ABC and FOX vs. Lane Bryant / Insensitive Censorship?

This morning, RetailWire discussed the double standard imposed by FOX and ABC in their decision to restrict retailer Lane Bryant from airing suggestive ads featuring overweight women.

It is discriminatory to exclude overweight people from the mainstream - especially as proportionately (no pun intended) they represent the majority of Americans at the moment. I'm not talking about glorifying ill health or irresponsible self-care, but this is the same media that has glorified ill health and irresponsible self-care by promoting the other end of the spectrum, the very thin - fueling the trend of eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia which now affect not only our girls, but the boys as well.

We live in a land that touts free speech to the rest of the world, I would think denying the placement of these ads would be not only hypocritical but also unconstitutional.

Thoughts?

On Media Bias and PR Spin

The content of this post comes courtesy of my colleague, Sam Burritt. Thank you Sam!

A brilliant mind, a brillant writer and all round brilliant thinker. Glad he is my team.

On Media Bias

"I think it's too easy to blame the obvious political bias in the media on the temperament most often personified by opposing ends of the political spectrum, though as a good lefty that's my first instinct. I tend to view the sound and the fury emanating from those bastions of right-wing vitriol as- rightly, I feel- signifying nothing, and thus not worthy of my serious attention. But this sells short the sheer power of it; Rush and Fox et al pay their audience with the currency of fear and passion, and it earns dividends. As a PR guy, I know people respond to these emotions much more viscerally than to a well-reasoned argument, and that perpetuates the echo chamber. The left has actively ceded this position- even Air America and the Daily Show rely more on nuance than bluster- and it has its efforts compounded by conservative programming that paints it as too effete and intellectual to appeal to the average american.

Speaking again from a PR perspective, everyone has an agenda, including those that gather and report the news. And while the Woodward and Bernstien generation of reporters is reaching their lion's status, the media conglomerates that pay them are becoming larger, more corporate, and more Republican. This isn't a universal trend (see NYT, editorial board, Sulzberger family), but the correlation between the big business-ification of news gathering and the right-leaning trend of editorial boards is hard to ignore. It's only at single-ownership papers like the Times, or at newspapers that give the newsroom some ownership control (like the St. Petersberg Times did, at least until recently) that you see true impartiality and even sometimes a leftward slant.

The rest of the left is relegated to the blogosphere, which is powerful and ascendant, but ultimately still reliant upon traditional news sources. "Old" media still beats the blogs to scoops by more than 2.5 hours, according to recent statistics, which means that even though online news is usually more opinion-driven, it still receives news first gathered by sources paid for by gargantuan business interests. And let's not forget that the internet isn't the sole purview of the left (maybe if Al Gore had actually invented it...); conservative voices come through loud and clear.

Neither an internet teeming with competing perspectives nor a traditional media structure balanced, in a sense, by equal numbers of Keith Olbermann-Sean Hannity news-opinion hybrids will replace the need for a robust, independent, unbiased fourth estate.

What may serve the left better than breeding a generation of Rush competitors would be encouraging the rise of ideology-impaired newspeople. But then you have to ask: who's going to pay them? And has the right succeeded in polarizing American society to the point that such professionalism is unattainable?

PR at its worst specializes in inducing spin; is that what we're condemned to?

The Dropout Economy, Innovation and More…

Two great reads today, one in today’s NYT courtesy of Thomas Friedman called “Just Doing It” and another, The Dropout Economy from the March 22nd issue of TIME.

What’s so special about these two articles? They both talk about the new, next wave of innovation in the United States. Born out of necessity, frustration, need and, well, pursuit of the dream that anything is possible – the American way, right?

From all walks of life and backgrounds, we are being forced to look at new models, invent new ways and eek out a living for ourselves. Unemployment be damned!

The past two years have been awful, to be sure, but they’ve given birth (or rebirth I should say) to a dynamic innovation culture that had fallen off the bandwagon.

Not innovating yet? Get out there and start doing it!

Can smart PR deliver public absolution for the pope and Vatican?

A Web 2.0 world is watching as scandal rocks the Catholic Church, all the way to the Holy See

Writing about the Vatican, the pope and religion—today or at any time—without mention of politics or moral judgment is a hard call. Hard because religion, morality and politics are inherently intertwined, whether we like it that way or even realize it. And that is why discussions about these topics are polarizing, divisive and downright destructive in so many ways.

So this article isn't going to take on those issues prima facie but instead will look at the Vatican and its current PR crisis—perhaps the most damaging, but really just the latest in a long series of PR crises.

The differences between the PR crisis arising from the sex-abuse scandal and previous scandals—think indulgences, celibacy, and female laity—are twofold. First, it is taking place in an information-dominated era, in which previously effective mitigation tactics such as stifling inquiry and withholding pertinent data are impossible. Second, the current crisis has trust (or the breaking thereof) at its very center, which makes any sort of response inherently suspect.

Same story, different era

I recall the stories I heard as a youth about numerous Church scandals detailing cover-ups of abuse and unspeakable acts made by local priests all the way up to archbishops and the Vatican itself, hushed up to protect the sanctity and reputation of an institution that has sought to teach mankind to act in exactly the opposite ways of its clergy and representatives.

