Gaining a Fresh Perspective

by Kerry Martin

As a PR agency, we provide the benefit of helping our clients with their communication challenges by bringing an outside perspective to the table.  But for our client the Florida High Tech Corridor Council, with which we’ve held a 16-year relationship, we realized that our point-of-view was a lot more internalized than before.

In its mission to grow high tech industry throughout the 23-county region, the Florida High Tech Corridor Council maintains a wide partner network of economic development organizations, high tech industries and others that volunteer to promote the region and pursue other collaborations.  The chair of the Council’s marketing committee had the idea of getting a fresh take on its efforts by working with a graduate communications class at the University of South Florida to study the Council and propose new marketing strategies.

Through a semester-long exchange of information, our team provided the students with strategic plans and online metrics for Web and social media, we answered their questions about the organization’s structure and past programs, and we sent out two surveys to our audiences that the two teams of students had developed.

All their work culminated in a presentation this week that we had the opportunity to view through a Web conference.  To them, it was about a class assignment, but for us, it was about a fresh perspective.

Their suggestions on possible tweaks to the branding, enhancements to the social media strategy and updates to the communication channels were all insightful, and I can see us adopting a few of their recommended tactics.  The exercise also helped us understand how some of our publics may view the organization, giving us the outside perspective that we needed.

While having a class examine your public relations strategy perhaps won’t be feasible for every client, finding a way to take a step back and look at your organization through a different lens is a good practice that every practitioner should do.

The revolution of TV advertising?

by Kerry Martin

Since the advent of TiVo, how we watch TV has never been the same.  For those who tape television programs to watch later, DVRs allow you to fast forward through commercials so you don’t miss a beat.  With some programming like live sports, however, most fans will prefer to watch a game as it happens and sit through seemingly endless commercial breaks.

Yesterday while watching the final laps of the Daytona 500, I noticed a very interesting technique for cutting away to advertisements while the action was still going on (because in NASCAR racing, the cars don’t stop for commercial breaks).

With a special picture-in-picture frame, the broadcast followed the lead cars around the track while also airing commercials to the side.  The format provided sponsors an even better opportunity to showcase their product by including their messaging around the corner of the frame, providing a constant reminder of the product or brand as opposed to traditional advertising where the advertiser logo usually only appears at the very end.

For racing fans, it’s also a win-win because they won’t miss what happens during the break like caution flags or position changes.

Imagine how this could change both live sporting events and other broadcasts?  Football games wouldn’t need to have those overly long breaks just for a quick 45-second timeout.  And think of how it could have cut down the 3 ½ hour Academy Awards from last night (I see a 15-second spot popping up while the winning sound editor walks up from their seat in the back).

What are your thoughts?  Would you mind seeing more of these types of ads in the future or do you value the time you have to get up and refill the chip bowl?

What would you do if you knew you would fall … a lot?

by Kerry Martin

Earlier this month I was fortunate enough to go on vacation (thanks, Curley & Pynn!) and try something I had never done before:  ski.

Being from Florida, I don’t have much experience with snow (I don’t think making a snowman once as a toddler counts), and having lived at sea level most of my life, I’m also not a big fan of going downhill (even on a bike I feel out of control).

This vacation just seemed like the time to try something new, though I started having second thoughts after hearing some of the warnings from family and friends:

“You want your pants to have a higher waistline so when you fall they don’t get filled with snow.”

- Ski shop guy selling us our gear

“Oh, you’ve never been skiing?  Well, don’t get hurt from too many falls!”

- Boss

“Just remember to bend your knees so you don’t stiffen up and fall down the mountain.”

- Dad

There was an underlying theme to all of their advice—I’m going to fall down.  It was inevitable.  Not an if, but a when.

I think going into it with that attitude actually helped me get over my fear and just fling myself into learning how to ski, and after more practice, I improved and eventually really enjoyed it.  And yes, I did fall.  I went down on day one at ski school at least twice, and a few times throughout the week (never serious bone-breaking tumbles, mind you, just ski-crossed slips).  By day six, I was doing runs in a quarter of the time it took me at the beginning of the week, and more importantly, I was loving the experience of conquering my fears and challenging myself to do something brand-new.

That experience is something I’m looking forward to bringing into my professional life as well.  I’m going in to any new venture with the expectation that I will stumble, whether it’s spitting out a tongue-twister and ruining an on-camera interview or receiving bored slow-claps after giving what I thought to be a riveting presentation.  When you prepare to do something for the first time, it’s almost freeing knowing that you might not land the best performance.  Hopefully there’s always going to be a next time, so you can practice more and then improve.

So let me ask you this question:  What new thing would you attempt to do if you knew you would fall?

