The Flack

Sauntering past the TV this morning, I caught Harry Smith and the CBS "Early Show" crew conducting an in-studio demo and debate over "double-dipping."

I knew right away what the term meant (being the true Seinfeld fan that I am). I also recognized the timeliness of the topic with the Super Bowl Game just three days out.

But there was an even greater impetus for this particular segment, one that lends credence to the old PR adage that print begets broadcast and more. Sure enough, today's New York Times had a piece on a new scientific study that actually set out to assess the health risks of double-dipping:

"The [Clemson University] study, to be published later this year in the Journal of Food Safety, is the only one I’ve ever seen to proclaim that it was inspired by an episode of 'Seinfeld.'"

This piece is destined to be among the most e-mailed of the week. I was especially glad to learn of the origins of that famous Seinfeld scene in which George is physically accosted for dipping his chip in the dip, taking a bite, then re-dipping:

"Peter Mehlman, a veteran 'Seinfeld' writer, wrote the episode. 'At the time I was living in Los Angeles, in Venice,' he told me. 'There was a party on one of the canals, and apparently someone dipped twice with the same chip. And a woman flipped out. ‘You just dipped twice! How could you do that? Now all your germs are in there!’ I thought, this is just too good not to use on the show.'"

Peter's an old friend dating back to his days scriptwriting for Howard Cosell. In fact I can personally vouch for his means of acquiring good material.

My wife and I used to live opposite the Manhattan entrance to the 59th Street Bridge. Every year, we'd hold a party to celebrate the NYC Marathon, which unfolded before us through our floor-to-ceiling windows. Peter attended one year, and years later, plucked the experience as a plot line in a Seinfeld episode. While not as famous as the double-dipping scene, we get a kick each time it airs.

Labels: Double-Dipping, George Costanza, Jerry Seinfeld, NYC Marathon, Peter Mehlman, popular culture, Super Bowl

He ran a losing campaign with more than his share of PR gaffes.

Yet, as I sit here watching Rudy Giuliani's withdrawal and endorsement speech, I can't help but think how he timed this anti-climactic announcement to run live on the local TV network lead-ins across most of the nation. Geesh. He finally did something right on the media strategy front.

I mean why subject your messaging doctrine to an edited 45-second news package when you can have three minutes of live unadulterated coverage?

Yet I'm appalled. The nation's local TV news directors took the bait -- hook, line and sinker -- to hand over to this right wing ideologue unfettered access to a large hunk of their news programming holes. The Giuliani withdrawal speech morphed into a several-minute commercial for that pasty, anachronistic candidate who has stood by this failed presidency more than any other.

It's a sad day for the state of local TV news -- a day that gives VNR usage a run for the money. Kudos to Giuliani's media consiglieres. Thank goodness, you and your nasty New Yorker are history.

Labels: John McCain, journalism, media strategy, PR, public relations, Rudy Giuliani, TV news

Louise Story of The New York Times has done a great job of keeping tabs on the intersection of marketing and new media. Her piece this morning addresses the legal issues entailed in yet another consumer-generated media promotion wherein one QSR invited ordinary people to submit "commercial" videos at the expense of a competitor.

"The contest rules made it clear that the videos should depict Quiznos sandwiches as “superior” to Subway’s."

Subway sued claiming the videos misrepresented its product. Quiznos countered by saying it didn't create the spots, so it's not liable for any damage that may result. Hmmm.

"Among the videos that can still be seen on YouTube, one shows a wife arriving home with a Quiznos sandwich for her husband and a Subway sandwich for her dog. In another, a young man runs through town to find a sandwich, passing by seven Subway stores before he reaches a Quiznos and goes in. In a third, two men punt sandwiches across a parking lot; the Subway one soars high but the Quiznos one is so heavy that the man falls over when he kicks it."

As a veteran of the burger, toothpaste, and cola wars, I was reminded of an effort by Pepsi in the mid-eighties. The #2 cola had sought to tweak its competition, and in the process, generate loads of publicity. Bob Beebe ran Pepsi International. New Coke had just unceremoniously bowed on our shores.

Mr. Beebe retained our firm to train its in-country marketing operatives on how to mount a news conference. We gathered and put them through the paces in three cities Paris, Miami and Tokyo, then sent them back to their respective countries to hold their events.

The news they would announce? Pepsi introduces New Coke!

Now the laws of some Latin American and European countries strictly forbade the denigration of a commercial competitor. France was not one of them. Hence, in Paris, Pepsi advance-shipped cases of New Coke to the city of lights and invited journalists to try the brew that had caused so such consternation here. To underscore the event's raison d'etre, Pepsi showed les journalistes U.S. TV news stories of New Coke being dumped into American rivers in protest. Several U.S. broadcast evening news programs aired pieces from the Paris news conference.

Of course, the strategy of a #2 creatively taking on a #1 is nothing new. Wasn't it the Pepsi Challenge that caused Coke to reformulate in the first place? And few will debate the effectiveness (and PR value) of the "Mac vs PC Guy" ad campaign.

Yet, this Quiznos effort seems different. One marketer predicts that the lawsuit would put a chill on such competitor-bashing CGM promotions. Then again, the ability to put a lid on consumer evangelists may very well be a Quixotic task in and of itself.