That's a very big PR quandary. How can the Church or Pope Benedict XVI hope or begin to rebuild the public's trust through any PR effort when the institution’s very mission is the codification and enforcement of morality? In other words, how does a moral authority, stripped of its authority through moral failing, regain either?

Click here to continue reading.

Salesmanship In PR / From Media Post

PR person: Hi there, my name is Julie from Acme PR. We haven't spoken before but I'd like to sell you a press release.
Journalist: Thanks, but I'm not interested. I have thousands already.
PR person: Um, what about a pitch then?
Journalist: I've had too many mediocre ones. I'll pass on that.
PR person: Okay, how about a story idea that's the best thing since spray-cheeze-in-a-can.
Journalist: I wrote about that last week.
PR person: Oh. What if I offered you the world's most knowledgeable expert who could talk to [insert latest "trending" topic here]? And some Ginzu knives?
Journalist: Look, I'm really busy and on deadline. (Click.)

So I was kidding about the knives, but that is still not the way to a make a successful sales pitch. Ever.

In any business, what can (and usually does) lead to a successful sale is understanding a customer's wants and needs and fulfilling them, not haphazardly throwing out stuff until something sticks. As a PR professional, my most important customer is always a member of the media.

That is my bread-and-butter customer, my daily staple on whom I rely for everything else to fall into place. Without those core customers, I have little to offer my other customers. And if I don't qualify or assess the integrity of my "leads," review churn and recency rates of my lists, or close the deal with these customers on a regular basis, I might soon find myself out of a job.

While the above terms may seem more at home at a database marketing company than a PR firm, they are in fact part of every sales cycle and a successful selling strategy. In any industry, understanding a customer's psyche is a critical element. Know your customer's pain or pleasure points, and you'll be far more likely to succeed in selling them a product or service.

This is what every successful business does and for those in PR, it should be no different. We are, after all, in the business of selling. Maybe not tangible items, but we are selling -- an idea, a message, a story, an expert.

Knowing how to sell can make you more valuable...

Click here to continue.

An Open Letter to The Unemployed, Wherever You Are…

In Florida (where our main office is located), unemployment stood at 12.2% in February, according to NYT’s Economix Blog of March 26, The United States of Unemployment. Catchy title, huh?

If you are currently employed and looking for a new gig, good luck. I really mean it. You’re up against some very hungry people out there, especially college leavers and those who’ve fallen into the interning cycle of “employment,” absolutely desperate to put their multiple degrees to actual use – anywhere.

Now, if you are currently unemployed, even better wishes. Especially for those using the crappiest resumes and introduction letters known to mankind. I am not sure what kids are taught in college these days with respect to putting their “piece of paper” to work, er, like finding a job? It’s been a while since I had to dole out my resume to prospective employers but surely the art of resume writing and selling yourself in 400 words or less has become more important than ever?

Sadly, my assumption is totally wrong. Over the course of 4 days, a colleague and I have sifted through hundreds of the most god-awful applications for a recently opened position within our company. Emails with no subject lines. Emails with no introduction, only attachments. Emails with introductions and plenty of attachments – for completely different job descriptions !#%#$@$.

To be sure, it’s a cruel, cruel world out there. The job market? I don’t envy those looking for work. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and all those clichés but surely job-seekers right now would be focused on creating compelling resumes and pitches to make any prospective employer sit up and pay attention?

Driven to Distraction? Why not Drive instead?

A couple of weeks back I wrote up a brief book review about DRIVE, Dan Pink's latest book. The review was never published, so I've graciously repurposed it here...

Turns out everything I thought I knew about self-motivation, motivating workers and wringing the most out of staff is, apparently, a load of so-last-century rubbish. Drive takes the way we currently motivate our workforce (and ourselves), combines our malfunctioning value system (business, personal) with computer operating systems – which is a clever and easily relatable analogy – and turns the whole lot on its head.

According to Drive, the common carrot-and-stick methods of incentivizing staff with cash and tangible rewards is old school and no longer in keeping with our true and recently re-discovered value system - the system of being purposely-driven vs. profit-driven. Drive seems to be serendipitously timed as we enter a new decade where we're searching for real answers and better ways of living and doing things that really matter - we can make a difference, with real purpose that gives us satisfaction in our working and personal lives – that’s what drives us, get it?

What makes Pink's book different to other motivational-genre books is that it's not at all preachy. Instead, he makes us question what we've been doing with just enough scientific citations to make his reasoning and questioning credible. If anything though, it's a little light on case studies - he could have afforded some more in-depth research to solidify this volume as a must-read for every CEO and manager.

For me, as a small business owner who has been practicing old-school carrot and stick tricks for 15 years with varied success, I’m looking forward making my current business and staff proverbial guinea pigs for Motivation 3.0, using Drive's toolbox as a guide. Check back with me in 6 months to see how we're doing. But first I need to find out if I'm Type I or Type X. And no wisecracks thanks.

To learn more about the book, visit Pink's site at http://www.danpink.com/drive.

Happy Driving!