Hollywood PR People Miley Cyrus' Image Matters to Parents Too

Every time I see another Disney princess from my daughters pre-teen years (aka this time Miley Cyrus) trying to break away from her nice girl image and transformed into someone I never want my daughter to behave like I get furious.Not just furious at Miley and the entourage around her who are charging her insane amounts of money for advice on how to take her from the teen to adult market. But mostly at her PR people. Don't you get that parents actually pay attention to this stuff too?

I have news for you folks. There's alluring, there's sexy and there's obscene. Often in an effort to spark a national conversation about your "product" oh no I mean star, you turn away the very teen girls who used to watch her. Any girl brought up with a modicum of decency doesn't want to see Miley do whatever it was she did on the MTV awards last weekend. It's gross, and it can't be good for record sales. Maybe for the short term but not the long.

Let's compare. Miranda Cosgrove, teen princess from the Drake & Josh show which every parent approved of and watched a long side their children. Moved to a show where she was more grown up but still grappling with the issues that a teen girl deals with. Amanda Bynes from The Amanda Show on which she was sweet, bubbly, funny - now transformed into the next generation Lindsay Lohan. Which would you rather have your daughters experience? 

Or are you too busy to pay attention to what your daughters are watching. Even the Kardashians aren't as bad as what some of the former teen idols are doing. At least they are unabashed, ridiculously selfish, overly plasticized versions of someone I would throw rotten tomatoes at. And they got rich doing it. If America wants to watch that crap then let it. But don't take a young girl my daughter grew up admiring and turn her into a porn star at the MTV awards, really?

I am not a prude by any means but we have swung way, way to far towards the othe side of the pendulum. There is a middle ground between a girl who is saving her virginity for marriage and one who is openly available to everyone. And the PR people who orchestrate these events should know better. 

Don't you have daughters too?

http://news.sky.com/story/1133194/miley-cyrus-performs-in-bikini-at-mtv-awards

Roth Partners True Lemon Campaign shows Perky and Quirky can Sell Out A Product Line

Sometimes an idea we think is kind of silly helps get potential customers involved in your brand promise. I was a bit skeptical about the magical fairy Trudy zapping away people's sodas and replacing them with True Lemon, a new lemon/water drink.

Trudy was quirky - perky - and a bit Disneyesque. But True Citrus, the parent company based in Baltimore, hit the jackpot with Trudy on Facebook and through an ad campaign developed by Stern Communications client Manhattan agency Roth Partners.

Here's one of the many stories we placed about Trudy. Shows that creativity doesn't always have to be smart and edgy. Sometimes it just has to be fun and work. True Lemon sold out over the summer after its Memorial Day launch.

Check out the http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/perky-trudy-drives-true-lemon-push-140614

How the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Boosted Fundraising 23%

Here is an article about our client Interplanetary's new multi-media campaign for LLS. 

The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society took a page from the corporate branding playbook for its new fundraising campaign. Its people-focused strategy makes sense for smaller organizations too.

Gail is a middle-aged RN. Alex is a 6-year-old boy. Victoria is a teenage athlete. All three are survivors of blood cancers, and their faces—and many others’—are featured throughout the website for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS). The abundance of stories is meant to send a clear message to the visitor that the disease is conquerable. Indeed, the survival rates have increased markedly over the years, up to 91 percent for childhood leukemia and 92 percent for Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

What LLS needed was a“unifying rallying cry.”

LLS summarizes that success with the tagline “Someday Is Today,” which anchors a revamped website that was launched last February. A host of videos, images, and articles all serve to drive home the point that we are this close to curing these diseases. Billboard and bus ads deliver the “Someday Is Today” message too, and TV ads imagine people going slack-jawed on the day that a cure for cancer is found.

Someday Is Today is a fundraising initiative. But as Lisa Stockmon, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at LLS, says, it is also a thorough reconception of how the association as a whole presented itself to the public.

