A backwards glance shows seismic shift in the PR world
By Robert Wheatley
It was without a doubt one of the most powerful PR campaigns I’ve ever been associated with. An entirely new product category created from scratch off a compelling, dynamic public relations strategy. Yes, I said PR — not advertising or sales promotion. Over $100 million in sales (and that’s in 1994 dollars) was achieved and an 84% share of market within 16 months of launch. It was the introduction of First Alert brand carbon monoxide alarm products.
Recently we heard from the Wall Street Journal that futurist Richard Dawson believes newspapers will be irrelevant by 2022. The reference point for this incredible shift can be more fully appreciated by briefly looking backwards to a moment in time when conventional print and broadcast media were popular and respected sources of news, information and influence on consumer behavior and public opinion.
Here’s the story of PR campaign media strategies that were built from a full-scale deployment of earned media tactics.
• And the approach is no longer as relevant. New businesses are now developed in an interactive, narrowcast environment without push-button scale-ability
The lesson: the old rules no longer apply. New media protocols, planning processes and program strategies literally demand a transformation of our beliefs about brand building, PR strategies, how PR firms are put together. Thus how we look at messaging, outreach, measurement and evaluation of ideas is different than it was even 10 years ago.
When editorial media ruled!!
It was 1993, the firm I owned at the time, Wheatley Blair, was hired by First Alert, the leading home safety products brand in the US. They had invented the residential smoke alarm category and literally owned the retail market for them. Rich Timmons, now principal and President of Wheatley & Timmons, was the global marketing chief at First Alert – a marketer who had followed conventional paths focused on TV advertising and who was going to do something unprecedented: launch the next biggest thing to come along in his company’s history through PR.
A new category: Carbon Monoxide (CO) Alarms
We were awestruck the moment we learned that CO poisoning was the largest source of accidental poisoning deaths in America.
First Alert had created the first affordable residential detector for this previously unseen and little understood hazard that claimed at least 1,500 lives every year and injured thousands more.
The Silent Killer
How do you convince Americans to protect themselves from a hazard you cannot see, taste, smell or touch? And after all, headaches are common and ubiquitous, right? We created a theme that dramatically defined the threat.
• Poison center physicians, indoor air quality experts, leading fire service officials and others were recruited to help explain the problem and support the solution
• We built the Carbon Monoxide Information Bureau to house the scientific and medical evidence
• Brought together consumers who had lost loved ones in CO accidents to personalize and make the hazard tangible and real
Launching a Media Tsunami
Media tours were conducted with CO survivors and coordinated with local fire department representatives. We booked medical expert appearances on TODAY, Good Morning America and all of the network news programs. Placed in-depth hazard education features in national newspapers and virtually every major daily in the US. Similar treatments on family protection were secured in women’s service, lifestyle and DIY magazines. We assembled an in-house TV news production department that was producing a regular flow of 90-second video news packages.
Our tracking on consumer media impressions within six months topped 700 million and grew to over a billion. There were 6 o’clock news stories in major markets about lines outside stores exclaiming that First Alert alarm products were sold out. A major trade publication featured a quote from a senior buyer at Walmart who described First Alert CO alarms as the “cabbage patch doll of the hardware department.”
A business was created. A category established. First Alert doubled in size. Thousands of lives were saved in the process. Importantly, editorial media in virtually all channels was the instrument of awareness, education and motivation. The decline of traction, audiences and the splintering of media into hundreds if not thousands of platforms of self-interest make this story simply a reflection of a another age in media communication.
The same product launch, repeated today would be wholly different and geared to empower individuals to spread the word as much as media properties are addressed to influence the influencers.
For First Alert we constructed a media machine that hummed and produced and delivered editorial attention. That is no longer the way communication operates. Yet many still attempt to apply the old rules of quantity thresholds to a world now devoted to the quality and personalization of encounters with communication.
Nine years after we began, the agency moved on to represent Kidde, the other leading category brand. We helped them secure the number one market share position. This dramatic video PSA was part of the effort:
Can we really fly blind and expect to be effective?
By Robert Wheatley
There are those great moments of clarity when something hits you. Often it can be something you already know, but your perspective and its horsepower (importance) will get injected with an entirely new level of “amen” when understanding adjusts or elevates a bit. Sorry to be oblique – this happened today while reading Brian Solis’ great book, “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations.” Yes, there’s a point here and a recommendation.
