03.04.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 7:03 pm by Administrator
For decades, Toyota has been a standard-bearer for quality, innovation and commitment to excellence. Now, its reputation stands, if not in ruins, severely damaged. It’s yet another case of horrific communications management (I won’t even call it crisis management because what has been done in the last few months shows a systemic communication problem).
Now, the future of the company depends on if they can learn from their mistakes, move forward, and start to communicate better and more honestly with their audience. Whether you’re in crisis communications or just corporate communications in general, here are a few tips to keep you from veering off the road.
Step 1. Get out in front of any news story. Don’t sit back and let the reporter, the blogger or the private citizen define the story. Figure out the facts, define your message and stay out in front of the story.
Step 2. Tell the truth. This point should be a big duh, but some corporations have real problems with this. They think that they’re above it all and the truth won’t come out. As a former journalist, I can tell you the truth almost always comes out, or worse yet, some part of the truth. Once again, if you control the story, or at least try to be a part of it, you have a better chance at getting your message out.
Step 3. An offshoot of telling the truth is giving people the facts. Your intelligent consumers will make their own decisions. If your facts are strong enough and your product works, you’re in good shape. If it’s not, no amount of PR or buzz or wizardry is going to help things. So give people the facts.
Step 4. Reach out to your audience. Once again, this is PR 101. Try to connect with your audience. Don’t just give them words or lawyer-ized statements. Honest connection with your audience is a great pathway to success.
We’re going to see in the next few months what pathway Toyota decides to take and what its future looks like. In the meantime, one of our coordinators gets in her car every day and wonders how well her Corolla will drive.
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02.22.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 4:51 pm by Administrator
Move over American Idol. The new tune of music competitions is here—and it’s more interactive than ever before. Rock The Camp, a national talent search, is looking for the next big thing, and it’s turning to online video (and our client Endavo) to do it.
Already nearly 600 bands have signed up, and the site has received more than a quarter of a million views. What’s more: The content has attracted a host of big-name sponsors and 10,000 registered members.
The prizes aren’t bad, either. The winner opens for multi-platinum music artist TobyMac in Nashville, receives a recording session with Grammy Award-winning producer Paul Ebersold, and performs on the K-LOVE Friends & Family Music Cruise.
Through the end of February, bands across the country can upload a video or MP3 through the Endavo Media’s Platform. Fans then register and vote on their favorite performers (through the end of March), and the top ten entries are judged by leading industry professionals.
This hits all the right notes for content producers. Rock The Camp has secured sponsors and advertisers, is capturing valuable user information and is creating brand awareness across the nation. And all this Idol-like buzz required was some user-generated content, a custom-branded look and a healthy dose of creativity.
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02.08.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 3:07 pm by Administrator
My son asked me at halftime of the Super Bowl XLIV – “Dad, why do the halftime acts have to be so old?’’
At first, I was just happy that he did not add the line I knew he was thinking: “Dad, The Who is way older than even you.”
My 12 year old is slightly too young to remember the wardrobe malfunction that terrified CBS and likely all the executives that picked the halftime act. Since that day, the Super Bowl halftime shows have been the hall of fame for musical acts that qualify for AARP. If something was accidently exposed, I’m sure everyone would just look the other way.
In a marketing sense, the planners of the Super Bowl and NFL need to run a modern play. When picking halftime acts, they should appeal to my son and daughters. Not my parents.
Yes – the younger hipper acts might leave people talking the next morning about something other than the tired commercials. It might actually make for good PR.
The Who is the equivalent of the three yards and a cloud of dust. Time for the NFL to dust off the playbook and bring in a young gun.
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02.04.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 4:19 pm by Administrator
Today we’ll look at how to handle public relations and media relations THE WRONG WAY with some help from a pair of special guests: the federal government and Mel Gibson.
