Whatever happened to reporting?

by Roger Pynn

In the LMAO category was a 9:14 a.m. post on OrlandoSentinel.com today about an ad taken out in the newspaper’s print edition, and published and delivered to my driveway about 5:45 a.m.  Florida Hospital had taken out an ad to alert people who had used its emergency rooms that some patient records had been breached during a 20-month period.  The ad went on to say that all whose records were involved had been notified.

In days gone by, news reporters – who are supposed to be separated from the advertising department for obvious reasons – would have had a “source downstairs” to alert them to any such ad and a story would have run in the same edition.  Don’t try to convince me that it was some new devotion to ethical barriers that kept the newshounds away from this one.

Shortly after 11 a.m., the across-town Orlando Business Journal tweeted “Florida Hospital fires three employees for data breach” and a link to an OBJ story that then links the Sentinel story.  I’ll tell you what … they are burning up the pavement in town today to get that breaking news in your hands.

If it’s In the News, it Must Be True

by Dan Ward

From the “out of the mouths of babes” department:

As I was reading the newspaper this morning, my 7-year-old surprised me with, “Dad, I know that everything in the newspaper is true. That’s because it’s the news.”

When I see the rapid change underway in the media –the defections of seasoned journalists, the TMZ-ification of online news sites, the blogs where reporters are encouraged to voice opinions – I can only hope that my daughter’s wide-eyed innocence will be met with an earnest commitment by the media to ensure her statement remains correct.

Is This the New Cold Call?

by Kim Taylor
As I returned to the office today I was met with a voicemail from a telecom vendor. It wasn’t unusual; I get many, many unsolicited requests from copier sales people, office supply vendors – the standard for any business like ours.

If I’m being honest, I rarely return the calls unless on the very infrequent occasion the vendor is offering a service I actually need. Pretty typical, right?

Today’s call, however, was followed up with an email (marked urgent!) and moments later an invitation to connect on LinkedIn.

Perhaps she should be rewarded for her dogged approach, but a call, URGENT email, and an invitation to connect via LinkedIn all within minutes of each other strikes me as sales overkill.

Our business is all about targeted communications, so maybe my outlook is all wrong here. What do you think?

Where Was the Strategy?

by Kerry Martin

To continue on with the hot topic that our partner Kim Taylor wrote about in her blog post, I wanted to bring up some questions that still lingered following the Netflix announcement.

We can all agree that the Netflix CEO mishandled the announcement and rollout of their price/package changes (even he owned up to that).  I could go on and on about how there was a serious communication breakdown about what those changes meant for their customers, shareholders and the general public.

But what I still wonder is what had they originally planned to do to launch the new company that will take over the DVD by mail aspect, Qwikster?  I’m quite sure the PR plan did not start with “first mention of Qwikster should be in a remorseful email to subscribers sent in the middle of the night.”

Did they have creative ideas like mailing all of their subscribers an example of what the Qwikster envelope would look like so they could get excited about seeing it in the mail with their future DVDs?  Did they want to make a fun video showing how the Qwikster name was created and share through social media?  Did they want to do a teaser campaign, launch it in test markets, place extensive TV advertising, press and publicity?  Did they want to wait until the website was at least live?  And as Kim pointed out, did they want to do some background checks on the name Qwikster to make sure they could even get the all-important twitter handle?

It seems that the way it was handled in a hurried attempt to respond to shareholder and subscriber outcry will just leave a sour taste in everyone’s mouth for a new brand—when instead I’m sure they were aiming for a creative and fun way to introduce and launch this new service.

While it’s always better to be proactive in communications, Netflix teaches us that if you’re too late to react, that careful planning may be all for naught.

Global leaking?

by Roger Pynn

Gifted public speaker, former VP Al Gore no doubt gets a paycheck from Apple as a member of its board of directors … and although it is being touted as a gaffe, his “oops moment” at a summit in South Africa could also be seen as a beautifully strategic use of this larger than life corporate asset.

It makes you want to ask whether the iPhone 4 prototype “left” in a Silicon Valley pub might actually have been carefully placed there as part of piquing interest in the next generation of Apple’s game-changing smart phone.

After all, although Gizmodo’s Jason Chen was investigated for theft, no charges were brought after more than a year of questioning.

Hmmmm!  Could this be strategy?

