Cymfony's Influence 2.0

Doritos Super Bowl contest -- what do last year's winners say?

On Monday, Doritos announced the three finalists for this year's Crash the Super Bowl contest. I took that opportunity to talk to last year's winners, Dale Backus and Wes Philips of 5 Point Productions. The full podcast is on our SuperBowlAdvertisers.com blog.

I talked with Dale and Wes right after their success last year, so I used this as an excuse to catch up on how that success drove their business this year, what they think of changing to more of an American Idol type contest vs. last year's ad contest -- and, of course, which of the finalists they were going to vote for.

We also spoke with a reporter at Ad Age yesterday, so a story should be out soon. Dale and Wes revealed one other bit of history I hadn't known before: they had only started 5 Point Productions a month or so before entering the contest.

Take a few minutes to listen to the podcast -- Dale and Wes tell the story of how they used word of mouth marketing to drive the voting that made them a finalist and have some advice for Doritos about how to overcome some of the potential limitations the music video format may have in delivering strong brand messaging for Doritos.

The Road to Super Bowl XLII

With the Patriots steamrolling through the NFL this season, many people here in the Boston area are thinking a lot about the Super Bowl coming up this February.  But here at Cymfony, the Super Bowl has become a year-round obsession – but for a different reason:  It is the perfect example of Influence 2.0.

We tracked discussion of last year’s game and conducted several studies on the audience impact of the media coverage and consumer discussion of last year’s Super Bowl advertisers. Over the past month, these studies have been published in a variety of publications.

• Visibility vs Surprise: Which Drives the Greatest Discussion of Super Bowl Ads?  To be published in the 12/07 issue of the “Journal of Advertising Research” from the ARF.

• What This Year’s Super Bowl Advertisers Can Learn from Doritos. Published in the 11/07 issue of Media Magazine

• Is There No Such Thing as Bad News? - How controversy drives word-of-mouth around Super Bowl advertising and how it can bite the brand. Published in 11/07 “Measuring Word of Mouth Vol. 3” from the Word of Mouth Marketing Association

I encourage you to buy the WOMMA and JAR publications for the full story (and other great research as well).  We've also compiled some of the insights from each of these studies in a brief informational abstract that is available for download on our site now.   

The gist of our findings: Last year's success of advertisers like Doritos and Nationwide changes Super Bowl advertising -- it's no longer about great buzz after the game, pre-game media coverage is just as important, maybe more so.

(Disclosure: shameless plug coming) In response to this change, we are stepping up our analysis and launching a new product: the Super Bowl Advertising Audience Impact Report. Check it out at www.cymfony.com/superbowl.asp Clients will get a timely, in-depth analysis of the media coverage and consumer discussion of Super Bowl advertisers each week leading up to and immediately following the game on February 3.

This report will address:

• How much coverage is each advertiser generating? 
• Which ads are consumers discussing online? What are they saying?
• What is the quality and tone of the coverage?
• How is the event impacting consumer engagement with the brand?
• How are pre-game promotional strategies influencing coverage?

After the post-game coverage peaks on Monday after the game, our Super Bowl analysts will lead a detailed online briefing Tuesday afternoon to discuss the ad winners and losers as reported by consumers and the media. This will all get wrapped up in a comprehensive report a couple weeks later when the coverage is complete.

Some of us around here are as excited about this new report as we are about the steamrolling Patriots.  (OK, we admit it, we're social media geeks!)

I'm not the only one thinking Bubble 2.0...

Maurice Levy, Chairman of Publicis echoed my concern that social media is gaining the inflated expectations we saw in Bubble 1.0. Am I worried? Actually, no.

While one lesson of Bubble 1.0 was that zillions of start-ups cannot live by hype alone, the other lesson was that while investors and even marketers may get disillusioned, consumers pay no attention to the trials and tribulations of the VC community. People look for tools and things that bring value to their lives.

Just as consumer adoption of the internet was unfazed by the bust of 2001 - 2002, adoption of social media will be equally unaffected should we see a social media bust take place. They'll just keep connecting to one another, creating videos, making virtual friends....

What should marketers do if the bloom comes off the social media rose? Ignore the anguished cries of VCs and even the doomsday blather that the media may put out. Keep your eye on the people who buy and use your brands. Stay involved with social media because your consumers will be involved with it.

An Example of Confused Terminology

A recent article published in the PRSA's new PR Journal provides a example of how poorly the terms "output", "outtake" and "outcome" are understood in the industry, even in this peer-reviewed publication which features articles from the leading academics and industry practitioners.

My recent post, "Outputs, and Outtakes, and Outcomes Oh My!" lamented how frequently I see these terms misused. In addition to the comments I got on the blog, I had email exchanges with several people. One member of the IPR's Measurement Commission said "I'm extremely puzzled how anyone could possibly misinterpret outputs (which only relate to mentions) with outcomes (which must relate to attitude or behavior reinforcement or change)."

I didn't have to look far for an example.