Lesson #1 – choose your words carefully and say what you mean. This is especially important if you happen to be speaking before a congressional committee. While talking about Toyota on Capitol Hill, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says, “if anybody owns one of these vehicles, stop driving it; take it to the Toyota dealer.” This throws a few million Toyota owners into a frenzy and drives the company’s stock price down. LaHood then says this was “obviously a misstatement.” He later puts it in reverse and says, “What I said in there, or what I thought I said was, ‘if you own one of these cars, or if you’re in doubt, take it to the dealer.’” Whether he was trying to talk tough in front of lawmakers or just put his foot in his mouth, the end result was an inexcusable public relations mistake – and your tax dollars hard at work doing damage control.
Lesson #2 – choose your words carefully and don’t say what you feel. This is especially important if you happen to be a prominent actor doing a live TV interview. Mel Gibson is promoting a movie (his first in eight years) and decides to berate reporters who ask him fair questions about his past mistakes, and calls one of them an “a–hole.” This is not a good tactic to endear yourself to anyone, and no one is buying the publicist story that Gibson was talking about him. At least borrow a page from LaHood’s playbook and try “obviously a misstatement.” An apology would also be a good start, especially if you want to make Lethal Weapon 5.
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12.15.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 2:20 pm by Administrator
I love Sarah Palin. Actually, let me be clearer – I love Sarah Palin’s public relations team.
Her glamour shot center cover of USA Today on Friday, Dec. 11 was stunningly good. For a losing vice-presidential candidate who quit her day job – Palin is as hot as it gets. (And no, I’m not talking about her looks.)
Just ask the millions who have purchased her book. Going Rouge has rocketed to the top of best-seller lists. Palin’s publisher, HarperCollins, is on its 13th printing, even though the book hit store shelves Nov. 17.
Palin’s public relations team is doing a marvelous job of keeping her in the news and keeping her at the top of minds. Love her or hate her, there is no denying she is getting great advice from her communications team.
Her whirlwind book tour of 33 cities, 25 states and 19,000 miles played to rousing crowds. It silenced some publicists and even top-selling authors who say book tours are dead or a waste of time. Whether riding a bus, or traveling on a private jet to get more business done, Sarah Palin has loyal fans wherever she stops.
Not sure where to send the note of congratulations on the fine PR work. Maybe it is Palin’s personal team or the marketing arm at HarperCollins. Either way – Bravo!
From the interview on Oprah before the book launched, to the coverage of the tour in major media across the country, the public relations buzz has been Going Rogue.
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12.08.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:34 pm by Administrator
As co-CEO of Katalyst Media, Ashton Kutcher is on the cutting edge of all things related to making money and extending brand reach with social media.
Kutcher’s rise as a business visionary is quite an accomplishment, considering he is best known as the pretty-boy lunkhead from “That 70s Show.” Fast Company this month featured Kutcher in its cover story. It’s an insightful look inside Kutcher’s team.
Ashton’s Katalyst Media provides good insight for small businesses that might be struggling with What do I do with Social Media?
Ashton’s team is experimenting daily with Facebook, Twitter and blogging. Katalyst Media understands that this media needs to have a return on investment.
Great content, they’ve discovered, drives eyeballs.
What is great content? Stories, photos, video, links — anything that gets people talking and wanting to pass it along to a friend.
Great content fuels return on investment.
Great content is not a new concept. But making money from it these days requires a new way of doing business. As Ashton points out, some of the brightest minds in Silicon Valley still haven’t figured out how to make great content pay for itself.
But innovators are figuring it out. Small businesses need to think like Ashton and experiment with social media as a way of getting great content to your target audience.
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12.03.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:56 pm by Administrator
Yes, the headline is true. Ripley’s top-selling Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Seeing is Believing secured a wonderful feature in the recent issue of the National Enquirer on newsstands now. (Wow, I never thought I would use that line!)
But kudos to the Enquirer for a very colorful and well-crafted photo montage on how Ripley’s, in its annual Believe It or Not! collectable, scoured the world to find artists that took a unique approach to create familiar celebrity faces.
If you want to see, you better hustle to the grocery store. We have a feeling this issue could go fast. The coverage is on page 18 – just ahead of the Tiger Woods Cheating Scandal – Believe It or Not!
