Communicating with the Valley

RSS, Blogs, Podcasts - test your knowledge of current communication technology terms

2005-09-09T10:57:00.000-07:00

The Information Age may well be turning into the Communication Age as new technologies for communicating with each other abound. With each new communication technology comes potential new ways for organisations to communicate with their employees, partners, analysts, shareholders, media, and customers. Are you up to date with the latest communication technologies and buzzwords?

See the glossary below for definitions to the following terms:
Blog
Bulletin board / message board / forum
Feeds / RSS feeds
K-log
Podcast
RSS
RSS aggregator / reader
Thread
Web conference
Webcast
Wiki

Blog
‘Blog’ is short for ‘web log’. It describes a web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often images and links to other sites. Most are updated daily and include searchable archives of past entries, lists of other blogs favoured by the author, and a facility for reader input.

Characterised by a conversational writing style, subjective viewpoints, and a sense of egalitarianism and empowering the voice of the individual, blogs facilitate communication and connections between like-minded people.

Bulletin board / message board / forum
These are located on a web or intranet site where people can interact with each other by posting written messages. Since the contributions are in written form, there is no inherent time limit for discussions, and individual discussions or ‘threads’ can go on for hours, days or longer. Posts to message boards can be censored or uncensored.

Feeds / RSS feeds
RSS (see below for definition) content from a publisher, as viewed in an RSS reader, is often called a ‘feed’.

K-log
‘K-logs’ or knowledge-logs are blogs that are used specifically for the purposes of sharing/documenting knowledge and/or sharing the process of knowledge-making. These may be public websites on the Internet, or private websites housed on organisational intranets that are used as an internal communications device to share information amongst individual teams or the whole organisation.

Podcast
Podcasts are audio files such as radio-style shows that are delivered over the Internet to your computer that can be downloaded to digital music or multimedia players, such as the iPod. Unlike streaming audio, which requires you to listen in real time, podcasting lets you control how and when you hear your favourite shows.

Content producers are increasingly turning to podcasting as an inexpensive and user-friendly new distribution channel that has the potential to reach a large audience. Not surprisingly, musicians and bloggers are prevalent among the early adopters, but mainstream media, including the ABC’s Radio National, Triple J, and Computerworld magazine, have begun to offer podcasts on their websites as well.

Some companies are also beginning to experiment with corporate podcasts: General Motors, Pepsico and IBM have corporate podcasts on their US websites.

RSS
RSS stands for Really Simply Syndication, and is a standard description format that enables broad distribution of web content including news, articles, web page updates, blogs and podcasts. When content publishers register the RSS document with RSS aggregators/RSS readers, it facilitates the instant distribution of content updates to consumers and other audiences who have signed up to receive it.

RSS readers enable web users to choose the ‘feeds’ they would like to receive and monitor them all in one place (as the content bypasses cluttered inboxes and appears directly in the RSS reader). This enables them to view a large quantity of web site content in a very short time. RSS is experiencing rapid interest particularly from users of iPods and other MP3 players; as well as many journalists who use RSS readers to keep them up to date on breaking news.

RSS aggregators / RSS readers
RSS aggregators (also called RSS readers) are programs that collect ‘feeds’ from various websites (according to preferences set) and deliver them in a simple interface so you can view them. Unlike search engines, where you proactively search for content, once configured, RSS readers automatically deliver the content directly to your PC.

Thread
A thread is a sequence of responses to an initial message posting. This enables you to follow or join an individual discussion in a newsgroup from among the many that may be there. A thread is usually shown graphically as an initial message and successive messages ‘hung off’ the original message.

Web conference
Not to be confused with a video conference, a web conference is a group meeting or live presentation which is conducted over the Internet. Web conferencing software enables all participants to see the same computer screen content (e.g. PowerPoint presentations, Excel, Word, or PDF documents, computer programs, or Internet or Intranet pages) and audio is provided via dial-in phone lines or also over the Internet.

Webcast
A webcast is a live or delayed sound or video broadcast over the Internet. Viewing Webcasts requires having an appropriate video viewing application such as Windows Real Media Player or Macromedia Flash Player streaming video players; these can usually be downloaded from any site offering a webcast.

Wiki
A ‘wiki’ is a type of collaborative software that enables users to collaborate in forming the content of a Web site. With a wiki, any user can edit the site content, including other users' contributions, from their own computer using a regular Web browser. The term comes from the word ‘wikiwiki’, which means ‘fast’ in the Hawaiian language.

B2B and IT: Need for a different approach to marketing, PR and communication

2005-09-08T10:46:00.000-07:00

From PR Influences...

Recent public relations and marketing graduates who have started working for an IT or B2B company may find the reality of their job a little different from what they were taught at university. This is because most university courses deal more with addressing consumer markets than business markets – and there are some significant differences.

Some of these are:

They’re not buying – you’re selling- Most consumer products are bought by people who visit a store or order by phone, fax or email. - Most B2B sales are effected in quite the opposite way with the vendor visiting the customer.
You’re selling to individuals – not a demographic- In consumer marketing the customer is often just a number – just one of many in a demographic. - In B2B, customers are real organisations/people who can be individually identified and profiled.
The decision-making process of your customer is different- With the exception of large items for the family, most consumer sales involve just one decision-maker. - B2B sales can have a myriad of decision makers, especially in IT where you may need to address the IT Manager, the CIO, the CFO and/or the CEO.
You probably have a limited marketing budget- In consumer marketing it’s likely you will have a reasonably sized budget, an advertising agency and the freedom to pursue some major marketing and communication initiatives. - Mostly in B2B you are likely to have a limited marketing budget, with the majority of it already committed to collateral materials and what you might regard as sales support rather than textbook marketing.
The corporate message is more relevant - Mostly in consumer, the emphasis is on marketing the benefits of a brand or product with the corporate name often irrelevant, or even deliberately omitted. - In B2B, corporate and brand/product need to be carefully balanced. For many B2B or IT marketers you are selling the company first and the product or service second
Marketing is often not understood or appreciated- In companies with a consumer focus marketing is normally a recognised function, with a Marketing Director and clearly defined brand and product responsibilities. - With B2B companies, marketing is often perceived as merely an extension of the sales function and it can be difficult to get marketing properly understood and appreciated by senior management.

So what does this mean about how you are going to have to plan and execute your various communication activities? Principally, it means that you should be:

Building relationships as a leverage tool
If your own resources and/or budgets are limited your key strategy should be to leverage what you have by building relationships with those who have the power to reach and influence your target market.

Principally, this covers two key audiences:

Media. B2B and IT customers are heavy readers of magazines and online media.

You need to understand:

which media are most relevant to your key audiences
how you can encourage the media to cover your company and its products

Analysts. Especially in IT the influence of analysts on buyer behaviour can be substantial.

You need to understand:

which analysts are the most relevant to your marketplace
how to introduce a local perspective to what is often an internationally driven agenda

Using information to gain share of voice
In B2B and IT the key to communicating is information and education. If you can’t buy share of voice through advertising (and even if you can it’s often not the best tool to use) your best alternative is to try and achieve significant editorial coverage in the trade and technical media that your existing and potential customers are reading.

Many consumer brands keep in the news by continually launching new products or product variants. Most B2B brands don’t have this luxury. This means that PR needs to be carefully planned so that coverage can still be gained on a regular basis – even though the product may not have altered significantly in the last six to 12 months.

Tactics here include:

Becoming an available spokesperson to comment on industry trends and developments
Writing opinion piece for media
Releasing customer win stories
Writing, and placing, case studies that show your products in action
Preparing white papers

Marketing & PR: Challenges of marketing to women exposed

2005-09-07T10:41:00.000-07:00

From PR Influences...

Women have long been identified as a distinct group for marketers to target. But now research in the US shows the pressures the key women’s buying group – aged 25-54 – faces, emphasising how difficult they can be to reach through traditional marketing activities.

A survey in the US undertaken by public relations agency Ketchum and research firm Synovate shows women 25-54:

trust experts (27 per cent), family and friends (26 per cent) and media reports (23 per cent) most in deciding about purchases,
consider direct mail (3 per cent) and advertising (2 per cent) as the least credible sources of information.

The research paints women 25-54 as having so many things on their mind, and so many tasks to undertake that they have little time for commercial messages.

Underscoring how little time they have in an average day for media, the survey disclosed that:

74% of them spend more time thinking about other’s needs than their own, which is a higher percentage than other groups,
70% are more likely to report feeling pulled in different directions than are men,
62% say they have little time for commercial messages, with nearly two in five acknowledging they have to read or hear something more than once because they’re often distracted or interrupted. That’s much higher than the total public including their male counterparts,
59% “rarely” or “never” read a newspaper from beginning to end, compared to 52% for the total public and 51% for men ages 25 to 54,
58% have “much more” on their minds now than five years ago. That percentage is a startling 18% higher than that of the total public, 20% higher than men ages 25 to 54, and 35% higher than men in general,
56% rarely or never read a magazine from cover to cover, a percentage that, surprisingly, is nearly similar to their male counterparts (57%),
51% “frequently” watch a television program from start to finish, compared to 60% of men and 55% of the total public,
47% frequently listen to the radio for more than 30 minutes straight versus 62% of their male counterparts.

“What the survey makes very clear is that women aged 25 to 54 are ‘multi-minding’ today – they’re constantly physically and mentally juggling those multiple facets of their complex lives,” maintains Kelley Skoloda, Director of Ketchum’s Global Brand Marketing Practice. “The previous term used to describe these women – ‘multitasking’ – is passé because it doesn’t capture the myriad dimensions of their lives.”

Ketchum’s Skoloda says the survey findings hold important implications for marketers:

Though women 25 to 54 respect the media (i.e. news and editorial) as a credible source of information, they don’t have a lot of time to absorb the information. So offering shorter chunks of information for women to digest will likely cut through the clutter,
Since this demographic group trust experts the most for information, tapping into experts will lend credibility to media reports, campaigns and messages,
While women ages 25 to 54 may not realise they’re indeed multi-minding, they have less information on how to deal with all of the thoughts and concerns they juggle,
Because these women spend a significant amount of time thinking of others, marketers likely can tap into women 25 to 54 by showing them how their products and services can help them take even better care of others, and themselves.

As a result of this survey, and other work Ketchum has done with marketing to women, the PR agency has developed a new suite of services and strategies under the banner ‘Women 25to54’. A first-of-its-kind, the four-phase communications program offers to identify create and deliver credible messaging that helps reach and connect these multi-minding female consumers.

Disclosure: Network PR, the publishers of PR Influences, is the Australian affiliate of Ketchum which is ranked among the leading international PR agencies.

Coca-Cola and Ms Mary

2005-09-03T11:38:00.000-07:00

Mary Minnick Ruffles Feathers in All Directions

Mary Minnick, Coca-Cola’s designated change agent, is sending chills down the spines of the genteel Atlanta company’s marketing ranks, challenging long-held convention and sending back to the drawing board agency work designed to revive the brand’s iconic status.

Her no-nonsense, risk-taking approach is already winning over investors. “Feathers need to be ruffled at Coca-Cola,” said Bonnie Herzog, beverage analyst for Citigroup’s Smith Barney. “It has desperately needed shakeup for a very long time.”

'Scary Mary' And shakeup is what the beverage giant is getting -- albeit it’s not always popular with insiders. In fact, Ms. Minnick’s tough-as-nails manner and willingness to unapologetically change gears have inspired nicknames like “Scary Mary” and “Minnick the Cynic.”

Indeed, Ms. Minnick has told Coca-Cola’s ad agencies her loyalties are not with them but “with brand Coke,” said an executive close to the marketer. Her take-charge influence can be seen in reworked creative for Coca-Cola Zero that broke Aug. 29 with stronger brand attributes than the original “Chilltop” ad created by Crispin Porter & Bogusky, Miami. Executives close to Coca-Cola said the new spot wasn’t created by Crispin but assigned to a team from Fitzgerland & Co., Atlanta.

Steve Heyer Described as time-sensitive, results-oriented and opinionated, Ms. Minnick has little patience for pretense or politics, inviting comparisons with Coke’s former president and chief operating officer, Steve Heyer. But while she shares his hard-bitten style, she has an advantage he didn’t: the pedigree of an insider and support of the board. “The culture rejected Steve because he was Steve,” said one executive close to Coke who requested anonymity. Ms. Minnick, on the other hand, a 22-year Coke veteran, knows how to game the system.

“Mary has had a significant impact on the organization in the short amount of time that she’s been in her new job,” said an insider. “She has taken her keen understanding of the business, the company and system, both its strengths and weaknesses, and used this perspective and her very sharp business acumen to drive focus on an agenda for growth. She has not only purposed her team but has engaged and gotten commitment from both the executive committee and the board of directors.”

'Shortage of focus' “We don’t have a shortage of ideas,” the straight-shooting, 45-year-old president of marketing strategy and innovation told analysts after taking the job in May (she had been president of Coca-Cola Asia). “We have a shortage of focus, leading to a bit of an inability to prioritize and make hard choices,” she said. “I’m confident we can do a better job of embracing risk.”

“She’s fast, smart and brave,” said Ian Rowden, former vice president and worldwide director of advertising for Coke and now executive vice president and chief marketing officer at Wendy’s. “She’s done a great job in navigating the system.”

But that doesn’t mean she isn’t rankling the ranks. In a May meeting in Buenos Aires with 100 Coca-Cola executives to review long-awaited advertising work aimed at restoring Coke’s iconic status, she made a one-hour presentation about her expectations for the brand, and made it clear that the ads ordered up by Coke marketing executives Mark Mathieu and Esther Lee wouldn’t be aired, according to an attendee.

“Mary hated all of the iconic work and killed it,” said an executive close to Coca-Cola. “She didn’t like the iconic brief and didn’t think it had enough to do with why you wouldn’t substitute Pepsi for Coke. There’s a pressure [inside Coke] to be the most optimistic brand in the world, but Mary is looking for irreplaceability and finding things nobody else could substitute for.”

(Last month, the marketer confirmed it had “widened” its search for a big advertising idea but denied Ms. Minnick shot down the work at the May confab. Coca-Cola refused to make Ms. Minnick available to comment for this story.)

Bringing in former executives With time lost on failed efforts, tensions have been high between Ms. Minnick and Mr. Mathieu and Ms. Lee, said the executive, though Ms. Minnick views them both as bright and well-meaning. Ms. Minnick has also has brought on former executives that have had marketing success in the past, including Len Fink and Shelly Hochron, formerly of the in-house agency that later became Edge Creative, and Sergio Zyman, the former chief marketing officer who hired her and now heads the MDC Partners’ Zyman Group. Mr. Zyman refused to discuss his current relationship with Coke and Coke representatives have denied any knowledge of his involvement.

But he is willing to comment on Ms. Minnick. “Anytime you’re in a position of power, you’re going to polarize people,” said Mr. Zyman, whose own opinionated manner earned him the nickname “Aya-cola.” “This is not a Carly Fiorina, where she comes out of nowhere. She’s a really well-rounded and very intelligent person. She’s traveled the world and trained herself and has tremendous experience.”

Launching Fruitopia Mr. Zyman relayed a story about when Ms. Minnick presented her strategy for the launch of Fruitopia in the 1990s and a public-relations executive argued that the press would position the move as Coke’s response to Snapple. “But we are,” replied Ms. Minnick, according to Mr. Zyman. “Do you think we’re doing this because we have nothing to do? We’re doing this as a strategic entry.”

Ms. Minnick is a “360-degree executive,” said one observer, noting she has helped transform the fountain unit from operationally driven to sales driven; developed the noncarbonated-soft-drink strategy for the U.S. bottle and can unit; navigated complex bottler systems in Asia Pacific and created a strategy for noncarbonated drinks and coffee as president of the South Pacific division and later as president of Coca-Cola Japan.

Under Ms. Minnick’s watch, Coke’s Asian operation sold more than 3.5 billion unit cases, or 18% of the company’s total volume in 2004. Those sales drew $4.7 billion in revenue, about 21% of the company’s total. There, noncarbonated drinks were a third of the total volume, nearly twice worldwide average.

Her grand plan Her grand plan for the total company, she told analysts, includes kick-starting “quick wins” through products, packages and marketing ideas from around the world and expanding the benefits of existing brands to respond to consumer demands; setting priorities for the innovation pipeline; providing a fact-based business strategy and building a world-class marketing organization; and speeding up marketing success rates, particularly on brand Coke. She also wants to “refine” Coke’s iconic brand effort “further to create a more consistent and meaningful brand-communication strategy globally.”

Said an analyst on the call: “She said the right things.” Ms. Minnick “knows how to [move product quickly] better than anyone in the company and if she can affect that globally, that would be huge in terms of helping to turn the business around and possibly getting to the growth targets they’re talking about,” said Smith Barney’s Ms. Herzog.

Doing so will take some cage-rattling. “She absolutely is tough -- but I’d say she’s had to be to get us all moving in the same direction and toward a set of priorities that will make a difference,” said a second company insider. “She does not accept mediocrity, the lack of commitment or confidence or an unwillingness to take responsibility for one’s part in the mission.”

Not the next CEO Several observers close to the marketer, however, express doubt that Ms. Minnick will be elevated to the executive suite because those very qualities won’t cut it in the CEO post now occupied by Neville Isdell.

“She’s not going to become the next CEO,” said the executive close the company. “She’s considered to be very good at marketing and has good strategic insights, but those are not right set of tools to take the top job or be executive in waiting.”

SPRINT LAUNCHES MERGED COMPANY TODAY

2005-09-02T11:34:00.000-07:00

New Logo, Marketing Message and Emphasis on Sports Entertainment

Sprint, now a stronger No. 3 telecommunications player following its acquisition of Nextel Communications, today relaunches and repositions itself as a sports-entertainment company as well as a telecommunications giant.

Nascar, NFL
In addition to Nextel's Nascar contract, Sprint last month signed a five-year, $600 million deal for exclusive cell phone content with the National Football League. It also earlier this year renewed its exclusive sponsorship of the U.S. Ski & Sports Association.

Sprint also has a contract with the National Hockey League. There are no deals in the works with the National Basketball Association or Major League Baseball, according to a spokesman.

40 million subscribers
The new Sprint, with 40 million subscribers, is also adopting a new marketing stance that boasts it "will challenge the rules, end limitations and stand against restriction." The company's new advertising tagline is: "Yes, you can." The Nextel "Done" tagline has been dropped.

In blending the two companies, the dominant advertising creative is centered on the Nextel look and feel, with bold yellow background and black type. A modified Sprint logo, represented by an abstract graphic of Sprint's long-running "Pin drop" campaign, will appear in print ads, and the campaign's "ping" sound will be heard on broadcast spots. Gone from the ads is the black-trench-coat-wearing government-agent type "Sprint guy,"played actor Brian Baker, who solved callers' problems with poor reception or unfair cell phone offers. Chief Marketing Officer Mark Schweitzer called that campaign part of Sprint's "history" and said it was dropped to ensure consumers would view the merged company in a new light.

New TV spots
TV spots launching the brand include "The Power of Two," celebrating the effect of great pairing throughout history. Another spot shows a man with many choices, such as a sink with faucets labeled hot, tepid, chilly and cold. To underscore Nextel's Nascar sponsorship, one spot focuses on great moments in Nascar history, concluding with the "great moment" of the Sprint Nextel merger. A name change for the Nascar cup is not likely for at least one year.
Although a number of executives estimated the new advertising campaign budget would be as large as $500 million, Mr. Schweitzer declined to give spending specifics but said the $500 million figure was high. Cingular Wireless, when it merged last year with AT&T Wireless, spent about $300 million to relaunch its brand.

Agency reassessment planned
Omnicom Group's TBWA/Chiat/Day, New York, formerly Nextel's agency, is the lead agency on creative for the national brand and consumer efforts, while Publicis Groupe's Publicis & Hal Riney, San Francisco, formerly Sprint's agency, handles business-to-business duties. Mr. Schweitzer said that while all agencies, including Hispanic, direct marketing and media shops, working on the accounts had adequate assignments to keep them busy, he indicated he would reassess agency resources in the first quarter of 2006.

On the retail front, some 1,600 Sprint and Nextel stores will be rebranded by Sept. 2.

Top four carriers
With the completion of the merger, the top four national carriers represent some 85% of total U.S. cell phone subscribers, according to a Standard & Poor's industry survey. The number of subscribers is expected to grow between 6% and 8% to around 190 million to 195 million in 2005, the report said. "With wireless penetration of the U.S. market above 60%, wireless carriers are strengthening their customer retention strategies," the report said.

A Growing Passion for the Latino Market

2005-09-01T11:25:00.000-07:00

From the pages of the NY Times...

A PUERTO RICAN agency is expanding to the mainland by opening a division based in New York that will specialize in producing campaigns for mainstream marketers seeking to reach Hispanic consumers.

The expansion by the agency, Lopito, Ileana & Howie, is to be announced today by the principals in San Juan and New York. The formation of the division - named Azafrán, after the Spanish word for saffron - is among several fresh developments that underscore the intensifying ardor among agencies and advertisers in the booming Latino market. Here are some of the others:

¶ Georgia-Pacific, the paper products giant, has hired its first agency of record for Hispanic advertising, La Agencia de Orcí & Asociados, based in Los Angeles. The company is to announce the decision today, to coincide with the start of its initial Spanish-language campaign in the form of television commercials for the Brawny brand of paper towels.

¶ With its Spanish-language programming, WXTV, the Univision Communications station in New York, drew more prime-time viewers this month in two pivotal demographic categories, ages 18 to 49 and 25 to 54, than any of the stations owned by the Big Three networks - ABC, CBS and NBC - did with English-language shows. (Yes, WXTV had original programming while many of the shows broadcast by WABC, WCBS and WNBC were reruns. Still, a station aimed at Hispanics had never before bested its mainstream competitors in the nation's No. 1 TV market.)

¶Sí TV, a cable network aimed at Latinos who speak English - owned by an alliance that includes EchoStar Communications and Time Warner - has signed sponsorship deals with marketers like Sirius Satellite Radio and the Universal Motown Records Group, part of the Universal Music Group division of Vivendi Universal.

¶The Magazine Publishers of America is planning its first conference devoted to Hispanic magazines, to be held Oct. 14 and 15 as a curtain-raiser for its 2005 annual conference, scheduled to start Oct. 16.

¶The Interstate Bakeries Corporation, the maker of that all-American snack, Twinkies, is introducing a line of cakes called Las Delicias de Hostess, in Dallas, Phoenix and San Diego.
Since 2001, when early data from the 2000 census showed that the Hispanic population in the United States was roughly on a par with the black population as the biggest minority, Madison Avenue has stepped up its efforts aimed at the Latino market. For example, Nielsen Monitor-Plus reported yesterday that the fastest-growing category of advertising spending in the first six months of 2005 was Spanish-language TV, up 15 percent from the period a year earlier.

Even so, revenue for all Spanish-language networks totaled $1.1 billion, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus, part of the Nielsen Media Research unit of VNU, compared with almost $11.8 billion for broadcast networks and almost $11 billion for cable networks. And while Hispanics make up about 14.7 percent of the American population, advertising aimed at them accounts for only an estimated 3.5 percent of total ad spending each year.

"To me, there's two marketing challenges for advertisers: China and the Hispanic market in the U.S.," said Graham Hall, who recently joined the Bravo Group in New York, the Hispanic agency arm of Young & Rubicam Brands, in a senior new post with an offbeat title, chief insights officer.
"A new understanding of the Hispanic market still needs to come about," Mr. Hall said, despite the progress advertisers have made to date. Y.& R. Brands is part of the WPP Group.

For example, despite Georgia-Pacific's status as one of the nation's largest advertisers, only this week is the company making its initial foray into the Hispanic arena.

"We were trying to figure out how to do it right and how to get the resources allocated to do it properly," said Gino Biondi, brand marketing director for Brawny towels at Georgia-Pacific in Atlanta.

A reason for the delay, Mr. Biondi said, was that "we determined it was far more complex than just putting Spanish language on a package or dubbing Spanish onto the soundtrack of a commercial."

That was because of cultural differences among Hispanics, he added, based on whether they trace their ancestries to places like Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico or Puerto Rico. In addition, he said, there are differences between "acculturated Hispanics and nonacculturated Hispanics" - that is, those who adapt to life in the United States and those who do not.

La Agencia de Orcí, which will also create Spanish-language campaigns for a second Georgia-Pacific brand, Angel Soft bathroom tissue, is sharing with its new client its experience working with retailers in Latino neighborhoods as well as the results of studies of the market.

"There are little things we found" in the research, said Tony Stanol, client services director at La Agencia de Orcí, like the Hispanic habit of using paper towels to wrap sandwiches. So a scene showing that is part of the new spot.

And the personality of the Brawny Man brand character is being expressed somewhat differently than it is in mainstream campaigns, Mr. Stanol said, to reflect that Latino consumers want him to be "the guy who helps you do your housework, not necessarily the guy who does it for you." So the commercial ends with a slogan on screen calling the character "the strong guy who helps you with anything," which does not appear in mainstream spots.

An agency based in Puerto Rico like Lopito, Ileana, which opened in 1972, may have a unique vantage point for helping marketers understand the Hispanic landscape. After all, Puerto Ricans are often explaining to residents of the 50 states that they are Americans, too.

"We hope to bridge the gap by offering something that reflects our own experiences," said Jaime Fortuño, vice president and general manager at Lopito, Ileana. He is coming to New York as the managing partner at Azafrán, leading the new division with Alicia de Armas, account director at Lopito, Ileana, who is joining him in New York as account management director at Azafrán.

Azafrán is opening with one client, the Orlando Magic basketball team. Clients of Lopito, Ileana include Anheuser-Busch, Cingular Wireless, Hershey and J. C. Penney, for the Puerto Rican market, as well as, for the United States mainstream market, Puerto Rican tourism and the marketing organization known as Rums of Puerto Rico.

Asked if he was daunted by the considerable challenges ahead, Mr. Fortuño replied with a rhetorical question.

"If you have a surname with a tilde like mine and you live in the first decade of the 21st century, how can you not be involved in this?" he asked.

Correction:
The Advertising column in Business Day yesterday, about increased efforts by advertisers and agencies to reach Hispanic consumers, misidentified the satellite radio company with which Sí TV made a sponsorship deal. It was XM, not Sirius.

NIELSEN REPORTS STARTLING PEOPLE-METER FINDINGS

2005-08-30T08:42:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Nielsen Media Research is reporting that its controversial local-people-meter (LPM) system has found startling changes in TV viewership over the last year among 18- to 34-year-olds.

The company said data from the six local markets with LPMs show dramatic increases in the number of viewers 18-34 in July 2005 vs. July 2004. The increase occurred in all the markets and in most day parts. The meters track viewership of local broadcast and cable stations.

As high as 83%
In Washington, the 18-34 viewership increase was 83%; Philadelphia, 56%; San Francisco, 55%; New York, 24%; Chicago, 21%; and Los Angeles, 10%.

A Nielsen spokesman attributed the changes to the meters' ability to track overall local viewership more accurately.

Media buyers have long complained that Nielsen’s local ratings based on paper diaries the LPMs replaced undercounted 18- to 34-year-old viewers. The new results appear to confirm that.

'More right than wrong'
Kathy Crawford, president of local broadcast for WPP Group's MindShare, said she thinks the numbers represent measurement improvements, not real changes in viewing patterns. “This is more right, more right than wrong, but I can’t tell you if it's absolutely right," she said. "It more right than the metered diaries.”

"Overall, people are viewing more," the Nielsen spokesman said. He said the greatest overall increase was in the early morning (weekdays from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m.), overnight (weekdays from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m.) and Saturday (from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.) with daytime programming showing increases in the number of men in that age group watching TV.

Overall prime-time viewership in the category was up, too, especially in Washington, San Francisco and Philadelphia.

In Philadelphia, the increase was most notable in the 18-to-24 part of the segment, but the LPMs showed more than twice as many people 18-34 watching early morning TV than had been reported a year ago when the paper diary system was in place. In New York, the numbers showed twice as many men 18 to 34 watching TV this July as was reported a year ago, with the number of men tuned in during the afternoon (noon to 4 p.m.) up 73% from a year ago.

National vs. local viewership
There are two separate people meter programs -- one measures national viewership and the other measures local viewership. Nielsen's latest report involves only local viewership.

Broadcast networks, cable networks and syndicators use national prime-time ratings created by a nationwide sample of people meters, which Nielsen introduced in 1987. Currently, the company has about 8,000 people meters deployed across the U.S., though it expects that number to rise to 10,000 by May 2006.

TV stations, rep firms and cable systems use local ratings. Nielsen has about 800 local-people-meter homes in each market where it offers the service. Where it doesn't offer LPMs, ratings are determined by paper diaries and set-meter boxes.

$17.3 billion spot market
Network TV, syndicated TV and cable TV ad spending together totaled $36.3 billion in 2004 and spot TV spending in local markets -- such as those being measured by the LPMs -- totaled $17.3 billion, according to TNS Media Intelligence.

~ ~ ~Abbey Klaassen contributed to this report.

AMERICAN LEGACY FOUNDATION WINS COURT VICTORY

2005-08-25T12:40:00.000-07:00

Judge Rules that 'Truth' Ads Don't Vilify Tobacco Giants

WASHINGTON (AdAge.com) -- The American Legacy Foundation today hailed a Delaware judge's decision as a victory in its legal fight over whether its Truth anti-tobacco ad campaign has "vilified" tobacco companies.

“We have known right along that [the Truth campaign] is true and it works and now we know it’s legal,” said Vermont Attorney General William H. Sorrell, who heads Legacy Foundation's board.

Delaware court
In a ruling yesterday in Delaware Chancery Court, the judge, Vice Chancellor Stephen Lamb, found that tobacco corporations had not been vilified by the Legacy Foundation's anti-smoking advertisements.

Lorillard Tobacco Co. said it would appeal the decision to the Delaware Supreme Court. “We are disappointed with the judge’s ruling,” said Ronald S. Milstein, senior vice president for legal and external affairs.

The legality of the Truth campaign ads had been challenged by Lorillard in the Chancery Court fight that echoed some of the discussions leading to the Foundation's 1998 formation in a settlement of 46 state suits accusing tobacco makers of underplaying risks and marketing tobacco illegally.

Definition of 'vilify'
Tobacco companies agreed to fund the Foundation’s anti-smoking ad campaign, but having seen a Florida campaign comparing them to Hitler, insisted one caveat in the Master Settlement Agreement: The foundation's ads couldn't be used to "vilify” tobacco companies or launch personal attacks. The agreement didn’t clearly define “vilification” and after Lorillard Tobacco Co. complained that some elements of Legacy’s Truth campaign including a radio ad suggesting ingredients in dog urine were used in its products was “vilification” and sought to get states to switch the funds to another group, Legacy went to court to get a declaration its ad were, in fact, legal.

That in turn prompted Lorillard to undertake a broader challenge to the Foundation’s Truth advertising. Agencies Arnold Worldwide of Boston, and Crispin Porter & Bogusky of Miami, handle the Truth ad campaign.

'Liars and greedy executives'
In his ruling yesterday, Vice Chancellor Lamb, said he examined 20 of the Foundation's TV and radio ads and rejected the vilification charges in all. "None of the ads subject the (tobacco companies') employees to the type of contemptuous language contained in other case law discussing vilification,” the judge said. "There are not scurrilous and vitriolic attacks. There is no cruel slander. There is no social ostracism. There is no public ridicule, traduction or calumny. Although the employees may be described, either explicitly or implicitly, as liars, greedy executives, or authors of embarrassing documents, the ads do not vilify them."