In this paper titled "The Application of "Best Practices" in Public Relations Measurement and Evaluation Systems" published in the first issue of the PR Journal, EchoResearch's President David Michaelson and CEO Sandra Macleod, noted as "two of the world's leading experts in communications research and measurement", ouputs and outcomes are used incorrectly if you take, as I do, the IPR's Guidelines for Meauring the Effectiveness of PR Programs and Activities authored by Prof. Walter Lindenmann as the standard definition. (Note: David Michaelson is on the Institute for PR's Commission on Public Relations Measurement & Evaluation under whose aegis the guidelines were published.)

Before I address the misuse of the term, let me say the paper is useful and, for PR practioners unfamiliar with conducting market research it should be a "must read" to understand the basics of constructing a valid research methodology. However, IMHO, it falls short of delivering the "best practices" by skimming over the tough issues of how to isolate PR's impact from other marketing/communications/sales activities and how to link PR to sales. But this is a topic for another post, perhaps.

Back to the example. On page 3 of the paper, Michaelson and Macleod write:

"Companies specializing in public relations measurement and evaluation have traditionally focused on evaluating only the outcomes of public relations. These outcomes are most commonly the media or press coverage that is a direct result of media relations activities (outputs)."

These two sentences say that outcomes are the number of clips or impressions while outputs are the number of press releases issued, perhaps the number of reporters called or who attended a press conference, etc.

Here are Lindenmann's definitions on page 7 of his paper:

"...PR outputs, which are usually short-term and surface (e.g., the amount of press coverage received or exposure of a particular message)..."

"...PR outcomes (e.g., did the program or activity change opinion and attitude levels, and possibly behavior patterns?)."

If the experts and members of the IPR Measurement Commission don't use the terms accurately, the rest of the industry will be confused, as I believe they are today.

Why do I rant about this? We all know words are important -- that's why we do what we do. We also know that words come with certain associations and connotations from everyday usage and I believe the terms "outputs" and "outcomes" are commonly used in ways that are dramatically different than what the IPR intends. (Outtakes is just a strange word that only exists, perhaps, in the world of film editing.)

Michaelson's and Macleod's misuse of outputs above is an example where common usage gets substituted for the official definition. If someone asked me what my output was today, I'd probably answer "a blog post, 35 emails, and 3 meetings" or something. When a CEO thinks of outputs, he probably thinks about how many widgets come off the assembly lines of his factory, not the number of his widgets on store shelves. Thus when a CEO (or other non-communications exec) hears the term outputs in association with communications activities, she probably thinks in terms of the activities of the PR staff as Michaelson and Macleod describe them, and not how many articles the company was mentioned in. And, as I have said before, I believe the only "outcomes" C-level staff are interested in are those that contribute financially to the firm's performance.

It is natural for people to apply their common understanding of terms when they hear them in a new context. It is a lot of work to try to wrap new meanings around them and have those new meanings widely accepted. The IPR and PRSA need to either step up efforts to educate the industry on the correct use of these terms or consider changing them to terms that are understandable based on their common usage.

I believe change is the preferred course. My nominations for new, more readily understandable terms are:

• Media Influence: clips, impressions, message pick up that indicate that PR activities and programs influenced the media to distribute the intended information
• Audience Influence: perceptual or attidudinal changes that indicate the intended audience saw the information, paid attention to it, and that the desired change took place
• Business Influence: sales, stock price, or brand equity valuation increases that are linked to these activities

What's your vote: change or stick with outputs/outtakes/outcomes?

Outputs and Outtakes and Outcomes -- Oh My!

In my experience, the terms outputs, outtakes and outcomes are not well understood among PR professionals. And if they are not well understood, building a PR measurement program will get derailed by using incorrect approaches and flawed reporting. Therefore, I propose an alternate framework of Media Influence, Audience Influence, and Business Influence.

Since the Institue for PR published the paper "Guidelines for Measuring the Effectiveness of PR Programs and Activities" in 2002, these terms have gained currency in the industry. Almost every presentation I see includes the terms "outcomes" and "outputs". But I continue to see what I consider to be misclassifications of  what I consider outputs and PR activities as outcomes.

Perhaps because the terms are somewhat mysterious. And while I like the alliteration and parallelism in the "out-" triad, it may be too confusing. So I'd like to propose an alternative framework:

• Media Influence -- this is essentially the outputs: clips, impressions, quality of coverage. In other words: did our PR activities cause the media to respond to our messages and report on them?
• Audience Influence -- this is essentially outtakes, though I differ a bit in Prof. Lindenmann's definition which is "determining if those to whom the activity was directed received, paid attention to, comprehended, and retained particular messages." I would go the next step to measure if these messages change audience perception, attitudes, and intentions, which the paper categorizes as "outcomes". Thus, this category of measurement answers the question: did our PR activities cause the intended audience to respond to our messages? The main approaches here are likely to be based on market research surveys.
• Business Influence -- These outcomes I define  very strictly as a financial impact on the business which can be measured in one of three ways: sales, stock price, or brand equity valuation. This category of metrics answers the question: did our PR activities positively influence the business? I use this strict definition because 1) we know that at the end of the day, this is all the C-suite really cares about and 2) it is the most complicated, expensive, and difficult metrics to create and link to PR activities. The main approaches are likely to be sophisticated modeling techniques, like market mix modeling.

While I don't want to get the industry hung up in changing terms for change's sake, I think the distinction is important. It will make it much clearer what measurements and methdologies address which aspect of measurement and clear away some of the fog surrounding the purpose and usefulness of different approaches.

