The Party of No Versus Yes We Can

I was in Nashville the other day visiting a prospective and current client and found myself in a bar next to a couple in their sixties. She was lovely, very into the music scene, and chatty. He found out I was from Washington, DC and do work in health care reform and wanted to yell at me.

Politely, more than twice, I told him I really didn’t want to discuss this with him. But he was on fire with his talking points which spewed out of him like vomit:

• We can’t afford it, it will bankrupt the nation.
• It’s socialism.
• I’m a small business owner, and it’s not going to help me.
• All of the polls say the American people don’t want it.

I politely (and anyone who knows me realizes politely doesn’t come easily), again told him I wouldn’t discuss it.

He went on and on until his wife dragged him out. Tried to watch the basketball game but Kentucky was killing the other team and in the end, he was like a strange, exotic bird, and the basketball game just screamed defeat.

The next day I had lunch with a client who doesn’t believe in the reform movement and has a pretty persuasive case why. I told him about Health Reform Bad Bar Man and said, “I wish I was that good at getting people to remember my talking points.”

That’s when it hit me – the Republicans are brilliant at developing talking points that are simple, resonate widely, everyone remembers and are used by all who hear them over and over and over again.

The Democrats suck at talking points. Obama won’t sink to the level of “they’re going to kill granny,” and who can blame him. But what about a nice big positive talking point about giving granny dignity and professional care at the end of her life. It may not be angry but at least it’s hopeful.

But not those Democrats. They don’t think that way. They’ve reused the same campaign theme for every candidate in the last two decades “Change.” A big vague talking point that has no meaning other than we’re going to be different. Then they get to DC and it’s the same old stuff.

How do you think the Republicans have managed to pin the zillion dollar deficit on Obama when he walked into office and found out it was far worse than even his advisers imagined? Declarative, basic points – he who runs the country is responsible for the mess he’s in.

If you keep telling people over and over again that Obama created this mess – and they’re not very smart people and regular watchers of Fox News – they will believe it. It’s indoctrination – talk about socialism that’s a pretty good example of it in action.

And of course, there’s racism involved – more than I ever thought possible in this nation in the second decade of the 21st Century. May not be on a billboard but its right there all the time. Just look at who makes up the Congress and Senate. The Republicans are white men, the Democrats are the rest of us. But I’m not going down that path today.

But there’s good news. Finally, with the health care reform bill passed the tide appears to be turning. Armageddon didn’t happen and it isn’t going too. The letter John McCain sent out saying we must repeal the health care reform bill sounded weak, hissy and undignified. Talk about someone who knows how to kill his own career.

The Democrats appear to have gotten their cajones back as well. They have new talking points.

The Republicans are the party of no.
We are the party of yes we can.

It’s a good start.

Check out this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-pLSdGa0M4

The DC Addy Awards - Where Have All the Creatives Gone?

Went to the DC Addy Awards last night. Usually I go to these things for creative inspiration - but you know the work was really pedestrian. I was really surprised.

This video of Mad Men is really kind of appropriate - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1gorEa-RKA

Oh the event was nice - at the Carnegie Institute on the second floor - up a gorgeous staircase, large, airy, room, great ceilings, pretty window dressing girls in short, strapless outfits and 4 inch heels. People wore cool glasses. They clustered and watched each other.

The food was your standard fare - prosciutto, cheese (baked brie was a surprise), passed sushi and crab cakes, decent wine. Oh and the scary looking sandwiches which I convinced myself would not be served if there was something really wrong with them - I did get sick to my stomach an hour later. Can't blame the wine either because I only had one glass.

The most creative ad I saw was on a cocktail napkin. Seriously. Remember when we used to scrawl phone numbers on a bar napkin and give them to boys - then worry about whether or not they'd call. In the age of cell phones, Facebook, etc. they had taken the napkins you get with your drinks and turned them into little ads.

There were 3 in the series - One said - My name is Sandy, my phone number is. . . , my LinkedIn profile is. . . etc. Another said - We met at the Bar & Grill and had space for your name, website, blog, and awesome tattoo. The third was about your Facebook page, name, etc. If I owned a bar - I would steal that idea immediately.

The winners were mostly the Arnold and Ogilvy type firms except for the napkin people who I had never heard of. Since there was no hand-out and I didn't write their name down - I apologize for not honoring you.

Saw some interesting retro design in the print - black and white line drawings - a few representative of how people who don't really draw do it which had a kind of gritty feel to them, some colorful blocky design that got my attention for a name that I can't remember.

Here's the schocker No Internet ads. Can you imagine? Not a single social media, Google or other ad that runs online was featured. I cannot believe that it wasn't a category. The girl I tried to ask questions of at the table upstairs said she had no information and I had to find Doug. She didn't offer to help.

