Canuckflack

A lot of clients really think their advertising agencies are blowing hot air to puff up their online qualifications:

“… the real truth is that clients are becoming more and more adept at deconstructing this new digital jargon and working out whether theirs is an agency full of digital hotshots or simply hot air. Take the recent research into adland’s digital credentials, conducted by the Haystack Group. If Haystack’s findings are anything to go by, agencies might boast about their ‘micro-targeting models’ and understanding ‘avatar economics’, but advertisers have them sussed. Only 4 per cent of clients are convinced that, beneath the jargon, their advertising agencies are really on top of digital marketing.” (Campaign, sub. req.)

Bill Clinton has blog posts included in his daily clippings package. Antony Mayfield points to a Guardian interview with the former President, and follows up with his own analysis about how social media might reach senior-level executives. From the Guardian:

” … Clinton told [a group of liberal bloggers] that over the past two years he had become an avid reader, and that he now included blog posts in his daily news cuttings service. For the bloggers, toiling away in their front rooms, it was heady stuff. “

The key to Antony’s analysis is three simple words: “strong, relevant blog content.” While Technorati may not be able to filter for those qualities, they are front of mind for the many gatekeepers employed to make sure senior executives make valuable use of their time.

You may not be able to win direct placements in their daily clippings: you may need a more sophisticated approach that reflects influence rather than column-inches. If your public relations campaign communicates sophisticated ideas, new approaches, practical improvements for customer groups and stakeholders, then your messaging might reach these senior executives through third party analysis and opinion.

Or, more simply, you could try to target the gatekeepers: how do you win placement, mention, influence in the exclusive industry newsletters read by many executives? That’s a much tougher (and more intellectually demanding) task, but ultimately more profitable.

Are big conferences worth the effort, the expense, the time? That’s a question posed by Scoble and repeated by Trevor Cook – and well discussed by commenters on both blogs.

BTW- that’s a floor plan of the Jacob K. Javits center to the left. My first job in marketing was to help staff the Canada pavillion at PC Expo 93.

The value of big conferences lies in your approach to the event. A conference is both a learning and networking opportunity. Whether across town or across the continent, your attendance should be planned as thoroughly as an integrated marketing campaign.

Direct mail – learn from the professionals. Why shouldn’t a public relations consultant send out a mailer with contact information before a conference?

E-mail – For particularly high profile conferences, customize and target your email footers to highlight your upcoming presentations. Flying across the world to an event? Publicize it! Maximize your investment! (But discretely, of course. No HTML banners or embedded sound files, please)

Podcasts – Donna Papacosta had the right idea. Build your online identity to maximize your on-site presence. In the weeks or months leading to the conference, interview fellow attendees or scheduled presenters on your blog or through a podcast.

Scheduling – before you step foot on the conference site, you should know how you’re going to spend every minute of your day. From meetings with your clients to scheduled press events, from the booths you want to visit for business development to the booths you want to visit for professional development. What other PR or marketing professionals do you want to meet up with? Where will they be? Can you arrange a meeting before the conference starts?

Panel discussions – Do your homework. Show up armed with information and lines of questioning to follow. Don’t just sit back and enjoy the show. Press panel members for follow-up comments. Create a conversation, even in a room of thirty or two hundred – there are bound to be fellow professionals that appreciate the effort and the result.

Share notes – I’m up in the air about live blogging conferences. If you’re the type that naturally takes notes at presentations, then go ahead. But if live blogging means you’re not really paying attention to the conversation around you – the side comments and witty asides from your fellow attendees – then you may be missing out.

Food, glorious food – The red dots on that floor plan largely indicate feeding stations at the Javits Center. Don’t unpack your wallet and start staring at the menus. As Trevor said, one thing conferences may be good for is face-to-face meetings. If you’ve been unable to nail down an appointment or a rendez-vous with an industry thought leader, you might want to cruise by the main watering stations. Happenstance meetings can lead to 10 minute conversations …. next thing you know, you’re both shopping at Ikea and wondering if it’s time to buy a little dog to make the pied-a-terre feel more homey.

Follow-up, Dammit! – Even a public relations consultant, webhead, marketer and 2.0 guru should remember to make some calls, send some letters after the conference is done. This isn’t a college kegger – they may very well remember your promise to “give them a call” at the end of the night.