(I also think we need to rethink the Audience Influence approach in light of the idea of "engagement", but I'll save that for another post.)

Thoughts?

iPods, Pacemakers, and a brewing crisis for Apple

A storm of coverage has erupted in the last 24 hours over reports that an iPod can cause a pacemaker to malfunction. Both the traditional media and social media are buzzing....

Mickey Khan of DMNews tipped me off to this story.

The first report appears to be in the Pioneer Press and then was quickly picked up by blog Ars Technica and is spreading globally to the UK, Germany, Australia, India. There are about 165 traditional media stories (as of noon eastern time) and about the same number of blog posts. And it is starting to rise on Digg, with 26 votes.

So far, no response on the Apple site (in fact the last press release about the iPod celebrates selling 100 million of the devices), either in the media info section or the support section.

I'll let you check out these stories and assess the facts behind it for yourself. This event raises some interesting questions that will play out in the next hours....

• Will this become the next example of the Influence 2.0 world damaging an iconic brand before it can organize a response?
• Or, as many bloggers suggest, is this no big deal because any electrical device can interfere with a pacemaker?
• Will Apple be forced to respond? If so, will their response make matters worse or reassure iPod lovers?

Stay tuned...

Can this industry be saved?

A pair of articles this week got me really depressed about the state of advertising. They indicate that marketers' only response in this time of change is to shout louder and to make ever more outlandish claims. If the industry wants higher consumer "engagement", we'd better fix both of these problems really quickly.

First was Advertising Age's "Caught in the Clutter Crossfire: Your Brand." Not only does it cite a growing list of digital and physical places where ads appear outside of traditional media venues, it notes "TV commercial pods are fatter than they've ever been."

Then Business Week's "Why the Hype Just Keeps on Coming." Under increasing pressure to differentiate products, benefit claims are stretching farther and farther. The article quotes a spokesperson for the Body Vibe exercise product which the Better Business Bureau ruled made a false claim that celebrities and athletes used their product. Their defense:

"The sites and athletes who we are referencing do not use Body Vibe exactly but use the body vibration techniques and we will correct that in our Web site."

I have no doubt it is a better claim that the athletes use the product than that they use techniques that the product uses. But it is exactly these kinds of shortcuts that alienate consumers. And lest you think it is only small advertisers who make outlandish claims, the article cites a number of leading brands that have had to pull ads or promise not to run them again because the claims were deemed misleading.

Both of these are classic "tragedy of the commons" issues. Consumer attention and trust are the "common property" that all advertisers use, but there is no individual disincentive to abuse them. Meanwhile we can clearly see the impact of the aggregate overuse of the "resource": lower trust and more ad avoidance to all messages.

About a month ago, Ad Age had an article on the latest wave of proposed laws creating "do not mail" lists for postal mail. Another example where the consumer is going to privatize the commons to keep marketers out.

As co-chair of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association Ethics committe, I've spent a lot of the last year thinking about responsible behavior in the emerging WOM space. We have our share of tragedy of the commons issues as my fellow Board member Pete Blackshaw pointed out. But the stories cited above indicate ethics is a bigger issue than just WOM.

I know a lot of marketers think ethics is a mushy, altruistic concept, but evidence like this indicates we marketers are reaching the outer limits of tolerance for an attitude of "if-it-is-cool-and-we-can-get-away-with-it-let's-do-it" mentality. When we don't have our ethics right, consumers take more control to shut us out.

But I also believe the opposite is true: strong ethics will begin to emerge as a competitive differentiator and gain consumer engagement and loyalty.

The REALLY BIG story of the Wal-Mart/Edelman fake blog situation

Plenty of people have been criticizing Edelman, so I've been sitting it out. It is now time to take a step back and look at the big implication: The PR and marketing professions must commit themselves to changing course now, or they will crash into the mountain of consumer control.

Let's face it, this could probably have happened to any big PR firm or company that is blogging these days. The fact that it happened at Edelman, one of the self-declared leaders in using social media with some of the highest-profile bloggers out there, says as much or more about the chasm the profession will have to cross as it does about any one individual company.

For a generation or more, PR has been about spin. Finding a clever story angle is what PR people are trained to do. Marketing is the same, except they call it "positioning". Each new strategy starts from the basic premise of how to magnify the positives and deny any potential negatives. Exaggeration, careful selection of facts, and creating enticing ways to present the messages are not only accepted, but the fabric of every day work. In advertising, they are limited only by truth in advertising laws.

But consumer mistrust of advertising and media make these unspoken assumptions obsolete and dangerous to the health of companies and their marketing/PR partners. Before we launch a campaign, we must begin to put its concept through a new filter. After we ask "Is it on strategy" and "Is it compelling to the audience?", we must now ask "Is it ethical?". And we must train everyone in our organizations, down to the entry level assistant account executive, media relations manager, and marketing associate to ask this question.

The WOMMA Ethics code is a great start on specific areas of honesty in relationship, opinion, and identity. (Disclosure: I am a member of the Board of Directors of WOMMA). Now it -- or some similar guidelines -- must be incorporated into the curricula, training programs, and OJT learning that takes place every day.

Marketing and PR have been on autopilot for decades. The collision warning system just alarmed us that we're heading straight into the side of a mountain.