I walked through the winning ads twice. The broadcast took too long to rerun and I can't remember any of it. The radio you couldn't hear. And not a single headline or product stood out. These are the winners!

So what is happening? I know the advertising industry has been hit really hard but come on all of you. If I can't remember a single ad except for the napkin people and I went there to look at them, what does that say? Aren't we supposed to get more creative when a recession hits? How can you sell your ad agency's value if you can't create ads that are even interesting?

Anyway they said all this stuff will be up on line in the next day or so which knowing the Ad Club DC could be a week. There should be photos, video and the ads. Please let me know what you think. Keep checking www.dcadclub.com

Do Successful PR People Show Clients the Real Pitch?

I screwed up the other day. Any PR person who actually knows how to pitch media and place stories - and is good at it - knows that you should never show the client your pitch. Oh you make a really nice communications plan and talk about messages and strategy and lay out what you are going to say and get their feedback.

You do the press releases the way they want (with a lot of suggestions to improve SEO) and make fact sheets with a lot of their explanations of their business. But that's not what you pitch.

Even if you are good and start with the clients' pitch within a day or two you've changed it. Why? because they're sanitized and long and not succinct enough to get someone's attention in five seconds. And today those pitches are read on a Blackberry in a car that hopefully is not moving.

Media today - your whole pitch is an email heading and ten seconds on the phone. Getting media to open the email is most of it. Then you must capture your pitch in a sentence. Clients are caught up in their business and the love of what they do. They want all the information in there - exactly the way they talk and write about it. But that's not what they hire you for.

Yes there are still journalists who are thoughtful, smart, check facts, have real editors, etc. But their numbers are shrinking and most of their mail is read by screeners who are 20 year-old communications interns or were just hired as new staff. So good luck with that.

I read HARO which is a great resource to see the simplicity of what is pitched these days. Here are a few from Friday's - look how boiled down they are:

Credit Card Phone Scams (major financial website)
25 Young Entrepreneurs for Book ages 6 + (Raising CEO Kids Book and website)
Un-famous People with Famous Names (National magazine)
Brain Damage and Stereotypes/Categorization (Anonymous)

If you can't get your pitch down to something that simple -- you have no pitch.

And what many clients don't get either is that pitches evolve. You start out with this nice perfectly worded pitch that's a couple of paragraphs and then you start calling people and they start telling you why they don't care. Or they feign interest and then don't follow through which is the worst because then you tell the client they're interested and then they're not.

In an ideal world - the journalist gives you five minutes, tells you what they're interested in and it's some sort of derivation of what your client does.

When I used to pitch editors as a journalist I had more leeway. They wanted the trend - examples of the trend - data on the trend - sources on the trend - etc. And you could put that all into a pitch note. But you can't anymore because no one will read it. Capture their interest right away. Make a connection. Or it's over. The follow-up after they've said they are interested can be longer and more thorough - but the first time - go for concise.

We went through this with Healthcarebluebook.com. We started with national media pitching of this consumer pricing guide as a new service for consumers. But nobody got it - the healthcare writers wrote about it a little but the first couple of months a lot of the press we got was writers saying it would never work.

Then we went regionally and started pitching healthcare bloggers in major metro markets. We did research on pricing disparities in those markets and went to the writers with that data to get their attention. And it worked. Some used it and some didn't. But they all read the pitch.

Finally, we went after consumer finance writers. Because in the end the Healthcare Blue Book is about saving money. And that's when the press coverage started to take off. Our first huge hit was the WSJ and they were kind of upset about it because they were featured amongst their competitors. I started getting a slew of the look who got coverage in this great story and we're not in there emails.

But then they became the company that got the first call for a healthcare pricing story. And all was happy in client land.

Now we're working on an event that is nine months away and science-related. I called up a healthcare reporter that I know at one of the majors and asked him if anyone covered science anymore. He started to laugh and then we commiserated. All the science writers have been laid off. The Washington Post has one science writer - Rob Stein - for all of science. Can you imagine? So try pitching them an event that's nine months away.

So we're pitching deadlines to participate in events related to the big event which are this spring. When you've got 30 days people start paying attention. And it's working.

I was so happy with someone who actually did exactly what we wanted them to do, I fired off their return email to the client thinking well this is a kudo. What I didn't think about was that the pitch was attached and they would read it and critique it. And of course they did.

Then we have the client/PR person email or talk. In the nicest way possible, I tell them that I know what I'm doing and they have to trust me. Of course, if I worked for clients who didn't accept that I'd get fired and they would pay some big agency a lot of money to do less than we would do. But that's the way it goes.

