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.

...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.

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!

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]

• how search engines list Web sites for free and through paid placements
• how to get free "organic" traffic by building a site that pleases search engines and visitors
• how to calculate the ROI of search marketing efforts by tracking visitors from the time they hit a site until they buy—and get tips on improving conversion
• how to build links that generate traffic to a Web site
• what's coming next in the constantly evolving world of Web search

We'll be blogging from the floor and encourage anyone who wants to say 'hi' to drop by booth #119.  If any attendees have effectively added blogging to their PR or marketing mix, it'd be great to meet up to hear about your successes (or failures) and swap ideas. 

Technorati Tags : SES, Search, Search+Engine+Strategies, search+business, Search+Optimization, Incisive+Media  

How many times have you been faced with the challenge of your client saying, "no one does what we do," or, “we don’t fit into that category..or any other.” Sure, sometimes this is just not the case...but, what do you do when you know the client is right? When the client has a new technology, new value and doesn’t really “fit” with any market, a whole new series of challenges are presented....which can be fun and brain-intensive stuff! Do we create a category? Do we try to make fit within something else? How effective will we be in setting ourselves apart in either case?

I’ve been faced with this challenge several times in my career...more often recently than any other time and I find in most cases it’s best to position within a category then work to set the company apart in proof points later and by building up analyst buy-in. New markets/categories/coverage areas don't get created overnight, and to create a category there MUST be competitors. I’d be interested in hearing other views on the topic and if they've seen an increase in creating new market categories...or not.

The hype surrounding Second Life. Couldn't agree more.

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/

Headed to ">Search Engine Strategies next week. PAN Communications will be at Booth 110. Stop by and chat with us about how public relations can complement your SEO campaign and help your visibility AND credibility! It's a question we hear more and more....

If I have a SEO effort underway, how would Public Relations help?
SEO is good for visibility and PPC campaigns, but that’s different from true validation. Public relations campaigns validate companies, products, and services through third-parties such as editors, reviewers, analysts, associations and other influencers who choose to talk about that company, product or service. A good public relations campaign will also help a company, product, service, etc. score higher in organic search results as well, as media reports stay visible to search engines much longer than PPC campaigns.

How is a public relations campaign different from a SEO campaign?
A public relations program is primarily concerned with influencing the media, analysts, associations and other constituencies, so the ultimate consumer has a positive impression and understanding of a company, product or service and will invest their time, energy and interest in it. PR combines awareness with instant credibility to capture an audience and generate a quicker purchase decision.

A good example: if an automobile company says that it has the most fuel efficient car in the world and does it through a SEO campaign that gets the brand in “all corners of the web”—that’s visibility, and that’s good. BUT, if a respected car reviewer for The New York Times says that the car is the most fuel efficient in the world—that’s validation, and that’s CREDIBLE.

What do press hits do to help my online presence?
Media coverage, analyst reports, association newsletters, influencer discussions, speaking opportunities, award opportunities, and other third-party promotional opportunities enhance a company’s online presence by validating it or its product or service. If something is validated, visibility will naturally follow through word of mouth (blogs) and enhanced by positive online presence generated by a solid SEO campaign. Visibility always follows a positive media impression, and media impressions are forever on the Web, unlike PPC campaigns.

How can public relations efforts integrate with SEO?
A good marketing program often has multiple, intertwined components that work together to drive maximum positive awareness. PAN Communications works with clients to help drive positive validation. That’s “jet-fuel” for a SEO campaign.

I would have liked to have live-blogged this "radio talk show-style" interview with David Weinberger our good friend Francois Gossieaux, president of Corante and founder of new marketing agency MarketHum held for a bunch of Facebook Marketing 2.0 groupies yesterday at 1:00, but I dialed into the call with just time enough to open Word for note-taking.

Those who attended got a treat--David Weinberger, of the Cluetrain crowd, and Berkman Center and Everything Is Miscellaneous fame, fielded questions about marketing, new and social media, pr and even politics (with his "typical, New England Jewish" slant--Democrat) He likes Obama and Edwards but thinks Hillary will take the nomination. More on that below.

I'm not the best transcriber, meaning I'm sure I didn't catch all the questions and answers word for word. I was also interrupted during the Q&A by some work stuff (imagine!) So if you notice anything wildly out of place please note it in the comments section and I'll do what I can to correct.