What are you doing to change the course of your organization?

edelman walmart micropersuasion richard+edelman flog public+relations wal-marting+across+america

The Dawn of the Age of Influence 2.0

Welcome to the new Influence 2.0 blog. You may be asking "What is this new name all about?" Let me explain:

The worlds of marketing, public relations, customer service and all market-facing functions know that the old mass media/marketing models are broken and major change is afoot. There are myriad new formats, channels and tools, but no new framework to make sense of it all.

So Cymfony is putting a stake in the ground: we are brashly declaring the Dawn of the Influence 2.0 Era.

Why Influence? Because, despite the different ways marketing, public relations, and customer service professionals work day-to-day, their fundamental goal is the same: to influence the perceptions of, and preferences for, their companies and brands.

Why 2.0? Because we believe this isn't solely about new channels which companies can use to push one-way messages. It's about the creation of what the Wikipedia definition of Web 2.0 calls “market conversations”. This will require far different approaches than the Influence 1.0 world.

Why now? These changes have been emerging for a while. They seem to be accelerating. Traditional media and social media, which used to be separate and distinct, are increasingly converging. The pace makes it hard for professionals to step back, look at the macro trend, and develop new kinds of thinking to fully take advantage of these changes.

Cymfony plans to play a central role in helping business understand the new strategies, tactics and practices needed to harness the new dynamic of market influence. We hope to kick-off an industry-wide dialog around this idea to expand it clarify it, and capture the best thinking about how to respond.

So in addition to this blog which will report our findings and perspectives, we are launching two initiatives:

The Influence 2.0 eBook: The first chapter is available today at (link) that will present our first attempt at putting a framework around these changes. We have three more chapters in progress which will be released over the next couple of weeks.

The Influence 2.0 wiki: But I consider this only a draft. I know these changes are bigger and more complex than I alone or even all my Cymfony colleagues can fully explore. So we will post the entire eBook to the wiki and invite all interested parties to read, contribute, expand, revise. Like a martial arts master, we want use our opponent’s strengths to turn the encounter to our advantage: the great strength of the Web 2.0 world is the ability to harness the collective intelligence of the community to fully explore and understand how Web 2.0 will change our professions.

Come back often to see how our thinking evolves and our understanding deepens. Check out the wiki as new chapters, examples and ideas are added. Join us on the wiki to contribute your knowledge and learning.

Welcome to the new Cymfony blog. Welcome to a new era. Welcome to Influence 2.0.

influence web 2.0 social media marketing public relations customer service

Seth Godin says: Take the New Road

In his speech at the BrandSlam conference in West Palm Beach, Seth asked: Do you want to be American Airlines? Or JetBlue?

This was my first opportunity to see Seth live -- anyone who has seen him knows he is entertaining and has great examples to illustrate his concepts of being remarkable, telling stories, and conducting permission marketing.

But what caught my attention was his phrase "the TV industrial complex", which he described as a cycle with four phases:

1. Spend a lot of money on TV

2. Get more distribution for your products

3. Sell a lot more product

4. Buy more ads

And keep going around and around this cycle.

As we all realize, this model is broken. Seth challenged the audience that we are at a fork in the road, and we must choose whether to "bear down using the old rules or cheat, and come up with new rules." Now here's the airline analogy: "If you're American Airlines, you give passengers fewer peanuts and lay off people. Those are the old rules. If you're JetBlue, you give them more peanuts....and video at every seat...and more free stuff. Which one do you want to be?"

Let me broaden his analogy to the Mass Media Industrial Complex to encompass the full range of the marketing and PR tools we use to influence perception and preferences. The Mass Media Industrial Complex let us push messages through all these various media channels -- in Seth's words, marketers believed "I can interrupt anyone I want anytime I want."

Now, consumers intercept these messages, remix them, and redistribute them. These remixed messages often show up right alongside the "authorized" version when people search for a brand on Google. And these messages may bear little resemblance to the original message by the time other consumers see them.

So the question we face is: do we bear down using the old rules of influencing the market, and keep trying to push messages into an environment that hijacks and detours them? Or do we cheat, and come up with new rules to let go of some of the control we have insisted on, let the media remix culture co-create the message that fits the market, and listen to our customers rather than broadcast at them.

I'll have more thoughts on this next week...

word of mouth WOM Marketing Advertising Public Relations PR

A Case Study In Development

The CGM world already has a few stand-by examples: the Kryptonite Lock issue, iPod's Dirty Secret, Sony's DRM problems, and now, about to be added to the lexicon, Citibank.

Over the last few days, there's been a growing buzz in the blog world about problems at Citibank, including customer lockouts and system breaches. The first major CGM site to post about it was Boingboing, on Sunday. They followed up with more on Monday, as did Techdirt, security guru Bruce Schneier, and The Consumerist. Other new media sources followed, with Security Focus seeking comment on Monday, and The Register and The Sydney Morning Herald, and MSNBC picking up the story on Tuesday. As of now (3/7/06 - 4:20pm) there's been no US MSM coverage.

On the heels of the Choicepoint scandal, as well as a host of other data-loss/security breach incidents, Citibank is illustrating exactly how NOT to handle a situation. Apparently, someone there thinks keeping consumers in the dark and letting rumors circulate around the internet (or not paying any attention to said rumors) is a better means of building brand equity than coming forward, being honest, and addressing the problem.

