Lesson #1 for Social Media Marketing: Don’t be the dupe

I just read Ryan McNutt’s blog (New Media Officer for Dalhousie University) with a post about misleading Facebook groups; ones set up by marketing companies to capitalize on the “Class of 20XX” propensity for students to connect and discuss their upcoming university adventure.

 

Read it.

 

Lessons to be learned? First of all, protect your brand. That means sometimes you have to call in the lawyers — and when other parties are pretending to be you, it’s most likely lawyer time. And for the more insidious of marketing companies, always remember that brand authenticity toes a razor-thin line.  Social media vehicles offer unprecedented access, but also wing-melting proximity to screw it up. As Stractical has said before and will say again, the hallows of public relations lie in locating credibility. When you play the dupe, you desecrate your audience’s trust. 

Time to ReBrand?

Take a few minutes to think about your brand and get inspired by the best in re-branding efforts in 2009 from the ReBrand 100 Global Awards.

Besides the benefits of refreshing the look of your product or company, re-branding can be used to underscore change or advancement for your brand in the mind of the media. Why the change? What’s different? Where are you going? If you can answer those questions in a meaningful and newsworthy way, with splashy new creative to supplement as visuals, you just might have built yourself strategic media campaign. 

Back when I worked in corporate communications for a major ad firm, we’d call this “pitching around the creative.” It’s a tactic that you should pull out of your bag of tricks only once in a while (because no one cares that you changed your bus ads again, necessarily) but can be used effectively. The greatest example of “pitching around creative” is the spectacle that is Super Bowl ads. While the astronomical prices of Super Bowl airtime reflect the viewership during the Big Game (sorry, “Super Bowl” is a registered trademark of the powers-that-be) it’s the collateral press coverage that Super Bowl ads gain that truly justify the return on investment. 

Have thoughts on when and when not to “pitch around the creative” for brands, products and organizations? Please leave a comment.

Blog to Stick

While I might be wiser to write a post on keeping up with writing posts on one’s blog (and hey, I think I will) I thought I’d take some time to share a great book I’ve been reading.

If you’re like me, you’re probably in the middle of reading three or four books at any one time. I tend to have a work of fiction, something on economics or history, something on sports (mixing with economics and history) and a book that can be generally described as marketing, business or communications strategy-related on the go at any given time. 

 

orange is a sticky cover for a book, don't you think?

 

 

For the latter category, I’ve just finished Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and others Die by Chip and Dan Heath. One a Stanford professor of organizational behaviour and the other a new-media education expert, these brothers walk us through the foundation of what makes certain ideas break through the clutter and attach to our brains like Velcro — that’s the “stickiness” factor.

The book is broken into six sections with a cleverly-designed acronym (a catalyst for stickiness). Ideas, the Heaths argue, should be:

Simple
Unexpected
Concrete
Credible
Emotional
and tell a Story
(SUCCEs)

While treading similar water to Malcolm Gladwell’s wildy popular The Tipping Point, Made to Stick survives with circumstance where Gladwell led with pomp. The authors use countless real life examples in a variety of situations to show why the basic principles weed their way into the best ideas. One central theme is the evidentially “stickiness” of urban legends. I won’t ruin their deconstructed examples but I’ll add my own:

Let’s take the tale of giant sewer rats scuttling through New York City’s sewer system and occasionally popping up through people’s toilets. This is a myth I remember hearing from my older sister when I was 8 or 9. I was very familiar with the giant rats from The Princess Bride  and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and was both insanely excited and terrified that I could catch a glimpse of a super rat one day. 

The rumours were simple, unexpected (frighteningly so), concrete in that anyone who’s seen a rat can imagine a gigantic one, credible in an anti-authority way — what they don’t want you to know!, obviously emotional and in each instance of the myth, the storyteller will claim to know someone who knows someone who’s actually seen one. 

While the book is not aimed intentionally at business communicators, in spirit it’s all PR. From the “clinics” bearing examples of more and less sticky messages, to the narratives about a health official using a vivid Big Mac comparison when trying to communicate the dangerous saturated fat levels in movie theatre popcorn, marketing and communications, specifically, are tested agains the theory most. 

I’ll file this one under Streducation as I would have relished the opportunity to be assigned this book back in PR school instead of those textbooks that are now holding up a wobbly bookshelf in my bedroom. I’ve started to go back and look over past campaigns, white papers and strategies I’ve been involved in and test them against some of the principles in Made to Stick, meaning the book itself resonated with stickiness for me. 

I’m a heavy user of the Toronto Public Library but if you’d like to pick up your very own copy, here’s Amazon. I think you can even read a chapter there.

