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:

How would you launch the CO alarm category today?

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?

What say you?

By Robert Wheatley

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.

What do you think?

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:

What do you think?

Trading Up Fuels Pet Business Results…

By Robert Wheatley

This just out from Packaged Facts: pet product and service sales are up 5% in 2009 to $53 billion. And the forecast going forward is rosier yet, despite the lingering impact of the economic downturn. According to Don Montouri of Packaged Facts, a reason for this stellar industry performance is, “the human/animal bond… and ‘pet parent’ sentiment has never been higher.”

The upper end of the pet food market was once the province of pet specialty retail stores. Now the larger chains like Petco and PetSmart have added natural and organic brand aisles to take advantage of the upswing as consumers continue to pursue higher quality diets. The super premium business is about 8% of the pet food overall and is growing at double digits.

What is the underlying condition that shores up and protects the pet products business while others reel from consumer spending cutbacks? For one it’s the rise of pets to family member status. The emotional bonds continue to grow stronger and take on added importance to consumers. This over-arching condition seems to get lost, however, at the shelf and in some super premium brand communications.

I’m Natural… Oh Yeah, Well I’m More Natural!!!

Despite the laudable fundamental conditions in the pet food market, pet brand competition these days is focused in many cases on a form of natural and organic one-upmanship. You can see the tell-tale signs of ingredient story specsmanship and analytical selling propositions, made especially evident in package communications and other forms of outreach at shelf, as well as what appears in consumer-facing media.

Seems logical enough if you have the high quality proteins, fruits and vegetables, and it is food after all, shouldn’t you be taking credit for bringing “human grade” nutrition to Fido’s bowl? On the one hand you can understand why this becomes the center of brand/pet parent communication especially via product packaging at the store level. But the decision isn’t in the tapioca or the real chicken meat, it’s in the feelings consumers have about the brand and about the relationship they have with their animal.

Bottom line: brand decisions are made based on feelings more than facts. For sure strong brand value propositions are holistic combinations of financial and functional benefits — and certainly nutritional excellence and food quality factor in. But the most powerful tool of all is in the emotional bonds that can be created when pet brands start examining how they can enable pet parenting experiences and communities.

Consumers are not fact-based analytical decision making machines.

Pet parents, if anything, are driven by their emotional relationship with their pets and the desire to express their love for the animal by providing a better quality of life (diet is absolutely connected to this goal).

So the call to action: high quality nutrition is important but it doesn’t super-cede the need to meet consumers where their hearts are invested. The brands that dial this in will create opportunities to accelerate their growth in what is already a favorable business environment.

Those that get this right will be the big winners as the pet food business continues to gain momentum in the year ahead.

Shedding light on the evolution of effective PR in the digital age…

By Bob Wheatley

Every so often this question comes up. Partly because we cast our firm as the “merger of brand strategy guidance and PR.” I mean, aren’t clients really covering that brand strategy thing all on their own? And what does that have to do with PR anyway? Isn’t PR a tactic focused on editorial media communication – code for getting reporters, producers and bloggers to publish something favorable?

• There are so many wrong-headed thoughts and clichés bleeding from the last graph. It’s time to shed some light, shine a beacon on a new understanding of what great PR truly is. And bring a clear rationale to the reason why brand strategy guidance and PR should be, and in our case are, married.

Granted in varying degrees, some companies treat agency resources in more of a silo fashion – essentially keeping the terms of engagement focused on tactics. But here’s the rub: the difference between communicating for awareness’ sake and the kind of communication that helps build brands and open new markets, is firmly attached to how brand strategy and outreach tools feed from one another.

Successful brands now are built on a foundation of relevance and greater meaning to their users. We called this a “higher purpose” or strategic mission. And often in the early stages of an engagement with a new client, we are doing the spadework necessary to unearth the right path to alignment between the brand’s DNA and the lifestyle passions and interests of core customers.

It is in the grist of this strategic mission that we find the unusual coalescing of communication that is sought out and engaged by its prospective audience (the consumer is now in control of engagement, not the other way around), and our ability to construct a meaningful relationship with the brand – one that can withstand the tests of competition and even a bad economy over time.

Sure you can cast PR as an outreach tool that simply translates features and benefits through an “earned” media pipeline that runs alongside paid (ads) media as another message delivery vehicle – albeit one that is understood to be more credible. But that’s not going to result any longer in demonstrable, measurable connections between the deployment of PR strategy and bottom line business growth. Simple awareness or being in the presence of a message is not the same as acting on it.

Any PR is good PR?

Is mention in an article really the main thing? Well certainly it represents an achievement because you can’t buy it. But that’s only going half way to paradise. The real deal here is when your message truly connects with the audience on a consistent basis and in areas that go far beyond product features and benefits. Sure product coverage is important but it can be so much more when done in the context of an over-arching strategy for the brand that is chocked full of greater meaning and intrinsic value to the consumer.

PR is no longer a below the line tool anyway. PR has now merged with “owned” media to become a brand publishing and media platform universe. It combines what’s long been known as editorial outreach, with building online communities and social networks that make brands media players themselves – and in doing so jumps the shark of editorial gatekeepers to message directly to consumers (but in a fashion that’s very, very different from advertising).

• So brand strategy guidance naturally must spring from a deep dive into the brand’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Combined with a working and thorough understanding of the brand’s competitive set and category behaviors. As well as respectful efforts to fully understand a brand’s historical legacy and cultural fabric.

