PAN Blog

No, we don't mean Zillow-type mashups that are all AJAXed-out with super high-resolution, spy-satellite photos of perfectly manicured lawns. New PAN client HomeGift Realty is a unique mashup of business ideas, practices and charitable giving which puts a new twist on an old business model and adds a very human element to the mix.

The company was started by a couple of guys with backgrounds that couldn't be more diverse. One is a career entrepreneur in real estate and financial services; the other dedicated his life to non-profit organizations. Both share a common believe in giving back. They put their heads together to find a way to create "triple win" situation using little known secrets within the real estate business.

Here's how they describe what HomeGift does:

"We impartially help consumers select the right agent, which often translates into getting the best price. We arrange for home buyers and sellers to get something back when they choose a real estate agent through one of our programs — a rebate on real estate commissions. And then we encourage participants to share some or all of that rebate with their favorite charity."

It sounds easier than it really is, but HomeGift has it sorted out. Check out the blog they recently launched at www.littlepinkhouses.com. If you're considering a home purchase, have recently bought a house or have even a passing interest in RE then you'll get some very interesting insight from the LPH blog, like this post, which explains hidden rebates consumers are rarely made aware of, but are starting to come to light as more RE transactions are initiated and handled through the Web.

Boston proved itself extra vigilant when it discovered several Light Brights with cartoon characters on them throughout the city, many thought they were bombs. These devices were located and removed after a day of mayhem in the city and bomb scare reports ran rampant in the local and national media.

As it turns out, the devices were actually part of a multi-city guerilla marketing campaign by an Adult Swim program on Turner Broadcasting System's Cartoon Network. The persons that assembled and put up the devices around the city (with a cartoon character rudely gesturing) were arrested and the companies involved (a third party marketer and TBS) apologized. This was followed by an arraignment of the two "artists" that placed the devices thought out the city and a very strange press conference.

All that aside, a few questions pop in one's head:

Wow--that really is guerilla marketing--and though it caused panic--and in hindsight, wasn't well thought out in this age of post 9-11--in a weird way, it was sorta successful. That stupid cartoon probably doubled its viewership.

Boston is either very vigilant or very paranoid. That or other cities where similar devices were hidden need to work on their homeland security. Better safe than sorry!

iIt was kind of weird, too that the Turner news outlet CNN was all over this story--one wonders if these guys share the same office space...

The news conference with the two perps was strange enough--but it is unlikely they will do any time--clearly there is no malicious intent, and the statute itself is vague (what is "bomb-like"? Does anyone remember the shoe-bomber?)...

What kind of penalty should the corporations involved in this guerilla-marketing campaign gone awry pay?

What do others think?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16941043/

It's like deja vu all over again. Call it dot-com part deux. With the emergence of Web 2.0 business models, the question has re-emerged: "How much traffic can PR push to our site?"

Did we forget the lessons of the dot-bomb? Or has the PR firm model changed?

PR agencies need to be careful how they answer this question. PR is just *one* element of the marketing mix. All of which, obviously, are designed to drive traffic and ultimately customers to the business. When confronted wiith this question our advice is to put the focus on the influencers (media, bloggers, et al.), and their potential to push a company's visibility, whether it's in the traditional media or the blogosphere.

"How much traffic can we push you? That's a tough metric to predict. We don't hold the key to the readers, your target audience does. So, I'm happy to talk about our chances for coverage by the people who influence that audience. What happens after they talk about your business depends on how well you've connected with them."

Rumor on the street is that a few bloggers were denied press credentials and entry at the GSM show.

Certainly, it is something that tradeshow organizers continue to struggle with. PAN represents a number of tradeshow companies as clients. We counsel clients to deal with it by examining the blog the blogger represents, and check for relevant postings. If the postings are "journalistic" in nature, we usually credential the blogger. We have considered using Technorati to rank journalists, but have decided that it is not fair to bloggers with smaller audiences.

One of our account managers who has run countless press rooms at various trade shows notes that we have denied bloggers press credentials in certain cases. Recently, a company that was not exhibiting at a show sent a corporate representative as a blogger. The corporate blogger wanted to get press credentialed. He was denied credentialing because of the obvious self-serving nature of the corporate blog he represented.

Any other strategies out there for press credentialing bloggers, while protecting the sanctity of the press room and the privileges that come with press credentials? Or is press credentialing bloggers oxymoronic in a democracy?

Recently a large, West Coast-based publicly traded company contacted a handful of leading PR agencies with an RFP for PR. As it turns out, this company had no intentions of replacing its incumbent PR firm. Instead, the company was "fishing"--looking for fresh ideas to help fuel its stalling PR program. The ideas they received via the RFP were utilized with the incumbent PR firm.

