A clear vision helps drive your career decisions and events
By Robert Wheatley
Here’s the next installment falling from an insightful and engaging conversation with Ron Culp and what can be gleaned from his experiences and path which represent guidance for anyone with some ambition to excel in the PR world.
As we segue to talk about his career moves and key moments along the continuum that opened doors and built opportunities, the “get involved” theme is pervasive. And it is a reference point for the entire conversation, so we will revisit it here.
Ron’s first piece of advice: be willing to make a geographic move. To be sure there’s some natural pull to stay close to home and family. But openness to a move also opens possibilities and doors. In Ron’s case his college experiences had brought to the front an intense interest in the political game. And his willingness to make a move from home territory in Indianapolis to Albany, New York for a post with the New York legislative assembly — It created the launch pad for the political experience he wanted and inevitably would need.
“I would not have been on Eli Lily’s radar screen if I hadn’t done it. So back to Indianapolis for a time. Next up was a big jump in title and responsibilities again by being open to a move to Connecticut with Pitney Bowes as PR chief and a chance to rub shoulders with New York-based media,” he said.
There’s an underlying condition here that should be flagged: a willingness to step outside your comfort zone and take some risks. No great thing can ever be accomplished without doing so.
The Pitney Bowes stint turned out to be mission critical for the next move – to Sara Lee. Critical because the search criteria Sara Lee was working off called for finding someone from the East Coast with New York media experience. “I was the perfect fit for them – a mid-westerner with New York credentials.”
Choices, choices, choices – time and how you spend it…
Lots of people – probably most people – go into careers with no network. In Ron’s case his “get involved” philosophy started early and became foundational for a life well spent. It is paying dividends 20, 30 years later. What’s the action step? Say yes. Raise your hand. Get involved. Seek out opportunities for extra-curricular activity.
“I’m on the Lincoln Park Zoo Board sitting together with the captains of industry here. These relationships matter now and will again in the future,” he reports. It is this eye always on the future ball that helps bring shape to decisions and steps and moves. What’s going on underneath all this is a larger goal – we’ll get to the reveal of what that is shortly.
From Sara Lee to Sears and then a complete departure from this client-side focus to agency life at Sard Verbinnen. Why you ask? “Because you need the experience of a consultant in order to become one,” Ron says. You see Ron wants to walk ultimately in the footsteps of another person he has known, respected and held in high regard: Jack Raymond – a business consultant who during the course of his storied career helped organizations understand the barriers to their success and how to make better decisions.
The move to the agency world provided that inside dig into the life of a consultant. We are advisors, strategists, soothsayers, analysts, creatives, idea people — also builders of programs and campaigns aimed at improving and growing the business and reputations of those we represent. Ron wants to be Jack. And now he has the pedigree to do it with substance and horsepower.
If we can distill Ron’s recipe into its core elements, a few key ingredients bubble up to the surface:
o You need to approach your choices and time decisions with a healthy dose of ambition
o You need to construct a thoughtful and considered path that is always forward looking
o There is an absence of fear here — A willingness to go outside the comfort zone
o Thus an ability to make the moves that will accommodate the purposeful path
o And supremely important, involvement in outside activities that leads to relationship creation
Keep the involvement going. Keep adding. Keep fueling. And keep your eye squarely on the target. As Ron can now say definitively: “Yes, I am now Jack.”
Ron Culp is a friend and former client of some 21 odd years. His personal story is remarkable. It is a teaching moment for anyone considering a career in the PR world. His blog, Culpwrit.com, is one of the most popular around among those looking to get their careers off the ground.
And here we are at the front end of another school term, perhaps the beginning of that all-important senior year for those ramping up to liftoff in the real world. So let’s explore some of the best advice you’ll ever hear on how to optimize that final season and get ready for the rest of your life.
Ron graciously consented to let me peel back the veneer and get closer in on the grist that helped propel his life through remarkable experiences as head of corporate communications at two the most iconic companies in the world – Sara Lee and Sears. From there he moved to the agency business running the Chicago office of financial and merger/acquisition specialist Sard Verbinnen and then moved on to Ketchum Public Relations as regional chief and head of its North American corporate practice. We will also bring you up to date on the dawn of the latest chapter in Part II.
