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Tell Your Mobile Story at CTIA

This May, the wireless industry will gather for one of its biggest events, CTIA Wireless. In addition to the trade show packed with vendor booths, the event will offer a variety of educational sessions. This presents an excellent opportunity for executives at forward-thinking wireless and mobile companies to position themselves as thought leaders at one of the industry’s most significant events. CTIA is currently accepting proposals for potential panelists and presenters at the event. This is an excellent way to build a reputation as a leader in wireless. Here are some of the tips we offer to our clients seeking speaking positions.

•    Develop your proposal around a hot topic. The mobile industry is innovating quickly in a number of areas, from mobile payments to mobile device management, machine-to-machine communications and dozens of other areas that impact both consumers and businesses. These sweeping trends are catching the attention of CTIA attendees – your buyers. The speaking organizers at CTIA have assembled an agenda that helps explain emerging trends to attendees. In your proposal, focus on the emerging and broad trends where you can offer expertise.

•    Struggling to find a topic that’s best for you? Engage in discussion with analysts in your market space and ask them what they’re hearing from the industry. Your investors can also be useful in providing a bird’s-eye view. Also comb through magazines and blogs for the hot topics that are most relevant to the industry.

•    Develop relationships with decision-makers at CTIA. On a daily basis, CTIA staff and executives communicate with the industry’s leaders. Meet with influential leaders at CTIA team to share your opinions about industry trends from the front lines. You may then find yourself invited to speak on a panel.

•    Propose a full panel, not an individual speaker. Executives from the leading companies in the mobile industry are chosen as keynote speakers and panelists. However, if you’re with a smaller company, you’ll need to get strategic. Think of the relationships you’ve built and leverage them. Is there a well-regarded analyst that shares your views? Do you have a customer that can provide real-world insight into your topic? How about a key partner from a highly visible wireless organization? Assemble a panel with all of these experts and offer an irresistible proposal to CTIA.

•    If you are invited to speak at CTIA, pull out all the stops to make sure you ace the assignment. The CTIA staff closely monitor the success of individual speakers and panels. If your session attendees rate you highly, you have a greater chance of being invited back.

Make sure to get your speaking submission in by the deadline of January 15th. The competition for speaking opportunities is high, but the time spent in crafting a successful abstract is well worth the effort.

Need guidance in preparing a speaking submission? For further insight contact Schwartz MSL Boston at (781) 684-0770. The agency’s wireless practice represents some of the leading companies in mobile, and we can help you, too.

Posted by Joe Palladino on January 11, 2012 at 10:23 AM
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The Twitterverse's Response to President Obama's Speech

Today there is a lot of discussion going on about President Obama's speech and issues around it. Here on the Crossroads blog we tend to not discuss politics, so I will leave the political analysis to others. But I wanted to compare and contrast what President Obama said last night to the Twitterverse's reaction to what he said - so we as professional communicators could see if his message was championed by the people who watched and engaged via social media.

The results were surprising.

The word cloud shows that President Obama clearly focused on jobs, economy, people, business, tax, and companies.

The Twitterverse called out something different:

It is interesting to note that of the words President Obama said, only economy was used frequently. Surprisingly, job/jobs was barely discussed, users on Twitter preferred the term "work."

Also of note, there were more than 20,000 "spam" tweets using the term Obama in the past 24 hours. (Unless I missed something and Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus and Beyonce really have something to do with the political discourse.)

Posted by Mark McClennan on September 9, 2011 at 8:43 AM
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The power of simplicity

Take a look at the billboard below. Do you think this is effective communications or not?

I took a photo of this billboard as I was driving through Connecticut. I was convinced this was one of the worst billboards I had seen in my life.

Yes, the message was simple. If you are injured, you should get Carter.

I love simplicity, and frequently point out that a simple message delivered with a 10 lbs. sledgehammer can be very effective.

But sometimes simplicity goes a bit too far.

• Carter who?
• Most importantly, how do I “Get Carter?”

There is no phone, no email, no twitter, no address, no Website. The full name is in tiny print that is tough to see as you are speeding by.

I knew who to get (but not why), but had no way of getting him.

I was pretty set on writing a fairly critical post about the billboard. But then I did what millions of people do. I Googled it. The search was simple – Injury Carter.

The results are below:
 

What do you think?

Posted by Mark McClennan on June 16, 2011 at 10:28 AM
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Three cool new ways to shorten your URLs and give your brand a boost

There seems to be no shortage in innovation around the short URL. Still shortening with Bit.ly? You’re so 2010! To be fair, Bit.ly continues to offer new functionality, most recently with the even shorter J.mp option. But if you want to do something exciting with your short URLs - while creating more visibility for your brand, here are three new tools to try:

Bre.ad – Still in private beta, we’ve been excited about trying Bre.ad ever since Ben Parr reviewed it on Mashable because it offers the opportunity to promote your brand every time someone clicks on one of your short URLs. With Bre.ad, you create a webpage (called a Toast) that promotes your brand (or product, promotion, etc). When one of your followers or fans clicks on your Bre.ad link, they’ll see your Toast for five seconds before being redirected to the webpage you’ve linked to. Ever the early adopter, Lady Gaga is already using it.

YOURLS – Promote your own company instead of the tool you’re using by creating custom URLs with YOURLS (your own URL shortener). Simply install YOURLS on your server, buy a short domain, point the short domain at your website and you have your own shortening service. 

BridgeURL – BridgeURL is brilliant when you want to share a collection of links. You enter your list – favourite YouTube videos, top  restaurants to visit during a trade show, mediacoverage, to name a few potential examples, and BridgeURL presents them as a slideshow. Try it here http://bit.ly/jm5Z3M and see a collection of our consumer clients. 

Posted by Annie Klein on May 25, 2011 at 12:20 PM
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Salesforce/Radian6 Deal Reinforces the Power of Listening

Today, Salesforce announced its plan to acquire Radian6 for ~$326 million in cash and stock. Radian6 is one of the main social media monitoring and engagement tools we use at Schwartz Communications. This is good news for Radian6 employees, but what are the takeaways for the industry?

To my mind, it all boils down to another company betting that even more companies will realize the power of listening, and as a corollary, the power of engaging. Salesforce.com is one of the top sales and CRM solutions.

This is enhanced when you add inbound marketing companies, such as Hubspot, that can help sales and marketing nurture the most valuable customers and promising prospects. That is one reason Hubspot makes such a big deal of their Salesforce integration.

The social listening (and to a lesser extent engagement) offerings provided by Radian 6 are another piece in the customer engagement puzzle.
 

Good PR has always strived to understand the needs and desires of the customer and other key stakeholders. Only by understanding them can we give the most effective counsel to the organizations we represent. The future tie-in of sales/crm, social listening and nurturing should help companies develop deeper, more meaningful and effective relationships with their customers.

I am intrigued by the possibilities of this acquisition, but it will be interesting to see how it proceeds.