Labels: church of the customer, Coke versus Pepsi, Cola Wars, consumer generated media, Louise Story, Quiznos, Subway

When the blogosphere directed its full fury on the poor, unsuspecting Target corporate PR operative for her comment last week that Target doesn't deal with bloggers, most social media-savvy marketing types were all too happy to jump on the bullseye-bashing bandwagon.

Personally, I agreed that the ill-advised comment/policy was/is extremely short-sighted, if not counter-intuitive. New York Times retail reporter Michael Barbaro today picked up on the brouhaha that started with a press query from a blog called ShapingYouth:

"Unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with nontraditional media outlets,” a public relations person wrote to ShapingYouth. “This practice,” the public relations person added, “is in place to allow us to focus on publications that reach our core guest,” as Target refers to its shoppers.

This policy will likely be reversed as Target's targeters turn up the volume. More from Mr. Barbaro:

Could Target, the ever-hip, contemporary retailer, really have such a low opinion of blogs, the ever-hip, contemporary media channel? Yes, at least for now. “We do not work with bloggers currently,” said a company spokeswoman, Amy von Walter, who agreed to speak with this traditional media outlet. “But we have made exceptions,” Ms. von Walter said. “And we are reviewing the policy and may adjust it.”

In an ideal world, PR pros should always strive to enter into a conversation with any journalist that submits a reasonably legitimate media query. In reality, however, it's not scalable to offer the same level of responsiveness across the board.

In fact I don't believe that all should be treated equally. Maybe it's because I don't believe that their editorial products are created equally. I ask: should the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences provide media credentials to anyone turning out on the red carpet with a camera?

No question that Target's policy jibes with its billion-dollar hipper-than-hip brand image. But I also sympathize with those beleaguered PR pros at media intensive companies who must make media choices...and face consequences by doing so. Hopefully, they'll be able to devise an acceptable method to separate the wheat from the chafe. (And somehow I don't think it's Technorati.)

Labels: Bloggers, blogging, citizen journalists, media credentials, PR, Shaping Youth, Target

Several months ago, the buzz surrounding the Mac O/S was palpable. Just talk to any Apple retail store salesperson (or ponder store sales of $4500 per sq-ft. - five times that of Best Buy).

This blogger inched out on a limb in October to predict that Apple's computers would set company sales records in Q4 '07. The world learned this week just how well the Mac fared -- 2.3 million units sold, a healthy 6.1 percent market share at year-end. And there's more.

From Computerworld: "Mac sales were up 44% over the same quarter the year before, and beat the previous record, set during 2007's third calendar quarter, by 155,000 units, according to numbers Apple released prior to a conference call with financial analysts and reporters Tuesday. Apple sold 977,000 desktop Macs and 1.34 million notebooks during the quarter, with the former showing the strongest growth. Desktop sales, for example, were up 53% year-to-year, while notebook sales increased 38%."

David Pogue reasoned:

There are all kinds of theories to explain the sudden resurgence: the lack of viruses, the iPod halo effect, the critical mass of Apple stores, the disappointing debut of Windows Vista, all those Apple TV ads, the switch to Intel chips (meaning that Windows programs run on a Mac) — or maybe all of it together.

Now to the dark side of robust Mac sales: customer service. If you thought Jeff Jarvis took it to Dell, I bet there are a myriad horror stories emerging as Apple struggles to deal with the sudden success of its Leopard-fired Mac line.

Take my Friday afternoon. At about 3pm, after burning some client files onto a CD, my iMac simply refused to eject the CD from the optical drive. I called Apple Care (for which I paid $149). After 45 minutes on the phone with someone from Bangalore, I was told to unplug the machine and bring it to an Apple Store. The closest store, 20 minutes away, didn't have an opening for three days, so I made a reservation with another mall-based Apple Store 45 minutes away.

I arrived at the appointed hour and the "genius" at the Genius Bar said he couldn't guarantee that the computer would be fixed today. They're "short" on geniuses today and I'd have to leave the computer. I said I really didn't mind waiting. He walked away and came back and said no dice. When will you have it back? "Three-to-five days, but there's no guarantee." Huh?!

I left the store not feeling too cared for. Sitting on the bench outside of Macy's with computer-in-bag, I called back Apple Care. A "concierge" put me on with a "supervisor" who instructed me to take the iMac home and call a "senior product specialist." Why I didn't do this the first time, who knows. After 75 minutes on hold for "level 2," I used my cell phone in frustration to reach another supervisor. She warned me not to hang up on the first call "as long as I hear music."

The second supervisor tried herself to reach level 2,. Two hours had now passed and suddenly the music stopped on the first call. Fortunately, I still had the second supervisor who succeeded in commandeered a senior product specialist named "Ty" whom I prayed could pull an extreme Mac makeover...quick. He couldn't, after suggesting I shake the iMac sideways to try to dislodge the CD. Nonetheless, he promised a home visit on Monday. We'll see. (I've tagged a few of the Mac PR folks, just in case.)

Update (Monday 1.28) - Received a phone message today postponing home visit since the optical drive is not in stock until tomorrow. News to me that I'm destined for an optical drive replacement to remedy a stuck CD.

Update (Tuesday, 1.29) - Bob, the Apple technician, arrived this morning bearing a new Matsushita optical drive. Two hours later, it swallowed his test CD and now tries to spit it out every 30 seconds or so. Apple Care thinks both drives are defective. Awaiting a call back.

Update (Wednesday, 1.30) -- Feeling abandoned. No word from Apple or Apple's local techs. Still, every 30 seconds optical drive attempts to disgorge CD. Most annoying.

