Don’t Be An American Idiot–Talk to the Press
When you’re on the ropes and something good finally breaks your way, you should tell the world about it–especially when the news media are practically begging you to do so.
Case in point, the producers of “the financially shaky musical American Idiot got a huge boost this week as Billie Joe Armstrong, the front man for Green Day who wrote the show’s songs and co-wrote its book, stepped into a key role onstage for eight performances.”
Great–just the shot in the arm they needed–and a real draw for new ticket sales, right? Well, no. Read on (source: Portfolio.com - emphasis mine):
“But one day after Armstrong made his Broadway debut to thunderous applause at the St. James Theater and raves online, something odd happened—neither the producers nor the publicist wanted to talk about the show, it’s finances, the impact Armstrong would have on the its long-term health, or Broadway’s appetite for rock and roll.
The lack of comment is not only puzzling, it’s stupid. It’s akin to Donald Trump refusing to talk after a particularly heated episode of The Apprentice or Steve Jobs demanding to be left alone after sending out a press release announcing a new iPhone. Small-business owners and entrepreneurs take note: Going dark to the media when your product is hot is no way to make friends or keep the “positive” going.
Great advice.
And I say that not as a hater of the musical. Far from it. I saw American Idiot in previews this spring and walked away thinking it was one of the best shows of the last Broadway season.
Yet the producers stonewalled reporters at a time when the anemic musical could use a shot in the arm. Don’t they understand that when the smell of death starts to linger around a Broadway show it usually makes people turn away in droves? The Armstrong boost makes now the time to talk to the media–especially media so obviously disposed to writing a positive story. Instead, the reporter wrote this:
It all made me eager to write about the brilliant move behind getting one third of Green Day to fill in for the actor who normally plays St. Jimmy, who had to take time off to deal with a family matter. But then when I got shot down by the publicist—and, by extension, the producers—I was left only with a set of unanswered questions.
I’m sure they have their reasons, and they may be very good ones–but the fact is they blew a great media opportunity. Keep that in mind when something good happens to your company or organization. Don’t let the opportunity to make a splash with the media slip by.
To put it plainly: don’t be an idiot. Sing when you’re winning.
Huffington Post Blogger Insults PR Professionals
I bill by the hour and will charge extra for being project manager of the Death Star.
It’s a tough line of work, being in Public Relations, what with all the evil we do.
Just ask the blogger at the Huffington Post who blithely portrayed public relations professionals as cynical, evil minions of “the dark side”:
Can you ever trust a PR person? If he’s working pro bono and has only six weeks of unemployment to his name, then the answer is probably.
After Kevin DeSoto , 41, was laid off after a 20-year career in PR and marketing — an industry which is sometimes cynically referred to as “the dark side” — he began using his social media savvy to help others… for free.
Note to blogger: “Can you ever trust a PR person?” Really? You actually wrote that with a straight face?
The story, titled Kevin DeSoto, Former PR Exec, Crosses Over to the Good Side (!) condescendingly compliments Mr DeSoto for his admirable work on behalf of people in need. I suppose that the author of the piece thought that his pro bono work would seem even more admirable if DeSoto’s recent change of fortune had transformed him from a killer of Jedi Knights into a pillar of the Forces of Good.
Yes, I know the “dark side” slam on PR has been around a while, but I’m challenging it anyway. Besides being a lame angle for a story and lazy stereotyping, it’s unfair to public relations professionals. It also cheapens what Mr. DeSoto is doing. To that end, Mr. DeSoto made a good point that was unfortunately met with a backhanded compliment:
Since leaving the corporate world, the former camera marketer says he has focused on “going back to the basics of true, honest PR and marketing,” which may sound oxymoronic but after being “burned” in the corporate world, DeSoto says he is confident his good deeds will pay off some day.
“I struggle with being optimistic about this sometimes, but I have a strong conviction that if you do the right thing, it will pay off some day. Good things can happen when you give your time, skills and resources to help someone with asking for anything in return.”
Most PR professionals I know do pro bono work as a matter of course in our careers, and it doesn’t take a sudden job loss to make that happen. On the whole as a profession we’re not unethical shills for nasty corporations that rape the environment or bilk taxpayers. No, most of us work for non-profits, hospitals, social causes and responsible companies. Yes, by telling our client’s story we help sell products and services–but that makes us a vital part of capitalism, not Lords of the Sith.
There are bad players in every profession–whether it be PR, journalism, law, medicine or even blogging. Tarring everyone with the same “dark side” brush isn’t fair or responsible.
You can trust me on that.
High Fructose PR Problem
The folks at PRWatch.org are concerned about the attempts to change the image of the cheap, subsidy-sweet high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) by changing its name; even comparing the HFCS lobby to the evildoers at Philip Morris and worse, Blackwater:
Philip Morris tried to escape its tarnished reputation by re-branding itself “Altria” and the private military contractor Blackwater tried to ditch its bad image by re-naming itself “Xe.” Now the Corn Refiners Association is taking a tip from these companies and trying to re-brand its much-maligned product, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), as “corn sugar.” Consumption of HFCS is at a 20-year low. This might make doctors and nutritionists happy, but it’s bad news for manufacturers of HFCS, who hope to turn the trend around. No longer should we refer to chemical-sounding “high fructose corn syrup,” but instead we should use the fresher, gentler and more natural-sounding term “corn sugar.” HFCS has gotten a reputation as obesity’s public enemy number one, and over-consumption of HFCS and other sweeteners has been linked to a list of chronic health problems. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not yet approved the name change for food labels, but the corn producers are already working to change public perception of their product. They are running TV ads featuring a down-home family farmer and sweeping shots of nature, and their Web site extolls the virtues of HFCS.