The judge did say the Foundation’s related truth.com Web site went too far when it offered online users automated fill-in-the-blanks e-mail forms facilitating the transmission of obscenity-laced messages to individual Lorillard executives. However, the judge also noted that by spending less than $1,000, the company was able to block the e-mails. The e-mail function was subsequently removed from truth.com.

Mr. Sorrell said the decision does make clear that the Foundation must abide by the rules of the Master Settlement Agreement.

Massive payment stop
Tobacco makers are no longer providing the massive payments that originally funded the Foundation's operations, but the Justice Department in suggesting remedies for its own case against tobacco makers has recently suggested new payments to Foundation.

“This decision underscores the reasonableness of what the Department of Justice has requested,” said Mr. Sorrell.

VINTAGE AD TACTIC SHOWS NEW LIFE: PRESENTING SPONSORSHIPS

2005-08-23T09:31:00.000-07:00

Why Target's Takeover of 'The New Yorker' Was a Brilliant Move

The idea of a presenting sponsor taking ownership of a media channel is not new. As a tactic it enjoyed its broadcast heyday between 1930 and 1960, and has popped up periodically across all media ever since. Still, as I flicked through the August 22 issue of the New Yorker it dawned on me that it’s time is now.

Top illustrators
As many will have read, that New Yorker issue had only one advertiser. Retail giant Target, abetted by Hayworth Marketing & Media and Peterson Milla Hooks, bought every ad site in the issue and then populated those spaces with exclusive images fashioned by world-renowned illustrators. The idea was that the works could have been in the magazine on artistic merit alone, but all incorporated the Target bulls-eye in one way or another, collectively giving the retailer ownership of the issue.

On a simple, immediate level, this campaign works because it is sufficiently unusual to have the disruptive, first-mover advantage that is central to many of today’s best campaigns. The smartest marketers have realized that if their advertising makes a unique statement, either in content or placement, it will spark a media and water-cooler conversation whose value will be tens or even hundreds of times the cost of the media buy.

Pack-following newsrooms
You think the folks at Dove hatched Real Beauty because they care about women’s self-esteem? No, they simply wanted to play to the pack-following newsrooms all over the country who they knew would give the campaign more media coverage than they could have bought with a decade’s worth of marketing dollars. And Target was doing the same, scoring pieces in Slate, The New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle among a host of others. (As journalists we insist on church and state, but the best marketers make pawns of us without paying our publishers a dime.) Advertising-for-its-PR-value: Not new, but given today’s extreme media fragmentation, very smart.

Click below to see selected ads.
Ad 1 Ad 2 Ad 3 Ad 4 Ad 5

Even without the media coverage, the Target takeover was a better use of $1 million than a series of buys across different magazines, because it also recognizes the need to engage rather than chalk up meaningless numbers of eyeballs. While many media buyers are still paid to tick the reach and frequency boxes, such metrics look increasingly pathetic in today’s media environment because they tell marketers so little about whether they’re connecting with consumers.

New measurement vernacular
The Media Kitchen CEO Paul Woolmington says: “Magazines are still bought on average issue readership, with an acceptance that maybe half of the advertising is wasted. The truth is it’s probably way more than that. We need to de-construct the measurements and create a new vernacular that focuses on engagement.” That is exactly what Target did, focusing on depth and duration of engagement of the New Yorker reader and measuring its success based on striking up a relationship with this audience.

Even more importantly in today’s consumer-controlled, ad-savvy world, the presenting sponsor arrangement makes the marketer’s presence helpful rather than irritating: a media waiter delivering a choice morsel rather than a fly in the soup. And, in being an integral part of a positive experience, the marketer piggybacks that media outlet’s relationship with consumers to become a brand they regard as ‘one of theirs.’

Fringe benefit
Finally, a fringe benefit to presenting sponsorships: They remind consumers that ads support much of their entertainment. Coke recently bought up all the slots for several weeks on Jack FM in L.A., and ran brief commercials for Coke Zero and Minute Maid Fruit Punch. The creative: A Jack announcer comes on and says: “The people at Minute Maid Fruit Punch paid us lots of cash so you could listen to music not ads.” Not that sophisticated maybe, but wouldn’t you rather hear that than a spot that interrupts your favorite show to share the news that some teenagers want to teach the world to chill? Me, I’ll take the presenting sponsor every time.

American Legacy Unveils Jennings-Inspired Appeal

2005-08-20T09:45:00.000-07:00

From AdWeek...

Peter Jennings' death on Aug. 7 from lung cancer inspired the American Legacy Foundation to create a print ad via Omnicom Group's GSD&M appealing to smokers to get help, the client said.

Lung cancer and its effects have been spotlighted in news reports recently in response to the death of ABC's longtime World News Tonight anchor Jennings and the lung cancer diagnosis of Dana Reeve, widow of the late actor Christopher Reeve. Those high-profile cases inspired Legacy to craft the stark monochrome execution, according to the foundation.

An ad breaking Friday in USA Today features white text against a black background. The copy reads: "You don't need another lecture on the reasons to stop smoking. You need a game plan. That's where we can help. The American Legacy Foundation is a national organization dedicated to preventing and reducing tobacco use. Working with state governments and various public and private partners, we can provide the tools and information to help you beat tobacco addiction." The ad concludes: "To find out more about our programs, visit us at americanlegacy.org."

The effort is tagged, "The question isn't why to quit. It's how."

In addition to USA Today, the ad will run in local newspapers in select markets on Monday.

"In the very current news environment the devastating impact of smoking is being made more apparent to people and I think it's causing some smokers to consider quitting," said Joe Martyak, evp of marketing, communications and public policy at the foundation. "The point of this ad is to speak to those smokers who want to quit. It's a simple message about creating a plan. This is part of the stepped up effort at Legacy to get the right message to smokers who want to quit. We hope to be doing more of this."

Legacy last year spent about $70 million on ads and has spent $20 million through the first half of 2005, per TNS Media Intelligence.GSD&M in Austin, Texas, shares the business with Havas' Arnold in Boston and MDC Partners' Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Miami.

USA TODAY to Publish Technology Mag

2005-08-19T09:44:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK (AP) — USA TODAY, the largest-circulation daily newspaper in the country, is launching a glossy technology magazine covering consumer electronics and trends, the newspaper announced Thursday.

The new 80-page magazine, USA TODAY NOW Personal Technology, will launch Oct. 17 with at least 300,000 copies printed. It will be sold at newsstands across the country with a cover price of $4.95.

The magazine will feature articles on shopping for electronics, how to set them up at home, Q&A articles with experts, polls, and editors' picks on key products.

USA TODAY is the flagship publication of Gannett (GCI), the largest newspaper publisher in the country. The newspaper also publishes USA TODAY Sports Weekly, a magazine for baseball and football fans, and USATODAY.com.

From Reality TV To Reality Ads

2005-08-18T08:06:00.000-07:00

Led by the Dove "beauties" campaign featuring real women rather than perfect models, these ads seem to be striking a chord with consumers

An odd thing happened at Ogilvy and Mather's Chicago office this spring. An emotional father called the ad agency's managing partner, Debora Boyda, thanking her for creating the Dove soap campaign that features decidedly ordinary-looking women in their underwear. Not skinny, beautiful models here. Just randomly selected women who tout their use of Dove soap.

The man's teenage daughter had just recovered from a four-year battle with anorexia and the grateful father wanted to stress how important he thought it was for ads to give the world other ideals of beauty rather than a size-2 blonde with high cheekbones. "That to me was the high point of what the ad achieved," says Boyda, who was part of the team at Ogilvy that created the ad.

In a world where reality TV increasingly trumps drama and sitcoms, where millions of viewers connect viscerally to ordinary folks performing as contestants or actors in their own drama, reality ads seem to be striking new chords. "Just like in reality TV, people relate to it because it's real," says Lindsey Stokes, one of the women in the Dove ads who in real life is a salesperson from Silver Spring, Md.

BEYOND THE SURFACE. Madison Avenue has even coined a phrase to describe the marketing technique -- "masstige" or prestige for the masses. Today, luxury brands increasingly are within reach of anyone who shops for, say, Isaac Mizrahi-designed apparel at Target (TGT ), or Karl Lagerfeld for H&M. The result: Rather than seeing designer clothes on models or fantasy images of the way they wish they looked, Americans increasingly view the products on their real selves.

"We have seen a dramatic change in what beauty means to people," says Beth Kaplan, executive vice-president and general merchandise manager at Bath & Body Works, who described the changes in brand building at a Women in Business Conference late last year in Wharton Business School. "It used to be all about the surface, what your face looked like. And if you asked people, 'Who is beautiful?' they would name models and movie stars. Now they will name their mom, their sister, their best friend. Beauty is all about the whole person." So for Kaplan, luxury means providing a shopping experience that caters to this new definition of beauty.

For years, ad makers often featured actors who looked like ordinary people. Now they really are real people. Posing in their white undergarments with smiles on their faces, the Dove women are everywhere -- splashed across billboards, in magazines, TV, and even sides of buses around the country. The ad has become a lightning rod in marketing circles, around the water cooler, and a debate topic in newspapers and magazines around the country.

"The fact is that it is a woman who looks like she could be my wife, and that has meaning for some," says Robert Passikoff, president of Brand Keys, a brand consulting firm.

HUGE GROWTH. Others are employing a similar approach. High-end clothing chain Eileen Fisher has featured its own employees in its ads -- from its lawyers to account executives wearing its apparel. The company believes that its ads creates a message that customers can identify with, giving the brand a wider audience. "Consumers identify with real stories," says Alan Siegel, chairman of Siegel & Gale, a brand-consulting firm. Another example: Malia Mills swimwear shows women in various shapes in an ad titled: "Love thy differences."

How successful are these campaigns? Since Dove launched its ads in mid-June, it says traffic on the campaignforrealbeauty.com Web site has grown 200% and calls into consumer call center at Unilever (UN ), which owns Dove soap, have surged, too. At the same time at the $3 billion Dove brand, U.S. sales are logging in double-digit growth, says Ogilvy's Boyda.

American Apparel is expected to hit record sales this year with edgy ads featuring its young employees in various stages of undress (see BW Online, 8/11/05, "The Serious Cachet of 'Secret Brands'"). Not only have the ads become a hot topic of discussion on the Internet but people are buying American Apparel clothing to the tune of $250 million in sales last year.

"FAT OR FAB?" Of course, there is still and probably always will be a very strong market for ads with size-2 models. One look at any monthly issue of a womens' magazine will show that. It has taken Dove's "real beauty" campaign two years to truly catch on. Launched in 2004, it initially featured women with freckles and wrinkles, and asked questions like: "Withered or wonderful?"

In an electronic billboard in Toronto that featured a curvy woman, Dove asked "Fat or Fab?" and prompted people to vote. Fab initially surged ahead. But the billboard was taken down soon after fat pulled into the lead with 51% of the votes. Even now, the latest campaign has also spurred a trend where overweight attractive women are mockingly referred to as Dove beauties.

Even though such reality ads might not change mass perceptions of beauty, expect the trend to continue as they fuel sales and draw connections with people who see the ads.

The latest to join in: marketing giant Nike. In an ad that launched in early August, it has real women telling their stories of different parts of their bodies. One woman says about her rear: "My butt is big, so's my mother's butt, my grandmother's butt, and my grandmother's mother's butt. It's in the genes. So I joined a gym, and my butt got really toned. From what I understand it is secretly worshipped by the girls who hang around the butt machine..." Just do it.

For Everyday Products, Ads Using the Everyday Woman

2005-08-17T16:03:00.000-07:00

From the Pages of the NY Times...

Madison Avenue is increasingly interested in using everyday women in advertising instead of just waifish supermodels.

The change comes after the Dove line of personal-care products sold by Unilever introduced what it called a "campaign for real beauty," which presents women in advertisements as they are rather than as some believe they ought to be.

If the fad becomes a trend and shows legs, so to speak, it has the potential to fundamentally change decades of image-making on Madison Avenue. But that is a big if indeed. There have been many previous instances of ads that showed so-called real women in place of professional models, which receded as the allure of glamour again reared its beautiful head.

This week, Nike is introducing a humorous print and online campaign for exercise gear, frankly glorifying body parts that until now were almost never seen in ads, much less celebrated. One ad, which begins boldly, "My butt is big," features an oversize photograph of the derrière in question.

Another Nike ad declares, "I have thunder thighs," while a third asserts: "My shoulders aren't dainty or proportional to my hips. Some say they are like a man's. I say, leave men out of it."
The Nike ads, by Wieden & Kennedy in Portland, Ore., are arriving days after the Chicken of the Sea brand of tuna introduced a television commercial showing a gorgeous young woman being ogled by the men in her office. She can escape their wolfish ways only in the elevator, which she enters alone, then breathes a sigh of relief - revealing that she really has a more-than-ample stomach, which she had been holding in.

The Nike campaign was in the works, executives say, well before the much-publicized arrival last month of Dove print and outdoor ads showing six women, none of them models, sizes 4 to 12, smiling in their underwear. (The first of the Dove "real beauty" ads, showing older, wrinkled women, started appearing last fall.)

The Chicken of the Sea commercial is adapted from a spot that its parent, Thai Union Frozen Products, began running in Asia in 2001.

Even so, the arrival of all the ads at the same time suggests that change may be in the air. "We've gotten tired of airbrushed pictures none of us can relate to or recognize," said Linda Kaplan Thaler, one of the most prominent women in advertising, whose agency, the Kaplan Thaler Group in New York, was not involved in creating any of the campaigns.

Advertisers are "loosening the reins," said Ms. Kaplan Thaler, who is chief executive and chief creative officer at her agency, which is owned by the Publicis Groupe, in recognition of the reality that "women are the majority of consumers and are buying most of the products."

But those facts have been evident for years. Why the new style of ads now?

One reason, said Nathan Coyle, senior strategist at Brain Reserve in New York, a consulting company, is the advent of reality television.

"Your neighbors, everyday people, are the new celebrities," Mr. Coyle said, which feeds the desire for marketers "to shift from depicting women who are unattainable to women who are attainable."
Kelly Simmons, president of a brand consulting company in Philadelphia named Bubble, offered another reason: the aging of the baby-boom generation - the 76 million Americans born from 1946 to 1964 - who have long set the pace for marketers and advertising agencies. The first baby boomers will start turning 60 on Jan. 1.

"There's no question baby boomers feel better about their bodies," Ms. Simmons said, "and are determined to age beautifully," adding, "It feels there are real voices of women coming through" in the Dove and Nike ads. "I applaud the trend."

Nancy Monsarrat, United States director for advertising at Nike in Beaverton, Ore., said that in addition to the different attitudes about body image among boomer women, "younger women have a different perspective" from that of their counterparts a decade or two ago.

"They're more personally independent about who they can and should be," Ms. Monsarrat said, which is also reflected in the campaign's approach.

"One of the things we've noticed is if you go to an exercise class, if you go to a marathon, active women come in a lot of shapes and sizes," she added. "This can be a great celebration of that."
Fitness and health are also the focus of the Chicken of the Sea commercial, said John Signorino, the company's president and chief executive, in San Diego.

He imported the spot to the United States after consumers - including, he said, his wife - received overseas versions of it from friends by e-mail.

"It's an effort to show consumers, in an attention-getting way, that tuna, and Chicken of the Sea, fit into a healthy lifestyle," Mr. Signorino said.

For rest of story, go to link....

Screen Test

2005-08-11T10:02:00.000-07:00

From the pages of CMO Magazine...

Product placement can turn a brand into a star—if it has that certain something.

Mark-Hans Richer, marketing director for General Motors' Pontiac division, counts Oprah Winfrey and Donald Trump as members of his team. Tony Wells, Visa USA's vice president of event and sponsorship marketing, got an assist this summer from Nicole Kidman and Michael Caine, stars of the film Bewitched. Margaret Brooks, marketing director for GM's Buick division, probably owes a bonus to Eva Longoria, one of the stars of ABC's Desperate Housewives. Richer, Wells and Brooks are true believers in the marketing merits of product placement—one of the most talked-about strategies of 2005. By integrating a product into a movie, television show, video game or even a Broadway musical, these marketers are angling to snare consumer attention and to do it better than any traditional marketing vehicle could.

The trio is by no means alone in their efforts: 63 percent of 118 senior marketers surveyed by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) say their companies have used some form of branded entertainment—products woven into program content—in the past year. The hope is that these "integrations," as they're often called, will catch more eyeballs than the increasingly ineffective 30-second spot, which is being victimized by TiVo and other ad-skipping technologies.

But while product placement may imbue a car or credit card with a celebrity aura, the practice is rife with risks. It's impossible to tell, for example, whether a show will be a hit or a dud. With films, the release date can shift, wreaking havoc on promotional tie-ins. Measuring a placement's impact is difficult at best, and will remain so until industrywide standards emerge. The pricing model for integrations is inconsistent, often reflecting whatever the highest bidder is willing to pay. Finally, marketers usually don't have ultimate control over the context in which their product appears. Remember Cuba Gooding Jr. shouting "[Expletive] Reebok!" in Jerry Maguire?

Despite those worrying variables, Richer and others believe a calculated gamble on product placement can be part of a prudent strategy in today's changing media landscape. "I don't think TV is going away, or that TiVo will kill commercials, but things are changing," says Richer. "It's much harder to get noticed amidst the noise."

Smartly executed, product placement offers one way to rise above the commercial cacophony. One of Richer's splashiest deals was the giveaway of 276 new Pontiac G6 sedans to The Oprah Winfrey Show's studio audience during the 2004 season premiere. Oprah herself visited a GM plant and test-drove a G6 on the air. The giveaway achieved its goal of raising product and brand awareness: Research afterward showed "95 percent of people in America knew about the promotion," according to Richer. Pontiac has sold about 68,702 G6 sedans since the model hit the market last October, according to Mike Chung, a pricing and market analyst for Edmunds.com. And G6 sales are gaining traction, with 11,874 sold in June.

Understandably, Richer's enthusiasm for placements remains high. "If you're in marketing, and you're basing your whole strategy on certainties, you're missing out on a lot of the opportunities," he says. "Who sits around trying to lock down certainties in this day and age?"

Stardust Memories
Product placement may finally be getting its moment in the spotlight, but it's not new. In 1945, Joan Crawford served up Jack Daniel's whiskey—and won an Oscar for best actress—in Mildred Pierce. In the 1950s, The Dinah Shore Chevy Show featured the star singing "See the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet," usually while cruising around in a convertible. And in 1982, Hershey Foods offered up Reese's Pieces—then a slow seller—for inclusion in the movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Sales of the candy soared among kids who hoped to lure their own friendly alien home.

Marketers who pursue product placements are chasing "the magic moment," says Mark Workman, founder of FirstFireworks, an entertainment marketing company. Earlier in his career, Workman arranged product placements for Sony Pictures and Walt Disney. An archetypal magic moment? The integration of Ray-Ban sunglasses into the first film in the Men in Black series, a deal he worked on while at Sony.

"The movie came out in the summer, obviously the big selling time for sunglasses," Workman says. "Will Smith's career couldn't have been hotter. Then you have the dialogue, where he and Tommy Lee Jones put on their Ray-Bans, and Will Smith says, `You know the difference between you and me? I make this look good.'" Ray-Ban sales soared, as did profits at retailer Sunglass Hut, which installed cardboard cutouts of the stars in each of its stores. Talk about magic.

Placements can get consumers to reevaluate an existing product (such as Ray-Bans) or to notice a new one (such as the April episode starring the new Pontiac Solstice on NBC's The Apprentice, which helped generate 7,116 preorders in the 10 days after the show aired). This is the Holy Grail of placement: to have a product woven into the plot rather than simply positioned somewhere on the set. Such seamless melding enhances an advertiser's ability to deliver its message or, hopefully, connect its brand emotionally with consumers.

In a key moment from 2004's National Treasure, Nicholas Cage's character is stealing the Declaration of Independence from the National Archives when a gift shop employee, thinking that he's carrying a souvenir replica, asks him whether he's paid for it. But Cage is out of cash. So he pays with his Visa card.

"That conveyed the key brand attribute," says Wells. "The card is there, and it allows you the freedom to do what's important. It's an enabler."

Initially, Wells says, that scene wasn't as pivotal to the plot, and he says that Visa wasn't comfortable with another part of the script in which law enforcement officials used credit card transactions to track Cage's character. "We were able to rework it," he says. That may be because Visa and Disney, the film's producer, have a global marketing alliance that extends beyond this one film.

Ad Agencies Should Take Their Own Advice

2005-08-10T09:49:00.000-07:00

A Critical Look at an Industry That Doesn't Advertise

The only industry in America that doesn’t believe in advertising is the advertising industry itself. Because they don’t do any.

Well, hardly any. And certainly nothing like the volume of advertising they convince their clients to spend.

Advertising is the communications backbone of America. Virtually every large company spends anywhere from 2% to 16% of its sales on advertising. That is, every large company except Omnicom, WPP, Interpublic and Publicis.

Look at the 100 leading national advertisers as reported in the June 27 issue of Advertising Age. All together, these 100 companies spent $93.3 billion on advertising last year.

Ad money goes to the Big Four
The bulk of this money flowed through the four advertising conglomerates. (Ad Age reports that the Big Four account for 57% of U.S. advertising volume and this percentage is bound to be higher for the large companies on the top 100 list.)

As you might suspect, the percentage of sales spent on advertising by the top 100 companies varies widely depending on product category.

Automotive: 3.1%
Beer, wine & liquor: 8.6%
Computers & software: 2.8%
Cosmetics & personal care: 16%
Drugs: 8.9%
Fast-food restaurants: 5.8%
Food: 5%
Retail: 2.1%
Soft drinks: 7.2%
Telecom: 3.7%

Why don’t advertising agencies advertise? Maybe they can’t afford to. Years ago, when even the largest agencies were relatively small, perhaps that was true. But today we have the giant conglomerates who are as big as many of their clients. Here are 2004 revenues of the Big Four.
Omnicom: $9.7 billion WPP: $8.2 billionInterpublic: $5.9 billionPublicis: $5.2 billion
(That’s revenue, not billings. If the conglomerates reported billings, the traditional way it was done, the numbers would be much higher.)

With revenues of $9.7 billion, Omnicom is No. 230 on Fortune’s list of 500 largest U.S. companies. In terms of sales, Omnicom is larger than Kellogg, H.J. Heinz, Apple Computer, Campbell Soup, Southwest Airlines and many other companies that do spend a lot of money on advertising.

What do they believe in?
If advertising agencies don’t believe in advertising, what do they believe in? What the advertising industry believes in is public relations. They bombard Advertising Age, Adweek, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and other publications with press releases about their latest campaigns.

And why the intense interest in winning advertising awards? Awards generate publicity and publicity generates clients.

We looked through five consecutive issues of Advertising Age, and except for a few classified “help wanted” ads, there wasn’t a single advertisement from an advertising agency.
“Do as I say, not as I do” seems to be the motto of the agency establishment. They sell advertising to others, but they don’t buy advertising for themselves.

Other professional service firms
Maybe professional service firms like advertising agencies don’t need to advertise. Maybe their reputations suffice to bring them all the business they need. This might be true, but ad agencies have no trouble recommending big advertising budgets for professional service firms like PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, Deloitte & Touche and Ernst & Young.

And some advertising agency convinced Accenture to spend $100 million to launch its new brand.

What about Omnicom, another manufactured name that presumably could benefit from a little advertising. “The quickest way to make a brand famous,” according to a DDB brochure, “is to make its advertising famous.”

That apparently doesn’t apply to Omnicom, DDB’s parent.

Agencies used to advertise
Agencies used to advertise. Some quite heavily. In 1930, Young & Rubicam was a charter advertiser in Fortune magazine and continued to advertise in every issue until the late 1960s. On the business-to-business side, Marsteller was a consistent advertiser its entire life, from its founding in 1951 to its sale to Y&R in 1979.

When we started Ries Cappiello Colwell (later Trout & Ries), we launched the agency with a full-page advertisement in, what else, Advertising Age.

Over the years, we ran quite a few advertisements, including a number of full-page ads in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. For example, we ranted and raved about the dangers of line extensions with a full-page ad in The New York Times headlined “There’s no such thing as a free launch.”

Hey, Omnicom, there’s no such thing as a free launch when it comes to advertising agencies, either.
~ ~ ~
Al Ries is the author or co-author of 11 books on marketing, including his latest, The Origin of Brands. He and his daughter Laura run the Atlanta-based marketing strategy firm Ries & Ries. Their Web site is at www.ries.com.

A Mainstream Brand Tiptoes Toward the Quirky

2005-08-09T14:42:00.000-07:00

From the pages of the NY TIMES:

MIX blue and red and you get purple. But what happens when you mix navy, as in the retailer Old Navy, with strawberry, as in an agency named StrawberryFrog?

That is the question Madison Avenue has been asking since June, when the Old Navy division of Gap announced that it had hired the New York office of StrawberryFrog to create a major part of its big back-to-school marketing campaign. The StrawberryFrog work, aimed at parents and teenagers, is now appearing on television and in magazines.

Old Navy is the first well-known American client for StrawberryFrog, which was founded in Amsterdam six years ago by Scott Goodson, a Canadian. Mr. Goodson, president and creative partner at StrawberryFrog, has been evangelistic in his belief that new types of agencies - more nimble and Web-based, less bureaucratic and hierarchical - are needed to help mainstream marketers reach consumers in new ways.

"I've been talking about it for years," Mr. Goodson said in an interview. "There's definitely an understanding now that there's a changing landscape."

"It's not the soup du jour," he added. "It's a fundamental shift, both in what clients are looking for and how agencies are working."

StrawberryFrog was among the first in a new wave of smaller, mostly independently owned agencies remaking the advertising landscape. They specialize in campaigns that are distinctive creatively, often quirky, and that typically extend beyond traditional media like television commercials. Some of the agencies, like StrawberryFrog, bear distinctive names meant to signal their different approach; others in that vein include Amalgamated, Mother and Taxi. Other new wave agencies carry more traditional names, like Crispin Porter & Bogusky, McGarry Bowen and Shepardson Stern & Kaminsky.

Whatever they are called, the new agencies have a couple of things in common. One is their focus on business as unusual. The other is their growing success, often at the expense of mainline agencies that find themselves sharing clients with the upstarts - or worse yet, losing assignments to them.

Take Old Navy. For more than a year, the retailer had used the Marina del Rey, Calif., office of Deutsch, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, as its lead creative agency. But in June, Old Navy executives said they would switch to a portfolio approach, working with a changing roster of agencies rather than a sole creative agency of record.

"We're looking to have a small group of highly creative agencies that we can pull ideas from," said Susan Wayne, executive vice president for marketing at Old Navy in San Francisco. "It's a better model to have a steady stream of new thinking, new ideas." Other large marketers taking similar tacks include Anheuser-Busch and Coca-Cola.

StrawberryFrog "has been one of the agencies gaining attention for creativity," Ms. Wayne said, which led Old Navy to meet with Mr. Goodson and other executives and decide "to partner with them on a project basis."

StrawberryFrog, which opened its New York office last year, was assigned the tasks of producing "mainline TV ads for moms and teens," Ms. Wayne said, while Deutsch was assigned duties that included creating commercials to run in movie theaters, online ads and CD-ROM's.

Subsequent assignments will also be made on a similar basis, she added. She declined to discuss a report in the trade publication Adweek that Deutsch had been awarded the duties to create a campaign for the holiday shopping season.

The first Old Navy commercial from StrawberryFrog, which began running July 28, departs significantly from the retailer's recent style of focusing spots on popular songs. The commercial is set in a diner whose only customers are mothers with children.

As the commercial unfolds, viewers soon realize it is not a typical diner: The cooks and waitresses are serving up children's back-to-school clothing, not food, which is being delivered on plates and trays as if it were meatloaf or mashed potatoes.

"It's based on the look and feel of a classic American diner, but with an Old Navy spin on it, a wink and a twist," Ms. Wayne said.

Asked how much she and other Old Navy executives liked the StrawberryFrog idea for the commercial, she replied, "We obviously liked it enough to produce it and put it on air for back-to-school." This is an important time of year for Old Navy, which has been struggling in recent months to stimulate flat or declining sales.

A second Old Navy commercial from StrawberryFrog, aimed at teenagers, is scheduled to start running Thursday. Print ads are already appearing, in September issues of magazines like Cosmo Girl, Elle Girl, Teen People and Teen Vogue, in the form of four-page inserts promoting a line of pants called Big Color Cords.

Old Navy is among several familiar brands that StrawberryFrog was recently named to handle, joining a client lineup that includes Asics Tiger, Ikea, Mitsubishi, Pfizer and Sara Lee. Other recent arrivals include Heineken, for a soccer-themed ad assignment in Europe; Diet Coke, also in Europe; and HarrisDirect, the online brokerage owned by the BMO Financial Group.

"We were looking to get together with an agency that had an approach to the marketplace close to ours and was good at generating ideas from a creative standpoint," said Charles N. Piermarini, president and chief executive at HarrisDirect in Jersey City.

"We're a challenger brand in our space and StrawberryFrog is a challenger brand in its space," he added. "In a cluttered space, we wanted to make sure we're working with someone with the ability to help set us apart."

However, the online brokerage space is soon to get less cluttered. HarrisDirect and the E*Trade Financial Group surprised Wall Street yesterday with a deal for E*Trade to acquire HarrisDirect for $700 million. E*Trade has its own agency, BBDO Worldwide in New York, part of the Omnicom Group, and the HarrisDirect brand name is likely to "go under the E*Trade umbrella" at some point after the acquisition is completed, said Pam Erickson, a spokeswoman for E*Trade in Boston.

Asked for a comment yesterday about the deal, Mr. Goodson replied that it was "a big surprise."
"One reason we built StrawberryFrog to be agile is that the world is the way it is," Mr. Goodson said. Although "you can't predict the future," he added, the agency was founded on a "flexible model that can grow and morph and shrink according to market conditions."

Meanwhile, Mr. Goodson said he remained optimistic about the agency's chances in several big reviews. Trade publications have reported that StrawberryFrog is a finalist for worldwide accounts from the Credit Suisse Group and the Heineken brand.

Consumer Guilt Presents Obstacles to Selling "Fun" Products

2005-08-05T05:08:00.000-07:00

Consumers are less likely to buy hedonic goods if they cannot justify a purchase to themselves. In “Justification Effects on Consumer Choice of Hedonic and Utilitarian Goods,” author Erica Mina Okada finds that consumers’ guilt requires them to produce higher justification for buying such products. The author differentiates primarily hedonic goods, which are used for more experiential or fun purposes, from primarily utilitarian goods, which are used more for instrumental or functional purposes. (Hedonism and utilitarianism are not entirely mutually exclusive, the author notes; many products include a mix of the two attributes.)

Okada demonstrates that consumers experience mixed emotions when deciding between hedonic and utilitarian choices. “The prospect of a hedonic purchase may be more appealing, but a utilitarian purchase is easier to justify,” she notes.