So what kinds of things bug clients - mostly it's the stuff that business people can't handle either. Strong statements. Provocative writing. Major verb usage. Tying what they do to something pop cultural that they don't like or don't get.

A couple of examples. One of my healthcare clients didn't want to say that we advocated people negotiate price with their doctors. They had some big vague way of describing it that the average healthcare industry person would understand but would leave the rest of us bleary eyed. They thought advocating negotiation would get them in trouble.

Another client had an opera performance with a very specific title and description that explained only to someone who is an opera afficianado what the event was. I called it a Glee Club which was not perfect but at least everyone knows what a glee club. Glee is very popular these days. It got response.

One thing I often remind clients is that even though you think you are pitching some high brow journalist -- the person who gets your pitch may be a 20 year-old news intern who is skimming through headlines, bored and pissed off that they're not the writer.

Or the school superintendent with the PhD that we want to reach has a 50 year-old assistant who has been his assistant for 25 years, acts as his super screener, and is so ready to retire she's just not that thorough anymore.

You have to appeal to the largest common denominator. The journalist won't think you are an idiot for referencing pop culture - most likely they have kids and watch that stuff too. So pitch the screener.

I'd like to hear what you all think. Other war stories in the form of comments would be good.

The Snow is Melting and Marketers are Hiring Again

According to a February 2010 study by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business -nearly half of the CMOS polled in its 2x a year marketing survey say they expect to hire new marketers during the next six months. Survey respondents were 612 marketing executives in small to large companies.

60% plan to hire new marketers in the next year and almost 90% over the next two years.

So expect an 8% hiring increase in the next six months, 13% during the next year, and 24% over the next two years.

But you’d better get your Internet and social media skills up. The areas of growth are marketers with skills related to Internet marketing, innovation and growth, as well as customer relationship and brand management.

And I have to admit, some marketers - at least here in the DC area - have changed their company branding to become Social Media Gurus. But are they?

I think they know more about the architecture than I do and they track recent developments which are sometimes written in a language that I can't follow.

But have they really figured out how to market effectively in the Social Media space? I'm still seeing a lot of consultant presentations on Creating a Social Media Policy. What does that tell you?

Overall B2B Product Marketing will be Up the Most and B2B Service Marketing is Up the Least. The good news for consultants is B2B services marketers report the highest expected increase in outsourced marketing activities. Translation: They need marketing help but aren't willing to hire permanent staff to do it. It's called hedging your bets.

Some key data from the CMO Survey –

Overall marketing budgets will increase by 5.9% this year. Traditional ad spending is still in the negative but the losses are smaller than a year ago.

How will the marketing budget be spent? Here's the breakdown Fuqua gave us.

Market penetration strategy – 44%

Market development strategy – 18%

Product service development strategy – 26%

Diversification – 13%

For the complete study go to www.cmosurvey.org

Science is Back: A Report from the AAAS 2010 Meeting

OK so one of the reasons I went was because it was in San Diego - but who from the east coast is not sick of winter this year? Anyway the meeting is winding down and it's clear that science is making a comeback. And you could tell that many scientists are profiting from the Communicating Science workshops that NSF and AAAS are doing. Talk titles are improving and getting more provocative.

Last year the scientists turned up the volume on global warning with dire warnings - this year it continues unabated. Although I didn't understand all of the talks here are some of the titles which gives you a pretty good indication that we've got to do something now:

Will Coral Reefs Disappear? Separating Fact from Conjecture

Adam Smith Meets Jacques Cousteau: Using Economics to Protect Marine Resources

Denial, Detente and Decisions: Fisheries Science at a Crossroads

Can Geoengineering Save us From Global Warming?

And the list goes on.

So there were 1,000 newsroom registrants at the meeting - many like me more public information officers than real life reporters. But a lot of reporters/writers/editors did come. Among the people I chatted with Alan Boyle, science blogger extraordinaire of MSNBC who just wrote a book on Pluto, The Chronicle of Higher Education which was looking for stories on data organization and management, producers from the BBC and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation who wouldn't reveal what they were writing, ScientificBlogging and it's hottie founder, and many more.

The AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards 2009 program and cocktail party was a massive discussion on the current state of science journalism. So many science writing veterans are now freelancers it's hard to keep track of who's where. But it seems like the wounds are closing and those who remain are getting back to work. Also there were many 20-something science journalists - a good sign for the future.

The science writing award winners were like little kids at their own birthday party - my personal favorite Amie Thompson from the Great Falls Tribune in Wyoming who won for a series on a rare genetic disease and its impact on a family and its descendants. Her husband was talking her up in the hallway before the awards presentation. The series, which ran in June 2009, is called "Lethal Legacy."