Some of Radian6’s greatest weaknesses are Salesforce's strengths. But I can also see the volume of data that Radian6 regularly captures overwhelming the needs and desires of many users and too much less than useful information being integrated into the Salesforce contact stream. As my wife often tells me, just because you hear what I am saying, doesn’t mean you are listening. The data is only good if it is processed and acted upon.

I don’t think this is the final piece of the puzzle. Integrating capabilities such as Rapleaf into the new Salesforce/Radian6 would create some very targeted and meaningful monitoring and lead to even greater success.

No matter how this acquisition proceeds, the winners will be the companies that increasingly engage with their customers through tailored, proactive communications.

Posted by Mark McClennan on March 30, 2011 at 11:17 AM
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Digital videos - keep it real!

 Samsung expected to make a big splash at last week's CTIA Wireless conference with its unveiling of a new Galaxy Tab. They didn't, however, count on a lot of online flak regarding the video they produced to support the launch. Harry McCracken, editor of Technologizer, makes a pretty compelling case that the "real-life" users in the video are actually paid actors. His posts have attracted a good deal of attention and quite a few reader comments. What does this have to do with the merits of the new Tab and how it stacks up against the iPad 2? Absolutely nothing - and that's exactly Samsung's problem. 

Well produced videos have the ability to convey an organization's story in a quick, compelling manner. And, hopefully, a sense of trust is established with the target audience. In order to ensure this bond, it should be assumed that discerning viewers will do a little digging to make sure that the claims made by a company are factual. It doesn't have to be many viewers. All it takes is one viewer unearthing something questionable - and the viral power of the Internet may take over, potentially doing serious damage to a company's campaign. 

There are times when it makes sense to use hired actors in a video. But any time the project involves customer testimonials, there is no substitute for the genuine emotions and experiences of real users. They may not spit out the PR team's key messages exactly as scripted, but audiences aren't interested in robots reciting lines. Nothing resonates better than honesty. 

Be creative, but be completely up front with your audience. Trying to gain traction against competitors like Apple is tough enough; having the attention of customers and industry thought leaders diverted by such silly miscues only makes the challenge more formidbale. No matter what you do, keep it real!

Posted by John Moran on March 29, 2011 at 3:54 PM
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Responding to Facebook Attacks: Companies Weigh In At SxSW

The last day of SxSWi 2011, I decided to take a brief foray into crisis management, specifically looking at how brands respond to Facebook attacks. The dynamic session was highlighted by Dell and Intel discussing how they handled the issue of brand attacks.
 

Ekaterina Walter, Intel’s social media strategist and Laura Thomas, a senior consultant at Dell who oversaw its Facebook presence consolidation, provided a few helpful tips that I thought made sense to share with our readers. While many of these are common sense, they shared some good data:
 

• Facebook interaction changes perception—Over the past year, Dell interacted with more than 5,000 customers on Facebook. A set of them had 98% negative view/comment of Dell. After the Facebook interaction, 36% of the 5,000 publicly expressed satisfaction.

• Social media crisis response still requires planning—Organizations need to have the right policies and procedures in place, but they also need to test them. Ekaterina from Intel shared an example where Intel had the listening tools in place, and the listeners alerted one department, but not her. This showed they needed to have more practice drills. Companies should plan a few social media crisis drills/year.

• Explain your actions—If you are turning comments off, not responding to certain posts, or deleting certain posts, clearly explain why. Laura  @Dell emphasized “Make sure you set up at the very beginning what you will/won't allow and enforce it.” For example, Dell allows negative comments but not R-rated language.  They will highlight that a response was deleted due to profanity.
   

Another example that was shared by the panel: A Mayo clinic radiologist had allegedly made some racist comments. Protesters went in and posted the comments on Mayo’s Facebook wall.  Mayo allowed the negative comments to run for 2-3 days, then created a discussion tab and thread there, and they posted to the wall, they had moved the discussion there, and if people continue to post on the wall, those posts will be deleted.

• Volume (both positive and negative) matters—According to panelists, just 0.02% of posts on Facebook make it into people’s “Top News” feeds. This means a lot of Wall discussion is only seen if you visit the site. If you want to be visible, you need to encourage conversation on the Wall, not on discussion boards. Or as I like to say it: “Links are Google Juice, Wall Posts are Facebook Juice.” 

Do you have other tips you would like to share?
 

Posted by Mark McClennan on March 18, 2011 at 1:07 PM
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2011 NCAA March Madness Social Media Power Rankings

For the past few years, to critical acclaim, the Schwartz Communications Research Group has conducted the NCAA Social Media College Basketball Bracket Analysis (we believe we were the first to do it in 2008). As a PR firm that deals with high-tech, healthcare and services companies, we live social media every day and have a love of metrics. Therefore, we asked ourselves what if the schools in the Big Dance had to compete based on their social media prowess, not their hoop skills? I mean, forget guard play, or how the Orangemen’s zone has been inconsistent…

Two members of the research group (Mark McClennan and Bill Bode) carefully evaluated the field of 64 and had the teams face off solely on social media skills and came up with a power ranking for each school. We kept the NCAA seeds and let them face off.

You may question - does this really work? Well in 2008, the NCAA Social Media Power Rankings were one of the few to predict Davidson's tremendous run deep in the tourney - so mock it at your peril.

How was the power ranking determined? It was determined by (# of Facebook users in the School/Team group or fan page (whichever was larger)/number of students at school according to Wikipedia). Note: Yes that includes alumni, but they count as fans in the stands cheering on the team. And if the students didn't join their schools network or the groups were hard to find...we considered that they didn't show up for the game. We recorded it in Excel and took it from there.

Is it mathematically perfect? No. But wait to you see our plans for next year! Do we encourage wagering on games or any other activity which may take this as anything other than entertainment - no.

Without further ado:

You can see the full size bracket. here. View image

As for surprises?

• Ohio State runs away with it all. They have a SMPR of 14.95.
• Butler is a strong #2 with a SMPR of 13.47
• While Duke does well (8.29) it runs into a reinvigorated Texas team (8.98)
• SDSU is the weakest #2 seed, and one in the weakest in the tourney (0.36) but it manages to squeak out a first round win.
• The biggest buzzer beater? Wisconsin (2.064) vs. Kansas St (1.987) for a difference of 0.07.
• The East and West Brackets are the toughest draw with 7 of the top 10 SMPR teams

The top 11 Schools by SMPR

• Ohio State 14.95
• Butler 13.47
• Kentucky 12.81
• University of Texas 8.98
• University of Florida 8.76
• Duke 8.29
• U of Michigan 6.09
• Syracuse 6.07
• Texas A&M 5.36
• Notre Dame 4.963
• Mizzou 4.950

Posted by Mark McClennan on March 17, 2011 at 9:29 AM
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The American Idol Social Media Power Rankings

Many of us here are at Schwartz Communications and the Schwartz Research Group are huge fans of American Idol. Some of us for the singing, some for the drama and some for the pure joy of social media analysis and water cooler talk.