When subjects in an experiment were asked to evaluate separately the perceived values for a (utilitarian) grocery store certificate and a (hedonic) dinner certificate of equal dollar amounts, subjects tended to rate the dinner certificate more highly. However, when subjects were offered a side-by-side choice between the certificates, they tended to choose the groceries instead. This implies that side-by-side comparisons can make it more difficult for consumers to justify picking hedonistic goods over utilitarian goods. These findings could have implications for numerous products, the author suggests. For example, she notes that car buyers may be less likely to purchase a sports car that is displayed next to a more utilitarian vehicle.

She also found that people pay a premium dollar for convenience but go the distance for a bargain. When asked to choose between spending time and spending money for goods or services, people find it easier to justify spending more time, because the value of time is less specific than the value of money. “Hedonic purchases are harder to justify, so people prefer to pay in the currency that is easier to justify spending: time,” she says.

Okada’s research suggests that enhancing convenience is a more effective strategy to sell utilitarian goods, while price reductions are more effective for selling hedonic goods.

Adapted from an article in Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 42, No. 1, February 2005.

Strategic Learning Increases Corporate Adaptability

2005-08-04T17:07:00.000-07:00

As the advantages associated with brand and product become less enduring, strategic and systematic learning has become the defining element of competitive differentiation. In “The New Learning Curve,” authors Ken Demma, Julie Phillips Baker, and Niall Budds explore how marketers can use strategic learning to help their companies anticipate and adapt to market opportunities. According to the authors, “Marketing is best positioned to define, set, and execute the ‘learning agendas’ that are now at the heart of competitive success.”

However, marketers often fail to take advantage of their position. “Too often, marketing organizations fail to actively and systematically invest in learning,” they write. “Because they see their role as one of mere implementation, they have stopped making the discoveries, eliciting the insights, and defining the knowledge that can truly influence the strategic direction of the enterprise.”

Marketers should formulate a learning agenda to enhance their strategic role and relevance, the authors state. These agendas clarify and define what actionable knowledge they need to learn, what hypotheses to test, and what types of information to capture, codify, and analyze.

When an agenda has been set, marketing leaders must begin bridging gaps between “creative” and “analytical” marketers. “Marketers must freely traverse the boundaries of their own organization so they may be a credible force for boundary spanning and market engagement overall,” according to the authors.

The authors suggest that the learning agenda should encompass three intersecting and overlapping spheres of learning—the enterprise, the market, and the marketing organization. The market sphere is composed of all the customers and prospects that a company addresses and intends to address. The marketing organization is the sphere that connects to—and builds connections between—the enterprise and the customers it serves (or might serve). Finally, the enterprise is the underappreciated sphere that marketers should reach out to in order to purse a “policy of engagement.”

“Learning can be a unifying concept,” according to the authors. They add that a learning agenda can help create linkages among investments, actions, and scorecards and that it can represent the organization’s hidden and unrealized source of strategic value.

Adapted from an article in Marketing Management, July/August 2005.

News You Can Use Today

2005-08-03T18:38:00.000-07:00

Publishers of Fast Co., Inc. Resign

Two top executives at Inc. and Fast Company have resigned from their posts

Matt Barba, publisher of Fast Company, and Lee Jones, vp, publisher of Inc., both turned down offers from Mansueto Ventures to stay with the company. Mansueto, headed by founder and CEO Joe Mansueto, acquired the titles from G+J USA Publishing last month for $35 million.

“Lee Jones and Matthew Barba were made an offer of employment from Mansueto Ventures, LLC and they chose not to accept it," said CEO John Koten in a statement.

Jones, who resigned yesterday, had served as vp, publisher of Inc. since March 2001, and oversaw both Inc. and Fast Company until G+J USA Publishing hired Barba in February to take the reins. Barba, who resigned today, was an associate publisher at the Atlantic Monthly and worked at American Express Publishing's Travel + Leisure before arriving at Fast Company.

Replacements have not been named for Barba or Jones.

"It is with a sad heart that I share this decision, as I am disappointed that I will not be part of the team that rebuilds Fast Company's future. But for me, given all that has transpired, this is the right course of action," said Barba of his depature.

The two resignations come a week after CEO Mansueto promoted John Koten to CEO of Mansueto Ventures. Koten succeeds John Byrne, who left the magazine to rejoin BusinessWeek as executive editor.

Koten will oversee both business and editorial strategies for Inc. and Fast Company.

B2B PR: A key tool for branding

2005-07-22T11:30:00.000-07:00

Building reputation, not splashing out simply on activities to promote an image, is the key to branding for industrial, B2B and IT companies. For this reason, PR is emerging as the key communication tool available to marketers within these organisations.

This was the message given by ‘PR Influences’ Editor, and Network PR Managing Director, Grant Common at L21’s ‘Industrial Branding Summit’ in Sydney on 1 June.

Recognition of the increasing role of PR in industrial branding was supported by the fact that at the two-day Summit, attended principally by CEO’s and senior marketers, PR was the only marketing communication discipline represented on the agenda.

Some of the key points made by Mr Common regarding the characteristics of industrial/B2B/IT marketing were:

Positioning and brand challenge is more rigorous than for consumer brands where the decision is relatively trivial and the delivery of the product is often the end point of the relationship
Purchase decisions have more implications, the decision-making process is more rigorous and the delivery of the product often begins a long-term relationship
Customers often care more about the company they’re doing business with than about the product itself
Product is often only the entry point. It’s not always who offers the best product, it’s who you feel most comfortable doing business with

The key theme of the address was that building a reputation was more important in marketing in these environments than creating an image. Whereas image could be created through sheer advertising dollars, reputation had to be earned over a period of time. It was built by what organisations did, how, and with whom they forged relationships.

Mr Common said studies indicated that approximately 70 percent of brand equity in industrial/B2B/IT was directly related to tangibles – price, specs/quality and distribution.

However, the other 30 percent was related to intangibles – perceptions of the technologies, industry leadership, and corporate issues such as CEO visibility, corporate governance and how an organisation conducted itself. It was this 30 percent where PR had a significant contribution to make.

“Traditionally the purchase decision was typically made on technical or engineering grounds by an individual, usually at the shop or factory floor level. However, intangible factors have gradually become more important as companies choose suppliers on a wider range of criteria than ever before, with the decision now often elevated to the C level”, said Common.

Mr Common also presented a model he called ‘the product staircase’. The hypothesis behind it is:

The type of marketing communication varies according to the value of the product
The lower the value of product, the more emphasis needs to be placed on image. It means that advertising is the prime tool to reach the large mass consumer audience
The higher the value of products, the more emphasis needs to be placed on reputation as a key driver. With the audience being smaller PR is the main driver

Those attending the Summit were told that the PR tools available to industrial/B2B/IT marketers included:

Media profiling – recognising that familiarity helps build credibility

media engagement
product releases
appointment releases
partner announcements
customer wins

Thought leadership- recognising that customers are attracted to companies they perceive to be leaders:

opinion pieces
speaking opportunities
cause champions
involvement with associations
media/industry roundtables

Technical credibility – recognising that customers want more than sales literature – they want evidence of substance:

customers case studies
technical articles
house publications
white papers
web site materials

Stakeholder relationships – recognising that building relationships with key stakeholders is the key to establishing a reputation:

initiatives and events that are informative and educational
a CEO stakeholder relationship program
partner events
CSR and corporate citizenship activities

Mr Common said PR was not being used as much as it should by industrial/B2B/IT marketers because too many seemed to focus on the short-term nature of projects rather than appreciating the need for continuity in communications. He also said that too many within such companies saw PR as simply press releases – and that there were too many offering so-called PR services who had no strategic vision beyond press releases.

Media Relations: Rate how equipped and proactive you are

2005-07-21T11:20:00.000-07:00

How well are you or your organisation really handling your media relations?

Too many organisations feel they are handling their media well just because they prepare and release media statements when the organisation is doing something they think may be of interest.

However, that’s only a starting point. Good media relations practice is about planning and implementing a series of activities, always with the ultimate aim of ensuring your organisation gets the coverage it deserves.

To assess how well equipped you are, ask yourself these questions:

How up-to-date is your media information database?
Media personnel change jobs and their responsibilities constantly. If you are relying on a printed reference guide the chances are that your list is out of date.

Large organisations that can justify the cost, or pr agencies that work for a range of clients, subscribe to on-line media databases that list hundreds of journalists by title, and the records in these databases are constantly update. If you are serious about media relations then you should be accessing such systems.

What depth of knowledge do you have regarding your target media?
You should know the preferred media release delivery method (fax/email/etc) for each contact and whether they like pitches via email or phone.

Do you know the specialist interests of journalists who write in your area? For example, not all IT journalists write about enterprise level solutions. Some focus entirely on new technology, whilst others have a preference for customer stories. The same applies to consumer electronics… some specialise in digital photography where others are searching for home entertainment angles.

What records to you maintain on media you deal with?
Dealing with the media is similar to running a Customer Relationship Model – you need to track every contact you have.

If you are serious about your media relationships and are the knowledge gatekeeper for your organisation, then information is vital. You should not only have a database of media, but a system that enables the history of your relationship with every media contact you work with.
How good is your system for distributing media releases?

Distribution is a key function of media relations – as these days journalists are deluged with information. Those who can justify the cost of an on-line data bases, also have the capability to automatically distribute to media by the method of individual preference. It’s also worth noting that some spam filters block emails with lengthy bcc lists of recipient addresses.

Do you actively search for media features and supplements?
Many organisations simply don’t take a proactive approach to looking for media opportunities. They think they are doing their job by preparing releases when there is a deal, new product or a corporate announcement.

If you are seeking to have a profile in the media you, or your PR agency, should be looking for opportunities in features and supplements. Most publishers regularly release information two to three months in advance.

Do you scan the media for general opportunities?
Do you regularly scan all the media about your industry to search for opportunities to leverage?
Do you identify journalists who seem to like to write about particular topics? Do you identify emerging issues, or topics which might give your organisation and opportunity to be included?

Do you really think about what the media is looking for?
Whenever you are preparing material for the media, you should write it with the journalist (not your boss) in mind. Journalists are very busy people, so the more tailored the writing is in terms of style and length for their publication, then the easier it is for them to use.

Think about what the journalist may want. What types of articles does each publication run? There’s little chance of building a relationship with a journalist if you send through something that either misses their mark subject-wise or is in a format that makes it hard for them to turn into a story that fits their style.

How often do you pitch stories to media?
If you are serious about obtaining a good level of visibility in the media you should be regularly identifying opportunities and pitching story angles.

Pitching is an art. Where releases can be used like shotgun pellets, pitching is like using expensive single-shot ammunition. You must be 100% on target, and that means getting everything right, from the details in your media database, to your story ‘hook’ and through to the way in which you craft your pitch.

If you know the journalist well, then a phone call is probably the best way. If you don’t, then you will have to write a pitch email that is as compelling and it is concise. Remember, the pitch is not to get your story in the publication; it’s to get the attention of the particular journalist – to make them want to know more.

What personal contact do you have with media?
How long is it since you took the initiative and picked up the phone and spoke personally to an important media contact – or had a meeting?

To be successful in media relations you need to establish personal relations with media that are important to your organisation. Journalists are busy people and increasingly it is difficult to get time with them. But if you and your organisation are important to the journalist he or she will make the time to meet with you – providing you make the effort (and you have done your homework and what you have to offer has relevance).

Have you created an on-line resource for media?
These days’ media expect to be able to access information about organisations electronically.
If you want to be reported on more regularly, and be seen as a source of information for media, you need to provide an on-line resource – commonly called an on-line newsroom.

This should not only contain copies of all your media releases, but should also provide profile information on the company, key executives and key products. Additionally, any on-line resource for media should contain images that media can download to support any stories they may prepare.

Test how organised and proactive you are in handling the media.
Score yourself on each of the 10 questions above on a scale of 1 to 3 (3 being excellent/well prepared, 2 being OK/average and 1 being poor/ill equipped).

If your total is 24 or above your can regard yourself, or your organisation, as being well equipped and proactive in your media relations.

Between 15 and 23 you are largely going through the motions in your media relations. There are quite a few gaps to address.

If you scored under 15 you really aren’t equipped to handle this area. You have an urgent need to address your media relations preparedness and capability.

Marketing: Communication is key for reaching confused consumers

2005-07-20T11:16:00.000-07:00

Evidence is mounting that marketers need to diversify their spend on communications as consumers grapple with an ever-increasing multitude of product alternatives.

A US research study by Forrester Custom Research in conjunction with Brodeur probed Americans’ attitudes on (among others) more than 80 consumer electronic brands and 35 consumer electronics manufacturers.

The results showed that advertising was only one of a number of sources of information – and a relatively minor one at that - with the internet and the reading of articles in newspapers and magazine heavily favoured by information hungry consumers.

Symptomatic of the pressures facing today’s consumer was the need for the researchers to create a ‘Confusion Index’ to rank how confused consumers felt about nearly 20 activities involved in the every day use of technology.

Some of the findings were:

Confusion:
More than 50 percent of consumers who rate themselves as “extremely confused” said they had delayed the purchase of a new technology product by more than a year since they first considered it.

20 percent of the above group said they delayed their purchase because they were confused by it, and 25 percent said they bought the product even though they were still confused!

Information sources:
Advertising recall for consumer technology products was highest amongst internet portals, beating out other web sites as well as traditional forms of media.

However, local newspapers toped even internet portals as the place where consumers most often read articles about consumer technology.

Consumers who said they plan to buy a DVD recorder in the next twelve months are twice as likely to read articles about technology in home magazines and national newspapers.

Those planning to buy a HDTV are four times as likely to read digital lifestyle magazines and nearly 2.5 times as likely to use manufacturers’ web sites and comparison shopping sites to learn about technology.

Consumers planning to buy a digital camera in 2005 are twice as likely to read women’s magazines.

Another recent study has also emphasised the importance of reaching consumers through editorial and other sources.

The recent release of the 2005 Edelman Trust Barometer, a survey of 1500 opinion leaders across eight countries, revealed:

Around 90 percent of people believe information conveyed by articles or news stories more than advertising.

More than 80 percent of respondents do not believe information unless they see or hear it from multiple sources.

“This”, said Richard Edelman, “is further evidence that you can’t buy trust by speaking at audiences through advertising”.

These and other studies indicate that there is always a role for advertising in making consumers aware of a product. But increasingly consumers are looking for more information in order to make an informed buying decision. This is where PR support is playing a greater role in converting that awareness into a firm product enquiry, which may ultimately lead to a sale.
This is particularly so in consumer electronics – where consumers want hard information about product capabilities before making a final product selection.

Blogging While Browsing, but Not Buying

2005-07-07T09:30:00.000-07:00

EXT on board the blogging bandwagon: e-tailer.

Online merchants are starting to test Web logs, which are akin to online diaries, in hopes of giving their stores more personality and giving customers a reason to return even when they're not in the mood to buy. But for companies like Bluefly.com, eHobbies, Ice.com and others, blogs are so far afield from typical retail functions that they will take time to master.

Take eHobbies. The site, which sells remote-controlled helicopters and other toys for grown-ups, added a blog in May, where it posts photos from trade shows and shots of employees. The captions range from boosterish to boring; many of the links on the blog lead to an eHobbies product page.

"There's a lot of good stuff in doing the blog, and some not-so-good stuff," said Seth Greenberg, chief executive of the company, which is based in La Mirada, Calif.

Mr. Greenberg said the blog allowed eHobbies to project the homespun image that sometimes eluded even small companies like his, which has only 25 employees. "It lets us pull back the curtain and show how we're a company of hobbyists who love participating in the things they're buyers for," he said. "It humanizes us."

In addition to featuring the link to the blog at the top of the eHobbies home page, the company will soon begin promoting the blog in e-mail messages to customers, and hiding coupon codes in the blog to give people incentives to visit, Mr. Greenberg said.

"Hobbyists are a little strange," Mr. Greenberg said. "They'll like things like that."

The blog's visuals will also improve markedly from the current collection, which are pictures taken with Mr. Greenberg's cameraphone. In the coming months, it will feature audio and video clips of hobbyists and their toys.

So far, at least, Mr. Greenberg said he had not encountered any significant disadvantages in blogging, aside from the occasional difficulty of posting pictures to the site. But analysts see pitfalls in these retail narratives.

If sites do not closely track and edit visitor comments, they may expose themselves to backlash from readers who see inappropriate language, or they could lose prospective customers who read scorching reviews, said Kenneth Cassar, an analyst with the Internet consultancy Nielsen//NetRatings. He noted, though, that vigilant editing could prevent such mishaps.
More importantly, Mr. Cassar said, sites must figure out how to keep customers from straying from the store to the blog without ever returning to shop. Because typical blogs feature links to articles elsewhere on the Web, they can represent a one-way ticket away from the site.

Such is the dilemma faced by executives of Ice.com, an online jeweler based in Montreal. Ice.com has created three blogs in the last six months: a celebrity jewelry site (SparkleLikeTheStars.com), a question-and-answer site (JustAskLeslie.com) and a company news site (blog.ice.com).

Shmuel Gniwisch, Ice.com's chief executive, said the company was "having an internal struggle" about whether to put links to its blogs on Ice.com itself. Currently, people reach them through search engines and links from other blogs.

"Our blog people want the links on our site, but our brand people say it'll take people off the site," Mr. Gniwisch said. "We'll probably test it and see what it does."

Within the blogs, of course, Ice.com could merely delete links that lead anywhere but the store. "But then it's not a blog," Mr. Gniwisch said. "This is about community, and giving people enough information to make a better decision."
Mr. Gniwisch said the blogs attracted "thousands of visitors" a week, but the effect on sales was unclear. "Technically, this is a very soft sell," he said. "We're intending to build awareness of our product, so if sales come, great. If not, it's also good."

Executives at Bluefly.com, the discount apparel e-tailer, credit their blog (Flypaper.bluefly.com) with bringing in new customers. Flypaper, which was introduced in April and features postings - sometimes more than one a day - on anything fashion-related, "is bringing some very positive things," said Melissa Payner, the chief executive.

Among other things, Ms. Payner said, Flypaper visitors who click to Bluefly have been more likely to make a purchase than those who visit Bluefly directly.

Ms. Payner said Flypaper reflected the company's firmer resolve to cater to women who cared about what was currently fashionable, instead of selling discounted clothes that might or might not still be in vogue. Ms. Payner, who spearheaded that shift when she took the chief executive's job last year, sought to craft the blog in the image of the company's merchants, whom she characterized as "obsessed with fashion."

And so, in the course of a given day, Flypaper might feature pictures of the singer Lauryn Hill's new hairdo, runway models in the latest Milan show or full-length shots of random, fashionable pedestrians, accompanied by snappy commentary. As with other e-commerce blogs, Flypaper is written by employees in their free time - a task Ms. Payner said her staff welcomed.

Blogging software, meanwhile, is available free, or, for more sophisticated versions, at prices in the range of $15 monthly. Those economics are attractive in an industry that is trying to curb spending.

Among e-commerce companies that have spawned blogs, that of GoDaddy.com, the Internet domain sales and hosting company, is perhaps the most controversial. Written by the chief executive and owner of GoDaddy, Bob Parsons, the blog attracts between 4,000 and 10,000 daily visitors, Mr. Parsons said. A link to it is featured at the top of the GoDaddy.com home page.

In the blog, Mr. Parsons muses on topics ranging from Guantanamo Bay to the company's Super Bowl commercial. In his Guantanamo Bay posting earlier this month, Mr. Parsons defended the government's interrogation techniques - a position he adjusted after many reader complaints.
"People said they'd never do business with me again, and tell their friends, neighbors and pets to do the same," Mr. Parsons said. "It also worked in the opposite direction. But you know what? It defines my company for people, so they can understand why we do things the way we do them."
He added, "I feel good that for a lot of people, when they're doing business with me - it's not just some name with a URL on the Internet."

Getting to the Hipsters

2005-07-06T09:22:00.000-07:00

Marketers sometimes sound like parents. "This next generation -- they are not like us. They're on their iPods (AAPL ) and IM-ing each other all day. Then they're text-messaging each other while they stay out all night. They've tuned us out."

But consider the case of Marisa Brickman. "When I was younger, I was, like, `oh, [expletive] Corporate America. I can't be marketed to,"' says the music-obsessed 27-year-old. "I'd rip the tags off my clothes. I didn't want people to know what brands I was wearing." Today, Brickman is director of event marketing and public relations for Cornerstone Promotion in New York.

Cornerstone is a new-school marketing firm with many tentacles, virtually all touching on music of the moment and its fans. It manages and promotes artists. It digs up music for ads and movies. It publishes a glossy music magazine, The FADER. It works with established brands such as Xbox (MSFT ), Sprite (KO ), Adidas, and Red Stripe on strategies to reach young consumers. And it deploys a loose network of local influentials to do so -- down to cool kids on college campuses -- winning favor by, say, setting up Xboxes at the hip local record store.

Cornerstone and Brickman are very good at "product seeding" among tastemakers within its 18-to-34 target audience. It helps that Brickman knows practically every DJ and underground rock band within a 1,000-mile radius, so Cornerstone's overtures are more palatable "than if some brand was just cutting a check," she says.

IT ALSO HELPS THAT BANDS AND AUDIENCES within a formerly contemptuous subculture now sing along. Fifteen or 20 years ago, Brickman's job couldn't have existed. A once-ubiquitous bumper sticker from a noted underground record label bluntly declared: "Corporate Rock Still Sucks." Back then, bands that cozied up to advertisers "were often ridiculed and hung out to dry," says Gerard Cosloy, co-president of New York-based Matador Records. "It's a different world now."

Product seeding is a way to get marketing messages out as traditional ads lose traction, and nowhere are they losing more traction than among peripatetic twentysomethings who hardly stay put for any traditional media experience at all. So companies plant wares in the hands of influential individuals in hopes that their cool or cultural celebrity will lead others to the goods. Malt liquor Sparks recently underwrote a tour of three bands on the ultrahip Vice label. It provided 10 cases of Sparks for each show, to be drunk by the bands or sold at a discount. One quid pro quo: Band members had to photograph one another swigging the bright orange drink.

At last March's South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Brickman set up the Levi's-FADERS Trading Post, an invite-only tent with free music and free beer for scenesters and swag for a clutch of chosen bands. "We booked all the bands and scheduled [them] to get outfitted in Levi's," says Brickman.These deals can come cheap, but they add up -- Cornerstone co-President Jon Cohen says annual billings are around $20 million. The payoff for clients such as Levi's: hitting a hard-to-find audience in a decidedly captive state. (It's hard to be distracted by other media noise when the Levi's-clad band onstage is blazing away at 120 decibels.)

The Levi's tent -- the third the jeans giant has sponsored -- is a notable inroad into a festival initially conceived as an antidote to the overt commercialism of other music gatherings. But then, the cultural landscape changed. Now, muses an underground rocker who has begun accepting sponsorships, "the only qualm I have is I usually don't like the stuff I get." A parallel is extreme sports, a subculture that also originated with an intensely anticorporate ethos. Now its stars sport nearly as many logos as NASCAR drivers.

Marketers, like parents, might spend sleepless nights worrying about not understanding youth. But they miss the bigger story. Formerly hostile subcultures -- yesteryear's punks and hippies and snowboarders -- now welcome them. Whether they've noticed it or not, marketers have won. Like Brickman, the hipsters are all buying in.

MICHELIN RESPONDS TO PR DISASTER

2005-06-30T08:47:00.000-07:00

Offers $12 Million in Formula One Race Ticket Refunds

In an unprecedented move, Michelin Tire Co. has decided to offer fans who attended the June 19 Formula One U.S. Grand Prix race in Indianapolis a full refund, the company said.

At an average ticket price of $100, the gesture will cost the Paris-based tire company $12 million -- plus another $5 million that Michelin has pledged to buy tickets to the 2006 U.S. Grand Prix.

Public relations disaster
The move follows a public relations disaster for both Formula One and the tire company on the day of the race when Michelin discovered a design flaw in its tires and deemed them unsafe. It asked the sports governing body to allow a change in the rules which prohibit teams from changing tires after qualifying, and also asked the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to install a chicane, or curve, that would slow speeds and make the track safer. Both requests were denied, and Michelin advised its teams not to compete.

Michelin and Bridgestone are the only tires used in Formula One racing.

Fourteen of the 20 drivers boycotted the race, leaving only six cars to compete and more than 100,000 fans in disgust.

"Michelin deeply regrets that the public was deprived of an exciting race and therefore wishes to be the first, among the different groups involved in the Indianapolis race, to make a strong gesture towards the spectators," the company said in a statement.

Chasing Nascar
Formula One, which runs mostly in Europe and Asia, has been desperate to find an audience in the U.S. that will draw the type of TV ratings -- and, in turn, lucrative sponsorships -- that Nascar receives. But the events of June 19 might have endangered those partnerships.

“We’ve already been re-thinking our commitment,” said a marketing chief for one U.S.-based sponsor, who asked not be identified. “Even before [June 19], we talked about taking a long look at a sponsorship where, of the 19 races, only two were in North America [Indianapolis and Montreal] and the popularity of the sport didn’t seem to be growing that much. Now, I would say, yeah, what happened has kind of hastened those discussions.”

Frank Williams, the British owner of the BMW-Williams team, draws more sponsorship money from American companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Anheuser-Busch and Federal Express, among others, than any other Formula One team. His was also one of the teams using Michelin tires that declined to participate in the race.

“I hope our sponsors will forgive us,” he said.

Formula One had a contract to run the U.S. Grand Prix at the famed Indy course through 2006.

Five years of marketing and planning
“We’ve been building this sport for five years, aggressively promoting and marketing it,” said track president Joie Chitwood. “All that might have been thrown away.”

Even Formula One president Bernie Ecclestone admitted as much, saying: “The future for Formula One in the U.S. is not good.”

The competition between Michelin and Bridgestone is as bitter as any of the rivalries between racing sponsors, including the car companies. A Bridgestone spokesman said, “Formula One was knocked sideways by what happened [June 19] and in our opinion now is not the time to be trying to gain ground as a result of the very unfortunate series of events that took place. ... We would rather have won the race with a full field of cars so we’ll be saving any ad campaigns for a victory taken on an even playing field.”

Advertisers forced to think way outside the box

2005-06-23T08:33:00.000-07:00

At least a dozen billboards dot Michael Fetchik's daily two-mile bus commute from Weehawken, N.J., to New York City.

But rather than noticing the Washington Mutual, Hummer or Panasonic ads, he's focused on the tiny keyboard of his Handspring Treo 600, a wireless all-in-one phone, Web organizer, camera and e-mail gadget. (Related: TV ads face competition at Cannes festival)

"There are ads?" says the 32-year-old information technology director when asked if he noticed the billboards.

In fact, he does see ads on the trip — those that come with the information he's digesting on his handheld. "I use AvantGo.com so when I synchronize my phone, I download news and other content to read — and with that comes ads," says Fetchik.

Consumers such as Fetchik pose an increasing challenge for the advertising industry as it competes for consumers' attention and time. Technology — from wireless devices to iPods to digital video recorders (DVRs), have given time-pressed consumers more choices and control over what they tune in or tune out — and also split the audience into narrower slices.

Advertisers raised spending 10% to $140 billion last year, according TNS Media Intelligence, to put more ads in more places, but that onslaught may just be turning all marketing messages into white noise.

"We've become so good at mentally zapping it out. You can't presume that because advertising is all over the place that it's actually reaching them," says John Hunt, chief creative officer, TBWA/Chiat/ Day. He's also the judge overseeing competitions for best TV, print and outdoor ads at the 52nd annual Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, which begins in earnest today. The weeklong global competition has eight categories, including Internet and non-traditional ads.

Consumers today encounter from 3,500 to 5,000 marketing messages per day, vs. 500 to 2,000 in the 1970s, says J. Walker Smith, president of consumer and marketing watcher Yankelovich.
The result: "There are so many ads out there that consumers actively avoid commercials today to an extent never before realized," says Dan Howard, professor of advertising and consumer behavior at Southern Methodist University's Cox School of Business. "No matter how many more ads we put out there, it's not going to work ... because it's not registering."

Doubts about TV ads
More consumer control and more marketing white noise will be a big part of the buzz among industry leaders this week in Cannes — particularly what it means for mass-market TV advertising.

The TV commercial remains the biggest source of revenue for the ad industry — and for the networks that sell the time. Marketers put 38% of all ad dollars spent in 2004 into TV spots, according to TNS.

But the cash cow now is getting a run for its money from more narrowly targeted upstart ad venues, such as the Internet, video games, TV and movie product placement, and event marketing. Most of the new choices promise lower-cost ads that are harder to ignore. Advertisers are starting to ask whether TV is worth the price.

Ad expert Joseph Jaffe says the answer is absolutely not. In his new book, Life After the 30-second Spot: Energize Your Brand with a Bold Mix of Alternatives to Traditional Advertising, Jaffe writes that new media options and changing consumers, as well as a lack of creativity in content and use of TV ads, have changed the ad industry landscape.

"The 30-second spot has outlived its usefulness," says Jaffe. "We should pat it on the back, look back and say, 'Thanks for 50 years of great service. Here's your gold Rolex.' "

Faith Popcorn, CEO of ad consultancy BrainReserve, also thinks the days are numbered for TV ads' dominance. But she says many marketers remain reluctant to look at new media alternatives, in part because they don't know how to use them: "They don't know what to replace (TV) with."

"Clients continue to spend a majority of money in a very dinosauristic medium," Popcorn says. They are hoping they can retire before (change) happens."

If the number of entries at Cannes this year is any indicator, the prominence of TV ads may be waning even here. Entries in the "film" ad competition, long the glitziest category, dropped 2% to 4,995, while the number of entries overall is up 18% to 22,101.

But cable and broadcast TV network executives — who just finished getting solid rate increases in the "upfront" market, the annual period of ad selling for the fall season — say the 30-second TV ad is not going anywhere anytime soon, though they are seeing some experimentation with shorter and longer forms.

"It's not going away. ... There will still be billions of dollars spent on 30-second ads," says Ed Erhardt, president, ESPN ABC Sports Customer Marketing and Sales. "The 30-second is still by far the unit of choice. However, 10s, 15s and 5s and longer form are also quite viable."

Remixing ad strategy
Some observers see a future of ad campaigns that include TV spots, but as part of a creative mix of media that work together. A campaign might also include elements that reach consumers spending more of their time on the Web, on mobile phones, reading text messages or playing video games. And TV spending might be split between commercials and product placement that DVR users can't skip over. "Today you need a great idea, and you can work out which media types will reflect it," TBWA's Hunt says.

One advertising powerhouse beginning to rethink media strategy is Procter & Gamble, which spent about $2.4 billion, or 80%, of its $3 billion ad budget last year on TV. It is looking at how more use of options, such as product placement and alternative media, might work.

P&G is placing "hard emphasis on improving our return on investment," says spokesman Dave McCracken. "We're just getting smart in how we are using TV as part of our overall marketing mix."

New technologies may even offer more bang from traditional TV ads.

New ad agency Visible World, for example, has developed "adaptive" ad technology with which advertisers could digitally alter an ad for different markets. For example, New York viewers of a Ford ad airing on American Idol could see different elements — such as a different slogan or car color — than California viewers see.

"You've got some smart ways that technology can help breathe and inject new life into a dying industry," says Jaffe.

Time is money
The issue underlying arguments over strategy and new technology is the battle for a little of consumers' time and attention as they balance work, family and personal needs. "Time is the new currency," Jaffe says.