Read a good book PR/communications book lately? Drop a comment or an e-mail to stractical [at] gmail.com

This is just friggin’ amazing

One of my Alma Maters, Humber College, has hit the PR payload when four students built a radio and made contact with the International Space Station.

With polytechnics moving strongly with pro-active MR and GR, stories like this do wonders in tying research to colleges with the strategy to remove the stigma that college/polytechnic education is somehow “lesser” than university.  (I speak only to a popular perception, of course) 

The strategy tree reads: If x (where x is relevant stakeholders: potential students, parents, funders, politicians) believes (through some type of research) that college education is “lesser” (not respected by employers, not able to bridge to graduate studies, etc.) raise colleges profile by showing x that in fact colleges do conduct research, are granting degrees and are teaching the skills desired by the workforce. 

As if to say “Hey there Ivory Tower, while you’re navel gazing we’re talking to space.” 19 Stractical Points for aggressive underdog media-baiting. 

 

Apologies for Hiatus

Once again, so many apologies for the seemingly endless hiatus Stractical is on. Rest assured, we will be back, posting more regularly in 2009. So keep your Google Reader revved.

Post no links

But sometimes I must.

From PR in Canada and the leading writer on PR research and measurement, Alan Chumley, a note about stakeholder relations research and measurement. We’ve talked a lot about measurement (and my own insistence that measurement really does not exist in a meaningful way for marketing communications) and Alan’s call to pay attention to research and measurement issues in “below the line” stakeholder relations exposes more holes in the current practices (and claims) in these areas.

On transparency and authenticity…

I lose.

For not contributing nearly enough to this precious weblog. But while the hours in a day seem to diminish with every new month and I’m not able to update as much as I’d like, I still keep a very active blogroll of PR and communications-type vehicles that keep me in the industry loop.

One of these blogs, PR in Canada, is local, regularly updated and phenomenally written by Christie Adams. Go check it out. Really! Then come back.

………………………………………………………………….

Okay, welcome back. If simply giving praise to a blog may be considered mere lip service, I’ll prove my engagement by taking issue with a couple recent points that came across my Google Reader (articles = good, articles that provoke discussion = stractical).

From“Does Transparency Mean Corporations Can Reform Themselves Without Changing? Thoughts From The Shel Holtz Dinner,” Christie recalls a debate with Shel Holtz about a company’s ability to avoid changing behaviour (due to mediated pressure) by practicing total corporate transparency.

I think it is fundamentally wrong to assume that transparency trumps action in resolving crises or issues.  The relationship between a company and an exterior stakeholder group (generally referred to as “the public” as mediated through mass media but really any group that does not have a vested interest in the viability of the company like a shareholder or employee) is forever tenuous because of the disparity of negotiated principles.

Whereas internal stakeholder groups have specific negotiated principles with respect to the company — increase the share price or produce a dividend — the public’s relationship is less clearly defined. The public generally accepts populist frames like fairness, equality, underdog triumphs and honest disclosure and rejects the opposites of these principles like hypocrisy, obstruction, or asymmetrical conflicts (like layoffs). If you’re representing an oil company that is making huge profits and there is an environmental or gas price crisis, the public is not going to like you.

Transparency satisfies one of these populist principles, especially in the tobacco and Wal-Mart examples since the contentious issue relates to ethics. Tobacco companies lie and sell people death sticks and Wal-Mart locks their employees in their stores overnight according to public lore.  Both are, in the abstract, bad. Using transparency to clarify so-called “bad” (unpopular) policies is better than letting the unpopular policies fester in the public’s mind. But honesty only addresses one of these principles. If your company’s ethics are in question, disclosing the questionable policies is better than hiding your head in the sand, but it’s only one level up. A commitment to transparency should and must include a willingness and openness to amend unethical or other secret behaviour.

Now, I’m not saying that corporate transparency is always the right move for every company and every reputation management initiative — I believe (and I’ll post about this in the future) that often some moves companies make would never pass the public’s populist principles, even with savvy public relations support — but if you have made the commitment to disclose, you can’t ignore the prerogative to change and adapt without drawing attention to the fact that you are refusing to change and adapt.

A quick note on: “Popularity Defines A ‘Real’ Online News Outlet”

I agree that the line between bloggers and journalists is blurring. But the important point for PRtists, when assessing an outlet is not merely popularity, it’s suitability. The internet has brought a level of specialization in journalistic content in that there are blogs for enthusiasts for specific models of cars. When considering suitability to pitch or engage in media relations with bloggers, popularity is just one of the factors that we must consider. The most important factor is credibility. Like trade print publications, online entities can have small audiences that deem the outlet to be so credible and trustworthy that a product review, spokesperson defence, expert comment or other PR-centred activity will almost certainly be well received. Now, judging credibility speaks to PR measurement which is, as discussed here previously, a black hole but we should still recognize that spikes and trends in popularity may not necessarily point to spikes and trends in credibility.

