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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.
A few years ago one of our clients approached us about developing and distributing an April Fools’ Day “joke” press release. Clearly there are pros and cons to these types of announcements. A successful joke press release can garner significant attention and build dramatic awareness for a company. However, a joke release in poor taste can cause long-term damage to a brand or company image.
As we prepare for this year’s April Fools’ Day, we thought it might be worthwhile to share thoughts and perspectives we gathered from a few reporters on the appropriateness of the hoax announcement. Here is what we learned:
1. Reporters do have a sense of humor so they’re not totally opposed to the idea. However, they cautioned us that this type of release needs to be written in such away that there is no doubt that it is a joke. Clearly, if a reporter believes an announcement is legitimate news, and writes about it as such, his or her credibility could be damaged and this would be detrimental.
2. To ensure the announcement is not taken seriously, you might want the press release (or advisory) to include a statement (at the end) stating that it is a joke.
3. Timing is everything. Nothing illustrates this more clearly than this post on Engadget when a press release intended as an April Fools Day joke was distributed on April 3.
Finally, as with any announcement, a company should carefully consider the objectives of the “joke” announcement and the perceptions it will create. For instance, is it going to make light of an issue that deserves serious consideration? How will it make key partners feel? Will other target audiences find it funny or annoying?
Here are some April Fools’ Day announcements from years past.
Google’s “Gmail Custom Time” lets users send e-mails in the past. E-mail can be sent to appear as though it was sent 1 hour ago, 6 hours ago or another time in the past. E-mail show up in proper chronological order in the recipient’s inbox. Never miss important deadlines again.
WestJet Introduces Sleeper Cabins, Airline is first to provide new service without need for cabin upgrades – The photos illustrates a WestJet guest snuggled in “new” sleeper cabin. Be careful when you open the overhead compartment, items my have shifted!
Nestlé Announces Official Name Change for ButterfingerÆ Candy bar – We think the packaging says it all.
Njection Hits Final Hurdle to Provide Real Time Tracking of Police Officers -Track police officers from your computer and by mobile phone. The press release clearly captures both the need and benefits of this compelling solution:
“I feel a lot better with this announcement.” Jeffery Jarvis, 2nd time felon looking at his 3rd strike. “This information will be very helpful for me in my line of work. I am just upset that is has taken this long to get something like this started.”
Feel free to share your favorite hoax announcements with us by posting a comment.
Many industry experts predict that the merger and acquisition market (M&A) is going to turn around later this year. This theory was outlined in several recent articles including one by TechFlash’s John Cook, “When will the high-tech M&A bottom feeders emerge?” and another from IDG News’s Marc Ferranti “Wall Street Beat: M&A, Oracle Stress the Positive.”
In the TechFlash article Bill McAleer, a managing partner at Voyager Capital, shared with John Cook that there are a number of large companies (such as Oracle, Microsoft, etc.) with strong cash positions who are preparing to leverage the recent economic downturn to get some good deals in the acquisition arena. We are starting to see some evidence of this happening with recent acquisition news from Cisco, merger discussions between IBM and Sun and statements from Steve Ballmer indicating that Microsoft is ready to do several (10 – 20) small deals of less than $500 million.
While increased M&A activity is good news, there is still significant competition among companies looking for acquisition as an exit strategy. Additionally, companies are now faced with reduced valuations. Much like a home owner coming to terms with the decreased value of their home, company executives and investors will need to be prepared for lower terms.
For companies looking to be acquired, cost-effective, strategic public relations is a critical tool for raising awareness, increasing valuations and ultimately accomplishing the desired exit.
According to Ferranti’s article, a recent report by 451 Group revealed that corporate buyers “are looking for ‘bolt-on” deals that help vendors in specific market niches.” These niche companies need to raise awareness with potential acquirers to demonstrate how their product, solution or technology will be a strategic asset as well as how they can integrate effectively within the organization. Public relations can be extremely effective to boost a company’s visibility and ensure its valuation is maximized.
In our book, “Strategic Public Relations: 10 Principles to Harness the Power of PR”, we include a sidebar “A Focused Approach to PR: How PR Helped Tegic Raise Its Sales Value” in which Don Davidge, Tegic’s former vice president of marketing and sales reveals how PR helped Tegic secure its acquisition by AOL and how later, an AOL executive told him “his team had internally calculated they paid an extra $50 million for Tegic just because of how much buzz there was about the company.”
Today’s business climate may be more conservative; however, PR can be a powerful tool to ensure your company is on the radar with potential acquirers. In addition, PR can increase the perceived valuation of the company and possibly create a sense of urgency for the completion of an acquisition.
Tecplot, Inc., one of Communiqué PR’s newest clients, recently helped scientists from MIT shed light on a century-old mystery surrounding flow separation. After reading this study, I was intrigued to learn more about flow separation and how Tecplot’s solution helped scientists better understand this complex phenomenon.