Every year, as the season unfolds, Ryan Seacrest talks about how many votes are cast…but anyone who has worked in politics or public affairs knows that in order to get out the vote, you need good connections. The two keys to winning American Idol are great performances and a great fan base.

Now that the Top 24 are known and the voting will be open to the American public beginning on Tuesday night, the Schwartz Research Group decided to look at which contestants are already using social media to reach out to their fans, and who has an engaged, grassroots campaign already underway. With the introduction of Facebook voting, social media will be even more important this year.

Like Seacrest likes to say, the results were...surprising.

Top Female:

For a larger Image, click View image

Top Male:

For a larger image, View image

Your Top Three:

Top Facebook

 Top Twitter

Twitter is Queen; Facebook is King

While Twitter is a great way to carry on conversations and engage one on one, it is still dwarfed by Facebook when it comes to the most popular way for fans to relate to American Idol contestants.
 

100% of the contestants had some Facebook presence (even if it was just 43 fans). Much fewer – 66% - had a Twitter presence (and 50% of the Twitter feeds were fan, and not contestant feeds).

If social media determined the Idol champ…today…it would be: Scotty McCreery (but frankly, the Research Group handicappers have him finishing 6th at best). McCreery also happens to be in the lead in VoteForTheWorst Fan voting…

The Bottom Three—When examining the 24, contestants Tatynisa Wilson, Rachel Zevita and Clint Jun Gamboa have the least overall social media fan engagement. With Tatynisa’s relative lack of air time, it will be interesting to see if and how that changes.

There is a definite gap between many of the contestants and it shows that some of them are already quite savvy in how they use social media. It will be interesting to see which gaps close and which expand.

What do you think about the contestants and their social media engagement?

Note: Photos courtesy of Fox. Followers and fan were determined on 2/25. Also, the Schwartz Research group does not believe it is just followers that matter. The intensity of their passion is also something that would need to be tracked over the coming weeks. Those contestants with the largest and most impassioned base are most likely to generate a high number of votes.

Posted by Mark McClennan on February 28, 2011 at 8:56 AM
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The Long Tail of SuperBowl Ads?

Earlier this week, I wrote about where the VW/Darth Vader SuperBowl ad failed (great ad, great for VW, little mention of the Passat). That caused me to ask myself about the long term social media impact of the SuperBowl ads. Thousands of people were tweeting about the #brandbowl, but after the game, social media discussion turned to identity fraud and other topics. Were these ads a $3 million one-time deal, or did they engender a longer discussion?

To check this, the Schwartz Research Group charted the conversation paths of 11 of the most popular ads according to BrandBowl and USA Today's AdMeter. The results were:

A larger version is available by clicking View image.

Looking at the discussion trends over time, only Chrysler, Groupon and Darth Vader/VW had any sort of notable discussion volume after the first day. All the ads had a slight bump the next morning as the social media world (and the marketing media) discussed what they liked and didn't like. Each of the three commercials had its own notable reasons for the way it performed.

Volkswagen - Notice the discussion around the ad started before the SuperBowl and it was still one of the most discussed commercials during the game. It was widely considered one of the best and has showed the most staying power.

Chrysler - While there are undoubtedly a few false positives in the chart, the Chrysler commercials received critical acclaim (and some pans) and were much discussed - particularly the 60 second Eminem/Detroit commercial.

Groupon - The negative reaction to the Groupon Tibet ad explains its initial spike and why the discussion has continued for so long - although it appears to be finally dying down.

So in the end, the best ads engendered discussion for at least a few days after the SuperBowl. But for most, the tweets and blog posts last just a little bit longer than the game itself.

Posted by Mark McClennan on February 10, 2011 at 8:16 AM
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How effective was the Volkswagen Darth Vader Ad?

For many people, the Super Bowl is as much about the ads as it is the game. USA Today has its ad meter, the Boston Globe was highlighting Brand Bowl and numerous pundits and bloggers rank the ads.

My favorite commercial of the night was the Volkswagen Passat Darth Vader commercial, which my six year old son had us watch three times (and led to a bedtime wish for that Darth Vader outfit). Volkswagen broke conventional wisdom with the ad - they put it on YouTube days before the game.

I was also monitoring Super Bowl ad discussions, and one chart the Schwartz Research Group created really jumped out at me.

Posted by Mark McClennan on February 7, 2011 at 8:06 AM
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The Lifecycle of Technology Keywords and Acronyms

Happy New Year!

The Schwartz Communications Research Group decided the best way to look ahead was to look back…specifically to look back at the lifecycle of the tech acronyms and buzzwords we have all grown to love (or hate).

This also gave us a chance to try Google Labs' new Ngram research tool. The search tool lets users examine the content of every book in the Google Books database, from 1800 to 2008, and determine how frequently a word appears. While this is by no means a comprehensive search, the database is large enough to identify some interesting trends.

For example this chart, which looks at some of the popular acronyms of the past few decades such as WYSIWYG and Y2K.

While WYSIWYG is no longer making headlines in PCWeek/eWeek, it is still used relatively frequently. And while Y2K spiked, its decline seems to be leveling off...

This chart takes a look at the rise of Google:

View image

For those looking for analysis of the baud wars, the format divide, jpg v gif and other topics, we have posted ten different research topics to Slideshare and it is available here.

We are always open to doing more research. Are their buzzwords for which you are interested in us tracking the lifecycle? Leave us a comment and let us know.

Posted by Mark McClennan on January 3, 2011 at 12:40 PM
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The power of personality to drive conversation: Baker v. Patrick

Sometimes when you analyze data, something jumps out at you that makes you really take notice. This morning, I was analyzing the social media volume and tone of the Charlie Baker and Deval Patrick campaign for Governor in Massachusetts. I had not paid much attention to it as Schwartz (and I) am not involved with either campaign.

Earlier this year, we analyzed the discussion around Brown vs. Coakley, and the data showed how Scott Brown clearly won the social media war (particularly among Twitter users).

When we analyzed social media conversations involving Patrick and Baker over the past 30 days, we found the following:

Overall, the conversation was relatively equal, with Patrick getting a bit more. But Gov. Patrick had a very significant spike on October 15 (which equaled 10% of all conversations involving Deval Patrick this month). The reason? President Obama came to Massachusetts to campaign for Gov. Patrick.

This really drives home the power of the presidency (and the power of personalities, influencers and mavens) to drive the conversation. There is nothing earth-shattering in the data, but it was interesting.

Some practical advice for all PR pros:

1) Look for influencers to help you move the needle on conversations.

2) Just because someone can generate discussion, doesn't make them influential. More in-depth analysis is required to determine if they just generate noise, or can shape the discussion and move opinion.

Posted by Mark McClennan on November 2, 2010 at 11:03 AM
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PR Victory: Most Headlines Are Free of Overused Buzzwords

News release headlines are meant to convey information, draw a reader in, and aid SEO. But have public relations pros fallen victim to buzzword abuse in news release headlines?

Thankfully, the answer is no.

