demean or unfairly generalize the men and women who literally pay our bills and salaries.

Like ex-smokers in the throes of nicotine withdrawal, cutting back on our C-word count proved anything but easy. And, as many ex-smokers do, often we traded one harmful choice for another. Rather than using phrases like “client needs,” or blaming an entire organization for some creativity failure, we instead went the other route, overly personalizing our frustrations and directing that anger toward individuals. In some instances, we adopted new C-words or “curmudgeonly” when speaking about clients.

Curious to learn more, I also reviewed my inbox, searching for C-word references. Let’s just say the results caused an F-word or two to slip out. In dispassionate computer speak, Microsoft Outlook kindly informed me, “Your search returned a large number of results. Narrow your search, or click here to view all results.”

Thank you, Outlook. Granted, some of my staff have titles that include the word “client,” which of course skewed the results. But even an email I sent earlier this week was peppered with our favorite C-word.

Clearly we could have done better.

Perhaps it was the flaws in our original parameters that led to our flawed results. After all, client isn’t a bad word. It’s just how we use it that can hurt. The same goes with personalizing attacks. While it’s OK to disagree and disagree vehemently with our CLIENTS, it’s not OK to treat them with fuses so short that any minor tangle causes an explosion.

Think about how much more slack we give our friends. Do we want to call them F-words and C-words at times? Absolutely. Yet we don’t, because we know there’s a friendship at stake; there’s surge capacity inside all parties to absorb shocks and arguments. So we shrug our shoulders and move on.

Clients aren’t our friends. They’re business partners, cultivated over mostly successful PR results. They wouldn’t be clients, otherwise. But their feelings can be hurt just like anyone else’s. The reality is, if I’m finding a client conversation difficult, it’s likely they’re finding the situation challenging as well. Neither of us is happy.

So before we reach for an arsenal of C-words, F-words, expletives and snarky nicknames, let’s tweak our experiment. “Client” is back in play at ThinkInk but client-bashing remains off limits. Take a deep breath. Count to a thousand, eat a sandwich and channel your peeves into passion – steadfastly solving problems and finding solutions – don’t whine about them.

That way, we can all celebrate another F-C combination: Fantastic Collaboration. Three cheers for that!!!

When it comes to successful PR, those are words we should all be proud to say.

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.

Some Branding Advice and a Recipe to Discover Twinkies’ Twinkle

The Korean Peninsula could erupt in war at any minute, the first non-European pope, Jorge Bergoglio, has just been elected and sequestration’s full effects are only just beginning to be felt (I spent almost 2 hours at Miami airport on Friday night, waiting to clear immigration. Why? Personnel cutbacks due to the sequestration. Get ready for a lot more of that).

Yes, there’s clearly a lot on our collective plates. But is there room for dessert, or specifically, Twinkies?

Fittingly, the hard-to-digest, terrible-for-you artificial snack has lived to fight another day, a counterweight to the battle for healthier food choices and the ongoing obesity epidemic. Last week, it was announced that the Twinkie, once owned by the Hostess brand, had been resurrected – purchased in a $410 million bid by private equity firms Apollo Global Management and Metropoulos & Co. – following its parent company’s 2012 bankruptcy.

Twinkle, Twinkle Twinkie Bar

For diehard Twinkie fans, the people hoarding what were supposed to be the brand’s final shipments back in November, all that matters now is that the spongy goodness will likely return to supermarkets by summer. Marketers and PR execs, however, aren’t so flush with sugary bliss. Tasked with aiding Twinkie’s re-branding, the path forward is far from all vanilla cream and cake.

The truth is, Twinkies face a serious uphill battle and their fall from culinary grace has been building for years. Unwieldy bakery unions were only part of the problem. But nor is it fair to argue, as Hostess has, that its 2% sales drop in 2011 was due solely to changing American food habits toward healthier options. If that were the case, obesity, specifically childhood obesity wouldn’t be the crisis it is (32% of American children are overweight or obese) nor would nearly a third of children’s caloric intake, 27%, come from unhealthy snacks.