The emergence of social media has changed the game for PR communications, to be sure. For instance as we’ve heard from virtually every social media pundit, conversation is better than any attempted monologue in brand communication strategy. Frankly its just wayyyy more difficult these days to push messages at people and get any traction. So communication that’s truly effective is no longer one-way.
That means PR people no longer sit solely on a “dissemination” platform (press releases, editor desk-sides, spokesperson media tours) to move messages outward through various channels of non-paid or earned media.
Now relationships and dialogue with influencers and other forms of “democratized” media have to be layered into the brand outreach recipe. What over-arching strategic issue does this immediately recommend? Listening.
Let’s look at the fundamental “best practices” involved in relationship building. If the best conversationalists are always the best listeners, and if brands must form relationships with their best users based on behaviors that approach similarity to what we would call real-world friendships rather than “transactional” relationships, does it stand to reason we should be hearing our best customers?
If relationships are to work, they’re built from a foundation of shared interest. And as covered many times in this blog, we know that brand relationships are earned based on what a marketer does to correctly discern and understand the consumer’s passions and concerns. And then operate as an enabler, facilitator, educator an community builder.
Furthermore if the media landscape is littered with self-published content created by customers, then it only makes sense to know what they’re saying, good or bad.
So listening jumps to the front as an integral part of fundamental PR strategy in the digital age. Right? Yet more often than not it is at the tail end of consideration in plans and sometimes the first to fall off the budget truck when pressure builds to make some cuts.
Of course formal Web-based listening tools should be employed and made integral to PR plans. They should also, however, receive the priority they deserve to be preserved when sacrifices are targeted on the spending front. This takes understanding on both the agency and client sides of the table about the value of it. To do less in some respects is to say that pushing messages outward remains the first and most important path.
Relevant communication springs from understanding. And that’s an outcome of getting quiet for awhile, and paying close attention to the conversations going on all around.
I for one will feel more comfortable as we work harder and with greater resolve to build the listening tools into the front end of the campaign strategy, and not a final layer that almost invites elimination due to its perceived lack of priority.
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?
There’s not a moment to lose. Your brand, your budget and outcomes are at stake. The world of communications has changed, and your PR strategy and tactics must evolve with it. Or be prepared for little to no bottom line benefits from your spend.
Why does this matter? Being in the presence of a message (PR driven or otherwise) does not mean any useful interaction has actually taken place. Your goal is to impact consumer behavior. But there’s a vast difference between communications that is built correctly to accomplish that vs. messages “out there” in media that perpetually circle the engagement airport — never quite landing.
Here are the key questions you should be asking yourself right now…
1. How does the PR strategy connect and align our brand in a relevant and meaningful way with the lifestyle interests and passions of our core customers?
Relevance is key to securing engagement — so consumer insight and understanding is a precursor to building effective communications. There must be clear and specific linkage between PR programs and the consumer’s self interests that position the brand as an enabler, supporter, educator and facilitator of your consumer’s lifestyle passions. Otherwise she’s not going to pay any attention to what you put out there.
2. What proportion of your budget is dedicated to Web-based communication vs. mainstream media?
We have ample evidence that word of mouth drives business results. And now we know that Internet based communication is increasingly the genesis of influence, conversation and discussion about businesses and brands. Yet old habits (always hard to break) push spending and programming frequently down the well-worn path of conventional print and broadcast media. It’s not that these channels don’t matter, they do. But the poor red headed stepchild in many cases is the very media channel that can activate conversation and buzz. So is it time to re-configure the proportional spending to place more assets in web-based media channels? Yes.
3. Social media may no longer be a tertiary place to participate, but are you creating scale underneath your social media strategy?
Unlike any other media property that has come before it, the unique characteristic of social platforms is quite simple: they ALL begin with an audience of zero. It is your content strategy that can help aggregate an audience over time. How well you do this will impact the overall value and benefit of social media investments. Achieving scale is a combination of building and distributing useful, entertaining and valuable multi-media content (read video) along with special offers and benefits – and then integrating social media through every consumer touch point in your marketing communications toolbox.
4. To what extent are you now investing in creating media that fuels the budding relationship with your core users and brand fans?
