Crazy and Sensible PR

Honda recently unveiled its Crazy Sensible interactive ad campaign created by Zip Television. The campaign urges viewers to email in their Crazy Sensible stories, which then appear in the ad. Zip Television specializes in the creation and measurement of new TV advertising models in a changing digital and interactive TV landscape.

Honda's Marketing Communications Manager, Matthew Coombe, says: "Working with Zip Television enables potential Honda customers to interact with the brand for a much longer period of time than they would have with a linear ad campaign. As a result, they can have some fun with the interactive content, and importantly, the Honda brand."

One participant sent in a video of himself running an entire marathon in a chicken suite. Sounds CRAZY right? Well, he was running the marathon for a cancer charity; that's where the SENSIBLE part comes in.

Interactive PR and marketing campaigns such as this develop a strong connection between consumers and a product or brand. This campaign will allow Honda's followers to view the company as both socially responsible and fun.

Persistence, persistence

A recent blog titled How not to Launch a New Client, includes several email pitches sent by the same person inquiring about the same client (over and over). As if the insurmountable number of emails weren't enough, the email included 600 names in the cc: field.

It is quite obvious that this person went a little crazy on the persistency, but I often ask myself: how far is too far when following up on a job?

Chandra Louise writes a very helpful article that gives great tips for a successful follow up. In her article she recommends to use the phone, especially for the first follow up. Louise explains that this helps to personalize the conversation. She suggests to make this call within 10 days of your interview and always send a thank you note after each significant contact. But most importantly, according to Louise, is persistency. Louise recommends setting times when you will contact your prospective employer and to stick to those times.

Finally, Louise says, "you're not being a pest; you simply call when the prospective employer agrees, and you keep following up until you get the job you're looking for ."

I say, watch the movie "Swingers" before attempting your second or third follow up.

Virtual Mayhem?

The New York Times recently covered a story on the explosion of online virtual worlds for kids and tweens. In the article, Brad Stone explains these Web sites as "Facebook or MySpace with training wheels." Stone sees no problems arising from children spending too much time in virtual worlds and not enough in the real world, he does; however, detect a problem in the broader social cost of exposing children to marketing messages.

A traffic measurement firm found that visits to a group of seven virtual-world sites aimed at children and teenagers exploded to 68 percent in the last year. This research also suggests that virtual-world sites have attracted 20 million users, showing a drastic increase among younger people.

Some marketing models include paying subscriptions for doll clothes and product placement. One site, WeeWorld, recently signed a deal that allows online characters to carry bags of Skittles candy.

The question is yet another of morality. Is it right to target these young groups so specifically? I wonder what it would have been like if my Barbie came in a box with a mini-bag of Skittles. In a time when Americans practically come out of the womb with a keyboard and mouse, I wonder: Where do we draw the line?

Walmart: Low wages, Low morals

What is more important to the average consumer? Low prices or morality? Walmart has proven for some time that low prices are the driving force in successful sales to its consumers. According to David Kiley in his article Walmart should decide what kind of company it wants to be, "Walmart rose to riches based on a certain set of business principles: relentlessly cut costs, torture vendors into submission, locate stores where a Walmart will draw customers from several downtowns, and keep store employees "down on the farm" as much as possible when it comes to pay and benefits."

Others agree that Walmart is forcing other markets to lower their prices as well. As Hendrick Smith explains, "the big box retailers, epitomized by Wal-Mart, have been driving a massive restructuring of production worldwide; moving jobs from the U.S. and Europe to Asia. They do it by setting price points and forcing suppliers to meet their targets. Only lowest-cost labor can meet their targets, and that means producing in Asia."

Now Walmart is stuck in a position where it has to constantly defend itself to its consumers as well as the market to weaken the negative buzz. Sounds like a job for Super PR. WalMart hired Andrew Young, the former mayor of Atlanta and lieutenant for Martin Luther King Jr., to help with its PR; unfortunately it didn't quite work out that way.