Most importantly, however, is the requirement to invest in consumer insight so we can know with some measure of confidence what those lifestyle passions and interests look like. This sets in motion a platform for communications and PR strategy that resonates, engages, delights and validates what we hope consumers will believe about a client brands relevance and value to them.

This is our calling. Our path. Our way. Our point of view about PR.

What’s yours?

By Robert Wheatley

Photo Credit: Jonathon Fernstrom

Casting a wide net recipe for shallow customer interaction

1. We have access to over 50,000 sku’s in a typical urban grocery store, yet most people will purchase no more than 100 of them.

2. Recent Pew Research confirms while the choices for online news sources is almost limitless, around 57% of consumers rely on just two to five sites for information.

3. The same is true in television viewing. Despite the hundreds of channel options now available, most viewers stick to a relative handful of re-visited choices. Consumers tend to gravitate to those brands and businesses most relevant and interesting to them, based on how they see their needs and themselves.

Over Choice Favors Narrow-Cast

Consumers can’t possibly keep track of all the possibilities in all of the categories that compete for their attention. Despite this fact, brands continue to labor heavily to get in the consideration set through broad appeals, shot-gunned through vast expanses of media territory hoping to heard more fish into the widest net possible.

More is better, right?

Well if more were really more. What if there’s no “more” there? Increasingly we’re seeing demonstrable, measurable reasons to focus narrowly on audiences of brand fans, heavy users, and potential ambassadors who for personal and lifestyle reasons are already engaged in the category.

The call to go deep with your best customers runs counter to history and legacy behaviors in marketing – a well-worn credo that believes exposure to a message is the same thing as reception, understanding and appreciation.

We don’t see it that way…

Seth Godin has an interesting post today on what he calls “drive by culture” that suggests capturing an eyeball momentarily might constitute success? Well, no. Today’s click-and-go behaviors are the polar opposite of what engagement can truly mean with a consumer who is paying attention — because they find relevance and value in the interaction.

So perhaps consumers who are already plugged in from a lifestyle standpoint are more important and thus warrant more time and investment in relationship building? This is the fundamental principle underneath moving from a transactional view of the consumer relationship to one based on mutual understanding and reciprocity.

The Recipe for Better Relationships

• Time to take a hard look at your brand DNA and value proposition. Combine that with efforts to gain more thorough insight into the lifestyle interests, concerns and aspirations of your core users.

• Based on this insight look for ways of constructing a higher purpose and greater meaning that transcends the product itself and hits squarely on the consumer’s lifestyle interests. Mine those connections more fully so the brand can become an enabler and supporter or teacher in those activities and experiences.

• Surprise and delight your fans in tangible and meaningful ways.

Your best users will become active evangelists for your brand and in doing so reach others less involved by extending their own credibility on your behalf. Sure it’s scary to let go of tactics more closely resembling carpet bomb than precision targeting. Who wants to leave business sitting on the table, right? However, if consumers aren’t listening then the resources spent there isn’t working very hard.

In the end, consumers are congregating now in communities of self-interest. Meaning it’s better to play tennis with someone on the other side of the net. Going deep puts you onto the court, while a strong social media strategy gets the volley flowing back and forth. Your higher purpose is the right ball everyone will pay attention to. It’s the kind of game engaged consumers want to play.

What do you think?

Determine What’s Working and Why…

By Robert Wheatley

People like me in the agency business are constantly trying to divine the current collective mindset among clients about their top concerns. It impacts what we write about on this blog (our audience). It effects how we approach potential clients. It informs the conversation we have with those we currently serve.

You might assume the top priority fits squarely in the sales and market share basket, a sort of reference standard we think all marketers boomerang back to like death and taxes, the head waters of the Mississippi, or the assurance of yet another sunrise and sunset. Lo research shows another consideration that appears to be top-of-mind for marketers of all shapes and sizes.

Don’t’ take my word for it, examine this chart:

It was prepared by the CMO Council in partnership with Deloitte Consulting, from a survey of over 800 senior marketing executives.

Top box scores go to: better understanding the value of marketing investments and customer insight. Remarkably these two issues follow a close parallel path. Insight leads to better marketing communications strategy. And outcomes in delivery of those strategies can be evaluated only on the merits of specific tactics and their ROI.

The lesson here is measurement matters. And we’re not talking about a “hold their feet to the fire” effort primarily to assure the agency is going to deliver on its promises. (Yes that matters, too). Even more importantly in these days of budget pressures, it’s essential to know what programs and tactics are going to yield the biggest bang for the buck spent.

In PR and social media this means that outcomes as or more important then output. Presumably the “spend” in communications is to secure changes in attitude and behavior, not just secure significant quantities of non-paid media attention. PR by the pound?

Emergence of social media and measurement

Web-based strategies are infinitely measurable — whether focused on Internet based communications platforms, or outbound efforts to engage consumers in conversation. Example, we build client dashboards to assess:

Web traffic
Web traffic referrals
Search volume trends
Social media mentions
Track number of followers and friends
Share of voice in relevant conversations online

We also look at the Net Promoter Score. This is determined through monthly on-line surveys that pose just one question: “On a scale of one to ten, how likely are you to purchase XYZ product?”

All of this works to elevate and enhance the value of what we do — and its importance in delivering benefits for the dollars that are invested in communications.

What do you think?