Marketers are looking for strategies that fit with ways consumers are cutting corners in their busy lives, such as using DVRs to watch TV shows on their schedules — and skipping the ads on playback.

"People are so busy, overdone, overworked and over committed," says Popcorn. "If I can watch Desperate Housewives without commercials, I can watch it in 40% of the programmed time."
Similarly, the iPod has let consumers, in effect, program their own commercial-free "radio."

"The iPod has forever ushered in individuals being in charge of their own playlists," says Burger King's Russ Klein, the chief marketing officer who's pushed the burger giant's greater use of non-traditional ad mediums. "It is a huge symbolism of how these customers insist on personal and individual power."

That insistence is likely to increase with the next big cohort of consumers, the 76 million so-called echo boomers, who've never known life without cell phones, laptops and iPods.

Breaking ground
Some examples of other advertisers trying new approaches along with traditional TV strategies:

•Burger King. Creating big buzz at Cannes last year was a Burger King Web site that featured a silly Subservient Chicken — a man in a tacky chicken suit — who responded to typed-in commands.

It was an Internet hit, and BK followed it last fall with a boxing match on DirecTV between fighters dressed as chickens who represented the T.C. (Tendercrisp) and Spicy (Spicy Tendercrisp) chicken sandwiches. The bout was then posted for replay on the Web.

BK began trying out such alternatives about three years ago. "We have probably doubled and almost doubled again our alternative media budgets over the past three years," says Klein.

He thinks the non-traditional ad is on its way to becoming standard. "In another 10-15 years all this stuff will be as normal as talking about 30-second ads," Klein says.

•Pepsi One. This diet cola hit the market in 1998 with a $100 million TV ad budget that included action spots with Cuba Gooding Jr.

For the brand's recent re-launch, however, Pepsi is using an approach that also includes Web, print and outdoor ads. Featured are characters who overcome differences to work together — to "Oneify" — the way Pepsi One unifies zero calories and full flavor.

The launch included a show at a gallery in New York City's trendy SoHo area featuring ads first posted on the Web. The same characters are now in 15-second TV ads.

"We're certainly not running away from television, but Web, print and outdoor ads can connect with consumers in a different way," says spokesman Dave DeCecco.

•Mini Cooper. The brand is owned by BMW, a pioneer in alternative ads on the Internet, including two short-film series.

The Mini brand recently created a Web site for the fictional "Counter Counterfeit Commission" (www.counterfeitmini.org). The interactive site, which has drawn 38 million hits, warns consumers of "Mini fakes" (essentially any non-Mini vehicle). It invites them to send in photos of such fakes and has drawn some oddball entries.

The site also sells a $19.99 comedy DVD that tells consumers how to detect fakes. Traditional TV ads on E!, History Channel, ESPN and MTV also pitch the DVD.

•Anheuser-Busch. The brewing giant recently hired JibJab studio — the shop behind the This Land presidential election spoof that spread across the Web to an estimated 80 million viewers last fall. JibJab's first Internet work for A-B will be out later this summer. A-B sees the Web as a cost-effective way to reach large numbers of its core young, male audience — a notoriously hard group to find.

"The consumer that comes to your Web site is actively looking for you, and that's the best media deal you can make," says Bob Lachky, head of A-B marketing.

Technorati Tags: marketing; advertising

WHY BEING FIRST MATTERS SO MUCH

2005-06-21T13:28:00.000-07:00

And Why Marketers Don't Want to Hear About It

Marketing people spend 95% of their time on brand maintenance when the real opportunities lie in brand creation.

Look what the iPod has done for Apple Computer. In the first quarter of 2005, Apple sold 5.3 million iPods. This year alone, iPod sales should reach $5 billion. The iPod brand dominates its market segment, accounting for 91% of all MP3 players with disk drives.

The iPod brand has also greatly benefited Apple shareowners. In the last two years, Apple Computer’s share price has quadrupled.

How do you create a brand like the iPod? It’s simple and at the same time difficult.

Be first
You become the first brand in a new category. No other strategy is as effective as this fundamental law of brand creation. Be first.

Coca-Cola, the world’s most valuable brand, was the first cola.

McDonald’s, the world’s largest fast-food company, was the first hamburger chain.

Nescafe, the world’s largest-selling coffee, was the first instant coffee.

It's never mentioned
Yet where in the lexicon of marketing is the idea of being first ever mentioned? I have read every issue of Advertising Age since 1952 and except in the articles written by my daughter, myself or my former partner Jack Trout, I have never read an article about the importance of being first.

Quite the contrary. The emphasis is always on creativity, research, sales promotion, media spending and, especially, “the big idea.” Or perhaps the fad of the moment, be it the Internet, one-to-one marketing or, the latest fad, branded entertainment.

I have attended numerous industry meetings and have heard numerous industry spokespeople make numerous speeches and, except in the speeches given by my daughter, myself or my former partner Jack Trout, I have never heard someone say, the secret to creating a powerful brand is to be first.

It’s a message that marketing people don’t want to hear. They think that it downgrades the marketing function. They think it implies that marketing doesn’t matter, that all you need to do to be successful is to be first.

Second part of the message
Too many marketing people hear only the first half of the message. The importance of being first. They don’t hear the second half, what we mean by being first. What we mean is being first in the mind, not in the marketplace.

Anybody can be first, but it takes good marketing thinking to get into the mind first.
As a matter of fact, being first is worth nothing. Being first in the mind is worth everything. This is the essence of creating a brand.

In our investigation of brands, very few leading brands were literally ever first. Usually there were a few false starts before someone figured out how to get into the consumer’s mind.
Duryea built the first automobile in America, but the brand never got into the mind. Ford was the first brand in the mind (and is still the leading automobile brand in America today).
Du Mont built the first TV set in America, but the brand never got into the mind.

Hurley built the first washing machine in America, but the brand never got into the mind.
When you look around the world, you find many brands like Duryea, Du Mont and Hurley. First in their categories, but not first in the mind. What could have been big winners turn out to be modest successes at best.

Krating Daeng
Take Krating Daeng, a popular health tonic in Thailand. The product is a lightly carbonated, highly caffeinated concoction containing liberal quantities of herbs, B-complex vitamins and amino acids. But it wasn’t anyone in Thailand that took the concept and built a worldwide brand. It was an Austrian named Dietrich Mateschitz who discovered the drink and saw its potential.

A temptation that’s hard to resist is to give a new category an “exotic” name. Mateschitz could have bought the rights to the name “Krating Daeng, ” for example. Or perhaps he could have called the new drink “Thailand Tea.”

What Mateschitz actually did was to call his Asian compound “an energy drink.” As it happens, the first energy drink. As a brand name, he picked Red Bull, an English variation of Krating Daeng.

Simple names work best when defining a new category. Not only is “energy drink” a simple name, it also benefits from an analogy with PowerBar, the first “energy bar.”

Filling an empty hole
Marketing can be visualized as “filling an empty hole in the mind.” If there’s a category called “energy bar,” the consumer thinks, there must be a category called energy drink (Red Bull.) Or sports drink (Gatorade) or fitness drink (Propel.)

Energy drink works as a category name even though there is little relationship between the ingredients in a can of Red Bull and the ingredients in energy bars like PowerBar, Balance bar, Clif Bar and Atkins bar.

Marketing people are sometimes too literal when they try to dream up a name for a new category. What matters most is not describing the benefits of the new category, but expressing the essence of the new category in as simple a way as possible.

After all, Red Bull became a powerful brand because it was perceived as a drink that improves performance especially during times of increased stress or strain, which some people take to mean sexual performance. (“Energy” is just a way of expressing that idea in a socially acceptable way.)

Red Bull became a runaway success. Worldwide sales are now than $2.1 billion a year.
The real question is, Why didn’t somebody in Thailand do what Dietrich Mateschitz did? Or somebody at Coca-Cola in Atlanta? Or somebody at PepsiCo in Purchase, n.Y.?

The truth is, the folks at the established soft-drink companies were too busy trying to squeeze the last ounce of value out of their existing brands. That’s why there are now 14 different varieties of Coca-Cola. (Marketing people spend 95% of their time on brand maintenance when the real opportunities lie in brand creation.)

Then there’s the iPod, the brand that turned around Apple Computer.

Creative Nomad Jukebox
But Apple wasn’t the first MP3 player with a disk drive. The iPod was first sold in retail stores in America on Nov. 11, 2001. More than a year earlier (in July 2000), Creative Technology Ltd., a Singapore company, was selling the Creative Nomad Jukebox, an MP3 player with a disk drive, in the U.S. market. Furthermore, the Jukebox had a 6-gigabyte hard drive vs. only 5 gigabytes for the initial iPod.

The Creative Nomad Jukebox got into the market first, but not into the mind first.

It didn’t have a chance to get into the mind because the company made a number of marketing mistakes. Let’s look at some of them:

Line extension. Creative Technology was already selling two other MP3 players. The Creative Nomad II and the Creative Nomad II MG (magnesium case.)

Both of these products had a 64-megabyte flash memory, which meant they could hold only about 20 songs instead of the thousands that a disk drive could hold.

In other words, the disk drive MP3 player is a totally separate category. Using the Creative name on both categories causes confusion that undermines the brand-building process.
A generic name. Even worse, “creative” is a descriptive, generic name. You can’t build a brand with a generic name. You need a brand name.

What’s a brand name? It’s a manufactured name like iPod, or a generic name used out of context. (Apple doesn’t sell apples.) And there are a host of other criteria to determine whether a given name would make a good brand name.

A long, complicated name. Compare “Creative Nomad Jukebox” (7 syllables) to “iPod” (2 syllables).

If you want to build a worldwide brand in today’s overcommunicated marketplace, you need a short, simple brand name. (Red Bull is also two syllables.)

Keep in mind that for a brand name to become truly successful, it needs to become the nickname for the category. Nobody calls the category “hard-disk-drive MP3 players.” They call them “iPods,” even the iPods made by other manufacturers. That’s another reason a name like Creative Nomad Jukebox would never work.

A lack of focus. In addition to making MP3 players, Creative Technology also makes a host of other products. The Creative Zen Portable Media Center (another terrible brand name), digital cameras, graphic accelerator cards, modems, CD and DVD drives, PC speakers, audio chips and electronic musical instruments.

Seeing the potential
Did Creative Technology see the potential of the disk drive MP3 player? Probably not, or they would have dropped everything to focus on this product.

Look at Nokia, the world’s eighth most-valuable brand. Nokia wasn’t the first company to introduce a cellphone. The first company to introduce a cellphone was Motorola.

Nor was Dell the first company to introduce a 16-bit business personal computer. The first company to introduce such a product was IBM.

Yet Motorola lost out to Nokia in cellphones for the same reason that IBM lost out to Dell in personal computers. Nokia meant cellphone and Motorola meant a wide range of products from communications equipment to global satellite systems.

Oddly enough, Nokia used to make a wide range of products: paper, rubber products including tires and boots, electronics, machinery and personal computers. But Nokia dropped everything in order to focus on cellphones.

Creative Technology should have done the same.
~ ~ ~ Al Ries is the author or co-author of 11 books on marketing, including his latest, The Origin of Brands, a book that applies Darwin’s theory of divergence to product categories and brands. He and his daughter Laura run the Atlanta-based marketing strategy firm Ries & Ries.

Technorati Tags: Marketing; PR; al ries

PR Vs. Advertising: This Time, It's Personal

2005-06-14T08:45:00.000-07:00

THE PUBLIC RELATIONS INDUSTRY, NOT advertising agencies, appears to be taking the lead on the burgeoning marketplace of so-called "personalized media." Ketchum, the giant public relations division of Omnicom, late Monday unveiled Ketchum Personalized Media, a new unit focused on "how, why and when" to integrate personalized media strategies into marketing communications plans. Ketchum is not the first PR firm to do so - Cooper Katz recently launched what it's calling a "Micro Persuasion" practice - but it is by far the largest so far.

Unlike traditional mass media communications, the micro media marketplace focuses on new forms of personalized, or consumer generated media such as blogs (Web logs), podcasts, RSS (really simple syndication) and new mobile marketing applications in which individuals transmit media content directly to a few or many end-users.

While most major ad agencies have begun tracking the rapidly growing field, none of yet formed a dedicated practice devoted to developing and exploiting what many believe could be the future of marketing communications.

"A lot of conflicting information and anxiety exist about how to incorporate these new online technologies into 'traditional' communications programs," said Paul Rand, a Ketchum Partner, Chicago Managing Director, and co-leader of the development team that oversees the new unit, which will draw on the firm's eKetchum Digital Media Group, as well as PR and technology offices worldwide. Ketchum executives said a global perspective is essential for understanding the personalized media marketplace, because technologies evolve differently in different markets.

For example, the firm said the U.S. is "six to 18-months behind" Europe and Asia in terms of new mobile marketing techniques such as Short Message Service (SMS), text-based messaging that has proven to be an especially viral way of spreading word-of-mouth in overseas markets. Perhaps the best example of SMS used on a wide scale in the U.S. was the high-profile phone-in-vote campaigns utilized by Fox's "American Idol" series.

A number of top media agencies have begun tracking and analyzing the personalized media marketplace, and are initiating programs to capitalize on it, but the PR industry appears to be developing it as a dedicated marketing services practice.

Technorati Tags: public relations; Advertising; Marketing

What American Consumers do on the Weekend

2005-06-02T16:10:00.000-07:00

Survey Finds Much of Weekend Life Neither Relaxing nor Fun

Want to know how your consumers are feeling after the weekend? Well, if you’re tracking young adults, bear in mind that they’re exhausted on Monday mornings and depressed to be back at work. But if you’re targeting 50-somethings, they’re likely to be more receptive: On Mondays, they’re re-energized and ready to get back to business.

Or so concludes the Great American Weekend survey commissioned by Life, the Time Inc. newspaper supplement.

Shopping, chores and family The March phone survey of 1,000 adults shows just how jammed weekends have become with shopping, chores and family activities. More than half of adults surveyed, 55%, spend more weekend time doing what they have to do than what they want to do.

”The ideal weekend is not out of reach, not on the verge of extinction, but it’s definitely endangered,” Life President Andy Blau said.

Almost half, 47%, do half or more of their grocery shopping on weekends. Discount chains such as Wal-Mart, Kmart and Target ranked as the favorite weekend shopping destinations. But as household income increased, consumers were less likely to list that type of store as their favorite -- and more likely to shop at membership warehouse stores such as Costco or Sam’s Club.
Importance of family Yet parts of the survey would make Norman Rockwell proud:

Most adults -- married or single, with or without children, city or rural, red state or blue -- stressed the importance of family time on weekends.

In households with children, family dinner at home ranked No. 1 among activities families had done together in recent weekends, especially if the family included a stay-at-home parent, was Caucasian or lived in a rural area. Relaxing with family and spending time with spouse or partner were far and away chosen as the most important activities in their ideal weekend. In actual weekend activities, watching TV ties for second place with exercising, even though few list watching TV in their scheme for an ideal weekend.

Adults 18-24 While most (51%) said they finish their weekends recharged, with 61% ready to get back to work, it was most true for adults 55-plus. Adults 18-24 end their frenzied weekends exhausted (51%) rather than recharged (39%). Among young adults, 51% are ready to get back to work -- but 41% are depressed about Monday.

TGIM? Not.

Technorati Tags: consumer; survey

Becoming an Industry Leader

2005-05-11T08:33:00.000-07:00

Media: 10 tips to increase coverage in industry articles

The ‘magic three’ rule often applies to industry articles: journalists typically quote three vendors in the industry on whatever issue they are writing about. The ‘three’ are often the three biggest organisations in the industry; however that’s not always the case. However, regardless of why they are quoted, often these three vendors become established as the voices of the industry, which has a self-perpetuating effect – other journalists also look to those organisations for comment.

This poses a problem for the organisations not in this ‘three’ due to either smaller size or lack of existing media relationships; it can become very hard for others to break in and get a share of the discussion.

In order to ‘break in’, you need to find a good reason for the journalist to include you… a way of providing value to the journalist and creating a point of difference compared to the other organisations the journalist usually chooses to include. Taking on such a challenge won’t bring success overnight, as building relationships and changing perceptions takes time.

Combined with an ongoing proactive media outreach program, the below ten tips will help you increase your likelihood of inclusion in industry articles.

1. Come up with new perspectives on topical industry issues. If you can offer the journalist a different perspective that will add interest and value to their article (that isn’t being offered by your competitors), your likelihood of inclusion will greatly increase.

2. Take a controversial stance (where appropriate). Disagreeing with the industry incumbents and taking a controversial stance will put you in good stead for inclusion in an industry article, because journalists love conflict! Just be sure that the contentious position you take is consistent with your brand positioning and message strategies.

3. Give ‘quotable quotes’. Put effort into your key messages; develop different ways of describing or referring to the issues of the discussion so that your spokesperson will give interesting, memorable and quotable quotes. Work hard on ‘sound-bites’, those short succinct and memorable phrases that can almost become buzz-phrases.

4. Be available. Return media calls quickly and have a spokesperson that is available for comment – especially at short notice. (Many CEOs and MDs travel a lot – so have at least a second authorised spokesperson as backup for opportunities that require comment within the hour or the day.)

5. Have approved messaging ready to go. Research industry issues – those currently being covered in the media and those that may be simmering just under the surface – then develop messaging and get approval so that you will be able to respond quickly to media opportunities and requests.

6. Position spokesperson as an information resource. So that media have a clear idea of who your spokesperson is, and the topics that they are qualified/capable of talking on, distribute a bio of your spokesperson and a list of key topics that they can talk on to your target media.

7. Ensure spokespeople are media trained. By making sure that your spokespeople are media trained (or have had a recent refresher), you will ensure that they are used to the interview process, easy for journalists to work with, and will achieve the best results for your organisation.

8. Educate media on where your organisation fits in to the industry. Unless media have a good understanding of how your organisation fits into the industry they will be unlikely to include you in an industry article. Set up one-on-one briefings to introduce the spokesperson to key media and educate them about your organisation. Use this time to give the journalist good reasons as to why your organisation is important in the industry and highlight the key differentiators from competitors.

9. Respond to articles in the media. If you read an article that you would have liked to be included in and feel that you can offer a unique perspective or opinion that was not covered, respond to the journalist who wrote the article in case they may like to do a follow-up piece. Keep in mind that while this approach may not generate any immediate coverage, it will start a dialogue with the journalist.

10. Pitch industry article ideas. Another way of gaining inclusion in industry articles is to proactively pitch industry article ideas to journalists. This way, you position your spokesperson and your organisation at the centre of the article.

In conclusion, if you want your organisation to be perceived as a leader in your ‘space’ then you have to work at it. More often it’s not who you are and where you have come from – it’s about being smart enough to realise what the media wants and being prepared to feed their appetite.

Technorati Tags: media, public relations

Word Of Mouth Advertising

2005-05-10T08:21:00.000-07:00

Word of mouth advertising has become "the rage", there is even an association for it now. For more information about WoM, click here to read a white paper from WOMMA.
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Marketing: Rise of word-of-mouth marketing gives PR fresh impetus
The rise of word-of-mouth (WoM) marketing is providing fresh impetus to PR as a marketing tool.

As traditional media channels multiply, ‘clutter’ increases, consumers ‘turn off’, and marketers require new ways to ‘connect’ with those they want to sell to – it’s WoM – whose origins and techniques are interwoven with those of PR – that is emerging as a potent force in marketing communication.

How much Australia is embracing WoM is evidenced by a recent article in the Australian Financial Review (14 February 2005) by Neil Shoebridge, one of Australia’s most knowledgeable and influential marketing writers. He began the article by saying:

“Australian marketers will pump about $9 billion into media advertising this year, using television, newspaper, magazine, radio, outdoor and cinema ads to promote their products and services.

“But they know that media advertising is not the most powerful form of marketing; that title belongs to word-of-mouth recommendations.

“Creating a brand that consumers will recommend to their friends, family and colleagues is the holy grail of marketing.

“Nothing is more effective than a personal recommendation. No consumer is more powerful than the brand advocate, those people who happily recommend brands”.

There’s a raft of books beginning to appear on this subject – and as with any new area there is a lot of debate. So here’s PR Influences’ ‘quick guide’ to word-of-mouth marketing:

What is word-of-mouth (WoM) marketing?
In its simplest form it’s when a prospect for a product or service learns about it, or has its appropriateness endorsed by people he or she either personally knows or is perceived to be a trusted advocate. This is in contrast to being made aware or influenced by advertising or direct mail or other traditional marketing techniques.

What is new about WoM?
In some ways it’s not new. Over the years we’ve all been strongly influenced by recommendations from friends and those we trust. However, as a consequence of the explosion of media that bombard us, and the advertising this contains, many consumers are ‘turning off’. As a result marketers are now turning what has for years been part of marketing (albeit minor and in the background) into a new separate marketing discipline (much like the emergence of CRM a few years back).

What are the principles behind WoM?
A successful WoM strategy seeks to find ways to reach or engage with the prospect in a manner that is perceived to be unlike the traditional advertising and sales push. As part of the process a key aim is to give the product or service more credibility in the eyes of the prospect.
What examples of word-of-mouth marketing are there?

There are many different aspects to WoM. In Australia products such as Nudie Juice and Krispy Kreme doughnuts were largely lunched using WoM techniques i.e.: there was virtually no traditional advertising or promotion. More recently Cut, a spin-off from Absolute, has done the same. Internationally, awareness for the film ‘Passion’ was achieved through a concentrated campaign aimed initially at religious audiences.

What is the connection between PR and WoM?
Many claim that WoM is an extension of traditional PR techniques. In fact many of the elements of a successful WoM campaign need to be driven by PR. This is because PR, which has always been about influencing opinion formers (such as media) and obtaining third-party endorsement, is the most knowledgeable and capable of the marketing service providers to manage the strategic implementation of a WoM campaign.

How does WoM link with the recent focus on the importance of Influencers?
The recent focus on the fact that influencers – who make up 10 percent of the population – directly influence the decisions of the other 90 percent (click here for further information), is an underlying principle behind WoM and part of the reason for the development of WoM as a specialist discipline. Significantly, it is PR that has been the champion of Influencer programs and hence the catalyst for the growth of its strategic evolution.

Isn’t one-on-one promotion of products also WoM?
Yes – it’s a form of WoM, often called Buzz Marketing (eg: where people are paid to sit in bars to talk about the benefits of a particular drink). The same technique has also been used to encourage people to try new electronic ‘toys’. While this is part of WoM, it is more akin to the old-fashioned product sampling – except that there’s not the same level of disclosure and transparency. It has its place as a tactical tool, but unless it is a component of an integrated campaign which results in media and other opinion-formers involvement/participation, its impact is likely to be rather limited.

However, this end of the WoM business – which in many instances is product sampling simply taken a step further - is under scrutiny. Some of the ploys used are perceived to be ethically questionable, and in the US a code of ethics has recently been unveiled to protect consumers from some of these more dubious practices.

Notwithstanding this, the use of buzz marketing is a legitimate marketing tool as evidenced by the fact that Proctor & Gamble has set up a specialist ‘buzz marketing’ company in the US called Tremor. It employs 280,000 teenagers to generate positive WoM recommendations, not only about its own products but on behalf of other companies such as Coca Cola.

Not so visible, but growing rapidly in the US, are the more private influencer building programs. These techniques fall within the sphere of PR agencies and in-house PR departments and aim to identify and build relationships among opinion formers and potential advocates in a manner that will directly support a brand.

These programs essentially apply core techniques used by PR people for many years as part of lead generation programs. However, they have now been ‘discovered’ by marketers, ‘tweaked’ and modified to relate to brands, and are now becoming a key element in brand marketing campaigns.

Technorati Tags: word-of-mouth, marketing, public relations

Al Ries on Marketing

2005-05-09T09:21:00.000-07:00

This is a great article written by Al Ries in Ad Age. If you aren't familiar with Al Ries and you are a PR pro or marketer, you better get in gear! He has written numerous books on marketing and PR that are great textbooks for new practitioners. I must emphasize the importance of reading Positioning. It is a must read and a great way to re-think the positioning of your product! I am including the entire article because of its importance.
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WHY THE PEOPLE METER APOLLO PROJECT IS OFF BASE
Public Relations Builds Brands Better Than Ad Promotions

You might have missed it but a 10-page cover article in the April 10 The New York Times Magazine accurately profiled the mindset of the marketing community.

"Watching What You Watch" was the article's headline. "How technology is about to radically change TV-audience monitoring -- and how that will transform advertising, the networks and, possibly, the very nature of television" was the article's subhead.

Wearing a little black box
What was all the smoke and fire about? For the past few months, Arbitron has been recruiting a couple of thousand volunteers in Houston and asking them to wear a black box the size of cellphone every waking hour.

Called a PPM (for portable people meter), the box will record exactly how much TV and radio programming a person is exposed to. Before going the bed, the volunteers will dock their PPMs in cradles that will then automatically send the data to an Arbitron computer center in Maryland.

The rating firm will measure not just how much programming but also exactly what programming each volunteer is exposed to. Arbitron is asking radio and TV stations to run their broadcasts through an encoding device so that a PPM can tell the dates, times and stations each volunteer has listened to. Comparing this data with the stations' logs will produce the first totally accurate measure of a TV or radio spot's actual audience.

Project Apollo
But that's just for starters. Arbitron has a joint venture with the parent company of another broadcast rating firm (Nielsen's parent VNU) to measure not just the ratings, but the impact of the advertising. The venture is called Project Apollo.

If all goes according to plan, tens of thousands people across the country will ultimately be wearing PPM boxes in the near future. The advertisements these people see or hear will then be matched to the purchases they make. (Even the people’s Internet usage will be monitored.)

The eternal question
Voila! We have entered Marketing Nirvana. Apollo will finally answer that eternal question, Does advertising really work?

"Apollo is basically something that's been the Holy Grail of measurement since people were drawing wooly mammoths on the side of caves," said David Verklin, CEO of Carat Americas, one of the biggest media-buying agencies.

But is it the Holy Grail? Is Apollo going to turn broadcast advertising into a research-oriented discipline, much like direct mail? I don't think so.

When was the last time you saw, heard or read an advertisement and then went out and bought the product or service advertised?

Trigger is a deal
It happens, of course. But most of the time the trigger is not a conventional brand-building ad at all. Most of the time the trigger is a deal. (A sale, a coupon, a special offer.)

What do you find in a research-oriented discipline like direct mail? That's right: sales, coupons, special offers.

But deals don't build brands.

If Apollo gets off the ground, you are going to see an explosion of consumer promotions. These are the same consumers who are already bombarded with some 250 billion coupons a year.

Chasing the wrong model
In my opinion, Apollo is chasing the wrong model. Marketing people live in an advertising-centric world, but consumers don't. Advertising is the bread and butter of the marketing community, but consumers see advertising mostly as an annoyance. So if Apollo is the Holy Grail of the marketing community, then TiVo is the Holy Grail of the consumer community.

Many marketing people believe that brand building is essentially an advertising game. The brand with the best advertising, the brand with the most advertising is going to win. So they launch programs with heavy, upfront advertising campaigns. The theory is if you can win the advertising battle, you will win the marketing war.

In a recent issue of Advertising Age, the first-year cost of a major product launch was estimated to be $68.3 million, of which the advertising accounted for $40 million, or about 60% of the budget.

Spending that’s out of whack
Something is out of whack. Sure there have been plenty of new brands launched with advertising budgets of $40 million or more. (Pets.com and quite a few of the early dot-coms, for example.) But when you look at the brands that really made it big, you see a different pattern.

Starbucks, Red Bull, Google, Amazon, eBay, Linux and many other powerful brands weren't launched with big advertising budgets at all. In its first 10 years, for example, Starbucks spent less than $10 million – total -- on advertising.

Take Apple's iPod, a classic example of a billion-dollar brand launched primarily with PR. Sure they ran heavy advertising, but only after the brand had already been established.

IPod ads reinforce perception
And what do you make of the iPod TV commercials? Colorful silhouettes of young people dancing with white wires in their ears. The iPod TV spots don't tell what product is, what it does or what it costs. Viewers already know that.

What the commercials do is to reinforce the perception that the iPod is the coolest product on the planet.

Ditto for Sony's PlayStation Portable, except that they haven't run any advertising at all, yet they sold hundreds of thousands of PSPs the first week they were on sale.

Word of mouth and PR
It's time for marketing to ditch its advertising-centric model and look at the real world. Where do consumers get most of their information about brands? It's not advertising. Most of what consumers learn about products and services they get by word of mouth or by PR.

That's not to say that advertising doesn't have a function. It does. But that function is not to inform. Advertising's function is to reinforce what's already been put in the consumer's mind by other means.

So when will we see a 10-page cover article in The New York Times Magazine on the virtues of launching a brand with PR? Probably not very soon. That would go against the publication's self-interest.

The New York Times Magazine sells advertising space. It doesn't sell PR space.

~ ~ ~ Al Ries is the author or co-author of 11 books on marketing, including his latest, The Origin of Brands. He and his daughter Laura run the Atlanta-based marketing strategy firm Ries & Ries.

Technorati Tags: Al Ries, marketing, public relations, Arbitron

You Too Can Be A Pro at Pitching

2005-05-05T08:15:00.000-07:00

Mastering the 30-Second Pitch
To captivate prospective clients, distill the most pertinent information about your business or product into a quick and compelling message

How you pitch the story behind your small-business's services, products, or companies means the difference between making a sale and being shown the door. And if you have competitors who get their point across in a more clear, concise, and compelling way -- even if they're hawking inferior products -- they could steal your prospects because you failed to capture attention right out of the gate.

So, how do you craft the perfect strategic pitch for your business and then guarantee prospective clients will sit still while you deliver it? Relax, we'll show you how to compose the pitch, and it will take no more than 30 seconds to say. The secret: choosing your words carefully and getting right to the point.

TRUMPING THE DEAL. Research proves that we make lasting judgments about individuals in as little as two seconds. The first two seconds have more to do with body language than content, but what you say follows close behind.

During my years as a business correspondent for CNN, I was stunned to discover how few business professionals could articulate a compelling story in 30 seconds. There is one man, however, who has it mastered. Love him or hate him, Donald Trump always nails the perfect pitch. Inquire about any one of his buildings, properties, or projects, and Trump will give a short but exciting statement about it.

For example, when asked to describe the success of The Apprentice, Trump once said, "It's Survivor, but it's the real survivor. It's in the jungle of New York. People can relate to New York, and that's really what they want. Last night, we were No. 1 in demographics. And that's the important rating, as you know, the 18 to 49 age group."

FIRST STEPS. Yes, Trump boasts self-indulgently about his show and his properties -- but he backs it with facts. He differentiates each and every project. He makes you want to hear more. He may have clinched the art of the deal, but he's also clinched the pitch.

Today, as a business presentation coach, I help clients find their own voice. After working with hundreds of executives on their presentation skills, I've discovered the easiest way to craft an exciting pitch: Simply ask the following four questions: What is my service, product, company, or cause? What problem do I solve (or what demand do I meet)? How am I different? Why should you care?