Update (Thursday, 1.31) - iMac still sputtering every 30 seconds. Received a call from the techs midday promising the installation tomorrow of another optical drive.

Update (Friday, 2.1) - Issue resolved. The tech came by with a new optical drive, but without the required tools. He dashed off to Home Depot and returned to put my iMac back to new.

Apple, my faith in you is restored.

Update (Monday, 2.4) - Issue unresolved. Optical drive now makes a whirring sound after the machine boots up. Apple's outside tech support company sends me back to Apple Care. Apple Care has disconnected me three times thus far this morning. Argh!

Labels: Anuj Nayar, Apple Care, Apple Inc., Apple PR, iMac, Janette Barrios, Leopard, Lynn Fox

Tooling on Twitter this morning, I stumbled cross Robert Scoble's inducement to follow his reportage from the World Economic Forum in Davos. Since his tweet was short and non-specific (aren't all tweets?), I passed it by:

Scobleizer [seesmic] Qik video - http://seesmic.com/v/XDV3jG... 14 minutes ago from Seesmic

A few lines later, Shel Israel, whom I also follow (without reciprocation), sent his increasingly more famous Naked Conversations co-author this adulatory note:

shelisrael @scobleizer Your qik stuff from Davos is ground breaking. I envy you this gig. 4 minutes ago from web in reply to Scobleizer

I was thus prompted to click on the link to Scoble's hand-held video chat with pastor/author Rick Warren whose Purpose Driven Life is the "best-selling hard cover book of all time" (excluding The Bible I suppose). The interview was fun and informal, especially when Warren turned the tables to put Scoble in the spotlight.

It also was cool to see the esteemed former TIME editor, CNN honcho and current head of the Aspen Institute Walter Isaacson interrupt the chat to say hello to Warren during the interview. (Scoble asked Warren who he was.)

The admittedly rough, but instantly engaging and accessible video feed brought back memories of my amazement in seeing for the first time an AP photographer connect his camera to a pay phone and send his images via modem back to the wire service's headquarters. (Dating myself, there was a day when we PR types hand-carried raw film to The AP Photo Desk and waited until the desk processed it. If we were fortunate to have our client's image selected, we typed out the caption right there on the spot.)

It never ceases to astound me how new technologies have so quickly changed the way news/info is delivered and consumed. How cool was it to see TV news reporters in remote, war-torn locales outfitted with mobile satellite dishes to feed their reports? Today, wireless broadband, and the growing plethora of cool applications to capitalize on it, opens up media doors that few could have imagined even just a couple of years ago.

But back to Scoble's vids from Davos. It didn't matter to me that the video was sometimes jerky and out of focus. I found the content and immediacy of it all so grossly engaging. It certainly made for better viewing than Ann Curry's packaged report on ABC News from the day Davos opened.

I also wondered what kind of cred one needed to get a cred (media credential, that is). Sure The Scobleizer has a big following through his many digital incarnations, but what about other "non-traditional" journalists. Did they too merit access to the movers & shakers moving and shaking in Switzerland? It's clear the MSM-affiliated bloggers were repped in full force.

Image above by Robert Scoble via Flickr

Labels: Davos, Digital Video, journalism, press credentials, Robert Scoble, TV news, Twitter, World Economic Forum

PR Newser reported yesterday that Hamilton Nolan has ankled our industry's leading weekly trade publication for the edgier pastures of Gawker.com. Good for him. In fact, as I thought about it, PR Week has a string of alumni who've springboarded to other notable editorial callings.

Ad Age's Matt Creamer, who profiled Richard Edelman this week in a revealing Q&A, had an early career start at PR Week. So did Claire Atkinson and Doug Quenqua, both of whom are contributing to The New York Times. Matt Boyle parlayed his PR Week stint into a staff position at Fortune magazine.

Then there's that British transplant Ellie Trickett who sojourned over to PR Week's Haymarket sibling DM News as editor in chief. And let's not forget Julia Hood's esteemed predecessor Jonah Bloom (pictured) who sits atop the masthead at Ad Age.

One thing's for sure: don't disrespect those trade journalists. One day they may come back to taunt you. (Or in the case of Richard Edelman, annoint you.)

Labels: Ad Age, Claire Atkinson, Doug Quenqua, Ellie Trickett, Gawker, Hamilton Nolan, Jonah Bloom, Julia Hood, Matt Boyle, Matt Creamer, PR, PR Week

I haven't heard of a pop song running less that 2:30 minutes, well, since The Beach Boys' "Wouldn't It Be Nice" (RT 2:25) hit the terrestrial airwaves in '67 or thereabouts.

Nonetheless, that didn't stop "Regis & Kelly" producer Michael Gelman from demanding that Ringo cut his planned on-air performance to that fleeting length.

Ringo, who's in town promoting his new album, agreed to slice 45 seconds off his 4-minute 15-second gig, but it didn't cut muster with Michael "Machiavelli" Gelman who, to his credit, did bend a bit to allow a running time of "under 3 minutes."

Even so, Ringo bolted the studio with these parting words: ‘God bless and goodbye. We still love Regis.”’

Ringo's publicist fell on her sword:

"...due to miscommunication between his publicist, Elizabeth Freund, and the musical director, Starr didn’t realize the performance had to be 2 1/2 minutes or less, Freund told The Associated Press."

