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London's Waterloo Station has an attention-grabbing piece of cargo passing through: a crate made to hold "predatory livestock" for Jurassic World's fictional InGen Technologies.
With the summer blockbuster's opening weekend just a week away, Universal Pictures is clearly stepping up its marketing effort with cobranded partnerships like the (actually decent-sounding) Dairy Queen Jurassic Smash Blizzard and a big out-of-home push.
The Waterloo stunt quickly proved its worth in social media, vaulting to Reddit's front page today....
As a spokesperson, you must understand what reporters consider newsworthy. You can often propel your story from important to newsworthy just by highlighting a different angle.
So, look at that story you're about to pitch, and see which of the following 16 elements it has (hopefully it has several). If you're not prioritizing those elements, turn them into your lead.
In many ways stoke could be used interchangeably with the more marketing-friendly word “buzz.” You can think of stoke as buzz around a brand, product or athlete that simultaneously inspires and excites.
Stoke isn’t the place to get really granular about product details, features, or techy insights. It’s a lot more about building a story, putting forward your brand and letting potential customers aspire to the life your products can help create. Even specific products can take a backseat in many cases.
Ever seen one of those GoPro promotional videos of people doing crazy things in beautiful locations? You know that feeling you get in your gut that you want to go there, and do those things? That’s you getting stoked. Thanks GoPro!...
Being a big fan of alcohol, I wondered why this was. Is it down to peer pressure? Social malaise perhaps? A sign of Britain heading down the proverbial pan? Or is it down to canny marketing and PR stunts? I suspect it could be the latter. I still remember Carling Black Label adverts from my distant youth. The 'Carlsberg don't do (insert here) but if they did, they'd probably be the best (insert here) in the world' slogan is practically part of the national lexicon.
But it's not all paid-for television advertising. The big beer companies often chuck in a cheeky PR stunt or two into the marketing mix. Here's my selection of ten of the best. In no particular order...
Flip through a SlideShare full of ways to avoid annoying journalists when pitching your stories....
It didn’t take me long to figure out that anyone who works in PR is caught in the vast space between fact and fiction, perception and reality, and needs to constantly manage executive expectations while also maintaining effective and fruitful relationships with journalists.
Ronn Torossian, a brash public relations expert in his own right, once said of his field: “PR is a mix of journalism, psychology, and lawyering -- it’s an ever-changing and always interesting landscape.”
Given the confluence of factors that go into PR on any given day, along with the fact that 99% of businesses I know wish they got more press, better press, or different press on a daily basis, we decided to go to the experts on this issue. We asked a slew of journalists, producers, editors, and bloggers for their ultimate pet peeves: the things we as marketers do on a daily or weekly basis that make them want to scream, cry, block our emails, or ignore PR pitches altogether. Here's what they had to say....
Read tips from event planning, media and marketing experts, and those who have held successful events.... Memorable events don’t just happen. Organizing and holding an event takes planning. Whether it’s a conference, seminar or a customer appreciation day, and whether you have three weeks to plan or an entire year, your event’s success is in the details. We’ve collected 42 small business event planning tips from the experts, including some of the organizers of the annual Small Business Influencer Awards....
There’s a new ‘surprise’ PR campaign most days at the minute, but this one to highlight the reopening of the Rijkmuseum in Amsterdam – the National Museum – on April 13th is really quite good....
...A ‘synthpop’ duo (I’ve no idea, I’m afraid) were behind a succession of mysterious packages sent to the Pop Justice office. On January 9th, Pop Justice posted this blog, concerning an old school portable cassette player they received in the post: It didn’t have a tape in it and a letter, signed off with a simple H (the eagle-eyes may have spotted an H on the cassette player above, too) told them to keep it handy: Yesterday, Pop Justice’s Peter Robinson blogged again. A hand-written letter, sent from Russia, told how there was a jacket waiting in a dry cleaners with something in one of its pockets, enclosing a collection ticket and address....
Jason Sadler, a 30-year-old entrepreneur, is auctioning off rights to his last name for one year so that he can can raise money to invest in his IWearYourShirt startup. Sadler, who lives in Jacksonville, Fla., makes a living wearing T-shirts. For a fee, Sadler will wear a sponsored T-shirt featuring a company's logo for a full day or an entire week. He calls his company IWearYourShirt and, of course, uses social media to get the word out about his latest clients.
But like any small-business person, he needs capital.
Which leads to his latest idea: He is holding an online auction and will legally change his last name to the name of any company that makes the highest bid....
