Inauguration Celebration

Wanted to post this video in the name of change.

“Bring out your dead!” But print’s not dead yet!

For all you “demise of print” soothesayers, I’ve got a little story for you. Last week, the election of Barack Obama as our nations 44th president brought HOPE to both our country and to the print industry. While watching the speech on November 4th, my roommate and I decided to do our best to get newspapers of the election results on November 5th This is an historically significant event. I wanted proof that I’d seen it. I was inspired by my AP US History teacher, Mr. Litchfield who displays the front page articles of various historical events in his classroom – the US moon landing, Roosevelts’ fourth term election…

Apparently people around the country were equally moved to buy a copy…

From the Gothamist: This is the line outside of the New York Times building in NYC. Once I got into the city on Wednesday morning, I checked the closest news stands, Starbucks, Borders, Walgreens – All had sold out of that day’s NYT.

So I did what anyone with a sister at the New York Times would do – I called my sister and had her save me a copy.

She, being the lovely sister that she is, obliged me right away and sent me a copy. She also, gave my name and search story to a reporter – one Richard Perez-Pena.

Got a call later that day from Richard asking about my quest for a paper, why it was important for me to have a copy and where I’d gone to get one — and YES. Lots of people go to Starbucks and Borders as a surefire place to get the “Times”. OK?

The next day, all of my coworkers were asking me how the hell I’d gotten to be in the New York Times because here is the article. And here’s my quote from the November 6th article:

Feel free to laugh. I did.

Alright, alright – so the more important point is (as Perez-Pena points out at the bottom of the above screen shot) that this gave the print facet of the news industry a ray of Obama-branded HOPE.

Suddenly newsPAPERS were a commodity. Something tangible to represent participation in this event. I voted. I saw it happen.

The frenzy continued and madness ensued on Craigslist and Ebay…The people who run NYT Social Media activity (Is that you @Converseon?) brilliantly came up with a Facebook gift of the November 5th NYT front page. I got one from my friend, colleague and fellow LaunchSquadder, Miko Mercer.

The point is, as long as historical events keep happening, I think we’re going to see a continued demand for tangible evidence. The demand for this particular copy translates into a demand for physical engagement. People felt like they were a part of this election and this process by purchasing a copy. Or at least I did.

Just so you know – the paper was much easier to find on November 6th when I bought a hardcopy of my quote. For my mom.

We belong to the light, we belong to the thunder…

Can we just pause to take a look at these MSNBC ads touting their network as the “place for politics?” They’re just a little intimate. Like they’re going in for a kiss. I’m just sayin. Your thoughts? What would Sarah Palin think?

Brokeback Debates?

Stuff PR People Like

Piggy-backing one of my favorite blogs, these are some observations of a Pre-PRo and should be taken as such. However, I have to say, these are some things I’ve noticed as I’ve hung out with more of “you people” and when I ponder these and look at my future in PR, I’m good with it. Here’s why:

Stuff PR People Like (in no particular order):

• Blogs, Blogging, the Blogosphere: We like being part of it all. We like the reciprocity. We give, you give back.
• Business-Casual: We clean up pretty good. But we sure like to pair our heals or loafers with a nice pair of Seven jeans and a sweater rather than your usual pant-suite. It lets us not only show our personal style and trendiness, but it’s also damn comfortable.
• San Francisco/Boston/New York City: Everywhere I applied had an office in one of these cities. I can explain SF and Boston – close enough to the news making action (NYC, Silicon Valley), but far enough away to deny association if necessary. New York? Meh – it is what it is. EVERY facet of the business world is there. Helloooo.
• Happy Hour: I have never been invited out for Happy Hour more than when I’m with PR people. Not that my social agenda is limited in any way. ButHappy Hour does serve as a good place and time to not only wind down and enjoy some well deserved brews and bar food, but it also offers great networking opportunities.
• New Technology: Want a virtually free platform to spread your message in fun ways to finely-tuned target audiences? Why, yes. Thank you.
• Apple/Macs: PR people love something that works well and is aesthetically pleasing. And we love Silicon Valley. And iTunes. And Steve Jobs.
• Ethics: Since PR is such a developing industry, ethics come in all shades of gray. This presents a challenge or a game for PR people to see what kinds of tactics can be implemented while respecting ethical boundaries and yet pushing that line just enough to be noticed. As if this weren’t enough, we like to talk about, rehash and find new definitions for ethics.
• Green: Being “green” and eco-friendly is such a successful PR campaign. It was something that used to grate on the nerves of corporate and even mainstream America. But through ingenious product placement (Urban Outfitters) and celebrity endorsement (Leonardo DiCaprio), being “green” isn’t a chore anymore: It’s hot.
• Barack Obama: Even if we’re not going to vote for him, we tend to at least appreciate his image and reputation management. Talk about brilliance: getting Will.I.Am to produce not just one but TWO videos on your behalf and a consistent and engaged presence on Twitter. If nothing else, it gets our attention in a big way. (Speaking of which…)
• Twitter: Thank god for it, really. For me, it serves for networking, blog promotion, research tool and journal. And that’s just for my own personal use. I imagine the possibilities for PRos and businesses are endless. Plus, it’s pretty addictive in that it takes some skill to know how to craft updates and choose links that’ll get you noticed.