Rege's publicist was all too willing to pass the buck:

"A spokeswoman for “Regis and Kelly” told the AP the show’s producers tried to work with Starr, noting his appearance had been booked since November and the time requirement for the song — the show’s standard — had been expressed numerous times.

Just think. Only 30 seconds separated America from hearing the latest track from Ringo's new album. What a shame!

Labels: Michael Gelman, PR, publicist, Regis and kelly, Ringo Starr, Television

Love that post from Gawker's Jalponik in which the venerable Motor Trend is outed for allegedly gaming Google's organic results. Here's how it went down.

The first 2009 600-hp ZR1 Corvette sold at auction over the weekend, and a search on Google for "ZR1 road test" had Motor Trend in the poll position atop the results ranking board.

Now the less-venerable, but still very influential Jalopnik, which also reported on the Porsche-wannabe American icon, cried false start by its motor-trendy brother.

"Basically, if someone does a search for something like "2009 corvette zr1 road test"...they'd end up with Motor Trend right on top of the search results. This despite [Motor Trend] not actually having a road test for the prospective reader to read on the new 'vette."

So Jalopnik, ever heard of search-optimizing one's site?

In related news, we learn that the 2009 ZR1 not only will go from 0-->60 in 4.0 seconds, but its new engine could very well get 28-30 highway miles-per-gallon!

A vette that exceeds EPA standards? At what price? The first one of these beauties fetched "an even million" at auction in Scottsdale this weekend. I'll stick with my Audi.

Labels: 2009 ZR1, Chevy, Corvette, Google, Jalopnik, Motor trend, Search Engine, SEO

When working with a bona fide newsmaker, PR counselors often have the luxury to choose which media outlets merit access to their client. The smart PR types are quite judicious about whom they court. The not-so-smart ones are under the illusion that more equals better -- a strategy often best suited for B and C-listers.

But this missive concerns A-listers, and in particular the junior Senator from New York and would-be first female President. In recent days, we watched Mrs. Clinton bask in the supposed safety of The Tyra Banks Show, an attempt to counter Oprah's galvanization of two key demographics (let alone a continuation of her crying game).

What emerged, however, were fresh (10th anniversary) quotes about Sen. Clinton's reaction to her husband's darkest days dilly-dallying in office. Separately, we learned that Mrs. Clinton reneged on a photo shoot with the fashionista's fashion bible.

"We were told by Ms. Clinton's camp that they were concerned if Clinton appeared in Vogue that she would appear too feminine."

The spurned editor responded by calling the candidate to the carpet. (Red, we presume.)

"Imagine my amazement, then, when I learned that Hillary Clinton, our only female president hopeful, had decided to steer clear of our pages at this point in her campaign for fear of looking too feminine. The notion that a contemporary woman must look mannish in order to be taken seriously as a seeker of power is frankly dismaying."

The PR advisor often bases his or her interview recommendation on the potential receptivity the outlet's host, format and audience will have to the newsmaker's POV. You're not likely to see Mrs. Clinton stopping by Hannity & Colmes for a chit chat anytime soon. (Though I'm certain she'd whip those bully-pulpit neo-journalists' butts.)

My beef with Mrs. Clinton's media/messaging strategy lies less with her handlers' (mis)calculated choice of interviewers, and more with the message itself.

• Don't her advisers realize that the candidate who sidesteps the internal nit-picky party politics and chameleon-like appeals to the demographic-du-jour will come closer to landing the prize?
• Don't the travesties perpetrated on the American people by this administration seven years running provide a significant enough treasure trove of talking points for capturing the sensible voter's support?
  

Forget about your Democratic rivals, Mrs. Clinton, and don't be smitten by the timely (and temporary?) bump your recent show of emotion produced. Take aim squarely at the enemy and his surrogates who so desperately and deceptively desire to perpetuate their historical assault on our nation's values and security. This is how you'll capture the rank and file of Democratic (and other) voters. Know thy true enemy.

Labels: anna Wntour, Hillary Clinton, Mark Penn, media relations, media strategy, politics, PR, presidential capaign, public relations, Tyra Banks

Engage, pitch, annoy, alienate... Whatever category you fall in, all PR pros have one shared lament: a desire for closure. How many story pitches have you made over your career that went nowhere?

I'm not talking about having the phone slammed down after you deliver your spiel. I'm talking about no reply whatsoever...zero...zilch...silence.

I don't mind rejection. At least with rejection comes closure. It's that netherworld that irks me (and prompts many a PR person to leave that death knell of a voice-mail: "I'm calling to see if you received my email." )

Sure, who can blame those beleaguered journalists on the receiving end of the endless string of inane, ill-conceived and frequently misguided pitches? And what does work in this changed media landscape?

Jeremiah Owyang today shared one effective, and decidedly hybrid story pitch for a mention in his blog. For it, Owyang received a snail-mailed invitation to visit a website where he encountered a video pitch. Here's the Forrester analyst's tweet about it:

jowyang I get a lot of pitches, few of them ever stand
out, this one clearly did, "how to get me to blog about you" http://tinyurl.com/ywtq5m about 1 hour ago from web.

The creative approach worked.