In related news, someone might get fired

Would PR Rather Not Be Measured?

I had the pleasure of speaking with a Cymfony client yesterday about their PR measurement program in 2005.  The reason for the conversation was to gather specific information on our partnership over the last year to write a case study.  This particular Fortune 1000 client worked in the corporate marketing department as a market researcher.  The challenge for the department was to set up the best program to quickly and accurately measure the impact of PR on the organization.  Cymfony began working with the company in April of 2005.  Being very metric focused, they were looking for data which was something we could easily provide.  We quickly determined that it wasn't just data that they needed, it was metrics with insight - actionable intelligence.   But that's not the reason for this post.

What struck me about our conversation was that the market researcher said that if the PR team had their way, they would be much happier not to be measured at all.  Now this might have been a statement made about the internal politics at one organization but I tend to believe it's a wider issue.  Look at a recent post by Shel Holtz suggesting that the reason for the lack of PR measurement is because communicators are by nature "math-challenged" (lots of chatter on this one).  Additionally, Andy Lark pointed to a Dec. article in the Holmes Report that shared a survey of more than 100 PR Agency principles - highlighting the problems that continue to make research and evaluation a major issue for the PR Industry:

"In general, their responses  suggested that an failure of commitment- rather than the absence of necessary tools and techniques—is behind the industry’s poor performance."

As a PR practitioner myself, some form of measurement has always been the key to show the value of the PR department or to help determine what messages are really sticking or to determine how the company is being perceived.  In general, measurement programs can be set up in many ways. A small company many only want to look at clip counts or impression numbers while a larger company might focus on favoribility, message adoption, depth of coverage or prominence.  There is even a debate about what defines a true PR measurement program (as opposed to a monitoring program or tracking program - fodder for another time).  The point is that some form of measurement should be part of every PR program.  I can tell you, if this math-challenged individual can do it, anyone can. Maybe 2006 is the year.

PR’s 2006 Resolution: Become Accountable

The presents may still be wrapped and under the tree, but last month’s news from Procter & Gamble that PR is more cost effective than advertising for four out of six brands evaluated should have PR professionals planning their New Year’s resolution: Get to know market mix modeling.

The news received widespread coverage. PRWeek’s November 28 article began with dreams of sugarplum budget increases for PR, then continued with a good overview of market mix modeling. Even Ad Age (registration and purchase required) picked it up, focusing on the broader issue of marketing accountability. Shel Holtz noted on his blog that it took P&G 18 months to develop the tool, which they dubbed PREvaluate.

This is puzzling: the time frame and use of a special name seems to imply that P&G built a separate model instead of simply incorporating PR data into their existing models. What a shame, if the PR and marketing people couldn’t get together to share this resource.

In any case, this demonstrates a clear need for PR to catch up with marketing’s increasing sophistication in tying their spending to sales results. Market mix modeling is a statistical technique that correlates marketing stimuli (ads, promotions, etc.) to sales. Market mix models have been used in the CPG world for over 15 years and have been adopted by retailers, financial services companies, pharmaceutical marketers and others recently. With all the emphasis on marketing ROI, many more are planning on using them in the future.

The biggest benefit of these models is being able to talk to C-level executives in the language they understand: “My activities drove $x million in revenue.” The result: less pressure to cut budgets and more respect for the work you do.

If you work for a Fortune 1000 company, chances are pretty good that your marketing counterparts are using these models. So make your New Year’s resolution now to incorporate PR into the model. Here are some resources to get you started:

1) The AMA has a good definition, while iKnowtion, one of the boutique firms specializing in modeling, has a deeper explanation.
2) iMediaConnection hosted an excellent discussion on the topic at a recent conference, with MMA’s John Nardone and Ogilvy’s Gerard Broussard.
3) Knowledge Networks, one of the leading companies specializing in building these models, has an excellent case study looking at the effects of advertising and promotion which illustrates the use of the technique for comparing different marketing disciplines.
4) In my days as a Forrester analyst, I wrote a report outlining the key steps in getting started with the technique (free summary; full report available for purchase to non-Forrester subscribers).

While the models are sophisticated, the most important step is preparing the data. If you are using a PR measurement tool, you’ve already done most of the work. If you are not, resolve now to seek out your company's modeling experts, understand the data requirements of your company’s models, and work with a firm that can package the data for easy inclusion in the model.

marketing, PR, measurement

The Big Max for PR: Measurement

Seth Godin has a really interesting post on people and companies that get stuck in a rut, repeating the same approaches to marketing, business expansion, product development and even job-changing that lead to their initial success. This is called Local Max – the point at which your efforts are paying off to the max. The problem is that a drop often comes after a burst of growth. Achieving the same level of success when trying new approaches often leads to near-term disappointing results or even a decline in performance relative to the initial growth. So, many people retreat back quickly to what made them successful originally. While retreating to core values for your brand is often helpful when companies shift away from the brand promise that customers bought into originally, retreating to old marketing and PR tactics often results in disappointing outcomes.

