When is it Time to Use a PR News Wire?

If you are in the business of Public Relations, you know that time is money, and there are certain tools that can help you stay efficient. One of these tools is a PR news wire, which allows professional communicators (that’s us) to distribute information to the media and public. It’s a win-win situation. We cut hours spent grueling over e-mail distribution, while also maximizing exposure for the client. Whether you are launching a new product, or have a media alert that needs sharing, a PR news wire service can help you do it all in less than one day’s work—now that sounds like music to my multi-tasking ears.

So, how do you sell your client on it? The first step is to open up the conversation. Update your client on the benefits of a PR news wire service, but let’s keep it short and sweet. The three major reasons for your client to utilize a PR news wire service are as follows:

• Increase company visibility on major online websites like Yahoo!, Fortune, Forbes and we all know the rest.

• To allow reporters to easily find your clients newsworthy information.

•  To improve your SEO (that’s search engine optimization for those who were wondering). Distributing your news online helps tremendously when promoting a company website and/or blog through strategic use of hyperlinks and keyword tactics you are able to boost your rankings within the search engines.

Now that we’ve discussed perks with the client, it’s time to talk money.

There are a ton of great news wire companies out there that essentially do the same thing, so do your research and figure out which one best suits your respective client’s needs and budget. Lastly, present a list of upcoming projects which would benefit from the news wire within the next year—set a realistic value to the service and let your client know how they will specifically reap the benefits. Whether we like it or not, the PR news wire is an important aspect in how we are delivering news for our clients and should be evaluated as a tool for most PR campaigns.

With all due respect to the San Diego Addys, the most prestigious advertising awards show is going on as I type. Taking place on the French Riviera, the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival celebrates the best creative work in all forms of media.

Work in different categories are being awarded throughout the week. Here are a few highlights.

In Poland, car manufacturer Skoda wanted to tout the remote-controlled trunk of one of their cars. Two commercials were run simultaneously on two major TV channels. One with the trunk opened and the other with it closed. Viewers toggled between channels 1 and 2 to open and close the trunk.

In Argentina, beer maker Andes put Teletransporters in bars and clubs to give guys the perfect excuse when calling angry wives and girlfriends.

And from the land of the rising sun, we have this ambient outdoor ad for Supor Non-stick pans. Behind the facade of a pan was a half-pipe where rollerbladers dressed as food skated back and forth, creating the illusion of being tossed.

All of the above work is brilliant. Creative. And, sadly, not from San Diego.

Why is that? Do we not have the talent and desire to do so, or are we content with local award shows? Hopefully it’s a matter of simply stepping up our game. Big time.

If you are at all involved in Social Media Marketing, you probably know that April 19, 2010, was a big day for Facebook. Yesterday the social networking giant launched all kinds of changes and updates, many of which will have some pretty interesting implications for companies. Here’s a summary of the changes that Facebook made, and more importantly, what they mean for marketing.

Facebook Change #1 – Community pages are here

Remember when fan pages first started and everyone was becoming a fan of silly things and your stream would fill up with  “Callan Green became a fan of Brussels sprouts” or “Callan Green became a fan of sparkly unicorns.” Well, Facebook wanted to create a way for users to express their affinity for said sparkly unicorns without utilizing the pages that were intended for companies. Enter the Facebook Community Page. These pages free the Facebook police from having to shut down un-official fan pages and they allow for a clearer distinction between a brand’s official page and a page started by a random.

So what are these new community pages like? They look like company pages but wall updates are created from users’ status updates. Anytime someone uses a key word to update their status, (in this example, “hike”) Facebook automatically pulls that update into the community page. When you visit the page, it divides the updates into updates made by your friends, and updates made by the general community.

There are a couple of important distinctions between community and company pages. 1. the update on a community page won’t run through your news stream and 2. it is impossible to write directly on the community wall, or to upload pictures/videos to the page.