Earlier this month the Schwartz Communications’ Research Group released a brief that examined news release headlines and SEO. After analyzing more than 16,000 news release headlines from Business Wire, we found that more than 86% of news release headlines do not contain any of the top 20 buzzwords. Of course, that also means that 14% (or about 2200 releases/month) do contain a top 20 buzzword in the headline.

"Top" was the most overused buzzword, and it was used in only 1.9% of releases. This was followed by "solution" (1.83%). Following is the full chart.

The point here isn’t to say that you must avoid using these buzzwords at all costs, but it’s much more important to use the keywords being used in searches by your company’s target audience.

If you are interested in more information on this or other news release SEO topics, such as

•    Are release headlines too long?
•    PR pros in which cities write the best headlines?

You can download the full research brief here

Posted by Mark McClennan on October 19, 2010 at 8:21 AM
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Only 18% of News Release Headlines are Optimized for SEO

The two most important elements for optimizing a news release headline are keyword inclusion and brevity. A company’s top keywords should be included in the headline when possible and should be placed early in the headline. In terms of brevity, a full release headline must be 65 characters or fewer to be fully displayed in Google.

Many search engine optimization (SEO) experts, including our experts here at Schwartz, advise that companies try to keep the characters in the headline under 70 characters. Anything beyond that will be less effective in supporting a company’s SEO.

The Schwartz Communications Research Group, with invaluable help from Business Wire, analyzed the headlines of more than 16,000 news releases issued over Business Wire in a 31 day period (July 26, 2010 to August 25, 2010). Since Schwartz cannot know the keywords that thousands of companies are hoping to use to optimize their content and releases, the Schwartz Research Group focused on headline length as a success factor
.
The findings of this analysis were that the vast majority of PR practitioners are still not fully optimizing their headlines. (I am sure Schwartz is guilty of that as well from time to time.) Our analysis showed that only 18.4% of all releases have headlines with 65 characters or fewer.

While the majority of releases are under 150 characters, we did see some examples that were much longer than the recommended length. The most egregious cases were the 2% of releases with headlines in excess of 300 characters, with one headline that was over 1,000 characters. The shortest headline we found was 18 characters, which is also probably not ideal for SEO as it’s unlikely that enough of the company’s keywords were included. Overall, the analysis found the average headline length to be 123 characters.

This shows that many companies still have room to improve their press releases (even the social media releases).

The Schwartz Communications Research Group has written a Research Brief that takes a more in-depth look at this topic. If you would like additional analysis, including buzzword usage, a geographic analysis of effective headline writing and other headline analysis, you can download it here

Posted by Mark McClennan on October 12, 2010 at 8:27 AM
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What Mike Wise is Missing

This morning a crack member of the Schwartz Research team (Bill Bode) brought the recent Mike Wise kerfuffle to my attention. Basically, Mike Wise, a reporter for the Washington Post, was suspended for one month because he made up a story about Pittsburgh Steelers Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and tweeted it out. Some media outlets ran the story and some people retweeted it.

According to the Huffington Post, he claimed he did it to

1. See which news outlets would pick up his report, and
2. Show the inaccuracy of social media reporting.

Wise is missing one key thing. As a proven sports columnist for the Washington Post he has both authority and experience. For years, people have believed what Mike Wise wrote. People also put their trust in the Washington Post.

What he truly showed is how if a credible source wants to spread disinformation, they can have some success the first time, but will then destroy their reputation. This isn’t limited to social media. If an analyst put out a false report, people would use the data, until the analyst was exposed.

This problem goes back to well before the dawn of social media. Remember Janet Cooke (also of the Washington Post) who had her Pulitzer Prize winning story “Jimmy’s World” exposed as fabrication?  This was also showcased on WKRP in Cincinnati with Bailey Quarters and Les Nessman in the “Dear Liar” episode in Season four.

If I tweeted about Ben Roethlisberger and cited an inside source I knew at the NFL, no one would retweet it. Why?

1. I am not a sports reporter or blogger, and
2. Schwartz has great experience with technology, healthcare and green companies, but our football experience deals primarily with luminescent paper for championship game tickets – not with NFL headquarters.

So yes, Wise showed things can spread on Twitter and some folks don’t check their sources. But he is in actuality a better poster child for how someone with respect and authority can abuse their power, be caught and damage their reputation.

Posted by Mark McClennan on September 1, 2010 at 9:49 AM
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Press Release Buzzword Bingo

My post last week that highlighted the most overused words in a press releases was very well received. Since so many of you liked it, I decided to take it a step further and turn the top 25 buzzwords into Buzzword Bingo cards. I didn’t want to slight anyone, so I created one card based on Sherk’s recent post, and the other card based on David Meerman Scott’s post from last year.

Here they are for your viewing and reading pleasure. May you never complete a bingo!

Or download them as PDFs here:

Feel free to download, share and use as you want. Give copies to all the PR people with whom you work. Remember, only by acting together can we stop buzzword abuse.

For those that don’t know what Buzzword Bingo is, Wikipedia has a pretty good description.

Posted by Mark McClennan on August 25, 2010 at 8:54 AM
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When Social Media Customer Service Fails

More companies are turning to Twitter, Facebook and other social media channels every day for customer service. When it is done well it creates engagement and a deeper bond with a dissatisfied customer. It can also help publicly turn a dissatisfied customer into an advocate. It also saves money compared to call center operations.

These are all good reasons for using social media for customer service. By the key phrase in the above paragraph is “when it is done well.” Too often companies are not following through on their promises or not creating useful feedback. Paul Gillin wrote about it recently here.

I have my own story to share. It is with the Sheraton Hotel and Marina in San Diego and Starwood Hotels. I was at the hotel last week and was grabbing breakfast before a client meeting. The dining room was less than half full. My colleague and I ordered eggs. Thirty minutes later we were still waiting. We really needed to leave then to make the client meeting on time, but we figured if we drove fast, we would still be OK.

We saw the waiter and asked “Excuse me, do you know if our breakfast will be coming soon?” The waiters helpful reply “I don’t know, if you care so much, why don’t you go in the kitchen and ask the chef.”

To say I was displeased with the response (and the service) is an understatement. I tweeted it out, and within an hour had a response from @StarwoodBuzz “@McClennan Sorry to hear about breakfast. If you DM us your stay details, we can follow up with the hotel for you.”

This was a perfect, textbook response and I was quite pleased. I shared the details with Starwood. They respond and asked  me to follow them so they can DM back – even though no sensitive information is being shared, and if they lead with @McClennan, likely only I can see it.

The next day, I get a DM response “Thank you. I'm sending off your comments to the hotel so this can be improved 4 future guests. Pls DM if you wish to include your email add.”

There are a number of things wrong with that.

First, in business communications, there is no need to use “4”. We are engaged in a professional discourse. Second, it sounded from the first message that they were going to “follow up with the hotel for me” (i.e. do something about the situation). The personal message basically says, we will let the hotel know there is a complaint. Thanks. Bye.

I don’t need them to do that. I know how to call a manager, tweet and blog myself. Starwood Hotels failed by not providing a meaningful discussion once they engaged. I provided my email as requested, it’s been a week and I have not yet received a response from the hotel.

