American Journalism

"For a top U.S. daily, I need *on-the-record* anecdotes from people willing to speak about their feelings about romancing on the road. Can you comment on how you felt when a colleague indulged in a reckless one-night stand on a business trip? Have you ever been approached on a plane or train, and/or had to rebuff someone because you are married or simply not interested? Does your company have rules about it? Does business travel tend to lead people to cast away their fears?"
Who is going to go on the record for this sorta thing?

"I'm looking for a style expert or pop culture scholar to discuss how Hitler made it forever impossible for men to sport a little mustache, even if that's the style that looks best on them."
Is this the best his legacy has to offer? The loss of a little mustache that looks like your frat brothers smeared crap on your upper lip?

"I'm interested in talking to folks about the Twodaloo, a toilet that features facing seats that allows couples to, well, do their thing together. Feel free to e-mail me your comments directly. Please include your identifying information, as well as a phone number, in case I have to follow up."
My favorite thing ever. Nothing says true love like blasting the porcelain together, as a couple. And nothing says great journalism like a story about true love.

P2P is Pretty

Over 60% of women are more likely to buy a beauty product if they read a positive comment about it on a blog, a message board or an online social network, reports the February 2008 issue of Self magazine. The study comes from the Benchmarking Company, a consumer research firm in Washington, D.C. and can likely be applied to most consumer brands. Just another proof point that the traditional "product reviewer" is no longer some dude with a salt-and-pepper mustache sitting behind a desktop PC wearing a press pass that's been through the wash a few times. Consumers care what their peers/dungeon masters/homies think. Duh.

POP - Tired of pwning the courts, atheletes now pwn the Web

This is Chris Bosh. He's a good guy. Although he makes enough money to hire an army of midgets (errr... little people) to kill me if he so desired, he also has far more passionate, and less bizzare goals; such as making it to the New Orleans All-Star Game. So he made a Web ad to get the votes he needs.

According to this Wall Street Journal story (good read, click the link, do it) that details Bosh's rise to internet fame, it's working. His votes jumped up by 86% since posting the video. The best part? Of his millions of dollars he gets from the Raptors alone, it only cost him 1/650000th of his yearly pay (or 20 bucks) to fund the video, most of which went to his kick ass hat. He had friends and family film help put it together, which means they got the remaining 5 dollars.

So, as a general rule of thumb all viral videos that you make should meet the following requirements:

• Cost about 20 bucks
• Be funny
• Extort friends and family

Blogs Will Be BIG in 08!

Ok that's old news - did you know that blogging has been around for 10 years now? Check out Wired's article here on the original blogger, Jorn Barger. So what have we learned in the past few years that we can carry forward into 2008. Check out the five tips below from the Daily Dog:

1. Do your homework. Identify the top bloggers who are visible in your space. Read their blogs. Make intelligent and useful comments that add value to the conversation. Subscribe to their RSS feed.
2. Do research before you blog. Read the feeds of the bloggers you subscribe to. Set up searches in Yahoo News for key phrases you blog about. Read these feeds every day.
3. Have a point of view. The number one reason people read blogs is to get an opinion. Blog about something you know well and feel passionate about.
4. Write well. While blogs are seen as personal journals your content is out there for all to see. Be interesting. Be controversial. But above all, be readable.
5. Write often. Blogging’s biggest challenge is the time it takes. Anyone can set up a blog in less than five minutes. It takes skill and perserverance to have a blog that becomes influential. Write content that will keep them coming back for more.

Ok beyond blogs what else should we be paying attention to in 2008?

Online Videos and Search Engines.

High-quality video will push Internet TV closer to traditional broadcast TV, and create new opportunities for brand marketers. “It’s no longer a given that the Today Show is the ultimate media prize. One blogger with a niche audience could bring you better results,” writes Godin in his new book Meatball Sundae.

Here are some recent stats from HitWise that show us that search engines are responsible for more News and Media category website traffic than ever before.

- Print News websites received 29.7 percent more traffic from Google in March 2007 than in March 2006
- Broadcast Media sites received 35.9 percent more traffic from Google in the same time period
- News Aggregators and portals were also significant sources of traffic for News and Media websites.

If the new trend in PR is to go straight to the customer then we need to make sure our news is showing up in the top search results for Search Engines like Google. We do this by making sure our news content is using the same keywords that our customers are using and searching for. One site that I really like to use to make sure I've got the right keywords is Wordtracker.

Questions to ask in 2008:
- Do we understand how search affects our news content?
- Why is new Universal or Blended Search results page layout so important?
- How can we improve the search visibility of our news content?
- Are we monitoring what is being said about us online?
- Have we identified the influencers in our space?
- Do we have a blogger relations program in place to reach these influencers?
- Do we understand the dynamics of social news sites?
- Which social news sites would be best for our content?
- Are we planning to use video – and how will we do it?