“Owned Media” is now the third “core” leg of the media communications stool alongside earned and paid. Brands are now publishers and content producers themselves. The Internet has enabled cost-effective distribution. However PR campaigns have historically been built around enticing and convincing third-party editors and gatekeepers to do a story (earned media). And coverage certainly comes imbued with the associative value and credibility from implied third-party endorsement. Equally important however, brands can now talk directly to consumers through custom editorial content thus assuring the message remains unaltered or diluted. Have you launched your video channel yet?
5. Look before you leap. To what extent have you refined your listening tools to be sure you understand what consumer’s are saying to each other about your business?
Pushing messages at people doesn’t work any longer. Relevance is king. And part of the equation is honing your listening investments to be sure you fully understand the conversation that’s taking place around you. There are online-based tools both quantitative and qualitative that serve this purpose. A full suite of listening platforms should be “always on” with analysis following closely behind to assure you’re aware of what’s being said, by whom and where. You can’t effectively engage without this knowledge.
These five areas are vital to effective PR strategy and tactics, tied to your ability to impact behavior. They act synergistically to make communication effective. In the absence of these tools and approaches, you’re resting outcomes more on hope — and hope is never a strategy.
Budgets lag to invest in influence building
By Robert Wheatley
This may not be surprising: A recent study published by Yahoo confirms the Internet is growing significantly as a source of influence for word-of-mouth conversations about brands.
According to the research, 38% of consumers, or 78 million people, have brand-related word of mouth conversations – both on line and off-line – that are influenced by content on the Internet. While most word of mouth conversations occur face to face, the Internet is increasingly important as a driver for those engagements.
That said, budgets and spending continue to show a disproportionate share aimed at communications through mainstream platforms in print and broadcast channels. While many in the marketing communications and PR world will admit they believe talking “at” consumers doesn’t work, and may also agree the most powerful form of communication out there is word of mouth, still spending aimed at cultivating influence on the Web is trailing.
So it goes without saying more assets should be shifted to managing online influence and reputation.
Of course this also puts more pressure on measuring the ROI. Yet social media is a different animal. It’s not about output and broadcasting messages. It is about listening, interacting and engaging on topics relevant to the consumer’s life. Does it work? Take a look at the video by Eric Qualman below:
Connections to key lifestyle interests invoke openness to engagement
By Robert Wheatley
“The problem with communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.” — George Bernard Shaw
Business growth opportunities abound for brands that fully understand the conditions and events that set in motion openness to communication – as in “I’m listening.” Much of the time consumers are not. The presence of brand communication at any given moment is not nearly as important as the audience’s willingness to pay attention. That may feel a bit like saying water is wet. But hear us out: lifestyle interests and events drive the readiness to listen. There’s an optimal time and place when consumers will be primed to engage.
Our point: brand communication gains a whole lot more traction when it occurs in tandem with relevant consumer behavior than it does randomly. Yet all too often, brand outreach is showered broadly as a form of messaging rain, timed to coincide with retail distribution or promotion period considerations more so than consumer lifestyle connection. In effect, brands remain ever hopeful that consumers will simply collide with the message storm or will be magically lured into engagement through its ubiquity, entertainment value or sheer novelty.
Lifestyle events prime the pump of openness…
Brand communication and PR strategies anchored to a foundation of real insight about the consumer’s relevant lifestyle concerns and passions will help crack open the door to hyper-targeted communication that conveys the right thing at the right time to the right person.
Getting Alignment With Target Audience Interests
Here’s a living example — Nesties – as defined by market research firm OTX and on-line retailer The Knot – are a unique segment of 25 to 32 year old female consumers. They represent the low hanging fruit for an array of household and lifestyle products. When these women become engaged to be married it triggers a period of three to five years devoted to wedding planning, new household creation and starting a family. These events in turn motivate an array of purchases.
It is the events and changing conditions in their lives that activate a behavioral response. Collectively Nesties are long-range “planners” who feel they have primary responsibility in setting up their new households and take responsibility for decorating, cooking, social activities, household chores, caring for children and pets.
This group shows evidence of predictable purchase behavior. And offers brands an audience already receptive to establishing a relationship that could continue beyond these formative years. So investments should be made in carefully crafted dialogue focused on this unique tribe — and grounded in positioning the brandas helpful and involved with her changing lifestyle needs, concerns and aspirations. This will lead to business growth.