The end result? 1) A positive social media engagement turned sour and 2) The next time I am in San Diego, I will be staying in a Hilton.

What lessons can marketers, consumer and services public relations professionals take from this?

1. It is essential to listen to all social media channels, so you can address negative situations.
2. Listening isn’t enough – If you engage, you need to provide meaningful resolutions or you can do more harm than good.
3. Use DMs appropriately. Financial institutions and other regulated industries should use DMs. Hotels should not use DMs for form responses.
4. Use proper English in your response.

Posted by Mark McClennan on July 22, 2010 at 9:40 AM
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Public Relations Lessons From Gallipoli

Over the weekend, I finished reading Gallipoli by Alan Moorehead. It was an engrossing, powerful read. For those not familiar with Gallipoli, it was a major campaign in World War I involving the British, French, and ANZAC invading a Turkish peninsula. It is a defining moment in Turkish history. In total more than 130,000 people died and there were more than 500,000 casualties. It was also a campaign fraught with missed opportunities.

As I was reading it, I could not help but draw comparisons to some common public relations mistakes that are still being made today. While I know there are perils of adopting military campaigns to business, there are a few lessons that I thought would be good to share.

1. Don’t be blinded by the new way of doing things—New technology is great, but it rarely completely replaces proven systems. In the case of Gallipoli, some British Generals took the new lessons learned in France and made them the only way to do things, without adapting them to the local setting. They refused to advance without strong artillery (which they didn’t have) even though there were no trenches and few opposing forces. As a result, they gave the Turkish Army time to dig trenches and bring in more forces.

The same can be applied to communications. Social media is empowering. It is an essential component of great communications in the modern communications era. Without it, companies are missing great opportunities and their campaigns won’t be as powerful. But traditional media, influencers, mavens, messaging and listening still apply. Don’t be blinded and only pay attention to the shiny object, or you will miss opportunities. Make sure your communications campaign is designed for your specific needs, and not a cookie-cutter “Social Media Scenario #1.”

2. If you wait for every “i” to be dotted, you will lose – Careful planning and strategy is essential to any communications campaign (particularly consumer PR), but planning at the expense of decisive action is a recipe for failure. The same applies to communications. Careful research and strategy is essential. But there is always one more question that can be asked. There is the temptation to wait for the perfect opportunity (brand name customer reference, analyst data, etc.,) but those situations are few and far between. You need to find ways to communicate effectively without having everything you need.

3. Don’t be dissuaded by setbacks and changes– The British were dissuaded a number of times when they could have had decisive victory by a minor setback or something not going exactly to plan. We do not operate in a static world, and plans will change. As communications professionals, we need to adapt to those changes and continue forward. Don’t overreact to minor announcements from competitors or allow them to change your overall strategy. Focus on your goal and keep driving to it. You win by moving forward, not by retreating or moving laterally. The same applies to communications and public relations campaigns.

4. Trust your people – There were times in the invasion when the senior managers were well removed from the front and couldn’t react to a changing and fluid situation. Even more telling, the junior officers were trained not to move without command from superiors. As a result, there were numerous examples of when the British opened an unopposed new front, but did not advance, because the staff on the ground waited for orders. The opportunities were lost.

The same holds true in communications. Managers need to avoid becoming logjams. Trust your staff and encourage them to seize any opportunity they see. If you train them well, you will avoid the careless mistakes. But if every small decision must be centrally approved, you will miss many great opportunities.

Posted by Mark McClennan on July 6, 2010 at 8:16 AM
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Schwartz's Clients Take Home The Gold

Earlier this week, the Publicity Club of New England recognized the best public relations and social media campaigns and tactics of the past year. The Bell Ringer judges were senior practitioners from Chicago and Boston.

Schwartz is proud that we have continued the tradition of being recognized with more Bell Ringer Awards for work we have done with our clients than any other PR Agency in New England.

Most gratifying to us this year is that we won 10 Gold Bells for our clients, and that Schwartz was recognized for having the two best campaigns of the year, winning both Gold and Silver Bells, for its work in the business-to-business, healthcare and high-tech public relations categories.

When asked by many, how do we continue to win so many awards, we believe it is based on two key elements:

1)    As a strategic communications firm, we understand that we don’t succeed by ourselves. Schwartz works closely with our clients to make sure our communications, content and public relations activities help them realize their business objectives. It is this close relationship, senior level involvement and comprehensive approach - including social media, content marketing and inbound marketing services -  that help our programs succeed.

2)    We don’t expect our clients (or Bell Ringer  judges) to measure our work based on the “thud factor”, or in social media Thud 2.0. Our work, and our award entries, are judged on how we helped public relations close the loop with sales, patient recruitment or other business objectives.

For the 2010 Bell Ringer Awards, this ranged from driving qualified leads from trade articles to creating enough demand to crash one client’s servers. It included driving hundreds of patient inquiries to cutting consumer misperceptions in half. It is based on helping drive hundreds of thousands in product sales to opening new channels with key prospects.

We are proud of the work of our employees and our clients. If you have any questions about how we can help your company, let us know.

Posted by Mark McClennan on June 9, 2010 at 10:22 AM
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SABRE Rattling

Strong month for the Schwartz team with a SABRE Award in "Research for Publicity" for its work with Javelin Strategy & Research.

The Schwartz team and Javelin combined professional and social media to promote Javelin's annual identity fraud report, increasing media coverage 126 over previous years, and a whopping 97 percent of all articles emphasizing at least two key messages.

In addition to Javelin, some terrific clients were honored with nominations: medical device company Bioness, antivirus and desktop security software provider ESET and boutique healthcare investment services provider Leerink Swann. Although they didn't take home trophies, it's the first time Schwartz has emerged with four finalists in the SABRES and the work remains outstanding.

There's a great case study on Schwartz's work with Bioness, including a campaign that delivered $4M in sales leads. Check it out!

Posted by Bryan Scanlon on May 21, 2010 at 9:29 AM
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iStockphoto: 10 Years of the sensational, sublime, powerful and trite

Ten years ago today (April 7), iStockphoto launched. The site is one of the world's largest repositories on stock images (6.5 million stock photos).

Possibly no site has done more to help and to hinder corporate presentations. As such I wanted to give them a tip of the cap.

Seriously, iStockphoto (and its competitors) are a great resource for any marketing or public relations professional who has to create PowerPoint presentations, marketing collateral or a Website. They even have a pretty interesting 10 year celebration page (which they obviously spent more time on than many companies celebrating their 10th).

I also wanted to take a minute to share four iStock warnings.

1) Beware iStock overload - Not every slide needs a stock photo. Sometimes a small amount of standalone text on a slide works wonders.

2) "Downloads" is not your friend - The default search for iStock is "Best Match." But in talking to many communications professionals they immediately resort by "Downloads." Why? Sure it can get you an appropriate image that meets your criteria, but it is am image that often hundreds of thousands of people have used (Two hands shaking in front of a globe, anyone?). It gets you an image that has generic appeal, just like vanilla ice cream.