So why do these community pages matter to marketers? Well there’s been a lot of chatter that the real reason these pages were created is so that Facebook can get a better idea of its user demographic. Others are saying it’s Facebook’s attack against Twitter, which recently claimed to be the best indicator of real-time public interest.  Either way, the data compiled from “likers” of community pages allows Facebook to present a strong case to potential advertisers. For instance, lets say there are 100,000 million “likers” of Pizza on Facebook. Wouldn’t that be a nice stat to have when Facebook tries to approach Roundtable about advertising with them? And on the marketing side, wouldn’t it be nice to buy an ad and have it served to all the “likers” of our clients’ categories? It is no secret that us marketing people love data.  The truth is, the more data we have, the more tailored our marketing approaches can be, and the more sales we can then get.

Facebook Change #2- Profile “interests” are being updated

Within the next few days, Facebook will begin prompting you to link the interests you’ve listed in your profile to various company or community pages. Lets say, for example, that under interests I currently have “running, surfing, reading and Absolut Vodka.” Facebook will now ask me if I’d like to link those interests to the running, surfing and reading community pages AND to the Absolut company page.

This is great for marketers. To the average person not reading Tech Crunch, Mashable or All Facebook, they may not understand that by clicking yes, they are also now subscribing to all these company pages in their news feed. So for brands on Facebook this is a big, “yaay!” You have just been given an easy way to capture new fans (despite the fact that they may be unaware of their new-found relationship with you).

*Word to the wise, I’d make sure your content on Facebook was dead-on for the next few days, knowing that you are going to have an in-flux of brand spanking new fans. This is your one chance to capture them, and if your content sucks, they are probably going to “hide” you in their streams.

Facebook Change # 3 – Facebook changes its privacy settings (yet again)

Starting yesterday, Facebook made changes so that users can now select which of their “interests/likes” are visible to their friends. However, if you “like” or include a page as one of your interests, your like-age will always be visible from the community page and is considered public knowledge. So the moral here is, be careful what you “like.”

This is good for brands, as it continues to loosen privacy settings and makes more content public. Plus, these privacy changes had to take place in order for Facebook to gather quality “interest gauging” for the above Community Pages.

Facebook Change #4 – You are no longer a “fan” of a brand’s page

Now to connect with a brand on Facebook you “like” them. Originally people speculated that this would be helpful to brands because there is a lower barrier of entry to saying that you “like” a page vs being”fan” of the page. I think that’s poppycock. Semantics won’t have THAT much of an affect on Facebook users. Whether you are a “fan” or you “like” the page, the end result is that you are now following the pages updates in your news stream, and I’d like to think that users will catch onto that.

What does matter are the changes that came with this. For instance, the company page now shows you which friends of yours also like the page. A nice new function that might encourage someone who was on the fence to “like” a page. This along with the ability to link to said pages from your profile and the new privacy changes, means a lot of new visibility and growth opportunities for these company pages.

AND all this was just Monday

Facebook must be tired, but the annual F8 conference is tomorrow, and it is likely that these changes were just the beginning. Stay tuned as we learn more about the changes that Facebook plans to make in the near future and how these might affect your marketing plans.

Unless you’ve been under a rock for the last week, chances are you’ve seen Nike’s new Tiger Woods commercial.

It’s actually a very simple spot– a black and white shot of Tiger staring at the camera while we hear a voiceover of his late father, Earl Woods. That’s where the simplicity ends.

Once uploaded to Nike Golf’s youtube channel, criticism, debate and mockery spread like wildfire. As reported in Ad Age, in less than 48 hours, it was viewed online more than 2.2 million times, drew 6,700 comments and generated more than 40 parodies that themselves drew more than 200,000 views. (Of all the spoofs, my favorite is Morgan & Tiger– where we see the same visual treatment, but edited to a small excerpt of Morgan Freeman’s dialog from Shawshank Redemption.)