Larry Popelka, writing for Businessweek, is correct when he says Twinkies suffer from an innovation problem as much as from a perception of unhealthiness.

But I’m not here to argue the health quality of Twinkies . The American consumer has grown far too savvy for that. We know that when something contains partially hydrogenated vegetable oil or “trans fats,” it’s not good for you. Similarly, we know that euphemisms such as “enriched” or “natural flavors” aren’t what they appear to be either. As with Taco Bell’s “Fourth Meal” and “Live Mas” commercials, the Twinkies brand needs to better embrace its guilty pleasure indulgence, making fun of its nutritional shortcomings but remaining respectful of its 83-year Depression-era heritage. Until recently, Twinkies were a generational food – the Greatest Generation served Twinkies and Wonder bread to Baby Boomer children (not on the same sandwich) and Boomers offered them to their Gen-X and Millennial offspring.

At the same time, Twinkies should be offering more diverse products, marketed heavily through social media. I’m reminded of Nabisco’s creation of 100-calorie bite size packs. Packaged portion control is an excellent way to silence critics. Perhaps Twinkies should consider smaller sized, lower calorie versions? Don’t laugh, but Twinkies’ long and slender shape might also work to their advantage too if they build marketing campaigns and children-friendly loyalty programs that encourage burning calories and not just consuming them.

Besides, the 150 calories contained in one Twinkie are no worse than those in other unhealthy snacks. But if every calorie burned equaled 5 cents toward initiatives that helped combat obesity, maybe the Twinkie could rediscover its twinkle.

The Vaguest Healthy Food Recommendation of Them All

And how can you forget the basic marketing message when dealing with any questionable product like this: most items consumed in careful moderation are OK.

So, will Twinkies’ new lease on life be permanent or is its brand too damaged for repair? I’d love to hear your thoughts below and what else the Twinkies brand should do in the run-up to its summer re-launch.

And please, don’t sugarcoat your responses. There’s always room for dessert – and second opinions.

Will Washington’s Sequestration Sequester Our PR Budgets?

It’s time to add “sequester” to the list of words we could do without. In case you don’t already know, dictionary.com defines it as “to remove or withdraw into solitude or retirement; seclude?” You know, terms like, “fiscal cliff,” “kick the can down the road,” “move the needle,” and my election-year favorite, “47%.” I’m starting to think so.

Maybe it was because the mainstream media already began referring to Wednesday’s Mid-Atlantic snowstorm, which was supposed to “retire” DC for a day, as “Snowquester.” Then again, maybe I’m just wondering what communications wiz chose “sequester” as the clunky, if euphemistic, word describing $85 billion in mandatory government spending cuts that went into March 1.

Whether Uncle Sam calls it sequestration or the “Sh*% Hits the Fan Act,” make no mistake, these cuts, if implemented fully, are predicted to have far-ranging negative consequences. They range from an estimated 1%-1.5% drop in GDP, (resulting in nearly zero annual US economic growth) to reduced satellite coverage and lower resolution (read: accuracy) predicting the weather.

But a recent AdAge article brings up another good point that hits very close to our PR home. Government ad spending is one of the first expenses on the sequestering chopping block. The army, for instance, spent $47 million in the US in advertising in 2011. And government PR is essentially a DC cottage industry, ripe for additional reductions.

Sequestration sucks for PR in other ways too. As a profession that cares deeply about the implied messages of things, draconian communications spending cuts by Washington might send a powerful signal to private industry that they too, can do without in-house or outsourced public relations. The sequester might sequester spirits as much as it does budgets.

It’s what’s known as the proverbial “chilling effect.”

I truly hope this will not be the case. Yet with congressional gridlock at historic highs and approval ratings hovering near an all-time low of 15%, there’s growing fear that the full weight of the spending cuts will take hold across the entire advertising, PR and marketing sectors.