You want to use stock photo to enhance your presentation. Not repeat the same stuff as everyone else and dilute the value the image can bring. Spend the time to find the right photo for you needs. Find the outlier. That is how you can differentiate your presentation from the thousands of others people have sat through.

3) Don't settle - Sometimes even with 6.5 million stock photos you can't find what you need. When that happens, search elsewhere. If it is important enough, commission your own shoot. Powerful images can capture the attention of jaded executives who have suffered through years of PowerPoint Heck.

4) Downloading the photo isn’t the end – Once you have the photo, modify it to fit your needs. Schwartz’s designers have done simple edits of iStock images (changing a color here or there, or editing out a background) to make an image pop.

Stock photos are a boon. But they are the clay from which you can either mold a great presentation or create a river of mud.

Posted by Mark McClennan on April 6, 2010 at 12:30 PM
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Top News Source Surprise

I recently came across a new survey from the folks at the Pew Internet and American Life Project. They asked Americans how they get their news. Most get it from multiple channels - no surprise there. The channel results surprised me though.

The top three sources:
 

• 78% of Americans say they get news from a local TV station.
• 73% say they get news from a national network such as CBS or cable TV station such as CNN or FoxNews.
• 61% say they get some kind of news online.

At Schwartz we are one of the many who understand the sea change of social media. But it is good to take a step back and remind ourselves that just because we may be living on blogs, Twitter and Foursquare; and just because we read about declining broadcast ratings; local and national television news still have great power to inform and educate.  Communicators should not ignore these channels.

Posted by Mark McClennan on April 2, 2010 at 9:08 AM
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Live from CTIA-Will Green Practices Generate PR Buzz for Mobile Industry?

I started my day at CTIA yesterday at the IDC breakfast where we heard from several analysts with updates on semiconductor trends for mobile devices, sustainable practices in the mobile industry, and user interface trends.

On the semiconductor front, 4G won't bring in significant revenues for chip vendors until 2013 according to IDG. The big six vendors who control the lion's share of the market are offering platform and vertically integrated solutions to capture BOM and create stickiiness. More market consolidation is expected.

With corporate responsibility becoming a big part of branding and PR, the mobile phone industry has started to embrace sustainable practices. The first step is reducing packaging, which has an environmental impact (reduced landfill, lower emissions) as well as driving down costs of shipping and packaging manufacuring. Mobile vendors are also looking at hazardous waste reduction and handset recycling. Stephen Drake ranked Nokia highest in his green comparison of mobile vendors, with Sony Erickson and Apple in the numbers 2 and 3 spots.  

William Stofega looked at the various user interface approaches on mobile devices. He mentioned a few innovations worth checking out. Eye gaze technologies use gaze control for gaming. Synaptics in collaboration with TAT Design debuted a squeezable mobile device, the Fuse, late last year. Approaches that give the user a feeling of texture are on the horizon. He also predicted that patent wars over touch technology could decide which vendors win over the hearts and wallets of consumers.

I'm off to the show floor for the last day of CTIA 2010.

Posted by Carol McGarry on March 25, 2010 at 12:23 PM
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SxSW Day 3: Creating A Connection

The day started off with a great Social Media Breakfast Austin/SxSW where I had a chance to hang out with a few hundred other social media professionals. I saw some old friends and met a few new people with some really interesting companies. I ended up reconnecting with many of them at the Microsoft party later in the evening.

Compared to the first two days of the SxSW, the panels were interesting, but not as strong.

The first panel I attended took a look at the use of applications for extending the brand. The main takeaways were the iPhone is now the dominant brand platform, eclipsing Facebook (for the company has more control). The general consensus from the audience and panel ties into the theme I raised yesterday in my banking recap: The future is mobile. They also emphasized the brand needs to take a backseat in the application or consumers won’t stay engaged.

One if the most interesting points in the session was the debate over the use of apps for engaging consumers. The general consensus is one most consumer technology marketing people have heard for years “The days of brands doing traditional marketing are gone.  They need to engage customers in social dialogue and provide utility, or they won’t have lasting relationship.”

A strong counterargument that was advanced speaks for itself “I like toothpaste, but don’t want to have a two way conversation with it.”

That being said, what Charmin has done with mothers rating bathrooms shows the type of discussions one can have for common household items.

The second panel I attended was hosted by Scott Kirsner and dealt with effective ways to build a cult (or Facebook and Twitter followers…your choice). While there was little earth-shattering about the discussion, it reinforced that building a community usually takes time, it requires constantly refreshed new content and it has to *be* a community. Talking to customers does not draw a crowd. Talking *with* customers draws a crowd. The filmmaker he interviewed advocated letting fans be part of the process. Engage them. They them use your content, have fun with it and create new things. They will help promote your movie (or software) much more if they feel a sense of some ownership. The final important point was that if your content isn’t embeddable, it’s like you are leaving on a roadtrip without any gas.

Finally I attended a session with Peter Molyneux, one of the most influential game designers of the past 30 years. I went both because I have worked with many game companies and because the topic intrigued me – How can videogames speak to the heart? I thought there are lessons that could be applied to public relations and marketing. To my surprise, I think I was the only non-filmmaker or game designer in the room.

The first thing Molyneux said tied back to the first panel on mobile apps and the theme that emerged today. Movies can never engage like games. Movies want flaccid robots. Think about that in terms of traditional public relations or marketing, and now how PR has evolved. By making consumers’ voices heard, knowing they have a stake in your brand, companies can create an emotional connection they could never create through shouting.

So the question is, how are we as public relations professionals working to create that connection every day?

Were there other panels I missed? Let me know what you think about SxSW.

 

Posted by Mark McClennan on March 15, 2010 at 1:17 AM
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SxSW - Day 1: It's the Human Network

SxSW

It’s a good thing I am a morning person and registered early, as this line demonstrates. Many of the folks in the line missed the first sessions. (This is the line to get into the exhibit hall to register)

The first session at SxSW dealt with social media marketing, and while it covered many thing I already knew, there were a number of interesting insights to take from it. One of the points the speakers (Chris Winfield and Tony Adam) made is one I have been making for years – Web 1.0 (forums) still matter. The power of niche social media sites and networks can trump the power of Digg, Facebook and others. You eliminate much of the chaff and keep just the wheat.

Two key things I was reminded of in the session that I thought might be of interest to technology public relations pros:

1. When trying to find the most popular niche boards, http://rankings.big-boards.com/ is a good place to start.
2. Being engaged (without spamming) on Yahoo! Answers can also advance thought leadership campaigns.

The second session, with Brian Solis talking about the themes in his new book, Engage, was a great session packed with good advice. A lot of it was a positive reaffirmation of what many companies engaging in social media are already doing, but there were some new ways of thinking about things that he drove home. He seems to have taken the Tipping Point categories and expanded on them to identify the types of people that you tend to interact with on social networks, and how you can impact their hearts and minds. This has some intriguing implications and is with thinking about much more than most people do.