Here’s what people are saying about the original spot. That the ad is a way-too-early plea for sympathy. That it’s wrong to use Tiger’s father to sell product, even more so in light of Earl’s alleged extramarital affairs. It’s also been reported that the audio clip is actually of Earl Woods speaking to his wife, Kultida, comparing and contrasting their two personalities. That said, the ad is essentially quoting a dead man out of context, with Tiger reacting to words that were never even spoken to him.

Talk about gasoline being poured on the controversy fire. Love it or loathe it, the simple truth is this–when was the last time everyone talked about Reebok advertising?

I came across an article about creative traditional advertising in AdWeek over the weekend that I thought was great. Author Katy Bachman shed light some much needed light on the groundbreaking advertising the L.A. Times debuted last Friday, in which they took the “homepage takeover” concept from web and adapted it to print.

Created to coincide with the launch of  Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, the front page of the L.A. Time’s Friday’s edition was dominated by Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter character in 3-D.

According to Katy, this is the first time a major newspaper has run this type of ad unit. Executive Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer of the L.A. Times, John O’Loughlin, explains the move as an ‘unusual opportunity to stretch traditional boundaries and deliver innovative ad unit designed to create buzz and further extend the film’s brilliant marketing campaign’.

Though this is the first time we’ve seen a newspaper take this direction, it’s certainly will not be the last. What makes this so cool, is that for a while now, Ad agenceis have been adapting traditional advertising concepts to the online world. Now, for the first time, we are seeing the reverse take place. With the LA Times “homepage takeover” they applied the online concept of re-skinning a page and made it work in print. This is a bold step for the print advertising world that will allow them to stay relevant in these changing times. Kudos the the LA times for getting creative.

What do you think? Will we be seeing more of this in the near future?

Remember when the Academy was against social media and forced YouTube to pull thousands of clips from the awards show in 2007? Well, guess what? The Academy is finally getting with the times and embracing social media for the Oscars.

In 2008, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences created its own YouTube Channel offering behind the scenes footage, interviews, highlights and more. So, did this help? Well according to an article in AdAge, last year’s Oscars was the among the lowest-rated broadcast in its televised history. Ouch.

One reason this might have failed is because social media is about  strategy, and not just the tools.  Anyone can throw up a Facebook Page, YoubTube Channel or Twitter handle, but without a strategy tying these to a traditional marketing campaign, you’re likely set up for failure.

Third time’s a charm, right? The Academy is back with a new social media strategy for the 2010 Oscars. A Facebook Page for the Oscars was created with shiny features like a live stream and a chat on which they streamed the nominees. Taking note of the fact that people love to guess who will take home golden statues that evening, the Academy released an iPhone app allowing fans to make their own predictions to compare against other fans.

Is this a recipe for success? We’ll find out soon enough.

If you turned on a television, radio, or computer this morning you probably noticed that Tiger Woods was making  his highly anticipated first public statement since, well, all chaos broke out in his personal life and his reputation was tarnished – majorly.  This very public first appearance was calculated, thought out, and had specific goals, but was Tiger successful?

His thorough apology to just about everyone was expected, but the task for him was to do more than just read an apology. He needed to start winning fans back. While, yes, his family is more important and he did talk about them, they weren’t who he was speaking to today and he doesn’t need a live CNN feed to reach them. Given the severity of his actions and the length of time that has elapsed since Thanksgiving, he wasn’t going to convince everyone that he is really, truly sorry and that he’s definitely on the road to recovery in 14 minutes. Very similar to regaining trust, today needed to be the start to a long road of recovery. In order for Tiger to successfully start winning people back he needed to:

- Not say anything anyone could question

- Show emotion that people could sympathize with

- Give enough information about the past so people can start forgetting about it

- Make concrete statements about the future

Was Tiger successful in beginning to regain some respectability? I think so. He touched on and apologized to every group of people that would care: fans, his foundation, children, etc. He spoke emotionally about his family and gave concrete examples of how this has impacted their lives. He took complete

responsibility for his actions and provided insight into why they happened. He also talked about the future and what he thinks will lead to change.