Thanks again to PR in Canada for getting the blog rolling again!

Can they be honest AND evil?

Finger Lickin’ Good Proactive

So you think you’ve finally run out of ideas for proactive media relations? Sure you’ll never come up with an angle to get your product/brand in ink?

Shame on you. And 11 Stractical points (one for each herb and spice in the Colonel’s secret recipe) for KFC (parent: Yum!) for going back to brand basics with this one:

Brand brainstorming exercise for the week: Imagine a world without ______ (your brand)

Conference Blog

I think I’ve written about the ultra-savvy GM of the 76ers, Ed Stefanski before. He’s smart, articulate and understands solid medlia relations practices.

Stefanski held a conference call with 25 bloggers which is garnering heaps of praise especially in the same calendar year that Mark Cuban banned bloggers from the dressing room.

Respecting, valuing and engaging with your blogging beat is no longer a media relations luxury — it’s a necessity. You know you’re doing it right when they write this about you:

And they handled the whole thing with a smile. I didn’t feel for one second that in the minds of PR man Michael Preston, or Stefanski himself, they were talking to the JV.

iPhones and iBasketball

Rogers and the iPhone. iPhone and Rogers. A match made in… well… Canada. Here’s the story: Rogers announces iPhone price plans for the Canadian roll-out of the Apple phenom. Customers/consumers kick up a storm as the prices are seismically higher than in the US or anywhere else for that matter. Then Rogers announces a dramatic price drop.

Veritas’ Touchdown & Fumbles weighed in calling the original price roll-out a “fumble” but giving points for Rogers’ recovery.

Rogers Wireless Communications Inc. still dropped the ball in the run-up to today’s Canadian debut of the much-vaunted iPhone, with respect to rates for the kind of wireless package needed to support the device. Rogers was deluged with angry e-mails and phone calls, and more than 50,000 people signed an online petition protesting the announced package price of $100 per month for six gigabytes of data. The company was smart – and I think recovered the Fumble – by rushing out a $30 per month special price for the plan, provided you sign up by the end of August and commit to a three-year contract. It showed them to be responsive and listening to their customers. However, I say the original Fumble call stands, because Rogers failed to see the backlash coming despite the incredible amount of online chatter on blogs, social marketing sites, you name it – in other words, all over the geekosphere where the iPhone’s bulls-eye target market lives. Responding prior to launch is good, but not letting the wave of discontent get as huge as it did – when all they had to do was watch what was brewing right in front of them online – would have been much, much better.

I take issue with Veritas here. With a product roll-out, Rogers has only one chance to get it right. While supposedly listening to their customers and finally acquiescing, Rogers comes off less responsive and more foolish. As a potential iPhone purchaser, a dramatic price drop reminds me how arbitrary prices are set for this market. If prices can be lowered from $100 to $30 a month, why shouldn’t I kick up a storm and hope they go down to $10 in a few months? Rogers should have set a more reasonable price, yes, but if they had set $60 prices and kept relatively quiet, they’d be in better reputation shape right now.

The wireless industry is a hard nut to crack in terms of determining a fair price. Like airline tickets, it’s almost impossible to discern what goes into the pricing of a cell phone plan. Economics says Rogers should charge as much for the iPhone as consumers will pay. Maybe consumers will consider it a “rip-off” or “overpriced” but it is not in Rogers’ best interest to point out the seemingly arbitrariness of their pricing by slashing as soon as the blogs start to roll.

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From sloppy accommodation to responsive heroism, The Score, Canada’s perennial third sports TV network, showed how to listen to potential customers’ needs by picking up Team Canada’s qualifying tournament in Athens next week. Sports blogs and newspaper columns bulged with confusion as to why the last ditch effort for Canada to make the Olympics was not going to show up on anyone’s dial. Granted, the chances of centre  Samuel Dalembert and crew of making it out of this tournament were slim like Leo Rautins’ knees, but there was no denying the appetite for all things basketball, especially in sports-poor July.

The Score is establishing itself as the basketball station in Canada and with responsive moves like this, it’s not hard to see why.

The difference in responses: The Score saw a public demand and stepped in whereas Rogers took a chance, got slammed, and scrambled to recover. I can’t wait to watch YouTube highlights of Team Canada on my (imaginary) iPhone.