Season’s Greetings & Best Wishes for 2012
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Kansas City Special Place for Singer Dan Coyle
Dan Coyle
KC A Pivotal Point in Musician’s Career…Performs Nov. 16 at RecordBar–Free CD with Every Ticket
Kansas City has been very good to Dan Coyle, and now the acclaimed singer songwriter Dan Coyle aims to give something back by launching his new CD at RecordBar Tuesday, Nov. 16 at 7 p.m.
Coyle has twice played the KCRiverFest Independence Day Festival in Kansas City as well as other local venues. He had such an enthusiastic welcome from Kansas City audiences that he chose to offer his new CD “You Linger Your Little Hour And Are Gone” free to every ticket holder at his RecordBar appearance Tuesday.
“In 2007, I got my first big break when I played at the Folklore Alliance Conference in Memphis. From there I started to make some fans, got some exposure on some NPR stations. Things went pretty well until early 2009, when my Dad died,” Coyle said.
“I lost some momentum. I wasn’t working until KCRiverFest 2009 got me back on the road.”
“I stayed in close contact with the people from Kansas City and it gave me this sense of hope that there was a need or a want or a market for my kind of music and I needed to get out and do things again. Kansas City gained this little place in my heart from what it did in breaking me loose from the stagnation. It wasn’t a big break in the traditional sense but it got me back where I needed to be. I’m thrilled to be back in KC.”
Tickets are $10 at the door or may be pre-ordered online. Every ticketholder gets a free copy of his new CD. RecordBar is located at 1020 Westport Road in Midtown Kansas City. Call 816-753-5207 for directions or more information. Singer Kevin Hiatt will open the performance.
Coyle recently completed a tour of the Seattle area and is preparing for a European Tour in February.
Coyle’s music has been described by Alexandra McKay of the Prince Street Press as “Bright musicality and sunny inflections almost hide the thoughtful and thought-provoking lyrics that are woven throughout this album. A lo-fi live recording that’s simple without being simplistic, and utterly charming.”
“It’s an acoustic mix of Paul Simon and Bob Dylan, with some soft and hard edges to it.” Coyle said.
Coyle has released five albums to date, including “Random Thoughts and Incomplete Sentences” and “Briar Street: The Acoustic Sessions.” His latest album is scheduled for wide release December 1. He has toured nationally, playing everything from small venues to concert halls to massive festivals.
For more information about Dan Coyle’s music, including his complete tour schedule, song samples, video, interviews, reviews and special offers, visit www.dancoyle.com. Follow him on Twitter @Dan_Coyle and on Facebook.
Google Commands Big Cash from PR-Damaged Brand
Public relations is all about reputation management–your credibility is the coin of the business realm. We’re pretty hard on companies and brands that take a cavalier attitude about their credibility–because once you lose that, it’s all over. Or is it?
Admittedly, we have strongly implied that you can’t buy your way out of a PR disaster, but the oily BP sure makes us think twice:
Before BP could stem the oil gusher at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, it unleashed $100 million in ad spending, largely on network TV, to stem the damage to its image. But it also started spending heavily where it had never spent much before: buying ads in Google’s search results.
How much did BP spend on search? In two months, BP went from spending very little on search advertising — about $57,000 a month — to becoming one of Google’s top advertisers, dropping nearly $3.6 million in the month of June alone, according to an internal Google document obtained by Advertising Age. That pushed BP into the upper echelon of search advertisers, in a league with Expedia, which spent at least $5.9 million in June, Amazon, which spent at least $5.8 million, and eBay, which spent at least $4.2 million.
This is a significant outlay, even for BP, which spent $94 million on advertising in 2009, and $78.7 million in the first six months of 2010 alone excluding search, according to Kantar Media. Search advertisers only pay when their ads convert or get a click, and in June the crisis was still at full-boil, driving clicks on BP&’s ads. But if BP kept spending at this rate, search would’ve become one of its bigger advertising line items by the end of the year, up there with network, cable or spot TV.
[...]
BP’s increase underscores how important Google has become for reputation management, and in the battle for public opinion. In the wake of the spill, Google was a natural first stop for people seeking information, and BP bought up dozens of keywords associated with the disaster such as “oil spill,” “leak,” “top kill” and “live feed” as it vied for clicks with news stories, images of oiled wildlife and plaintiff attorneys trolling for clients.
via What Big Brands Are Spending on Google – Advertising Age – Digital.
According to BP, ad expenditures during the active spill were $5 million per week.
BP’s ad strategy now follows the typical trajectory of crisis PR, he says. It didn’t start out that way. BP was slow to connect with consumers and gulf residents right after the spill. Tony Hayward’s numerous gaffes didn’t help the company’s image, which came across as inept and out of touch. There’s little question that his mismanagement of the company’s public image led to his ouster as CEO.
So how’s the advertising paying off in PR improvement? A recent AP poll says that “some 66 percent of those surveyed continue to disapprove of BP’s performance, down from a whopping 83 percent in June.” Though still dismal, it does look like the ad spending is helping. However, it’s also certainly due to the fact that time has passed and the oil spill isn’t leading the newscasts anymore. The public has turned to the latest Sarah Palin Facebook pronouncement, Paris Hilton’s cocaine possession arrest and even something important, like the president’s new rug.
Sure, we’ve seen the TV ads BP is using to rebuild its tattered, oil-stained image–that was as predictable as a blob of oil on the beach at Destin. But who would’ve thought they would have spent all that coin on Google search ads?
Clearly, the internet is now the 800 lb. gorilla of reputation management, and Google has some serious bananas.
Hat tip to Shelly Kramer for inspiring this post.
“Next” Big Thing: KC-Produced Web Series WINS National Competition
NEXT!, the creative brainchild of Kansas City-based casting director Heather Laird took top honors in the Comedic Webisode category at the National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) LATV Fest in Los Angeles.
NEXT! was one of only three finalists selected. The web-based comedy was announced as the winning entry during the LATV Fest July 14.
Laird created the comedy web series in an effort to showcase her work as an emerging director, choosing the internet as her medium.
“Getting a foot in the Hollywood door is an enormous challenge,” she said. “The internet has become a way for some to slip in through the back.”
Laird partnered with T2 + Back Alley Films owner Teri Rogers as Executive Producer to create six, six-minute web episodes.
“It’s a faux reality series,” said Laird. “It’s a fictional realty show that tracks the trials and tribulations of real-life casting director John Jackson.”
Jackson, who is the primary casting director for the award winning director Alexander Payne (Sideways, Election, About Schmidt), also has a long acting resume under the stage name of “John Durbin”.
Other Kansas City companies who lent production support to the project include Liquid 9 and Wheeler Audio.
A Hollywood mainstay, NATPE is dedicated to the “creation, development and distribution of televised programming”. The annual NATPE Market & Conference is considered to be the largest trade show event worldwide for buying and selling television and new media content.
NEXT! is at www.nexttheseries.com. For more information about NATPE and the LATV Fest go to www.latvfest.net.