Finding The Optimal Moment
Strategic timing and location of communication can also yield added engagement value. Meaning if it occurs when a person is actively doing something germane. A simple example of this is what we call leveraging a food brand’s kitchen footprint or in effect building its “share-of-countertop.” There is increased receptivity to brand messaging when the delivery timing coincides with related consumer’s behavior – in this case when working in the kitchen space. An obvious starter is to provide useful meal ideas, entertaining suggestions, tabletop recommendations, recipe preparation hints and serving suggestion guidance. It is an optimal environment for having a conversation — because the consumer is naturally open to it and their brain is switched on to the subject matter.
Nailing The Best Message
Messaging gains power when it is configured around the consumer’s lifestyle interests. Finding this sweet spot of alignment is what we call identifying a brand’s Higher Purpose. When the brand positions itself as an enabler, facilitator and supporter of a consumer’s personal passion, you’re able to forge powerful outreach tactics from this base. Consider the strategic possibilities that could fall out of sharpening your focus on consumer groups devoted to specific lifestyle interests such as fashion, travel, music, art, pet care, food enjoyment, cooking, child rearing, fitness, sports, home decorating or improvement, self-improvement, gardening, outdoor recreation, entertainment, entertaining, relationships and socializing. We could go on. The point is: the days of the hard sell, transactional style relationship are over and that form of messaging is out the window with it. So you want the consumer to understand some of the unique functional benefits in your product. Ok. And the path to getting their ears switched on springs from your willingness to be generous and unselfish — and thus play a role in their passions. It’s a richer, deeper and more personal relationship you want to construct.
The end result will be increased brand relevance, preference and sales.
Brands are fast becoming media publishers and producers
By Robert Wheatley
Is your brand ready to be its own TV channel? Magazine publisher? Is there a Chief Editorial Officer position looming on the horizon inside your organization? The answer could be yes.
We have entered the era of content marketing. Inbound rather than outbound communication strategies that serve to build Web traffic, remove barriers to purchase, activate brand ambassadors and support community building – all with a shelf life that has remarkable staying power. This shift will inevitably require optimization of brand communications strategies between the three primary platforms of Owned, Earned and Paid media. Of these, more and more momentum is surfacing around Owned Media. Here we discuss its role and value in the marketing mix.
What does your Owned Media plan look like?
We’re on a fast track now to define best practices in content creation for various forms of brand created media — videos, Webcasts, podcasts, blogs, e-zines, e-books and presentations. Not long ago brands worked with their PR counsel primarily to get product massages telegraphed through various editorial channels. While the world of “earned media” will continue to be a relevant and important mode of outreach — albeit along a refined path that assigns increasing priority to bloggers — ”owned media” is rapidly emerging as an important foundation vehicle for acquiring, building and retaining customer relationships. Now is the time to construct your own editorial and programming calendars that chart topics and story telling in a frame your audience will find useful in their daily lives.
Owned Media helps build trust, familiarity and mutual respect…
At the recent Pet Food Forum in Chicago, a conference of leading pet food brands and their minders, I presented the case for brand building that follows a new trail built around identifying a brand’s Higher Purpose – an effort to drive relevancy by aligning the brand value proposition closely with consumer (in this case pet parent) lifestyle needs and passions. Part of the presentation was dedicated to the over-arching requirement for trust-creation and how important social media will be to install the building blocks of confidence, familiarity, respect and comfort that must exist between brand and consumer. Interestingly the entire Higher Purpose proposition seeds and cultivates fertile ground for ongoing content creation that is by definition more meaningful to consumers – because its designed around their needs, interests and concerns.
Equally important, engaging content lies at the base of aggregating an audience in social media platforms. If you do this skillfully, brands earn permission for a relationship. And that includes becoming a resource for news, information, entertainment and education.
Essentially we’re talking about how you can exponentially increase your brand’s worth and engagement value by delivering content that is instructive and helpful to those trying to make decisions about what products to buy.
“Our road to the future begins with understanding that attention is finite and is increasingly thinning. It is now our responsibility to connect purpose and value directly with individuals where, when, and how their attention is focused. We must help ourselves by introducing relevance, discoverability, and share-ability into the mix. Empowering consumers to view the most material information and in turn, make advantageous decisions is now a critical priority and will determine our stature not only in online societies, but also in the markets where we hope to thrive and excel. We are either part of the information gathering and decision-making cycles or we are absent from them. Where we rank once connected is established by our understanding of people and the information they seek combined with our mastery of the networks, tools, and services they use to communicate. And, through the creation of compelling media, we earn the presence, awareness and ultimately the influence we deserve.”