Francois: What about blogging in heavily-regulated industries (i.e., Pharma)?

David W: Customers are smart about metadata—we can tell the difference between marketing fluff on a site and real data; we’re pretty good at figuring out what to trust absolutely and what’s marketing.

It’s important for companies to be explicit about the info they’re giving out; for instance, "this stuff 'here' you can count on, its facts, ingredients, etc.—sue us if we get it wrong." Compared against that the marketing content is apparent. Now go back and look at marketing in general and ask yourself if customers trust the word of other customers rather than what you say about your own business.

Customers have learned not to trust companies the way they trust other customers. Marketing needs to adjust to this reality by taking on an authentic tone (the marketing stuff is starting to really sound phony because people are increasingly listening to other—authentic—people. So, the marketing stuff is now starting to sound PHONY because it’s not authentic, even if it happens to be right.

Francois: Are there other lessons Everything is Miscelaneous can teach us?

David W: two things change for marketers: 1) the customer is in control. The control goes beyond exchange of ideas and reviews; customers are starting to take control of organizational issues. Customers can now “organize their own stores with metadata”

2) Finding the complexity in what looks simple. Marketing has always been about simplifying the message. You’re engaged in a process of simplification. BUT, blogging and being transparent is about tackling the complex. Marketers have to get more "stomach" for being complex, meaning interesting. Simple is becoming the new ‘insulting' to customers.

Francois, taking questions from audience: – How do we make things more simple with so many angles attached to each subject, especially in B-2-B environments? AND, marketers have always been on the side of being in control of the message; how do we as marketers give up control?

David W: Simplicity vs. Complexity – there’s always a dialectic. If you teach, you know sometimes you want to make things simple because people get confused. Other times you have to show the complexity. At certain times in business you want to be very simple—find the statement that sums up what is your product (especially in tech). It has to be simple. Once you do that you can organize the complexity to some degree. There’s hypnotizing simplicity—which is bad because that’s saying the same thing over and over again. And then there's clarifying simplicity—which makes understanding easier so you can then layer levels of complexity on top of that simplicity.

David W: On control: marketing takes as a measure of success the level to which it controls the message, which is the wrong way to go about it.

Francois G: On Simplicty: Simple messages - “what’s it going to do for me?” is where we need to focus.

Francois G: What would happen if marketing did not exist? Should marketing go away, or become a part of every company function to some degree or another?

David W: it’s healthy and worth enabling the exchange of ideas an information. Marketers cannot control the message…there are still elements of communications that marketers can control and need to run with, but messaging and product messaging isn’t going to be it anymore.

Audience Question: (GalxoSmithKline) – Converting people who don’t know they want something is called "the intent economy," which consists of people who want something but have to find you first. What does tagging have to do with the intent economy? – we haven’t figured out how to use tagging yet; should crossing the intention economy include tagging? How does tagging tie into this economy?

David W: The intention economy, and why tags matter, is marketing. The conversations that are happening with or without you and the reasons why people find you are because of these conversations. More often than not people don’t know you exist, so they can’t find you. So, if I want to find you, I need to stumble across you. The framework that enables you to find me is not on your site. Tagging certainly helps by finding people’s recommendations and what they think of your products and that makes it easier for others to find you.

For example: if you're a car company and you changed your messaging to “we’re the safe car.” But a lot of people might not care about that so much—they’re looking for other attributes. You need to make your site accessible to people with multiple interests. You can’t anticipate what the people want, so you architect your site to help the intention economy along.

This is something that's happening to brands – branders used to try and control the brand; now its all about reputation—your users bestow this 'reputation' upon you and it’s become more important to protect reputation, vs. your brand.

Audience Question: What advice do you have for those of us “stuck in the middle,” where the company says it wants to get involved in conversations, but still can’t let go of control. So they get into these conversations while trying to retain control and really make a mess. How do you convince the company to stop this?

DW: A company would be foolish not to listen and take advantage of the information the web FIRST—in many respects the customers are the market research. But be careful, as soon as you convince a company to listen, they will want to jump in because they’ll want to respond to stupid posts and message boards. It’s the marketers JOB to HOLD THEM BACK at first. knee jerk responses will be bad.

Francois: "The Shut Up Revolution."