Was Tiger sincere? Is he really going to “regain his balance and be centered?” Only time will tell.

The past few years, we’ve seen an increase in companies that haven’t necessarily been known for their eco-friendly ways jumping on the green bandwagon.  While some may call this greenwashing, is it really such a bad thing?

During the Super Bowl, Audi released their new “eco-themed” commercial featuring their latest car (and winner of Green Car Journal’s “Green Car of the Year”), A3 TDI.  The ad follows a squad of “Green Police” that obsessively seek out and arrest regular Joes for their environmental ignorance.  My personal fave is the scantily-clad gentleman running away from a SWAT team-sized crew of green police chasing him down for having the hot tub temperature too high.  The commercial is timely, humorous, and informative in its own way.  However, there are mixed feelings about the ad, as seen in the comments of this popular green blog, Ecorazzi.  So, what are the issues?

1)  Is it greenwashing?  While A3 TDI sets itself apart from other Audi vehicles by being more eco-friendly, Audi is not adjusting its branding to fit this one product.  It can be a step in the right direction for the luxury car industry, raising the bar when it comes to responsibility, and raising awareness about simple changes that can be made in daily life.

2)  Is it demeaning to green-enthusiasts?  While this is an extreme case of environmentalism and it may seem to poke fun at die-hard eco-savers, the ad also offers comic relief when a lot of other brands may take a more “shame-on-you” approach to environmental education.

3)  Is this A3 TDI REALLY green?  As consumers, we all want options.  Whether or not a Hybrid car is the greener alternative, Audi is opening the door to competitors, which means companies will begin working harder to decrease their carbon footprints.  And marketers will get a lesson in sustainable marketing.

So, do we applaud this large-name brand that’s spreading the eco-friendly message or do we disregard them because we would have chosen an alternative way to get the message across?  Please share your thoughts/feelings on greenwashing in the comments.

Last February, two unemployed brothers from Illinois made an amateur Doritos TV commercial and scored the top spot in USA Today’s Super Bowl 2009 Ad Meter.

Last Sunday, as the culmination of their Crash the Super Bowl contest, Doritos aired four more consumer-generated spots. “Casket”, which features a man pretending to be dead so that he could be buried with a casket full of chips. “House Rules”, where a little boy puts the smack down on his mother’s date. “Snack Attack Samurai”, that shows what happens when you steal a bag from a Doritos’ fanatic. And “Underdog”, the spot below, where a dog has its proverbial day at the expense of a man who refuses to share his bounty.

After the results of this year’s Super Bowl Ad Meter were tallied, the Betty White Snickers spot came in first. “Underdog” second. However, Joshua Svoboda, was awarded a $600,000 prize for his efforts (per contest rules). Not bad considering his commercial only took $200 to make.

Predictably, articles were written saying that ad agencies should be afraid. There were those who suggested that the everyday Joe (or Jane) with a camcorder, computer and idea could produce a TV spot that’s just as effective as one made by the traditional Madison Avenue agency. Along with that argument is that brands would be able to save marketing dollars if they choose to run with amateur productions.

But here’s the truth about consumer-generated ads- those amateurs aren’t always amateurs. Turns out Joshua is actually a creative director of sorts. And in an article looking back at past winners of consumer-generated advertising contests, it appears that a fair number have ties to the industry. Apparently, creative professionals are consumers too. (Heck, two of us here at B.G. put together a :12 TV spot for Mountain Dew.)

A few years ago, the New York Times reported that free ads still come with a high price tag. Agencies and brand marketers spend months planning their consumer-generated contests- hiring lawyers to vet them and designing advertisements to promote them. People then have to spend countless hours wading through entries.

Whether or not they are truly effective may still be up for debate. But one thing that can be said in favor of consumer-generated ads is that agencies and brands get sent a ton of new ideas. And as long as those ideas may potentially be made real, we’ll keep our camcorders ready… and the idea fountain flowing.