Then there was that Ozzie New Yorker Young Paull, I mean Paull Young, who relayed his success engaging a fellow blogger, via Twitter, about his client.

paullyoung Hi Devra! I work with Graco. I’ll be attending the DC Moms blog Get-Together on Mon. Found you via mammaloves - nice to meet you! 06:29 PM January 05, 2008

Devra Hi Paull, Oooh Graco! You would have had me at “Pack N Play” LOVED that when my kids were little! Mamma Loves is tops tho! 09:48 AM January 06, 2008

paullyoung That’s great to hear! Did you know the Pack N Play just turned 20? 1 of our first posts on the new Graco blog: http://tinyurl.com/348tym 03:35 PM January 06, 2008

He posted the authentic and transparent dialogue on his blog, which WOMMA subsequently lifted for its blog. No heavy sell here. Just a friendly chat...gently infused with his client's message (and URL).

Labels: blogger relations, Forrester, Jeremiah Owyang, journalism, Paull Young, PR, social media, WOMMA

When you're personally committed to post (almost) daily, there are times when the creative well appears to run dry. You resort to scanning your RSS reader's PR and media folders for original posts, i.e., those that defy the blogging echo chamber.

You scroll down your news portal's home page for any interesting fodder. And finally you do a Google News search for stories that contain some remotely intriguing PR element. Some days, they all do. Other days, zilch.

If you're judicious and clever about the Tweeters you've chosen to follow, you can often pick up some good leads along the way. (Hey, Twitter may not be a total time sync after all!)

Take this morning. Presto Vivace's inimitable Alice Marshall twittered a link to a post by TPM in which the authoritative political muckraking blog groused about its removal from the Justice Department's PR Department's e-mail media distribution list.

"Now, my immediate impulse was not to expect the worst. But suspicion is natural to a muckraker. Last spring and summer, we published countless posts related to malfeasance at the Department... Not only that, but I had done a story enumerating the false statements that Brian Roehrkasse, the Department's Director of Public Affairs, had made in the course of the U.S. attorney scandal."

The DOJ's response to TPM's query about its petulant removal from the list:

"I appreciated your desire to be in tune with DOJ press releases, however, unfortunately I am not able to add you to our distribution list. As you may realize we have a lot of requests to be put on our media lists and we simply are not able to put everyone on the list. We do however have all our press releases on our website and update them the minute they are released so I would suggest looking there. You can also always call us with press inquiries. Thanks again for your interest."

And then there was a tweet yesterday in which Andy Beal extolled the virtues of Google PR Department's mistake by cc'ing him instead of bcc'ing him on a emailed news release from the ad/search monopoly. Andy now has Google PR's entire media distribution list, something PR Newser echoed via PR Meets Marketing blog, which gleaned it from the Marketing Pilgrim's tweet.)

These and other sordid tales from the underbelly (e.g., RT and BC "separated at birth?") consumed the conversation at last night's NYC blogger meet-up where the likes of Paull Young, Constantin Basturea, BL Ochman, Richard Laermer, Jason Chupik, yours truly, Tom Biro and Kevin Dugan gorged on all kinds of artery-clogging ingestibles. (Aforementioned bloggers shown left to right in photo.) Shankman, where were you?

Labels: Andy Beal, blogger, blogging, DOJ, Google, Keens, NYC, PR, public relations, TPM, Writer's block

I can't remember an election campaign that had so many debates. It used to be that the League of Women Voters would sponsor a debate here and there, and that was that. The League pulled out in 1988 proclaiming a fraud perpetrated on the American people.

Back in 2000, I represented the Commission on Presidential Debates, which is the non-partisan organization established to, well, organize the Presidential debates. We helped the CPD announce the program that gave the public its first say in the questions (at the moderators' discretion).

Our main assignment, however, was to reinforce the sanctity of the debates, and the formula used to open the door for participation. At the time, the CPD had long-standing rules about the minimum threshold a candidate needed to meet to qualify to compete. We were charged with communicating these rules through the court of pubic opinion, lest some fringe candidate starts to rumble about disenfranchisement.

Today quirky candidate Dennis Kucinich made a last ditch legal effort to force tonight's nationally-broadcast National Broadcast Company's Democratic debates to include him on the dais. Now this is certainly a novel media strategy for a laggard (yet colorful) candidate to finally break into the national news budget.

As for the rules for inclusion, the CPD had its reasons, and NBC has its. Yet, for some reason, NBC's rules, which changed very recently to the PR detriment of Mr. Kucinich, may be driven more by the network's need for ratings versus the CPD's democratic principles. Well who can blame them after the Golden Globe ratings meltdown?

BTW -- Did anyone pick up on Sen. Clinton's calling out the obscene severance package paid out to the architect of the sub-prime mess -- a client of the firm her top PR consigliere (still) runs?

Labels: CPD, democrats, Dennis Kucinich, Hillary Clinton, NBC, PR, Presidential debates, TV ratings

Today's quote from former New York Times executive editor Howell Raines on his move to Conde Nast Portfolio as a contributing editor and media columnist:

"There’s never been a time in which the future of journalism was more fraught than it is now."

I assume he's alluding to the blurring of news commentary and journalism. Or maybe it was that internal memo from the #2 man in The AP's LA bureau: “Now and for the foreseeable future, virtually everything involving Britney is a big deal.”

But there's another blurring going on as Raines's future co-media pundit Jeff Bercovici points out today when he accuses Esquire magazine of breaching the wall between church and state by allowing a lingerie advertiser to own the editorial of a model photo shoot.