To my mind, social networks (in the online sense) are good for one-to-one or one-to-many conversations, but they really can’t set the stage for precipitous but valuable chance encounters between professionals with similar interests. It’s like finding a new book or song: online aggregators or retailers can prod you along with “recommended” lists or “you might like” suggestions, but sometimes you just have to go for a stroll through the aisles to get a real feeling for the action.

What’s the price of fame -� if you’re a sculptor of gnomes? Creative Loafing Charlotte talks with Tom Clark, a former college professor and a longtime creator of over a thousand decorative and collector gnomes.�

“…One loyal fan in California took Clark behind the scenes of a Lloyd Bridges movie as a favor for Clark coming to his home to autograph all his gnomes. During lunch, the man was showing the cast a catalogue of Clark gnomes and a woman across the table, a fellow collector, asked if it was a Clark catalogue. “Yes,” the man confirmed, then pointed next to him. “And that’s Tom Clark.” The woman was so shocked that she choked on her food and had to be given the Heimlich maneuver …”

I guess that’s the benefit of gnomic fame – crashing Lloyd Bridges movies. “It’s GO TIME!“

In case you hadn’t noticed: Scott Feschuk has a new podcast/blog over at Macleans. The premise seems to be just like� Mike Bullard’s monologues – today’s news filtered� for any� hope of humour.�

Public relations is in for a right bollocking from Martin Waller of the Times (September 13):

“I am in trouble for suggesting that PR industry practitioners, a coven of whom this week changed hands for a quarter of a billion dollars, may not be the most useful of our creative industries. Said “profession” yesterday spawned, and sent to me, a) a survey that said people were less likely to throw sickies if they were allowed time off; b) a survey that half of all Londoners thought that their bosses would benefit from a helter-skelter ride; and c) the claim that a quarter of all English entrepreneurs want Hannibal as their business partner.

Not Hannibal Barca, the general; Hannibal from The A-Team, of whom I doubt a quarter of said entrepreneurs have even heard. Get a proper job.”

[tags] polling, POR [/tags]

The GoFugYourself girls have been providing commentary on the shows during NY Fashion week for New York magazine. An excerpt from the entry Heatherette: A Cracked-Out Homage to Aaron Spelling:�

“Picture your high-school production of South Pacific, subtract half the clothes, add some cynical drag queens, and then do three shots of whiskey. Voil� : You have Heatherette’s Tuesday-night show.

At least, that’s how it looked from the cheap seats. In the lobby. With a lot of very angry journalists and transvestites who got shut out of the show because the organizers deemed the already-packed house a fire hazard …

What followed was a hideous assemblage of shredded beachwear and gowns that we can only assume was the Heatherette boys flipping the bird both to conventional fashion and its couture cousin. We sort of respect that. Since the death of Aaron Spelling, no one else has come close to his underrated combination of true pageantry and sarcasm. …”

In Spiegel magazine, there� is a detailed and fascinating article about the team of lawyers, social workers and media advisors working with Natascha Kampusch – the Austrian girl held captive in a basement for over eight years. It deals with the many steps taken to manage her re-emergence into the world, and how her advisors helped the young lady manage the media pressure.

” … Dietmar Ecker has a plan too. He sits on his bright yellow leather chair in his media consultant’s office in Vienna’s eighth district. Everything is very stylish – high ceilings; steel and glass doors; modern art. He was one of the last to join the team of Natascha Kampusch’s advisors, the team that cares for her and protects her from the public. But today he’s the most important person in the team: It’s Wednesday, the day that an interview with Natascha will be aired on Austria’s public television channel ORF.

Ecker sports a six-day salt-and-pepper beard and drives a Porsche. Normally he works as a consultant for trade unions in difficult situations. He also does public relations work for the Republic of Serbia. Years ago, he managed to astound everyone by improving the popularity of an Austrian Finance Minister. Now he’s working for Natascha Kampusch free of charge.

Ecker is a professional. He knows how the media work. He takes a sheet of paper, draws a horizontal line and adds five numbered marks, from zero to four. The zero mark represents the day of Natascha’s escape, August 24. The last mark represents the end of the fourth week following her escape. “This is where the media normally lose interest,” Ecker says. He’s familiar with the phenomenon from election campaigns. The mechanisms are the same, he says, that’s just how these things work – the public’s attention span is predictable when it comes to sensational events …” (Spiegel� magazine)

More about the media’s sometimes unseemly interest in the young lady from the Independent.�

Holla to Marginal Revolution for the pointer.

