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Visibility, Credibility, and Growth.

From media strategy to reputation management, we explore the trends shaping public perception and share the approaches that drive measurable results for growing brands.

CPR Clients Making Headlines

You’re busy, we get it. Despite your best efforts to refresh your Twitter feed, sometimes you miss a headline here and there. To keep you updated on all of our clients’ latest and greatest product announcements, contributed articles, funding news and more, we’ll be featuring recent articles in our new series, “CPR Clients Making Headlines.”

Read on to find out what Spaceflight Industries, iPinYou, Dell EMC, Bank of America and our very own Colleen Moffitt are up to lately.

  1. Congratulations are in order for Seattle-based Spaceflight Industries. Last week, the company announced the successful launch of its BlackSky Pathfinder-1 satellite. KING 5’s Glenn Farley visited Spaceflight Industries’ headquarters to speak to Rakesh Narasimhan, COO of Spaceflight Industries, to learn more about BlackSky’s 60-satellite planned constellation.
  2. Next time you’re in Bellevue, be sure to stop by iPinYou’s new U.S. office. As Xconomy pointed out, the Chinese digital advertising company is not affiliated with wrestling. (Sorry, WWE fans!) Instead, iPinYou is helping more U.S. companies reach customers in China.
  3. In Sanjay Joshi’s byline for Health Data Management, he stresses the need to change the 2:1 ratio of research to clinical budgets that currently exists. The CTO of healthcare and life sciences at the Dell EMC Emerging Technologies Division also discusses how information infrastructures are shaping the future of precision medicine.
  4. At tomorrow’s GeekWire Summit, former Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Ricardo Lockette will take the stage to share his inspiring story as part of the Summit’s Geeks Give Back campaign. Launched in partnership with Bank of America, Geeks Give Back benefits the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship, which provides scholarships to underrepresented minorities, women and others who are pursuing degrees in science and technology in Washington state. Last year, Bank of America and GeekWire raised over $500,000 with their annual giving campaign and hope to record an even larger number this year.
  5. While not technically a client, CPR’s founder and partner Colleen Moffitt snagged the cover of a recent Puget Sound Business Journal issue. Colleen and her former RealNetworks colleagues shared their experiences working at the audio and video software company and dished on their current ventures. Check out Colleen’s blog post to learn more about her time at RealNetworks.
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iPinYou Helping North American Brands Break Into the Chinese Programmatic Ad Buying Market

In today’s ever-connected market, internet users can visit a site and be served an ad in the (literal) blink of an eye. On the other end, ad buyers are increasingly on the search for ways to engage with a wider audience. Given this, programmatic ad buying is a key tool for both marketers and advertisers.

Programmatic ad buying refers to the use of software to automatically purchase digital advertising inventory in real-time. Typically, programmatic ad buying leverages big data and online behavioral habits to drive personalized, targeted ad purchases. Because programmatic ad buying technology utilizes advanced algorithms and removes the need for human buyers and salespeople, it makes the purchasing process more efficient, strategic and less expensive.

In late August 2016, Communiqué PR began working with iPinYou, China’s largest programmatic ad buying demand-side platform provider. Although known and highly regarded internationally for its solutions, iPinYou is now focusing on the North American market and is positioning itself to be a brand’s best partner to explore the Chinese market and reach its consumers. Communiqué PR was tasked with driving communication efforts to announce iPinYou’s entry into the United States and securing media placements about the news with key advertising and marketing media.

As background, iPinYou was founded in 2008, a time when the Chinese ad-tech market was in its infancy, and has since developed and patented new tracking and labeling technologies to help understand consumer online behavior. iPinYou owns a 59.8 percent share of China’s branded programmatic buying market according to an independent third party research company (Analysys International) in China, and Google Double Click, Baidu and Tencent have recognized iPinYou’s platform with a “Best in Class” award. Last December, iPinYou received a $500 million Renminbi pre-IPO investment from its exclusive data partner, China Mobile, along with other investors. Beyond China Mobile, UnionPay and AsiaInfo are also iPinYou strategic partners.

Making a Media Splash

Communiqué PR recognized the news value of the announcement – after all, how often does a worldwide, established company such as iPinYou reveal that they are entering the U.S. market for the first time? Advertisers, marketers and business executives would all be interested in the news, and Communiqué PR and iPinYou worked closely together leading up to the announcement to prepare for the wave of expected news coverage.