So you may want to take notes. Here we go:
Ron landed on the fundamental point about college life, your life; any point in life – all you have is time and your choices about how to spend it. “The central marker of my college experience was involvement in extra-curricular activities. You can basically split your life between doing your studies and managing your social life. Or you can follow a slightly different path,” he said. In Ron’s case, with dramatic results connected to his choices. His point is simple but profound — you can choose to be passive or really active. It’s a clear choice. A conscious decision.
In our business contacts and relationships matter, and Ron started developing his connections while in school. “I’m still hearing from people in my network that began in the college years. Just today I received a text from a guy I went to school with who 40 years later wanted to convey an opportunity I might be interested in.”
What was the Ron model?
o President of his dorm
o Editor of the campus newspaper
o Statewide chair of the College Republicans group
o Student member of the School Board of Trustees
o And through this connection involved in other University committees
Chief takeaway – this decision set in place a life-long devotion to raising your hand, saying yes and getting involved. The benefits are tangible and compelling – career altering in fact. Ron claims the social life can be woven through all of these activities and thus it’s not just a singular slavish focus on nose to grind stone.
But make no mistake this habit of his was a deal maker for a future filled with great opportunity. “As you can imagine through my school paper experience, I’m interviewing the Mayor. I’m meeting the Gubernatorial candidates during an election. I enjoyed being in that space because I was interested in politics and thought it might lead me in that direction. It did.”
What’s going on here? Can you see the theme? Ron secures meaning, enjoyment, interest that fuels his passions FROM his involvement in all these activities beyond the classroom. To be sure it was purposeful. He’s a purposeful guy. The advice: get involved – no, really involved. All you have is time. How you invest it will make the difference later in where you get to go, what you get to do.
Tomorrow’s post will bring a focus on Ron’s career choices and key moments along the path that helped shape his trajectory. Stand by for more.
Where does superior work come from in the PR and marketing communications field? Ok, so you say the work comes out of the heads of talented people. To be sure. But what separates the players from the posers? How do some people take their careers and business solutions to higher levels while others just mark their time “executing the project”?
We all think of super successful professional athletes and musicians or actors as people with incredible talent. Born that way maybe? Physically designed for success in their chosen field in some way? Lucky even? Maybe not. Read on.
The Brains Business…
In the PR and marketing game, we live in an intellectual property world informed by big ideas and remarkable insights. Certainly at the academic level there’s specific training in communications, public relations and marketing that helps fill the brain with understanding how these tools and disciplines work. But as said earlier some will succeed on higher levels down the line.
How can PR people achieve at the top levels? What separates the best from less than that? Is it luck? Ingrained talent? IQ scores? Contacts and relationships? No truer words were ever spoken on this earth than “You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know.” And therein lies the start of understanding the path to better performances. And nowhere is this better illustrated than by example from one of the most successful rock bands of all time, The Beatles.
Fab Four Fame an Act of God, Force of Nature or Sheer Luck?
In his fabulous book, Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell dissects success and achievement, blowing away the myths of fate and born-with-it talent that seems to pave the way for superstardom in one’s chosen field. The Beatles it turns out were a living example of what Gladwell calls the 10,000-hour rule. The band, formed in 1957 in Liverpool, was unremarkable in its early days. Until, a club owner in Hamburg, Germany signed them up to play over a period of years in a setting that is absolutely remarkable for one thing: the Clubs were open 24 hours. The band played seven days a week, often for 5 to 6 hours a day or more.
Over a two-year period, The Beatles played 1,200 times. Most bands don’t even secure that much on-stage performance experience in the course of a career. They played non-stop thus having to learn extraordinary amounts of material. They played, and played, and played. Outcome: the enormous amount of work put in forged a band with incredible skill sets. Gladwell’s conclusion: what separates the major winners from also-rans is at least 10,000 hours of focus and dedication to learning, growing and doing in ones field. Mastery is achieved when the effort put in is exceptional and extraordinary. Anything less and mastery is virtually impossible to secure.
How does this play out in PR?
Study, study, study and then study some more. Know everything about your client’s business and category. Read every publication you can get your hands on related to our field and practice generally. Feed your head through a continued effort to draw from the best minds in the marketing and communications field.
How do you leap ahead of “You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know”? By making the communications and brand-building world an avocation as much as it is an occupation. Study, absorb, listen, read and focus your efforts on learning. Write and publish in our field – writing by the way is an essential practice (we’re story tellers) and one that you get better at only by doing. The more you know about a business and the competitors and the consumer who buys, the more creative and strategic the solutions get.
