Flack's Revenge

If Data Center Tech Were Marketed like the Republican Candidates

I heard about the latest out of a seemingly endless number of Republican debates, and thought back in
amusement about a comment a friend posted on his Facebook page.  He said, sarcastically I hope, that he was looking forward to more and hoped they continued even after the election.

The campaign season so far also made me wonder what it would be like if data center tech was marketed like the Republican candidates.  Here are a few possibilities, below - do any others come to mind?

• The leading vendors would host industry round tables in every market timed to key events in those markets
• The round tables would be staged like Jerry Springer talk shows, where questions are designed to start fights and rile the audience
• The participants would all argue about whose solution holds truest to industry ideals like high performance, bandwidth, improved energy and space efficiency and low latency
• They would pile on the market leader and attack it for not achieving those ideals in a socially acceptable way
• Their leaders would fight over who was most like industry icons
• Their leaders would call each other out about hype, bluster and grandiosity

Most of all they would talk, talk talk.

 

Louis CK Conquers Media, Heeds Mom's Advice: Just Tell Them Everything

Louis CK is a comic hero for every man, an unkempt alternative to the more mainstream comedians (think Seinfeld or Dane Cook).  He is irreverent, dark and just plain damn funny.

I have greatly enjoyed Louie's work, inlcuding his  FX and HBO series.  That is why I was pleased to see reports of Louie's recent successful effort to market content directly to his fans.

I first learned about this last week in the GigaOm piece: What Louis CK Knows that Most Media Companies Don't  The article says:

Until recently, comedian Louis CK was known mostly for a hilarious clip about how “everything is amazing but no one is happy,” which lampooned our inability to recognize our own good fortune and led to a TV show. Now, he has become the new poster boy for the idea of selling content directly to fans, after the success of a video download he offered on his website without any digital-rights protection. And that success contains lessons for traditional media companies who continue to lock down their content and otherwise fail to take advantage of the social web.

What Louie did, essentially, was bring his content directly to the public via his website at an affordable price ($5) without imposing restrictions or digital rights protection - avoiding the tangle of overhead, middlemen fees etc. that he otherwise would have had to pay. In other words, Louie made it cheap and easy - and is profiting in the process. He has also been getting a ton of great press.

The NY Times' David Carr covered this yesterday in his Media Equation column:

The show could be viewed as the consumer wished, with no rights protection or expensive subscription. A buy-it-and-watch-it proposition, no cable company involved...While I was talking with him on the phone Thursday night, he checked his Web site and about 175,000 people had bought his special through PayPal. He expected 200,000 total downloads by the weekend, which meant he would have grossed $1 million. After covering costs of about $250,000 for the live production and the Web site, that’s a $750,000 profit. And he owns the rights, and the long tail of buyers, in perpetuity.

As a PR person, I had to chuckle about his approach, and media relations advice that Louie's mom gave him (from NY Times).

The transparency of the enterprise, including its cost in relation to how many people bought in, was the subject of media coverage all last week.... “It feels weird having numbers out there, because that’s my personal income,” he said. “But I talked to my mom, who is a pretty judicious, careful person, and she said, ‘Tell them everything. Just let it all get out there.’ So that’s what I have been doing...” 

I don't know if I would always agree with that approach, but the advice seems to be working for Louie.

Wall Street Journal says Product News can Counter Bad Buzz and Lift Stocks

The Journal wrote last week about the effects (both good and bad) that social media reviews and other forms of online chatter can have on a company's stock price.

Online reviews can...have an impact on the stock price of the companies offering those products, lowering average returns by nearly 0.1% in as little as three days, according to a new study...

In what should be good news for stock pickers that have a social media analytics bent, the data can apparently predict a stock's performance:

Both positive and negative user-generated chatter seemed to predict market returns a few days ahead of time, the study found.