The interest in the news was immediate. Publications around the U.S. began covering the announcement as soon as the press release crossed the wire. Advertising and marketing trade publications featured six original articles on the announcement, and the press release itself was picked up by a slew of top-tier media including MarketWatch, Yahoo! Finance and The Street, reaching a potential audience of more than 88 million. Highlights from the media coverage include:

Communiqué PR congratulates iPinYou for successfully announcing its entrance into the North American market. The company is poised to succeed because it is the link that connects U.S. brands to Chinese consumers, and Communiqué PR is proud to help iPinYou in its entry into the U.S.

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Best Practices for Content Syndication

As more and more businesses are creating unique content to reach key audiences, we thought it would be helpful to outline some best practices around syndication agreements. Content syndication is the act of giving other organizations the right to copy or republish your work – in the form of print material, video, music or digital content – in exchange for money or attribution.

It is a common practice at many news organizations and television franchises to syndicate their content as a way to extend its lifecycle, reach additional people or to secure incremental revenue from it. Consider Law & Order, the successful legal drama TV series created by Dick Wolf and his franchise.

Law & Order originally aired on NBC, but later the franchise syndicated the series on other cable networks. According to Wikipedia, “Repeats of Law & Order were first broadcast weekdays on A&E beginning in the mid-1990s and are credited with drawing a new audience to the current weekly NBC episodes. As of January 1, 2014, the series is being telecast on SundanceTV, TNT, WE tv, and WGN America.”

Companies producing compelling original content can emulate Dick Wolf and his team. First, they can publish their content on their own website; then, they can offer it to others who might benefit from republishing it. INRIX does this with its real-time traffic data. They provide alerts to their customers and also make this same data available to local broadcast journalists. Zillow too publishes information on celebrity homes and provides some of this same content to news partners.

While some might be skeptical, content syndication is truly not has hard as you think. Consider Alaska Airlines’ blog. A few years ago Halley Knigge, who runs it, produced a story “Flying with Luly: How to pack a wedding dress.” This story featured videos and step-by-step instructions for packing different styles of wedding dresses. This niche content is interesting to a special group of people, brides who are traveling to destination weddings.

The existence of this content spells opportunity for Alaska Airlines. They could offer Brides Magazine an opportunity to syndicate all or part of this story for publication on its website. In exchange for the content, Alaska Airlines would ask for a link back to its website. Alternatively, Alaska Airlines could offer to develop a series of articles providing tips for planning the destination wedding.

As you think about leveraging the content you create, there are a few rules and best practices to keep in mind.

  • Be clear on your objectives for syndicating content. Why do you want to syndicate your work? Do you think syndication will help you reach different audiences? Will it help you expand your reach to more people? Will it allow you to build your brand or generate revenue? Will it help with SEO? Knowing the answers to these questions will help you be strategic in your partnerships.
  • Identify unique content that only your organization is collecting. For instance, companies such as INRIX and Zillow have compelling and relatively scarce data. Does your company have data that is exclusive and scarce enough that news outlets might be interested in syndicating it?
  • Think about the value of this content as it pertains to your potential syndication partner. Who are your partner’s audiences? How would this content help them? It is important to answer these questions before you reach out to potential partners or begin packaging up your original work. Clarity on your partner’s needs will increase your chance of reaching out to the right potential partner as well as your ability to offer them valuable content, which is the first step in forging a successful syndication agreement.
  • Identify the decision maker. To successful place your content, you need to find a manger with the power to place it. This person’s title will vary depending on the organization and the content you have to offer. For instance, in broadcast TV, you might want to reach out to a producer. If you are trying to place content with Brides Magazine, you should start with an online editorial director. Don’t be discouraged if you get bounced from one person to another. Sometimes you have to reach out to multiple managers to find the decision maker.
  • Consider the frequency in which you might be able to provide content to your partners. You may want to develop and provide content to your partner once a week, month, quarter or year. Your partner may have formal requirements or they might accept content as you have it. Finally, make sure you have the staff and resources to sustain your program. The last thing you want to do is set up an agreement with a partner only to learn you cannot deliver.
  • Put an agreement in place. You want to ensure there are shared expectations on the content you will deliver and when you will deliver it. You also need to know what you will receive in return for providing your partner with the content. Your attorney may want to outline the terms in an explicit letter of agreement or contract.
  • Support your partners. When your partner shares your content, it’s good etiquette to amplify their activities by posting links to their site from your social media accounts.
  • Know how you will measure the success of your program. According to Dominick Miserandino, CEO of Dysleximedia LLC, “Measuring ROI around content syndication is often something that people overlook. They get overly focused on placement of content without analyzing success.” It is a good idea to have evaluation criteria outlined from the get-go. This might include a number of referrals from a publishing partner’s website, incremental revenue generated from syndicated content or an increase in overall brand awareness.
  • Confirm ownership of content. Finally, remember you cannot grant syndication rights for content that you do not own. You must own the copyright before you syndicate content – otherwise, you open yourself up to significant and often thorny legal issues.