"But even more than that, it's the nakedness of this particular quid pro quo. These women were invited here to sell magazines, and they came to sell underwear. For the space of nine pages, Esquire stops being Esquire and becomes a piece of Victoria's Secret's marketing strategy, indistinguishable from the catalogs and commercials these same models appear in, wearing the very same lace demi push-up bras and come-hither expressions."

We're all used to Access Hollywood , ET and Extra paying for, well, access Hollywood. It's when the "news" programs like "Today," "GMA" and CBS "Early Show" start doing it that we know journalism's in trouble. All would vehemently deny paying for play, but how else would you describe jetting in guests to the greatest city in the world and housing them in expensive hotels?

And then there's the TIME Inc. family. No, TIME magazine and Fortune haven't succumbed to that slippery slope... at least not yet. But sibs People, Entertainment Weekly, In Style and a few others certainly have. How else can they compete with Hello, Us and In Touch for the celebrity heroin on which their readers are dependent?

To bolster his point, Bercovici links to his recent post about TIME Inc's Sport Illustrated swimsuit franchise in which the magazine accepted airfare to Israel from the Israeli Tourism Board. Doesn't SI consider itself journalism? You bet. Then how can it accept the in-kind offer?

"Adams claims SI got a sweetheart deal from the Israeli tourism bureau, which paid half the airfare to fly a crew of 17 to the Holy Land for a photo shoot with hot sabra Bar Rafaeli. It wouldn't be the first time the Israeli government reached out to an American magazine to promote travel; Maxim featured a "Women of the Israeli." Defense Forces" spread in its July issue."

At first blush, the ability to barter for editorial consideration seems quite attractive to me as a PR person. At second, I find the practice to be quite abhorrent...as a PR person.

Labels: Conde Nast Portfolio, Esquire, Hollywood, Howell Raines, Jeff Bercovici, journalism, media, PR, public relations, SI, Time Inc.

"Ogilvy PR and its 360 Degree Digital Influence group led by Bell, is a leader in the social media and comprehensive digital marketing arena and helps clients navigate an increasingly complex and rapidly changing digital environment."

Hmmm. Sounds like a typical press release. Hey, it is!

When I think of the PR firms that are leading the social media revolution, those under the Omnicom, Interpublic and WPP umbrellas are not the first that come to mind. Converseon, Voce, TopRank, echoditto, Thornley Fallis, and even Text 100 are a few that are doing things differently among the PR players.

Even the firm leading the Me2 Revolution remains, by and large, predominantly focused on generating MSM coverage for its blue chip clients. (Ask anyone who works there.) I don't blame them though given that this staid old PR competency continues to thrive as a bread and butter business.

I also don't want to make a gross generalization since every major PR firm does have a (growing) cadre of digital and social media experts within its ranks. But, other than the tuned-in musings of Rohit Bhargava, I wouldn't think of Ogilvy as a thought leader in the "digital marketing arena." And I'm not sure its new strategic partnership puts them there.

Yesterday, the firm announced a decidedly inorganic approach to bolstering its digital reputation. It aligned itself with BzzAgent, a firm that:

"... allows companies to generate honest, credible awareness and collect valuable feedback on products and services through its growing community of 370,000 consumer volunteers who have been educated on effective and ethical approaches to opinion sharing."

Hmmm. Sounds like typical press release. Hey, it is!

This "news" also rings a bell. Didn't IPG form a strategic partnership with this word-of-mouth astroturfing, I mean, marketing company last fall? And didn't that follow a similar agreement last spring with WPP's M Group in the UK?

So I ask:

Do the progeny of the big ad holding companies believe that sending Moms free swag to secure their supposedly "honest" product endorsements constitute digital word-of-mouth marketing?

And why isn't BzzAgent's WOM-generating tactics any different from the much-maligned efforts to "influence" bloggers with swag that consisted of hellified laptops, pricey digital SLRs, and the like?

Just curious.

Labels: astroturfing, big ad holding companies, BzzAgent, digital PR, Ogilvy, PR, public relations, vial marketing, word-of-mouth

Must be nostalgia week. Back in the day when 9/11 was just another day, the Bush in the White House wasn't evil and stupid, and Soho was what Tribeca was and Nolita is, I handled PR chores for an exceedingly popular restaurant/art gallery called Central Falls on West Broadway at Houston Street, the gateway to Soho.

After the rent skyrocketed, owner Bruce Goldstein decided to relocate the restaurant to Seventh Avenue South with a new name, The Falls, and new backers, actor Matt Dillon among them. (If you don't know Matt Dillon, he's Kevin Dillon's older brother.)

As plans took shape, Bruce was approached by a New York magazine writer named David ("Brat Pack") Blum who had a contract to write a book on the subject of...the opening of a new restaurant. He was granted carte blanche to the hiring, menu development, design and PR meetings, not to mention an open tab and entry to special events.

The restaurant opened with great fanfare (if that's what you call being embraced by the Conde Nast crowd). For my part, I had tried valiantly to secure a review from New York Times restaurant critic Bryan Miller, but he blew me off repeatedly. In hindsight, this was probably a good thing since the eatery's food, unlike its style-hungry clientele, was menza menza [sic?].

Yesterday, in a comment on this blog, Becky drew my attention to a worthwhile blog post by current Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni in which Mr. Bruni dissects a PR pitch for a food trend story.

"For readers unaccustomed to the way publicists work, they (wisely) mull whether their client restaurants belong to or reflect any trends, then (aggressively) alert reporters to that trend, in hopes that an article about it will include the client restaurants...Sometimes, like right now and right here, the publicists are rewarded."