[$250K in revenue, ingenuity, lots of buzz. Top bid is $34.5K so far. Successful or stupid? Comments alone are worth reading. ~ Jeff]
Smart PR: Chillisauce auctions World's Largest Bra, raises money for Breast Cancer Campaign... “What can you do for no money?” was the challenge a high-powered venture capitalist (VC) shot at me after I pitched my business idea that required, I thought, $13 million to launch. He was testing me. How committed, driven and passionate was I about my idea. How creative could I get? I think of that line from the VC often when testing my ideas, or considering the aspirations of others. It’s easier to be creative with a lot of money. What can you do with just your imagination?... [Creativity, zero budget for a great cause ~ Jeff]
Just another week in the crazy world of PR and publicity. Drew Kerr assesses the week in ballyhoo and finds it as always, desperately seeking attention. ~ Jeff
Free publicity on the social media sites and in newspapers and magazines, and on TV and radio, is a lot easier with these 50 tips to get you started. Promote a product, market a service, advocate a cause, or take a stand on an issue using these DIY publicity ideas. Whether you need online visibility or offline publicity, or both, small business publicity campaigns and nonprofit marketing pros will find no shortage of tips. [Joan Stewart's 50 free publicity tips page is a gold mine for DIY publicists and media relations managers - JD]
Check out the four examples of companies reinventing how they use and present the press release. Every year, for the last ten years, someone has proclaimed that the press release is dying. While the rumors of its demise are exaggerated, they are not totally unfounded. That’s because the press release is, in fact, being eclipsed by digital alternatives that are more flexible, more interesting, and more relevant. ...This shift in medium and message represents a new era in corporate communications. News now needs to be conveyed in an empathetic tone and delivered in a user-friendly format....
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Journalism and media relations is ever-changing in the age of social news consumption. Understanding and adapting to the changing social landscape helps brands and public relations pros work more efficiently with journalists, which can establish and strengthen relationships with them.
The Edelman Media Network teamed with NewsWhip and Muck Rack to study news consumption in the age of social media. The study uncovered how journalists are adapting and how 76 percent of them feel more pressure to think about their story’s potential to get shared on social platforms.
The study took a deep dive into what ingredients made news stories social in 2014 across five sectors to better understand how media strategies must adapt....
Have we been so distracted by social media that we have forgotten “the media” in our marketing efforts?
Ranking on the web helps grow awareness and attracts eventual sales. Great services and products supply solutions for consumers, but getting free attention in a national newspaper, a magazine and mass media can be a very effective marketing tactic.
Press outreach and mass media attention is often a problem for many businesses. Below, you’ll find a long list of solutions to help you establish, improve, and solidify your outreach capabilities....
Building high-profile links from media sources isn't that difficult when you know how to approach journalists with a good story....
There's no quick fix. Even before search was on my radar, I'd always believed in integrated communications. Link-building is just another component of what should be a multi-faceted approach, and as such, I believe that links are symptomatic of a well-executed PR campaign.
For any marketing campaign you should be looking to use multiple channels. However, the purpose of this post is to specifically explore ways of working with the media, and consequently how to build links on top-tier media sites....
How clients interact with a brand has changed significantly. Now the customer experience extends far beyond customer service, and so it should....
If you didn’t know better you could be forgiven for thinking that the line was for an über cool nightclub. World class underground House music is pumping from the speakers and there is a doorman looking after the crowd outside. Unlike a nightclub doorman though, he is offering free gelato taste tests to help ease the decision making process once inside.
Even if you can’t make it to Surry Hills or Darlinghurst on a chilli winters night, the customer experience extends across the globe via their popular Facebook page. Messina’s Facebook audience enjoys (amongst other things) a personalized level of social media customer service that makes them feel like they are part of the brand. I guess you get the idea. Messina is nailing their customer experience.Forrester Research’s study ‘The State Of Customer Experience Management‘ suggests that over 90 percent of companies rate customer experience as a top priority moving ahead.
So what separates customer experience from customer service and what can your business do to improve your customer experience?...
Has the rise of new media made it possible to practice PR without reporters? Absolutely. But is it smart? ...Thanks to the power of new information channels such as social networking, online video, and blogging, PR professionals can create and syndicate content at the click of a mouse. Forget a press conference or interview—instead, people and companies push out self-made online videos, blogs, and Facebook posts to avoid the hard questions and control their message.
You are your own media outlet—or at least you can be.
