Category Archives: public relations

April 2, 2013 · 8:21 AM

Does Technology Serve You?

I would like to sincerely and publicly thank the men and women who volunteer to run the poling stations in our fair city, especially the one where I’ve voted for the past 14 years. Two and sometimes three times each year, they leave their warm beds to head for the church so that I can exercise my sometimes misguided right to vote. So, thank you.

This year, however, our beloved volunteers had a new challenge…an iPad-based electronic voter registration list that scans the bar code on your driver’s license to find your name in the registry. No longer will the volunteers have to struggle with the old cumbersome binders full of women (and men) to find the registered voter! It’s all electronic now.

Unless the name on your driver’s license is William and you’re registered to vote as Bill.

Now, I personally wasn’t in any particular hurry, and didn’t suffer any inconvenience (they did find my name reasonably quickly), but I did ask myself while watching the volunteers fumble with the iPad whether this was truly a better solution.

Oddly, this is the second time in two days where technology has been a hindrance rather than a help.

Yesterday, my better half suggested that I get reservations lined up for Mother’s Day, and forwarded an e-mail she’d received from one of her favorite restaurants, offering to make said reservations at the click of a link.

Being the world’s greatest husband, I clicked through, only to find that not only could I not get a table for 15 at 11:30, or for the two-hour window before or after 11:30, but there were no open reservations within 30 days of May 12. WTF?

“This can’t be right,” I thought. And it wasn’t. A five-minute telephone call to the restaurant netted a reservation for 15 at 11:15.

Technology is a wonderful thing. It can speed your day, organize your life, enable you to connect with long-lost friends and family, and access the world’s collective knowledge at the click of a button.

But how are you using technology to make the human experience more convenient, enjoyable, productive, joyful?

Sometimes I wonder who serves whom.

Is There No Such Thing as Bad Publicity?

I am a huge fan of Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Gay. In all the world, only my brother Evan can make me laugh louder or harder. But his column today on the gawd-awful new basketball uniforms adidas has created for my beloved Jayhawks and other unfortuate D1 programs has me wondering if there really is “no such thing as bad publicity.” As a PR pro, I’ve long counseled clients to err on the side of caution when seeking attention.

“Better to keep silent and be thought a fool, than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”

– Mark Twain

But lately I’m not so sure. As Gay points out in his column, by talking about adidas’ hideous new designs, he is in fact, achieving the publicity goals aiddas had in mind. Even if everyone and his brother (including mine) is ripping the new uniforms, we’re all talking about them.

And maybe that’s where we are as a society in the year 2013. Perhaps Oscar Wilde was right:

“The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”

In an age where Honey Boo Boo, Duck Dynasty, the Kardashians, etc. are rich and famous and I scuffle along, perhaps I’m the outlier.

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Filed under Issues Management, public relations, Uncategorized

Tagged as adidas, Jason Gay, Wall Street Journal

November 19, 2012 · 9:41 AM

When It Comes to Brands, Character Trumps Reputation

“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”
— John Wooden

It’s time to examine your “brand character.”

Today, your customers have the ability to see the difference between perception and reality.

Historically, marketers and agencies focused their resources on building reputations for their products and services. At first, mass media advertising was sufficient. Then we saw the era of PR take hold. Ries & Ries correctly noted that brands are built using PR and defended using advertising.

Now we’re into the days of social media. Your brand does not belong to you any longer, it belongs to those who feel passionately about your brand one way or another. And the true nature of your character will always come through.

When it comes to marketing success, your character—who you truly are—will ultimately be exposed, so it’s important to be honest when constructing your reputation—your brand—as you want it to be known by others.

As Bob Garfield correctly points out, you cannot spend your way to marketing success.

In the end, Garfield observes, the person-to-person passion for the President outweighed the Romney-SuperPAC advertising machine. And I suppose that’s true, although roughly 49 percent of Americans have already judged the President’s brand character to be out of synch with his brand reputation, and we have yet to see how the Affordable Care Act and other Obama-driven initiatives will affect the country.

In my opinion, the President’s re-election is less about his reputation matching his character than it is about Romney having his reputation (and character) defined for him early in the election cycle. His “47 percent” speech was likely his undoing, serving as Exhibit A for the opposition’s point that Romney’s character and reputation were aligned against the average American.

Character is how you behave when no one is watching. The trouble today is that people are watching even when you think they’re not.

Reputations take time to build and can be quickly lost, especially when you or your company are resistant to owning your own humanity (assuming corporations are people…or at least managed and staffed by people).

There will come a time when you make a mistake. When you do, own it. Apologize. Seek forgiveness. Learn. And move on.