He also reinforced a point from the first session. The networks don’t matter, the channels will change, it’s the human network that we are all a part of that is truly driving and advancing the social media change and the impact it is having on business. Companies that enter the network in the right way can have a significant impact. Those that do not, may do OK, but will never excel.

He also drove home a point Schwartz’s president, Bryan Scanlon, has been making quite a bit recently  - listening and talking aren’t enough. You need content to drive the discussion. Every company is now its own CNN, and they need to promote what they do, listen, and interact. They can’t rely on the media to give them pre-made programs (articles) anymore. There is much more to the channel than their ever was and technology, consumer, green, and healthcare PR pros need to pay attention.

Some other elements on which I will expound in more detail in later posts include:

1. Most social networks are matriarchies
2. The social compass is a good guide to developing a coherent and effective social media strategy
3. Social media engagement fails if there is not a human in some way associated with the brand
4. B2B Tech companies were the first to adopt social media with developer forums. There are benefits many B2B tech companies are overlooking.
5. Banks and other location based venues should look at foursquare. Now 1500 venues are giving rewards to their mayors and driving traffic and deeper relationships.

Check back tomorrow for more highlights from SxSW.

If you are reading this and at the conference, what were some of the best lessons you learned today?
 

Posted by Mark McClennan on March 13, 2010 at 12:41 AM
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Branding for the Better

The brand and messages a company starts with usually don't last forever. Markets evolve and with them so do a company's strategy, product/service offerings, competitors, level of recognition and customer expectations. These days, it’s important to be flexible and to be able to adjust with forces within and external to the company.

We enjoy working with our clients to ensure their messaging resonates with the media. One client, Phytel, which provides physicians with technology to deliver timely, coordinated care to their patients, spent a couple of months on a branding exercise. The executive team put its assumptions aside and took a hard look at the following questions with a fresh set of eyes going into 2010.

What does Phytel do well?
What do our customers value?
What is the area of the market that we can own (or lead)?

These are questions that can help define Phytel’s brand or promise to its customers, while helping to position Phytel in the marketplace. After dozens of interviews with key clients, internal interviews and thought leaders in the industry, they analyzed the results and did more brainstorming. They realized the market is Population Health Management. The new tagline is:  Engaging Patients. Better Outcomes.

This is an excellent result for several reasons. First, it truly captures what Phytel does. Second, it’s not a seismic shift, but rather something the company can grab onto and take with it for many years. It won’t be a hard message to portray to its customers or the media. In fact, they tried it on for size at HIMSS last week. The VP of marketing told me journalists understood the message and reacted very favorably.

One aspect I liked about the approach Phytel took in its branding exercise was that it consulted with employees and customers. As Tony Roberts, a change management expert, suggests, “Employees mustn't feel like they are losing their identity for no reason. It can't be done by management dictates -- 'We are changing.' Anything to do with the brand needs consultation with employees and customers to let them have their say."

I might also point out that this new message isn’t a drastic change, but rather one that will better portray the company’s identity and direction going forward from both the sales and PR angles. Phytel understands its brand is evolving and improving with the times, but not changing the core identity drastically. 

Posted by Davida Dinerman on March 8, 2010 at 11:28 AM
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Traditional and Social Media Intersect, Reinforce Each Other: PRWeek Interview with Bryan Scanlon

Traditional and social media relations are connected and shouldn't be viewed as "either/or," Schwartz Communications President Bryan Scanlon says in a new video interview with PRWeek.

He describes how the agency, which serves established and entrepreneurial businesses in industries that include healthcare, technology, cleantech and professional services, performed over the past year and notes that our diversification across industries, lack of reliance of a handful of big clients for revenue, and ability to span social and traditional media at a time when many agencies push one over the other were sources of strength in 2009.

Bryan also answers questions about agency and client PR workloads in 2010 and notes that the recession has forced both ends of the PR team to focus on the highest value activities--those that help bring sales leads, drive website visits and close sales.

Check out the full interview at PRWeek.

Posted by Laura Kempke on February 23, 2010 at 5:50 PM
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Should the Company Blog Be Part of the Company Website?

Technology companies that don't blog but know they should often ask where, exactly, they should blog. Should it be a part of the corporate website or kept separate on a platform like TypePad or Blogger? 

Here are the basic factors that I take into account when I get this query:

- Most blogs, and hopefully all of those run by companies, have clear themes. If the general topics that the blog explores are in line with the messages that the business is trying to disseminate, it makes a lot of sense to have the blog on the company website and not hosted somewhere else. Readers will be able to easily jump from your blog to other resources that live on your website and vice versa.

- Plus, if you know you've got great stuff to say and think others might even want to link to your blog, having those inbound links pointing to your website and not to a site like TypePad should, over time, help elevate your site in the eyes of search engines. That's not likely to be the case immediately, but if you go with a blogging platform now--maybe you think it'll be more convenient--and figure you'll move your posts over to your company's website later, don't expect hard-earned links to follow you.

On the other hand, there are perfectly good reasons for separating the company website and blog:

- If your blog will focus on a brand that you're marketing to a different audience than the group of people who typically visit your website, you may do well to have the blog separate from the website and just link to one from the other. In this case, you may benefit (from branding and SEO standpoints) from being able to choose a different domain name and from being able to promote two distinct information resources. This arrangement makes sense if a company is trying to raise awareness of a medical condition, for example, but not promote its own products. It may also be the best course if an open source project has a large and active community apart from the project's corporate sponsor.

- Perhaps people from outside of your company regularly contribute to your blog and need to make clear that they're not too closely affiliated with the business. A situation such as this, where the blog may be viewed as a community resource--albeit one funded and largely driven by one vendor--may also be a good candidate for being hosted separately from the corporate site.

- If the blog isn't a company resource per se, but is really the CEO's or CTO's latest thoughts on a range of topics, it's likely best to host the blog elsewhere and just link to it from the company website.

In sum, I think the blog is best housed in the corporate website for the convenience of readers and to support SEO and branding unless the company intends the blog for a slice of its normal audience, has a specific need to separate brands or wants to underscore that an exec's musings are purely his or her own.

For some detailed discussions on how to run an effective corporate blog, check out the Online Marketing Blog. For example, see the "Impact of Blogging on Search Engine Optimization."

And just because I think it's got some great recommendations on finding new topics to blog about, "100+ SMB Blogging Ideas to Kick Start 2010" from Small Business Trends.

Posted by Laura Kempke on February 9, 2010 at 3:15 PM
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When business decisions negatively impact your brand

Last night it was announced that the Philadelphia Eagles have signed Michael Vick. Every brand in the NFL is a consumer brand, and for the most part they try to give off a family friendly image. In one fell swoop the Eagles went from this:

To this:

For sports fans, this means the Eagles may have a better team this year. Operationally it may make sense for the organization. But it will be interesting to see how this plays out over the long term. I will be most interested to see how the Eagles handle this PR challenge and the role the Eagles PR team played both internally and externally. It is the role of the PR counselor to stand up and point out when business decisions may have a deleterious effect on a company's brand.

