What I Had for Lunch

Yes, it’s Saturday, I know. So here are my quick bites before I head out to find some sun down here off the coast of South Florida.

Pitching a product without a product? What an esoteric concept – I’ve been doing that with a footwear retailer for the past year. All I can say is GOOD LUCK CLARINS. (And read the comment by John Baker of Iris London)

Stop the presses!!! Another US airline charges for legroom – Shock, horror, gasp, exclamation mark!!!! Get used to it people, carriers have been doing this in Europe for only about 10 years. It is not a new thing. My view is that mainstream media outlets only fuel “consumer outrage” instead of explaining that the legacy airline model was/is unsustainable and that carriers are only doing what businesses in other industries are doing – charging people for what they use. When US consumers swallow this reality, the skies will be a much less turbulent place.

More on Airlines – Business and Premium Class Travel is on the rise – if there was ever an economic indicator that a recovery was in full swing, this would be it. When execs start traveling to see clients again (instead of having boring conference calls and GoTo Meetings), you know that good times are just around the corner again.

And for the moneyed set in Palm Beach, Florida, it’s “what recession???” – Despite many a fortune in the region being erased by made-off-with-it Madoff, the golfers of Palm Beach County have been teeing off like there’s no 1990 or 2001. Besides, how else do you deal with the stress of watching your fortune vanish? Go hit some balls.

Work at an ad agency? Then you’ll know what BNET’s Jim Edwards has to say about them - Two words… Dante’s Inferno.

More on advertising….Ads that show kids throwing up after a night out of binge-drinking actually ENCOURAGE binge-drinking? – What about showing teens or young adults some of other consequences of binge drinking, like being date-raped, or being “bottled” outside a nightclub? That might work.

Happy weekend, see you Monday!

What I Had for Breakfast

It’s Friday, and that means diet out the window with a triple venti latte, washed down with a sinful Panini loaded with cheese, ham and lots of fat, mmmm! Here’s what else I consumed for breakfast:

Invasion of the body snatchers? – actually they’re just body scanners being installed at 11 airports around the country reports USA Today. Does that mean we now have to check-in 5 hours before flight time? And definitely no more sticking things down your undies!

Everyone loves a winner, especially in the form of an Oscar – not wanting to miss out on any moula from the Hurt Locker’s success, U.S. Army Master Sgt. Jeffrey Sarver thinks the film is about him and wants his cut of the profits – stat! I wonder if he’s heard the Carly Simon song, “You’re So Vain”?

Don’t shop till you get enough! – queue Michael Jackson and let the plastic swiping begin. Tax refund checks mean a payola for the nations retailers – the NRF can rejoice! I guess Americans need so many new TV/gadgets/crap after a year of living without. Savings? Who needs them! Being a frugalista was definitely overated.

Nothing like slamming down those tequila shots after a win on the Le Mans Series – I wonder if Patron will the “presenting sponsor” for the body shots taking place later in the day?

Bananas in Pyjamas…. and now your undies – I have a thing with undies today. My homies down under have created a range of men’s undies made with banana fibre. That certainly gives a new twist to sticking a banana down your pants…

Want to live in a mental home? Hang on, I thought I already did! Fast Company has a great little slide show of mental homes that have been converted into normal, ahem, homes.

Ok, enough of the craziness. Happy Friday all!

What I Had For Lunch Today

Reading the daily newsfeeds over lunch today, I came across the following things I wanted to share with you:
Finding and Promoting Products That Inspire Customer Loyalty – now that’s a concept to get your teeth stuck into. Does it work for PR agencies too?

Mobile commerce and retail has huge play in mobile advertising – Ya think??? Check out what Dan Butcher and the Mobile Marketer crew are doing at NRF’s Mobile Bootcamp in San Francisco this week.

Meanwhile, on the East Coast… - It’s mobile mobile, all the time. DMA’s 2nd Annual Mobile Marketing day is in NYC today, where mobile execs will be disussing the future of digital media, um, mobile.

The 4A’s conference stresses the need for “Marketing Innovation” – When hasn’t that been the case? The ad industry has always been on the cusp of something transformational, redefining its model, yada yada yada. Stop talking people and just do it already.

I knew there was a reason why Google entered the mobile space last year – The Mobile Ad Network race is REALLY hotting up.

RIP Home Video Phone? Seven Reasons Why Home Videophones Are a Terrible Idea from Erik Sherman at BNET - Thank goodness, that’s all I can say. I won’t have to touch up my makeup before you call me anymore.

Well, back to work!

Taming Tiger - from Media Post

After watching Tiger's mea culpa, I sort of wish he hadn't broken his silence -- contrary to what I would advise clients in times of crisis.

Why? Because he broke the spell for me -- and no doubt millions of others. While I've never been a Tiger fanatic, his reputation for prowess, razor-sharp mental focus and determination was what set him apart from other more "human" celebrities and athletes. This was a man who was intensely private -- after all, he was able to hide his extensive philandering for how many years?

We saw this man screw up, literally and figuratively, and descend into a self-imposed recovery period to sort his mess out -- away from the public's insatiable appetite for scandal, idol destruction and celebrity demise. But that's not the problem.