Ad Campaign May Make Me Smarter and More Distinguished

The good people at Boston University hit the jackpot yesterday with an article in The New York Times profiling their new ad campaign.

As a proud alum (B.S., College of Communication, 1990), I’m hoping the ads resonate with the folks who compile all those “best colleges” lists and help drive applications. According to the story, the campaign, developed by Watertown, Mass. agency Allen & Garritsen, seeks to position B.U. as, “among the ‘leading,’ ‘most respected’ or ‘great’ centers of ‘research and knowledge’.” Each ad bears the tagline, “The World Needs to Know.”

: “The World Needs to Know?”

Although I’m 20 years removed from my own rain-soaked graduation in the Commonwealth Avenue Howard Johnson’s parking lot, I’m having some trouble accepting this new brand position from B.U., even though I hope it succeeds.

If memory serves, the only research going on at B.U. back in the day involved the best ways to sneak alcohol into Warren Towers and why the eagle is a stupid mascot, especially for a school that calls itself “Boston College” despite being located in Newton.

The good news for me is that I chose to apply to B.U. at the right time; they probably wouldn’t even sniff at my S.A.T. scores today. I also had the advantage of being one of the five in my freshman class not from Long Island or New England.

And I suppose that’s the real point of the campaign, which is designed to take B.U. beyond its “commuter school” legacy and persuade those who participate in the school-ranking surveys to bump B.U. from its current perch at #59 in the 2010-11 edition of The Times Higher Education World University Rankings, to somewhere less mediocre.

The hope is that a higher rank will beget more applications from better students, which in turn will boost the school’s rankings.

At a robust 50 grand per year, B.U. is like every other institution of higher learning fighting to fill its freshman classes. In tough economic times and population in decline following the Gen Y bubble, they need every warm body they can get. And if they still have the College of Basic Studies, it’s the ultimate safety school.

My favorite part of the article are the quotes from Allen & Gerritsen Creative Director Doug Gould, which include:

“We were skeptical to begin with…[W]hen they told us how much they’re doing, our minds were changed.” (Translation: “When they told us they had a half-million-dollar budget, our minds were changed.”)

“We haven’t done anything with a heavy amount of spin.” (Just the normal amount of spin we’d use in any campaign we create. Okay, maybe a little bit more than normal.)

“Running an ad about knowledge and learning should be interesting on its own merits.” (I’m sorry? Oh, I must have been daydreaming. Could you repeat what you just said?)

In all seriousness, I applaud B.U. and A&G for this campaign and sincerely hope it works. And then B.U. can quit sending me those letters asking for money.

Good #PR Will Kill a Bad Product

Interesting story from yesterday’s New York Times on the circus known as Comic-Con International.

The annual convention, which is expected to draw 130,000 participants to San Diego this July 21-24, is the place where you’ll see folks dressed up as their favorite Star Trek characters and where fans are truly fanatical.

While most of us gave up Dungeons & Dragons when we hit high school, the Comic-Con set is known for attracting freaks and geeks who are both hardcore and hard-wired, and are widely sought after for their social media savvy and buzz-building power.

Warner Brothers Television Group Chief Marketing Officer Lisa Gregorian calls them “evangelists,” and rightly so.

It makes sense, then, that the big movie studios and television production companies would choose Comic-Con as the launching pad for big-budget projects such as “Tron: Legacy” or “Sucker Punch.”

But not so fast.

Fishing where the fish are makes perfect sense, except that sometimes the fish don’t bite. And worse, they sometimes tell everyone else in the pond that the bait is not worth the bite. Both “Tron” and “Sucker Punch” failed to deliver at the box office.

Fans of the HBO show “Entourage” may fondly remember an episode from Season 2, in which Vince is troubled at Comic-Con when a well-known blogger, portrayed by Rainn Wilson, promises to write a scathing review of Vince’s new movie, “Aquaman.” (Never mind how Vince manages to score a positive review in the end.)

Imagine the power of 130,000 Rainn Wilsons dissing your movie in the months leading up to opening, and the ripple effect these evangelists create via Facebook, Twitter, message boards and chat rooms.

Betting big sometimes means losing big. Hank Aaron hit 755 home runs but he also struck out 1,383 times.

Next time you’re thinking about launching your “next big thing” at the industry’s largest trade show, consider first building buzz among your most loyal and vocal following and allowing them to carry the message to the masses.

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Filed under Issues Management, public relations, Social Media

Tagged as Comic-Con, Entourage, New York Times, public relations, Rainn Wilson, Warner Brothers

Category Archives: public relations

Is There No Such Thing as Bad Publicity?

Ad Campaign May Make Me Smarter and More Distinguished

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