I would be surprised if the Eagles PR staff did not do so.

In my opinion, the Eagles brand has been tarnished. The goodwill the team has built up over the years (and the great community and PR work done by Donovan McNabb and his mother) has taken a short term hit.

What lessons can PR professionals take from the Eagles/Vick signing?

1) When presented with a choice like this in your company, remember you are the voice of the brand and the public with whom the company interacts. You need to make sure executives look at the potential negatives of any business decision.

2) Practice, practice, practice - Make sure everyone is on board with the same message. Judging by today's media coverage, the Eagles appear to have done a phenomenal job with Andy Reid, Donovan, Tony Dungee and Vick. It you are going to do something that may negatively impact your brand, do it quickly and have a uniform message. Make sure you keep the lines of dialogue open to those that may have concerns.

3) Monitor and respond - The Eagles (not surprisingly) seem to be doing a great job responding to inquiries on all fronts. If a consumer brand is doing something its core customers may not like, it should not limit itself to just the "friendly" channels.

Be sure to monitor and engage social media and provide people the information they need. The Eagles Website has videos from the press conference and stories. The blog has some good content. I would have counseled them to take it a step further and have a fact sheet and easy access to official quotes (and audio) so any blogger/reporter can use them. I did a quick search and couldn't find an official Eagles presence on Twitter, and this is currently one of the top Twitter topics. This is something they should consider for the future. Not because it is the hot social media channel, but because their fans are there and actively engaged.
 

Posted by Mark McClennan on August 14, 2009 at 1:37 PM
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Remembering those who touched our lives

These past few weeks have brought news of quite a few passings, but the one that touched me most was the one I heard of last night - the passing of Oscar Mayer. Compared to the coverage given to some of those who passed recently, coverage of his death was a blip, yet his legacy and his company's consumer marketing savvy have had a profound impact on American culture.

For full disclosure, back in the early 90s, I can *this* close to becoming a "Hotdogger" and driving the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile. There are thousands of applicants each year, and I made it to the round of 36 that are flown to Madison, but I didn't quite cut the mustard and was not one of the 12 chosen to drive the 32 foot long hot dog.

What impressed me then, and what impresses me still today is how Oscar Mayer has the pulse on its brand identity and what its brand means to consumers. The Weinermobiles have become iconic, but they also represent 12 full-time brand ambassadors who are getting the pulse of the consumer in ad hoc focus groups every day, reinforcing the brand identity and helping keep it prominent. If you asked, I bet the jingle could still be sung by hundreds of millions of people today.

Luckily, for consumer and consumer technology companies today, they don't need to spend millions to interact with their customers. Social media is allowing them to have deeper, more direct and greater interactions with their customers. For companies without the budget enjoyed by the Weinermobile, this is a very good thing.

But for just a minute, I would like to observe a moment of silence, for a co-founder of one of the leading, innovative consumer brands. RIP, Oscar Mayer.

Posted by Mark McClennan on July 9, 2009 at 8:50 AM
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Change: Lessons found in a soft drink bottle

In the consumer product and consumer technology world, companies inevitably want to keep things 'fresh' and 'new'. There is a long history over why this is a good thing and how it helps sales. I am a firm believer that in the consumer space you always need to be willing to try and do fresh and new things, but you don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I experienced this on a personal level recently with the change to the Pepsi logo and packaging. There was a great hubbub about this in the blogosphere a while ago, so I won't rehash it, but Pepsi changed its logo and its coloring. I am a committed Diet Pepsi drinker, but the change to silver confused me and I have to think before making a purchase (Diet Pepsi would sometimes be white, but now white is Caffeine Free).

Giving consumers a chance to pause before making a purchasing decision is rarely a good thing.

To exacerbate the situation, Pepsi has introduced Diet Pepsi Vanilla. Same packaging, but a vertical 'Vanilla' in small red lettering.

Needless to say, I didn't see the small lettering and bought one accidentally recently. I took a sip, expecting regular Diet Pepsi, and was surprised and unhappy with the new flavor. My resolution - avoid the confusion and conscious analysis I would have to make and just buy Sprite (my 2nd favorite drink) in the store in the future. Since Sprite is a Coke product, I am not sure Pepsi will like it.

There are valid reasons for Pepsi making the choice it did, and they can afford to lose my business temporarily. But smaller, entrepreneurial consumer companies need to look at all aspects of change. What will this do to our base? Will it energize them or cause cogitative dissonance. Is the dissonance so great we don't want to move forward? This doesn't apply to just packaging, but to social media campaigns, changes in the Website and all other content creation. Companies invest heavily in building brands. Consumers make the brands their own and come to expect certain things.

Change is great. It's the only way innovation happens. But be sure to always allow time to plan out the different scenarios. It’s the only way to truly identify the best change and the right time for change.

Posted by Mark McClennan on May 29, 2009 at 9:36 AM
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Twitter vs. Your Brand

Amazon has been on a PR rollercoaster ride since Sunday when gay-themed books began disappearing from the sales rankings and search algorithms. The Twitterverse immediately swung into action claiming a new anti-gay policy and AmazonFail soon eclipsed Easter as a hot topic. Although the sales rankings are returning to normal, the story rolls on with coverage of why and how the site changed and even a claim of responsibility from a hacker. 

This turn of events clearly demonstrates how social media compresses the timeline for managing a crisis. It also illustrates an important rule of PR: Either proactively manage your brand or the Twitterverse and other online communities will do it for you.

With that motto in mind, here a few general tips to create and protect consumer brands in today’s communications landscape.

1)    People on Twitter are typing what others are thinking. Don’t discount the opinions expressed on Twitter or any other online channel as the “vocal” minority. Vocal yes. Minority, probably not.

2)    Don’t let the conversation be one sided. The mantra of social media is – “Join the conversation.” Listen just as much (if not more) than you talk online. The good news is that, by establishing a rapport, you have the ear of the community when you need it.

3)    Use the rapport. Do not walk away from the conversation when it matters most. The Amazon Twitter feed’s last update was on April 9, the Friday before this all broke. The Amazon corporate feed primarily features tweets about the Amazon Daily blog. Even though the Twitter feed stopped, the Amazon Daily rolled on. The Amazon Daily on Monday (day 2 of the situation) featured a number of book and product reviews. There was more timely content too: reports on the Obama’s new dog and Phil Spector’s guilty verdict. The CTO of Amazon kept on Tweeting, just not about the controversy.

4)    What happens in the Twitterverse doesn’t stay in the Twitterverse. Obviously, the mainstream media follows what happened at Amazon but many smaller events cross over every day. In fact, most reporters are actively using Twitter to track trends, find resources and hunt for story ideas.

5)    Brand management in the social media realm is an ongoing process. Just ask Southwest Airlines, which furthers its reputation as a customer centric brand every day by using its Twitter feed as a very public demonstration of fast, effective customer service in action.
 

Posted by Emily Fisher on April 14, 2009 at 5:13 PM
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