PAN Blog

What's in a name? If you're TD Banknorth, about one quarter of all your advertising budget.

TD Banknorth bought the rights from Bank of America to rename the FleetCenter the "TD Banknorth Garden." Bank of America had passed on the opportunity to brand the building in its own image, which it acquired after scooping up Fleet Bank, the region's largest locally-owned banking institution. A while back Fleet razed the old Boston Garden and built the new venue, which is a much more comfortable if not sterile facility than its predecessor.

But the "Gaah-din" name died hard. The Celtics and Bruins had a rich history in the old building and the Garden name was deeply ingrained in the region's culture. TD Banknorth is banking on raising its visibility by tugging on Boston's heartstrings.

New Englanders will probably receive the name well, but as it's pointed out in this article in Sunday's Boston Globe there's some angst among marketers as to whether the strategy will work; will people associate the "Gaah-din" with TD Banknorth?

The answer is yes...after a while. All the name changes do branding a disservice, but TD Banknorth will benefit if they dedicate themselves and follow through with what they've started. Good branding comes from consistent delivery of a message across multiple disciplines over time. We tell our PR clients that too; PR programs (or advertising) executed in fits and starts hurts a brand. Momentum, creativity and "rolling thunder" initiatives designed to maintain visibility is how brands become industry leaders or "household names." TD Banknorth is spending a lot for the Garden, but over time that investment should pay dividends.

Companies big and small have to monitor the blogosphere for mentions of their names, period. Ignoring customers threatens any business, and turning a deaf ear to the grumblings of the customer base will absolutely lead to a PR crisis.

The latest casualty is Dell's customer support department. Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine chronicles his poor experience here.

Steve Broback, of the Blog Business Summit picks up the issue and broadens it out a bit here.

If some smart flack inside of Dell's internal PR department (and I know at least one) had a PubSub subscription set up to monitor what people were saying in the blogosphere, Steve Broback, myself and others might never have had a chance to write about this. Dell's PR firm seems to have dropped the ball, too.

A federal judge today jailed a New York Times reporter for not revealing her sources for a story she was writing about the Bush administration's leak of an under cover CIA operative's name. (The story never made it to print)

Reporter Judith Miller refused to cooperate today in court and was immediately placed into custody. She's to stay there until she complies with the court's order, or is given permission by the source to reveal his or her identity.

Which may never happen. "Outing" an undercover agent is a felony under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. So that person may not be very motivated to do Judy "a solid."

The New York Times' executive editor Bill Keller defended Judith's actions in the statement below:

Times Statement
July 6, 2005

Statement From Arthur Sulzberger Jr., chairman of The New York Times Company and publisher of The New York Times

"There are times when the greater good of our democracy demands an act of conscience. Judy has chosen such an act in honoring her promise of confidentiality to her sources. She believes, as do we, that the free flow of information is critical to an informed citizenry.

"It has been more than 25 years since Myron Farber, a Times reporter, was jailed and The Times was fined for refusing to provide the names of confidential sources. Subsequently, Mr. Farber and The Times were pardoned and the fines were returned. The case prompted many states to enact shield laws to protect journalists and to help ensure that the public receives information so important in a democracy. I sincerely hope that now Congress will move forward on federal shield legislation so that other journalists will not have to face imprisonment for doing their jobs.

"In the days, weeks and months ahead, The New York Times Company will do all that we can to ensure Judy's safety and continue to fight for the principles that led her to make a most difficult and honorable choice."

Source: The New York Times

So what do you think? Does Judith give up the source in the name of National Security? Or does she keep the source confidential and make a First Amendment stand?

It's not confirmed yet, but all indications point to terrorism in the nine simultaneous subway and bus explosions that hit London's mass transit system during this morning's rush hour.

One has to worry that this may not be over. If the terrorists can hit London's subways and buses, what's to keep someone from doing the same this morning in New York, or some other major financial capital?

The news just reported that machine-gun armed Capital Police in Washington D.C. are now on patrol in that system, which is used by nearly 1 million people daily.

Here's to hoping this has gone as far as it will...

One thing the blogosphere is really good for is providing a stage on which successes and failures are played out live for all to see and (hopefully) learn from. Such is the case with Ketchum's blog initiative.

There has already been gigabits written about all this, so it's not useful for us to continue to harp on these guys (Constantin Basturea chronicles this better than most). What is important is that other PR practices take something away from the Ketchum situation. As far as case studies go, this is one of the best we've seen for producing lists of what to and not to do when hopping on any sort of bandwagon--fad or otherwise.

-JR

Today's Wall Street Journal looks at the issue of newspaper-sponsored (or not) blogs and the reporters that write them. The story's anecdote is SiliconBeat by Mike Bazeley and Matt Marshall of the San Jose Mercury News

Topics covered include newspapers' responsibility for reporters' postings in their blogs; the use of anonymous sources; 'sanity checking' posts with other reporters before publishing (not a bad idea and something we here at PAN do prior to our posting on PRSpeak); and how newspapers are turning to blogs to compete for reader attention.

Of particular regional note for PAN, the article reports that The Boston Globe will soon allow its reporters to blog

From the article: "Now, more newspapers are warming to the idea of offering official reporter-written blogs. The Boston Globe is considering official blogs following the Mercury News's model. At the Dallas Morning News, more than 20 sports reporters contribute to a blog on the paper's Web site. Their posts must be screened by editors, but a spokesman said that requirement might be dropped."