Maybe its time that companies that are just “fishing” disclose that they are just trying to get an idea of the creative landscape offered by PR agencies. Such a disclosure would allow the responding PR firms to determine if they want to offer up ideas in order to be considered for a potential “short list’ later on in the company’s search, or if they want to respond at all. Do you think this practice diminishes and devalues the RFP? If a good part of a PR firm's IP is creativity and ideas, doesn’t harvesting ideas by way of RFP discourage PR firms from putting their "best foot forward" in their responses?

The other aspect of this is that long, written RFPs are becoming dinosaur-like. Blogs are now having an impact on the RFP process in general. And if you are a cynic about the RFP process for industries other than technology, blogs may be the answer.

Just pawing through the newly released PRSA/Bacon's 2006 State of the PR Profession Opinion Survey. Two survey responses stand out in particular...

"How important do you think each of the following trends are to the public relations industry and your practice of the function?"

"Proliferation of new communications channels..." was the top answer.

and

"Which one of the following do you consider to be the profession's greatest, single challenge?"

Answer--"Upholding credibility within an environment where the lines between PR, advertising and journalism are growing increasingly vague."

The survey is a good read and it's free with sign-up.

A few more PANners have struck out and started interesting blogs lately. Here's a quick recap:

Shannon Palmer shares "Some blonde insight for your day" on her new site; Lindsay Harrington covers a lot of ground--from PR to high heel shoes and everything in between--at "Short is the New Tall" and new mom and PR queen Becki Parkhurst shares her thoughts on both her jobs here at "PR, Babies and All The Rest."

If you get a minute drop by and take a peek into what these ladies are talking about on their sites. Nice to have you out here!

Check back here soon for new-to-pr Michael Sullivan's posts on making the transition from journalist to PR guy. Mike is a 15 year veteran of the Boston Herald who recently changed hats from hack to flack. He'll be sharing his transition with us regularly on PRspeak.

Valentine's Day is just one of those holidays that PR professionals LOVE. And while it has been rumored that Valentine's Day was created by PR people from the greeting card industry, it actually dates back to Roman times.

Valentine's Day is a great time to own stock in Hallmark or American Greetings. Or to own a flower company.

But it is an even better time to be a PR person. It provides instant fodder to get some "news" out there to those content-hungry organizations--no matter how unconnected and estranged that product or service is from the actual Valentine's Day Holiday. Companies hawking everything from bagels to photo websites are jumping on Cupid's bandwagon.

Not everyone is happy about it though.

Syracuse University can proudly tout that it's faculty ISN'T among those groups who get lumped into the saying "those who can't, teach."

Every year the school selects a number of accomplished professionals from various industries to create and teach their own courses at Syracuse. These classes provide students the opportunity to learn from people who are "practicing what they preach" on a daily basis using the latest tools, techniques and conventional wisdom. This ain't just book-learning; its a little taste of the real world.

PAN's president, Philip A. Nardone has been one of Syracuse's visiting professors since 2003. He's been teaching a course which examines the management of a public relations agency at Syracuse's famed Newhouse School of Public Communications.

The course, which is available to seniors and master’s candidates, introduces students to the practices of public relations within the context of a public relations firm, distinguishing agency life from other work environments. The course is highly participatory, focusing on business development, client service and people management and allows students to apply principles discussed in the class by working together to manage their own mock-up PR firm.

In this year's syllabus Phil includes principles of New Media--blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc.--and how PR practitioners have to integrate these new technologies in order to create well-rounded PR campaigns for clients. But none of that really matters if you can't put it into practice, right?

That's why you'll see in the coming days and weeks here on PRSpeak posts from Phil's students at SU. The blog will be open, and we're excited to see what the next generation of PR-types are thinking, hearing and learning about the profession.

For those of you in the industry who sometimes visit, feel free to post comments--get the students in Phil's class engaged on the blog so they can get a taste of what's new in communications.

As more details unfold about the incident in Boston last week concerning Turner Broadcasting, the more we can see how quickly an organization’s precious reputation can crumble to the ground. If it wasn’t bad enough that the guerrilla marketing techniques caused havoc in the Boston area, the news that one of the two men responsible for the campaign videotaped police removing the suspicious devices and neglecting to say anything seemed to cross the line.

Although he has every right to stand by and watch his clever marketing ideas play out, some think he should have stepped up and responded to police the minute things got out of hand. If he would have taken responsibility as a player in this incident, or if Turner acted more quickly and responded with an effective press conference without talks of hairstyles, there might have been a chance they would have come out of this episode unscathed.