Answering these queries will help you start strong while giving the rest of your presentation a direction. During a corporate workshop in Monterey, Calif., I helped a group of executives with a pitch for their company, Language Line Services. After about an hour of brainstorming, we came up with a powerful 30-second message -- but only after answering the four questions. Let's begin with the result:

THE FOUR QUESTIONS. "Language Line Services is the world's largest provider of phone interpretation services for companies who want to connect with their non-English-speaking customers. Every 23 seconds, someone who doesn't speak English enters the country. When that person calls a hospital, a bank, an insurance company, or 911, it's likely that a Language Line interpreter is on the other end. We help you talk to your customers, patients, or sales prospects in 150 languages!"

This takes less than 30 seconds to say and gives potential customers a reason to learn more about the company. Watch how simple it was to put this example together after answering the four questions:

Question 1: What is my service, product, company, or cause? "Language Line is the world's largest provider of phone interpretation services." If your company offers a service rather than a tangible product, say so.

Question 2: What problem do I solve? "Every 23 seconds, someone who doesn't speak English enters the country." Every service, product, company, or cause must offer a solution or satisfy an unmet demand. Otherwise, you might as well be making buggy whips in the automobile age.

Question 3: How am I different? "When you call a hospital, bank, insurance company, or 911, it's likely that a Language Line interpreter is on the other end." By not directly saying "We're number one in the industry," the pitch takes a softer approach but still lets the potential customer know the company is a leader in its field. Odds are, you're not the only one doing what you're doing. Be different.

Question 4: Why should you care? "We help you talk to your customers, patients, or sales prospects in 150 languages." Wow! Now I want to hear more. If you can't tell your audience members how your product or service will improve their financial well-being or their lives in general, they will dismiss you faster than moviegoers tuned out Gigli.

SAVES MONEY. It's that simple to craft a compelling pitch. Answer those four questions, and you'll stand out. Your listeners just want to know, in a clear and concise way, what you do, what problem you solve, how you're different, and why they should care about you or your message.

Instead of taking your team on an expensive corporate retreat to craft a mission statement that will be forgotten by the time you return to the office, spend half an hour answering the previous four questions. Once you've arrived upon a strong 30-second pitch, send it to everyone in the company and include it on your Web site and in your marketing collateral. It will bring you far more success than you can imagine. Please feel free to share your successful pitches with me via e-mail. I'll gladly tell you what I think of the pitch you've crafted.

Communicating with the Valley Hits 1,000 Site Visits!

2005-05-04T15:32:00.000-07:00

I want to personally thank everyone who has visited my blog and continues to do so. I am dedicated to bringing you news that is valuable to you in business and your personal life. I hope you enjoy my postings. If you have any suggestions or comments, please don't hesitate to post them!

Warm Regards,

Erica

Exerpt From: Blogs Will Change Your Business

2005-05-04T15:04:00.000-07:00

It's the latest wrinkle on Descartes. I blog therefore I... consult. An entire industry is rising up to guide companies into this frightening new realm. And the consultants establish their brands and reps with their blogs. Perhaps the biggest is Steve Rubel. A year ago, the exec at the PR firm CooperKatz & Co. started his blog, Micro Persuasion. He was already pushing such clients as WeatherBug and the Association of National Advertisers into the blog world.

Then early one Sunday morning, as he recalls it, "my wife was sleeping, and I was sitting in the living room, laptop on my lap, and thinking if I am talking to clients and reading these blogs, I should jump in."

When launching his site, he had the smarts to contact big shots such as Dan Gillmor, who was a leading blogger and tech reporter with the San Jose Mercury News. Gillmor linked to Rubel's site, and his traffic took off. It was great for his brand, and it also gave Rubel a blogger's education. "I became a living guinea pig for what I preach," he says.

Now Rubel is positioned as an all-knowing Thumper in a forest of clueless Bambis. The first job, he says, is to monitor the blogs to see what people are saying about your company. (An entire industry is growing to sell that service. Even IBM's (IBM ) banging at the door.) Next step: Damage-control strategies. How to respond when blogs attack. He says companies have to learn to track what blogs are talking about, pinpoint influential bloggers, and figure out how to buttonhole them, privately and publicly.

He gives the example of Netflix (NFLX ). When a fan blog called Hacking Netflix asked the company for info and interviews last year, Netflix turned it down. How could they make time for all the bloggers? Predictably, the blogger, Mike Kaltschnee, aired the exchange, and Netflix faced a storm of public criticism. Now Netflix feeds info to Kaltschnee, and he passes along what he's hearing from the fans. Sounds like he's half journalist, half consultant -- though he insists Netflix doesn't pay him.

Gen X & Y Get News Through Technology

2005-04-21T12:51:00.000-07:00

Carnegie Study: Young Adults Are 'Abandoning' Papers

A new generation of technology-savvy young people are getting their news in ways that threaten the very viability of newspapers and other traditional news media, according to a study commissioned by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

"Abandoning the News," the study written by MSNBC.com's founding editor-in-chief, Merrill Brown, adds more grim statistics to growing literature documenting the newspaper industry's losing effort to appeal to a young audience.

The survey of 18-to-34-year-old finds, for instance, that just 19% read a newspaper daily, 17% read it once a month or less -- and 12% said they "never" read a paper to get their news.

By contrast, 44% of the young people visited a Web news portal every day, and 37% watch local TV news daily.

Only 14% of respondents called the newspaper their "most important" source of news. Local TV newscasts were called the most important source for news by 31% of the young adults, while another 25% cited the Internet.

There's a little bit of good news for newspapers in the report, which has not yet been officially released but is available on Carnegie's Web site. For one thing, more than half of the respondents told the survey they trust newspapers "a lot." But stop the presses: The 25-to-34-year-olds in the surveyed group said the Internet is as trustworthy as newspapers. And more than half of the heaviest newspaper users among young adults predicted that in the next three years they will be accessing the Web more for news.

"I would say [the results were] slightly grimmer than I thought they would be, particularly in terms of the standing of newspapers," Brown told E&P in a telephone interview Wednesday evening. "I think the credibility question, and the utility of newspaper -- or the lack thereof -- was really startling to me. I hope it's kind of wake-up call for the industry."

In his report, Brown argues that traditional news outlets must figure out ways to "engage" young people the way the Internet does. "In short, the future of the U.S. news industry is seriously threatened by the seemingly irrevocable move by young people away from traditional sources of news," he writes.

As an industry, newspapers in particular are doing a poor job of responding to these new market pressures, said Brown, a former Washington Post reporter: "Here's this huge revenue opportunity that has moved to Yahoo. Yahoo is having these amazing [financial] quarters. And the newspaper industry response to that is to trim the staff of their online news sites because they want to keep their bottom line. This is classic business school fodder here. When somebody else is eating your lunch, your response is to run away? The industry needs to invest."

Brown said he is also troubled by a common industry explanation that young people aren't reading newspapers because they're not that interested in the news itself. The survey, conducted in May 2004 by Frank N. Magid Associates, shows 18-to-34-year-olds want news, but most of them don't see a need to get it from a newspaper. "There's a blame-the-audience mentality in the industry," Brown said.

"Abandoning the News" does highlight a few promising newspaper responses, such as The Northwest Voice, a weekly launched by The Bakersfield Californian that is largely written by readers who submit news via the Web.

Newspapers have to think "new product development," Brown said."The industry has to make big bets a la Dow Jones Marketwatch, or smaller bets like what's going on in Greensboro. That's got to be the culture of the industry, or the result is going to be really, truly fatal," he said. The News & Record in Greensboro, N.C., as E&P has written recently, is turning its Web site into a kind of virtual town square with continual input from Web users and print readers.

"This will take time, it will take patience and resources-- and it will also take guts," Brown said. "There's not enough risk-taking in the newspaper industry."

News You Can Use Today

2005-04-08T15:27:00.000-07:00

MILLER BREWING NAMES NEW CMO
CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- The Miller Brewing Co. today announced the retirement of Chief Marketing Officer Bob Mikulay and named Tom Long, the president of Coca-Cola's Northwest European Division, its new marketing chief.

Mr. Long, who oversaw Coca-Cola operations in Great Britain, Ireland, France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, will join the beer company effective July 1, according to the brewer.

'Next level'
“Tom is a strong, decisive leader and his mandate is to take our marketing capability to the next level,” Miller's president-CEO, Norman Adami, said in a release.

Mr. Mikulay's last day with Miller, a unit of SABMiller, is April 8. Mr. Mikulay joined the brewer in 1999 and previously was senior vice president for marketing with former Miller parent Philip Morris Cos.

The most recent highlight of Mr. Mikulay’s tenure was the revival of Miller Lite.

Interim CMO
Charlie Frenette, a former Coke executive who is on the Miller board and is a consultant, will serve as interim chief marketing officer.

Mr. Long has served in several senior marketing and sales roles for the soft drink company, including as vice president of strategic marketing, with global responsibility for managing the company’s entire brand portfolio. He also served as Coca-Cola’s head of worldwide marketing insights and research.

Company Profile: General Motors Makeover

2005-03-31T09:23:00.000-07:00

How Can General Motors Remake Itself?

THERE used to be a saying that what's good for General Motors is good for America. But that was in the days when one of every two cars sold in the United States bore a G.M. brand name. Now, with its market share falling toward 25 percent, General Motors is struggling to revive its core business - selling America its cars, trucks and minivans - and seems in need of a few good ideas.

The problem is not the size of the General Motors advertising budget. Last year, the company spent almost $3 billion to advertise to American consumers, according to TNS Media Intelligence, second only to Procter & Gamble.

The extent of G.M.'s difficulties was underscored by a survey, taken last week by the trade publication Advertising Age, which asked its readers, "Can G.M. be fixed?" A startling 46 percent of the respondents replied no.

Even so, there remain many on Madison Avenue who believe that General Motors can turn around, although, as more than one executive said, it will not be easy. With the caveat that free advice can sometimes be worth what it costs, what follows are some of their suggestions, offered in interviews yesterday.

The most important step General Motors can take is "to reverse-engineer its marketing strategy," said Joseph Jaffe, president of Jaffe, a new-marketing consulting company in Westport, Conn., "from a top-down approach to a bottom-up approach."

"General Motors has forgotten who drives its cars," he added. "It all starts with one consumer, and you build from there."

To accomplish that, G.M. must accelerate a shift from its traditional "mass-market, one-size-fits-all approach," Mr. Jaffe said, as epitomized by broad-based television commercials and print advertisements, and more ardently embrace unconventional tactics. Among them, he listed producing video games that double as advertising; running ads in video games; inviting consumers to create their own ads, on Web sites; and making use of branded entertainment, embedding ads in television programs and movies.

That change would be particularly effective, said Michael Megalli, a partner at Group 1066, a corporate identity consulting company in New York, in reaching an audience that General Motors ought to court more to help alleviate its problems: younger consumers.

"The aging baby-boomer set is lost to G.M.," Mr. Megalli said. "G.M. should go young the way Toyota has with Scion." His reference was to a brand of offbeat cars created by Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. specifically for younger consumers, a risk that has so far paid off with growing sales.
A major area where General Motors can change its game, the executives agreed, is in its brand offerings.

"In a society looking more for a set of values on wheels to bond with, G.M. seems to be falling back on offering commodity brands" sold on deals and rebates, said Robert Passikoff, president of Brand Keys, a consulting company in New York specializing in brand and customer loyalty.

"Other brands give you a sense of what they are: Mercedes-Benz stands for living well; BMW stands for living fast; Volvo stands for safety," he added. "When we ask people about G.M. brands, we get very neutral assessments; they don't stand for anything."

Jonah Disend, president of Redscout, a brand strategy consultant in New York, agreed. "G.M. has gone from the great branding company to the great 'blanding' company," he said, in large part because "it can't possibly focus on all the brands it has."

There are eight principal G.M. brands in the United States: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Hummer, Pontiac, Saab and Saturn. A ninth, Oldsmobile, has been discontinued.

That panoply of brands ought to be pared quickly, many executives advised.

"If we're honest, Buick and Pontiac have not meant anything to anyone for a very, very long time," said Marc E. Babej, president of Reason Inc. in New York, a marketing strategy company. "They might look good on a corporate positioning grid, but not in the marketplace."

As the company discontinues brands deemed laggards, Mr. Babej suggested, it should also refocus its remaining brands on one mission: "building cars that give people more of a reason to choose them."

"No amount of brand image, no matter how well-spun, can stand in for product differentiation," Mr. Babej said. Praising the efforts G.M. is making to revive its Cadillac brand with a fleet of distinctive new products, backed by emotional advertising that resonates with the intended audience, Mr. Babej said that example could be emulated by making Chevrolet "the all-American, entry-level brand" and Buick "the brand for the middle class."

Read rest of story at the NYT...

Blogging in Demand

2005-03-29T09:41:00.000-07:00

Universal Study Finds Blogging Still Small, Growing Among Young Adults

WEB BLOGGING MAY HAVE COMMANDED a large share of news headlines last year, but bloggers themselves are still a rare breed, amounting to less than 2 percent of the adult population, according to a recent study by Universal McCann and Media in Mind. The research is detailed in "The Rise of the Consumer-Generated Media Machine," Media magazine's April cover story, which explores how blogs, forums, and usergroups are changing marketers' relationships with consumers. But, although the ranks of bloggers are small, demographic trends suggest that history is on their side. Young adults ages 18-24 are almost three times as likely as the general population to have blogged: When asked if they had ever kept an online journal, 5.2 percent of respondents in the 18-24 bracket responded yes, compared to 1.9 percent of all adults.

Do bloggers use media differently than their less expressive counterparts? Apparently so, according to the study. Bloggers over age 18 spend 14 hours and 14 minutes each week online, compared to non-bloggers' 8 hours and 47 minutes.

Adult bloggers also spend less time reading newspapers than non-bloggers--2 hours and 53 minutes a week for bloggers, compared to 3 hours and 7 minutes. Among young adults--who, as a group, spend less time reading the newspaper--the blogger/non-blogger distinction is even more pronounced. Bloggers between the ages of 18 and 24 spend just 46 minutes a week reading the paper, compared to 1 hour and 37 minutes for the non-bloggers.

Market Focus: Hispanic Women

2005-03-28T13:38:00.000-07:00

WITH A COMBINED PURCHASING POWER of more than $700 billion and a population growing by an estimated 1.7 million annually, U.S. Hispanics represent a demographic marketers are belatedly warming up to. Ad spending targeting Hispanics is expected to top $3.6 billion by 2007. Hispanic women, who often function as head of their households, make many of the purchasing decisions for their families. An efficient strategy for marketing to them goes beyond merely speaking Spanish, but recognizing the diverse cultures Hispanic women come from, says Myrna Sonora, marketing director with the Michaels/Wilder Group based in Peoria, Ariz. Sonora joined the agency, which has a strong focus on multicultural marketing, after spending 20 years at Univision, the dominant Spanish-language TV network.

"It seems like there's a waking-up to this reality," Sonora says, noting that U.S. companies no longer doubt the viability of the Hispanic market. "Smart companies are more focused on going beyond all the hype and becoming more savvy about the Hispanic market in general," she says. "It's not a homogenous mix. &there are different cultures and regional language differences. [Hispanics] come from different countries and they vary from recent arrivals to established generations."

Marketers, Sonora says, need to understand a few things about Hispanic women. The first, she says, is that they are price-conscious, but not to the exclusion of all else. "Buying the best quality is somehow identified as a way to take care of your family," Sonora says. "Hispanic women are very brand-loyal; they stick to what they like and they're not easily swayed by price point." Brand loyalty, though, can be overcome if there's a product that represents a real improvement or technological advantage, she says. "It's seen as a progressive thing to do, trying something new."

The Vendors Television has been the media of choice for the Hispanic market for years, accounting for 64 percent of ad spending in 2004, but other media are starting to make inroads as the market continues to grow. As the number of Hispanic households with incomes over $100,000 surges, so too do the number of computers found in those homes. Marketers that are online via Spanish-language portals have an entry into these households.

AOL Latino was the No. 1 Spanish-language destination online in February with 1.6 million unique visitors, according comScore Media Metrix. AOL Latino has cultivated close relationships with advertisers in its "Estilo de Vida" (Lifestyle) section, which is one of the most highly sought-after areas on the service. Notably, the section has been home to successful campaigns by General Motors and Ford Motor Co. brands.

"We feel that the audience in this channel which is particularly women, is not often addressed this directly by the automakers," says AOL spokeswoman Lori Dolginoff. The travel category has also performed well - advertisers include Spirit Airlines and Interacontinental Hotels. The home and kitchen sections have outperformed some of the other areas on Latino, she says.

Read the whole article at MediaDaily News...

Company Profile: Pier 1 New Strategy

2005-03-15T10:15:00.000-07:00

Pier 1, Once Starstruck, Changes Focus
Retailer Now Puts Products In Limelight, Shying Away From Using a Famous Face

When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true. Or so goes the song. But when Pier 1 Imports last tried that trick -- banking on a celebrity spokesman in ads -- it just didn't take.

After what became one of 2004's bigger marketing miscues, the Fort Worth, Texas, home-furnishings retailer pulled television ads featuring "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" decorator Thom Filicia in late September -- and stayed off TV even as the crucial holiday-sales season got under way. "When you pull your advertising in a retail business, that's death," says John V. Allen of HighBridge Consulting, a Darien, Conn., branding consultant.

Employing famous faces is usually a tried-and-true selling technique, lending sheen and buzz to products and corporate images. But marketers have to proceed with particular care. A celebrity's connection with the public can change at any time, and his or her behavior outside a commercial is beyond anyone's control.

No Payoff
Mr. Filicia's Pier 1 appearance came just as he was enjoying a wave of popularity, but his heat didn't transfer to sales. Translating Mr. Filicia's expertise was difficult to do in 30-second TV commercials, says Marvin Girouard, Pier 1's chairman and chief executive.

Pier 1 has contended with a 17-month-long streak of negative same-store sales. On March 4, the company's credit rating was placed on CreditWatch with negative implications by Standard & Poor's.

A new direction is revealed in new TV ads that focus on products rather than a member of the glitterati. Starting Monday, Pier 1 will air lush animated ads created by Interpublic Group's Deutsch featuring the various items a shopper might find in a Pier 1 outlet, from a Tibetan box to candles to an Indian rug. The ads suggest the far-flung places from which furnishings and accessories might arrive, and are part of a multifaceted campaign that also makes Pier 1 stores seem more navigable by reducing the amount of in-store merchandise.

Pier 1 is boosting its media presence as well, by targeting more top-rated programming over the second-tier and daytime shows it once favored, according to Kathleen Brookbanks of Omnicom Group's OMD, which buys media time for the advertiser.

The new ads will appear in multiple-eyeball territory such as "Lost" on Walt Disney's ABC and "The Apprentice" on General Electric's NBC. Pier 1 spent about $48.7 million on media time and space in 2004, according to TNS Media Intelligence, down from about $55.7 million in 2003.

'Driving Traffic'
Flashy ad methods are nice, but getting shoppers to come into Pier 1's more than 1,200 outlets is more important than any one concept used in its ads, say executives involved with the campaign. "You can be as funny and as charming or as elegant and sophisticated as you want about it, but at the end of the day, you're driving traffic and you had better do that," says Kathy Delaney, an executive creative director at Deutsch.

Wall Street also thinks Pier 1 needs to click with the new ads. "There's a lot riding on this campaign," says Neely Tamminga, senior retail analyst at Piper Jaffray. Rivals such as Target have offered home-furnishings alternatives that play upon the treasures-from-another-world theme that made Pier 1's name in the marketplace, she says. "Clearly, a lot of competitive pressures have stepped up," says Ms. Tamminga.

When Pier 1 tapped Mr. Filicia, it was refreshing an ad strategy that had worked for some time. The company had used actress Kirstie Alley from 2001 through 2003, but -- in another instance of the challenges celebrities can pose to an advertiser -- "the commercials became a little more about her than about Pier 1, we felt, so we moved away," Mr. Girouard says.

Retail experts think Pier 1 still has something to sell. "There is not a decline in the American consumer's appetite" for its hip-but-affordable wares, says Gwen Morrison of The Store, a WPP Group retail consultant. Whatever the issue, Mr. Girouard says he expects to see improvement by June -- a good time to see if these products can pull off their featured role.

Company Profile: McDonald's

2005-03-09T08:41:00.000-07:00

MCDONALD'S UNVEILS GLOBAL AD CAMPAIGN AIMED AT CHILDREN
Marketing Effort Responds to Obesity Controversy

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- McDonald's Corp., the world's biggest fast-food chain, today unveiled an aggressively positive global marketing campaign to promote eating right and staying active, especially in messages geared to children, even as other marketers are shying away from ads aimed at youngsters.

Among the health-oriented visual gimmicks in the new McDonald's TV ads is an animated lettuce head character.

Obesity issue
The global effort is clearly a response to the public health advocates, governments and other critics who have called for a crackdown on the food marketers they blame for an explosion in childhood obesity.

At a crowded McDonald's restaurant in Times Square this morning, McDonald's CEO Jim Skinner introduced the effort, which includes TV commercials, sponsorships with various media and nonprofit organizations, Web sites, in-restaurant promotions and endorsements from celebrities and athletes, all aimed at families and children.

Nutritional balance
The message: People should pay attention to the foods they eat and their level of activity to find the right balance.

"We're focusing on energy balance in this broad-based, global program and providing a framework that will be adapted around the world, country by country," Mr. Skinner said. "Our size and our strength allow us to set an example."

Added Dean Barrett, senior vice president and global brand business officer for global marketing: "We are listening, we are learning, and we are going to change."

Ad budget shifted
The health-related ads incorporate and expand on McDonald's global tagline, "I'm lovin' it," to say "It's what I eat and what I do ... I'm lovin' it." McDonald's would not comment on how much the effort costs, though Mr. Barrett said a "significant part" of the company's retail marketing budget aimed at children will instead be allocated to the campaign in the U.S.

Kraft phases out snack ads
McDonald's, which in the U.S. is partnering with various media companies including children's network Nickelodeon, part of Viacom, and children's publisher Scholastic, is taking a markedly different approach than other food marketers feeling the heat in the childhood obesity debate. Kraft Foods, for instance, in January announced it would stop advertising snacks such as Kool-Aid and Oreo cookies to children between the ages of 6 and ll. Kraft this year is phasing out all TV, print and radio ads targeting that age group, which accounts for about 10% of its advertising budget.

McDonald's Mr. Barrett said, "We have a job to do in communicating this message. We are not going to back away; we are not going to stop talking to kids in ways that are relevant."

Ads adapted to local markets The new TV ads, created by Publicis Groupe's Leo Burnett USA, Chicago, feature popular athletes such as tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams and snowboarding pro Crispin Lipscomb. The commercials are being adapted to local markets globally by Leo Burnett offices worldwide. Other McDonald roster agencies, such as Omnicom Group's TBWA Worldwide and DDB Worldwide, are also involved in the global adaptation.

The commercial featuring the Williams sisters includes the lyrics "I'm burnin' calories like a fiend. ... Leafy greens so right for you. I'm making good choices, you can, too," while shots of salads and other menu items are interspersed with shots of the tennis stars on the court.

Ronald sports workout gear
McDonald's is also putting its well-known icon and "chief happiness officer," Ronald McDonald, to work on the new lifestyle mission. The character sports snappy yellow-and-red-colored workout gear and appears in some of new TV commercials as well as on various packaging and outdoor creative executions, all of which show him in some form of physical activity, such as scaling one side of an office building.

Fourteen 8- and 9-year-old children from the Police Athletic League in Harlem attended this morning's event as part of PAL's program to encourage healthy diet and exercise habits in children. "This is a compromise on both sides," said John Alvarez, PAL director of special programs. "Just to have an endorsement from a place that kids idealize, that's important. At least kids are getting the same message from McDonald's and from us."

Marketing to Demographics

2005-03-08T19:34:00.000-07:00

MARKETING TO AMERICAN LUDDITES
Targeting Sweet Spots in an Ignored Demographic
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- True or false: Today's American Luddites are old and poor.

True. And false. Many consumers who live without cellphones and the Internet fit the stereotypes of low-income, older people with no connection to the digital realm. But there are millions of others who don't fit that description, and marketers who ignore these demographically desirable Luddites are leaving money on the table.

Net-less adults
Consider: Nearly half of cellphone-less adults are age 18 to 44, and one-fifth of Net-less adults have household income of at least $50,000, according to NOP World's Roper Reports.

Cellphones, introduced in 1983, and the Internet, where the first Web ad appeared in 1994, in quick time became mainstream technologies. Yet they're far from ubiquitous. America unplugged is a big space, and marketers who look will find appealing prospects.

To be clear, there is truth to the stereotypes that digital Luddites are old and poor -- or, more accurately, that they are old and/or poor. Luddite demos tend to skew older, have less income and are less educated. Marketers, of course, can make good money selling to older consumers and to low-income households.

Older and poorer
Just as older and poorer people tend to be less digital, younger, more affluent and educated people tend to be more wired. Roper sibling Mediamark Research Inc. says nine of 10 people with household income of $150,000-plus have a cellphone; 96% of college graduates have access to the Internet; and the average cellphone user is 43 years old, 11 years younger than the average cell-less soul. There's nothing new about the idea that younger people with money are going to embrace technology.

Yet there are opportunities beyond the obvious. "For the 'non-users,' the easiest throwaway answer is [they are] always older and poorer. But that's not always the case. There are other pockets, either from lifestyle or just fear of technology," said Cary Silvers, vice president of NOP World Consumer. "There's an apprehension about technology even among some young people and some higher-educated, upper-income" consumers.

We're talking about the Luddite next door, someone who has all demos of the wired neighbors while choosing to live outside the digital domain.

Back to traditional media
How to reach them? "The key element is back to traditional media," Mr. Silvers said. He offers one other crucial tool: word of mouth.

Luddites may not be connected by technology, but Mr. Silvers said that doesn't make them shut-ins or recluses. They consume TV, radio and print, and even if they resist technology, "they are open somewhere else" -- to peers, hobby groups, organizations. The key, he said, is for marketers to embrace media and personal networks -- say, the PTA -- that the Luddites trust. "You've got to dig deep for these pockets out there," Mr. Silvers said.

Digital Luddites, true to form, are skeptical about and sometimes scared of technology. They also score themselves as lower achievers. When Roper asked consumers to rank their level of achievement on "the road to the American dream," those without cellphones and Internet came in below the average American. More cell-less and Net-less consumers didn't even put themselves on the road, saying they had no American dream. Of course, their Luddite state may be coincidental; lack of success probably relates more to their below-average income and education.

Hot Housing Market Cools Off---a Little

2005-03-02T08:25:00.000-07:00

Housing prices rose 1.7% in the fourth quarter, but were still up 11.2% overall in 2004 -- the biggest annual rise in 25 years. How much has your home increased in value?

Housing prices in the fourth quarter of 2004 cooled down from a red-hot third quarter, but still rose more than 11% for the year, according to government numbers released this week.

Average U.S. home prices went up 1.7% in the fourth quarter, compared to 4.79% for the third quarter, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. Still, prices measured from the fourth quarter of 2003 to the fourth quarter of 2004 rose a robust 11.2%. That's the biggest annual gain since 1979.

"This report reflects a slowing of the tremendous house price appreciation we've seen recently, but it is still growing at a strong pace," said agency director Armando Falcon Jr.

Nevada topped all states with an annual appreciation of 32.4%, followed by Hawaii at 24.6% and California at 23.4%.

The government data confirm what the National Association of Realtors reported in mid-February: that even with a fourth-quarter slowdown, thanks to a shortage of existing homes on the market and cheap mortgage money, home values across the nation soared in 2004.

The Realtor organization's fourth-quarter survey found that median existing-home price rose 8.8% from the fourth quarter of 2003 to the fourth quarter of 2004. The median price for an existing single family hit $187,500 in the fourth quarter of 2004, compared to $172,400 in the same quarter of 2003. Nearly half -- 48% -- of the 129 metropolitan areas surveyed by NAR showed a double-digit rise in home prices. Only four areas posted modest declines. The median is a typical market price where half of the homes sold for more and half sold for less.

David Lereah, NAR's chief economist, says the increase in home prices is a reflection of supply and demand. "We ended 2004 with a record low supply of homes on the market," he says. As a result, in many parts of the nation home buyers are competing to bid on available properties.

Lereah says that the historically low cost of debt service on a home purchase means that there's a comfortable buffer in most of the country because the typical family can afford to buy a home well above the median price.

That philosophy is a hard sell in West Palm Beach, Fla., San Bernardino, Calif., and Las Vegas where the cost of homes have rocketed.

The median home price in West Palm Beach, Fla., is now $338,800 -- a jump of 34% from fourth quarter 2003. In the Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif., area the median home price hit $322,400 -- a 34.7% increase and in Las Vegas prices rose 34% to a median price of $281,400. Prices in these regions showed the largest annual increase, but they're not the highest valued home market. San Franciscans shop a housing market where the median price for an existing home is $656,700, while house-hunters in San Diego find a median price of $569,900.

Here is where Phoenix stands
Home prices in 125 metro areas (in thousands of dollars)
2002 2003 2004* 1-yr chg
143.8 152.5 169.4 11%

BBDO Cleans House

2005-03-01T08:17:00.000-07:00

BBDO Axes Senior Creative Staffers

Omnicom Group's BBDO has purged a senior level of creative talent as part of an agency restructuring, a shop representative said.

Earlier this week, at least eight creatives, including Donna Weinheim, David Johnson, Rick Hansen and Harry Woods, who have each been at the shop at least five years, parted ways with the agency, sources said.

They had worked on accounts including PepsiCo, Gillette and Frito-Lay.

Sources said North America chief creative officer David Lubars, who joined the agency in September and made the changes, is expected to bring in new hires over the next few months. A BBDO representative said, "Changes were made in the creative department earlier this week as part of an ongoing process of aligning our resources with the direction the agency is going in, to enable us to deliver the most compelling commercial content across all media."

Lubars joined BBDO in September from Publicis Groupe's Fallon in Minneapolis, as North America chief creative officer and has been bringing in new talent over the past several months. His most recent hire was Greg Hahn from Fallon in Los Angeles. Lubars was not available for comment.

The agency rep said another new hire is Todd Tilford, who will join BBDO New York as ecd, director of visual communications, a new position, effective March 1.

Tilford was most recently at TM Advertising in Irving, Texas, and will be charged with setting up an in-house design department. He has also worked at Pyro, a division of The Richards Group in Dallas.

Sources said Mark Goldstein, most recently in charge of new business at IPG's Lowe, will join BBDO in New York to lead the shop's new business efforts. Before Lowe, Goldstein had worked with Lubars at Fallon.

News You Can Use Today

2005-02-28T15:22:00.000-07:00

The Big news for today:

Report Pepsi Limiting Marketing to Kids
NEW YORK -- PepsiCo revealed Monday that the company has enacted self-imposed advertising restrictions "in response to rising levels of obesity in the U.S. and Europe." Among other moves, PepsiCo will no longer place advertising for its flagship cola brand in outlets that directly reach children under 12.

The Purchase, N.Y.-based company has also placed limits on the portion sizes of products such as Doritos sold in U.S. schools and replaced fried Cheetos with a lower-fat baked alternative in elementary schools.

The policy has been in place for several months but the company decided against unveiling it publicly, according to the Financial Times. This follows a policy recently enacted by Kraft, which is redirecting ad dollars behind some of its snacks from media outlets frequented by kids.

"Our intent is not to just beat our chests and try to take credit for what we're doing," Irene Rosenfeld, CEO of Frito-Lay North America, PepsiCo's snacks unit, told FT. "We're just quietly doing it because it's the right thing to do."