There has been huge craziness in the San Diego radio industry lately, and I continue to be asked by our advertising clients and others exactly what this means in the marketing landscape. To each I answer, “I wish I knew.” But in reality, I can make a few predictions.

First of all, what the hell happened?

• It began in August, when San Diego beloved radio icons Jeff & Jer were suddenly off the air due to contract disputes with Clear Channel Radio, their station’s owner.  Clear Channel had been on a hell-bent buying frenzy, snapping up radio stations across the country and many in the San Diego market – all with investment capital they had over-leveraged.  (You know, those silly banks were lending tons of money to just about anybody with a business plan a few short years ago.)  When markets started tightening, so did Clear Channel, and they no longer wanted to pay for higher salary morning teams – regardless of their success or following.  Jeff & Jer were out, and Clear Channel shifted a less expensive, less experienced morning team to their former station and time slot. Thus, AJ in the Morning is the winner of that game of musical chairs.

• Around the same time, Monique & The Man on Jack FM was cut down to just the lovely and talented Monique Marvez. Evidently having The Man involved was too expensive for ownership at KFMB.  Then in a very odd move, station management decided to reduce Monique’s live on-air time slot to just 5 – 5:30 am, playing music the rest of the time.  And just recently, she is off the air altogether and her contract is not being renewed.  Ratings at Jack FM continue to plummet in her absence.

• In another Clear Channel debacle, radio icons Dave, Shelly & Chainsaw on KGB suddenly got the ax as well.  Again, those pesky contract negotiations were listed as the culprit, and once again it was really because Clear Channel could not swallow the show’s high salaries. DSC fans staged protests they were so upset and angered.

• Then The Mikey Show on Rock 105.3 was suddenly absent (again Clear Channel  – seeing a pattern?) and fans lamented yet another loss of morning show talent.  Mikey is the only one to have cut a new deal, showing up for mornings now at FM 94.9.

This whole mess has left audiences reeling, radio dials spinning, and listeners not clear on where to listen – or why.  What’s more, it’s left the advertising industry in a bit of a quandry.  Rating points that were already a bit sketchy (see my previous blog spot on Arbitron ratings) are now completely unproven and unreliable.  Advertisers that have been buying radio based purely on ratings points can no longer trust that process.  Long time advertisers that were buying ad libs from proven on-air talent – these are spots recorded or spoken live by the deejay to endorse a particular product – can no longer have access to those familiar voices.  These were enormously popular – when Monique Marvez spoke about her personal experience in buying a Sleep Train mattress, her listeners would take that endorsement to heart.

Advertisers are left trying to figure out how to spend their radio budgets, or if they even should. So then, what now?

Truth is, radio has been – and will continue to be – an important part of the advertising mix.  Its immediacy and frequency allow an advertiser to reach their audiences with a message aimed at getting consumers to take action – right now.  With most radio listening taking place in the car, the assumption is that people are captive audiences.  And in the case of morning shows, audiences are accustomed to being entertained by personalities beyond just playing music.

Sure, the face of radio advertising has changed. It’s not as lucrative as it once was, and there is competition from digital radio like Pandora, iTunes, satellite radio like Sirius and many other sources.  Yet, none of those provide the familiarity, the down-home comfort and the city-centric knowledge and access that local radio can provide.

This too shall pass.  These radio personalities will find new homes where they can broadcast their morning shticks.  Radio stations will find new owners that will invest what they can in perhaps a new model for radio that is both profitable AND entertaining.  And consumers will play spin the dial until they land on a few new choices, perhaps hearing some familiar old friends.

There will always be a need for the Jeff & Jers of the world, because we want to be entertained.  Even more important than that, these iconic morning teams have provided a common thread for our greater community that few other outlets can even come close to.  The familiarity of their voices, their jokes and their laser-sharp knowledge of San Diego represent a shared touchpoint for our city.

And that is worth money.  The question is, how much?