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12.02.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:28 pm by Administrator
Tiger Wood has shown the world he knows how to hit a golf ball.
But he has also shown the world that he – and all of his likely well-paid advisors – knows very little about crisis PR.
Did Tiger really think the recent crash and cover-up story would just go away? That the national media and the tabloids would turn a blind eye to his transgressions?
This race out the driveway in the family Cadillac and slam into a fire hydrant and tree was much more than one bad drive off the fairway. There was no escaping this fiasco. There were a ton of things that just did not add up, and even the most rookie reporter could smell a very hot story.
This crisis was completely of Tiger’s making. His team did not blast what is left of his reputation out of the sand trap fast enough.
Yes, it was a very sticky situation. But what crisis is not a very sticky situation?
Instead of getting out in front of the storm and admitting he was human and had made some mistakes, he and his advisors waited for this whole thing to blow into a gargantuan PR mess. They should have taken the appropriate steps and admitted between carefully crafted lines that the Tiger had roared in places where he should have been very quiet.
In the celebrity world of crisis PR, Tiger just shot at least a double bogey. The real score will not be known for days.
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11.29.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:43 am by Administrator
Want a great blog? Be sure and order a huge dose of passion.
The best blogs are passionate about their subject. And often they are relentless in their dedication to their subject matter.
Take Mike Florio. He was a lawyer from Bridgeport, West Virginia. He started a blog about the NFL, as a sidelight to his law business.
Today he is one of the most trusted bloggers about the NFL. He has Super Bowl credentials. He has a spot on national television.
Why? Because he is absolutely unyielding about his coverage of the NFL, all issues NFL, and all issues pro football.
His blog, ProFootballTalk.com, is a compendium of short articles from leading sources in the NFL.
Florio was interviewed recently in the Saturday New York Times. He told the Times “I’m always on duty. My wife tells me I work harder now than I did when I was practicing law full time and doing this on the side. But that’s the nature of it. It’s grown, it’s successful, we expand, and expectations are higher.”
Certainly expectations are higher. Mike Florio has signed a deal with NBC, and ProFootballTalk.com holds a prominent position on NBC’s sports web site. The unique visitors to the site were 2.9 million in October, tripling from the same month a year ago.
A spokesman for the NFL called Florio a must-read. Why? – Because he works tirelessly to get information and new content to his blog. He knows his blog and his business better than anyone.
What is the correlation for your business? Same thing.
Who knows your business better than you? Who can describe what is important better than you? Maybe you can’t work 24/7 on your blog, but your knowledge and your desire to succeed is what will make any business blog the best it can be.
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11.25.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:40 am by Administrator
Barnie’s Coffee & Tea Celebrates Green Friday
Some retailers prepare for Black Friday by stocking their shelves and putting a little extra in the back room.
At Barnie’s Coffee & Tea this year they’ve prepared for Black Friday by opening a series of new stores in malls and lifestyle shopping centers across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area.
Barnie’s Founder Phil Jones has shown an amazing commitment to Central Florida and to rebuilding the Barnie’s brand. He is definitely putting his money where his mouth is, with new stores in Altamonte Springs and new franchise operations in Orlando’s Fashion Square as well as well as Lakeland and Tampa.
The Barnie’s brand has brought holiday memories to many with its scrumptious Santa’s White Christmas. And we’re not just saying this because we occasionally put out a press release for Barnie’s.
We’ve been huge Barnie’s fans for more than 20 years and we are happy to see Phil succeed in his efforts to rebuild the brand and bring Barnie’s good taste to more people.
If you happen to be going to a Magic game, Barnie’s Coffee is now the exclusive coffee provider for the Orlando Arena — not only at Magic games, but for all special events and concerts, as well.
Best of luck to Phil as he moves forward into 2010.
As for this Friday?
Phil says: “It’s not Black Friday, it’s Green Friday. Because that’s the time retailers like Barnie’s Coffee & Tea.”
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