With these best practices in mind, content syndication can prove to be a powerful method of boosting your company’s presence and advancing its goals. At Communiqué, we regularly syndicate our blog posts – you can read more about our syndication experiences here. You can also find more tips on how to repurpose original content here. If you have any additional thoughts or tips, feel free to leave a comment below.

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The Social Media Element You Forgot to Include in Your Plan

As PR professionals, we are often asked to provide counsel or create strategies around social media platforms on behalf of our clients. We all know that social media is an excellent way to engage with target audiences, develop brand voice, establish thought leadership, and share useful content. However, one element has failed to be included in overall social media strategies by an alarming number of brands.

On Thursday, Sept. 15, 2016, our client, Rational Interaction, an award-winning, full-service agency based in Seattle, released a report analyzing how major brands were using social media to provide customer service, what they’re calling “Social Customer Care.” Based on the results, you could say that they actually analyzed how brands aren’t using social media for customer care. Astonishingly, according to Rational, 92.5 percent of brands are failing to provide proper customer support through social media.

When collecting data, Rational focused on brands in three verticals – technology, retail and healthcare –  and concentrated on the use of Twitter because it is one of the most popular, if not the most popular, way for consumers to interact with brands. While other social mediums have large user bases and brand presence, Twitter has 360 million users and over 67 percent of those users (that’s 207 million users) are looking for customer support from brands through Twitter. The point is, that is a lot of customers you don’t want to be ignoring.

Brands stand to lose a lot when customers go unanswered or unacknowledged. Currently 58 percent of Twitter users never get a response from a brand and ultimately this has an impact on the bottom line, with two-thirds of customers reducing spending with a brand after a poor customer service experience. Not only that, but consumers don’t usually keep their bad experiences to themselves, with 60 percent of Twitter users tweeting about their negative interaction, or lack thereof.

So what’s the solution to this obvious problem? There are a couple of tactics that brands can work into their overall social media strategy. First, consider having a specific support handle for customer service. Keep the main company handle that focuses on sharing company updates, industry trends, and the occasional meme. Then create a completely separate handle for support and questions. Not only will this make it easier to track and respond to all inbound inquiries, it will also help maintain the negative or unhappy comments and feedback in one controlled area.

Another tactic to consider is responding to every customer. Yes, this is a large task, but as demonstrated by the data, a very important one! If you run into a product issue or a problem that affects a number of customers, address it broadly, then focus on each individual. The initial and final response to the customer should be done in a public forum. If the problem is a long, complicated one, move the conversation to a private forum, like direct messaging, but be sure to begin and end communication publically. This allows your other customers to see that you are willing to address the issue, offer help and ultimately, find a solution.

Brands that begin adopting these methods into their social media plans quickly will have an advantage over many brands. Ninety-six percent of customer service requests go unanswered by global brands that lack a dedicated, localized customer support handle, such as Adidas, AT&T and Sephora. Making these changes and implementing a proper Social Customer Care program for your social media accounts has the potential to not only reduce the negative perceptions of a brand, but ultimately have larger impacts on the bottom line. What other important social media tactics would you include in your plan?

Find more data from Rational Interaction’s Social Customer Care report here: http://bit.ly/2bye9iA

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Delta-Q Supports Lithium Powertrain System Development With Lithium Charger Development Kit

From camping equipment to home and portable electronics to electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries are becoming increasingly common and a preferred power source for consumer products. With their lightweight battery packs and high voltage capability, the rechargeable battery type is also becoming a common replacement for lead acid batteries which have been used historically to power electric utility vehicles and golf carts, along with electric industrial equipment.

For original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and battery management system (BMS) manufacturers, transitioning from lead-acid to lithium-ion power sources can be an intimidating, if not complicated, process. Not only do these manufacturers want to ensure consistent performance, cost and safety characteristics of their product, but they also need to consider new charging solutions to keep their equipment operating at optimum levels.