PR-guy commented that this same Local Max phenomenon may be happening in the PR measurement space. Are PR Firms abdicating their responsibility to measure PR Effectiveness to firms like Cymfony? I don’t think so. Well not at least for the PR firms we work with. These PR firms embrace measurement because it demonstrates effectiveness faster, exposes problems with messaging quickly and highlights areas for improved media targeting and competitive positioning. Smart PR firms are providing more valuable services to their clients by offering more valuable guidance based on deeper insight on the media, message adoption, product differentiators and competitor strategies. Cymfony’s Orchestra product also connects PR people more closely to consumers so they can understand what people care about and how they perceive the company and its products.

Using automated products and services offered by companies like Cymfony can be the catalyst for PR Firms and their clients to get to Big Max rather than wading in Local Max territory reusing the same PR strategies that worked in the past until the client finally decides to switch PR firms in a quest for fresh ideas.

Public,pr,marketing

PR Machine's Got it Going On

I've never personally meet Robb Hecht, author of the PRMachine blog but I have to tell you, I just love his site (does that make me a groupie?).  I've been sending folks to his blog to use it as a resource for a few months now.  PRMachine is a PR persons dream come true providing links to everything from recent corporate blogging guidelines to blog surveys to speaking services to industry associations all on one page (granted you have to scroll down quite a bit but it's easily separated into well titled categories).  Great blog and PR resource.

public relations

Tracking Rumors: Starbucks Can’t Stop the Chatter But They Can Impact the Discussion

The beauty about the Internet is that helpful information can be shared so quickly and easily and the nightmare of the Internet is that bad information is often shared even faster. Last night I was reading blog posts about Hurricane Katrina from people like Ernie the Attorney who were stuck in the middle of the storm and random posts by people all over the country who were sharing tidbits of stories about rescues, lost animals and even computerless orphans going through withdrawal. It’s hard to know what was true and what wasn’t but I wanted to get a sense of what real people thought about the hurricane rather than the news reporters.

I also spent some time seeing if I could dig up some tidbits on Iraq to get some insight on what my nephew, a U.S. Marine, might be experiencing at the moment. This is a daily routine for me when he is deployed. About once per week, I also visit the family support group site for my nephew’s marine helicopter unit to see if there are any new messages or photos from other family members or occasionally from the commander. I was surprised to see that the main post was about the Starbucks hoax that has been spreading around since May 2004. I thought that rumor had been debunked by now but it showed up last week on the group message board and outraged many already stressed marine spouses and family members from across the US.

Fortunately for Starbucks, the webmaster investigated the post that claimed that Starbucks refused to send coffee to the marines in Iraq because they were against the war and found that it was not true.This situation once again underscores the need for companies to constantly monitor discussions about their brands in order to diffuse potentially damaging situations. I applaud the webmaster of the site for investigating the story on her own time (this is a volunteer site) and communicating with Starbucks to find out the truth. But not every company is going to have the good fortune to be contacted by concerned webmasters and bloggers. In most cases, negative comments about brands get spread quickly on hearsay just like the original complaint against Starbucks was.

Blogs Amplify Issues and the Media is Listening

There has been a lot of talk lately about Dell’s very delayed response to Jeff Jarvis’s complaints about quality and service on his blog as well as Google’s dogmatic reaction to CNET to cut them off from executives when a journalist Googled their CEO Eric Schmidt to reveal personal information found by their own search engine. (see David Kirkpatrick's coverage of Google in Fortune) Both topics were discussed in blogs actively as soon as the events happened but the stories gained tremendous traction once the traditional media picked them up. I’m including online news publications in this group as they are usually setting high journalistic standards for research and reporting. Marketing and PR people who don’t already get the importance of keeping a constant eye on digital discussions about their own companies need to understand the impact of citizen journalists and everyday bloggers to story development.

For some reason, many large companies with otherwise savvy marketing communications departments seem to have forgotten three key points about the media:

1. the media plays a major role in communicating key corporate information and issues to consumers, employees and investors
2. the media does research before they publish, seeking to find the balance in each story and
3. the media often relies on coverage from other media professionals to understand the strength of a story and to enhance their knowledge of an issue that may be used to extend their own stories.

Professional journalists are trained to investigate issues and uncover problems. The blogosphere provides extensive data and unique perspectives that journalists can use to enrich their own research. Citizen journalists and professional communicators who happen to be bloggers may not investigate the validity of all blog posts to the extent that a journalist will but they often uncover and reveal sources through their connections. In turn, professional journalists research these sources and report on those that pass their journalistic standards, often crediting citizen journalists as individuals or enmasse for contributing to the development of the story. Dan Gillmor who is both a professional journalist and a long-time active blogger explains the relationship of blogging to journalism in his excellent book We the Media.

The symbiotic nature of the blogosphere is good for journalism and for consumers. It’s good for big business too. Most large, highly visible companies, including Dell and Google, do understand the power of their brands. I believe this is true of their product evangelists as well as their accountants. I'm sure they have carefully calculated the importance of satisfying customers to grow their businesses and retain customers. So I don’t buy the argument that they don’t care at all about quality or negative brand perception even if they’ve been slow to understand the power of the blogosphere. I do think they failed to include the blogosphere in their calculation of the key influences on brand perception and customer satisfaction. I hope other companies can learn from this.

