Canuckflack

Public service ads aimed at moving health and risk-based behaviour may benefit from more motivational and incremental messaging: so says work by Magdalena Cismaru, of the University of Regina.

“Treats alone are not enough,” she says. “I don’t think there is a smoker in Canada who doesn’t already know that smoking leads to all sorts of terrible diseases. … What is much more important in people’s decision-making process is ‘how difficult will it be for me to make these changes?’” (Canadian Business, not online)

PSAs need to provide the audience with the moral or practical support to change their behaviours: in situations where consumers are unsure of their ability to break longstanding habits on their own, they may retreat from hard-hitting advertising and messaging.

The .pdf of “Using Protection Motivation Theory to Increase the Persuasiveness of Public Service Communications”, heavy in social science jargon, can be found on the Saskatchewan Institute of Public Policy website.

The claim: Canadian executives are poorly served by their speechwriters – or the agencies that claim they have speechwriters on staff. Scott Feschuk and Scott Reid think they have the answer. Formerly the speechwriter and director of communications in the office of Prime Minister Paul Martin, they’ve set up shop to produce bespoke texts for every Empire Club, Board of Trade, Rogers Cable 22 and Toastmasters appearance you may face.

“As a former reporter, Mr. Feschuk says he has sat through enough annual general meetings to realize that speechwriting is not a priority in Canadian business.

The work is usually assigned to the member of a company’s public affairs team who “makes the least amount of spelling mistakes,” he says. “And you can tell.”

“”There’s a market that’s not as well-serviced as it ought to be,” [Mr. Reid told the National Post] “Generally what happens is a large communications firm says it can do a speech and it gets pawned off on the lowest associate. It’s seen as low-hanging fruit. But if you’re a CEO who has to speak in front of 500 people, it’s a pretty intense experience and you want to be working with good stuff.” (National Post, behind a firewall)

I think they’re selling the industry short. There are a number of skilled speechwriters in Toronto and Ottawa. Equally, we’ve all worked on speeches at one point or another. There you have it – the peaks and valleys of speechwriting in Canada.

I also suspect, Michael Cowpland, Conrad Black and the Rick George aside, that Canadian executives didn’t feel pressed to deliver well-tailored speeches. Until Sarbanes-Oxley, that is. With stock cross-listed in Toronto, New York and London, off-the-cuff ramblings can cause tremendous complications with financial and legal regulators in many countries.

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What logical structures guide public relations staff in building and deploying an argument in favour of their clients? When confronted with a demand for an explanation “why?”, there is always a “reason” underlying the logic in your media lines and storyline. In his book Why?, the sociologist Charles Tilly identifies four different types of reasons – or answers – that we all attempt to use at one time or another. Malcolm Gladwell wrote about Tilly this week:

” … In Tilly’s view, we rely on four general categories of reasons. The first is what he calls conventions — conventionally accepted explanations. … The second is stories, and what distinguishes a story … is a very specific account of cause and effect. Tilly cites the sociologist Francesca Polletta’s interviews with people who were active in the civil-rights sit-ins of the nineteen-sixties. Polletta repeatedly heard stories that stressed the spontaneity of the protests, leaving out the role of civil-rights organizations, teachers, and churches. That’s what stories do. As Tilly writes, they circumscribe time and space, limit the number of actors and actions, situate all causes “in the consciousness of the actors,” and elevate the personal over the institutional.

Then there are codes, which are high-level conventions, formulas that invoke sometimes recondite procedural rules and categories. … Finally, there are technical accounts: stories informed by specialized knowledge and authority. An academic history of civil-rights sit-ins wouldn’t leave out the role of institutions, and it probably wouldn’t focus on a few actors and actions; it would aim at giving patient and expert attention to every sort of nuance and detail.
Tilly argues that we make two common errors when it comes to understanding reasons. The first is to assume that some kinds of reasons are always better than others—that there is a hierarchy of reasons, with conventions (the least sophisticated) at the bottom and technical accounts at the top. That’s wrong, Tilly says: each type of reason has its own role.