Company CEO Steve Reinemund decided not to place a blanket ban on all advertising to children, claiming that would remove a channel through which soft drink companies could be part of the solution to obesity, according to FT.

Red Lobster Names EVP-Marketing
NEW YORK -- Darden Restaurants Monday said that Salli Setta is being promoted to evp-marketing for Red Lobster, effective April 11.Setta, who joined the company in 1990, is svp-Culinary & Beverage for sister division Olive Garden.

Setta will oversee marketing, culinary and beverage, consumer insights, guest relations and public relations. Orlando-based Darden also owns and operates of Bahama Breeze and Smokey Bones. The Richards Group, Dallas, is lead agency for Red Lobster and Bahama Breeze. Red Lobster spends more than $90 million per year on media, per TNS/CMR.

Frito-Lay Pumps Up Crunch Time
NEW YORK -- Frito-Lay said this week that it would boost its ad spend, unveil products targeting consumers of natural products, drive sales among minorities and realign key brands in an effort to increase sales. Irene Rosenfeld, chairman and CEO, told analysts at a conference in Scottsdale, Ariz. that the company will increase its ad budget in 2005 by 50%, or in the "tens of millions of dollars," to bring spending in line with that of competitors. The Plano, Texas-based division of PepsiCo spent about $100 million in media 2004 across all its brands, per TNS/CMR. DDB Worldwide, New York, is the lead agency.

Among other plans, the company will increase advertising and marketing to minorities (including a promotion linking Doritos tortilla chips with Mexican soccer), break Lay's flavors and TV spots with the new tag "Get your smile on," position Tostitos as a snack alternative to cheese and crackers, and introduce multigrain Tostitos tortilla chips and a line of "natural" tortilla chips, Sun Snacks, targeting customers of natural and organic products, according to the Dallas Morning News.

For Nissan, Xterra Marks The Spot
NEW YORK -- Nissan will launch a full-blown campaign next week to promote the 2005 Xterra, covering TV, print, outdoor and Internet.

The effort, via TBWA\Chiat\Day, Los Angeles, which follows a teaser campaign that broke in September, continues to pitch the SUV as a proxy for adventure. However, the ads, including four print executions and Internet placement, will focus less on mud-puddle clichés and more on athletes. Three TV spots show kayakers, surfers, a trail foot racer and snowboarders clambering around their Xterras to don and doff their gear. Several math-formula visuals have "X" as the solution: "Gravity-Fear=X," and "[3ft. fresh powder] + "day off"= X, for example. Nissan spent $35 million an Xterra ads last year, per Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

As part of the push, Nissan will for the first time target enthusiasts in the sports depicted in ads. For instance, the company will have ads on Surfline.com, as well as real-time footage of surf conditions at popular spots. The company launched print and TV teasers in February that show various sports accoutrements crossed to form an X. It also launched an Internet promotion in January, the Xterra Schooled Sweepstakes, dangling trips to kayak, surfing or snowboarding schools for those who opt in at NowX.com.

Erich Marx, marketing manager for Nissan SUVs, said the ads talk less about capability than versatility for an active-lifestyle owner. The target buyer, regardless of age, dreams of romping in the outback, even if they never actually get the opportunity. "It's all about usefulness for an outdoor lifestyle," he said. "But we don't focus on vehicle off-road capability because we know 90% of the people who drive SUVs drive them on roads."

Company Profile: Anheuser's New Beer

2005-02-28T14:35:00.000-07:00

This new beer called, Bud Select, confuses me a bit. Apparently it has low-carbs and is low in calories with no aftertaste. But isn't that really similar to Bud light?

Not so, says Anheuser-Busch from the NYT.

"We don't want to introduce another low-carb or light beer," says Michael Owens, vice president of sales and marketing for Anheuser-Busch. The company calls the carb and calorie counts a "secondary proposition" of the beer.

I find this confusing. And I'm not the only one who thinks it will be to consumers as well.

"I think there is a significant chance that [drinkers] will find [Select] confusing," says Marc Cohen, an analyst at Goldman Sachs. "The advertising message has to be very clear, and Miller is going to do everything they can to capitalize on this." Anytime Anheuser asks its Budweiser drinkers to consider a new Bud product, rival Miller has an opportunity to gain share, he says.

The company will be targeting women for this new beer.

Anheuser says it expects Bud Select to be particularly appealing to women and other occasional beer drinkers. Those drinkers commonly pass up beer because of its lingering aftertaste, according to the company's research.

I personally think it's going to get lost in the shuffle...or should I say shelf. It is too similar to its cousins Bud Light and Michelob Ultra. They would really have to do a brilliant marketing job to position it as separate from these products. And going with the "no aftertaste" spin is not good enough to do that. As I see it now, there is nothing inherently different about this beer that its other family members. Good luck Anheuser!

Using Your Intellectual Property to Your Advantage

2005-02-27T09:11:00.000-07:00

Thought Leadership – more than a catchy phrase for PR professionals

Most of us who are involved in the strategic end of PR will have heard of Thought Leadership, and many have probably included it under corporate communication activities in a PR plan. How many of us though, have given it sufficient attention when addressing it in terms of activities?

For those not all that familiar with it, Thought Leadership is an effective tool for companies operating in B2B or IT environments, especially those where products and solutions are seen as somewhat commoditised. Here’s a quick run-down on what Thought Leadership is and what it takes to effectively implement.

What is Thought Leadership?
Thought Leadership is a means of differentiating your company from others in your field by being seen and heard as informative, innovative, challenging and relevant to current industry issues and challenges.

Thought Leadership is personal – it centres on your company spokesperson. As such, this requires a genuine commitment from that person to:

be up-to-date on what the media is covering in the way of issues
have innovative – even contentious – views
be prepared to take some flack – not everyone will agree with those views
be available – both for media and for other activities that build Thought Leadership

Thought Leadership Tools
Although predominately personal, Thought Leadership activities include some specific written materials. Key among these are:

Case Studies – show how your company helped another solve a problem or gain a competitive edge. They usually follow a three step process of ‘situation, solution and results’.
White Papers – a means of mounting a case for your company’s vision and product strategy. A similar three step process to case studies, but this time looking at ‘problem, process and payoff’.
Opinion Pieces – by-lined articles that contain a unique view of a current problem or issue.

On the personal side, your spokesperson needs to be committed to allocating time for activities such as:

Media engagement – informal meetings with individual editors and key journalists to discuss current topics and issues. This is undertaken not to gain immediate coverage, but rather to give media an idea of what you can comment on when they are writing articles and features.
Speaking opportunities – a means of bypassing media to a degree and communicating directly with your customers and prospects.
Media requests – those times when media phone to obtain an opinion of quote for articles being written

Thought Leadership in New Media
Today, people are looking for more and more information and answers on the Web. For this reason, a complete Thought Leadership program should also include:

Your company website – the materials you develop for your Thought Leadership program should be made readily available on your corporate website. Remember that the leadership is often linked to the spokesperson, so make sure that is reflected in how you present the material on site.
Blogs – do a search to see if there are web blogs dealing with your industry and the issues you wish to challenge or champion. If there are, then consider creating your own and having you materials available for discussion.

As you can see, Thought Leadership is more than a bullet point on your PR plan. It should be a comprehensive program of activities that are budgeted for in terms of written materials and spokesperson time. If you have not undertaken Thought Leadership as a total program up until now, consider treating it as a project in your next budget period – that way you will be more likely to maximise its effect and should find it easier to obtain spokesperson buy-in.

from PR Influences...

Advertising Age Survey on PR

2005-02-26T09:09:00.000-07:00

Senior marketers value Public Relations

Public relations is poised for a more prominent role in the overall marketing mix according to a US survey of senior marketing executives published in Advertising Age on January 24.

Based on comments from survey participants, the future looks bright for public relations in marketing.

Answering the question “How do you see the role of public relations changing over the next five to 10 years,” here is a sampling of responses:

“PR will assume responsibility for all Internet-based communications. Big media will become less critical as the target for PR initiatives as micro media (e.g. blogs) spread.”
“Public Relations will become an even more important element in the marketing mix because advertising will become less and less effective at reaching target audiences.”
“As many forms of paid advertising become easier for consumers to avoid, public relations/publicity and product placements will become much more important as part of any integrated marketing communications program.”

The survey, which was emailed to selected Advertising Age subscribers, resulted in 130 respondents - 41% described their title as VP of marketing, 21% as chief marketing officers and 17% as president and/or CEOs. It was conducted by the Council of Public Relations Firms.

Specific results were:
In which roles is PR more effective?
raising awareness (83%),
providing credibility (67%),
reaching influencers (63%)
educating consumers (61%);
help driving sales (22%)

In what ways does PR contribute toward marketing programs?
media contacts (67%)
creative ideas (48%)
stragtegic thinking/arms and legs (45%)
industry/competitor insight (29%)

In which areas is public relations most valuable?
supporting product marketing (76%)
product launches (72%)
supporting the corporate brand (65%)
crisis management (59%).

“The survey results show that public relations is becoming a more integral and strategic part of the marketing mix,” said Kathy Cripps, president of the Council of Public Relations Firms. “It's gratifying to see that marketers are harnessing the power of public relations and integrating it with other marketing disciplines.”

25 Media Commandments to Live By

2005-02-25T08:58:00.000-07:00

25 Commandments of Media Relations to Memorise and Live By

One of the classic dissertations on media relations practice comes from Robert L. Dilenschneider, a long-time US public relations executive.

In “Dartnell's Public Relations Handbook” (Dilenschneider (ed), 1996, Dartnell Corp.) he gives this advice on what to do and not do in dealing with media:

1.Thou shalt not intentionally lie to, or in any way mislead, the news media.
Truth is the best damage control.

2.Thou shalt not release any information that has not been authorized.
But this does not mean stonewalling the media. Remember, when you issue a “no comment,” you often confirm suspicions and only spur a reporter to dig more deeply. At minimum, supply some context and explain your inability to be more responsive.

3.Thou shalt not say, or write, anything to a reporter – on or off the record – you would not want to see in print.

4.Thou shalt not work for an organization – or promote an idea, product, or activity – that you find morally or ideologically objectionable.
Because of the guilt, conflict, and unease you feel, you will probably do a lousy job of it anyway.

5.Thou shalt not issue “no news” news releases merely to give the impression of activity.
That turns off the media and undermines your efforts when you actually have something newsworthy to disseminate.

6.Thou shalt always return a phone call from the media – and as promptly as possible.

7.Thou shalt not “cross” a reporter or editor no matter how shabbily, rudely, arrogantly, or unfairly you feel you have been treated in the past.
Remember, they ALWAYS have the last word. By the same token, do not hesitate to correct demonstrable errors in reporting.

8.Thou shalt not telephone a reporter or editor at, or near, deadline unless the call concerns a major breaking story.
Make it your business to find out about deadlines.

9.Thou shalt not ask a reporter or editor for story approval before publication.
If you're lucky and it's offered, fine. Make the most of it.

10.Thou shalt not make a pitch to any publication until you have read the publication and understand its “style,” its editorial needs, and its audience.

11.Thou shalt not ask for a list of questions in advance of an interview.
An inquiry about the range of topics to be covered is, however, perfectly legitimate.

12.Thou shalt be inoffensively persistent – but never insistent – when pitching a story.
It's possible to be gracious, subtle, inventive, even amusing when going back to the media repeatedly, but be careful about wearing out your welcome.

13.Thou shalt not inflate a pitch letter with obvious information a reporter or editor already knows through covering a particular beat.
That not only wastes valuable time and space, it's condescending to the reporter.

14.Thou shalt not request an advance copy of a story scheduled for publication unless a reporter or editor has previously volunteered to provide it.

15.Thou shalt be creative in the literal sense of the word.
The tried and true often work, but don't be afraid to think a new thought, try a new approach, or explore uncharted territory.

16.Thou shalt not promise exclusive access to an individual within your organization if that is not your intention.

17.Thou shalt not issue news releases that deliberately--and usually, transparently--attempt to bury negative news.
Reporters and editors are not dumb and some have long memories.

18.Thou shalt make a thorough review of your media lists at least quarterly and update them accordingly.

19.Thou shalt not promise anything to your boss or organization that you may not be able to deliver.

20.Thou shalt not address a reporter or editor – on the telephone or in a written communication – by a first name unless you actually know him, or her, from ongoing telephone contacts or in-person meetings.

21.Thou shalt try to be present at all pre-arranged client media interviews--including those on the telephone – to make introductions, listen and learn.
Volunteer information only when requested; or when you are privy to some relevant facts the client may not know; or to bridge a lull or impasse in the conversation. If you wish to record the interview, ask the reporter's permission first.

22.Thou shalt not book a company representative or take part in an interview without some pre-interview training and briefing – especially if new at the game.
23.Thou shalt not denigrate the efforts of a competitor.
That's unseemly, unprofessional, and unnecessary. Inferior work will self-destruct sooner or later.

24.Thou shalt double-space all news releases;
print releases on only one side of a sheet of paper; get the news into the release's headline (a busy reporter/editor may not get any further); include a home phone number on the contact line if issued late in the day or a weekend; and make sure the contact(s) listed at the top of the release will actually be available if called.

25.Thou shalt read, read, read all the media you can get your hands on.
Being well, and broadly, informed is the real name of the game.

At a Loss for New PR News

2005-02-24T08:54:00.000-07:00

How many times have you been sitting in your office trying to brainstorm your next big PR pitch? I know my team is always trying to find worthwhile news from our program to pitch to the media. Here are some questions to ask yourself when finding new news.

Check your PR inventory

Most companies have a range of PR opportunities that lie dormant because no one in the organisation thinks about them as other than operational items.

Put on a PR hat and each of them becomes an opportunity to raise the profile of the company and to reach your specifiers, trade and end customers in a way that positions the organisation superior to, and different from, your competitors.

1. What likely events do we have to leverage?
New facilities. Anniversaries/milestones. Have these been seen as PR opportunities?

2. What is our new product release schedule?
New products. Additions to a product range. There's probably an ad. budget for these, but is there a supporting PR plan for this schedule?

3. Do we have any VIPs visiting?
Senior execs. from international Head Office. Overseas supplier/franchise principals. These offer potential events and media opportunities.

4. Are company structural changes or developments likely?
Board or senior exec changes. Company restructuring – expansion/contraction. Is there a communications plan to support these?

5. Are there trends or developments that are relevant?
New R&D outputs. Trends that will impact on how customers do business. How will these fit within our marketing communication?

6. What about exhibitions and seminars?
Key annual exhibitions. Seminars – our own or industry. Are we exploiting these as well as we should? Are we attending some that give doubtful returns?

7. Do we have customer product applications to use?
Our products are being successfully used to solve problems and achieve outstanding results. Are we preparing case studies for media and general Marketing support use?

8. How do we present our corporate story?
By regular company newsletter, magazine or video. Through Annual Report or a Corporate Profile. Through our own web site. Are we producing these as professionally as we could? Are they all integrated so they portray consistent messages?

9. Is there a need for some internal and/or customer morale building?
A major employee conference. A customer conference. Would we benefit from a fresh perspective on the organisation and staging of these?

Assessing Your Company's PR

2005-02-24T08:49:00.000-07:00

This is a great test for your business on its use of public relations from the PR Influences newsletter. How do you rate?

How to assess your organisation’s PR capabilities
With a new year underway it’s timely to make a self assessment of how your organisation is equipped with regard to PR.

Although the answers may vary depending on whether you are directly responsible for PR, or are simply an occasional user of it, the following questions will give you a feel for whether there’s reason to be satisfied or whether it’s time to institute a review.

Rate your organisation on a scale of 1-5 (with 5 being excellent/exemplary)
1. What is the internal status and perception of PR?
Is it understood and a fully participating part of the marketing or management process?

2. How would we rate our PR resources and capability?
Is our internal team highly regarded and capable in all spheres?Is our agency (if we have one) adding value to the extent desired?

3. How would we rate the contribution of PR to the business?
Are there clearly identified contributions PR has made in the last 12 months? Is it seen to add value? How are we measuring its contribution?

4. Do we have a clearly established message platform?
At a corporate, divisional/business unit and product level?

5. How structured and planned is our PR?
Is there an overall plan, with objectives?When we do projects how much do we focus on strategy?

6. How do we rate our media relations program?
Are we regularly releasing – and getting published – news about us?Do we know and work with individual key media on a personal basis?

7. How good are we in working with influencers?
Do we know who the key influencers on the business are?Do we have a program to engage with them?

8. How equipped are we to deal with a crisis?
Are we capable of handling a product, factory or company issue or crisis?

9. How capable are our key executives in the public arena?
Have they been trained to deal with media and other audiences?Do they convey the right messages about the company?

10. How good are we in taking advantage of opportunities?
Are our PR people proactive, and quick to take advantage of opportunities?

11. How do we think our PR compares with our competitors?
Are we doing OK or are we envious of them and their PR successes?

TOTAL RESULTS:
If you are absolutely perfect you can score 55.
Score 45+: you are in very good shape. Congratulations.
Score 20-44: you have some fundamentals in place, but obviously there are a few areas where you could be doing better. It’s probably time to review your PR.
Score – 19: you need help. Fast!

News You Can Use Today

2005-02-17T11:04:00.000-07:00

Some management changes for major players, compliments of Brandweek...

Sprint-Nextel Outlines New Management Team
New York-As Sprint and Nextel await FCC approval for their $35 billion merger, the companies have already settled on an executive team for the combined unit.The plan, outlined in a memo sent to Sprint and Nextel employees this week, calls for a fair amount of executives from both companies in the executive ranks though Gary Forsee, Sprint's president and CEO, would be president and CEO-designate of the new entity, according to the memo.

Finally, Mark Schweitzer, svp-marketing for Nextel, has been named CMO and will lead all brand, sponsorships, advertising, strategic pricing, marketing communications, market research, wholesale strategy, business planning and development.

HP Marketing Exec Joining Apple
SAN FRANCISCO -- Allison Johnson, svp-corporate marketing for Hewlett-Packard, has joined Apple as vp-worldwide marketing communications, reporting directly to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, according to Apple. Johnson will focus on Apple's advertising and marketing communications around the world, per the company.Johnson resigned from HP on Feb. 4, but was asked by the board of directors to stay with HP through its fourth-quarter earnings report and the announcement of Carly Fiorina's dismissal last week, a company spokeswoman said. Her last day with the company will be Friday, Feb. 18. A replacement has not been named, per HP.

Johnson has been responsible for HP's corporate marketing, advertising and media relations tasks since the company merged with Compaq in 2002, according to HP. She joined HP in 1999 after previous positions with IBM Corp. and Netscape Communications.

Comcast Names Communications Vet SVP-Marketing
NEW YORK -- Comcast Corporation, a leading provider of cable, entertainment and communications products and services, said Tuesday that Marvin Davis has been named to the newly created position of svp-marketing. Davis will report to Dave Watson, evp-operations, and will be responsible for developing and implementing comprehensive integrated marketing, sales and branding strategies for the Philadelphia-based company's video, data and voice services.

Davis most recently served as vp-advertising and brand management for Verizon Wireless. He also has held executive positions with GTE Wireless, BellSouth Telecommunications and Procter & Gamble.

US Airways Exec Flies To Spirit
NEW YORK -- Spirit Airlines on Tuesday named Barry Biffle as svp and CMO. He will join Ft. Lauderdale-based Spirit on Feb 21. Biffle most recently served as managing director of marketing at US Airways. His duties will include Spirit's planning, revenue management, marketing, sales and distribution.

Mitsubishi Hires Marketing Exec From Mercedes
NEW YORK -- Mitsubishi Motors, embattled by resignations, plummeting sales and an agency review, has lured David Schembri from Mercedes-Benz to fill a new position, evp-sales and marketing.

Schembri, most recently vp, pre-owned and fleet operations at Montvale, New Jersey-based Mercedes Benz, will report directly to Rich Gilligan, former manufacturing chief and COO, who replaced Finbarr O'Neill as president and CEO last year. Schembri, who starts tomorrow, will also attend this week's final agency presentations, per a spokesperson at the Cypress, Calif.-based company. Reporting to Schembri will be Mike Tocci, svp sales and distribution, Bob Martin, director of brand marketing and Kevin Mayer, director of advertising.

Some companies are "missing the boat"

2005-02-16T10:14:00.000-07:00

With Carly Fiorina being let go from HP, how many women CEOs are left out there? Not many. What is that saying about businesses, especially those in Silicon Valley. According to a new study (see below in Wired News), companies with women in senior management positions have a 35% higher return on equity that those who do not. I find that to be an interesting statistic.

The absence of women in top management positions is not due to the lack of qualified candidates. More and more women are receiving graduate degrees in many disciplines while backing it up with quality work experience. Perhaps, companies should look into giving women more opportunity for advancement...they might just make a "few" more bucks.

Where Are All the Women?
After Carly Fiorina was ousted from Hewlett-Packard last week, just seven female CEOs remained among Fortune 500 companies. None of them heads a Silicon Valley technology company.

The theories as to why women are poorly represented at tech companies are varied. But most pundits seem to agree -- and studies back them up -- that companies with women in the higher ranks are making more money, and companies that don't actively recruit and support women executives are missing the boat.

Companies with the most women in senior management had a 35 percent higher return on equity than those with the fewest, according to a study (.pdf) by Catalyst, a nonprofit group that studies women in business. It also found those companies paid their shareholders 34 percent more than companies with the fewest women in top management.

"I think almost without question that all of the companies we work with know they are able to offer better technology if they have a more diverse group of people," said Telle Whitney, president and CEO of the Anita Borg Institute, a nonprofit that promotes women in technology companies.

Some businesses are taking advantage of that. The CEOs at Lucent, Xerox and Autodesk are women, and Volvo hired an all-women engineering team to design a car. But Silicon Valley companies don't seem to get it. Another Catalyst study in 2003 found that among Fortune 500 companies, 12.4 percent of board members were women, while women represented just 9 percent of high-tech boards. The same study looked at female corporate officers and top earners, who made up 15.7 percent of all Fortune 500 employees, but just 11 percent at high-tech Fortune 500s.

"If I look ahead and think what is really going to change the world over the next decade or so, technology -- not just information technology but (also) life sciences and biotechnology -- are going to be profound transformational capabilities," said Carol Kovac, general manager of health care and life sciences at IBM.

Without equal participation from women, those technologies might be unappealing or simply not work for women. "You'll end up with just 50 percent of people represented, and that seems kind of dumb to me," Kovac said.

[...]"The departure of Carly is dramatic partly because in one day we lost 12.5 percent of the women in the Fortune 500," Helander said.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2005-02-14T15:12:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you spend it with your significant other or with your loved ones!

Sincerely,

Erica

Company Profile: McDonald's Viral Marketing

2005-02-08T13:53:00.000-07:00

Did anyone see the McDonald's french fry commercial during the Super Bowl? Did you then scratch your head and think, "what the...?" You're not the only one. As a result thousands of people went to the McDonald's website to find out what the spot was really about. Brilliant I think. The WSJ has their thoughts...

McDonald's Tries for 'Viral' Buzz
Web Auction of French Fry That Resembles Lincoln Aims to Corral Young Men

A Super Bowl ad featuring obsessive interest in a McDonald's french fry shaped like the 16th president drew a lot of puzzled looks from the tens of millions of people watching the big game, and a relative trickle of thousands went online to find out more about the spot. And that is just the way McDonald's likes it.

The fast-food titan's campaign, in which a man has found a fry that looks like Abraham Lincoln and aims to auction it online, includes a Web site called lincolnfry.com that has fake blogs and a real-life Yahoo auction of the presidential snack, with the proceeds destined for the Ronald McDonald House charity.

MC VIRAL MARKETING
• View McDonald's Super Bowl commercial
(RealPlayer is required.)

The effort, devised by Omnicom Group's DDB, is part of a growing trend among marketers -- especially fast-food chains -- that increasingly are turning to Web promotions and other nontraditional approaches in hopes of building "viral" buzz spread by consumers themselves. Marketers and their agencies see that as one of the best ways of appealing to fickle but technology-savvy young men.

The Super Bowl commercial drew some pans from industry observers. "It's the kiss of death in the Super Bowl for viewers not to understand your ad," said Carrie LaFerle, an advertising professor at Michigan State University, Sunday night.

Yet the work is doing exactly what it was intended to do -- create a viral movement. As of yesterday afternoon, 240,000 unique visitors had visited lincolnfry.com or the fry's auction page on Yahoo, and 362 people had bid.

Golden Palace Casino, the company that bought a 10-year-old grilled-cheese sandwich that appeared to bear an image of the Virgin Mary on eBay last year for $28,000, was leading the fry war yesterday with a $21,600 bid. "We are confident that we will end up on top," says Drew Black, a spokesman for the online gambling site. "Perhaps we'll take the fry on a promotional tour to let people see it."

Does one of the world's savviest marketers need to go to these extremes? "This is a brand that wants to be forever young," says Marlena Peleo-Lazar, McDonald's USA's chief creative officer. "We are always looking toward what is going to surprise and delight our customers."

Even more important is the quest for those young male consumers, who are crucially important to fast-food purveyors. "They are the backbone of the industry," says John Glass, a restaurant-industry analyst at CIBC World Markets. Men age 18 to 24 make on average 20 trips a month to fast-food chains, compared with about 15 trips a month for all fast-food users, says Sandelman & Associates, a restaurant-industry research firm in Villa Park, Calif.

Young men and mothers are two key segments McDonald's has made a focus in the past 18 months. The Oak Brook, Ill., company has been successful in changing its menu and ads to please moms, adding a line of salads and running print ads in magazines such as InStyle. To reach the lads, McDonald's has worked to contemporize its traditionally touchy-feely advertising approach, offering music downloads, embedding its brand in videogames and enlisting pop star Justin Timberlake to croon its catchy "I'm Lovin' It" jingle. McDonald's spent $691.9 million on U.S. ads in 2003 and $643 million for the first 11 months of 2004, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

While the changes have helped the company enjoy a financial turnaround, branding experts say McDonald's still faces a tough task in moving beyond its kid-focused image. "It's schizophrenia marketing," says Jack Trout, a marketing consultant who heads Trout & Partners in Old Greenwich, Conn. "It's hard for this company to take off its clown suit."

What's more, rival Burger King won accolades last year for its "Subservient Chicken" viral Web campaign, which centered on a Web site where visitors could order around an actor in a chicken suit. Youngsters -- and the media -- flocked to the www.subservientchicken.com site in droves. The site had 13.8 million unique visitors from April 8 through Sunday.

"McDonald's felt a little outmaneuvered by BK's Subservient Chicken," says a person close to the company. McDonald's declines to comment on its competitor's ad efforts.

News You Can Use Today

2005-02-08T13:37:00.000-07:00

Fortune Will Get a New Managing Editor

Rik Kirkland, managing editor of Fortune magazine, announced yesterday that he would step down on April 1, saying he was tired of the management part of his job and wanted to go back to writing.

Eric Pooley, managing editor for Time in Europe, was expected to be appointed to the post today. Mr. Pooley flew from London to New York yesterday to meet with executives at the Time Inc. unit of Time Warner, which owns the magazine.

Mr. Pooley, 45, who was once a researcher at New York magazine and then a contributing editor, joined Time in 1995, covered the White House and became Time's chief political correspondent in the 2000 election. He was editor of Time's Nation section before moving to London to head Time Europe.

Mr. Kirkland, 53, served as deputy managing editor for six years before assuming the top job four years ago, just as Fortune - and other business magazines - faced a plunge in advertising from the burst of the technology bubble in the late 1990's and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The Super Bowl of Ads

2005-02-07T09:36:00.000-07:00

Ahh the Super Bowl. Millions of people watch this yearly event in hope of finding something to talk about at water coolers across the country. In my opinion, the ads were good, but not great. Because of the Janet Jackson fiasco last year, companies played it safe and didn't really take any risks.

However, the NYT disagrees...

The Super Bowl Ad Standouts
It may be hard to say, and harder to believe, but Madison Avenue could owe Janet Jackson a big thank-you.

The commercials that were broadcast on Fox last night during Super Bowl XXXIX were, in general, markedly better than typical spots from the last few Super Bowls - though there were some stinkers. And the reason for that improvement could well be Ms. Jackson's breast-baring during the halftime show last year.

The reaction against the notorious "wardrobe malfunction" also generated attacks against crass, boorish commercials that ran before and after Ms. Jackson's performance. Those spots relied on crude humor to pander to a large segment of the Super Bowl audience: younger men who live to laugh at bathroom jokes and misogynistic jibes.

Chastened by the complaints, advertisers and agencies promised to clean up their acts and proceed cautiously with commercials for 2005. That pledge was widely interpreted as foreshadowing a dull, play-it-safe Ad Bowl inside the Super Bowl.

But many of the 30 sponsors of the game rose to the occasion, proving they could deliver attention-getting ads without stooping to the fraternity-house antics of last year, featuring disreputable characters like a flatulent horse, a crotch-biting dog and a monkey pitching woo to a woman.

[...]Anheuser-Busch A gauzy valentine to American troops, which ended with the Anheuser-Busch corporate logo superimposed on screen, was touching, but some viewers may have wondered whether "Busch" had been misspelled. And a commercial for designating a driver managed to deliver its message with a wink rather than a lecture. Agency: the Chicago office of DDB Worldwide, part of Omnicom.

Bubblicious A spot for Bubblicious gum, sold by the Cadbury Adams division of Cadbury Schweppes, was short (15 seconds) but sweet. The commercial, for the new LeBron's Lightning Lemonade flavor endorsed by LeBron James, showed that having your bubble burst is not always a bad thing. Agency: JWT in New York, part of the WPP Group.

Budweiser The playful horses in a commercial for Budweiser beer, sold by Anheuser-Busch, were far better behaved than their gassy counterpart in a Bud Light spot last year. A stable of Clydesdales faced off in a snowball fight, and the cute "razzberry" in the finale was as naughty as they got. Agency: DDB Chicago.

Degree A commercial for a new line of Degree deodorants sold by Unilever took a risk by pretending to celebrate men who avoid risk, as embodied by a make-believe brand of "Inaction Heroes" dolls bearing names like Mama's Boy. The spot succeeded where so many failed last year, by treading the fine line between boldness and tastelessness. Agency: Lowe & Partners in New York, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies.

Lay's Come back, MC Hammer, all is forgiven. That seemed to be the message delivered by a commercial featuring the 1980's rapper, for the Lay's potato chip brand sold by the Frito-Lay division of PepsiCo. As for the connection between salty snacks and silly singers, as Mr. Hammer might put it, "U Can't Figure This Out." Agency: Spike DDB in New York, owned by the director Spike Lee and DDB Worldwide.

McDonald's The fast-food company McDonald's surprised with a hilarious commercial, far more clever than its usual fare. The spot, presented in a deadpan "mockumentary" style reminiscent of "This Is Spinal Tap," was centered on a French fry that allegedly resembled Abraham Lincoln, which improbably became the subject of a bidding war on the Yahoo Shopping Web site. Agency: DDB Chicago.

MasterCard Cynics laughed last fall when Advertising Week in New York City began with a parade of familiar advertising characters. But the idea now seems, well, priceless, thanks to a delightful dinner reunion of 10 brand icons like the Jolly Green Giant, Mr. Peanut and the Morton Salt girl, sponsored by Debit MasterCard from MasterCard International. One disturbing thought: What was in that casserole Charlie the Tuna ate so heartily? Agency: McCann Erickson in New York, part of the McCann Worldgroup division of Interpublic (which created a MasterCard character for the occasion).