On the other hand, here is a compilation of stuff PR people don’t (really) like:

• PR people: PR is an industry in which, to become a PR professional, you can have studied anything but PR. People have been wary of me, time and again, in interviews and classes because I’m a Journalism major with a focus in PR. It’s one of the most irritating things I’ve ever encountered: English students who will probably end up practicing PR who judge me because while they have seminar classes on Olde English and Whitman, I have seminar classes on PR research methods.
• PC’s: Even as I write this post from a PC, I’m thinking about how limited I am in that my processor is slow and susceptible to viruses and that to the world, my computer looks like that bumbling guy on the Mac commercials.
• Liars: We work so hard to communicate the truth (even if we’re a little creative about it sometimes, that it just pisses us off when others aren’t truthful. Or at least it does me.
• Advertising: We do basically the same thing as far as branding goes, only for less money. We also, though, handle reputation management, networking, investor relations, community relations, media relations, etc. The list goes on. Sometimes, I think I’m better than them. Even though I revere Weiden+Kennedy sometimes for their Nike and Smirnoff ads.
• The words “publicity” and “promotion”: Oh, PLEASE. Don’t limit us to publicity and promotion. We’re so much more than that. We are democratizing, media-attention-grabbing, conversation-joining, image-consulting,  brand-positioning, product/start-up launching bad-asses who will DO WORK for you.

Feel free to add, subtract or even correct via comment. I was feeling pretty audacious today. I guess.

Mischief Managed: Recovering From PR Blunders

In my spare time, I’ve been reading Jane Eyre and at one point in the lengthy conversations between Mr. Rochester and Jane, I felt very convicted by something he said to her in an argument: “You are afraid – Your self-love dreads blunder.”

Here is something to which I can relate. I don’t know if it’s self-love that drives me or makes me hesitate, but I do think it is, to some extent, a fear of mistakes or messing up. I’m a cautious and slow mover. I fear that my chance and risk-taking won’t pan out to success. My question is, when you mess up, how do you recover? This isn’t crisis management but, to reference to Harry Potter, “mischief management”.

In a recent article by Keith Ferrazzi, Founder and CEO of Ferrazzi Greenlight, a strategic consulting and professional development firm, he gives advice on how to deal with both personal and professional mistakes and blunders.

1. Get some perspective: This makes sense to me. In the grand scheme of things, assess how much does this really matter?

2. Assess and forgive yourself: In the grand scheme of YOU (and/or your company), how much does this mistake represent?

3. Come clean: Trust comes from full disclosure and free-flowing information. This goes for all relationships, personal and professional. At least in my experience.

4. Get back on the polo horse: I don’t really get why he stipulated that it was a polo horse, but I’ll take it. Move on by moving on. Prove to everyone that this mistake doesn’t define you or your work.

This is very good advice and coupled with what I’m learning in college, it should help in at least assessing and projecting recovery tactics for PR blunders and mistakes. In my PR classes, my instructors have presented the “wrong” ways to do things and even given us some examples of easily avoidable blunders and then how they were mishandled. The media is full of such situations. I’ve even blogged about them (See “Let’s Rethink This”).

For example, let’s look at former aide to Barack Obama, Samantha Power and how her off-hand and insulting remarks toward Hilary Clinton cost her a comfortable advising position in Obama’s campaign when Hilary didn’t accept her apology. What’s worse is that she’s a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a Pulitzer prize-winning author. Apprently, in an interview with The Scotsman, a Scottish newspaper, she called Senator Clinton “a monster” in an off-the-record comment which the paper ended up publishing.

How was this mischief managed? She quit. She also went to the press.

According to the Irish television network RTE, Power told a reporter, when asked if she regretted her comments, “Of course I regret them, I can’t even believe they came out of my mouth.” She went on, [Sentator Clinton] is also incredibly warm, funny. I’ve spent time with her. I think that I just had a very weak moment in seeing some of the tactics, it seems, that were getting employed.”