Out-sized ideas are not accidents, they are the outcome knowing, studying, digging deep to get your arms around the grist of what drives a business and what stands in the way of its growth.
As you work to expand what you know and understand about communication, human behavior and brand creation, the more clients will believe you have something special to offer. Programs get better, more creative. Your ability to help solve more problems grows exponentially.
How can you get to your 10,000 hours more quickly? Sorry there’s no way around it. Hard work followed by more of the same.
Your brand as expert in third-party content key to completing media picture
By Robert Wheatley
Ok, you’re doing business in a high involvement category like pet care, or you’re competing in a business where you’ve found a relevant issue or passion your consumers truly care about — like childcare products and addressing the parenting advice needs of new moms and dads.
You want to take advantage of the vast capabilities social networks provide along with other digital channels to publish, to inform, to give your brand a voice as a trusted source of education and information on topics that matter to your best customers.
Curating — another step along the path…
To be sure optimizing earned, owned, shared and paid channels is critical to taking a holistic approach to communication – one that recognizes the consumer is truly in control of the relationship and we need to be present where and when they choose to engage.
That said there’s another and equally compelling arena for engagement that truly helps complete the picture on the road to becoming more valuable and enticing as a trusted, useful source.
This story in the Chicago Tribune charts the sea change in the pet care category as super-premium diets gain traction and consumers increasingly see their pets as family. So behaviorally they’re working over-time to understand the finer points of pet nutrition. There’s just so much to learn for so many sources. Who can make sense of it?
Savvy pet care brands can help. You can help too in your category. How? Curate the third party info out there.
The Internet presents itself as a gigantic and perhaps infinite library and broadcaster of material, information, media and advice. Brands can play an invaluable role to help separate wheat from chaff in the overwhelming landslide of this content — and in doing so bring the best of third party media forward in an organized, easy-to-consume way.
The goal: be an expert and respected tour guide in subject areas that matter to the relevant lifestyle passions and interests of your core consumers. Simply said don’t just publish exciting original content but also edit the abundance that’s already out there from other credible sources.
Add context to the content…
There’s more to it than simply aggregating a portfolio of blogs, articles and broadcasts. Add context and commentary that helps layer on a sense of meaning, direction, guidance and interpretation. This is what a trusted source does: separate the useful from the not so and then add color and value to the most relevant material out there.
After all, your brand is an “expert” in its category, right? Who better to help sift through and identify the best and then provide it to your fans and followers. Just another way to add greater value — to matter — in the relationship you’re working tirelessly to build with consumers and stakeholders.
In our last post we talked about five ways to become a credible source of brand-owned media (content creation). Foremost in that discussion was an important point: how to become a TRUSTED, and therefore valued, source.
An article today at Marketing Daily stresses the point about credibility. Why does this matter?
There are so many voices, so many places to get information the consumer is now in search of what is reliable, bankable, believe-able in the midst of all this noise. Recent studies show an increase in consumer preference for traditional media sources like newspapers because of the trust factor. There’s still an underlying sense that professional media organizations continue to employ highly trained staff and have ethical standards that require them to fully verify a story’s assertions and details before publishing.
Nonetheless, we are at an important inflexion point in media where brands can affordably become a source of content themselves. It’s transformational. And while this is both inevitable and unstop-able in the scheme of things, it’s also vital we understand the consumer’s underlying needs and concerns as this marketing communications picture continues to evolve.
Validate, corroborate and prove the assertions brands make…
What do consumers want? They want validation of what’s being said from sources they trust and respect. You’re saying yeah, but isn’t the “real person like me” supposed to be the nexus of validation? That’s changing. In the midst of so much media content, thought and opinion – consumers are looking for voices they believe to make sense of it all and provide guidance.
Outside influencers, experts and credentialed knowledge brokers facilitate this desire for validation. Brands proclaiming their expertise in a subject area is one thing, following the same rules professional media organizations employ to verify assertions through expert quote-able sources is entirely another.
o This is how we make it true, real, credible for the consumer. We in effect borrow equity from the third parties who have established their own credibility in a subject area relevant to our business.
Content creation is not merely an option for brands these days. It’s vital and important as the media landscape continues to evolve from “talking at” people to conversation. How you go about doing it will spell the difference between success and discovering you have no audience because trust has not taken root.
