Tag Archives: Ad Agency PR

Ad Agency PR 101: What Is the Name of the Person Who Cleans Your Building?

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This post is a little different because it isn’t directly about public relations, though indirectly it is. My topic is how we deal with the people we encounter in life and our attitudes toward them, whether they are powerful, powerless or somewhere in between.

Before I started my own firm, I headed up the PR department of an ad agency. One day a colleague there shared a story I’ve always remembered. It went like this:

In his second month of night school, a student breezed through the questions until the last one: “What is the first name of the woman who cleans this building?”

Surely this was some kind of joke. He’d seen the cleaning woman several times. She was tall, brunette and in her 50s, but how would he know her name?

He handed in the paper, leaving the last question blank. Before class ended another student asked if the last question would count.

“Absolutely,” the professor answered. “In your lives, in your careers, you’ll meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello.”

“I’ve never forgotten that lesson,” the student wrote many years later. “I also learned her name was Dorothy.”

I love that story because it speaks so clearly and strongly to the ways in which we can easily overlook others. As this professor pointed out, in our lives and careers we will encounter all kinds of people. We should never forget that each person is significant and deserving of attention and care.

In the PR profession, we’re pretty good at taking the time to get to know the names of key journalists, bloggers and other influencers who we hope can help us in some way. But this story reminds me that there are other people whose names I should be learning as well, because there’s no such thing as an unimportant person.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to advertising agencies and businesses.

photo credit: CGP Grey via photopin cc

Why Ad Agency PR Should be Leading in Social Media

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It’s been a bit of a mystery to me why the public relations profession as a whole hasn’t been more at the forefront of utilizing social media strategically. The other day I read a post in Ragan’s PR Daily titled “13 reasons why PR should lead social media efforts” that shed some light on this puzzle.

The author, Elizabeth Sosnow, is managing director of BlissPR. You can read the reasons she believes PR is better suited than sales, advertising, human resources, etc., to be in charge of an organization’s social media efforts here.

She talks about how PR people are storytellers; how we build content; our training to empathize and converse with different audiences; our skill at earning and keeping attention; our ability to be sensitive to reporters’ needs, etc.

All this is true, but in my opinion she misses the bigger picture.

Social media is about engaging audiences, and that’s why PR should be front and center in social media efforts.

We need to focus on talking with people, not at them. Conversing with different audiences is as close as Elizabeth comes to this in her list, but to me the real strength of social media is the way it enables us build relationships and enhance trust in ways that other mediums can’t match.

Social media allows us to start or participate in conversations with individuals we might otherwise not reach. We can answer questions, solve problems, have constructive debates and gain a better understanding of issues and concerns from the other person’s perspective.

The hallmark of good public relations has always been two-way communication. PR is far more than telling a story, grabbing attention and being sensitive to bloggers and reporters. Each of those is important, but effective PR goes beyond making pitches and connecting with others. In a word, it is interactive.

Social media gives ad agencies and small businesses unparalleled ways of communicating one-on-one with customers, prospects, influencers and other interested parties.

As David Meerman Scott writes in his excellent book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR, “…what all the new Web tools and techniques have in common is that together they are the best way to communicate directly with your marketplace.”

But if we are too busy pushing our story or point of view without actively listening and having a genuine dialogue, PR will take a back seat to other disciplines that are willing to do so.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to advertising agencies and businesses.

photo credit: JefferyTurner via photopin cc

Guest Post Explains How Ad Agencies Can Use PR Strategically for New Business

Want to learn how your ad agency can use public relations to drive new business? Check out my guest post on Michael Gass’ Fuel Lines blog. In it I explain how strategic use of PR can help small and mid-sized agencies—even a one-person operation—level the playing field with larger competitors.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to advertising agencies and businesses.

Managing Change Creates Opportunities for Ad Agency PR

As organizations scramble to adapt to change, their use of public relations as a vehicle to manage the constantly evolving landscape will only grow.

The challenge of managing change and remaining relevant is highlighted in a new IBM study of more than 1,700 chief marketing officers.

•       According to the executive summary, “One of the most surprising findings to emerge from our study is the degree of consensus among the respondents. No matter where they work, their industry, or how large or successful their organizations are, CMOs are facing many of the same challenges and most feel underprepared to manage them.”

The number one area in which CMOs report not being prepared (76%) is the explosion of data.

•       “CMOs are . . . overwhelmingly underprepared to take charge of the growing volume, velocity and variety of data,” the executive summary notes.

PR can help CMOs mine data to unlock perceptions, preferences and concerns, but understanding customers, stakeholders or citizens is not enough.

An organization has to take action based on what it learns—and do so more quickly than its competitors. That’s where PR can play an especially helpful role.

“PR firms in general are quite adept at leveraging change, especially those who have shifted their models and strategies in recognition of the importance of digital, online, social, and mobile communications,” writes Jim Weiss, CEO of WCG, in PRWEEK.