“We needed a master brand strategy for LLS,” she says. People had been giving to specific LLS campaigns, but “people were just not attributing that to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.”

LLS’s transformation, accomplished in a few short months, is a study in how an association’s mission can better connect with its brand identity and how fundraising interlocks with the overall activities of an organization. Everything at LLS runs on the same track now, to make the same point: We’re almost where we need to be. Can you help?

http://associationsnow.com/2013/07/leukemia-and-lymphoma-society-a-cause-with-personality/

Nasty Blog Comments Can Sway How We Remember Stories

I always read blog comments - until there are just too many or I start to believe that many of them are written by people who are paid to take a negative viewpoint. Some of the arguments are just too ridiculous (those are probably real people) while others are totally partisan (paid I assume). Anyway, I never really understood the reasoning behind paid commentary - other than to market a company or product - but it turns out they can also sway opinion. 

In a study published online last month in The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, the New York Times and the previously mentioned publication tested the effect on readers of nasty article comments.

They asked 1,183 participants to carefully read a news post on a fictitious blog, explaining the potential risks and benefits of a new technology product called nanosilver. These infinitesimal silver particles, tinier than 100-billionths of a meter in any dimension, have several potential benefits (like antibacterial properties) and risks (like water contamination), the online article reported.

Then they had participants read comments on the post, supposedly from other readers, and respond to questions regarding the content of the article itself.

Half of the sample was exposed to civil reader comments and the other half to rude ones — though the actual content, length and intensity of the comments, which varied from being supportive of the new technology to being wary of the risks, were consistent across both groups. The only difference was that the rude ones contained epithets or curse words, as in: “If you don’t see the benefits of using nanotechnology in these kinds of products, you’re an idiot” and “You’re stupid if you’re not thinking of the risks for the fish and other plants and animals in water tainted with silver.”

The results were both surprising and disturbing. Uncivil comments not only polarized readers, but they often changed a participant’s interpretation of the news story itself.

To learn more go to http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/opinion/sunday/this-story-stinks.html?hp

Why Marketing and PR Should Go for the Gut

I went to a media training workshop recently and the core message I walked away with was connect on an emotional level with the person interviewing you, and you're golden.

I've been watching top tier advertising lately and the best of it makes me want to help, obtain, or just pick up the phone and find out more. That's because I'm listening and I've made, at the very least, an investment in taking more time to go further.

I write speeches these days, and the most successful tell stories that make audiences feel as though they are part of what we're addressing - if they are not yet. 

We've all been told that emotion sells, that connecting with your audience at a gut level, works. But lately I've done and seen a lot of just that. And I've become more and more convinced that this is what differentiates good from great. Good is respectful and informative and I hate this phrase, but it's appropriate to the audience. Great is what I connect with because it becomes part of me. And that's emotionally charged.

The best way to connect with people is by making them care. If people feel nothing, they do nothing. Think about a married couple in a restaurant. They sit quietly eating - and don't say a word the entire meal. It's not anger or resentment or love that keeps them silent. It's disinterest.

So as marketers and PR people, how do we connect emotionally with those we want to influence? Here are a few thoughts.

1. Help Me Connect Through My Own Lense. If I see myself or a real person in what you're talking about, I'm much more likely to connect and care. If you're trying to get someone to write about a product related to healthcare, first ask questions and figure out what my personal connection might be to that product. Then explain it, so it matters to me, my family, those I love and care about.

2. Tell Me a Verifiable Story. If I know what you're trying to sell me or persuade me to do has a connection to real people, I'll be far more likely to pay attention. Tell me about someone whose life was changed by this product or service. Don't call them a client - call them by a first name and a last one if you can. Make them real people. When I see testimonials on web sites that say a software manufacturer says we transformed their business but they don't tell me how and they don't tell me who - I don't care and worse, I don't believe them. If you can't identify who you are talking about, or at least give me enough details to get me invested in it, then I'm not going to pay attention, let alone care.