As a graduate student in public relations, this topic has brought our coursework to life and has been discussed several times this past week. Even though the incident generated a variety of opinions among students, everyone agreed that a valued reputation is too good of a thing to waste, even if it is on witty marketing scheme.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/06/suspicious.device.ap/index.html

My most recent field trip experience was when I was in high school. Don't ask where, because I can't remember! But, I know it included the whole nine yards of field trip necessities: yellow school buses, permission slips, parent chaperones and the chance to miss all of the day's classes.

Now fast forward to collegiate life. I thought that field trips were long gone, but boy, was I wrong.

With the help of Professor Nardone, I am literally transported not into the museums and field trips of high school years past, but to the agency life of the future.

Professor Nardone flies in weekly to teach our class, and we get to touch upon all of the aspects of a PR firm prior to graduating and entering the working world. We discuss current events and issues facing the industry and analyze agency tactics from a myriad of perspectives, from the AAE to the CEO. Divided into groups, we are also acting as PR firms, working on RFP's and RFQ's, as well as submitting timesheets and putting our pitching and writing skills to work. (The firm my group chose to represent is French/West/Vaughan.)

Most recently, we held class via Webinar. For those of us in the class that were fortunate enough to spare the cell phone minutes, we were blessed with the rare opportunity to go to class while never leaving the apartment-- a Syracuse University student's dream! It is also the best kind of college field trip a student could ever ask for. Not only did I get to "go to class" in my pajamas, but I was also able to get a realistic glimpse of what it would be like to hold conference calls and group meetings as an agency employee.

But that isn't all. The best part is that this class is also a sort of field trip itself. By mimicking PR firms and submitting proposals for new business, we really do get the gist of what it would be like in the working world. And if doing the work and brainstorming creative tactics is half as fun as it is to learn about it, where can I sign up for that trip?

CRM, FIPS, ROI, BI, IP, PIV.

S-T-O-P!

It has now been three months since leaving behind 15 years of newspaper reporting and editing to work in the high-tech PR world; the first thing I noticed was the alphabet soup that filled my head.

The life I formerly knew frowned upon, no despised, acronyms.

“You don’t speak in acronyms, so don’t put them in your story,” a former editor once barked at me.

As an editor, I turned them back into real words or deleted them from stories entirely. Then I grabbed the reporter and let him or her know in no uncertain terms they were not to use them.

Of course there were a few exceptions to the rule: USDA, ATF, FBI, AFL-CIO, etc.

I’ll have to retrain myself, because after just the first week, I noticed in the high-tech PR world that reporters, editors, marketing executives, just about everyone, speaks in acronyms.

H-O-L-Y M-O-L-Y!

The mainstream media has picked up on astroturfing--fake blogs created by PR firms and political lobbyists designed to look like grassroots movements. And there are numerous examples of astroturfing, both in and out of politics

Friday's Boston Globe had a good story by Alan Wirzbicki about the concern political bloggers have over their sites being infiltrated by publicists posting as regular commentors. It's a legitimate gripe, too. Spam is annoying enough without it being from someone with an agenda that is diametrically opposed to your own.

Forget for a moment everything else associated with the astroturfing phenomenon; what ought to be of concern to PR firms is the black eye (or the deepening of the bruise) the practice gives our profession. If that's not enough, then think about the harm astroturfing will do to the building credibility of blogs as journalistic outlets (those that strive to be considered as such, at least).

The 2008 election will be a watershed event for new and social media. Now is the time to make sure its contributions count for something good and not become a case study in how bloggers 'gamed' the political process. That'll kill social media's credibility for good.

I’m no computer genius, my older brother fulfills that role in my family, but when he isn’t around my parents turn to me for questions on computers and the internet. They assume that since I grew up with technology in my childhood, I should have the answers. If they had questions on how to set up an email account, I was there. If they needed help paying bills online and setting up a zip drive for work, I got it done (with only a few setbacks).

Then somehow between going to college and sitting in Philip Nardone’s Agency PR class at Syracuse University, I found that technology had gotten the best of me. I was constantly hearing about new media and its involvement in PR. I was vaguely aware of blogs and podcasts but didn’t realize the impact they were having on the profession. I realized that I needed to understand these forms of new media to succeed in the PR industry and decided to volunteer to write for PAN’s blog as well as attend the new media series run by a student here at SU.

Now I’m more aware of the uses of new media and PR everywhere I look. Such as JetBlue’s CEO relaying a message to the public explaining their recent problems via a YouTube video that can also be found on its Web site. Or it can be found in companies such as Mercedes expanding PR tactics to include the virtual world of Second Life. Participating in a webinar for class last week proved to me that new media is fully integrated into my life now, whether I want it to be or not.

While I think I’ve got a better handle on it, my brother will always be the computer whiz in the family and I’ll continue to call him incessantly for tech advice. However, I think I’ve come a far way from my first experience with new media, which was thinking the computer boxes my brother and I received on Christmas when I was nine were actually three television sets.