Fortunately, there are companies like Microsoft and Sun that have been vocal cheerleaders for how incredibly valuable the blogosphere can be as a tool to build and improve customer relationships. I encourage all marketers to look seriously at how these companies constantly seek to listen to online discussions and engage with customers and detractors rather than shy away from issues. Listening does not eliminate issues, but it does give the company the opportunity to show their concern to the consumer and potentially keep them as a happy client. We all know that happy clients are the best salespeople.

Heading to Miami this October? PRSA International Conference Info

With summer coming to an end, the busy conference season is in full force.  The PRSA 2005 International Conference is October 22^nd-25^th, 2005 and is definitely worth looking into.  This year’s conference “Many Beats – One Rhythm: Creating Harmony Through PR” is being held in Miami, FL at the Fontainebleau Resort and is a wonderful way to mix and mingle with fellow PR professionals as well as learn about the latest PR trends, strategies and issues. 

A great line up of keynote speakers includes best-selling author and Newsweek columnist, Anna Quindlen, CNN Founder and Chairman of Turner, Inc, Ted Turner and Chairman & CEO of Loews Hotels, Jonathan M. Tisch.  Some of this year’s workshops include:  Improving Reputation Management Through Measurement, Why Metrics and Measurement are Crucial PR Tools and two workshops which Andrew Bernstein, CEO Cymfony, will be featured as a panelist – The New Realm of Digital Influencers:  The Importance of Analyzing Consumer Generated Media and Your Reputation Isn’t Yours.

September 9^th is the deadline for early-bird registration.  You can register here. 

He said, She said: The Seven Habits of an Effective Spokesperson

I recently wrote an article for PRTactics (subscription or membership to PRSA required) on what I believe to be the seven habits of an effective company spokesperson.   I've received some positive feedback and have been asked by PRWeek to contribute to the PR Toolbox section of the magazine on the same topic.  I believe that a good spokesperson can help to improve a corporate identity, while a poor spokesperson can damage one. A spokesperson needs to have good speaking skills and be able to communicate with different parties including journalists, shareholders, analysts, partners, consumers and employees. At the end of the day, a spokesperson represents an organization in both her public and private life. The spokesperson's effectiveness in communicating the company message can be critical to an organization.

For all companies, whatever their size, looking to build or enhance their brand, it is important to have an effective spokesperson who can communicate the company message, values and goals. It is also critical to accurately measure your spokespersons effectiveness in delivering the company's messages. Tracking how well your messages are being communicated will help you determine how well your messages are resonating in editorial coverage and in the minds of consumers and corporate decision-makers.

The most effective companies are investing time and energy in hiring experienced spokespeople or preparing spokespeople by training them. Status, respect and effectiveness of the spokesperson are often tied to exposure to the media. To measure effectiveness, track the number of quotes attributed to key executives or spokespeople at a company. Are they consistently on message with the company's objectives? Do they have something to say that's been picked up by many publications?

The following are some guidelines spokespeople should follow in order to encourage a positive relationship with the media:

1.) Availability - If spokespeople are not readily available or accessible to the media, they may decide to be unavailable the next time you need them. . Next time your spokesperson needs to deliver important news or information you may have lost trust and only get deleted phone messages or emails in return.

2.) Consistent, memorable messages - Sound bites are an important and effective tool in building a domino effect. To achieve this, spokespeople need to be consistently on message and think about how their comments will fit in the context of media coverage. Inconsistent and long-winded responses will work against spokespeople. Being concise and staying on message is a skill spokespeople need to learn. As a measurement of this, track the number of quotes and messages and determine if the coverage was positive or negative if possible. That way spokespeople can benchmark their effectiveness in communicating the company message through direct quotes.

3.) Preparation - Spokespeople can never be too prepared. Your spokesperson must prepare for each media interview booked by reading background on the interviewer, previous examples of the reporter's work, and potential questions and answers that should be provided.

4.) Knowledgeable - Spokespeople need to know their company's products and services inside and out. In addition, spokespeople should know the corporate positioning and advantages in their target markets - and be able to communicate this without slamming the competition. Spokespeople should be up-to-date on trends and issues and be able to put them in context for a reporter.

5.) Always tell the truth - Three simple words: Tell the truth. If stumped or uncomfortable, saying "I don't know" is not the end of the worst thing provided the spokesperson follows up immediately to provide answers. Spokespeople don't have to be afraid to say "I don't have that information but I will get back to you as soon as possible" - and then follow through. Reporters might be frustrated, but they will understand if the spokesperson cannot answer a specific question.


6.) Offer specifics - Spokespeople need to give concrete examples, references (clients, partners or analysts and experts who follow you're the company's industry) whenever possible. Even if spokespeople are not providing direct information about your company, providing a journalist with the information that they need helps to establish a stronger relationship and could lead to a call in the future.

7.) An interest in the topic at hand - Spokespeople who are engaging, truthful and able to address issues with solid information that is to the point and easy for the target audience to understand can be the difference between getting your critical messages covered or ignored. A company's identity can be improved or damaged based on the approach and attitude of your spokespeople

Spokespeople representing the company help to establish not only general awareness for the company, but also the reputation, credibility and brand equity. However, as many people already know, some of the biggest obstacles to overcome are the lack of confidence, awareness and knowledge about the specific skills required to be an effective company spokesperson.