Make ‘Em Work for It

by Julie Primrose

Domino’s Pizza is currently promoting its line of Artisan Pizza and giving Facebook fans a free pizza for simply liking their page and being one of the first people to visit each day.

The purpose of Facebook contests and giveaways is not only to gain new fans, but to also encourage their engagement during and after the promotion.

In my opinion, this campaign would be more successful if Domino’s had required its fans to somehow interact with the page, perhaps by submitting a photo of them enjoying Domino’s pizza or writing why they deserve a pizza.  Make them work for their “free” pizza a bit.  This would require fans to do more than just click the “Like” button and collect their prize, never to be heard from again.

Domino’s is only giving away a limited number of pizzas each day, which does encourage repeat visits, but I was able to check the status of the daily pizza giveaway without liking the page or even leaving the landing tab for the contest.

Domino’s has run some unique campaigns on Facebook in the past, but this one just seems like a missed opportunity.

Easy Does It

by Roger Pynn

 

Yet another cautionary tale for social media users came in the form of the Hewlett-Packard exec so excited to update his LinkedIn profile that he gave away critical competitive intelligence.

This certainly isn’t “breaking news,” but Bloomberg Businessweek editors found it important enough to develop this article with some tremendous insight on what your competitors might be doing to gain insight into your proprietary information.

Taking Aim is all about targeted communication.  Not all communication is targeted … but you can become a target very quickly if you’re someone like HP VP Scott McClellan … the company’s chief technologist.  In Douglass MacMillan’s Bloomberg article there’s a chilling warning:

“Competitors obviously watch each other in social media just as they have historically monitored each other in the media and in public presentations,” said Shel Israel, an author and consultant on online networks.  “Social media is a new data-abundant source that is here to stay.”

If you’re somebody to watch … someone who the competition knows is “in the know” … pushing the share, post or update button can very easily target the wrong person.

Making Bad, Worse

by Kim Taylor

Remember the outrage in July when Netflix changed their pricing structure and service offerings raised their rates?  The social media community went nuts, people threatened to drop their service, and I imagine many did.  However justified it may’ve seemed it didn’t go over well with their many loyal subscribers.

Then yesterday, in a moment of genius, CEO Reed Hastings issued a mea culpa and explanation and name change, leaving customers even angrier.

If that wasn’t enough, somehow Netflix failed to secure the ever-important-in-today’s-world Twitter handle of their new venture, Qwikster.  Instead, that belongs to a self-proclaimed pot head … who isn’t exactly using the Twitter feed to promote Netflix’s new brand.

It’s pretty clear that Netflix made an already bad situation even worse.  Do you think they can salvage a brand once loved by so many?

Have You Met WUCF?

by Dan Ward

I’ll admit right up front that I’m biased.  I am both a proud alumnus of the University of Central Florida and a PR professional who is honored to call UCF a long-time client.

Now that disclosure is behind us, allow me to ask a question: Have you met WUCF-TV?

That’s the question WUCF is asking the community to answer, in the hopes of getting to know at least 10,000 viewers as part of what Orlando Sentinel’s Hal Boedeker calls “an offbeat approach to its first fund drive,” which ends September 25.

If you haven’t “met” WUCF yet, I encourage you to do so. UCF and Brevard Community College stepped in to form WUCF-TV when WMFE announced it was selling Channel 24, an effort that saved PBS for Central Florida.

Since that time, WUCF has shown a willingness to try new, even “offbeat,” approaches to building and serving its viewer base.  The current fund drive is just one example, with less pledging and a more consistent programming schedule. The opportunity to meet WUCF is an opportunity for viewers to have their voices heard on the future of public television in Central Florida. For those who enjoy public television, the approach is refreshing.

If you have yet to meet, please reach out and say hello. Visit www.wucftv.org or www.facebook.com/wucftv, or call the station at (321) 433-7777.

 

The Qualman Effect

by Roger Pynn

Socialnomics Founder Erik Qualman is modest.

In sharing yet another gem, he makes no mention of the fact that this video proves the power of his brand.  The folks at the University of East Anglia in the UK did a marvelous job of telling the story of how brand power has shifted to the end user … and they did it by “borrowing” the compelling Web video style that has drawn millions of followers to Qualman.

I guess that means he proved their point.