Flow separation occurs when the air traveling over a surface “detaches” from that surface, causing increased drag. Take for instance an airplane that is accelerating to gain elevation and then slows to go into a turn. The airflow around it cannot keep up and detaches turbulently from the wings. This aerodynamic separation creates drag, which causes further slowing and forces the engine to work harder.
Tecplot’s visualization solution allows scientists and engineers to quickly analyze data with easy-to-use quantitative and qualitative charts. Users can view data as wire-mesh plots, contour lines and flooding, vector fields, light-source shaded plots, and a variety of XY plots. As described by Mike Peery, CEO and founder of Tecplot, the company’s solutions are like “Microsoft Excel on steroids.”
With the help of Tecplot 360, “a CFD visualization tool that helps analyze, explore and understand complex simulation data,” scientists were able to explain the mathematics behind the unsteady separation of fluids in both two and three dimensions.
Understanding flow separation is important to designing fuel-efficient cars, planes and combustors – controlling flow separation helps manage both fuel consumption and pollution emission. From a news perspective, this study is timely because of the awareness around fuel efficiency. Industries such as automobile and aerospace are focusing on creating more eco-friendly vehicles and planes. Just recently, Honda announced the release of Honda Insight, a hybrid car which according to a New York Times article, “promises to let drivers respond to both of the leading crises of our day: the environment and the recession.”
Fuel efficiency also continues to be a major issue under the Obama administration. As awareness for fuel efficiency increases, technologies that can help reduce pollution and increase energy efficiency will be top-of-mind with politicians and the general public.
We are excited to leverage current trends such as these to garner coverage of Tecplot.
To learn more about Tecplot’s solutions and the flow separation study, visit www.tecplot.com.
Given the current economic conditions and the demise of many print publications, conversations are increasingly taking place online through networks and platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. We recently wrote a blog post about the power of Twitter and the impact of Facebook on companies like Coca-Cola. There’s no doubt social media is a hot topic right now.
As professionals are getting acquainted with the changing digital space they want to know how to leverage these mediums to achieve business and communications objectives. PRWeek recently gathered a roundtable of professionals to discuss the impact of digital media and how companies can leverage it to secure key business objectives. The roundtable discussion outlined best practices for leveraging the various digital media platforms. Here are a few key takeaways from the discussion:
Digital in a down economy
Social media is growing exponentially. However, in a down economy there is added pressure to deliver measurable results. When implementing social media campaigns, it is important to outline anticipated results, how the results will be measured and communicate the strategic value of the campaign – to show how these results align with business and communications objectives.
Impact on traditional journalism
Traditional reporters are also blogging – many of them are gathering information from a variety of sources such as Twitter, Facebook and corporate blogs. During the PRWeek roundtable, Paul Berg with Southwest Airlines commented, “It really changes how PR should be thinking about things as basic as their talking points. It’s not a quote in a story anywhere. You have to go a lot deeper than that.” The way we communicate with journalists and conduct media briefings is changing. Everything is instantaneous now. Before the rise of social media it would take a journalist a couple of days to publish a story, now they can do it in real-time through blog posts and Twitter updates.
Corporate blogging
From company Facebook pages to corporate blogs and Twitter accounts, some executives are finding it hard to differentiate their personal accounts from their corporate accounts. Marc Monseau with Johnson & Johnson commented, “When you’re corporate blogging as well, you still need to have your personal identity in that blog, but it needs to be your professional identity.” We’ve seen examples of this going wrong with the Ketchum employee’s tweet that caused controversy with its clients. Remember, personal is now public and what you say on your personal Twitter account or Facebook page could affect your professional relationships.
Staying up-to-speed
Being versed in the social media landscape is now more important than ever. When Marcy Cohen, a participant of the roundtable discussion and senior PR manager for Sony Electronics was looking to hire another member for his team, he looked at 50 resumes and couldn’t find the word social media or social networking on any of them. We can’t stress this enough. In order to get familiar with the social media landscape, you have to participate, and as the saying goes, “get your hands dirty.”
To learn more about the impact of social media and best practices for leveraging these emerging technologies, read the PRWeek roundtable discussion here.
Measuring the impact and results of a media relations campaign is critical to the long-term success of an organization. Evaluating a campaign provides valuable insight that can help an organization evolve by answering questions such as:
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Were the strategies executed successful?
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Were our marketing and PR dollars used wisely?
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Did we meet our objectives?
To help answer these questions, many organizations take a multifaceted approach – relying on a variety of measurement tools and strategies to capture results.
Verizon’s launch of FiOS TV, an Internet, telephone and TV service, is a great example of how an organization can take a multifaceted approach to measuring media relations. The company enlisted a variety of tools to measure the resulting coverage and determine the tone, geographic distribution and customer perceptions of FiOS TV.
