In the age of consumer marketing, which focused on advertising benefits and features of a product, this automobile ad would have been strategically placed in a men’s magazine. There is enough text in this ad for a short story and a message being pushed to the male reader (and his ego). With a consumer marketing mindset, the brand’s arching goal was to strategically pinpoint the people who would need, use, and ultimately buy their product. For an individual, consumer marketing meant being talked at, not with. Continue reading
Tag Archives: public relations
From Mail to Maker’s Mark: A Scale for Assessing Flack-Reporter Relationships
Every PR pro has been in the scenario: the team is gathered in a conference room. The topic of media comes up, and various names are bandied about. Then the boss growls, “who has a relationship with that reporter?” The implication is clear: in a business of connections, the person doing the pitching should have some sort of tie to the writer/editor/blogger in question.
Invariably, someone pipes up, claiming they have a relationship with the reporter in question. But the word “relationship” is fuzzy, Continue reading
There’s at Least Two Sides to a Story
Should you be successful in generating coverage, you may also be providing oxygen for your opposition.
The media likes to feel as though they’re presenting both sides (or more) of a story. So if there’s an obvious counterpoint to what you’re promoting, expect them to go there. Sometimes you might be surprised at what will be generated.
Your Correspondent has done PR work for a national association which promotes the many health benefits of breastfeeding. However, our success at raising awareness saw the nation’s leading anti-depression organisation put out its own media release. Continue reading
Want to Upset a Reporter? Call to ‘Follow Up’ on Your Email
Journalists, as a group, have a lot of pet peeves: sources who want to go off the record for no good reason, overly literal editors, the Oxford comma. But the biggest complaint? Getting calls from flacks who want to make sure that their email arrived. We live in 2013: the email always arrives.
Jeffrey Young, an otherwise calm and thoughtful Huffington Post reporter, once wished death on PR pros who dare to waste his time following up on an email (“DIE IN A FIRE,” he tweeted). Continue reading
Dunbar’s Number, Your Brain and Why Scaling Media Relations is a Bad Idea
Public relations today faces a vexing problem: our brains aren’t big enough to keep up with the promise of the technology that we now have available to us. Now, I don’t mean to cast aspersions on my peers, the reality is that, regardless of industry, no one has a brain big enough to deal with the increasing power of tools that allow for great social interconnectedness.
According to Robin Dunbar, most of us can only maintain meaningful social connections with about 150 people: Dunbar’s Number. As detailed in a thoughtful Bloomberg BusinessWeek profile last month, the 150 number comes up again and again: it’s historically been the size of a military company, of an ideally sized factory, of the average Christmas-card list of a British family. Continue reading
PR Flubs, Missed Opportunities, and the Human Touch
If you haven’t heard of Health Management Associates (HMA), that’s ok, few would probably know who they are. That is unless you watched the 60 Minutes segment this past Sunday on how they are allegedly encouraging administrators and physicians at hospitals they own to admit as many patients as possible, in order to boost profits. The public company, headquartered in Naples, FL and whose shares are traded on the NYSE, “through its subsidiaries owns and operates (15) general acute care hospitals and other health care facilities in non-urban communities”, as reported on their Wall Street Journal company profile. Continue reading
What Will You Do in Your Next Term?
Watching the presidential race unfold over the last year and a half has taught me that there were two sides of the fence you can be on when discussing the candidates and their plans for the future of our country:
A. You support one candidate, understand what their plan is, and offer your own opinions on what additional ways we can solve problems that face our country & communities
B. You support one candidate
If voting has taught me anything, it’s to pay attention what people are saying, internalize it, and then form my own opinion based on personal beliefs of what can and can’t work to improve our country. John Adams once said:
“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” Continue reading
Special Post-Hurricane Edition: PR Helping PR
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As PR professionals, few things are as frustrating as trying to stay connected with clients and media when you’re lacking the basic tools of a working phone line and internet connection (and a supply of hot coffee). Following Hurricane Sandy, many on the east coast are finding themselves in this boat. In the spirit of coming together to help those in need following the storm, please check out PR Helping PR on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/PRHelpingPR.
Launched on Facebook November 1st, PR Helping PR is designed to help PR folks find temporary office space, and for those that have temporary office space to offer it to the community. If you have space to offer – a few desks, a conference room, a couch, etc. for someone to work, please let us know how many people you can host and what amenities you have. If you need space for yourself or colleagues, please post a message and we’ll try to get you a response quickly.
Finally, please share the link to PR Helping PR with your industry colleagues to get the word out to the community. Once again the link is http://www.facebook.com/PRHelpingPR.
Kelly Davis is an Account Supervisor at Affect and can be reached at kdavis@affect.com and on Twitter at @kellydavis226.
What the Media Thinks
buy cialisickr.com/3653/3619332153_41b44e6158_m.jpg” alt=”” width=”240″ height=”180″ />Recently, the professional organization Washington Women in Public Relations hosted members of the media for a state of the industry roundtable at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. As a PR professional, how many times do you wish you could just pick the brain of media on what pitches work, what they think of PR, and their view of on traditional versus digital media – here is an insider peek. Continue reading
Public Relations Ideas for Your Restaurant (And Why This Industry is Different)
cheap cialis onlinejpg” alt=”” width=”240″ height=”191″ />Are you thinking of trying to promote your restaurant in creative ways that will give you an edge from your competitors? Public relations in the restaurant industry are a little different than other industries because in order to run a successful restaurant, you have to have a love for the industry and the drive to keep it moving forward. Continue reading