Walmart hired Young in hopes that he would help deflect negative attention the corporation was facing from minority communities and urban markets.

One little problem

Soon after Young was hired, he said this: "Those small shops are the people who have been overcharging us, selling us stale bread and bad meat and wilted vegetables. ... They've ripped off our communities enough. First it was Jews, then it was Koreans and now it's Arabs. Very few black folks own these stores."

Looks like Walmart just can't win. Oh well, good luck anyways.

PR and the blogosphere

Public Relations is in constant search of new ways to pitch ideas, and new technology is a huge part of that. Now that blogging is here to stay, it's time to officially marry Mr. PR and Mrs. Blog. Because these two are newly-weds, it's easy to make mistakes. In Bulldog Reporter's Daily Dog, Chip Griffin explains the seven deadly sins of pitching bloggers for PR purposes.

Many of Griffin's "sins" are common for even the experienced PR practitioner and occur all the time in other forms of PR. Griffin names the "cardinal sin" of the blogosphere as a lack of transparency. He also warns against sounding scripted and recommends having your own blog before pitching it to a client, "Research shows that individuals who write blogs are more receptive to pitches that meet their needs and interests. But that doesn't mean these pitches are the same."

Though there are not many differences between pitching to old media and pitching to new media, there does seem to be that one difference that's so important. As Griffin explains, "Just as pitches to old media must be newsworthy, pitches to new media must be, as well—with one proviso: They must also be buzz-worthy."

So what does this "buzz-worthy" word mean? To me, it is the word that defines the gap between hard news, and news that starts a conversation. For PR people, the latter is more affective. So as the world enters a new phase in technology-related communication, it is vital for our world of PR to follow suite.

Who can define Public Relations?

A few years ago, I was sitting in a lecture hall with about 100 or more other journalism students. As we all sat on our first day in Principals of Public Relations, ready and eager to learn about the profession that most of us wanted to enter; our professor asked us a troubling question: Who can define public relations? There was, of course, those few students who were sure they had the answers, "they work with the public and an organization," and... "they pitch stories," and... This went on for some time, but no one really had the full answer.

That's because it's all those things combined.

Today, I sit in my campaigns class, the last PR class requirement before graduation. When our class full of seniors was asked this question, it revealed the same response as a class full of underclassmen. Silence, blank stares, whispers and half-attempts to answer the question. This begged another puzzling question: Are we ready for the real world of public relations?

As graduation nears, I feel a sense of excitement and worry. The unknown world of public relations, the same world I have devoted my studies to, is rapidly approaching. Harold Burson, a respected PR practitioner and professor, has some wonderful advice for PR newbies. Reading over the vast amount of information about what PR really is makes me realize, we really do know the definition of PR. We also know that class would never end if we took the time to explain PR, so we just smile, knowing exactly what it is.

Although the fear inside me vibrates every time I think about finding a job, interviewing, fitting in, or anything related to the real world, I know that my education has prepared me.

The scary part is that the rest is now up to me.

Celebs smarter than paparazzi?

Whether peaking at your girlfriends, or while standing in line at the grocery store, everyone has done it... read a celebrity magazine that is. We all know that the magazines follow some sort of format, to which the celebrity of the moment is plugged into. What we generally don't know is that these celebrities have more control over the "stalkarzzi" than we think. An article written in the Wall Street Journal suggests that the new age of celebrities have finally figured out a way to manage their own public image, instead of submitting that control to a person with an index finger.

Now, the stars that frequent these magazines are taking back control. The Journal explains that these stars are actually hiring their own photographers to act as paparazzi. These hired photogs capture seemingly random or private moments under the guidance of the stars themselves. They tip their photographers off to their own whereabouts and develop a mutual relationship with magazine editors.

Janice Min, editor in chief of US Weekly states that, "at least 50% of what you see in terms of Hollywood coverage is something that was not necessarily born organically. This is a totally symbiotic relationship. This is how celebrities survive."

So I ask you this: If we can't even trust the slimy rawness of paparazzi photos, what can we trust?