Holiday Deals? More Like Shipping Rip-offs

by Kerry Martin

Ahh, it’s that time of year again … time to be bombarded with emails promising the lowest prices of the year on the best gifts for your friends and family.  From free gifts with purchase to ‘all-you-can-stuff-in-a-bag’ discounts, some of these sales can be mighty tempting.  But in my inbox today I saw something that made me scratch my head at an offer that was quite puzzling.

Subject:           FREE GROUND SHIPPING With Holiday Gift Card Offer!

I’ll admit, adding the extra $20 is a great deal, but is Texas de Brazil really trying to insult my intelligence by offering “free ground shipping” on a gift card?  Unless these gift cards come in a giant box with steak knives, I fail to see how sending an envelope with a plastic card through the mail would translate to some kind of savings for the consumer.

That’s when I did some digging to find out that Texas de Brazil actually does charge customers for sending gift cards without this special promotion.  An order for a $30 gift card is calculated to cost $7.46 to ship to me in Orlando via FedEx Ground!  Do they expect customers to pay 25 percent of the cost just to get a piece of plastic in the mail?  What’s even more ridiculous is that cards with different increments all cost different amounts to ship (a $65 gift card is $7.92 in shipping, an $80 gift card is $8.44 in shipping and a $100 gift card without the special promotion is $8.78 in shipping).

Clearly I’ve never purchased physical gift cards online, but I can’t imagine why a company would not have a better way of proving that a customer completed an online transaction than sending physical cards in the mail.  I suggest Texas de Brazil extend this holiday promotion indefinitely and suspend shipping costs for their customers.  Or better yet, the company could join this century and provide a printable certificate.  Surely gauchos can work bar code scanners.

You can’t take it with you … except at Olive Garden

by Kerry Martin

How many people really want to go out to a restaurant simply because of the “all-you-can-eat” specials?  Not to contradict myself just a few days after Thanksgiving (I only refilled my plate once), but it’s never been a draw for me to go out to a nice meal just to stuff myself until I can’t eat another bite.

When I saw the recent promotion from Olive Garden (the Italian food chain notorious for its never-ending pasta bowl), I had to give them credit for a great idea that’s a new twist on an old classic.  For the last month, they offered a menu where you can order one pasta dish and receive another meal to take home for dinner the next night.

If you think about it, this promotion (called “Dinner Today & Dinner Tomorrow”) was almost the same as their traditional never-ending pasta bowl.  From Olive Garden’s standpoint, they’re probably giving away the same amount of spaghetti, but the way it was marketed will likely benefit the restaurant chain so much more.

In this economy and with today’s health concerns, people would much rather capture the value of two separate meals (which could possibly be stretched even further) than tackle multiple bowls of pasta in one sitting just to get their money’s worth.  Not only do they appease their loyal customers who are used to getting a certain amount of freebies (there’s still the endless breadsticks!), but they also have the opportunity to attract a broader customer base into their restaurants.

Hmm, a restaurant that gives you food to take home?  It does feel like when you’re here, you’re family.

Trend-spotting for the Next Big Thing

by Kerry Martin

I like to think I have a pulse on what’s popular in today’s culture.  Being able to spot trends in the market is a skill most communicators value so as to better relate to target audiences and anticipate social changes.  But after hearing from one of the speakers at Orlando Inc.’s B.I.G. Summit (which stands for Business, Innovation and Growth), I realized I might be a little farther behind the curve than I thought.

The speaker was Jeremy Gutsche, founder of TrendHunter.com, the online collection of all things cool.  The site filters emerging trends from around the world ranging from fashion to technology to business and design.  While the average user could describe it as the Pinterest for innovative ideas, Jeremy saw the potential of the site to serve as one big tool for market research.  And with close to a billion views, major brands can gain serious insight to what is on the cutting-edge.

How often have you wanted to get ahead of market trends for the next big idea, but what one person could possibly predict some of the ideas that made it big?  (Honestly, the Snuggie was a backward robe…)  Just leave it to crowdsourcing to serve as the barometer for what’s hot or not.

It’s quite interesting to explore a site like this and see things that could become future brands, styles, products and items permeating our modern culture.  Even more interesting would be to follow the trends on the site and see how they become adopted by our culture—whether through social media, major retailers or just influencers who carry it past the tipping point (ahh … another thinker, another post).

But you have to hand it to Mr. Gutsche.  His big idea was a way of finding the next big idea.

Give the Customer What they Want, Not Just What they Ask For

by Kerry Martin

As part of our marketing strategy for a client, we mail personalized letters with a magazine to a targeted list of industry groups and organizations.  The not-so-fun part is taking those packages to the post office, where in the past they’ve told us that the only way to get the correct postage was to affix an assortment of stamps in varying increments to add up to the total cost.

So today when I came in asking for postage for 37 packages in whatever increments that would add up to $2.50, the woman behind the counter paused, and said, “That’s going to be a lot of stamps.”

“Well, yeah,” I thought.  “It’s the only way they’ve told us how to do it.”