Tilly’s second point flows from the first, and it’s that the reasons people give aren’t a function of their character—that is, there aren’t people who always favor technical accounts and people who always favor stories. Rather, reasons arise out of situations and roles. (New Yorker)

More detail can be found in a lecture by Tilly. I’ve included a sizeable excerpt after the jump, an excerpt that deals with how social scientists struggle to communicate their research and theory effectively to the general public.
keep reading »

“Audio architects“: those are the specialists at Muzak that custom design playlists for their client companies. They pick and choose from artists like Roy Orbison, Motley Crue, Nathalie Imbruglia and thousands of others to help score your retail experience and subconsciously underline their client’s brand attributes.

As a career, I can only imagine that every day these Muzak employees live the same sort of life as Rob, the record shop manager in High Fidelity, who constantly sorts songs and artists into playlists and mix tapes. But without Jack Black as a foil.

“…If you are a company that sells candles, you want an experience that’s moody, low light, and very organic, and so you want a sound system that kind of envelops you. If you walked in, you wouldn’t see a speaker, whereas when you come into an environment that’s more youth-oriented, like this one, the speakers are right there, and they aim the music at you, so that you feel it and get a real sense of where it’s coming from. And at Old Navy the music would be even more in your face.”

Muzak’s audio architects do something analogous within programs, too: some customers want to establish different moods at different times of the day; some want current hits to repeat frequently, as they do on Top Forty radio stations; some want programs that are closely geared to the seasons. At some retailers, one of the biggest changes occurs at closing time, when the music becomes louder, more intense, and presumably more likely to include lyrics that could be mistaken for profanity. That’s an after-hours program, designed by Muzak’s audio architects for employees who restock the shelves.” (New Yorker)

Rob: The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you got to take it up a notch, but you don’t wanna blow your wad, so then you got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules. Anyway… I’ve started to make a tape… in my head… for Laura. Full of stuff she likes. Full of stuff that make her happy. For the first time I can sort of see how that is done. (High Fidelity)

Technorati: Muzak blog High Fidelity mix tape

There’s a new PR podcast on the horizon up here in the thawing Canadian north. David Jones and Terry Fallis launched their Inside PR podcast this week, with very few of the opening night jitters you often note from fledgling efforts. I delayed posting about their baby until I had a chance to actually listen: well worth the time, and it’s refreshing in its relative absence of the now-expected social media liturgy.

Technorati: PR Inside PR podcast

The employee profile. The tried and true tactic in any internal communications plan, or if you’re trying to humanize your large faceless service organization. And an easy target for satire and mockery – especially if you’ve been cheap in hiring a corporate photographer.

Still, Dealbreaker’s posts on the profile posted for a Lehman associate are good for a laugh.

Marco Fortier, of Le Journal de Montreal, spoke to an urban design expert about the horrible state of affairs on Montreal’s roads:

«Tout ce qui est signalisation � Montréal, c’est l’enfer. C’est honteux. De la vraie bêtise humaine», dit-il.

Luc-Normand Tellier dirige le Département des études urbaines et touristiques de l’UQAM. Son métier consiste � «organiser» les villes pour qu’elles fonctionnent. Il n’a jamais vu une Ville qui organise son stationnement aussi mal que Montréal.

«Il y a les parcomètres, les espaces sans vignettes, les espaces avec vignettes, les espaces pour handicapés de telle date � telle date, les flèches � gauche, les flèches � droite, les heures qui changent d’un poteau � l’autre. C’est � devenir fou!» lance Luc-Normand Tellier dans un éclat de voix. (Le Journal de Montreal)

Thanks to PWI and Montreal City Weblog for the pointer.

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Isn’t this a remarkable jumble of mismatched fonts and font sizes? The Hill Times, the weekly tabloid newspaper that covers Parliament and politics in the nation’s capital, seems to be trying out a graphic redesign, one component at a time. This week, the pull quotes are broken out in a new sans-serif font in a variety of randomized sizes. Meanwhile, the rest of the headlines, sub-heds and text remain in stodgy old serif font.

The overall design of the paper hasn’t changed, with every inch of space crammed with articles, stakeholder ads and classifieds for movers, executive retreats and emergency loans.This leaves the overall impression that, once every couple of pages, the editor’s inserted a word jumble for the entertainment of readers.

