Insights for Leaders Navigating
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.
Where do even the most experienced writers turn to when they are stumped?
The Associated Press (AP) Stylebook. Sometimes referred to as the gold standard for journalistic writing, the AP Stylebook is updated every year as language used in media, food, sports, business, and more changes to better reflect our dynamic society.
As we patiently await the release of the 2018 AP Stylebook in May, I want to highlight three important changes made to the Stylebook in 2017 and also present an easy way to stay in the loop with AP Stylebook rules.
- Gender. A hugely important update to the 2017 stylebook was changes to rules regarding gender. As society’s perceptions around gender evolve, the language used to describe gender needs to reflect these perceptions. Now, they can be used as a singular pronoun, “Gender refers to a person’s social identity while sex refers to biological characteristics. Not all people fall under one of two categories for sex or gender, according to leading medical organizations, so avoid references to both, either or opposite sexes or genders as a way to encompass all people.”
- Oxford comma. Although not a new addition to the Stylebook, the 2017 version includes a clarification of the Oxford comma rule. After a class-action lawsuit was filed because of a misunderstanding of overtime pay due to the Oxford comma, an update to the most polarizing punctuation mark rule was absolutely necessary. AP Style still recommends not to use the Oxford comma in simple series, however, writers need to use their best judgement to decide if the Oxford comma is necessary for clarity.
- Data journalism. The 2017 Stylebook includes an entirely new chapter on data journalism, or journalism that tells stories with data and statistics. Because data analysis is no longer reserved for specialists, AP saw a need for journalists to have a set of rules for consistency in reporting data and statistics. Some of the most notable rules surrounding data journalism include: best practices for handling leaked data, the ethics of web scraping and standards for accurately representing data findings in text and visuals.
As you can see, AP Style rules can not only be incredibly complex, but they are constantly changing to reflect changes in society. Lucky for us, AP Stylebook has an easily understood, occasionally humorous and most importantly, free resource to keep up to date with style rules: @APStylebook.
The AP Stylebook Twitter account tweets tips that may be completely random, in relation to a specific event happening, or most commonly to explain a little known rule. There is even a hashtag, #APStyleChat, that engages users and creates a platform where users can ask specific AP style questions and even suggest additions to be made to the next version of the stylebook. Below are some examples of my favorite tweets by @APStylebook.
A rickey is usually a cocktail with lime juice, soda water and liquor. Also a nonalcoholic drink, often made of seltzer water, lime juice and flavored syrups, such as a lime rickey.
— APStylebook (@APStylebook) January 19, 2018
Beware the wind chill factor, and don't use a hyphen in writing the term.
— APStylebook (@APStylebook) January 3, 2018
Use ages only if relevant. For example, a teenager's comment on video games aimed at that age group, or someone saying, "I'm too old for the job." Generally, use ages for profiles, obituaries, significant career milestones and achievements unusual for the age.
— APStylebook (@APStylebook) February 14, 2018
As PR professionals, an understanding of AP style is absolutely crucial to be successful in the industry. Be sure to purchase a new version of the stylebook every year and follow the @APStylebook Twitter account for daily reminders of rules you may have not known existed.
For more articles from Communiqué PR on AP rules, please see the following:
- The PR Professional’s AP Style Cheat Sheet
- Understanding AP Style and its Importance
- Figuring Out AP Style
Pop-ups have surged in popularity in recent years, and it’s easy to understand why. With retail space at a premium and online retailers looking for a brick-and-mortar presence, pop-up shops have become a tried and tested business strategy. It’s no secret that pop-up shops can help fuel consumer engagement. Below are seven ways brands can leverage pop-up shops to make an impact with consumers.
Go to Where Your Customers Are
Instead of investing in a long-term physical retail space, go where the buzz is! Pop-up shops are installations which activate for short periods of time, so their maintenance costs are significantly lower than a traditional retail space. You can choose a space that fits your brand the best.
The location of your pop-up shop is arguably the most significant factor to consider. With very little time in public, pop-ups must be located in areas that will attract the right attention at the right time. The pop-up concept has been adopted by small boutiques and giants including the Pop-in@Nordstrom series, which provides consumers with a wide variety of offerings that Nordstrom might not otherwise carry.
Connect with New Customers
When you’ve strategically thought out and selected the location of your pop-up shop, you’re likely to engage with consumers who are willing and able to make a transaction with your brand. Pop-up shops are a great way to build brand awareness in a short period of time through experiential means. You can introduce consumers to your brand in a fully immersive experience, where an individual can sample and interact with your products, share on social media, purchase or just have a conversation to learn more.