A great example of this at work is Whole Foods and their Secret Ingredient video blog that is aimed at helping home cooks learn new recipes, cooking techniques, ingredient pairings and other useful advice. It sits in the middle of a growing catalog of video material that spans the waterfront of visits to a dairy farm or other tutorials that surround the increasingly popular topic of “where your food comes from.” It informs, entertains, rewards while burnishing the brand as a knowledge broker on subjects their shoppers care about.
Taking responsibility for consumer interaction…
In a way, owned media offers brands a plausible shot to take responsibility for engineering consumer engagement in communications. Ads can be ignored. PR, while intrusive, still requires that messaging pass through an independent filter – one that will certainly be credible. But in the end may not fully expose the audience to all of the relevant information. Editing is editing.
Thus Owned Media allows brands to create and build communication that is delivered in tact to consumers. Of course this creates enormous pressure on relevancy and unselfishness — you cannot do this well if your primary motivation is simply to thrust a selling message in front of someone. This never works. But with a proper nod to relevance, value and sensitivity the door is wide open to put enriched multi-media content squarely in the mix of social media engagement.
We live in exciting times. The PR business has now acquired an added role to combine and synthesize editorial outreach with content creation. The end result is a rich treasure trove of meaningful communication that can hit consumer lifestyle interests squarely on the nose – assuming, of course, that you know what those interests are.
Just think of the possibilities for brand to live in a place that matters and has meaning to the lives of those they wish to sell to –
Cooking tips for the passionate kitchen commander
Destination hints and experiences for the inveterate traveler
Style immersions for the creative fashionistas
Parenting advice for the focused purposeful mom
Edgy ideas for the budding home decorator
Shared stories of adventure for the outdoor enthusiast
Forever and a day I’ve seen this concept play out in various categories from beverages to food, travel services to floor care and cleaning products, that 80% of your profits can routinely come from 20% of your customers who constitute the most engaged, heavy users in your business. Call them your best fans.
Yet routinely we focus our efforts, strategies and spending on casting a broad net. We try to be appealing to everyone because we keep telling ourselves that our brand and business not only deserves high household penetration, but “we can’t ignore the volume opportunities.” To be sure, but the 20% that’s mainlining your brand and paying attention to your messaging with a little help and “enabling” can become a more productive core of real-world ambassadors. People who can help spread the word effectively to those who are not as fully invested and who don’t buy as often.
Take cheese and pet food for example. Cheese is one of the most popular food categories in supermarkets. We like cheese, so it’s a big volume business. Yet a closer look reveals that consumers who are more emotionally engaged and devoted to cooking represent a “heavy user” profile that purchases more cheese products, more often and in many cases will go for higher priced items when they feel the value proposition is credible. So paying closer attention to this group of emotionally charged ‘kitchen commanders’ can yield incremental benefits in talk value and word of mouth, once they’re fully embraced, recognized and rewarded by the brands they love.
Or in pet food: a dynamic audience combination we refer to as indulgers and doters consists of a high percentage of higher income households who treat their animals like family members — and will even go as far as cutting back on some of their own discretionary purchases in order to keep Fido in tip top shape by feeding him a super-premium pet food diet. Industry statistics show this group continues to fuel an incredible growth track record in the emerging natural and organic segment – even though the tough economy has weighed in heavily in many segments to compel “trading down” behaviors.
Your call to action…
Think of it this way, your PR communications ROI outcomes will improve when communicating with an audience that’s really, genuinely paying attention. Those who have emotional, personal lifestyle connections to a brand are listening — first at the category level. A brand that works over time to mine relevance with this audience has the opportunity to build a unique relationship and bond. Conversely broad awareness tactics can perform as a “reminder mechanism” for the larger audience segments out there who may buy less often but who have ties to the franchise through their habit behaviors.
1. Consider for a moment the opportunities from investing more fully in courting your heavy users. What would you do differently? What efforts might you undertake to help create a community around these groups and empower them to interact with each other – especially important for home chefs and pet parents who want to share tips, ideas, experiences and insights with each other.