One of the greatest marketing evolutions in the Internet era: brands have acquired the ability to be content creators – publishers, producers of their own media. This fits perfectly with the other great strategic upheaval — brands can no longer simply imprint messages and attempt to exert “control” over consumer behavior by pushing messages at consumers.
As I write this, many brands still believe this will work.
The brand/consumer relationship is tougher to build now and demands a more selfless form of engagement. It requires singular devotion to understanding and mining relevance to the consumer’s lifestyle interests and passions. Brands-that-matter to their users can earn permission for a relationship by connecting tangibly, emotionally to activities and interests their consumer already cares about.
So doesn’t it stand to reason that working hard to become a source of valuable, interesting, engaging, entertaining information about these lifestyle passions could be important? For a fashion or jewelry brand it’s the opportunity to tap into that creative self-expression that is at the core of what drives a fashion-focused person. For the food brand it might be enabling the culinary creativity, learning and emotional payoff going on everyday in the kitchen (experimenting with new dishes, tastes and techniques).
In virtually every category insight research can help you unearth this unique emotional grist that drives the most devoted fans and followers. And from there is an enormously powerful opportunity to cement that relationship by casting the brand as an enabler and provider of stories and content that offers intrinsic value – How? Information, ideas and experiences that help the consumer enjoy, do what they do better and connect with others that share their interests.
Trust is the key to engagement…
But the word trust looms large in this. How does a brand successfully establish itself as a trusted and valued source? Here are five ways a brand can develop a respected and reliable channel of rich-content media:
1. The value of respected outside voices
In the news business, outside quote-able sources are employed to validate assertions made in a news story. Similarly, outside experts, influencers and knowledge-brokers can bring their own credibility and cachet to the story telling in brand-owned media. Bring in the experts as contributors and steer clear of putting them in a compromised position of endorsing or directly selling your product.
2. The type, tone and tenor of the content matters
Watch the overt selling. Your media mission is to be helpful, useful. Think like a magazine editor or TV producer working to build exciting, interesting stories that add value to the reader’s lifestyle. Operate like a traditional media organization focused on reader and viewer benefit. Take a reportorial approach to the content. If the communication comes off like reporting and informing rather than persuading, you’ll earn the attention of your best followers.
3. Identify the storytellers
Create an editorial board of editors and contributors. If you identify and position the writers and producers, you humanize the entire interaction for your audience. You also create an environment for trust to take root because the contributors are identified and thus “real people” are engaged in the communication.
Create an editorial board of editors and contributors. If you identify and position the writers and producers, you humanize the entire interaction for your audience. You also create an environment for trust to take root because the contributors are identified and thus “real people” are engaged in the communication.
4. Transparency
How do real friends speak with each other? Honest, straightforward, real, open communication is fundamental between true friends. Treat your audience with the same respect. When issues and complaints arise, don’t hide or spin. Be matter-of-fact. Admit mistakes – probably the hardest thing to do, but also the most refreshing and endearing behavior you can show. Nobody’s perfect. No one expects your organization or brand to be perfect.
5. Be entertaining
You can’t bore your customer’s into loving you and coming back for more. Valuable, useful information is a prerequisite. How that information is served up can vary from tedious to fun and interesting. Make them laugh and make them cry. Video may be the most powerful medium available and offers the magic of words, picture, sound, music, personalities and color. It’s a bite-size world we live in now so keep it short. But most of all keep it entertaining. Mainstream media is working overtime to achieve this and so should you.
What’s the end game? Once a respected source, you have an open channel of communication that’s direct. And with content that’s got their attention – a long way from the good old days of beating people over the head with repetition and self-serving messages you hope and pray will break through the noise. Ten years ago brands could only dream of creating such a relationship. Now it’s possible.
From editorial shotgun to building influence and engagement
By Robert Wheatley
There may have been a time when massive distributions of press releases or video and audio news releases would have been the principal component in mainstream consumer media PR plans. Those days are gone.
Have you fully made the strategic and tactical shift to focus on a different view of engagement and communications? Do conversations and relationships sit at the forefront of your campaigns, more so than looking for gross impressions and measurement yardsticks based purely on audience number delivery?
Is Internet based communication, outreach and community building getting the budget priority or is mainstream media still grabbing the spending spotlight?