One of the biggest examples of this is Microsoft, which leveraged pop-ups to help customers better understand their new surface tablets.
Establish Yourself as a Brand Leader
With so many brands competing for attention, sometimes it can be challenging to stand out from the crowd. Pop-up shops allow brands to establish themselves as leaders in sight of consumers who may be unaware of the brand’s activities. Many times consumers are unaware of what the brand is all about. All brands want to be known for something. What is it that consumers gain from your experience in particular? How will they be able to better understand your brand through this experience?
Lead Generation
It’s not all about what you’re doing here and now. Often you will want to create a way for your newly found customers to contact you later online, be that social media, email updates or your website. Make it easy for them, they shouldn’t have to ask. It’s a good practice to have kiosks or tablets available for customers to connect with your brand digitally on the spot.
Crowd Source Your Social Media Content
Pop-up shops provide consumers with a unique opportunity to take photos and share their experience with friends and family. Help them frame it in a way that’s photogenic, which you’ve designed. Curate and brand your content opportunities where applicable. People love to take photos and post to social channels, especially in cool settings, so give them one!
Offer an Indirect Service, Be Purposeful
Not all marketing activations or pop-up shops need to be directly selling your product but rather give a nod to your brand’s style, perhaps by introducing a movement via your brand. The Movember Foundation, for example, is an organization focused on promoting men’s health and in many cases would be an appropriate addition to an event to not only raise awareness for the foundation but help promote a brand for men by providing haircuts and hot shaves. It’s a win, win.
Haircuts, blowouts, hot shaves, massages, nails, whatever it is, make it authentic and relevant to the brand.
Market Your Shop Around Sales Cycles
In the nature of temporary stores and pop-up shops, you can tap into sales cycles such as the holidays, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc. Leverage these opportunities to sell more merchandise with a pop-up shop. When you select a location to sell during these events you’re most likely going to get the most foot traffic and thus more sales. Harness the seasonal cycles to maximize profits and exposure.
Today I came across a fun infographic with 20 tips to conquer writer’s block published by PR Daily and began thinking about the steps I take when I feel stuck on a project. Given that none of my personal best practices were listed in the article, I thought I’d share them here.
Best Practice #1: Analyze the assignment and make a list of the steps that can be taken to complete it. Ideally, I like to break the assignment into small steps be completed in 25 minutes or less. For instance, when I am asked to write an article I often take the following steps:
- Decide on my objectives for the article: What do I want to readers to glean from the piece?
- Come up with a unifying theme. Is there a deeper issue to be explored?
- Outline the article. How do I want to structure the article?
- Develop a list of questions. What questions to I want to answer for the reader?
- Research the answers and/or interview subject-matter experts
- Identify proof to back up any claims in the article.
- Write the article
Best Practice #2: Practice the Pomodoro Technique. This is the practice of setting a timer for 25 minutes and then going to work on one of the tasks. After 25 minutes, I take a break and reward myself. I might walk down the hall and talk with one of my co-workers about another project or get a glass of water. These are not big rewards, but I still enjoy them and find it motivating to do something to acknowledge the small steps I am taking to complete the larger project.
The Pomodoro Technique has helped me overcome writer’s block or just get started on something that I’ve been dreading doing. For instance, one of my least favorite activities is reading legal documents. Fortunately, I don’t have many of these to review, but when I do I often break it into 25-minute chunks.
Best Practice #3: You might be wondering what to do when you don’t know what steps to take. When I have no idea how to approach an assignment, I often like to think about my objectives and brainstorm with a coworker. Simply explaining what I am trying to accomplish often jumpstarts my creative problem-solving skills. I can make a list of possible actions and think through the pros and cons of taking them.
Best Practice #4. Finally, I encourage you to remember that procrastination often happens during moments of self doubt or fear. Recently I was chatting with a woman who is revising her first novel. It is a big project and she sometimes starts thinking things like “Maybe this scene doesn’t make sense” or “My writing probably isn’t any good.” This type of thinking can be very discouraging. To overcome this problem, her writing coach gave her some brilliant advice to reframe her negative thoughts and pose them as the following question: “I wonder what I should do next?” By asking this question, you are moving yourself toward action and you are thinking about how to solve your problem. And, let’s face it, if you go negative on yourself, it’s unpleasant for you and can be very unmotivating.
So the next time you’re feeling blocked, I hope you’ll remember these tips. If you have other steps that you’ve taken, please share the ones that have worked for you.
Developing and remodeling company messaging is a big endeavor. Regardless of the company size, age or team experience, creating authentic mission statements and value propositions requires a heavy time investment and can present tough questions around purpose and vision for the company’s executive team to address.