Choice placement for a couple of Tim Hortons coffee cups – in the hands of Peter MacKay, the Foreign Minister, and Condi as they tour his parliamentary riding. The photo — and a salacious article — were found on the NYT’s splash page.

How does the marketing team at Tims quantify this placement?

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How do Indian designers deal with the conflicting pressures of� competing with� international designers, incorporating or simply recognizing their cultural heritage, the Indian approach to a multi-cultural� and professional training in design, and a colonialist past? Steve Rigley talks about it in Eye.

” …Thrilling as it may seem to Mumbai’s new generation of shoppers, the mall reveals an insidious form of imperialism, a psychological rather than physical ruling: the ‘colonisation of the unconscious’ as Wim Wenders famously observed. And so within this context do contemporary Indian designers – like the court painters working for the Raj – find their taste challenged or their confidence undermined? Has there been any form of reactionary movement, any re-awakening of swadeshi within design education?”

You’ve likely noticed that overly skinny and “unhealthy” models have been banned by the sponsors of a Madrid fashion show. The reaction from one spokesperson from the modelling industry is a little stunning, however:�

“…[Cathy]� Gould [North America Director for modelling agency Elite] said fashion was not to blame for eating disorders that usually started at home due to poor eating habits and constant dieting by mothers. …” (Reuters)

Two points to be made about on-the-fly writing and publication from the early 1970s. First, from the NYT review of Hunter S. Thompson‘s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72:

“…Perhaps whistlestop and jet-plane campaigning should be abandoned and the candidates should compete solely through the electronic media. …”

In the interest of context and full disclosure, I attach the lines that follow the above quote (and which I find amusing AND true):

“… What Thompson does know, however, is that whatever the campaign procedures, the White House will continue to loom in the imagination of power- addicted men as the glassine-bagged white powder does in the imagination of the junkie. Watergate was the attempted rip-off of a fellow addict. “Fear and Loathing” lets us understand why the men we elect to the Presidency may have needle tracks on their integrity.”

The second quote comes from the book itself, and relates more directly to the creative process.

“… The time has come to get full bore into heavy Gonzo Journalism, and this time we have no choice but to push it all the way out to the limit. The phone is ringing again and I can hear Crouse downstairs trying to put them off.

“What the hell are you guys worried about? He’s up there cranking out a page every three minutes … What? … No, it won’t make much sense, but I guarantee you we’ll have plenty of words. If all else fails we’ll start sending press releases and shit like that … Sure, why worry? We’ll start sending almost immediately.”

… Crouse is yelling again. They want more copy. He has sent them all of his stuff on the Wallace shooting, and now they want mine. Those halfwit sons of bitches should subscribe to a wire service; get one of those big AP tickers that spits out fifty words a minute, twenty-four hours a day … a whole grab-bag of weird news; just rip it off the top and print whatever comes up. Just the other day the AP wire had a story about a man from Arkansas who entered some kind of contest and won a two-week vacation — all expenses paid — wherever he wanted to go. Any place in the world: Mongolia, Easter Island, the Turkish Riviera … but his choice was Salt Lake City, and that’s where he went. …”

[tags] Hunter S. Thompson, H.S.T, Salt Lake City [/tags]

They say one unhappy customer will help poison ten prospective customers. What to think of John Peters then? A regular at an outlet of the local Works Gourmet Burger Bistro, Mr. Peters was so struck with their continuing good service that he bought a 1/32 ad praising the restaurant and staff.

Printed in the restaurant directory of the latest edition of the monthly Bytowne Cinema Guide, the ad could eventually be read by an urban audience of thousands interested in alternative, independent and international films. I don’t want to stereotype the clientele at the Bytowne, but many would be predisposed to buying an upscale gourmet burger in a comfortable environment. It’s extremely effective targeted marketing.

Lord knows, I noticed it and I have no intention of eating at an Ethiopian or vegan restaurant (also advertised).

I called the restaurant – Mr. Peters is a regular, and this is not an ad placed by the company.

[tags] customer evangelism, WOM, word of mouth, buzz [/tags]

A riff on Kathy Sierra’s “Success” should not mean “Management”. Rather than focus on that element of a venn diagram that singles out the sweet spot between “what you WANT to do” and “what you ACTUALLY do,” I’ve diagrammed the PR skillz all practitioners posess, and then segmented that according to the demand for those skillz.Big version of picture found at this link.

[tags] accreditation, venn diagram, career planning [/tags]