3. Have a Real Person Talk to Me. Non-profits are amazing at this but there's a special way to do it that works. I'm tired of hearing about poor, starving children in some remote corner of the world. My donation will build a school, or give them clean water, or whatever. No it won't and please don't insult my intelligence. I hear this same message all the time, from many charities. But if a real person who works for you is telling me this story and they are passionate about it, and you pair that with visuals of the work you're doing, I start caring. It's that simple.

4. Don't Fake It. If you don't care why should I? I have seen thousands of presentations by people who aren't passionate about their work and it's exhausting. They go on and on and on and on, and it never ends. I'm not listening after the first minute so the rest of what they're telling me doesn't matter. If you don't care, or you pretend to care, you sound fake. Persuade me because you really believe in what you are doing. Otherwise you're wasting everyone's time. 

What the Heck Happened to the Today Show?

OK - I'm admitting this. I am a PR person and I still sometimes watch the Today Show. I like to see what they are covering and what they consider important. But there's so little there.

Today I turned off Jenna Bush's pregnancy. She announced it on the air (I was still trying to figure out who she was) but when they called up George and Laura it became pretty clear that she was their daughter. The one who didn't get into trouble - the one who got married - became a teacher like her mom - and can't wait to have her baby. Really?

I turned it off while Jenna was still glowing and someone brought her flowers. I give her credit she cracked a joke at what they looked like in all their white roseness. But I cannot even remember what it was.

The Today Show was once a good program - what has happened to it? I can't watch it for more than 10-15 minutes without becoming profoundly annoyed and bored. That's not a good sign. So I watched a bit of the advertising and called a Hallmark ad in the first five seconds of it. Schmaltz as my grandmother would say.

Chasing the news of the moment, perhaps is the downfall. The fiscal cliff - enough already. And that's the most educated thing they talk about explaining it in terms an eight year-old could grasp. 

Every day there is another insipid story that is about people and is supposed to be inspiring. I sit here trying to remember one and I can't. It's too blurred with all the other nonsense on television.

Often I just feel horribly sorry for Matt Lauer. Still hanging in there while his co-hosts get even younger, and the pretense of journalism is no longer even that. 

OK let me just say it then - I am not a mindless idiot - please stop treating me like one. I know that network television has become one long reality television program but at least give me something other than canned celebrity interviews, silly stories and news dumbed down. I am an intelligent person, and you've lost me.

The only other thing I've noticed is that the lines outside the studio are very small compared to most years. I guess it's because of Sandy and the lack of tourists. Or maybe it's just that the fan base doesn't really care anymore. Either way whatever happened to The Today Show?

Marketing Accomplishments - Take Credit for Your Work

It's been a grueling political season, and on both sides of the aisle, I've seen talented leaders who don't take credit for the good work they've done. I know there are polls and pundits and fear of saying the wrong thing and having it end up going viral, but there are ways of outlining your achievements that make sense and can help teach people who you are and what you believe in.

In these last few days before the presidential election we're beginning to see more of a focus on accomplishments, and as a citizen and a voter, all I can say is thank goodness. There's only so much negativity one person can handle before it all starts sounding like noise.

Metrics don't just matter, they help seal the deal. Unfortunately, the metrics of this presidential election don't always add up and that diminishes the value of the ones that do. But we live in a world of metrics and we should use what we accomplish both qualitatively and quantitatively. 

Anecdotes are great and they pull emotional strings, but nothing competes with sales figures for marketers, or how many people were driven to a web site and what drove them there, and how long they stayed. 

For PR people, it's where the article about the client ran, how prestigious the media that wrote the story is, how many people clicked within a press release and where they went from there. And then there's the value of strong messaging - messages people remember that don't sound like what your competition is saying. 

So in this last week of the presidential election, no matter who wins, I implore you to stop attacking each other and run on your results. You've got them.