For established companies, it may be challenging to step back and see the value in revisiting messaging for several reasons: one, because of the investment of resources required, and two, the fear that the company’s current focus or new vision has shifted from what was originally intended and stated in past messaging frameworks. These, however, are great reasons to take a close look at messaging, and present the opportunity to distinguish and integrate new business objectives, products, customers, partners and competitors into company messaging to ensure that any new priorities and changes in vision map back to the company’s ultimate purpose.
Incorporating new objectives and how internal and external players understand, interact and feel toward the business are essential elements to include in messaging to ensure that it is ef
fective and authentic.
Because of the benefits a history of understanding company perception can bring to the table, it can be difficult for start-ups first planting their stake in the ground to fully articulate impact and purpose. Without an expansive account of feedback from customers, employees and even media, it can be nerve-racking to make the initial jump and develop messaging with confidence it that it will align with the company’s vision in the years to come.
Companies grappling with these challenges or on the fence about remodeling messaging, should consider completing the “5 Whys” exercise. This exercise helps uncover a company’s underlying mission and the significance of its work, which ultimately helps frame the company’s initiative in a meaningful way. The exercise starts by asking and answering what the company does and then asking why it is important. After each response, ask “why?”
Once the group has answered a series of the “why” questions, they should have a good sense of the company’s fundamental purpose. Completing this exercise and incorporating the final product into messaging frameworks will help executives communicate purpose and vision in a way that is truly valuable to the internal and external parties discussed above.
Another best practice and crucial step to remember when developing messaging is industry research. Understanding what is already out there (good and bad), is important before finalizing frameworks. An old article from Harvard Business Review, “Purpose is Good. Shared Purpose is Better,” not only provides a great reminder about purpose and developing messaging with impact and value in mind, the author also shares examples of powerful mission statements from companies including Nike and Starbucks.
“Starbucks: To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time. Nike: To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world.”
The author flagged these as “successful” mission statements because they focus on connecting the company’s purpose “with” the world vs. “for” its customers.
If you are still on the fence with how to approach remodeling you’re messaging or unsure where to start, this Forbes article provides helpful steps to consider and follow to get in the right direction: Eight Steps To Powerful Startup Messaging.
The ways that journalists report on news – and the way that their audiences consume it – is changing day to day.
Earlier this month The New York Times ran its first augmented reality (AR) feature story previewing the Winter Olympics, allowing readers to “meet” and watch Olympic athletes in 3D through their smartphones. As the article explained, “Through your phone, the room around you looks just as it is, except the athlete is in it with you.”
Graham Roberts, the director of immersive platforms storytelling for the Times, describes the technology: “Augmented reality allows us to bridge the digital and physical worlds; graphical elements can be superimposed on your immediate environment. The Olympics project … demonstrates one of AR’s richest benefits: deepening the explanatory value of visual journalis
m.”
The article about the Olympics “was not just about this single piece of journalism. It was also about exploring what visual journalism may look like in the near future. We are extending stories beyond the inches of a screen — and in so doing, envisioning a world in which devices begin to disappear and the spaces around us become the information surfaces themselves.”
Nonny de la Pena, a documentary filmmaker, notes in a Media Post article that AR “… creates a duality of presence. You know you’re ‘here,’ but you feel like you’re ‘there,’ too. The experience is much more visceral. It’s really a kind of a whole-body experience and is very unique — different than radio, than television, than any other kind of format for experiencing a story.” In de le Pena’s case, AR created a medium to deepen coverage and build empathy from her viewers.
Others (myself included) are skeptical. Digiday’s Sahil Patel, in a 2016 article, (“If they build it, who will come? An anatomy of the VR hype bubble”) writes, “No one denies that virtual reality is cool. Trying on a VR headset and being taken to a time and place that you couldn’t possibly go to in real life is a pretty compelling proposition. But just because something is cool doesn’t mean it will be popular. VR is in the midst of a hype bubble.”
Like Patel, I have mixed feelings about this emerging technology and its implications for journalism.
Full disclosure: Despite the fact that I’ve spent most of my career working with innovative tech companies, I’m hardly a first-adopter when it comes to shiny new personal technology. I clung stubbornly to my compact discs and fought hard against digital music for years (don’t worry, I’ve turned that corner, finally), and I still remain very much on Team Book versus Team Kindle.