To be fair, I think I can see method in the madness. Quotes from Ottawa sources – be they government, political or third party sources – can be full of clauses, conditional statements and overrun with adjectives. The new graphic treatment seems to highlight the core ideas or opinions buried in the pull quotes, drawing them out from behind their thicket of words and ancillary ideas.

Still hurts my eyes, though.

CCNMatthews, a Canadian newswire, has picked up MarketWire, the State’s #3 wire. Found that out in an email from their PR rep. MarketWire’s logo has already been redesigned. So why does MarketWire’s news release try to spin it as a merger or a partnership?

“Market Wire Joins CCNMatthews to Form Full-Service Newswire With Largest Media Distribution Footprint in North America” (MarketWire)

“CCNMatthews Acquires Market Wire To Form Full Service Newswire With Largest Media Distribution Footprint In North America” (CCNMatthews)

Who’s in charge? Really? To paraphrase the Friendly Giant: look down, way way down, in the news release:

“Both companies will continue operating as they had prior to this acquisition with Market Wire, headquartered in Los Angeles, California, being led by current president and CEO Jim McGovern, and CCNMatthews, headquartered in Toronto, Canada, continuing under the leadership of president and CEO Michael Nowlan. McGovern will report to Nowlan.“

The Canadian march to dominance in the creative industries continues. It all began with Lorne Greene, and the insidious spread of patience, politesse and good cheer continues today.

Update: The firms’ PR rep points out to me, quite rightly, that the second para of MarketWire’s release notes that “Company representatives disclosed that CCNMatthews was acquiring 100% of Market Wire’s stock in an all-cash deal. The companies have been in discussions for several months.” Guess I skipped over that, which leads me to this question:

“Except for material you’ve written yourself, do you read more than the head and the lede in a news release?”

Technorati: branding CCNMatthews MarketWire

Not as much media relations as a gaping black hole that sucks in all light, sound and energy: that’s the philosophy of many of the Canadian billionaires profiled in the latest Report on Business magazine.

“… Peter C. Newman wrote in his autobiography that Fred Charles Mannix was the only Alberta tycoon he couldn’t rope into an interview. Legend has it that the family docked its PR manager’s salary every time the Mannix name appeared in print. …

… When we called The receptionist said she was not at liberty to disclose information about [Aminmohamed Lalji], not even his title …

… When we called We asked to speak with media relations, and were directed to [Michael] Gold‘s wife, Libby. She politely, but guardedly, answered our questions. …

… Recluse factor MEDIUM-HIGH When we called, his assistant politely explained that Allan Thorlakson “generally does not speak to the media.” … “

I don’t get it. How can Coke’s ad agency – and senior management – sign off on a slogan that immiediately dredges up themes of alcohol abuse and dependence on anti-depressants? Honestly, my first thought upon hearing the new slogan was: “What, Coca-Cola makes Colt 45 Malt Liquor now?”

My first reaction is images like this Flickr picture of a bottle of anti-depressants.

More details on the $400M campaign directed by Wieden & Kennedy in AdAge.

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Just in time for spring proxy statements, the Wharton newsletter discusses a late 2005 academic paper on the media’s coverage of executive compensation: “The Power of the Pen and Executive Compensation.”

“… What models, they ask, are used by the media “to select CEOs for negative articles about their compensation, and do firms and managers find this attention sufficiently costly that they respond by making changes to their compensation policies?”

Relying on 15,000 press articles about CEO compensation from 1994 to 2002, the researchers find “mixed evidence on the level of sophistication used by the press to select companies for negative press coverage. While such coverage is more strongly related to measures of excess total annual pay than to raw total annual pay, coverage is also related to CEO options exercises and total stock and option holdings.”

One sizeable weakness in their analysis: they apparently weren’t able to weight for the varying influence of different newspapers:

“…For example, the authors make no distinction between articles written by the business press, such as the Wall Street Journal and Barron’s, and national newspapers such as The New York Times and Washington Post, and regional newspapers such as the Atlanta Journal Constitution and Philadelphia Inquirer. Nor in this paper did they look at how local coverage in a company’s hometown newspaper may differ from national coverage. “We haven’t figured out how to digest local information when it applies to a global corporation,” says Guay.”