Now, he's brought his life into the open again, into the public domain for its forgiveness and his eventual resurrection. For a guy used to hitting laser-like drives onto fairways, his was definitely an "out of bounds" ball or that almost forbidden word for most golfers ..."a shank."

Tiger's public statement was terrible on any number of counts, but I'll explore only two here.

Greater golfer, lousy speaker

Listening to his "I'm sorry I'm sorry" speech, it became painfully obvious why Tiger's previous statements were posted on his website and not YouTube -- Tiger is one lousy speaker. What that man needs is some media training, not rehab.

Paradoxically, although he's been in the public spotlight for years, he's most definitely not a public speaker - his on-course intensity bled into his public persona. And that was okay before because his controlled and emotionless voice was part of that persona and enmeshed with the rock-solid Tiger brand. But not anymore, not now he's exposing his dirty laundry for the world to see. What we saw unravel before our eyes was a lame, emotionless forgive-me-for-I-have sinned apology which did not gel or feel authentic. Tiger is not sorry for what he's done to me, or to my husband who loves golf -- because he hasn't actually done anything to personally affect or harm us. He's not sorry to you, or the person next to you.

Who Tiger should be sorry to are the sponsors that have invested millions and millions into his brand, his bank account and, of course, his family. So why is a public apology necessary then? To make him feel better, to absolve his actions and shed some of the guilt?

We don't need to hear or see anything that personal or private. Really, we don't. We have enough of that "reality" already.

What resulted from Tiger's statement was a media circus, with news hounds and talk show hosts dissecting every soundbite, adding their own spin or interpretation to it -- a bit like what I'm doing right now. Something to fill a slow news day and little else. In my mind, all that Tiger's apology succeeded in doing was to feed the media beast and prolong our unhealthy obsession with sinners and rehab, not change the public's opinion of him -- which was the intention, I'm sure.

Which brings me to my next point.

Sex addiction? Spare me, please

We all have issues, we all screw up, say sorry and move on. Some of us repeat our mistakes, most of us learn from them. But so many "issues" we seem to have developed over the past three decades have spawned from a need to pigeonhole what is inherently defective human behavior. Can't concentrate? You have ADD. Can't stop yourself from getting sloshed every night? You are a drunk. Can't keep your knickers on? You are a sex addict.

I am certainly not a qualified medical profession (although I slept at a Holiday Inn once) but I don't think Tiger is a sex addict. I don't even know if that is really an addiction -- humans have been grappling with lust and sexual urges since Adam and Eve. It's not even listed in the DSM, the standard diagnostic manual for psychiatric disorders. In my humble opinion, sex addiction has become the exclusive purview of entitled, spoilt rich brats -- and anyone else wanting to avoid a very expensive, I'm-taking-you-to-the-cleaners-for-everything divorce.

Moral and scientific arguments aside, who are we to judge if Tiger has become a better man? Better still, why should we care?

People cheat. People crash cars. Tiger isn't the first golfer/man/human to do it, and he won't be the last.

Taming Tiger is a job left best to his wife, and perhaps his mother, but not the public. Leave us out of your mess, please, and be quiet. Because in Tiger's case, silence really is golden.

Austin plane crash throws spotlight on federal crisis comms

IRS, FBI convey a sober tone and solid information in a post-9/11, instant-media world

"Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words can never hurt me."

Remember that saying from childhood? Those words filled my ears as I read the ramblings of Joseph Stack—a deranged and disillusioned man who gave up on life Thursday.

Disgruntled and dismayed by the unfair hand that life and the IRS had dealt him, his attack on an Austin IRS facility in a small airplane offers an unusual glimpse into the efficacy of governmental crisis communication in an age of instant information and news gratification.

Let’s look at the crisis itself: News outlets immediately reported that nearly 200 IRS employees worked at that particular building. Any act involving an airplane, a building and a crash profoundly echoes the Sept. 11 attacks, adding a dimension of fear and fascination to the situation.

Add to the mix the relatively bizarre nature of the event—the attacker left behind a suicide blog (so 2010) documenting his list of troubles with the IRS, compete with Shakespearean allusions—and you have a news item that presents a barely manageable crisis communications incident ready to spiral out of control and spread like wildfire among the tweetoblogosphere.

Click here to read the rest of the article at ragan.com.

Getting Into The Mixing Bowl (from Media Post)

In terms of exposure, Super Bowl space has a potentially big payoff; this year's game ended up being the most-watched television program ever, capturing an average of 106.5 million viewers, or 213 million eyeballs. But what about in terms of efficacy? Or more specifically, did advertising during the Super Bowl truly advance a company or organization's messaging in any meaningful way?

It's true, individual ads are hit or miss, as reviews in AdAge, New York Times and Slate will tell you. Each review will have had a positive or negative effect on the sales of a particular product or service. But for one of the ads, which probably received the most pregame buzz, those golden seconds of airtime during the Super Bowl were dedicated to advancing a chaste position, while in fact not selling anything.