R2 Couture

Riding the Lucas cash cow, Marc Ecko has designed a limited-edition collection of "Star Wars"-inspired urban streetwear for men, The Seattle Times and others report today. Not only is the syndicated reporter an uber geek, but he is witty and hilarious. Kinda like Conan. This can only mean two things: 1. Fodder for geeky team brainstorms. 2. The inevitable line of streetwear for women!!! I'm envisioning earmuffs designed after Leia's bodacious buns (get your mind out of the gutter, please). It could happen.

Is there such a thing as bad press?

Apparently not. A syndicated article circulating through daily newspapers today reports that Miss Teen South Carolina's unforgettably embarrassing flub in last year's pageant has solicited (gasp) job offers from TV producers. Hopefully Lauren Caitlin Upton can remember her lines if a deal goes through.

Beyond my personal feelings about how terrible it is to reward mild stupidity with air time (a la Kellie Pickler and Jessica Simpson), this article highlights a phenomenon that shouldn't be ignored among PR professionals. It's the reason why Lauren is better known to many than the pageant winner, Miss Teen Colorado, Hilary Carol Cruz. According to the article, Lauren's "success" is "mainly due to the YouTube Web site's posting of her jumbled response to a question on why many Americans can't find the United States on a map. The 48-second clip received 19.9 million viewings and countless online imitations.

The very fact that months later I am writing about the new "L.C." goes to show how YouTube can make someone/something POP! If YouTube can turn a bumbling beauty queen's 48-seconds of fame into calls from The "Today" Show, imagine what it has yet to do for us PR peeps. So what do you think? Is there such a thing as bad press?

Let your Green do the talking

In early December, we hosted the Seattle Greendrinks event. Hundreds of people showed up to chat, network and drink some fine beverages. We pulled some of them away from their drinks and into our podcasting studio to hear what they had to say about everything from green New Years Resolutions to the fighting prowess of Al Gore. Find what everyone had to say by clicking here to download the Greendrinks podcast!

Let your GREEN do the talking

The Green Drinks event that we hosted at our office last night went off without a hitch - and from what I have heard so far it was a great time had by all. Copyrite and I had the opportunity to speak with a handful of really amazing people who are making a difference in our community and our environment everyday. We spoke with an oceanographer, a nutritionist, a producer and the man who started this whole thing, Gabrielle Scheer, among others. I wish we had had more time to interview others at the event for our podcast! We are working on editing the podcast now and it will be posted here and on the Green Drinks Website for all to download.

Gabrielle also spoke about some new things that are happening with Green Drinks like Green Lunches. You just give them your email address and they pair you up with 3 other people from Green Drinks to meet for lunch - I think it sounds exciting! You can hear all about it on the podcast.

The New, New Media

All-powerful videogame warlord Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, recently had the following to say about Blizzard's MMORPG World of Warcraft:

• "We started analyzing the online experience and realized that World of Warcraft was like nothing we'd ever seen," Kotick says. "It's not even just a business. It's a social network with this incredible entertainment component to it. People in our industry have tried and tried to build successful online games, with Lord of the Rings and Dungeons and Dragons and all kinds of things, but most of them failed," he continues. "We realized that to do something ourselves that would be big enough to affect our margins would cost us hundreds of millions of dollars. But even if we tried, we'd probably get it wrong."
  

With enough clout to inspire an episode of South Park and medical research, WoW obviously has a lot of reach. Not to mention its 9+ million subscribers who pay $15 a month to run around a glorified chatroom and pew pew fireballs at each other. So polish up your nerd lingo and re-work your pitches because I know there is a Level 70 Orc Warrior who wants to hear about your super cool event while he tanks Illidan the dark lord of the Black Temple.

Eidos Dollars > Game Reviewer?

Eidos makes video games (those of you who are testosterone driven might remember them for a lil' game with big assets called Tomb Raider). They are also partly responsible for the Hitman movie trailers that keep popping up during your favorite TV show. Their big release of the year was a game called Kane & Lynch, which featured a heartwarming story of a ruthless mercenary, and heavily medicated psychopath escaping deathrow and shooting lots of random people who thankfully have no family or children to leave behind. The game has received luke warm critical reviews, averaging a 6.7/10 rating on most review sites. One of these particular reviewers, Gamespot's Jeff Gerstmann gave the game an extra dollop of loathing. Soon after the review hit, his 11 year career at Gamespot was ended due to advertising pressure from publisher Eidos. While all official responses have denied that his abysmal review of the game is the reason behind his need to move back into his parent's basement, a CNET ad rep (CNET is Gamespot's boss) later confirmed that game publisher Eidos wanted Gerstmann's head (probably not in those terms, but maybe. Those guys make videogames after all, they're crazy).
Interestingly, Valleywag has been one of the few media types that was able to get ahold of Gerstmann, by using facebook of all things.

Solid.

While the association of this and marketing/pr/industry trends is a huge stretch (notice how SS Patrick is the only one who posts anything useful) this is just too good to pass up. Continuing the theme that our office has of passing around links to old fashion catalogs featuring men who's manliness is measured by the amount of chest hair peaking out over the top of their oversized collars, I now give you these select pictures from Ebony magazine.


I'm pretty sure this collar gives him the power of flight. You think the girl is looking up adoringly at him, but she honestly can't see past the collar.