The re-naming could work. In the 1980s, there was an ingredient called “low erucic acid rapeseed oil” which was re-named “canola oil,” and more recently, the FDA permitted prunes to be marketed under the name “dried plums.” In both cases, after the name change, sales of the products increased.
As they say, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still unhealthy, delicious bacon. Dr. Andrew Weil has weighed in:
Instead, in the web age, the name-change petition quickly became an appropriately sticky public relations mess. After just nine days, a Google search for the twin terms “high-fructose corn syrup” and “corn sugar” garnered 143,000 results, and asking social media posters for their own alternate names became a raging meme. I happily joined in, posing the challenge on my Facebook page and Digg profile. Hundreds volunteered tags including “liquid suffering,” “cellulite syrup,” and several that can’t be published in a family website, despite my instruction to avoid profanity.
via Dr. Andrew Weil: Fortunately, ‘Corn Sugar’ Has Become a Sticky PR Mess.
So, PR geniuses, what would you do if the Corn Refiners Association were your client? I think I’d be looking up case studies on New Coke, myself.
Too Busy to Take My Money?
I called a vendor (name and city of origin to remain anonymous) to inquire about hiring them. Actually, to be more precise, I called and emailed a vendor many times at the request of a client who wanted me to use said vendor on a project. The budget was several thousand dollars–not tens of thousands, but enough so you’d notice it on a monthly balance sheet.
In case the vendor wasn’t getting my calls and emails, I checked with his receptionist to make sure the vendor was in the office–she said the vendor indeed was, then transferred me to the vendor’s extension. I left a message.
Long story short, after entreaties for a call (or email) back over a span of two weeks, I gave up and hired a different vendor.
Not sure if it was me (not everybody likes everybody), a busy schedule or what, but the vendor’s inaction lost my business–and my client’s–probably forever.
I don’t get it. Had the vendor just returned the communication to say “we’re swamped,” or “we’re not interested in that project” I would have said fair enough and moved on–and still kept that vendor on my short list for future projects. But now….nope.
Why? Because I wasn’t given the professionalism of a civil reply.
I’d venture to say that if you’re so busy you can’t take ten seconds to send a reply email or designate a subordinate to do it for you, then your busy schedule is probably an accident or a result of poor time management–because you’re sure not great at attracting new business.
Who knows? Maybe this vendor didn’t need the money.
Ha.
Step In Front of the Ball
Ouch.
I just received a call asking me to join a national PR consultancy cooperative. They found me through Google search while looking for a PR firm in this area. After a couple of phone calls and some vetting on both sides, I got the offer and accepted.
They found me on Google–and I think mostly because of this blog. Blogs are good for search engine optimization, or SEO. (More on that in a minute.)
I have a client who hates blogging–thinks it’s a chore even though she’s a very good writer with a real knack for blogging. She was telling me today her business had fallen off and I said one very inexpensive marketing activity was to update her blog daily.
“I know,” she said wearily. “But–”
I told her about the consultancy call–one I received purely by virtue of blogging (and having a cool website, many thanks Shelly!). My client thought it over and agreed to blog every day for a few weeks to see what effect it would have.
Here’s what I think she’ll find (source: NewMediaSocial) if she does it:
But new evidence strongly demonstrates the SEO and traffic-building benefits of regular daily posting — that’s every day daily — are very compelling. In fact, when social media blogger Justin Kownacki reasoned that fewer, longer, more carefully written posts might be a better strategy for him than shorter, daily posts, he kept careful track of the results.
It wasn’t pretty. His page views declined 36% in a matter of four months. His Alexa traffic ranking, relative to other websites, slipped from about 162,000 to over 245,000.
What Kownacki’s data doesn’t show is whether the fall-off was related primarily to declines in organic search visits, but that’s the conclusion drawn by Bruce Clay in a related post.
The lesson here: Google and the other search engines are on a constant, minute-by-minute scouring of the web for fresh, high-quality content. Google treats blog posts and news posts as a special type of content, often rewarding them with high rankings right out of the gate, then (unless external links argue otherwise) usually letting them sink in the rankings as they age.
Heck, I don’t consistently blog every day, but I’m going to.
Let me use a baseball metaphor:
You don’t get on base unless you swing the bat, wait for the pitcher to walk you or you step in front of the damn ball. If you want to guarantee you get on base, you know what you have to do. Sure, it stings a little, but it gets you there.
Of course, it can also kill you. But I digress…
Share what you know, what you care about and what drives you–share it with the world on your company or personal blog. Get in the game. You may even hit a homer.
Filtered for Your Pleasure
Posted by Alex on September 18, 2010 · Leave a Comment
Reading SmartMoney magazine I came across a story by Anne Kadet about PowerReviews, “a little-known outfit processes reviews for online stores.” She adds that “Since the company’s 2005 launch, it has screened 9 million reviews.”
Kadet’s feature describes PowerReviews as the filter that many online stores use to screen out profanity, obviously false (inauthentic!) or off-topic reviews.
It’s an interesting story if you’ve ever wondered why your complaint about bad customer service at ACME Co. went missing:
So, retailers scrub the reviews on a regular basis. Oh well, even so if you have a gripe you can always blog, Tweet or Facebook about it on your own. And you should.
Filed under G Whiz, Message & Strategy, Public Relations, Tips & Tricks · Tagged with AlexanderG Public Relations, Anne Kadet, Bad pr, Brand identity, Branding, comment filter, Kansas City, Kansas City Public Relations, online complaints, PowerReviews, PR, PR tips, product reviews, profanity, public relations blog, review comments filter, reviews, SmartMoney, strategic public relations, trust agents