At a recent meeting of the Association of National Advertisers, Coca-Cola CMO Joe Tripodi was quoted in coverage of the event saying that conversations are now more important than impressions. To be sure effective message delivery has always been a vital consideration – nonetheless mass or “tonnage” of placements was also a major part of the editorial results story.
Think Different…
• We are now participating in the era of relationship-based marketing.
• Where influence is earned based on the brand’s ability to mine relevance with the target consumer’s lifestyle.
• And true communication is a not only an outcome of optimizing the intersection of earned media and owned content, but also developing and investing in conversational tools. The crux of this effort is more peer-to-peer than loading the communications shotgun for another outward facing message blast.
Quality of contact is important and quality builds from a base of reciprocity. How do you know if your thinking is right on this score? Ask yourself this question: am I actively looking for ways that my brand can act and operate to improve my best customer’s lifestyle and enable/facilitate their personal interests?
Pay-to-Play
Even mainstream media channels are in a state of transition as audience stats once employed to lure in advertisers gets thinned by the splintering of consumer attention — mostly to places where opt-in engagement work well because the content to consume is not about overt selling. That said, increasingly the lines between editorial (church) and paid (state) are blurring. Just as computers and TV are merging into one platform so is the ability to purchase alignment of a brand message within the content side of media — digital, print and broadcast.
This is tricky because a fine line exists here between useful, valuable, helpful messaging and something less than that. Nevertheless we can expect to see more of this ahead.
The Future…
Editorial media outreach is and will remain a relevant and significant part of the PR value proposition. That said, the strategic approach has changed from big distribution plays to focus on customization, relationship development, unique angles, exclusives and narrowcasting. And operating in parallel to earned media is a growing layer of direct forms of communication (and conversation in social platforms) where quality will forever outweigh quantity as the principle driver of effectiveness.
PR experts are content creators now in opt-in channels where relevance spells the difference between aggregating an audience of followers — or not. More strategy is required. More focus. More understanding of consumer desires and passions. More targeted, interactive media activity.
This is the first in our series of question/answer posts about effective communication, best practices in PR and social media and an occasional look inside Wheatley & Timmons.
Any burning questions you would like us to weigh in on? Let us know!
New prescription for growth all about burrowing in on your best prospects
By Robert Wheatley
I have a confession to make: I’m a music fan . Big time. And have been almost all of my life. I sang my way through high school. Played guitar in a band. Had a vocal music scholarship when I started college. Ended up as the promoter and producer of all the rock concerts that appeared at my University. Had family and personal acquaintances in the rock concert promotion and band management business (Heart). Even today one of my Chicago friends is now a senior player at LiveNation, one of the largest live music organizations on the planet.
So what is it with me and music? I can’t really answer that. Born that way maybe. I’m also a culinary fan. Wine fan. Antique and art fan. Auto buff. Writer. Fan of parenting (and my daughters) generally. Talk to me, inform me about these things and I’m listening. Intently.
In the last post we explored the sea change in American attitudes about life and what matters, as people now hunger for greater meaning, purpose and belonging more so than consuming. So too, brands and businesses that identify and mine “consumer tribes” coalescing around lifestyle aspirations and interests have a better shot at sustainable growth. Why? Because the value added by these brands is aligned not just with commerce and direct selling but also being a facilitator of activities and experiences the consumer cares about.
Take for example the DIY home decorating and fixing game. There are tribes of consumers who get significant emotional and personal payback from taking on projects aimed at improving or changing their homes. Brands that become facilitators and advisors in this endeavor can earn a place (relationship) in the consumer’s life by virtue of their unselfish behaviors. And why bother? The relationship precedes the willingness to pay any attention to marketing and brand communication.
Virtually every category has its heavy users, or fan-base of individuals who are more engaged and involved, based on their unique personal interests…Do you know them? Study them? Listen to them?
Get Focused.
Witness the tightly focused business model of Internet site Songkick – a relatively new rising-star brand on the music scene that is quickly putting a differentiated foot-print on the live concert business. They are working hard to listen to and follow their best customers.
Music and sports share something in common: the emotional relevance they retain with their greatest fans. When the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup, hundreds of thousands of Hawk enthusiasts lined the Windy Cities’ streets to cheer and celebrate with the team. It was an amazing example of the power of sports to motivate people.