Thank you AAAS for continuing to honor great science writing - it seems like no one else is. Oh except the Kavli Foundation which has committed to funding this program for many years - I forget how they put it but it seemed like it would outlive me.

The USA Science Engineering Festival - Larry Bock's baby - got a lot of interest and managed to get a card in every one of the 8,000 conference bags. Bock had an assembly line of bag stuffers - you should have seen the empty boxes.

I met Francis Collins - human genome guru and now head of NIH - over pancakes as he met Bock, and talked about the Festival. A very nice man - he even responded to my thank you note.

My book with AAAS had a lot of lookers - that's Delaying that First Drink: A Parents' Guide - due out this spring and to be tied in with a spring break PR effort.

The SB&F Subaru Children's Book Awards had a packed room and the books are great - check them out on the AAAS web site www.aaas.org.

Yes we are still in a recession. It was really clear in the exhibit hall - the number of booths had dropped quite a bit. Why do people cut marketing when the economy tanks? It doesn't make any sense to me.

And I am in route later today to San Francisco for a 24 hour hang out with best friends break. So I'd better pack. Finally figured out how to use the parking garage in this building and I'm leaving. Oh well.

A Year in the Life of the Washington Post

Went to a talk by Frances Stead Sellers recently at an IPRA lunch - a strange group - I felt young which is rare these days. Not very friendly either - mostly 50 and 60 somethings starting their own companies. One woman who asked for advice on personal finance PR was downright dismissive. Her comment when I tried to explain what we've been doing with the Healthcare Blue Book to her? "Oh so it's just like every other PR effort."

No it's not - but you go ahead and think that. Won't write down the word that came to mind but you know what it is. Anyway nice to be a few years ahead of them. And the feeling young was lovely.

Stead Seller's talk gave a pretty good update on the state of the newspaper business these days. This past year was a train wreck but she thinks the reorganization is done. Here's what we heard:

Slashed newsroom staff - Over the past year the Post has gone from 600 to 300 journalists - the survivors are working their butts off.

Combined sections - In my areas - science, health and technology - they used to have individual editors for each section - now Frances oversees all of them and they're considered a group. She does a macro edit then passes stories along to content editors who do the rest.

Who to pitch - the reporter, reporter, reporter. They are the ones who are making decisions these days about the stories that they write - the section editors are totally overburdened.

What are they reading - Industry blogs, some social media, using Google Alerts like the rest of us to follow beats. So it's particularly important to get your keywords right.

Science has taken a huge hit - with all the emphasis that used to be on science, now it's science and health - kind of a weird split. As they continue to debate the bills guess which subject area is winning?

How do they decide which emails to read?- It's all in the subject line - that's also what they send around the newsroom.

Six Great Ideas from the ASAE Super Swap – January 2010

This new ASAE format had six Idea Swaps in four hours and I attended one on membership marketing and another on social media. The most useful advice was about boosting member attendance at meetings – a big issue these days.

Association professionals estimated their annual conference attendance is down 20-30%. So what are they doing to get more people to come? Here’s what I heard:

Try Going Regional - One association professional said she went from holding one annual conference attended by about 10,000 people, to four regional ones and each regional had 3500 people. Obviously, the regional conferences are cheaper to put on.

Rethink Marketing of Regional Conferences – Focus marketing to areas that are within easy driving distance to the conference – but further than you might have done in the past. Send driving directions from your office to the conference center with email marketing and point out driving highlights along the way to make it interesting and fun. One association told members about the World’s Largest Ketchup Bottle and a lot of people went to see it and talked about it when they got to the conference.

Using Facebook to Help Attendees Cut Conference Costs – With costs for travel and rooms at a premium, one association created a special Facebook page for ride sharing and room shares – kind of a buddy up site for the conference. Not only did members use it – they networked on it – and it drove attendance to the conference web site and increased the number of people who came.

Using Twitter to Share Conference News – A number of associations are tweeting to industry bloggers during their conferences. Many bloggers can’t attend but will re- tweet highlights from sessions. Some have created special hash tags on Twitter for their associations’ meetings and are telling members about them in other promotional materials and newsletters. This has boosted followers.

Finding the Optimal Marketing Mix for Conferences – One person said she cut out all direct mail and increased attendance by 7% through other means. Consensus was you need a mix depending on what your members respond too. Some tactics: Revisit your email opt-out list and open rate before you make your marketing choices. Older memberships still respond to faxes – one association is sending a fax one week before to boost attendance and its working. This was a medical society with a specialized physician membership.

To Theme or Not to Theme – Consensus was that no one chooses a meeting because of a theme and it's more of an industry/management choice. Many associations have moved away from the big picture themes and use a theme for the annual conference that stays consistent year to year. These are benefits driven.