After that, the chilling effect gets downright cold. If government stumbles under its own bloated fiscal weight, you can be sure the private sector will follow as the two are inexorably linked. The fact that the Dow Jones achieved two days of record closes and February’s jobs report (which comes out Friday) is predicted to add a respectable 175,000 jobs might not be enough to offset DC’s disarray.

The irony is that, were such a scenario to unfold, each political party would be working overtime to spin the causes of these problems as the other party’s fault, requiring some fancy communication skills in the process. Our services would again be deemed “needed.” Unlike the sequester, now is not the time for the PR industry to “withdraw into solitude.”

Effective communications is essential in good times and bad. So what can we do as an industry to lobby Washington in reconsidering its actions? I guarantee 100% of Americans are in favor of that (not 47%) with no needle moving or can kicking required.

Why Ditching the ‘C-Word’ Can Improve Business Relationships and Company Culture

Say the word “client” (the other C-word) or use it in a sentence and what comes to mind? Forgetting its application to public relations, odds are that your mental list includes embellished dialogue from countless courtroom scenes either in film or novels. Jack Nicholson’s famous “you can’t handle the truth” monologue from A Few Good Men comes to mind as does Susan Sarandon’s impassioned defense and motherly protection of young Mark Sway (Brad Renfro) and his family in The Client.

In both instances, “the client” or “clients” are first seen as nothing more than machine-like elements of the impersonal legal apparatus: Sway is a child who witnessed a murder and the state requires the body’s location while Private First Class Louden Downey and Lance Corporal Harold Dawson are accused of murder.

Central to both plots, however, is the re-humanizing of these characters: Downey and Dawson were following orders; Sway’s reluctance to cooperate with the law protects his family. As the end credits roll the main characters are seen as people, not clients.

It’s fitting then that public relations – a profession that is fighting hard to prove its worth, thus my earlier blogs on the subject – has, over time, also adopted this clunky word.

As with the legal profession, PR client references have all the trappings of dispassion – or displeasure. The client is something to be serviced, like a faulty carburetor or misfiring engine piston. Signed, sealed, delivered and off to the next troublesome client meddling in the affairs of proper creative talent – i.e., us! Amid insane copy deadlines, we ask ourselves: what can the “carburetor” or “piston” tell us that is useful? 

Actually, clients can tell us a lot. You know, something extremely vital like where they see their company in the next five years and how their own internal team envisions a campaign. Oh, and what they expect of us.

A brilliant article by 72andSunny CEO John Boiler in AdAge recently called us all out on this troubling trend and suggested a much-needed change, one that ThinkInk is about to enact. Dropping the word “client” and its often-negative connotation can greatly improve the working environment, Boiler rightly argues. It’s common knowledge as old as the sales pitch itself but bears repeating. Identify with a person and the sale goes smoothly. Identify with the product or service offering, using words like client or customer and the phrase “used car salesperson” comes to mind. See the difference?

PR professionals don’t want to be perceived as used car salesmen and saleswomen (I doubt actual used car salespeople like the phrase either) and clients don’t want to be considered cogs in communicative wheels. So for the next two months ThinkInk is going to ban all uses of the word client – especially when its intent is to de-humanize and attack the organization we’re trying faithfully to represent.   

Studies show that creating a positive work environment for both your client….errr…the corporate team you represent and for your employees results in greater productivity and increased profits. A recent Gallup study found that unhappy employees (feeding, for instance, off the negative vibes created by client-bashing) cost businesses up to $300 billion a year in the US.

Don’t misunderstand. This isn’t about money. But it is about the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Treating people with greater respect starts with the little things. And cutting the word “client” from in-office conversations and copy will go a long way in improving our mutual relationships.

Now that’s a truth I think we all can handle.

We’ll let you know how our “c-word” experiment progresses and see if we communication pros can better calibrate our message and improve our relationships with you know who!