He continues: “We are increasingly seeing the role of communications, and PR pros within companies and organizations, taking on a broader remit than ever before because communications are happening online in real-time where multiple stakeholders are seeing them all at once . . . Responsiveness and transparency with relative speed and immediacy have always been qualities the best PR professionals possess.”

Whether connecting with a reporter on deadline, responding to an irate customer using social media to vent his or her displeasure, or dealing with an actual or impending crisis, reacting quickly (yet responsibly with facts in hand) has long been a forte of the PR profession.

In the age of digital media, smaller ad agencies not only can compete against much larger competitors, but often times do so more nimbly and effectively. Those who are prepared to lead this critical PR function will ensure they remain relevant to the companies or clients they serve.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to advertising agencies and businesses.

For Successful Ad Agency PR, Pitch like a Reporter

Something that’s easy to overlook when pitching a story to a reporter is that in most cases the reporter has to turn around and pitch it to an editor. So, getting the reporter interested is only half the battle. The more you can arm him or her with good information about why your idea would make a good story, the more favorable the odds of selling the editor.

The best way to sell a story is to first do your homework and then tailor your pitch as much as possible.

When I was on the editorial side of a heath care magazine, I never ceased to be amazed at some of the obviously inappropriate pitches PR people sent my way. It was pretty easy to tell who had taken time to read our magazine and understand the types of stories we covered, and who had taken a shotgun approach to pitching.

When the time comes to make your pitch, be sure you not only think like a reporter, but that you write like one as well. In other words, don’t advertise or editorialize your story idea; write your pitch as objectively as possible emphasizing its news aspect.

To increase your chances of success, follow this rule of thumb: find the right reporter and make the right story pitch at the right time.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to advertising agencies and businesses.

Foreclosing on Bank Creates PR Nightmare for Bank of America

In my previous post, I discussed one non-profit organization’s spot-on response to a negative news article. This time, I present Exhibit B, which is a model for taking on a mega bank.

In one of those big “whoops” moments, Bank of America tried to foreclose on a house in Florida that had no mortgage; the owners had paid BOA cash for it, but a few months later the bank filed a foreclosure claim against them.

Mistakes happen, but BOA apparently refused to respond to the owners or their attorney, despite their numerous attempts to straighten out this colossal misunderstanding. Big, inflexible banks can be irritating and cause a lot of headaches, but the owners turned the tables by winning a court judgment against BOA for their attorney fees.

When BOA didn’t pay up, the owners foreclosed on the local bank, bringing their attorney and two sheriff’s deputies to take whatever assets they could get their hands on to pay the debt. An hour later the owners magically had a check from BOA.

This was a PR failure from top to bottom for BOA, and it has paid a heavy price through what can only be described as humiliating national media coverage of the fiasco.

In the interests of full disclosure, my wife and I have been banking with BOA for at least 15 years, and we’ve never had a problem. In fact, our local branch has always been very helpful and responsive whenever we’ve had a question or issue arise.

But this BOA branch in Florida obviously was a different story, and its lack of concern about doing what’s right ended up tainting the BOA name system-wide. It may also have caught the attention of the Florida’s attorney general’s economic crime division.

This is a great example of an issue which, if managed properly, would have quickly gone away. Instead, it became a full-blown crisis, and it will take BOA a long time to live it down. Because of their novelty, “man bites dog” stories always seem to find the light of day.

Ad agencies may not be able to directly influence their clients’ customer service, but they can remind them about the consequences of negative PR and that paying attention to their customers is one way to avoid a costly mess.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

Non-profit’s Response to Negative Article Is Model for Ad Agency PR

 “The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him.” – Proverbs 18:17

Let me state up front that I don’t have first-hand knowledge of the facts related to the PR issue I’m about to discuss, so I don’t know which party is right and which is wrong—or whether the truth lies somewhere in between.

What I can say is that Soles4Souls’ response to a negative front-page story about it in The Tennessean newspaper, which was also picked up by USA Today, is a model for how to fight back when you feel you’ve been unfairly portrayed in the news media.

Soles4Souls is a non-profit charitable organization. According to its mission statement, “Soles4Souls collects new shoes to give relief to the victims of abject suffering and collects used shoes to support micro-business efforts to eradicate poverty.”

While the details are too involved to go into here, The Tennessean article makes Soles4Souls appear deceptive in some of its practices. “Millions of pairs of used shoes donated to Soles4Souls…don’t go directly to the impoverished people the charity says it is helping,” the paper states.

Soles4Souls’ statement about the article, which is posted on the non-profit’s Web site, was thorough, factual and measured, with a minimum of emotion or defensiveness attached to it.

Here’s a sample from Soles4Soul’s response:

•       “The gist of the [Tennessean] micro-enterprise article is that Soles4Souls has not talked openly about its micro-enterprise program.  In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. We are proud of our micro-enterprise efforts, which have enabled us to increase the number of people we serve and is consistent with social enterprise undertaken by the US government and [the] nation’s leading nonprofits.   In 2009, we discussed the program in an article published by The Tennessean! Although the article no longer appears on The Tennessean’s website, you can read it here on our site where it has been since it was published.”

