It is summer and hopefully PR professionals are hitting up the beaches and enjoying some travel. I am sure that the cell phone is not far and the laptop is in tow but hey it’s an effort to relax and unplug.
Social media has changed the way that people are traveling and documenting their summer vacations. No longer are tourists spotted only by the cameras hanging around their necks and the maps in hand. They are now using their iPhone for a camera and documenting their entire trip through live tweeting or Facebook check-ins. Facebook recently released a list of the Most Social Landmarks based on this trend. Continue reading →
Last night’s #pr20chat was on the subject of integrating offline marketing tactics with those being used online. More to the point, ensuring “real world” tactics are still playing a large part in the strategy for your organization or client(s).
I’ve been wanting to write about Klout for a week or so now, and why I think Klout is a good starting point for a lot of things, but in the end doesn’t mean anything. This all started for me with the infamous Wired article a few weeks ago where an executive’s job interview essentially ended after his Klout score was deemed too low. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, posts were written about how much Klout sucks and how it is making those in the PR and marketing industries lazy. Continue reading →
There are many articles out there on how PR professionals should seek, contact and engage with bloggers. We are focused on building a relationship with bloggers and converting them into brand ambassadors for our client. We hope that they will write amazing posts about our clients and it will spread through the blogger world like wildfire.
But as PR pros have we stopped to think about what the bloggers want from us?
I am a mom blogger, crawfishtales.com, and I have had the opportunity to be on both sides of the pitch. This has given me insight that I have used to mold the way that I, as a PR pro, engage bloggers. I constantly remind myself that bloggers are receiving multiple pitches just like a reporter and that I need to make my pitch stand out from the others. The best pitches are the ones that are thorough and have thought through the pitch from the bloggers prospective. Continue reading →
Earlier this month, Ragu spaghetti sauce launched a video Facebook campaign called “Ragu Asks” aimed at uncovering the mystery of how parents motivate their finicky kids to eat. The short, 30 second video content that followed was created based on responses from their community and the result was a string of hilarious videos depicting parents going to bizarre lengths to get their kids to eat, which as most parents know can often times be a monumental struggle. Although the content was extremely exaggerated and a bit absurd it seemed to strike a chord with parents through its deft blend of comedy and desperation to speak at what can often be a daily struggle that parents fight to keep kids nourished and healthy. Continue reading →
Aside from the hoopla over the Royal Wedding, one thing was pretty evident last week: big international events often bring out the worst in brand marketing.
From silly tie-ins like Royal Wedding sliding doors from Spaceslide.co.uk (Hey, you never know when you need to see Wills and Kate’s smiling faces while walking in and out of a room!) to the utterly ridiculous £500 pizza from Papa John’s made to look like the happy couple to constant debates about whether Kate’s dress would be a boon for fashion PR, marketers were out in full force last week trying to hock just about anything that could possibly … just maybe … be connected to the Royal Wedding.
All of which left many annoyed and ready for the whole show to finally come to an end.
Thus, two recentop-eds in MarketingWeek could not have come at a better time. While neither dealt directly with the marketing/Royal Wedding mashup, each made its point plainly clear: brands need to be especially careful when trying to tap into the cultural zeitgeist of the moment or teaming up with potential partners. Continue reading →
Last week’s unveiling of the new and more clean Starbucks logo — featuring only its iconic siren, with the words “Starbucks” and “coffee” removed from the outer ring — and the subsequent ridicule and critique the company took on the Internet, left me wondering whether a brand will ever again be able to successfully change its logo, or undergo a full rebranding effort, in the digital age.
Think about it: When was the last time within the past five years when a new logo or rebranding effort was met with resounding applause in the blogosphere? . . . Yeah, I’m still trying to think of an example, too. Continue reading →
After my recent post, Cog asked that I take the time to apply the same conversation on naming your brand to my family’s jewelry business, Honora. Now, considering the fact that it is a 64-year-old company and I am only 30, clearly I was not involved in the decision making. My last post also focused on the difference between naming your brand after yourself or after your niche. This really does not relate to us as we are the third kind of company name, one that does not clearly denote a person or a category. From what I’ve been told, my grandfather wanted a blank canvas to build a brand upon, one that was bigger than any one person or limited to a particular niche. Not wanting to disappoint the powers that be at PRBC, I hope these lessons learned from marketing Honora, a name selected in 1946, over the past few years will suffice. Continue reading →
Ever since the debacle of Gap unveiling its new logo last week, I’ve been a rather outspoken critic of not only the design, but Gap’s somewhat bizarre and poorly articulated attempts to make it appear that the rebranding effort was all part of one big crowdsourcing exercise or a PR stunt. (Why is it every time a brand does something odd in the digital space, we have to label it a “PR stunt?”)
It wasn’t.
News this week that Gap was abandoning its new logo—after just seven days on the market, and before the new logo had even hit stores or merchandise (the new logo was rolled out via a “soft launch” on Gap.com—left me wondering one thing: Does Gap even realize how badly it’s hurting it’s brand right now? Continue reading →
I’m guilty; I’ve been making fun on TheGapandtheirnewlogo. It is an ugly, half-assed, badly designed misstep from a brand that hadn’t made a logo change in over 20 years. In our little world of Social Media, we are having a field day and The Gap is taking a heck of a licking for their latest new design. As if that were not enough, now I’m taking things one step further and making fun of their mind-numbingly poor decision to leave the design up to the crowd and invite people to suggestbetterlogosviaFacebook. I cannot help but mock their “Fine if you think we screwed up that badly, you do better” mentality. They are really going to regret ever posting the follow up to what was already a fairly massive branding gaff.
That said, I am done talking about it and I think you should be too. Here’s why: Continue reading →