This is all well and good, but let’s see how this fares in Keith Ferrazzi’s 4-step formula.

Did she:

1. Get some perspective? Yes – and she decided that this blunder would cost the Obama campaign more than her pride was worth. In the grand scheme of things, it mattered.
2. Assess and forgive herself? Sure. Or at least she’s getting there. Her press follow-up showed her remorse and regret over the situation and that she was looking to move forward.

3. Come clean? Well yes, the initial incriminating interview actually did that for her, and her above-mentioned press follow-up allowed her to own up to her mistake and apologize for it.

4. Get back on the polo horse? Well I don’t know. In an interview with the Boston Globe, she said that she resigned from her aide position to remove all of the distractions that her comments had brought on the campaign. That probably includes staying out of the public eye now that she’s had a chance to put an apology out through the press. I can’t find anything other than her RTE interview. If you can, please let me know via comment.

All things considered, I think Samantha Power handled it as well as anyone could. And now that I have some idea of how to handle mistakes, I hope to be inspired to drive my decision-making with my aspirations and goals rather than let it be bridled by my fears of screwing up. It seems to me that mistakes and the managing of them are essential experiences and that they can only benefit my understanding of PR and add to my ease as a future practitioner.

I can only hope Samantha Power eventually sees it that way if she doesn’t already.

*Image courtesy of PrAsanGaM via Flickr.

Let’s Rethink This

I am one of hundred of thousands of people who watched the popular YouTube video of Barack Obama dancing on the Ellen Degeneres Show. It’s a charming clip of him dancing to Beyonce’s “Crazy In Love”. At the time he was barely on my radar. My sister was reading his book and my brother had his campaign signs up in his yard. It was this video that prompted my attention to him and his campaign.

This isn’t the first time YouTube stepped up Obama’s entertainment-driven campaign. After the New Hampshire primaries, as I blogged about earlier, Will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas produced a music video “Yes We Can” based off of Obama’s speech there and since it was posted on Youtube 3 weeks ago, it’s had almost 5 million hits.

Last week, though, on an episode of HardBall, the host, Chris Matthews, was interviewing Texas State Senator Kirk Watson about his recent endorsement of Obama. The segment was a duel interview with a Clinton endorser also being questioned about several aspects of her candidate of choice. Matthews asked Senator Watson to list off the legislative accomplishments of Barack Obama and Watson said he could not name specific accomplishments. When asked if he could name any, he again was speechless and in this painful clip, he is seen grasping for straws.

Once again, I’m puzzled to see whether these endorsements can help or in this case harm a candidate and perhaps cost them a primary on March 4th.

*Photo courtesy of www.wealth-prosperity.info

To Do It In and With Style

In perusing the recent activity on Kelli Matthew’s blog PRos In Training, I found a post that highlighted a Dunlop Tires marketing scheme that promised a free set of tired to anyone who branded themselves with a Dunlop tattoo. This got me thinking about marketing and public relations gimmicks and what people will carry out to drive their marketing or public relations plan away from traditional tactics and into the minds of their audiences. More than that, I had to wonder if I would ever have to be the architect behind some of this pumped-up PR? So I started to research what people are saying about this issue. Honestly, I really wanted to get some ideas so that if ever asked to be over-the-top, I’d have some strategies up my sleeve.

In my search for tips, examples and how-to’s, I came across many blogs that featured this list – the Ten Commandments of Crazy Marketing Stunts, if you will. The list includes a staged protest against your clients’ “good customer service”, nominating your client for an obscure award, and tying your client’s name or business to a current event, for example, local chiropractors sponsoring a marathon in hopes for a business boom after the race.

These ideas interested me until this morning when reading a celebrity gossip blog called Just Jared (my guilty pleasure) who in one of his many daily posts showed a music video made by musician, producer and member of the Black Eyed Peas, Will.i.am that featured a song called “Yes, We Can” which is based off of a speech made by Barak Obama at the New Hampshire primaries. This, ladies and gentlemen, is great PR.

The video features celebrities and musicians singing the lyrics which actually follow the speech exactly – and these aren’t B-listers either, folks. Scarlett Johansson, Kate Walsh, and John Legend are just a few of the ensemble showing their support for the presidential candidate. I encourage everyone to watch the video. It’s very well done. Here is a link to the video as featured at the Just Jared site.

I’m not sure if Obama’s people were involved very heavily in it, but this video showed creative and over-the-top PR doesn’t have to be limited to gimmicks and stunts that will increase car sales but it can be used for something hugely important and worthy of a national attention.