Then she continued with “Would it be easier for you to just use the machine out front to print stamps with the exact amount of postage?”

Where had this helpful tidbit been for the past three years?  The first post office employee had clearly steered us wrong, but what about the others who as recently as June allowed us to go through the same rigmarole because we said we needed an odd amount of stamps for postage?

Where they failed was in asking the question, “What is it that this person actually wants?”  The answer would probably not be:  to spend three times as long peeling off and sticking on a $1.00 stamp, $0.85 stamp and $0.65 stamp to each of their 37 packages.

If you only give your clients/guests/patrons exactly what they ask for, they may never know that the customer is not always right.

Courtesy in 140 Characters or Less

by Kerry Martin

My favorite thing about Twitter is how it is designed to be courteous.  Retweets give credit to the original thought creator and user “@” handles allow you to talk about an organization while sharing their information with your own audience.

But for those who don’t know the way Twitter functions, their attempts at kindly mentioning your company may not be so helpful after all.

Case in point:  when someone writes a tweet about your company that is meant to be shared with everyone, yet they start it with your company’s username.

On the one hand, the person sharing your information is doing you a favor by speaking about your company and giving you legitimacy by including your official username.  However, their kind gesture is wasted on only the few users who follow both of you (http://www.twitip.com/5-most-commonly-misunderstood-things-on-twitter).

So in keeping with the notion that Twitter is meant to be used for considerate conversation, how do you recommend thanking them for mentioning your organization, but delicately explaining that not as many people saw the tweet as might have been intended—all in 140 characters or less?

Commanding Social Media for the Convention

by Kerry Martin

 

 

Since social media’s meteoric rise in popularity, every national or global event has taken on a new life to reach and engage with its online audiences.  From award shows to the Olympics, and most recently, the Republican National Convention, each program marks a milestone as the first-ever effort of its kind to connect in real-time with millions.

Just yesterday, my colleague, Julie Primrose, and I had the opportunity to be a part of one of the first-ever “social media command centers” organized around a political convention—the RNC in Tampa.  Managed by Tampa Bay & Company, a regional group that leads the effort of economic development through tourism, the social media command center incorporated a team of volunteers and those who represented agencies and organizations with an interest in promoting Tampa Bay.  (We volunteered a portion of our time and supported the efforts of our client, the Florida High Tech Corridor Council.)

The concept was simple enough.  Our job was to act as a concierge for the region to visitors in town, whether that meant responding to someone’s tweet asking for a way to navigate around convention traffic, replying with a good spot to eat, or purely welcoming visitors to the city when they checked in (not to a hotel, but through Foursquare).  We quickly found out that our four-hour volunteer shift was really more like drinking through a fire hose.

The organizers had set up a full room of computers for us to monitor the online conversation, and Julie and I took the important role of “curating” relevant information to pass on to the other team members who responded through the @visittampabay Twitter handle with appropriate helpful tips or welcoming messages.  That meant sifting through the other thousands of new tweets that popped up with any mention of Tampa or the RNC events.  Every 60 seconds another batch of tweets would load to our workstations to be reviewed to determine if it needed follow-up.  And while it kept us on our toes for a solid period of time, we definitely learned about the many aspects of the social conversation that you can’t control and the other ways to be effective in your efforts.

- Responding to politicized tweets (positive or negative) would not help us achieve our goals of introducing delegates and other visitors to the wonderful features of the Tampa Bay region.

- Those with positive or even sarcastic online demeanors would usually respond favorably to our friendly/witty comments that invited them to explore more of Tampa.

- Most Twitter users happily agreed when we asked for permission to use their comments, photos and experiences to help tell Tampa Bay’s story.

This first-ever effort by the folks at Tampa Bay & Company was a wonderful experience, and we were grateful to gain insight into what it means to take command of the social conversation.

Do you know what they’re saying about you?

by Kerry Martin

When a client recently asked our team for recommendations on a valuable clipping service to use, it made me realize that we sometimes take for granted the tools at our disposal for monitoring press coverage of our clients.

It is so important to find out what is being said not only in traditional media such as newspapers and TV programs, but also social media, message boards and other online sources.  Whether you pay for a paid clipping service or use Google alerts to send on mentions of clients, you should also include searches that cover the general industry, key figures and even competitors.

Funnily enough, I did glean one more helpful tip for managing the online reputation of a brand from the HBO show Veep:  check nicknames, too.  On the show, the chief of staff and press secretary have to explain to Vice President Selina Meyer that they monitor numerous nicknames for her including:  “Wicked Witch of the West Wing,” “Blunder Woman,” “Selina Meh,” and my personal favorite “Voldemeyer.”

While most of our clients aren’t national or high profile brands, it did give me pause to wonder what might be left out of our reports if we aren’t searching for mislabeled titles, secondary terms and even nicknames.

That’s just one more Google alert to add to the mix.