As for my pitch to critic Miller, it wound up being included in Blum's book using Miller's own less-than-flattering words. The book, which was published after the restaurant shuttered ts doors, was titled: Flash in The Pan.

I suppose if I took all the years of press rejection to heart, I'd be in Bellevue today. Becky, a hat tip to you for the lead.

Labels: Central Falls, David Blum, Flash in the Pan, food PR, Frank Bruni, PR, Publicity, restaurant PR, Soho, The Falls

I was scratching my head today on what to write. Could the see-saw world of Hillary Clinton stomach yet another opinion, especially after her post-Primary winning proclamation?

"In the last week I have listened to you and in the process I found my own voice."

Or rather...her PR handlers finally let her find her voice without excessive handling. Glad they let Hillary be Hillary.

But then, my consigliere Constantin sent me a link from Ragan's "Blog Dogger" Michael Sebastian in which Sebastian posted on the highs and lows of PR blogging in 2007. Guess what? He cited this little blogspot of a blog as the year's "most interesting." (Now if only someone would inform Technorati!)

Thanks for the recognition, Michael, but there are so many other great PR bloggers worth noting. A few of my personal faves include:

Social Media Today
PR 2.0
Influential Marketing Blog
Online Marketing Blog
PR NewserStrategic Public Relations
Beet.TV
Communication Overtones
Media Orchard
Marketing Roadmaps
Business Spin
Young PR
Pro PR
PR Communications
Phil's Blogservations
Seth's Blog
Odwyerprblog
Marketing Pilgrim
The Cycle
PR Squared,
and The Scobleizer (pictured at rear), who is not a PR blogger per se, but does spend an inordinate amount of time dissecting the machinations of our industry.

I know. I know. How many fab PR blogs did I miss when compiling this admittedly arbitrary list. Ping me with your faves, and I'll update the list below.

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Labels: Blog Dogger, blogging, Hillary Clinton, politics, PR, PR blogs authenticity, public relations, Ragan's

The Micropersuader today touted, or rather, tweeted, his latest Ad Age column -- "Three Trends That Will Shape Digital in 2008." It was his third trend that struck a resonant chord with this blogger: "Curators Collect and Connect:"

"During the past 10 years, content has become a commodity. So has data. Information overload makes it difficult for anyone to separate essential air from smog. Search engines don't really help -- it's hard even for them to separate gems from junk. Enter curators. Brands, media and consumers who relish information will prosper by aggregating mountains of information and distilling those down to their most essential parts."

Just under ten years ago, when search engines spidered the Web's tens of millions of pages (versus today's billions+), my client, a burgeoning search engine called Northern Light indexed not just web sites, but licensed periodicals and academic research -- all searchable in one database uisng the same taxonomies.

I loved that Cambridge, MA-based company. The people I most admired were the information managers (Rubel's "curators") who were trying to make hell or high water of the voluminous amounts of data that technology suddenly made so readily, and confoundedly accessible.

Periodically, these highly trained "librarians" published what they called "Special Sections" that showcased, through a collection of links, one specific topic from every possible dimension, e.g., climate on Earth Day, the best Super Bowl sites, and, my favorite, where to go on the Millennial New Year's Eve if you're not physically going anywhere.

Labels: Ad Age, Danny Sullivan, Internet Wire, John Battelle, Microspersuasion, PR, Search Engine, Steve Rubel

Suppose you threw a news conference and no one showed? Trust me. It ain't fun. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap...

To ensure attendance, the scribes at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association have cancelled the nationally telecast Golden Globes fashion show and replaced it with...a news conference. In so doing, they hope to thwart any disruptive protests by the WGA. The left coast's PR machin(ists) even took sides:

"In an unusual lobbying effort, a dozen Hollywood publicity agencies — including 42 West, ID, PMK/HBH and Rogers & Cowan — joined in sending a letter to Jeff Zucker, chief executive of NBC Universal, saying that their clients would not cross picket lines to attend the Golden Globes."

So we're now saddled with a news conference. Yet certain physical elements are required for a successful (i.e., well-attended) one. It'll likely take more than Association president Jorge Camara reading from the podium to extricate increasingly sedentary scribes from their multimedia entertainment centers, I mean desktops.

"Other than a clutch of media types, there will be no live audience for the Golden Globes. The format is designed to side-step the need for written presentations, presumably removing the event from the jurisdiction of the striking Writers Guild of America West and eliminating the prospect of pickets."

Let's start with enlisting a face-recognizable A or even B-lister to turn out the paparazzi. The Tony Awards nominating committee has this one down pat for its nominee presser. Then there are props, and I'm not talking Armani, Versace or Mark Jacobs. Silly me, the celebs themselves are the props. Nuf said bout that.

However mundane it sounds, the GG awards news conference should attract a fair share of media coverage, propelled by the nominees' press reps. Still, the organizers could save themselves a heap a money by staging an interactive webcast, complete with A-lister virtual "appearances," sound bites, films clips, etc. (Second Life anyone?)

This digital, and more media-conducive approach offers the elements needed to produce a richer story than the one perhaps gleaned by trudging over to some non-descript room configured theatre-style with a riser and mult-box to hear from a talking head. What's more, how can the WGA picket a webcast?