2. What rewards and recognition can you offer to your most devoted followers that surprise and delight – and thus are often the triggers to generating strong, credible and organic word-of-mouth communication.
3. What sponsored experiences can you create and deliver that bring your brand as close as possible to your best fans and allow them to interact with you and each other. In food this could include unique culinary experiences that reward your best customers with an opportunity to learn from the food heroes they respect like celebrity chefs. For pets it could be local dog park events and contests that allow pet parents to engage in shared experiences with their animal and with each other.
But wait there’s more…
Today, excellent blogger and thought leader Sonia Simone has an interesting post at Copyblogger that talks about the personal side of the Pareto Principle and how it impacts you and what you do. Her observations:
“…Which means that 20% of your customers provide 80% of your revenue. 20% of the time you spend behind your computer provides 80% of your best work. And 20% of that great meal you had last night provided 80% of the pleasure. (It was the chocolate mousse cake, wasn’t it?)
Because of the Pareto Principle, there’s always a “20%” you should be spending your time on. And in just about every discipline, it’s known as the fundamentals.”
Have you sat down to think about your day, your activities and to reflect on this idea – that 20% of your efforts will produce 80% of the great results and accomplishments you’re looking for? So what do the fundamentals look like for you? Maybe it’s a good idea to start by putting more energy and investment into courting your biggest fans…
It’s Wheatley & Timmons’ 10th anniversary — a time to reflect and think ahead.
When I first got started in the PR business, I was impressed with our unique ability to bring a higher standard of proof, credibility and demonstration to new products and brand promises. But additionally I was concerned by an all-too-frequent focus on tactics (read: publicity) and what appeared to me to be an absence of connecting the dots between our work and business strategy. You know the old saying, “if the only thing you do is a hammer then the answer to every problem will be a nail.”
Just seemed to me that a stronger business proposition was to help client’s better understand their barriers to growth and success – before applying the cure. And in doing so to make sure the remedy laddered back to specific business outcomes, not fuzzy claims of “increased awareness.”
My first attempt at changing the view that PR was the province of press releases came in the form of a brand guidance plan developed for a regional food company called Nalley’s Fine Foods, based in Tacoma, Washington. My client didn’t ask for the plan, instead I treated this as “extracurricular” homework that might open the door to a larger playing field for our firm. It did.
In its day Nalley’s was a successful brand playing effectively in categories dominated by national stalwarts like Kraft, Frito-Lay and Vlasic – from salad dressings to snacks, canned meals, pickles and other packaged food categories. The platform I worked on was a refined recipe for go-to-market strategy and new product development behaviors appropriate for a business that sat in between generic store brand and large national players.
To get it done I had to study the categories and more fully acquaint myself with the channels of distribution and the growth drivers within each product category my client was competing in. There was no mention of PR in the brief. It was a great exercise and I learned a lot. The client was impressed that a PR guy would come to the table with this sort of perspective. Their opinion of what we did and were about changed. It was interesting to watch the transformation in their views and opinions. The experience had an impact to this day.
Wheatley & Timmons is a unique joining of similar strands of thinking – that the craft of editorial and social media forms of communication are enhanced and our value to clients improved as we marry our great creative work more closely to brand strategy guidance and the consumer insights required to make that leap.
It would probably be easier just to continue cultivating our best practices along traditional lines and devote all of our energies to being great tacticians. We think that’s table stakes. We fundamentally believe the world needs a better, more strategic PR firm and so we’re not satisfied with the traditional scope. My partner, Rich Timmons, shares this view and it’s our collective mission to redefine what a PR firm is all about. Missionary work to be sure given the perceptual baggage we carry with us — that “get me on Oprah” thing.
I couldn’t be prouder of the great people who’ve joined our team and their ability to embrace our calling and to deliver on this promise every day in the services we provide. It’s a challenge, but I think part of what makes you successful is your willingness to embrace a higher calling – to tackle something that goes beyond the communications training you’ve had. Makes you stretch.
Have we got it all figured out? Not by a long shot. Everyday is a learning experience, a chance to grow and refine our premise and our capabilities to deliver. We remain steadfastly determined on this path. Persistence can be a great ally, so we forge ahead and believe it’s by “demonstrating and doing” that all of this comes to life. This agency’s work for Sargento Foods is an example of bringing new perspective and ideas to the table about a brand’s future business opportunities in their category. Much the same as Rich and our team has done to such dramatic effect for Thermos brand and for Crescent in the art framing business.