Earlier this month, Delta-Q Technologies, a leader in battery-charging solutions for electric drive vehicles and industrial equipment, debuted a new resource intended to support manufacturers aiming to develop lithium powertrain systems. The company’s Lithium Charger Development Kit, which was introduced at The Battery Show, includes the necessary charging hardware and software to help battery companies, OEMs and BMS manufacturers accelerate product development of electric vehicles and industrial equipment. In addition, users have exclusive access to custom training and technical support including training and consulting sessions led by Delta-Q’s application engineering team, development of custom charging profiles and quick-start guides, detailed programming and design documentation.

Communiqué PR understood that this development kit program was significant to Delta-Q, as well as to the broader electric vehicle and equipment communities. To ensure that key audiences were reached with the news, our approach began with the development of a press list targeting journalists covering electric power design, electric vehicles and industrial equipment, BMS manufacturers and battery companies.

The news was shared with journalists on our target list and via wire service distribution in early September. In addition to driving 13 articles for Delta-Q in relevant trade publications, we are working with journalists on feature stories that are slated to publish this fall. We also used the news as leverage to secure two in-person press briefings with Delta-Q representatives at the event.

Following is a list of the coverage secured thus far:

We congratulate Delta-Q Technologies on the development of its new Lithium Charger Development Kit and the response it has received thus far. To learn more about Delta-Q’s innovative power solutions, visit www.delta-q.com.

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“Relax!” – Don’t Do It

Anyone who has worked in PR is aware of just how stressful the job can be. In fact, the job of a PR executive had the honor of being named the sixth most stressful job in the U.S. in 2016, falling just below jobs that place you in immediate physical danger like being a military personal or a firefighter. While PR pros may not be running into burning buildings on their average work day, they are certainly expected to put out metaphorical fires on a regular basis. The unpredictability, running from a client meeting to an event while responding to media requests, and the constant deadlines are just a few factors that can up the stress levels of the most seasoned PR professionals. Even those who thrive in the sort of stressful conditions PR creates aren’t immune to the side effects – no one is. So what do you do when you’re faced with a coworker, employee or even a boss who is clearly on the edge of a stress-induced mental break down? Well I can certainly tell you what not to do: Tell them to relax.

“Relax!” or “Just calm down, OK?” or “It’s not that big of a deal,” may seem like perfectly adequate responses when someone else is stressed out, but in reality it sends all the wrong messages. In fact, if you do tell a coworker, or anyone for that matter, to calm down, there is a good chance they’ll start seeing red. So what is it about telling people to relax that creates the opposite effect?

It’s dismissive

Telling someone to relax immediately invalidates their feelings, making them believe their stress is irrelevant or embarrassing, and can be downright hurtful. The automatic reaction for most people when they feel embarrassed is to suppress their emotions, which almost always backfires. The more an emotion is hidden, the more likely it is to leak out at unexpected times, especially in a fast-paced work environment like PR.

Being dismissive can also make employees or coworkers feel like their work is unimportant. If there is a tight deadline or heavy workload, saying, “It’s not that big of a deal, relax,” can cause people to shut down and question why they are doing the work in the first place.

It lacks empathy

Everyone who has a job has experienced stress at least once, there is no way around it, so it’s a feeling we all understand, yet it can be incredibly hard to empathize with. The problem is that stress hits people in different ways and for different reasons, and it is very hard to compare one cause of stress to another. Unfortunately, a majority of the time people who appear stressed are not looking for someone to fix all their problems, but are looking for someone to validate their feelings and empathize with their current state.

It can lead to mistrust

Other people’s stress is uncomfortable if you don’t feel the same pressure, there is no way around that, so telling someone to calm down can give the impression that you are trying to create some distance to make yourself feel more comfortable. This can be an especially big problem as a leader. If an employee comes to you looking for advice or empathy and you dismiss their feelings because it is uncomfortable, there is a good chance that employee won’t feel comfortable coming to you anymore and will create tension in the workplace.

The best way to aid someone who is having a hard time is to acknowledge the problem, show empathy and ask questions to try and find a way to relieve some of the burden. The more open and communicative a workplace is, the less often stressful situations will arise, which can result in higher job performance and greater workplace satisfaction.

So then next time you’re faced with an overly stressed colleague, instead of saying, “Relax,” try “I know you are stressed, is there anything I can do to help?”

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