And so this new immersive technology that brings news images not just into our televisions and mobile devices, but into our living rooms as actual 3D interactive visuals, makes me a little skeptical about its potential long-term. No doubt its cool factor is high – remember how excited we all were about Pokemon Go? But is AR a viable way to inform the public about important issues and breaking news? I’m hesitant to jump on that bandwagon just yet. It’s a long way off before AR-fueled journalism becomes adopted by the masses.
For one, the technology to create AR content is expensive. It will be interesting to see how advertising will emerge to support AR content. Will you have to sit through a 3D immersive commercial for Doritos, for example, before you can access your AR feature story? And will consumers mind this, or will they accept that commercials need to evolve just as editorial content has?
What about viewing AR content that could be violent or otherwise disturbing, like war footage, for example? Again, the Times describes the technology as creating “a new pathway that can lead away from the abstract depiction of objects and toward a more visceral sense of real-life scale and physicality.” Are consumers going to want to experience frightening or intense content in an immersive, realistic way, even if from the security of their iPhones? In all sincerity, news today is scary enough reading it in print and via Twitter– I’m not sure if I’m ready for it live and in-person.
Clearly we’re in the early days here, and I applaud the Times – newspapers’ Old Gray Lady – for pushing the norms for how stories are presented. The reality is that how people access the news is far different from when the Times published its first issue in 1851. Journalism will continue to evolve, and it will be an interesting ride for media and communications professionals to watch, whether via the traditional printed page, or as a 3D immersive visual journey.
The 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer reveals that trust in the U.S. has suffered a record-breaking drop in the survey’s 18-year history.
No country saw steeper declines than the U.S., with a 37-point drop in trust across all institutions. While the survey provides deep insight into the polarization of trust in business, government, NGOs and media throughout 28 countries, what is most applicable to our industry is the dramatic shifts within the institution of media.
The survey reports that globally, nearly seven in 10 respondents among the general population worry about fake news or false information being used as a weapon, and nearly 60 percent indicate it is getting harder to tell if a piece of news was produced by a respected media organization. 
Given this data, it’s no surprise media has become the least-trusted institution for the first time in the history of the Trust Barometer. Putting pressure on trust in media is declining trust in search engines and social media. The irony is that at the same time, the credibility of journalists rose significantly.
Edelman cites the broad definition of media as a contributing factor to the paradox. Some survey respondents consider platforms to be part of “the media” – including social media (48 percent) and search engines (25 percent) – alongside journalism (89 percent), which includes publishers and news organizations.
In 2018, trust in journalism increased five points while trust in platforms dipped two points. In addition, peers are no longer the most-believed source of information as the credibility of “a person like yourself” dipped to an all-time low in the study’s history.
All this to say, it’s likely the decline of trust in social and search, and the credibility of peer communication, are contributing to the overall deterioration of trust in media.
At the same time, there is renewed confidence in experts. Technical experts, academics, financial industry analysts and entrepreneurs with a successful track record are gaining credibility levels of 50 percent or higher. Whereas credibility among journalists rose a mere 12 percentage points and CEOs recorded a seven-point gain.
People’s concern about fake news and their willingness to listen to experts show their desire for knowledge. The media cannot solve this alone. Every institution must play its part in the battle for truth by educating its constituents and joining the public debate, going direct to the end-users of information.
“The United States is enduring an unprecedented crisis of trust,” said Richard Edelman, president and CEO of Edelman. “This is the first time that a massive drop in trust has not been linked to a pressing economic issue or catastrophe like the Fukushima nuclear disaster. In fact, it’s the ultimate irony that it’s happening at a time of prosperity, with the stock market and employment rates in the U.S. at record highs.
The root cause of this fall is the lack of objective facts and rational discourse.” The agency highlighted the following key takeaways when announcing results from the 2018 survey:
- Technology (75 percent) remains the most trusted industry sector followed by education (70 percent), professional services (68 percent) and transportation (67 percent). The financial services industry (54 percent) was once again the least trusted sector along with consumer-packaged goods (60 percent) and automotive (62 percent).
- Companies headquartered in Canada (68 percent), Switzerland (66 percent), Sweden (65 percent) and Australia (63 percent) are most trusted. The least trusted country brands are Mexico (32 percent), India (32 percent), Brazil (34 percent) and China (36 percent). Trust in brand U.S. (50 percent) dropped five points, the biggest decline of the countries surveyed.
- Exactly half of those surveyed indicate that they interact with mainstream media less than once a week, while 25 percent said they read no media at all because it is too upsetting. And the majority of respondents believe that news organizations are overly focused on attracting large audiences (66 percent), breaking news (65 percent) and politics (59 percent).
Read the full report, watch videos and explore trust levels by country and demographic here.