So if managing a brand or brand image is the main purpose of these ads, or taking a "moral" stance in the case of the Focus on the Family Tebow spot, are Super Bowl ads also influenced by larger factors than the ad itself? I would argue yes. Contrary to what Big Advertising will have us think, these crazily expensive Super Bowl ads might never be as effective at advancing a company's message -- particularly when it is about something as personal and polarizing as abortion -- as a great PR campaign could be.

In other words, the nuclear option doesn't work for everyone.

That's because an ad's efficacy in terms of brand and messaging can be directly affected and diluted, simply by association. Join the ranks of other advertisers and earn the label of a 'Super Bowl Ad' -- your brand becomes -- one of them. And the overall theme of any given year's Super Bowl ads can also infect or amplify a message or brand image.

To read the article in full follow this link.

Trust Barometer raises salient issues for PR professionals/from ragan.com

Credibility matters in the market place; how, then, do you promote without (excessive) ‘spin’?

Edelman’s Trust Barometer, now in its 10th year, is an ambitious project, quantifying something as imprecise and shifting as trust. It’s no easy task, and that makes the results of Edelman’s efforts all the more interesting.

The report doesn’t ask whether consumers trust the brand of toothpaste or shampoo they use, it asks whether citizens trust their government and why, and how the public shapes its opinions of industries as well as individual companies. How Edelman has achieved this without a hint of partisanship is really quite amazing.

Trust is transient and tenuous

The first and perhaps most persuasive theme is that trust itself seems to be extraordinarily transient and influenced by factors ranging from macroeconomic forces to perceived spin on an individual news item. Who knew? It seems that the level of trust enjoyed by governments, industries, companies and brands is by no means constant, nor certain. For big business, this implication—which is threaded very nicely throughout the Edelman report—is twofold. One, entities must be very cognizant of the public’s trust in and of them, and two, efforts can be made to address and modify the public’s trust.

In terms of trust in industries and companies, Edelman’s report links this transient nature of trust to the idea that business will return to the way it was. Although trust in business rose slightly this year over last, the report overtly indicates that this level of trust is fleeting and tenuous, undercut by the belief that businesses will revert to old bad habits as soon as they can—in other words, after the honeymoon period is over and businesses have regained the public’s trust.

Yet the report indicates that by placing more emphasis on honest and transparent practices, companies increase public trust in them. It also shows that trust in businesses to do what is right has returned to historical norms and that CEOs are viewed as more trustworthy in their comments and actions.

So despite a relatively hollow sense of trust, there remains reason for optimism but with a caveat: It’s to be accompanied by trust-building practices. The PR implication, then, is that trust is both important and malleable, based largely on perception, and that with careful crafting it can be controlled.

Can you see the sales pitch forming here?

The new credibility is old news

The second resounding theme in the Edelman report looks at the way the public gathers its information. I don’t understand why this is less plainly explained in the report, but a few of the survey questions hint that the changes in trust as it relates to information about a company are shaped by changes in the way the public gathers information. This “finding” surely contradicts what PR professionals and the media have been grappling with for the past year—that social media will become a more powerful influencer than traditional sources and news media.

The report states that top sources for credible information are academics and experts (64 percent), followed closely by analysts (52 percent), and the top outlets for that information were analyst reports and business magazine journalism. Least credible were those sources most controlled by the corporate interest—the regular employee (32 percent) and advertising materials (17 percent).

Falling fastest in terms of credibility was information offered by “a person like yourself” and social media outlets and conversations with peers. Ha! Social media pundits be damned. That finding demonstrates the public’s weariness with regurgitated opinions schlepped about the blogosphere. Social media, blogs and the online opinion factory have soured the public on the worthiness of common information, and the survey indicates the public is hungry for expert, authentic, reliable sources. This hunger is best displayed by the top credibility ranking of analysts and stock reports, even though these analysts often are paid by the companies they analyze.

There is some good news here for PR. Corporate advertising and social media cannot achieve the transparency and authenticity the public values most. By obtaining coverage in reputable media (traditional media still rank relatively high—business magazine articles are considered credible by 44 percent of respondents; radio, 38 percent; TV, 36 percent), good PR can boost the public’s trust in a company.

This revelation, in my mind, is probably the most important part of this study for the PR industry, as it indicates the importance of credibility, authentic communications, transparency and, most of all, providing knowledge and value, which has proved difficult to achieve through social media or advertising.

Building trust = building business

Everything in the Edelman report, including the existence of the report itself, points to one great truth: Trust is an incredibly powerful business development tool. Looking at the values shown in the report as they related to trust in 2006 versus 2010, they’re almost entirely inverted. This, it would seem, is a very strong indicator of the new American psyche—profits come last, but honesty comes first. The cultivation of trust is becoming one of the most important goals for businesses in every sector.

For PR pros, that means that the importance of strong, effective PR is also on the rise—not that it ever waned. It is the answer to the credibility gap that has developed in the age of (shoddy) information overload.

As for Edelman, no doubt they’re already out there pitching the Trust Barometer report to exactly those companies who’ve been hit hardest in the trust stakes.