According to a recent PR Week article about Verizon’s measurement efforts, the company also evaluates the coverage its competition receives as well as its share of voice – the percentage an organization possesses in a particular niche, market or target audience. Editor Tonya Garcia says, “Mixing the quantitative and the qualitative, the company is watching to make sure the messaging surrounding its FiOS TV product is reaching the media and, in the end, potential customers.”
Tonya also mentions, “The media measurement effort at Verizon is a mixture of hi-tech text mining (Dow Jones Insight) and low-tech human analysis (surveys). It is executed down to a local level to ensure that each media relations dollar is spent wisely.”
Verizon’s measurement efforts have revealed media relations success for the company as media hits for FiOS TV spiked on the day of the launch, and showed a 70 percent share of voice during the month of the launch.
Measurement strategies similar to what Verizon used for the launch of FiOS TV are discussed in Strategic Public Relations, 10 Principles to Harness the Power of PR. Authors Colleen Moffitt and Jennifer Gehrt explain, “Although there’s no single perfect measurement, using a variety of methods can give your organization a good idea about the effectiveness of your PR programs.”
A few of the PR measurement strategies Colleen and Jennifer recommend include:
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Ad Value Equivalency – This compares the cost- effectiveness of PR with that of advertising.
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Return on Impressions – The number of people who potentially read an article and the cost of reaching them.
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Return on Media Impact – Demonstrates the impact of your PR campaign on sales of your company’s product or service.
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Return on Influencers – Measures the effect of a PR campaign on customers’ perceptions of your company, product, or service.
Taking a multifaceted approach to measuring results can provide organizations with the valuable information they need to make smart business decisions that help a company achieve its business and communications goals.
Eric Rabe, senior vice president of media relations for Verizon, told PRWeek, “I don’t think, in this day and age, you can do the PR without looking very seriously at the measurement. Business is demanding more accountability.”
To learn more about measuring results, contact info@communiquepr.com or click here to purchase “Strategic Public Relations, 10 Principles to Harness the Power of PR.”
We are in many ways living in unprecedented times. As banks and major companies crumble and the economy worsens, there seem to be increasingly fewer historical examples on which to base our current policies. But as Martin S. Roth and Richard Ettenson point out in a March 23 Wall Street Journal article, there is an often-overlooked model from which businesses can draw invaluable insights: emerging markets.
Volatile currencies and frequent economic downturns are nothing new in emerging markets like Eastern Europe, South Africa and Latin America. As a result, companies in these markets have developed ways to price their products and retain customers. In their article Roth and Ettenson highlight four key strategies companies in established markets can use to “implement bold, creative ideas, outflank rivals and boost their business.”
The resounding theme throughout this article is that in the long run, it is far cheaper to keep existing customers than to lose them during the recession and try to win them back afterward. Below, we’ve summarized Roth and Ettenson’s four strategies to achieve this goal:
1. Get customers to trade up
By rethinking pricing strategies, companies can provide incentives for customers to trade up to premium products in a down economy. Western companies price their goods with the goal of maintaining a high profit margin on both regular and premium products. But when customers are strapped for cash, this strategy often makes premium goods prohibitively expensive.
In contrast, companies in emerging markets accept lower profit margins on premium products. This results in customers recognizing that the brand is offering them more value for their money – so they trade up to premium products, even in tough times.
2. Increase product and service visibility
The temptation for many Western companies during a recession is to allocate scarce marketing resources to advertising in attempt to win new customers, often to the detriment of customer service budgets. This can result in losing existing customers.
In contrast, companies in emerging markets amp up their customer service and focus on making their products more visible and available to customers who already know about them. This often involves improving point of purchase promotions. One manager quoted in the article explains this logic, saying that point of purchase is key “because it’s the only time when your product, your customer and that customer’s wallet are all in the same place.”
3. Rethink what customers value
In emerging markets, companies are routinely forced to update their businesses model to match the market conditions. This flexibility allows companies to cater to the ever-changing needs of their consumers.
Roth and Ettenson cite the example of mobile phones. In the past, Western operators have derived revenue from locking customers into contracts. But as customers have less disposable income, this may no longer be the best model. In emerging markets, operators allow customers to buy just as much service as they need, when they need it. This model allows customers to use their mobile phones without incurring high monthly fees for minutes they may not use.
4. Look at new metrics
Emerging-market companies that excel typically take a very broad view of the market. They monitor data to predict the direction of the market so they know when to switch from one strategy to another. So instead of focusing inward on factors like revenue and churn rate, they monitor macroeconomic measures like inflation, unemployment etc. They then develop possible future market scenarios and craft business strategies for each one. This allows for a nimble response to a volatile economy.
Roth and Ettenson end the article with the simple advice that companies stay optimistic. Western companies should brighten their outlook and realize that tough times provide the opportunity to strengthen their position and financial performance.