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.

Troubled Times in AdLand: Do Agency Layoffs Signal Industry Turbulence or Opportunity?

Less than a month after FleishmanHillard’s well-publicized (and pricey) rebranding –

an effort to preempt massive changes in the communications industry by demonstrating transparency, nimbleness and multichannel marketing – it looks as if at least one canary in the proverbial coal mine has become woozy.

Actually, make that two or three, depending on your math.

In what seems to be a very prominent and permanent trend (just read this Harvard Business Review article about the demise of the traditional ad agency if you don’t believe me), Omnicom Group, the world’s top media holding company, has faced a challenging few weeks as two of its subsidiary agencies announced widespread layoffs following the loss of major client accounts. P&G’s Gillette products division ended its 80-year relationship with BBDO and General Motors Chevy business severed ties with Goodby Silverstein & Partners. GSP also lost its Nintendo account amid additional client spending cuts. According to at least one person, BBDO could ax up to 10% of its US workforce.

Not good news for ad land.

While details of the brands’ cutbacks are not entirely clear, what little has been said speaks volumes about where the communications industry is heading. Think about it: P&G didn’t come to this decision lightly – severing an 80-year partnership doesn’t happen overnight. And it took 7 months for the brand to switch over to arch-enemy agency Grey, part of the Grey Group division of WPP.  An ambiguous statement from P&G released in April summarized their reasoning for the review was: “to generate fresh thinking and uncover new approaches to connecting with men.” Of course it was.

Fresh thinking and uncovering new approaches is what agencies get paid for. If your agency of record can’t deliver on those two points then any partnership will falter. Although it lacks details, the P&G statement is a damning indictment of a $1.47 billion communications agency that was once the creative engine behind Gillette’s 1989 slogan: “the best a man can get.”

GSP’s situation isn’t any better except to say that the company’s founder, Jeff Goodby, sympathetically addressed the human side of layoffs in an internal memo obtained by AdAge.

“Please be assured: No one takes this process lightly… We will do everything to find [those who have been let go] new situations. And if history is any indication, we will find ourselves welcoming some of them back in the future,” Goodby wrote.

Thanks for the encouraging words but none of that will come to pass if agencies of all sizes (ours included) don’t take a very long, hard look at their client relationships and determine whether they are healthy and spry or if they’re functioning on inertia and complacency – not a winning combination.

The lines between earned media, paid media and the marketing channels they’re promoted on continue to blur. In 5 years time I predict that there’ll be no delineation between digital, social or PR agency – if we aren’t able to provide these services to our clients, we’ll be toast.

So it’s incumbent on all of us as public relations and marcomm professionals to keep the client-agency dialogue fresh, insightful and current. That means staying up on the latest social media trends, voraciously consuming industry and client-specific news, spotting new movements and being ready to adjust marketing tactics once old leanings shift course. It means helping guide our clients through new territories and murky waters. And it means taking bold risks and telling them how it is, not how they want to hear it. It means being honest and offering solutions to problems they may not see coming – but we do.

Omnicom’s brand wounds aren’t fatal. As of this writing, OMC’s stock is up 24.1% for the year and US advertising agency revenue was up 5.6% in 2012. But all it takes is the slightest drop in fresh air before a real coal-mine canary becomes ill.

Will BBDO, GSP and other agencies appreciate these layoff warning signs for what they are and take corrective steps? In this business an 80-year relationship is unheard of – a guarantor of rock-solid success. If those professional bonds can be broken, then really, anything is up for grabs. 

Unleashing Your Brand Advocate Weapon, Consumer-Generated PR

Every so often I read an article or blog post that cuts through the digital clutter and states something intuitive, but not entirely obvious.

An article in The Next Web by Henriette Weber gave me my week’s “ah-ha” moment so kudos to her. Happy Friday!

As a PR professional I speak (and write) frequently about the need for content generation. Whether through social media, blogs, original thought leadership articles, client interviews and tweets, feeding the content beast is a never-ending assignment. And as we expand our client list, the beast grows hungrier still. Brands, too, face similar challenges. The larger they become the more they have to write about their expanding enterprise. According to Rob Fuggetta, founder and CEO of Zuberance and author of Brand Advocates: Turning Enthusiastic Customers into a Powerful Marketing Force (citing his own sources), 28%-33% of marketing budgets goes toward content marketing.

Brand advocates, as Fuggetta rightly argues, can become a brand’s most important and cost-effective weapon. How? True, brand advocates work for free and do some of the heavy lifting for you. But too often marketers today think of their brand advocates as people who require expensive loyalty program catering. Or that outsourced IT teams must design highly engaging gamified portals. While all of these techniques are a legitimate form of marketing and customer nurturing outreach, it’s important that technological wizardry doesn’t trump the fostering of genuine experiences – or obfuscate brand failures.

I’ve written about a number of my genuine brand experiences and so have several ThinkInkers (Honda, BlackBerry, etc). I was once a BlackBerry diehard, eager to defend against all naysayers. Even after I made my bittersweet goodbyes, it wasn’t until I received an absurdly belated email asking for my returned business (nearly a year after I left) did I fully renounce my brand advocacy badge. But I’ve also received personalized emails of late, actual handwritten letters and, yes, even sample perfume from other companies.

None of these outreach methods are expensive. In fact, they’re right in line with what traditional customer retention budgets go toward. But unlike in decades past, where I might have only told a select few people about my positive experiences, via phone or word-of-mouth, I’ve freely given brands hundreds of words of free online publicity. Do I expect something magnanimous from them like a Birkin handbag or a Cable Heart Chain Necklace in return? Absolutely not – only that they empower me with the brand advocacy tools I require. And yes, I would appreciate an engaging loyalty program too. But that’s not what I’m looking for first and brands need to remember that.

Instead of brands banging their proverbial heads against walls trying to figure out what to write and how to afford the effort, why not empower brand advocates to blog, vlog, tweet and post about their most positive brand experiences? Of course, you’ll still need a professional staff to vet and review copy. But if properly engaged there’s a literal army out there of consumers looking to continue your brand’s unique conversation across multiple channels.

And I’m one of your loyal foot soldiers – armed and ready to serve.

Are you a brand advocate? If so, what about the brand inspires your spreading their good word and how do you do it? Share your thoughts with the ThinkInk community in the section below.