Pepsi-Cola A prosaic idea to promote iTunes and Pepsi-Cola, sponsored by Apple Computer and PepsiCo, turned up not once but twice: Uncap a Pepsi bottle and hear music; recap the bottle and the music stops. What, viewers didn't get it the first time? But it was worth the double play to hear Gwen Stefani and Eve sing "If I Were a Rich Girl," based on the song from "Fiddler on the Roof." What's not to like? Agency: the Playa del Rey, Calif., office of TBWA/Chiat/Day, part of the TBWA Worldwide division of Omnicom.

Silestone Jocks almost always play stock characters in commercials, taking parts like thug, superstar or dim bulb, but a droll spot for the Silestone brand of quartz surfaces sold by Cosentino defied convention. "I am Diana Pearl," former athletes like Mike Ditka and Dennis Rodman declared, "Spartacus"-style. Huh? The punch line: It's a color of Silestone they like. Agency: Freed Advertising in Sugar Land, Tex.

Subway A slyly subversive commercial for a new line of Fresh Toasted Subs sold by the Subway chain, owned by Doctor's Associates, managed a feat that eluded so many spots last year: pulling off a sight gag without being obnoxious or offensive. It seemed to show an amorous couple parked for a hot makeout session, but as a pair of inquiring police officers learned, appearances can deceive when guys get hungry. Agency: Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco, part of Omnicom.

News You Can Use Today

2005-02-07T09:21:00.000-07:00

Y&R Promotes McLean to North American CEO
WPP Group's Young & Rubicam has added a new layer of senior leadership, naming agency veteran Gord McLean chief executive officer for North America under worldwide CEO Ann Fudge, the agency said.

McLean, 50, will be responsible for overseeing the agency's six offices in North America, each now run by managing partners, Y&R said. Those managing partners will report to McLean.

McLean has worked at Y&R for 16 years, most recently as president of global client services for Y&R Brands, which also includes Wunderman, Landor Associates and other units. He is the most senior executive on Colgate and ChevronTexaco, two of the agency's global accounts.

Nielsen Media Rolls Multicultural Effort
Nielsen Media Research said Wednesday it will launch a branding ad campaign this month designed to "heighten awareness about who Nielsen is and how its TV reports accurately reflect the viewing habits of all different kinds of people."

The campaign, via Burrell Communications, Chicago, will focus on Asian, African-American, Arabic, and Hispanic consumers in key media markets nationwide. The effort will include print, radio, Internet and in-cinema ads. Spend was not given.

Print ads will feature the "faces of adults of various ages and ethnicities merged together, to illustrate the company's inclusive research methods," per the company. Nielsen Media Research is part of VNU Media Measurement & Information. VNU also owns Brandweek magazine.

"The success of our research depends upon our ability to accurately measure and represent all TV viewers, so we strive to make sure that every ethnic group is included in the TV ratings," Susan D. Whiting, Nielsen Media Research president and CEO, said in a statement. "We spent a great deal of time meeting with and listening to communities from around the country in 2004. We valued the input. While we've been actively working with various ethnic groups to ensure that our measurements fully and fairly represent all television viewers, we felt we could do more to inform people about what we do. The advertising campaign will be initiated in conjunction with our ongoing community outreach initiatives."

Procter's Deal for Gillette Would Create an Ad Giant

2005-01-31T15:16:00.000-07:00

Merger Could Spark Battle Over Coveted Accounts
A WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE NEWS ROUNDUP
NEW YORK -- The nation's biggest advertiser is about to get bigger.

Procter & Gamble Co.'s acquisition of Gillette Co. will create a marketing powerhouse with one of the largest advertising portfolios in the U.S.

P&G, whose marketing strategy is closely watched on Madison Avenue, is likely to gain even more clout to negotiate favorable pricing with advertisers. Even so, overall ad spending by the companies isn't likely to decline, ad industry executives predict. In fact, it might actually increase, extending a recent trend at both companies.

"They do not have many [consumer-product] lines that cannibalize each other," says Mark Stevens, president of MSCO, a Purchase, N.Y., marketing agency. I think their ad budgets might grow."

The companies' limited overlap is in contrast to recently announced mergers in the telecommunications and retail industries.

"It's not like a telecoms merger where you can add two pieces together," says Charles Courtier, executive chairman of WPP Group PLC's Mediaedge:cia, which buys ads on behalf of clients such as Campbell Soup Co. and Colgate-Palmolive Co.

"It's a very different case with P&G and Gillette. Their ad spending is behind specific brands, so you would be less likely to see a reduction in overall spending." Another WPP unit, Mindshare, does some business with Gillette.

The combined P&G-Gillette advertising budget is a whopping $3 billion a year. Through September of last year, P&G spent $2.13 billion on advertising, more than any other company and up nearly 7% from the same period in 2003, according to TNS Media Intelligence/CMR, a New York firm that tracks ad outlays. General Motors Corp. was No. 2 at $1.99 billion, followed by Time Warner Inc. at $1.74 billion, down 0.4%.

Any New Business Owners?

2005-01-27T16:59:00.000-07:00

Marketing Your Way To Millions
Okay--the lights are on and you're open for business. Now what?

It's important to develop a sound marketing plan before you open the front door of your new business.

To succeed, any business, whether it's Apple Computer (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ), Lucent (nyse: LU - news - people ) or a small business, needs to develop a solid base of customers while adding new ones. This involves product mix, pricing and service.

Marketing is basic, but the execution of the plan will determine your success or failure as a small business owner.

In short, everything should be devoted to meeting the individual customer's needs. Huge sales volume will plump the top line, but profitable sales will keep you afloat.

Always ask the question: What can be done better?

Marketing basics include:

Selecting the sector you will serve.
Meeting the needs of your customers.
Promotion.
Understanding the competition.
Determining your competitive edge.

Current information is vital to the success of a marketing plan. Gathering data can be as simple as passing out questionnaires to potential customers. For starters, ask: What do you need? When do you need it? What are you willing to pay?

The answers may vary from one town to the next or even by neighborhood. Know your customers--and understand how to reach them.

The marketing plan will help to identify potential customers and enable the entrepreneur to select the right product mix, set prices and launch promotions to reach the target group. A small business can't be everything to everybody and a strong marketing plan will narrow the focus to targeted customers.

Site selection is important. If your business sells items bought on impulse, look for a high-visibility site with heavy traffic. But if you're selling goods or services that customers will seek out, a corner location at a major intersection isn't as important.

"Some people panic early, lose focus and will do anything for a buck," said Dr. Jeffrey R. Cornwall, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., and author of From the Ground Up. "They lose the time when they're making themselves known in the market and they never get recognized for their core business. If you miss your mark, you may not have a chance to go back and do it right."

News You Can Use Today

2005-01-27T16:39:00.000-07:00

Miller Brewing Is Hiring Ex-Burnett Official Brennan
After months of being wined and dined by top media-buying firms, Bob Brennan, the former president of Publicis Groupe SA's Leo Burnett Worldwide, has decided to join Miller Brewing Co. as director of marketing services.

Mr. Brennan succeeds Steve Buerger, who left Miller last month for a post at Time Warner Inc. Miller Brewing is a unit of SABMiller PLC. Mr. Brennan will report to Bob Mikulay, SABMiller's executive vice president of marketing.

Mr. Brennan exited Leo Burnett in October 2003 amid account and executive turmoil. The former media-buying executive had been in line to succeed Linda Wolf, Burnett's chairman and chief executive, who is retiring in several months.

Since his departure from the Chicago ad firm, several advertising and media-services firms, including Interpublic Group of Cos., WPP Group PLC's MindShare and Havas SA's MPG, have held talks with Mr. Brennan, according to industry executives.

Super Bowl Style Blogging

2005-01-27T08:20:00.000-07:00

According to CNet, it seems that companies who advertise during the most expensive slot of time during the Super Bowl next week, will be measuring the success through blogs. Some companies are even paying bloggers to comment on the commercials to send to their clients. I think blogs will take an unprecedented role in the success, or lack there of, of ads run during the game. While traditional methods will still be used to measure success, blogs will take on a more important role. You know you've got it right when consumer bloggers are praising your creativity.

Bloggers tackle the Super Bowl
Everyone knows Super Bowl ads get the most buzz. Now Madison Avenue is turning to bloggers to learn what all the buzz is about.

Internet research companies plan to measure the "watercooler effect" of Super Bowl XXXIX ads by capturing sentiments as they bubble up within the loose collection of diarylike personal Web sites collectively known as the "blogosphere."

"Blogs are a real-world temperature gauge as to what's really going on out there."
--Tim Hanlon, senior vice president, Starcom IP Cincinnati-based Intelliseek, for one, plans to monitor positive and negative commentary about commercials in more than 3.5 million blogs, charging advertisers upward of $20,000 for its intelligence. That's about 1 percent of the $2.4 million price tag for a 30-second spot during the game this year, up from $2.3 million last year.

Such research could eventually offer real-time assessment and feedback on the reception and success of ad campaigns, industry experts said, and extend the influence of an upstart medium that has already placed its mark on mainstream news publishers and broadcasters.

"Blogs are a real-world temperature gauge as to what's really going on out there," said Tim Hanlon, senior vice president at advertising-media company Starcom IP. "You've got big media at one end and the citizen's media at the other, and the collision between those diametrically opposed approaches to messaging will be very intriguing."

The Super Bowl is not only the celebratory end to the football season, but it's also the congratulatory salute to ad creativity in the form of high-priced and oft-outsized commercials. People commonly skip bathroom breaks in favor of couch time with the commercials, just to chat about them in the office on Monday. With the dawn of the Internet, stand-out ads, such as Reebok's "Terry Tate: Office Linebacker," have enjoyed unparalleled postgame audiences online, too.

This year, bloggers could upstage the advertisers, with an expected outpouring of commentary from millions of self-styled media critics. Although it's still unclear what impact this immediate feedback will have on the reception of ad spots, advertisers are closely watching the phenomenon.

PR Tools

2005-01-25T10:45:00.000-07:00

Close Encounters of the PR Kind
Public relations can offer an out-of-this-world opportunity to tell your story. Follow these guidelines.

The Right Stuff - Push only real news to the press. Make sure the stories you tell are the ones readers want to hear.
The Power of Perseverance - Writing a press release is not enough; you need to follow up continuously with targeted media.
Who's Your Buddy? - Triple your chances of getting mentioned by establishing relationships with target press.
Be Prepared - Always be ready for an interview because the camera never blinks.
It All Counts - Never say anything "off the record." If you said it and somebody heard it, it's on the record!
Juicy Sound Bites - Have quotable quotes that reporters will want to include in their story.
Says Who? - It's not enough to say that you have the best product. Quantify and qualify statements to support claims.
Analyze This! - Industry analysts can be some of your best spokespeople. Establish strong relationships.
Contingency Planning - Don't be caught unprepared. Build a plan for crisis communication before it's too late.
Go Online - Place articles on industry portals and trade association sites, optimizing for search engine pickup.

This Generation Should be Reading the News

2005-01-25T09:30:00.000-07:00

Believe It or Not! Young Reader Defends Newspapers
A 20-something freelance writer in New York City likes The Daily Show, blogs, and iPods as much as the next guy. But he wonders if the younger generation is missing something by avoiding newspapers.

Surveys, newspapers' financials, and anecdotal evidence show that relatively few people my age read the newspaper. To most of us, newspapers are simply quaint throwbacks to an era of the foxtrot, or VHS tapes. My generation has grown up in the information age, yet we've outgrown the original source of public information. We also watch The Daily Show more than the network news, we've made that show’s (very funny) spin-off book a best seller, and partisan blogs like Daily Kos and Eschaton at times have a combined readership greater than The Philadelphia Inquirer's.

The truth is, blogs and fake news have endeared themselves to my generation as newspapers and network news never have.

From editor to educator, this trend makes older generations nervous. If our republic rises and falls with the health of its free press, what does our changed media habits mean for the future of America? I remember a fine teacher once begging my college class to “become addicted to the newspaper.” (We nodded politely, unconcerned with her concern.) And maybe her urgency was fueled by the same fire and brimstone that made her parents demand she turn down that “rock and roll racket!” and listen to Sinatra instead.

But, I must admit, there was still legitimacy to that teacher's anxiety. There was -- and continues to be -- something worrisome in the way my generation doesn’t read the newspaper.

This newspaper crisis has everything to do with the fact that we consider ourselves maybe not the greatest but certainly the media-savviest generation. Living in the marketplace of ideas like no generation before, we know what we already like and how to get more of it. We each cobble together personas with some MP3s here and some cable shows there. We watch DVDs replete with special features, deleted scenes, and demystifying commentaries. Then, of course, there is the Chinese buffet that is the Internet: no single medium better demonstrates how we can carve and meld identities -- or market groups -- from a multitude of options and possibilities.

Armed with iPods, cell phones, and laptop computers, with entire industries catering to our whims and needs (which are also in many cases whims) we are a generation of painfully self-aware consumers, born to make informed choices and do it quickly.

But newspaper readership isn’t declining because the competing media happen to be more technologically advanced; newspaper readership is declining because we have deemed the medium itself -- often calm, dispassionate, and time-consuming with all its sections and space for hundreds of articles -- flawed and out of step with the way we live.

[...]To be sure, blogs can be intelligent and valuably irreverent tributes to free speech, just as newspapers can be cruel and poorly written. Nonetheless, when we mouth whatever Jon Stewart says just because he said it -- and when we don’t vote despite all the VOTE 4 YOUR LIFE advertising campaigns -- our savviness proves thin and self-defeating, like a 14-year-old's first moustache.

We may yet grow into a fuller definition of the term (I sincerely hope so), but right now our "savvy" is merely a pacifying abbreviation of intellect, a mindset celebrating commercialized rebellions like the X Games while, meanwhile, college costs skyrocket, a Social Security debate over our future rages, and our generation gets shipped and re-shipped to Iraq.

Perhaps there’s something in the newspapers after all: different voices, new ideas, something to help us figure out where to go from here -- even if it means logging off for a few minutes each day. At the very least, we can listen to our iPods and read at the same time.

American Legacy CMO Cullen Resigns

2005-01-24T09:17:00.000-07:00

The American Legacy Foundation said Christopher Cullen has resigned as executive vice president of marketing and communications.

Cullen, whose resignation is effective immediately, has left to pursue an undisclosed professional opportunity, Legacy said. He had been with the Washington, D.C.-based organization, which produces the "Truth" national anti-smoking campaign, since June 2002.

Joseph Martyak has been named interim director of marketing and communications at Legacy. Previously, Martyak served as the assistant administrator for public affairs for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Legacy spends about $80 million annually on ads; its lead agencies are Havas' Arnold in Boston and MDC Partners' Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Miami.

"The board and staff to the American Legacy Foundation appreciate Chris' years of service and his dedication to our mission," said Dr. Cheryl Healton, president and chief executive officer of the American Legacy Foundation, in a statement. "We recognize his many positive contributions to Legacy, and we wish him continued success in his future endeavors."

Remembering A Legend

2005-01-24T09:13:00.000-07:00

Carson, ex-host of 'Tonight Show,' dies at age 79
LOS ANGELES - "Heeeeere's Johnny!"That phrase, delivered in the booming baritone of Ed McMahon, backed by a theme song by Paul Anka, is as firmly ingrained as any in the history of television.

Johnny Carson didn't invent late-night TV, but he might as well have. For it was his Tonight Show that perfected the art of wee-hours talk, comedy and music, setting a gold standard punctuated by his genius for effortlessly wringing a laugh out of a well-chosen grimace or tie-straightening gesture.

Carson, 79, died Sunday morning at his Malibu home. The cause of death was emphysema, according to NBC.

"He was surrounded by his family, whose loss will be immeasurable. There will be no memorial service," his nephew, Jeff Sotzing, said.

In 4,350 shows over nearly 30 years, Carson's Tonight Show reigned supreme. He made stand-up comics' careers with a mere gesture, a "nice stuff" compliment that spoke volumes or an invitation to sit and chat. Jerry Seinfeld, Roseanne Barr, David Letterman and his successor Jay Leno, among others, vaulted to stardom by warming Johnny's couch.

Letterman and Leno issued statements Sunday on Carson's death.

Letterman said, "All of us who came after are pretenders. We will not see the likes of him again. He gave me a shot on his show and in doing so, he gave me a career. A night doesn't go by that I don't ask myself, 'What would Johnny have done?' "

Leno said, "No single individual has had as great an impact on television as Johnny. He was the gold standard. It's hard to believe he's actually gone. This is a tremendous loss for everyone who Johnny made laugh for so many years."

For many viewers, the most memorable episode was his next-to-last broadcast on May 21, 1992. A visibly choked-up Carson was serenaded by Bette Midler, astride his desk, and both fell into a touching duet of Here's That Rainy Day.

He returned the next night for a finale, showcasing highlights and thanking viewers, with these words:

"You people watching, I can only tell you that it's been an honor and a privilege coming into your homes all these years to entertain you. And I hope when I find something I want to do and think you would like, I can come back and (you will be) as gracious in inviting me into your homes as you have been."

"I bid you a very heartfelt good night."

And that was that.

Blogs, Blogosphere, Blogging...

2005-01-21T09:18:00.000-07:00

Like It or Not, Blogs Have Legs
[...]Some would say I'm overselling this, but then again these are probably the same people who consider bloggers "pajama pundits." Or are the solipsists who once looked upon the internet as a fad, believing it would suffer the same fate as CB radios, and who once thought online news would never equal print.

But in fact the blogosphere has evolved into a sphere of memes and ideas that are constantly shaped by the millions of web users who write, read and comment on blogs. In a sense, it operates in a similar fashion to open-source code, where a loose confederation of programmers tinkers with software, adding to it and sharing contributions with anyone who is interested.

In the world of words, the closest analogy would be Wikipedia, the web citizen's encyclopedia that is compiled exclusively by volunteers. The problem is, since anyone can write anything about anybody or anything without any oversight, the quality is often uneven. For example, I plugged myself (a subject I am somewhat familiar with) into its search engine and found a glaring error and a typo in the short, 95-word passage. Like consensus, Wikipedia is wonderful for getting people active in the process, but perhaps not as good for editorial accuracy. (Then again, have you seen The New York Times' correction box?)

Of course, there are intellectual inefficiencies in the blogosphere, and, of course, a lot of hot-gas rhetoric, vitriol, inane discussions, score-settling and outright buffoonery. But at its best, it is a teeming marketplace of ideas, with the best ones holding sway, a pure meritocracy.

In a sense, blogs function like peer-review journals do in the academic world, but there's a key difference. The distribution of articles in academic journals is largely controlled by a publishing cartel that charges exorbitant amounts for subscriptions, which are subsidized by the institutions and universities that can afford them. Think of it as the socialist model for informational exchange. This dampens participation (read: supply of ideas and input) and, I would argue, deleteriously affects the level and quality of discussion.

With blogs, however, anybody with an internet connection can engage anybody else. Concepts are presented, attacked, sliced, diced, added to and subtracted from, mangled, massaged and molded until what is left is an amalgam of the finest we as an online society have to offer. For the digitally well-endowed, it's akin to free-market capitalism, with information as its currency. And not only do we all get to watch, we can join in.

Case in point: Last week, BuzzMachine's Jeff Jarvis posted an entry on "exploding TV" that touts the idea that television as we know it will end in the next few years, supplanted by a whole new generation of searchable video, almost unlimited content on demand, stowing of journalists' primary source material -- interviews, documents -- that never make it into their finished pieces, and the possibility of vlogging (video blogs).

Jarvis linked to snippets of related ideas presented by Fred Wilson, John Battelle, Mark Cuban, Jay Rosen and Steven Johnson, among others. Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired magazine, followed it with a post of his own, a continuation of a think piece entitled "The Long Tail" that he wrote for Wired magazine, and which had kicked off this digital debate. (Note: Before anyone e-mails me with charges of a conflict of interest, note that Wired magazine and Wired News are wholly separate companies with different corporate owners.)

In his essay, Anderson celebrated the breakdown of the old world economic order, to be replaced (potentially) by a new era of "open distribution" for any video content. "This, like the smashing of distribution bottlenecks everywhere," he argues, "could shift consumer taste from hits to niches, creating a Long Tail of demand."

In other words, consumers would have access to any type of content they desired. Nothing would ever be out of print, because there would always be a market for it, no matter how small. Instead of Hollywood and the record industry deciding what we can buy, and neglecting to sell anything that doesn't generate high enough returns, we the consumers would. If the Long Tail were to have a slogan, it might be democracy, disintermediation and corporate decay.

So you see, we could fast be approaching an era of complete customization. Ultimately, Anderson defined the Long Tail as "content that is not available through traditional distribution channels but could nevertheless find an audience." In other words, "niche content." How would we get it? Over the internet, of course.

But not so fast, blogged broadband master Om Malik, who questioned the economics of distributing TV over the internet for mass consumption. "An average American watches four hours of television and assuming that he gets to pick and choose at a rate of 99 cents an hour," Malik wrote, that means he will spend about $1,465 a year or about $120 a month, and when you throw in the download costs -- perhaps $50 a month -- that means it would run net-TV watchers about $170 a month. Contrast that with the average cable bill of $52 a month. Malik predicts "the delta is just too wide." Before this new world of content could be unleashed, the price of bandwidth would have to plummet.

Who's right? Who knows?
But the discussion is groundbreaking. And that's why blogs are not only here to stay, they will help us forge our own future.

I wish we could change the word, though. Instead, I'll just have to get beyond the sound of it and focus on the almost boundless possibilities.

Competitive Ad Spots: All in Good Fun?

2005-01-21T09:04:00.000-07:00

I am including this story from the AP, because I have enjoyed these commercials. Without thinking of branding, unlawfulness, etc., I just think they are funny! But upon looking further into the ads, are they unethical? Are they making false claims? I personally don't have an answer. But maybe you will after investigating the commercials...

Rivals Miller, Anheuser-Busch getting frothy with TV spots
ST. LOUIS (AP) — The marketing battle between the world's two biggest beermakers is getting increasingly nasty.

Miller Brewing started the fight with TV spots showing a referee penalizing drinkers of Anheuser-Busch's Budweiser and Bud Light. Calling their choice of suds "unbeermanlike" conduct, the ref replaces the beer with Miller Lite or Miller Genuine Draft.

Anheuser-Busch then fired back with commercials suggesting Miller's referees were actually stealing the Bud Light for themselves, in some cases looking to run from police with their ill-gotten brews.

Although the commercials amused many consumers, some observers say they lack sportsmanship and maybe good sense. Even TV networks are stepping in, pulling some spots and refusing to debut others.

Critics say there are several problems with the ad campaigns: Some of the Miller commercials make unsubstantiated claims about its rival's products, while the Bud spots include unlawful acts.

"To some degree, it has become unusually personal," said Hoag Levins, editor and executive producer of Advertising Age magazine's Web site, AdAge.com. "Some of the advertising is really petty."

And, he and others say, risky in that Anheuser-Busch's public counteroffensives against Miller may legitimize the rival that has an 18% share of the U.S. beer market, a far cry from Anheuser-Busch's dominant 50%.

"When you mention the competitor you're trying to crush, are you inadvertently burning the competitor's brand in the consumer's mind?" Levins asks. "There's a great deal of debate about how smart that is."

Marketing With Blogs

2005-01-19T08:45:00.000-07:00

Want Truth in Advertising? Try a Blog
A legendary ad executive tells how he uses blogs and how companies can use them in their marketing—without being crushed.

The bloggers had a lot to say about the story by me and Dan Roth on blogs in FORTUNE's last issue. But the single most popular, and remarked-upon, item in our story was a quote from legendary ad-man Steve Hayden, vice chairman of New York-based Ogilvy & Mather. Said Hayden: “If you fudge or lie on a blog, you are biting the karmic weenie. The negative reaction will be so great that, whatever your intention was, it will be overwhelmed and crushed like a bug.”

For bloggers, Hayden's quote touched upon an underlying and not well-understood beauty of blogs: That their communal nature pushes them toward total honesty. They can reveal different aspects of a news item (think of CBS's "60 Minutes" report on Bush's National Guard service) or discuss a product's vulnerabilities (think of Kryptonite locks).

Hayden, the legendary advertising figure behind Apple's famous “1984” ad, introducing the Macintosh, has a lot more to say on the subject of blogs and truth in advertising. For instance, a growing number of consumers, even Hayden himself, turn to blogs to get the unvarnished scoop on products. (In some cases, he finds that he still uses blogs' lower-tech precursor—the message board, but the dynamics are much the same.) Marketers can use blogs to their advantage, Hayden says, but he stresses that they have to cautiously tread into this new medium.

Hayden, who oversees IBM's ad account at Ogilvy & Mather, says that the tech giant monitors blogs to find out what open-source software programmers think about the Linux operating system, which IBM supports. Here are some of his insights into how blogs are changing the relationship between consumers, corporations and advertisers:

Blogs can serve as a trusted source.
They can provide companies with reliable feedback.
They provide an outlet for happy and unhappy customers.
They can serve as a reality check.
They can help companies reach an influential audience.

For the full story, please visit FORTUNE...

Minority Advertising

2005-01-19T08:37:00.000-07:00

Mainstream Papers Not Reaching Ethnic Readers

A pair of studies on the readers of ethnically targeted newspapers affirms what many in the field have long claimed --mainstream newspapers are failing to reach this audience.

Dual studies conducted by Circulation Verification Council on both the Hispanic and African American newspaper markets appear to bear out this contention. According to a survey conducted among 15,000 readers of 110 African American community newspapers across the United States, 66 percent of readers cite their African American newspaper as their primary or only source for local news and community event information. In addition, only 12 percent of these readers subscribe to a daily newspaper.

Similarly, among 15,000 readers of 77 Hispanic community newspapers nationwide, 66 percent of readers cite their Hispanic newspaper as their primary or only source for local news and community event information, and only 14 percent subscribe to a daily newspaper.

The studies, which were conducted by Gemstone Communications Inc. and its subsidiary Ethnic Print Media Group (EPMG), which represents over 550 Hispanic and African American directed newspapers to advertisers, also touched on these readers shopping habits. Both studies found that these readers are inclined to respond to advertisers who embrace ethnic print.

In the Hispanic study, 79 percent of respondents said that they frequently purchase products or services as seen in their local Hispanic newspaper. Similarly, 72 percent of respondents in the African American indicated the same preference.

"Our new proprietary research shows the power of our newspapers in reach, relevance, and importance in both the Hispanic and black communities," said EPMG vice president Trevor Hansen in a statement. "For marketers and agencies looking for the touch points to effectively reach and leverage the tremendous buying power of multicultural America, our newspapers provide the forum and editorial environment for strong brand messaging and results."

Levi Strauss Brushes Up on Its Shakespeare

2005-01-16T10:56:00.000-07:00

European Ads Employ Plot From the Bard to Evoke Upscale Image for Jeans

Lately, Levi Strauss & Co. has had all the drama of a Shakespearean play: a seven-year sales slide, a reorganization and a tax dispute with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

But the jeans maker is hoping for a happy ending as it launches a new marketing campaign across Europe on Valentine's Day. Its new television and print ads feature a plot borrowed from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and Shakespearean dialogue. Of course, the young lovers wear low-cut Levi's jeans.

The ads, created by the London office of longtime Levi Strauss & Co. ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty, partly owned by Publicis Group SA, are a departure from the Americana image Levi has used to sell its jeans overseas in the past. Typical Levi's ads in Europe have featured either the American outdoors or were traditional testimonial advertising of people talking to each other about their jeans.

Levi decided to change that approach when it hired Paul Mason 11 months ago as president of European operations. Mr. Mason hails from retailing giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s U.K. clothing line George, which is now the best-selling label in Britain. His mission was to break out of what he termed "insular thinking" at Levi Strauss. He says that he wanted advertising as well as sales and marketing to respond faster to consumer trends. So, he increased ad spending for the brand, moving to two marketing campaigns a year instead of just one.

Levi Strauss faces a tricky marketing challenge: The brand is far pricier in Europe than in the U.S., so it needs to create a more upscale, luxurious image in Europe to lure shoppers and persuade them to pay more. So, the company plans to use its Shakespearean campaign across Europe, but not in the U.S. Its latest U.S. ad shows a young man who charms his way into his girlfriend's home to get back his Levi's jeans.

The new European campaign tells the tale of a budding romance of two fashionable young people who meet by chance. The young woman, played by Amanda Sudano, the model daughter of disco diva Donna Summer, spots a man strutting by in a pair of slightly oversized jeans. She pursues him and confesses her attraction. For the first time in Levi's advertising, the actors talk directly to the camera to give the effect of connecting with the consumer, the company says.

The advertising industry has lately been favoring creating a single campaign to use globally because companies can save money and strengthen their brand image. "It is important to keep the same message to avoid confusion, especially since people are traveling more," says Alfredo Marcantonio, partner at MPH, a creative ad consulting firm in London.

Levi's marketing executives say they considered a unified global approach, but decided that the pricing and brand image was too different in Europe from the U.S.

Company Profile: Capitalizing on Cool

2005-01-16T10:43:00.000-07:00

When TV Guide updates its 1999 list of greatest commercials of all time, I must root against the current occupant of the No. 1 position: Apple Computer's "1984," broadcast for the 1984 Super Bowl. The ad's indelible image - a sledge hammer thrown at Big Brother - makes good art for a museum installation. But for transcendent greatness in the real world, the top spot should go to a more recent instance of Apple-sponsored genius: the iPod commercials. (It doesn't matter which one.)

Their shimmying and shaking have firmly established the iPod as the icon of the dawning digital lifestyle and sped 10 million units out the door. Without saying a word, the commercials present viewers with a choice: orgiastic boogaloo-ing with the in crowd, or standing forlornly out of the picture. And now the price of admission is just $99.

In the weeks leading up to the Macworld Exposition in San Francisco last week, some of the Mac faithful expressed concern that the iPod's phenomenal success was diverting the attention of Apple's chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, away from the Mac. Apple announced record quarterly earnings last week; the results showed that the iPod and iTunes accounted for almost 40 percent of the company's revenue last quarter, up from 15 percent in the quarter a year earlier. Whatever the percentages, children need to be reassured that Dad loves all equally. But the iPod has shown Mr. Jobs new ways to think about Apple's future, which arguably has never looked better.

Consider some competitors. Microsoft has a near-monopoly on the basic software used on the hardware owned by most people, enabling the company to extract what is basically a head tax. Google has a near-monopoly in the digital library business, which enables it to do very well with advertising that monetizes eyeballs. But Apple has an absolute monopoly on the asset that is the most difficult for competitors to copy: cool.

Paul Saffo, research director of the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park, Calif., says emphatically, "Hipness is the only asset that matters." Mr. Jobs had not been able to leverage it in traditional computers because technology in crucial areas had not matured enough to make cool affordably practical on a mass scale. To the extent that cool is based on exclusion of the uncool, Apple was too hip for its own long-term health.

With the introduction of the iPod in 2001, however, Mr. Jobs offered a product that combined cool with inexpensive, truly personal computing that fits in a pocket. Thanks to technological progress, Mr. Jobs now has at his disposal ridiculously cheap processing and memory, which render meaningless the distinction between computer and peripheral. To paraphrase Sun Microsystems, the peripheral is the computer.