...Over the past few months I’ve spoken to two authors who’d signed with the same, well-reputed PR firm for a book launch campaign, paid a considerable amount of money and then…nothing. Barely a review or author interview to show for the firm’s initial promises and excitement. Needless to say, this makes my blood boil. It’s deeply unfair to the authors who placed their trust in this firm, it’s disrespectful of authors in general – taking advantage of their earnest hope and vulnerability – and it’s an insult to all the devoted, hard-working publicists out there who go above and beyond to generate results. It also brings to light something that absolutely has to change: Many – possibly most? – authors simply have no idea what they should look for when hiring a PR firm. Nor do they know what’s “normal” or what they should expect from this relationship. So here’s my laundry list of must-haves in determining whether the firm you hire to publicize your book is up to par, and in understanding whether it’s doing (or will do) what it should for you...
Many companies large and small have attempted PR stunts and there are some great examples of successful events large and small that have worked out for the sponsoring company: think Red Bull’s Stratos Mission, with it’s daredevil leap from the edge of space, or Kentucky Fried Chicken’s giant logo in the Nevada desert, or even the granddaddy of them all, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. These efforts and others like them garnered tons of free press coverage for their sponsors, generated millions of impressions, and ultimately led to increased awareness and sales. But for every successful PR stunt that is launched by a wide-eyed marketing team, there are dozens of unsuccessful efforts littering the road. Even though the old saw, “there is no bad PR” is still widely subscribed to, real damage can be done when an attempt at a PR stunt fails, in truth the damage done to a sponsoring company’s reputation can be immense (not to mention the expense). Here are 5 legendary examples of PR efforts gone horribly, terrible, awfully wrong. #fail has never had better friends than these!....
Commuters travelling near the river this morning were left wondering if they’d had something slipped into their Weetabix, as a giant rubber duck casually paddled down the Thames.
Via Joana Machado
Cindy Ronzoni had to refrain from her normal duties as a publicist during Hurricane Sandy. She knew that there are just some days you can't do your job and that it's being responsible by not contacting the press during national disasters. ...The point I am trying to make with this post is that there are just some days that you can’t do your job, and that’s okay. Would it have hurt if I sent out a general media pitch? Probably not. Would my pitch have been read during that time? Probably not. Was the news I had to communicate a top priority in the events of the world? No. So to all those publicists in training reading this post, please be mindful of the news cycle. Refrain from general product pitches during such times as a national disaster, a Presidential election and mass shootings. By not bothering the media during these times, you’ll gain respect as opposed to the real possibility of losing face with them.... [Great reminder that timing is everything when it comes to media relations ~ Jeff]
Many of the stories we read or watch on a daily basis - about celebrity feuds, love affairs, or marriages - are phony stories from Hollywood publicists. At the end of every month, I write an article that lists that month’s five worst video media disasters.
A few weeks ago, I saw a video of a media disaster and thought, “This one has to go on the list.” But the more I thought about it, the more I concluded that it may not have been a media disaster at all, but a purposefully staged “fight” to bring more buzz to a television program.
The video involved two of next season’s new judges for American Idol: singers Mariah Carey and Nikki Minaj. Here’s the clip:...
[Fun reading from Mr. Media Training, Brad Phillips ~ Jeff]
Timing a launch is one of the single most critical business decisions to be made, but many entrepreneurs get it wrong. The term "launch" holds different meanings to each entrepreneur. Some immediately think of a media blitz as the pillar of a launch, but I've seen many startups launch publicly much too early because they want their idea covered in every major news and trade outlet right away. That comes secondary to developing a sustainable product or business model. It may seem counterintuitive, but it's best to avoid media blitz until you have fully fleshed out your idea. Here are seven signs you're actually ready to launch publicly... [Really useful guidelines for small business and entrepreneurs ~ Jeff]
In the era of the Kardashians and Donald Trump, everyone knows it’s crucial to toot your own horn as often (and as loudly) as possible. Of course, gaining press is a catch-22: you need more coverage because you’re not well-known, and you’re not well-known because you’re not splashed across the front pages. Not all is lost, however. Even if you don’t have a big name, it is possible to get more press and make media connections on your own. You just have to know where to look....
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![S%*t PR People Do That Journalists Hate [SlideShare] | Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight | Scoop.it](https://img.scoop.it/YPMNcFGQt5YdWIK85Cu44zl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVvK0kTmF0xjctABnaLJIm9)
Here's a PR stunt that was of Jurassic proportions.