Study Finds PR is the #1 Contributor to Organizational Success

We've all felt it and now the Council of PR Firms has confirmed it in a press release issued yesterday - 2004 was a "bounce back" year for the PR profession.  The findings outlined in the press release were the results of the third annual Public Relations Generally Accepted Practices Study (GAP III), published by the USC Annenberg Strategic Public Relations Center (SPRC) and sponsored by the Council of Public Relations Firms.  One of the most surprising findings of the study is included in a quote by Jerry Swerling, Director of Strategic PR Center and Principal Investigator for the study:

“While one year doesn't make a trend, our findings indicate that PR is not only doing very well as compared with past years, it may actually be entering a new era of vibrancy and maturity. In nearly all types of organizations surveyed, public relations budgets increased, additional staff were hired, and PR's role expanded. But the most stunning finding of GAP III is this: according to hundreds of senior-level PR people, their CEOs now believe that PR is the #1 contributor to organizational success, ahead of such functions as Marketing, Finance, Legal, Sales, and others. By comparison, PR was ranked #6 out of 8 functions in both 2003 and 2002.”

A pretty strong statement but 347 senior-level practioners from companies, government agencies, and non-profit agencies can't be wrong, right?

Among the key findings of GAP III:

• Budgets grew. Among all types of organizations surveyed, PR budgets rose by an average of 3% in 2004 versus 2003, with much larger increases in some categories. Additionally, companies that reported increased budgets in 2004 expected another budget increase in 2005.
• PR staffs grew. Other than the largest (Fortune 500) category of companies, every category of company remained the same or increased PR staff size from 2003 to 2004.
• Management support for PR increased. Management support for PR increased in every revenue category in 2004 versus 2003.
• PR's recommendations were taken more seriously. Regarding the extent to which PR's recommendations are taken seriously by senior management, the average score (on a 1-7 scale) rose significantly among all revenue categories.
• PR contributed more to strategic planning. PR and reputational considerations are factored into strategic and operational decision making and planning in their organizations.
• PR reported more often to the "C" Suite. More often than not, PR now typically reports to the "C-Suite" in organizations of all types.
• The PR firms received (generally) good news. GAP III data indicates that 2004 was a stabilizing year for the agencies. While the percentage of larger organizations working with agencies either remained flat or grew slightly, it declined among smaller organizations. However, clients generally allocated greater percentages of their total PR budgets to agencies. These facts, combined with the finding that the "Agency of Record" relationship model continued to decline in popularity, suggest that increasing numbers of clients are using a model in which they distribute a larger number of dollars, among a smaller number of agencies, rather than any single agency.

  While clients continue to value, more than any other attribute, the "Extra Arms and Legs" agencies provide, there appears to be a trend toward increased reliance on their more intellectual and strategic assets. When asked to express their greatest concern about working with agencies, "Cost" continued to be the category leader.

• PR/GR ratio continued to evolve. The Strategic Public Relations Center developed the PR/GR ratio, which gauges the number of dollars dedicated to total PR budgets (including salaries) for every million dollars in gross revenues. Among Fortune 500 GAP III respondents, the PR/GR Ratio was $643/$1 million; among the Fortune 501 - 1000 it was $544; and among the Fortune 1001 - 2000 it was $928.

• PR evaluation made little progress, and CEOs want more. As was the case in GAPs I and II, "Influence on Corporate Reputation" remained the most commonly cited metric, despite the lack of a generally accepted methodology for measuring that concept. However, when asked about the extent to which their CEOs believed that adequate PR evaluation methods currently exist, respondents were decidedly negative.
• Communications functions are much better integrated. Respondents indicated that the various communications-related functions within their organizations are better integrated and coordinated than before. This suggests that PR is playing a broader organizational role and the benefits of a more coordinated approach are becoming better understood.

And finally,

• The "Most Admired are different. GAP III identified a number of characteristics that distinguish companies on Fortune Magazine's "Most Admired" list from others, but the authors emphasized that factors such as their higher frequency of public ownership, generally larger size, and the more complex communications environments must be factored into the comparison. That said, the characteristics that distinguish Fortune 2000 "Most Admired" companies from others include these:
  • Their PR budgets are bigger. The average "Most Admired" PR budget was $9.2 million, versus $3.8 million for all others.
  • They saw themselves as being more "Proactive" and "Democratic" than all others.
  • PR reported to the Executive Office 50% of the time among the "Most Admired," as opposed to 53% among all others.
  • The "Most Admired" have much larger PR staffs. For example, among Fortune 2000 companies, their average staff numbers 44.2 people, versus 22.4 for non-"Most Admired."
  • In addition to having bigger internal staffs, the "Most Admired" also make greater use of outside PR agencies. 81% of them use outside agencies, as compared with 71% for all other Fortune 2000 companies.
  • The "Most Admired" also spent more on PR measurement and evaluation (as a percentage of their total PR budgets) than did non-"Most Admireds." "Influence on Corporate Reputation" remained the most commonly cited metric.

The press release suggests looking at the final report for more details on the findings - the complete study will be available for download at no cost  (in sections), at www.annenberg.usc.edu/sprc, effective May 23.