Audience Question: Can you give us your view on the Democratic primary. Who is going to win and why is their message working?

David W: From my point of view, the three majors: I like Obama and Edwards..and I'm doing volunteer work for Edwards. But I think that Hillary is going to win, but I don't like her communication style; it’s old-world, alienating, foreign and annoying. It’s a space alien from the planet broadcast – her communications style is a serious negative for her, although she’s probably going to win.

Francois G: A lot of companies are looking for help, and there are a lot of pr agencies that don’t get it. For people who are looking for help, where do they turn?

David W: I wish there was a list to point to. You want to find people who have something good to say. I don’t have a magic way of predicting this; if they don’t know how to use email, there’s a problem.

For those of you who want a more complete account, Francois will have (I believe) a recording of the event up soon!

I dialed into a WebEx (I still hate WebEx--how they've been around this long and still not figured out how to make logging into one of their presentations dead simple is just....*tisk*) on Tuesday to hear John Battelle talk about "Conversational Marketing." Mr. Battelle's a guy I respect and have been following for a number of years; first for my job, but now because he makes sense in a space filled with a lot who dont.

The moderated Q&A-type session covered a lot of ground and I wish I had the ability to take really detailed notes, but I didn't. It was in the middle of the day--what can you do? I was struck at one point in the discussion by a seemingly obvious point John made which I'm sure many of us miss: if the now famous "markets are conversations" mantra is true, then companies participating in those marketplaces need to have good conversationalists (not a direct quote, but close enough). Makes sense, right?

The most obvious examples of this include (and were cited by John) Robert Scoble, when he was still with Microsoft and Jeremy Zawodny, of Yahoo! Both of these guys became their respective company's conversationalist with the public. And both of them took this responsibility very seriously. They gained the market's 'trust' by being fair and transparent. If (and frequently when) someone commented about MSFT doing something particularly odious, Scoble would either agree or not, depending on how he saw it, rather than defending MSFT out of hand without researching whether or not the commentor had a point. And if Scoble didn't know the answer, he'd go find out and report back.

So good conversationalists have good listening skills, too. It's fair to say if a company is going to be a healthy participant in a marketplace, it needs skilled conversationalists who are equally skilled at listening, as well as commenting.

Some other good points which came up during the WebEx:

Conversational Marketing should embrace PR, but PR has to get used to the fact that once in a while it has to step out of the way once the conversation starts. I liked this--PR folks should be facilitators, not hurdles to good conversations. Be more proactive, not reactive. If there's a crisis (and the term crisis can mean anything negative) then embrace that situation as an opportunity to engage and rectify. John had a good anecdote at the ready to explain: he was giving this presentation from a hotel room in NY. He didn't mention the name of the hotel but he said he'd had a bad experience when he first checked in. He called down to the front desk to get it resolved and the hotel did very little to help. His point of contact was also rude.

John said he'd now give the hotel a D grade. But, if the hotel had done something proactive to help John's situation, then comped him a night *or* sent up something to say they were sorry for the inconvenience, that would have changed John's perception of the hotel's brand. Handled proactively, John would have divorced the experience from the brand itself and still left with a positive brand perception.

PR should look for people who are out there being vocal about their brand experiences. If negative, look for the opportunities to make them right. If positive, do what's necessary to keep those positive vibes flowing. These market conversations are happening all around and positive engagements will create many more brand embassadores than any amount of advertising could ever buy. That last part's my add, by the way. John didn't go down the advertising road.

Measurement - This is still a gray area. The positive thing about online marketing is that it's easy to tell when traffic spikes to a site created specifically for a particular initiative, or counting the number of inbound links ("gestures," or indications of people's attention online), but a universal standard of conversational marketing measurement is still needed. The old models of "reach" and "frequency" are still relevant, but they're being rationalized and scrutinized harder than before. This is particularly true in the search advertising space, where advertisers are starting to demand more transparency from ad networks.

On sites like Myspace and Facebook - they're tremendous potential vehicles for marketers, but still "a mess." But a good mess; marketers have opportunities here but finding them is an ongoing puzzle.

Those are the salient points. None of the above are direct quotes unless I stuck "" around them. John, if you read this and I've missed something or gone off course stick in a comment and I'll get it changed asap.

Next one of these John does is worth an hour of your time.