Its like a crime fighting superhero who had his grandma make his costume. This polyester knit deflects bullets while remaining see through... for the ladies.


Don't look at this photo for more than 30 seconds or your eyes will explode in a technicolor shower of disco-themed confetti.

So what does all of this have to do with marketing/pr/industry trends? Well if I had to make something up (which I am) i'd say its this: All of the wonderful pr campaigns and ideas that you have and implement today, will be ripe for ridicule in just 30 years. Except in the future, it will be our robot overlords laughing at us. The more outlandish your pr ideas are now, the more likely the robots will be amused and spare your life. So keep brainstorming.

(more pics can be found at here

Get Social in 2008

The latest reports in PR Tech trends show that 2008 is going to an even bigger year for social media, which means that some way or another these tools need to be incorporated into 2008 PR plans and PR needs to be interacting with these social networking sites. Here are a few proof points that will show you the direction social media is moving in.

• The New York Times recently decided to get rid of their online subscription based model and open up their online content to everyone. This was due to the fact that most people were ending up on their site via search engines. Building a search and social media campaign to find your online audience will be important. Every press release should be optimized for search engines so that you are making it easier for your audience to find you.


• The Nielsen figures for the top U.S. social networking sites and blogs in October show that sites where word of mouth marketing is big now are only getting bigger and how important it is to find your 'fansumers' on these sites. Those are fans of your client's products - think of the groups that people create on these sites - those are where you'll find your 'fansumers'. Nielsen's November 2007 report below shows:
  - Facbook more than doubled their traffic in the last year
  - MySpace had a 19 percent growth over October 2006
  - LinkedIn grew 189 percent!

Myspace, 58,843, +19%

Facebook, 19,519, +125%

Classmates Online, 13,278, -2%

Windows Live Spaces, 10,261, +32%

AOL Hometown, 7,923, -15%

LinkedIn, 4,919, +189%

AOL People Connection, 4,084, -30%

Reunion.com, 4,082, -14%

Club Penguin, 3,880, +157%

Buzznet.com, 2,397, +117%

Source: Nielsen Online

What's the yiddish word for lol

Thanks to a botched Outlook migration, I find myself on some new email aliases for the Paris and Barcelona offices. This has resulted in exposure to much more relaxed office settings, such as the public distribution of hilarious links of questionable HR content. Behold the power of Godtube and Jewtube
In the above screen capture of Jewtube, please note the following:
- Top featured video is "Ask the Erabbi"
- Recently viewed videos include "Adam Sandler's Chanukah Song" and "Cool facts about Israel"
- Popular tags include "Borat" "Judd Apatow" and "Super Heroes"

With such "enlightened" options for outreach available, it makes me wonder what other options are out there.
This now stands as an open challenge for others to find me equally hilarious/interesting (blank)tube.com sites out there.

Pitching with Buckshot

Peter Shankman, author of "Can We Do That?! Outrageous PR Stunts That Work," recently said that rather than spraying buckshot, PR people should research beats and specify a single reporter, "Don't want to do that?" then "Get the hell out of my industry." Ouch.

He's right though, spraying with buckshot will give you a wide pattern, like the one in the photo. Your shot is spread out across your target, or should I say, target markets in the case of PR, and often results in inconsistent performance. In the past few weeks we've seen a couple of influential bloggers start to call out PR people, by email address, for pitching them using buckshot. It's like firing with your eyes closed hoping you get one or two hits.

At the end of last month Wired Editor and author Chris Anderson posted the email addresses of over 300 PR people that he had permanently blocked from sending him any more spam/pitches. Now, not only are these people blocked, but they're also going to get a taste of their own medicine because their email addresses, being posted on the site, will be picked up by spam bots that will in turn spam them with unwanted mail.

Here's the post that started it all: http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2007/10/sorry-pr-people.html

Here are some other bloggers that decided they had had enough as well:
http://www.webinknow.com/2007/10/most-pr-people-.html
http://technosailor.com/2007/10/30/how-to-get-an-angry-email-from-me/

I love this blog posting - if you have time to read it you should. Marshall Kirkpatrick posts a few PR pitches that he received that day and instead of ripping them to shreds he points out the good the bad and the ugly and offers a few tips for getting it right the next time.
http://marshallk.com/5-pr-pitches-the-good-and-bad

Is your name/email address on any of these lists?

Seattle Dailies Borg the Competition

Bucking the trends of nearly a decade of sliding circulation numbers, both the Seattle Times and Seattle PI posted slightly increased circulation numbers this year. The reason? Assimilation of the King County Journal's readers. So if both papers continue devouring other newspapers, their eventual world domination is guaranteed. Some interesting numbers from the story:
- Both papers have a combined audience of 1.35 million adults in King County, southwest Snohomish County and Bainbridge Island.
- The electronic editions of both the Seattle Times and Seattle PI only netted 2,000+ subscribers combined.
- Oddly enough, the circulation of both papers matches the career path of Britney Spears when drawn onto a graph.

Similarly, if Spears continues devouring other pop stars, her eventual world domination is also guaranteed.