Labels: celebrity PR, Golden Globes, Hollywood Foreign Press Association, WGA

Look at the fine mess you got me into this time, Stanley! I'm not sure how he does it, but Robert Scoble, God bless him, managed to inadvertently insert himself into the middle of yet another digital brouhaha -- this time involving our favorite ("walled-in") social network. Rubel, eat your heart out!

ValleyWag postulates this morning that the hoping-to-be-sold Plaxo may have "exploited" the original (and always congenial) Geek blogger when it let him test an as-yet untested tool to import his thousands of Facebook friends into his Plaxo Pulse account. The non-denial denial of Plaxo's marketing chief supposedly gives some veracity to the Wag's pesky post:

"Plaxo executive John McCrea would prefer you didn't think so. "Biggest regret? A lot of folks saying/thinking we took advantage of you. Bummer," McCrea Twittered. Note that McCrea didn't say he regretted actually taking advantage of Scoble."

And then the Wag snarked further by posting Plaxo's PR pitch letter in which the publicist exploited the open portability movement (is it a movement?) to make her point:

"In very early stages, this feature caused famed blogger Robert Scoble to lose his Facebook account. However, the Facebook Importer behaves quite similar to other address book import that Plaxo already uses including Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft. This is an interesting time for the walled vs open debate and Plaxo has been leading the way since the beginning with their support for open standards and OpenSocial, and this step is an interesting move for the future."

Poor Mark Zuckerberg. "Why's everyone always pickin on me???" To your credit, Mark, your people saw the wisdom in letting Scoble back in. As for Plaxo's PR firm, I suppose there's some merit in having your pitch letter posted on Valleywag verbatim.

Labels: FaceBook, marketing, open social networks, Plaxo, portability, PR, public relations, Robert Scoble

How many TV commercials do we currently see promoting Nintendo's runaway video game machine, the Wii? Not too many given the player's impossible-to-find status.

The machines are so newsworthily scarce, some have accused the Japanese manufacturer of manufacturing the shortage. I mean what better way to drive demand, than by creating it? Or, doesn't one's desire for something grow when the object of desire is unattainable?

Newsweek's Peg Tyre today posted a piece on the historically high odds against gaining admission to the nation's select colleges and universities. The demographic reason: boomers' boomlets.

"This spring the largest number of high-school graduates in the history of the country—some 3.32 million—will don a cap and gown, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Next year, at the peak of the peak, the number of high-school graduates is expected to top 3.33 million."

Tyre reports than three-quarters of the nation's four-year colleges reported an increase in the number of applicants, and this year the numbers are expected to break new records.

So what kind of public relations nightmare would ensue if Nintendo turned on the marketing spigot to drive greater sales of the stealthy Wii? Don't even ask. Yet, in spite of a record number of college applications, and the heartbreaking rejections that come along with them, the nation's colleges and universities have not curtailed their student-generating marketing programs. Quite the contrary:

"...colleges are spending big bucks on marketing, about $2,000 per student, to keep applications rolling in. And it's not just glossy brochures and interactive Web sites. Ball State, for instance, recently hiredhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif a public relations firm to create a brand image for the school and come up with a tag line ("Education, redefined"). These days the university advertises itself on billboards and through a series of slick television ads. When it comes to marketing, "sometimes it feels like we're all locked in an arms race," admits Bryn Mawr admissions chief Jenny Rickard. "But no college wants to back away," even though they are getting more than enough applicants to keep their institutions healthy."

As someone whose business benefits from a bigger marketing spend, I still can't rationalize the unabashed efforts by universities to attract even more student applicants. Perhaps some college administrator will eventually learn of the greater value that can be derived by creatively spending their marketing dollars less dispassionately. (Hopefully it'll happen before 2015 when "the number of high-school graduates will begin to drop back out of the stratosphere."

Labels: applications, college admissions, education, marketing, Newsweek, Nintendo Wii, Peg Tyre, PR, public relations, student enrollment

Geesh. Five days away from this blog. That's the longest absence since first starting to post some two-and-a-half years ago. My truancy, I suppose, is less a function of vacation preoccupation -- yes, I did get away with my family to ski for a week -- and more tied to my reluctance to become just another cog in the PR blogging echo chamber.

Sure I saw the story and posts about candidate Huckleberry's handlers' public (relations) proclamation of their withdrawal of their attack ads, followed hypocritically by a journalist screening of the culprit spot. (Me thinks this regressively dangerous candidate could easily best Bush's Orwellian approach to communications.)

And then there was Paul Steiger's must-read front-page first-person farewell to the Wall Street Journal in which the paper's legendary former managing editor recounted how the newspaper industry has evolved, or devolved as the case may be. One blogger (among many) beat me to the punch by singling out Steiger's ruminations about a potential strategic alliance between Bloomberg News and The Times. (When I saw it, I wondered whether the recent deal that Times' sibling The IHT cut with Reuters runs counter to Steiger's prediction.)

Finally, there was Brian Solis's e-book on blogger relations. I have no idea how Brian has the time to wax so poetically and voluminously on the issues we all face in our profession. This followed his lengthy pre-New Years post titled "PR Advice for Start-Ups" in which he more or less puts PR in perspective for the many who see our profession as a panacea for what pains purchasers of PR services. (Again, I don't know how Brian has the time to post so prolifically and still service his clients, but I'm glad he does...and you should be too.)

Labels: blogger relations, Bloomberg News, Brian Solis, Mike Huckabee, Paul Steiger, politics, PR, public relations, Reuters, The New York Times