Music holds a similar value proposition. To some it’s an integral expression of their lifestyle interests. Who knows what is exactly at the root of this? Could it be some special gene that resonates to music in a powerful way? Bands and musicians are heroes to be sure. For some concert going is important and a reflection of how they define themselves. I would know. Sure Songkick follows the larger acts, but their unique effort to aggregate information about local bands helps drive their value and relevance to fans.
Go Deep.
Songkick helps facilitate fan devotion and involvement by helping people easily track information, events and news about their favorite artists. And post photos and share experiences they’ve had at concerts. Yes they’re making money from ticket sale commissions. That said the online presentation and interaction is more about the music than the commerce. Thus we see another example of earning a place in the music-centric consumer’s life.
Mine Relevance.
How would you describe a music lover’s lifestyle? How can you add value to it? What other attributes and benefits can be developed for those who see music as more than background ambiance or a date night piece of entertainment? The more relevant you are the more valuable you become. How close can you bring the music lover to the music creators and players? It’s an interesting proposition. Brands that matter to their users will gain greater ground in the long haul than those that currently move ahead on the basis of habit, history/tradition or ubiquity.
DIYers, home cooks, travel buffs, fashionistas – there are people out there who care, who pay attention, who will listen, who are engaged right now because of their personal interests and preferences. What’s the way in? Well that’s the $64,000 question. If you treat customer relationships more like friendships then you start to get the picture. Help them in-order to engage them.
Hyper-consumption falls as new era of meaning and purpose takes hold
By Robert Wheatley
We are sitting at the threshold of a new epoch in brand marketing and communication. One where old voices tempting consumers to look for the thrill in upward mobility and finding the joy in toys is being replaced by a soulful search for things more meaningful, more substantive.
Now more than ever there is a need to align your brand with a new set of consumer-driven values, to chart a different course with a refreshed voice and message, more in sync with this seminal shift in consumer attitudes. Are you ready? Read on…
The economic “thwack” on the side of the head…
Leave it to one of the worst economic disasters America has seen to finally bring some closure on the continual debate between judging one’s life by the things you buy vs. the “softer values” of contentment, happiness and belonging. Hyper- consumption may well be the biggest casualty befalling strategies for marketing and business as the economy searches for a new path to growth.
While the cauldron of behavior change continues to boil…
Sure enough the pocketbook difficulties (owing more but having less) faced by consumers here and around the world remain bitingly fresh. According to a recent report published in Food Business magazine, consumer spending at restaurants declined 2.2% in 2009 from the previous year. While that may not sound like much it is nevertheless quite remarkable. The data just released by the Economic Research Service of the US department of Agriculture indicated it was the first year-to-year decline reported since 1949, and the largest single drop in the restaurant business since the height of the Great Depression in 1938.
Today Mintel research reveals that beverage alcohol sales were off by 4.9% in the on-premise channel (restaurants, bars and clubs) over the same period. As we cut back in restaurant visits, we’re moving our adult beverage consumption to the home front, up 1.2 % over the same period and over 21% since 2004.
Hey buddy, can you spare a dime?
In a Forbes magazine report showcasing a new consumer attitude study from ad agency Euro RSCG , we find that saving rather than splurging is preferred now by 87% of Americans. And that 79% of us have way more respect for people who live relatively simple, debt-free lives than we do the bling-centric luxury lifestyle folk. Says Forbes: “Robin Leach has been sucker punched by Ed Begley Jr.”
Having possessions for their own sake and a sense of a life well lived are being separated from each other. Eight in 10, according to the study, believe that society has become too shallow, focusing on things that don’t matter. In a way you might say the “hyper-consumerist” life didn’t pan out the way consumers thought it would.
So what does this mean?
The data helps us see a new picture emerge:
80% of consumers are now shopping more carefully and mindfully.
54% are paying attention to the environmental and social impact of the products and brands they buy.
57% believe that cause participation matters.
More is less today about accumulation of goods. Instead our focus is on community, simplicity, a sense of purpose and belonging.
Successful brands in the digital age grow because they’re learning to align themselves as enablers, facilitators and supporters of consumer lifestyle interests and concerns. So, too, the message in brand communications and PR must adjust to acknowledge the desire for greater meaning, for personal growth, giving back and cause involvement – living simpler and less cluttered lives.
How can your band and product portfolio help consumers live a more satisfying life? And help them realize their desire for greater meaning? For belonging and sense of community?
By Robert Wheatley
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