Mr. Saffo points out that the iPod and its competitors use identical hardware components. What permits one to so outdistance the others, he says, is "how they are put together" - in Apple's case, with yet-to-be-matched software and essential cool. Playing at the top of his game, Mr. Jobs can lead the way to ubiquitous, headache-free, plug-and-play computing, including every definition of "play" and taking a variety of forms.

APPLE is well positioned for the future. When consumers open their wallets to buy things that have machine intelligence, or provide digital entertainment, or link to the Internet - that is, just about everything in a household that is not edible - they are likely to be drawn to the company with cachet, offering the best-designed, best-engineered, easiest-to-use products, priced affordably thanks to Mr. Moore's old law and Mr. Jobs's new pragmatism. They'll turn to the company that best knows how to meld hardware and software, the company embodied in the ecstatically happy hipster silhouette. The company that is, in a word, cool.

Apple has $6.4 billion in cash, a seemingly small sum next to Microsoft's $64 billion. But it is Microsoft, the poor little rich kid, who must be envious of Apple. All of the billions in its corporate treasury, all of the personal billions of the co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen, all of the money in the world, cannot buy the ability to fathom the metaphysical mystery of cool.

Niche Publishing: New Tech Pubs Hit the Net

2005-01-14T13:21:00.000-07:00

Tech mags return -- can they survive?
PITCHED AT TOP EXECS, MANY ARE ALSO LINKED TO ONLINE VERSIONS

A host of new business and technology-related magazines are hitting the market, thumbing their nose at conventional wisdom that the Internet will stifle print publications.

The latest to launch is Boston-based Forrester Magazine, arriving in February. It's aimed primarily at high-ranking executives, with a ``disproportionate amount'' of its 40,000 readers expected to be in Northern California. Forrester joins four other new magazines -- a revived Red Herring, Tech Confidential, AlwaysOn and a refurbished MIT Technology Review.

These publications are betting on a change in business conditions -- tech stocks are making a comeback, initial public offerings are on the rise, and companies are apparently ready to spend more on advertising.

Their strategies differ from their predecessors: They generally come with online versions, and they're more focused on specific groups of readers.

``This is the age of niche publishing,'' says Andy Plesser, a public relations executive who is helping launch three of the magazines.

It's a bold move. After all, Silicon Valley Biz Ink, a weekly started in 2000, just folded for lack of advertising. And a string of other magazines, including the Red Herring and Industry Standard, thrived during the booming late 1990s but died when the economy slumped and tech advertising dried up.

Now advertising, both online and print, is on the rise again. Internet advertising hit $5.6 billion for the first nine months of last year, up 25 percent from a year earlier, according to TNS Media Intelligence/CMR. Consumer magazine advertising grew 10 percent, to $14.9 billion. (TNS did not break out advertising for business or technology magazines.)[...]

Print supports online
This time, the print version plays a supporting role to the online version -- the opposite of his original Red Herring.

For his first issue, he will charge $4,950 for a page of advertising.

Then you multiply the $4,950 by the 20 advertising pages in the issue (half of the total 40 pages), which totals nearly $100,000 in revenue. Subtract costs of $35,000 for printing, $35,000 for mailing and $15,000 for design and editing -- voila, he's netting $15,000 for the first edition.

Meanwhile, rights to the Red Herring brand were acquired by Alex Vieux, a Frenchman who runs a conference business called DASAR. In 2003, he launched Red Herring as a Web site only. In December, Vieux launched a weekly print version, based in Mountain View.

He has been on a hiring spree and says readership is growing -- although he declines to give specific numbers, or a deadline for making a profit. He has had his bumps, too, burning through several editors last year before landing on Joel Dreyfuss.

Vieux insists there's a market for a more sober Red Herring and aims to go after much the same readership -- writing stories about technology, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who back them. He's seeking economies of scale, having some reporters of the magazine help out with other products, like newsletters and special research -- and building the brand of his technology conference at the same time.

Meanwhile, Forrester Magazine's goal isn't to make money. Rather, it's to build the brand of Forrester, which provides research on business and technology issues. It won't carry advertising and will start with three issues per year.

Brian Kardon, chief marketing and strategy officer of Forrester Research, said he reached out for accomplished editors and reporters -- including Jimmy Guterman, editor of the Industry Standard's ``Media GROX'' newsletter -- to bring in energy and storytelling, but keep the sophistication associated with Forrester's otherwise dense and detailed research.

The company's research found that the more senior the executive, the less time they spent reading online, Kardon says. Thus the decision to go print-only. It will be more of a business magazine than a technology magazine, says Guterman.

Forrester Magazine will be sent only to executives of companies that pay around $30,000 a year for Forrester Research.

The Deal, a finance publication privately owned by New York investment banker Bruce Wasserstein, Rustic Canyon Ventures and others, is distributed to 43,000 high-level executives at companies, and to members of the investor and consulting communities. In May, the Deal will launch a new publication focused on technology deals, called Tech Confidential.

Finally, the MIT Technology Review, which has published for more than 100 years, was revamped in a relaunch this year under the direction of former Red Herring editor Jason Pontin. It moved to monthly publication from 10 issues a year, and grew to 70 pages from 50. Pontin's goal is to make the publication profitable and to reduce its reliance on MIT. The magazine has 315,000 readers, about 90,000 of whom are MIT alums, Pontin says.

He's relying on expert contributors. Pontin says the magazine aims to focus more on Silicon Valley and the media market in Los Angeles. Like other editors, he said he's encouraged by an upturn in advertising.

``Online advertising, which is a bellwether for print advertising, has been growing dramatically in the last six months,'' Pontin said. ``I went out on the road selling the magazine to advertisers -- it was obvious from the response, the advertisers like it a great deal.''

Real Estate: Maricopa County Hits the Roof

2005-01-12T11:13:00.000-07:00

Home run for home sales
Median county price for existing homes skyrockets to $174,815

Voracious investors and move-up buyers pushed sales and prices of existing homes to record highs in Maricopa County in 2004.

Last year, 102,115 existing Valley homes changed hands, a 38 percent jump from 2003's record of 73,785, according to the Arizona Real Estate Center at Arizona State University. The median price of a used Valley home climbed almost 13 percent last year to reach an annual record of $174,815.

Investors betting on quick gains in value and buyers looking to cash out and move to bigger and better houses are driving sales. First-time buyers are finding it increasingly difficult finding a house they can afford, especially with inventory so tight.

Anita and Pierre Cavalcanti sold their $252,000 home in Litchfield Park in just two days. They are moving to Biloxi, Miss., to be near their daughter.

"We really like Phoenix and would like to move back at some point, but by then we probably won't be able to afford the home we sold," Anita said.

Young, Rich, and Wired

2005-01-12T11:05:00.000-07:00

Wealthy Gen X-ers Rely On Internet

Affluent young adults between the ages of 25 and 34 are more familiar with--and dependent on--the Internet than other online consumers, which leads them to engage in a broader range of online activities, according to a report from JupiterResearch.

The report, "Young Affluents Online," finds that young adults who earn more than $75,000 a year use the Web, on average, 43 percent more than the average online consumer for Web browsing, entertainment and media consumption, shopping and e-commerce, and other online activities. Their less prosperous counterparts between the ages of 25 and 34 use the Web the same amount as average online consumers in all age groups, according to the report.

Report author, JupiterResearch Research Director Vikram Sehgal, said the young, well-heeled Web users are more engaged with the Internet because they're more accustomed to it than average consumers and their peers. According to the data, 84 percent of young moneyed adults have been using the Internet for five years or more, compared to 51 percent of online consumers and just 44 percent of young adults earning less than $75,000 per year. "We've seen that tenure plays a key part in Internet activity adoption," Sehgal said.

Jupiter's Sehgal correlated widespread adoption to the fact that nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of young adults who earn more than $75,000 are male. "Men are much more open to the idea of new technology than women are," he said, because they have the "desire" to learn about and adapt to new technologies. The report pegs the online population overall at 49 percent male, and less affluent online young adults at 57 percent male.

Sehgal added that the Web is "absolutely" more than a utility to these young affluents. He said they also use the Web as a primary source of entertainment and media content, as well as to shop, communicate, and take care of financials.

A Paid Endorsement Ignites a Debate in the Public Relations Industry

2005-01-12T10:47:00.000-07:00

When I was in school and even after, I was always taught that public relations was low to no cost publicity. If one were to buy a media mention from an outlet, that is advertising. Media mentions should always be earned (free) media, as result from careful pitching not by purchasing air time. It seems that Ketchum doesn't agree...

The disclosure that a company owned by Armstrong Williams, the conservative commentator and columnist, was paid $240,000 by the Education Department to promote the No Child Left Behind Act is shining a spotlight on a public relations and public affairs agency that is far more comfortable letting its clients bask in such attention.

The agency is Ketchum, owned by the Omnicom Group, which as part of its work for the Education Department paid the company, Graham Williams, to have Mr. Williams promote the law on his syndicated television program and to other African-Americans in the news media. The Education Department account is estimated to represent revenue in the low seven figures for Ketchum; more accurate data are not available because Omnicom no longer breaks out revenue for its agencies, citing the Sarbanes-Oxley law.

A spokeswoman for Ketchum in New York, Robyn Massey, said yesterday that the agency had no comment and referred inquiries to the Education Department.

The disclosure of the payments, in an article on Friday in USA Today, intensified a debate over the prevalence of political opinion masked as editorial content in the paid public communications of the Bush administration. The argument began last year when it was disclosed that Ketchum helped produce and distribute video news releases to TV stations on behalf of cabinet offices, which did not fully disclose their origins.

Yesterday, in a rare rebuke, Judith T. Phair, the president and chief executive of the Public Relations Society of America for 2005, condemned the decision by Mr. Williams to, as she put it, promote the law "without revealing that his comments were paid for by a public relations agency under contract to the government."

"As public relations professionals, we are disheartened by this type of tactic," Ms. Phair said in a statement on the Web site of the organization (www.prsa.org), which represents 20,000 people working in public relations, public affairs and corporate
communications.

"Any paid endorsement that is not fully disclosed as such and is presented as objective news coverage," Ms. Phair said, is a violation of the group's code of ethics, "which requires that public relations professionals engage in open, honest communications and fully disclose sponsors or financial interests involved in any paid communications activities."

Ms. Phair, in a telephone interview, was more emphatic.

"It really is a shame, disturbing and harmful," said Ms. Phair, who is also president of Fair Advantage Communications, a public relations agency in Laurel, Md.[...] NY Times

"Public trust is a core value of public relations done the way it should be," she added. "Every time you have an incident like this, it reverberates and creates greater mistrust."

The CMO Challenge

2005-01-11T16:11:00.000-07:00

Top Marketing Officers Find Getting Together Helps Them Do the Job

As chief marketing officers, Judy Verses of Verizon, Michael Linton of Best Buy and Andrea Ragnetti of Philips Electronics are responsible for promoting very different products. Yet they share many of the same challenges in a job that has become increasingly complex and risky.

While their predecessors focused primarily on mass-market advertising, today's CMO must maneuver among an array of marketing outlets -- from Internet sites to cable-TV and movie-theater advertising to store promotions -- in an effort to reach diverse global customers. At the same time, they must justify each of their expenditures to CEOs who want quick returns on campaigns -- and who quickly replace marketing chiefs who don't deliver. According to a recent survey by executive recruiters Spencer Stuart, the average tenure of CMOs is just 23 months.

That has led some CMOs to turn to each other for support and problem solving. Like CEOs who mingle frequently at conferences, CMOs feel they can talk more frankly with their counterparts at other companies who share their work challenges but are removed from office politics.

Many are attending seminars and joining groups, such as Georgia State University's Marketing Roundtable. Founded 15 years ago, the Atlanta-based group, which costs members an annual fee of $6,000, is more popular than ever "because marketing options and product pricing are more complicated, and consumers are busier, harder to reach and harder to figure out," says founder Ken Bernhardt, a marketing professor.

Ms. Verses, Mr. Linton, Mr. Ragnetti and 47 other CMOs have each paid $50,000 to join Marketing 50, which held its first get-together in October. They were attracted by the chance to network and exchange ideas with peers from other big, global companies, including Kodak, Coke and General Electric. "It's a noncompetitive group with just one executive from a particular industry, so they have a chance to get ideas they can use that their competitors may not know about and also try to figure out some of their common problems," says founder Richard Smith, a former Spencer Stuart executive recruiter.

The gatherings may also help CMOs improve their ability to work collaboratively. "To succeed, they have to work across company functions with many business unit leaders," notes Gail McGovern, a Harvard Business School professor and former AT&T marketing executive.

News You Can Use Today

2005-01-09T09:27:00.001-07:00

Sun-Times Editor Heads to N.Y. Daily News
Michael Cooke, the editor in chief of the Chicago Sun-Times, has resigned after five years with the city's second-largest newspaper to take the top newsroom job at the New York Daily News.

Cooke will take over as editor in chief of the Daily News in February, he announced in an e-mail to Sun-Times employees Thursday. He will fill a job left open when Edward Kosner retired from the Daily News in October 2003.

Cooke thanked the Sun-Times' editorial staff, saying he got the New York opportunity because their work caught the attention of Daily News co-publisher Mort Zuckerman.

"Chicago has been wonderful to me," wrote Cooke, who was named editor of the Sun-Times in 2000.

The Sun-Times has faced several challenges in the last two years, including allegations of inflated circulation numbers. Also, parent company Hollinger International Inc. and ousted Hollinger CEO Conrad Black have been involved in a legal battle. Black has been accused of siphoning hundreds of millions of dollars from the company.

News You Can Use Today

2005-01-09T09:27:00.000-07:00

Deal Fuels PR's Role In 'Branded Marketing Communications'

2005-01-06T10:00:00.000-07:00

At a time when Madison Avenue is beginning to embrace traditional public relations practices as part of a broader approach to "communications planning," major players in the PR field are realigning themselves to play a broader role in marketing, including applications some might normally associate with advertising, media planning and buying.

One of those players, Medialink Worldwide, a leading producer and distributor of video news releases and corporate video footage used by marketers to place their messages, products and brands on television news outlets, has already been quietly expanding into other areas, including branded entertainment, on Monday announced it was selling its research and measurement operations in order to accelerate those efforts.

Those operations, known as Delahaye, were sold to Bacon's Information, a leading provider of media research, distribution and monitoring systems for the PR industry, which itself has been expanding more broadly into the world of "business intelligence."

The moves are significant for both companies, and potentially for the advertisers and agencies they align with, as the traditional silos separating the worlds of advertising, PR and other forms of marketing communications continue to break down.

[...]Bacon's, meanwhile, plans to accelerate the growth of Delahaye as the dominant player in PR measurement and evaluation. Bacon's already maintains some of the largest news clipping services in the world, and has an immense database of journalist contact information.
While the Delahaye deal primarily is designed to solidify Bacon's position in the public relations industry, Delahaye has been aggressively developing research that positions PR in a broader marketing context, including some the first and most sophisticated applications of marketing mix modeling techniques incorporating PR with advertising and other forms of marketing to measure actual sales and other ROI results.

Delahaye has also developed a variety of indices and measurements for benchmarking the volume and value of media impressions generated by public relations campaigns, something people on Madison Avenue have been referring to "PR GRPs," a PR equivalent of the TV ad industry's gross rating point, the standard measure of a TV ad impression.

While Carat's MMA marketing mix modeling unit subscribes to the data, no major ad agency or media shop is known to be utilizing such data yet in their communications planning, though many say it is the kind of research they aspire to incorporate or develop.

"It's often the public relations people who bring us into the marketing mix," acknowledges Mark Weiner, president of Delahaye. "But we're finding our way in and we're happy about that."

Company Profile: New Focus on Self-Improvement

2005-01-05T13:34:00.000-07:00

EACH January, Americans are inundated with advertising blitzes intended to spur them into paroxysms of self-improvement, centered on making and keeping resolutions for the new year. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent encouraging people to eat better, exercise, undergo makeovers and spruce up their wardrobes, not to mention give up smoking and other bad habits that can be erased through buying something.

But the 2005 version of the annual festival of self-help commercialism is unexpectedly confronting a potential distraction: news of the devastation caused by the tsunami in South Asia and the subsequent relief efforts. At the same time Americans are being asked to be self-absorbed, they are also being asked to think of others. That could jeopardize the effectiveness of scores of elaborate, expensive campaigns for foods, beverages, cosmetics, exercise and weight-loss regimens, vitamins, nutritional supplements and other products.

[...] As a result, "the ad messages are not going to be as effective," she said, particularly when it comes to consumers in the so-called Generation Y market segment. Born in the late 1970's through the mid-1990's, they are "the most socially conscious in our segmentation research," she said.

Many marketers are acknowledging the effect of world events.

[...]For the first time, Pepsi-Cola North America - part of the Pepsi-Cola Company division of PepsiCo - has brought out a campaign with a new year's focus for its Aquafina brand of bottled water. The campaign, with television, online, outdoor and retail elements, is intended to build on ads introduced in July by BBDO Worldwide in New York, part of Omnicom, which carry the theme "Make your body happy. Drink more water." The ads, festooned with confetti, feature declarations like "This year drink to your health" and "On New Year's Day don't open a bottle of aspirin. Open a bottle of water."

The campaign comes at a time that "as you would imagine is not a peak time for bottled-water consumption," said Chris Kempczinski, marketing director for Aquafina at Pepsi-Cola North America in Purchase, N.Y.

"But this is the time of year people are redoubling their efforts to get healthy," he added, "and bottled water can be part of that."

Being concerned about the tsunami and about oneself should not be considered mutually exclusive, Mr. Kempczinski said, adding: "The message people are taking away from what we're doing is, we hope, not to be selfish but to be responsible. And be responsible by taking care of yourself, by taking care of others."[...]

Report: Big Boost for Blogs in 2004

2005-01-05T09:37:00.000-07:00

The number of blogs and the use of blog readers rose rapidly last year--but a majority of Americans still do not know what a blog is.

A report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, called the "State of Blogging," discovered that readership of Web blogs--essentially, Web-based diaries--spiked 58 percent last year, with 27 percent of Internet users, or 32 million people, saying that they read blogs. Twelve percent of people who read blogs also chose to post comments on them.

Blog creation is also growing. By the end of 2004, seven percent of U.S. adults, or more than 8 million people, had written a blog, according to the study.

The results of the study, published Sunday, were drawn by surveys with Internet users done in November.

[...]But despite the rise in usage, "blog" still is not a household word. Only 38 percent of Internet users know what a blog is, while the rest are not sure what the term means. (Web surfers' curiosity about the term prompted dictionary maker Merriam-Webster to list "blog" as its word of the year for 2004.)

Blog creators tend to be young men who have broadband and are Internet veterans. Fifty-seven percent of bloggers are male and are relatively well off financially, with 42 percent living in households with income of over $50,000.

Blog readers are more "mainstream" than bloggers themselves, the study found. The majority of people who read blogs are male and younger. But the past year has seen greater-than-average growth in blog readership among women, minorities, people aged 30 to 49, and those with a dial-up connection.

Getting into the News with Zero Budget

2005-01-04T08:55:00.000-07:00

Our favorite PR organization's newsletter has some great tips for getting exposure at no cost to you. I hope you find this helpful!

As we all know, it is far easier to run paid advertisements than to earn media coverage. But what do you do when you have run out of funds to promote your organization or, even worse, have no budget at all?
Donate and prosper
Get the word out that your organization is willing to donate an item to the local charity auction. In our case, we offer a behind-the-scenes tour of our collections.

The organization will typically list the item in their program for the evening event, and, unlike advertising, they don't charge you for it.
Attendees, people who are able to afford the often steep ticket prices and are influential in their arena, will see your listing. In addition, the organizations holding these events will often run paid ads in local publications that list the items being auctioned.

Bottom line: We get promotional exposure at no cost and often little or no effort.

Study local media
Write letters to the editor. Sounds simple, but it works. I have written letters to the editor that were printed in the Washington Post two Tuesdays in a row.

Read your local newspapers cover to cover and look for something at your organization that intersects with something that was written about. It also helps if the letter makes a point that is positive.[...]

Make a college connection
Check out local colleges and universities to find courses that might benefit from having someone from your organization make a presentation or from having students take a field trip to your location.

Instructors are always looking for ways to make their courses more interesting and your organization may have experts or items of interest.

Who knew that the prestigious Johns Hopkins University offered a "Behind the Scenes of Area Museums" course? They do and they were interested in having our director make a presentation along with a curator from the National Dental Museum.

In addition to making ourselves known to some folks who might not otherwise have been interested, we are listed in the university's brochure and Web site as one of the participants.

So, not having a large budget for public relations and promotion or, for that matter, having no budget at all, doesn't mean that there aren't other methods for getting the word out about your organization.

Tobacco News

2005-01-03T08:52:00.000-07:00

Ohio Supreme Court Prohibits Tobacco Ads on Matches
COLUMBUS, Ohio, Jan. 1 (AP) - Matchbooks given out at bars and stores cannot bear advertising for cigarettes or other tobacco products under the 1998 settlement involving 46 states and the major tobacco companies, the Ohio Supreme Court has ruled.

Such promotional matchbooks fit the definition of merchandise and are governed by the ban on youth-oriented tobacco marketing in the settlement, which included Ohio, the court ruled unanimously on Thursday.

Ohio sued the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company over matchbooks advertising the company's cigarette brands, saying they were marketing merchandise prohibited in the settlement.
Reynolds, a subsidiary of Reynolds American Inc., contended the matchbooks were not banned by the detailed agreement.

Reynolds won in Franklin County Common Pleas Court, which held that free matchbooks were not merchandise. But the 10th Ohio District Court of Appeals in Columbus reversed that ruling, and the state Supreme Court agreed.

Reynolds, whose brands include Camel, Winston, Salem and Doral, had ceased matchbook advertising during the case, said Mark Smith, a company spokesman.

Competitors had also stopped such advertising.

News You Can Use Today

2004-12-31T13:45:00.000-07:00

Army Throws WrenchInto Ad-Agency Review
Contract With Leo BurnettIs Extended for Six Months
After a hard-fought, yearlong review of its advertising account, the U.S. Army has thrown a zinger into the process by signing a six-month contract extension with its existing agency, Publicis Groupe SA's Leo Burnett. Its contract was due to expire on Thursday.

Five of Madison Avenue's largest ad firms, including WPP Group-owned firms Young & Rubicam and Ogilvy & Mather, and Interpublic Group's McCann-Erickson, had been battling over the estimated $1.2 billion, five-year ad contract for months.

But late Thursday, instead of announcing its pick for a new agency as had been expected, the Army disclosed the contract extension.

"Right now this decision is in the best interest of the U.S. Army," said a spokesman for the army, who declined to comment further.

Leo Burnett, which landed the account in 2000, created the much-maligned "Army of One" ad slogan. Although that tagline resonated with youngsters, older military personnel yearned for the return of the army's much-admired "Be All You Can Be" slogan, which rang out from television sets for 20 years. New ads for Uncle Sam aren't expected anytime soon. What's more, a spokesman for the Army said there are no plans to change the "Army of One" slogan at the present time.

The Ad World's Message For 2005: Stealth

2004-12-31T13:35:00.000-07:00

O consumer, where art thou? The search for the increasingly elusive shopper, buyer and browser will drive marketers in 2005. But whether the ad world's strategies are nimble enough to capture them remains an open question.

If marketers learned one key point over the past year, it is that reaching consumers by traditional means -- TV, magazines and newspapers -- is getting harder.

American spenders are moving targets. They are seeking information from a broader range of sources than ever and, in the process, filtering out messages that don't resonate or speak to their specific needs.

Advertisers are trying to crack the code of this new reality, even as they mourn the days when network television advertising and other time-honored alternatives were simple, plug-and-play choices. Here are the five areas that Madison Avenue will most likely grapple with in 2005.

Going Wireless
Increasingly, the consumer's best friend -- the thing he or she interacts with most -- is a portable gadget. Such things as the BlackBerry, iPod and cellphone are intimate, techy devices that have the potential to catch on-the-go consumers at the perfect moment for them to make a buying decision. Or to annoy the heck out of them. General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal is already broadcasting about 18 to 20 video news reports designed especially for cellphones to certain Sprint Corp. customers, and it is planning to extend to entertainment broadcasts. Another opportunity: American teens are moving closer to their overseas peers in using cellphones for things like picture sharing and text messaging.

As the mobile phone becomes more of a multitasker -- to surf the Web, watch TV and get text information -- distinctions between various media platforms start to blur. Marketers used to allocating separate budgets to print, television and the Internet may have to think differently. They also may also seek marketing deals with controllers of electronic devices and designers of software that help consumers organize their electronic media and entertainment choices.

For the rest of the story, go here to the Wall Street Journal...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2004-12-31T13:34:00.000-07:00

I know it's not New Year's yet, but I wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year! I hope new and exciting things happen for you and all your goals are achieved.

Have a fun time tonight and don't party too hard!

PR Blunders of 2004

2004-12-29T19:19:00.000-07:00

Rumsfeld, NBA and Sports, Rather and TV Media Take 'Honors' On List of 10 Worst PR Gaffes in 2004 - 10th Annual PR Blunders List Unveiled

PR Newswire via NewsEdge Corporation : SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Defense department black eye, showcasing violence, a corporate scrooge, and unexpected prime time sex highlight this year's 10th anniversary list of public relations blunders compiled annually by San Francisco's Fineman PR. The list is a collection of some of the year's worst public relations gaffes. The "winners" for 2004:

1. RUMSFELD'S ABU GHRAIB SCANDAL
2. NATIONAL BRAWLERS ASSOCIATION
3. RATHERGATE
4. TARGET PLAYS SCROOGE
5. JANET'S PEEK-A-BOOB
6. ABC'S LOCKER ROOM SCENE
7. OUTSOURCING CARLY FIORINA
8. BASEBALL'S JUICED
9. CABLEVISION DUMPS MARV ALBERT
10. NORTHWEST AIRLINES

To see the full description of the list, go here....

News You Can Use Today

2004-12-29T18:07:00.000-07:00

CBS Programs Marketing Unit
NEW YORK - The CBS Television Network has created the CBS Marketing Group to oversee marketing across its divisions. George Schweitzer, evp-marketing and communications at CBS since 1994, was named president. Ron Scalera and Anne O'Grady, both svps-marketing at CBS, were named evps for CBS Marketing. Scalera will also serve as creative director.

The CBS Marketing Group will handle strategic, creative and media duties on behalf of the CBS and UPN networks, both owned by Viacom, as well as collaborate on marketing with the Infinity Broadcasting, King World, Paramount Television and Viacom Outdoor divisions of Viacom, per the company. It will also work with
advertisers to create promotions.

Microsoft, Gateway, Sony Heed the Call of the Mall Microsoft, Sony, Gateway, PalmOne, Nokia, Dell and Intel are hitting the malls this season to capitalize on the latest trend: the kiosk. Proponents say it's a way of getting products into consumers' hands and to reach more women. But the risk is that an inept sales rep can queer the brand experience.

Intel is a big convert. "It gives users a depth of experience that print, billboard, TV and online can't," said Michael Hoefflinger, Intel's worldwide director of co-marketing. Intel and Microsoft are setting up 38 "Experience Zones" this season. Intel also has co-branded kiosks with Sony and Gateway.

Sony is unveiling its 12 VAIO kiosks, one directly outside the Sony store in San Francisco's Metreon. "This is not a selling kiosk, but a display to give experience and education," said Mike Abary, general manager for VAIO. Sony's effort is co-branded with Intel Centrino.

Company Profile: New Strategy

2004-12-28T13:40:00.000-07:00

Can Gateway Reach Greener Pastures?
Its new CEO has cut costs and renewed its focus on PCs, but investors wonder if it can thrive against HP and Dell in a tough market
When Wayne Inouye stepped in as long-struggling Gateway's CEO in March, investors applauded. The former chief of low-cost computer maker eMachines, which Gateway (GTW ) acquired for about $250 million last March, has a reputation for keeping an eye on the bottom line. So it was no surprise when he cut headcount from 8,500 to 2,000.

He also dumped Gateway's 200 retail stores and scaled back a pricey plan to get into the consumer-electronics business. And he got Gateway PCs onto the shelves of nearly every major U.S. chain, including Circuit City (CC ), Best Buy (BBY ), CompUSA, Office Depot (ODP ), and Micro Center.[...]

COW-PATTERNED EDGE. Furthermore, the PC market is a tough place to turn a profit these days. In November, market researchers at Gartner predicted that 3 of the top 10 PC vendors would exit the market by 2007. On cue, IBM (IBM ) sold off its PC division to China's Lenovo (LNVGY ) in early December.

Problem is, businesses aren't buying PCs the way they used to. A rather tepid replacement cycle may already be over. And any seasoned PC veteran knows what comes next: Price wars. All this as Gateway homes in on PCs.

Gateway still has a lot going for it. It has a strong brand name and just launched a TV ad campaign that takes advantage of its well-known cow-patterned boxes. It also has $550 million in cash with no debt. And retailers hope Gateway will stick around to keep HP honest and give buyers more options for PCs in the $700 to $1,200 price range, says Stephen Baker, an analyst at NPD Group. [...]

MEDIA FORAYS. Gateway is also going after American sales, says Ed Fisher, the computer maker's senior vice-president for product planning. It's trying to beef up sales to government and higher education customers while elbowing in on its competitors' corporate business.

A return to consumer electronics isn't out of the question, either. While Gateway has abandoned DVD players, digital cameras, and other products where it didn't have much advantage over competitors, it has kept a toe in the electronics market with its flat-panel TVs and new MP3 player, meant to rival Apple's (AAPL ) iPod Mini. It's also selling a so-called media center PC that's specially designed for digital entertainment.

Will all this be enough to increase market share as the PC replacement cycle slows? Inouye's successes at Gateway so far -- while impressive -- are merely a prelude to his real management challenge. In the coming year, investors will know whether the computer maker is on the rebound or just another one-time star, destined to fade into obscurity.

Real Estate Market Forecast

2004-12-28T10:49:00.000-07:00

This article is very informative for real estate agents about the year ahead. This past year has been record breaking in terms of the sheer amount of buyers and sellers. It seems that next year will be the same, but just fall slightly below 2004. I do consulting work with a few agents, therefore this article is very relevant to their needs. Enjoy the outlook!

Housing market forecast: Cooler
WASHINGTON — The housing market should slow next year from its recent, blistering pace, but don't expect homes to become more affordable.

Economists, builders and Realtors generally predict 2005 will be another historically strong sales year, though slightly below the record-setting pace of 2004.

Sales of new and existing homes could dip about 5%, according to Douglas Duncan, chief economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association. Price increases should moderate to 5% to 6% from their double-digit pace, including an average 13% price rise between the third quarters of 2003 and 2004 alone.

Even at the slower rate, prices would rise faster than forecast inflation and wage growth. Interest rates are expected to rise, which could make it tougher for some to get into the market.
David Lereah, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, forecasts mortgage rates on 30-year, fixed-rate loans will rise to 6.75% from about 5.70% now by the end of 2005. Duncan expects rates to rise to 6.25%

"I would not anticipate a decline in house prices or even a lot of slowing," Duncan says. "We don't think (any increase) will be double digit, but it might be 5% to 6% a year."

For the rest of the story, click here...