e-liz

A few weeks ago Nick and I had the pleasure of watching the Bulls get ruthlessly humiliated at the United Center. One of the tertiary pleasures of any major sporting event is the chance to win free stuff from sponsors. You get a prize booklet at the door, and depending on who wins these little time-out competitions throughout the game, you might get a coupon for a free taco, or a Big Mac, or some coffee.

I only won one of the prizes from my booklet that night. It was a free gallon of water from Hinckley Springs. Upon closer inspection, though, I realized that the prize was really a free gallon of water with the purchase of a gallon of water. That's right: I won the privilege of going out to the store, purchasing two half-priced gallons of water, and carrying them home.

Err... thanks?

I thought about that experience again earlier this week, when some colleagues were passing around a story about AmEx's blogger outreach strategy for their new Zync card. Blogger Peter Rojas outed the PR firm who contacted him, and reposted the full text of their email offering him an "exclusive relationship" with the Zync card.

At first glance, nothing looks off about their message. It's well-targeted (Rojas is in their demo and has worked with the company before), it's transparent (the rep identifies herself and does not disguise her request), and the communication is perfectly appropriate in clarity, tone and approach. As a colleague noted, it doesn't look all that different from some of the eminent campaigns we've done ourselves. So what was the big problem?

The offering. AmEx wanted Rojas to do a lot: read about Zync, take the time to offer ongoing feedback through an online community, and host an event for 25-50 people to introduce them to the card. And what was in it for him? That's not really clear. In fact, it seems like the marketing team was counting on Rojas to consider his involvement to be a reward unto itself:

With this relationship, you would be able to be part of the “Special Committee” in which you really get to provide feedback to the product development team on ideas for iPhone applications, the next packs and much more

I can only imagine that his reaction was akin to mine upon learning of Hinckley Springs' generous prize: "Thanks?"

Let's not lose touch with reality when it comes to "advocates," "ambassadors" and "relationships." What are we really giving people? Can we turn a skeptical eye toward our own campaigns, and admit it if what we're offering fans is nothing more than half-priced water?

Robin Wauters at TechCrunch let loose this weekend with a list of "10 Words I Would Love To See Banned From Press Releases." The rundown:

1. Leading/leader
2. Best/most/fastest/largest/biggest/etc.
3. Innovative/innovation
4. Revolutionary
5. Award-winning
6. Disruptive/disruption
7. Cutting/bleeding-edge
8. Next-generation
9. Strategic partnership
10. Synergy

I have to admit that I've used almost every one of these words in at least one press release since I started in PR.*

Wauters' points about these terms are mostly spot-on: if you have to say outright that your client is a cutting-edge, innovative, bleeding-edge leader in their industry, you probaby have not done a good enough job legitimately demonstrating what makes them so. Award-winning matters to no one other than the company that won the award. Disruptions and revolutions are presumptuous to predict in advance, and next-generation is usually just a self-aggrandizing way of saying new.

So why do companies and their agencies keep using these words in press releases? I think it's often a combination of two factors:

1. They're writing a release about something that doesn't really warrant one.
   If you've got truly interesting, head-turning, game-changing news, it should be easy to write about it without resorting to meaningless hype phrases. If it's difficult to communicate the importance of your news without these words, it's probably not incredibly newsworthy - at least, not to the mainstream media. It could still be newsworthy to customers, investors, or a small group of trade journalists... why not make the announcement through a blog post, newsletter, or personalized pitch instead?
2. They're trying to justify having written a release by overstating the importance of the announcement.
   Some companies just plain want to issue a press release, whether for better search engine optimization, for beefing up the "press" section of their website, or just for making the CEO smile. These are all perfectly acceptable reasons to put out a release, for some companies... but for some in this situation, there is a pressing need to rationalize the time it's taken them to write, revise, and get approval on a press release, and the cost of distributing it. What's so wrong with just sharing the facts? If you're uncomfortable putting out minor announcements without calling them "revolutionary," you'll risk diluting the impact of your more noteworthy announcements by earning a reputation with journalists as The Agency Who Cried Innovation.

* The one I've never used is "synergy." Do people really do that?

This post was originally published on PR Nonsense, for March Communications.

On everyone’s mind this week – the results of Jennifer Leggio’s research report: Is ’social PR’ for real? Which agencies get it?

Leggio surveyed over 600 PR decision-makers in various industries about what they consider important when it comes to ‘doing social media’ and how well they think their agencies are approaching these tactics. Some of the results were obvious: 79% of respondents think it is ‘extremely important’ for their agencies to understand social media strategy, and only 37% think they have a ‘great’ understanding of how to use social media for business themselves. Clearly this is an area where clients see the necessity and need the expertise.

More surprising and somewhat depressing? Not quite half of the respondents agreed that their current agency ‘understands how PR needs to fuel entire business strategy, not just news coverage.’ And as far as social media goes, only 20% reported that their agency recommended social media programs beyond tools to support business endeavors. Says Leggio:

This is scary. No social media decision should be led with tool selection. Companies need to first consider their corporate objectives, then determine where their customers, partners and competitors are, and also consider how such use of tools ties to the corporate culture. Agencies, this relates back to the importance of team members understanding the fundamentals of a client’s business.

With this in mind, “does your agency ‘do’ social media?” is the wrong question.

Do we ‘do’ social media? The short answer is “Yes.” The long answer is this:

All media is social. To boot, print and broadcast publications are relying increasingly on online and user-generated content, or transitioning to an online-only format. Online influencers (both collectively and as individuals) have gained unprecedented authority in the traditional media.

No company in the technology sector should entertain a PR proposal that lacks thorough consideration of how social media fits into the program – including an explanation of how social media monitoring and participation will be integrated with the rest of the media relations, marketing and lead generation strategy.

So March doesn't list “social media relations” on our list of services. Instead, we incorporate social media principles and tools into our client’s campaigns, at both a strategic and tactical level. That way, social media becomes part of what we do for every client, on every campaign.

As long as new social media tools and tactics are being developed, we will continue to find ways to use them to strengthen all of our PR and marketing activities.