I think everyone in the PR industry would welcome this trend. Just look at how well its working for Heather Green and Stephen Baker over at blogspotting.

• » Cogosphere: Information will search for you | Steve Gillmor's Inforouter | ZDNet.com
  Must read article on commoditazation of content
  (tags: information)
• The Trademark Blog
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...with a conversation. Not unlike the one Becki Parkhurst and I just finished with a great guy named Dave Parmet.

Dave is a marketing/PR guru based on the East Coast with some very cool clients including this one, for whom Dave has done some pretty amazing work building its "nontraditional" brand with blogs.

We we rapped over wraps about the state of the PR industry and the traditional media now that everyone has the ability to create content. Since it seems to be the topic of the day(s), we discussed our theories about 'what constitutes an influencer.' Dave's viewpoint is very pragmatic, and I'm paraphrasing: "[clients] can't decide to ignore certain people in favor of trying to influence others. The people you feel who may have nothing to do with your business today may certainly be your target audience tomorrow." Dave's example was more colorful; something about 14 year old girls blogging about kitty cats -- and the companies that ignore them do so at their peril.

Which makes great sense. Any company that wants to stay in business has to keep an eye toward the future for potential customers *slash* content creators.

• MobHappy: PR Solutions
  Code system to identify how receptive a blogger is to pitches
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• infOpinions? » Blog Archive » More About Citizen Journalism :: NowPublic
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Is the press release dead? There's a lot of talk about how better to get clients' messages out, including this post at Contentious by Amy Gahran.

We ask the same question here (at least in the background) and I'm sure it's discussed within the walls of other PR firms too.

It's hard to say the release will completely die--Amy brings up a good point in that journos do like a neat spoonful of information--but there are good arguments for coming up with a different vehicle. Should "traditional" news releases just be hung on a company's site where marketing speak and hype are expected, or do we change the way these things are written so they better conform to what reporters need?

Anyone not a fan of the traditional format?

Thanks Francois!

Podcasting – It’s unchartered territory for many PR people, but it’s a new area we here at PAN are exploring for our clients. We’re currently working on a podcasting opportunity with Software Development Magazine , owned by powerhouse CMP Media , for our clients, Identify Software and Segue. The interviews for the audio files are taking place as we speak with company executives.

Similar to the way a feature story is developed for the magazine, the interviews revolve around certain topics, and are timed to run in conjunction with a print article, or in this case, a product review. These particular podcasts will feature discussions around Software Testing and Defect Tracking Tools. Everyone is excited about the podcasts, including Reporter Mike Rilley who spearheaded the idea. It will be interesting to see how this works out…we’ll post the podcasts as they become available which should be in the August/September timeframe.

Speaking of podcasts, there was an informative article in this week’s PRWeek about the podcast opportunities that exist for companies to reach tech-savvy consumers. It’s an interesting read and one that we thought was timely since we are currently involved in this new medium. For a more general view, read what Fortune’s Peter Lewis is saying in “Invasion of the Podcasting People.”

Much has been written about the benefit of integrating long tail bloggers as part of your communications programs. As some have argued in the past (here - and here), some of the long tail blogs have smaller – but often times more loyal audiences. In addition, the long tail blogs are frequently great sources of information for the A-listers.

But it is my opinion that there is more to it than that. Long tail blogs offer a tremendous opportunity for people who are trying to reach small and medium business. In the past, the only way to reach these people was by buying local media ads and/or organizing seminars in secondary markets. By incorporating the right long tail blogs in your communications programs, you might save yourself a lot of time and effort in trying to reach those smaller audiences who do not get well served by national media.

And even if your goal is to sell your product to those people in the head of tail – you need to realize that the long tail folks use your product as well. It is to your benefit to listen to what they have to say. Take a lesson from focus group organizers – they will always try to populate some focus groups with long tail folks.

The other reason why you should pay attention to the long tail – no matter who you are trying to sell to – is because crisis will often originate there. And with the speed of crisis propagation the way it is today, you better be prepared. You cannot afford to wait for it to spread to the head of tail – by then it is too late. Learn from Kryptonite, Mazda, and most recently Dell.

[Technorati Tags: long tail marketing communications public relations]

This morning, we heard the news that a newspaper in our own backyard –the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune – had been sold to an Alabama newspaper group. While we here in the Boston area have almost become numb to the news of long-time companies being sold off (Fleet, Gillette, etc.), it’s more of a wake up call to us in the PR industry when it happens to a media company, in this case one of the oldest family owned daily newspaper chains in the state (and one that’s less than a mile from our office). I’ve always held the publication in high regard and they’ve won awards for their news coverage. Will it continue under new management? We’ll see.

Consolidation in the media is taking place at a rapid, almost frightening, pace. Is this a good thing for PR practitioners? My gut reaction is to say, “no,” because this country was formed on the foundation of free speech and with less and less independent vehicles to do that, our free speech becomes limited. But, on the other side of the coin, we have the proliferation of new forms of media, most notably blogs, websites, podcasts, who knows what else the future holds. These vehicles are offering new and different forms of journalism, never before possible.

So, while the old school in me is saddened to see the Eagle Tribune lose its independence, I’m optimistic to what the future holds.

[Technorati Tags: pr public relations media eagle tribune]