We’re in the early stages of a new relationship with Crown Imports and the Corona beer franchise. It’s exciting. And not just because we know the beer business, but also we believe we can play a measurable role in helping improve their business outcomes and relevancy to a consumer — who is evolving right now.
The future
We believe that earned media (various forms of editorial media from conventional to digital) will continue to be vital but also see incremental growth for “owned” media – content created, published and distributed by brands themselves. Technology now allows us to leapfrog reporters, editors, producers and other media gatekeepers, to talk directly to consumers in environments that are more interactive and thus seen as honest.
Profoundly we see the mix of media solutions moving to embrace social platforms and other venues where brands and consumers can meet each other on more equal terms. Thus the over-arching need for relevancy between brand propositions and the lifestyle interests of their users.
One lesson remains true, from the days with Nalley’s to our work at Wheatley & Timmons over the next ten years: whatever we do in communications must be tied to a foundation of consumer insight and understanding. It’s what will inform our future and our ability to change and improve the growth path of the brands we represent.
Remember Bill Clinton’s distillation of his Presidential campaign bid to one singular message platform: It’s the economy, stupid. Similarly the onion surrounding social media success for brands and business can be peeled back to reveal one central and over-arching truth – it’s the content that drives the attraction value, fan-base growth and conversation.
Never before in the history of brand marketing and PR have we been in such a position to build credible relationships, real ones, with those we wish to communicate with.
Image c/o Getty Images
Throwing messaging baseballs
Yet so many in the communications business these days seem hell-bent on continuing to push self-serving messaging AT people in every media pathway. Why? Because we’re so used to sitting down and defining what we want to “convince” audiences of about our brand. We labor greatly to define key messages and then look at every vehicle out there as a vessel for delivering the message payload, be it paid, earned or owned media. We throw messaging baseballs at people expecting them to step up and catch them.
Oops they dropped the ball
But more often than not, consumers drop the ball, walk away from home plate and simply ignore the spinning missive at it passes by. They don’t want to play the game that way. Social media is by its very definition an “accrual” proposition. Your Facebook page or Twitter account begins with an audience of zero. Unlike every medium that’s come before it where access to a given media property brought you a specific audience size and type. In the new world of owned media, you start at the beginning. With nothing.
Building the fan base
Aggregating an audience is an outcome of great content, conversation and meaningful offers. The authenticity and value of that content is related directly to its relevance to the consumer’s lifestyle interests. Thus brands must find a path to “hook-up” with consumers based on what THEY care about, not the other way around.
1. For the food brand it might be enabling a recipe sharing community or bringing consumers into contact with their kitchen heroes like chefs.
2. For a beverage brand it could be enabling unique social experiences and providing ways for fans to share their impressions and ideas with each other.
3. For a fashion brand it might involve helping fashion-forward people to share their ideas and insights on what to wear for different occasions, from beach to ballroom.
Eyes wide open
This whole process gets a lot clearer when brands employ consumer insight research to better understand the lifestyle interests and needs of their core consumers. Then ask themselves: what can the brand do to facilitate, enable or create opportunities to experience and share those things?
Building better brand relationships
Content that’s meaningful, valuable, interesting and entertaining is the path to establishing a community of engaged fans. Here are a few practical hints for doing it right.
Multi-media is the way to go. Facebook’s share functionality only works when multi-media contact is used – podcasts and videos for instance.
Ask questions. Interactivity occurs when we purposefully invite our community into the conversation, seeking their views, ideas and opinions.
Use emotional terms and words. We are not fact-based, analytical decision making machines. We are expectation creation machines and thus frame our brand relationships based on feelings more than facts. Are you using emotive words?
Responsiveness. The “get back to me” bar is considerably higher in the digital era. Consumers want and expect quick responses to their questions. Speed matters and being responsive is part of the assessment of how well your brand performs in the social media space.
Conversation. Like-minded individuals congregate together in specific communities because of their shared interests. Are you helping enable their ability to talk with one another?
Surprise and delight. Reward your fans with special offers and values they won’t get elsewhere. Recognize your most faithful followers with special status and access to unique content or other VIP experiences.
Social media is working well when its done right. Enough so that some sizable brands are upping their social media investments. Kellogg just announced they’re tripling their social media budget in the year ahead.
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