There’s further discussion of the article, and the work of a Times reporter, over at Ideoblog. The blogger, Larry Ribstein, makes the blunt observation that:

“… while we’re reexamining all levels of corporate governance, from inside executives to outside directors to securities analysts, we should do some hard thinking about the governance role of financial reporters in our major newspapers.”

The off-the-cuff survey. The quickie with a sample of 85 or less, designed to generate media interest but not really inform your policy-making process. It’s always good for some easy media hits, isn’t it?

Sure, unless a professional pollster decides to dig around in your findings and contest the claims in your news release. That’s what’s happening to the American Medical Association. Mark Blumenthal of Mystery Pollster is riding the AMA hard for the outsized claims made in their recent news release, “Sex and intoxication among women more common on spring break according to AMA poll.”

He’s analyzed the media coverage of the survey, and he’s posted excerpts of correspondence (from Cliff Zukin, the current president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research) with the deputy director of the AMA’s Office of Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Abuse.

One excerpt from this official, who defends this “media advocacy tool“:

” … I have been involved in the development of public policy research for more than 15 years using this company and several others. We do not make any claims that this is a scientific study and again I ask why did you not have a problem with the other two public opinion surveys I have conducted. I also am afraid that you are looking at the media coverage and not what we issued…

As far as the methodology, it is the standard in the industry and does generalize for the population. Apparently I need to reiterate that this is not an academic study and will be published in any peer reviewed journal; this is a standard media advocacy tool that is regularly used by the American Lung Association, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society and others.”

Blumenthal, like Zukin, has problems with the validity of a non-random internet panel. And the AMA’s reporting of the survey findings with a “margin of error,” a methodological no-no. And the AMA’s decision to revise the posted news release (by removing the paragraph citing the “margin of error”) after they were questioned about it.

” … Also, as described yesterday, their methodology statement at first erroneously described the survey as a “random sample” complete with a “margin of error.” It was actually based on a non-random, volunteer Internet panel. In correcting their error — two weeks after the data appeared in media reports across the country — they expunged from the record all traces of their original error. In the future, anyone encountering the apparent contradiction between the AP article and the AMA release might wrongly conclude that AP’s reporter introduced the notion of “random sampling” into the story. For all of this, at very least, the AMA owes an apology to both the news media and the general public.”

Hmm. I still think there’s a use for the quickie poll, especially on soft issues like clothing styles, vacation choices, and beverage preferences. The AMA seems to have been caught out on a very technical matter, but one of great relevance if the public and the media are to properly interpret of their findings.

An added bonus; Jon Stewart has a comment on Fox News’ coverage of a potential Spring Break serial killer.

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Aside from the great smacks at hipsters making their toddlers wear Clash t-shirts and listen to the Hives, New York Magazine’s “Up with Grups” has some great demographic (and psychological) analysis for anyone managing – or working for – thirty and fortysomething hipsters.

“This is where the Grup diverges from the bobo, the yuppie, even the yupster. The Grup does not want a corner office. The Grup does not yearn for a fancy title. The Grup does not want—oh, please, do not ask the Grup to manage—a staff. “I just wanted to make fun stuff that went on TV,” says Peccini. “Then all of a sudden I’m doing performance appraisals and going to management seminars.”

A human-resources executive told me recently that there’s a golden rule of HR: To motivate a baby boomer, offer him a bonus. To motivate a Generation-Xer, offer him a day off. The Grup, I think, would go for the day off, too. If the boomer’s icon of success was an empire-building maverick magnate like Ted Turner, the Grup’s model would be Spike Jonze, the 36-year-old Jackass-producing, skateboarding, awesome-indie-movie-directing free agent.

Remember, the Grup of today is the slacker from 1990 who, fresh out of college, ran smack into the recession and maybe fiddled around with a riot-grrl band, then got a job at 25 for a Web-development company where she wore jeans to work and played Ping-Pong and stayed late and covered her desk in rare Japanese action figures.

Now that woman is 35, a VP at a viral-marketing firm, still dressing down because everyone knows that the youth market is where it’s at, yet is scared to death she’s going to ossify into the same kind of corporate stooge she swore she’d never become. For a Grup, success isn’t about how many employees you have but how much freedom you have to walk, or boogie-board, away.

Technorati: passionate users hipster demographics