Hmmm, I wonder why that 2009 article is no longer available on The Tennessean’s Web site, especially in light of the extensive story the paper did questioning this non-profit’s integrity?

There’s a good lesson in all this: When it was caught off guard by accusations about its practices, Soles4Souls didn’t panic, nor did it roll over and play dead. It took the paper’s accusations head-on, set the record straight and raised questions of its own about The Tennessean’s ethics in the way it handled the matter.

The Internet and social media have opened up effective new ways of fighting back and telling the other side if your organization or client is misrepresented.

You owe it to your stakeholders to tell the truth, admit to mistakes on your part (if applicable) and correct reporting errors. Stakeholders can be valuable goodwill ambassadors to help you set the record straight IF they know the facts.

And never, ever be afraid to take on the news media if they get out of line. Accountability, after all, is a two-way street.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

Ad Agencies Beware of Speaking with Reporters off the Record

Brian Lewis, a former reporter for The Tennessean newspaper, described in a column the different levels of speaking with reporters:

Off the record:  “To have an off-the-record conversation means that the information will not be used in any way in a story.  Many editors, including mine, don’t allow reporters to have off-the-record conversations.”

On background:  “To have an on-background conversation means that the information may be used in a story, but the person who is talking will not be named in connection with the information that is ‘on background.’”

On the record:  “This is the standard conversation with reporters.  However, reporters should identify themselves as working on an article before beginning an interview…once a statement has been made on the record, it cannot be taken off-record.”

While Brian’s explanation of these three levels is helpful, my advice to ad agencies is to never speak off the record, unless you really know and trust the reporter.

Even then, there are risks.

Consider this headline from a story by the New York Times News Service:  “India’s nuclear identify unclear.”  The subhead reads:  “‘Off the record, we are totally unprepared’ says one of its top military strategists.”

I wonder how the career of that military strategist is going these days. He certainly should have known better than to make such a remark to a reporter, and I suspect he learned his lesson after getting burned so badly by someone he apparently trusted.

What’s even more disturbing than this official’s lack of judgment, though, is that The New York Times  had no qualms about using something he told one of its reporters in confidence and clearly thought was off the record. 

The paper’s subhead admits it can’t be trusted, which is why if you don’t want to risk having something appear in print or on radio, TV or the Internet, don’t share it with a reporter!

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

Increase in Web Advertising Has Implications for Ad Agency PR

It was bound to happen: Web advertising revenue in the U.S.has surpassed that of newspaper advertising revenue.

An April 14 article in The Wall Street Journal cites a PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP report for the Interactive Advertising Bureau that shows a rebound for Web advertising after a modest decline in 2009.

The IAB estimates that Internet-ad revenue in 2010, which rose 15% to $26 billion, surpassed that of newspapers, which amounted to $22.8 billion, as well as $22.5 billion from cable TV networks, $17.6 billion from broadcast TV networks and $15.3 billion from radio.

Given the growth of the Web and the decline in newspaper readership, this changing of the guard was inevitable. Still, it is amazing to think about the relative speed with which all this has happened.

The prominence of the Internet as an advertising vehicle also has implications for ad agency PR. Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc., as well as free and paid Internet news release distribution services, are important ways to get news out to key audiences beyond traditional print and broadcast outlets.

While social media plays a vital role in generating awareness for public relations initiatives, some are still not up to speed on its potential.

Commenting on the gap that exists between the percentage of time consumers spend using digital media and the percentage of spending that marketers allocate to the Web, John Suhler, founding partner with private equity and media forecasting firm Verohnis Suhler Stevenson, noted: “Dollars always follow eyeballs.”

More and more, eyeballs are turning to the Internet for news and information, and that trend likely will continue growing in the years to come.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

Ad Agencies: Avoid Confusing News Release Headlines

During my days as an editor for a healthcare magazine, I received some interesting mail.  Here’s a news release headline a well-meaning hospital PR executive sent me one day:

CDH TO HOST LAPAROSCOPIC HERNIORRAPY PRECEPTORSHIP

Huh? I’m guessing one in a half-million or so people would have a clue what that headline was about.  And ask yourself: how much interest does it generate?  The release itself was fairly well written, and once I read the first few sentences I realized the hospital was hosting a seminar about advancements in hernia operations.

Trouble is, most reporters wouldn’t get past the headline – the release would end up in the recycle bin before the first paragraph was read.  Why not just say in the headline, in simple terms, what the seminar is about?

Headlines are vital to attracting interest and getting people to read the release or article, similar to how the wording on a subject line can make the difference between you reading or deleting an e-mail.

If you are handling your ad agency’s PR, make sure your news release headlines are compelling and readable, or risk having the releases discarded before they even gets read.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.