In what shoulld be good news for tech PR and marketing, the article concludes that issuing a press release can help:

Managers can take steps to combat negative reviews. New product announcements can increase positive buzz about digital products, such as cellphones and computers

It is an interesting time for buzz about social media buzz; Judy Gombita, a friend and co-contributor at Neal Schaffer's Windmill Networking blog (yes, I just signed on to blog there as well), wrote a great post yesterday about what social media buzz can mean for crisis management.  Judy also pointed me to a good article in the Telegraph about online chatter and blunders in social media marketing

Abercrombie & Fitch Lob Grenade at Jersey Shore Cast

Ah, the delicate and complicated dance between journalism and PR. We tempt them with our pitches. We run campaigns, events and sometimes stunts to get their attention and coverage. Many journalists say they are beyond our influence and ignore our pitches and campaigns. Yet every once in awhile, the temptation is just too great.

This was the case yesterday, when many covered a light story, one that provided welcome relief to late summer doldrums and "hold your head" headlines about the economy.

I grinned as I read several articles about an Abercrombie & Fitches press release that explained that the company would pay the Jersey Shore show cast not to wear their clothes. The company had executed a brilliant campaign, and the media were all over itt.  For example, it got covered in not one but two Wall Street jorunal articles, and a NY Tmes piece.

And it wasn't just the media that were having fun with it. The NY Times story - Abercrombie wants off  'Jersey Shore' (Wink-Wink) - mentioned that the A & F CEO interrupted a quarterly earnings call with Wall Street analysts, incredulous that they wanterd to discuss other things:

“Is no one going to ask about the Situation?” Mr. Jeffries, the chief executive, asked after a series of questions about Abercrombie’s finances and strategy. Finally, an analyst did, and Mr. Jeffries explained the background. 

Of course, the media need to let everyone know that they are in on the joke, as the "wink wink" headline in the Times indicated. And they all had to seemingly justify their coverage by interjecting real world concerns. The article in the Journal's Money & Investing section, of all places, raised the real issue of brands getting tarnished through association with the wrong crowds:

It appears Abercrombie is merely trying to stir up publicity. After all, the company last year sold a Tshirt printed with the words "The Fitchuation," an obvious reference to the star of the reality show nicknamed "The Situation."

But brand image isn't all fun and games. Flashback 10 years to England, where Burberry clothing and accessories became the uniform of certain hard-partying young Brits. Sales in England were very weak by 2005, when Burberry acknowledged that the brash new customers had alienated some of its higher-end traditional shoppers. Tommy Hilfiger had a similarly unpleasant experience in the U.S. in the 1990s, when it became a hip-hop staple that no longer clicked with preppies.

Nordstrom NY Move: Charity, Good PR, Confusion?

The NY Times wrote yesterday about upscale department store Nordstrom's move into New York City. 

Many retailers view NY as a key market and a window to the world. So they launch here with extravagant concept stores that seem to be more about getting attention than profits. At the other end of the spcectrum, some launch with pop-up stores that are here today and gone tomorrow.

However Nordstrom is going a different route altogether. As the NY Times wrote:

After flirting for years with a move into New York City, Nordstrom is opening a full-priced store in Manhattan. But the store will not have Nordstrom in its name, or even feel like a Nordstrom. Called Treasure & Bond, the new store will open Friday in SoHo and will be less than a tenth the size of a typical Nordstrom department store. In fact, it is a big experiment that will not even contribute to Nordstrom’s bottom line, as the profits have been committed to charity.

Is their move good business, good charity, good PR or just plain confusing? Although fashion is not my forte (please hold sarcastic comments), I am a PR specialist and have written about and helped clients with corporate social responsibility and cause marketing campaigns - I must say they have me stunped.

A top executive explained their thinking (from the article):

"[the] Treasure & Bond name gave Nordstrom leeway, he said. “It allows us to be way more nimble and to learn,” he said. “If we opened something like this, and had it be Nordstrom in some way, it would end up disappointing — people would show up and say, ‘What’s this?’ ” He said the company viewed it as an incubator — if a T-shirt line sold well, Nordstrom might sell it in regular stores. “While our name isn’t all over it, I think people are going to know that we helped hatch it,” he said. “That would create a glow, not only for this store but for Nordstrom, that’s positive in Manhattan.”

As the article pointed out, another potential area of confusion is that flash sale website Gilt Group launched a men's fashion site  earlier this month called Park & Bond.

Come to Brooklyn for Gilt-free Women Fashion Bargains

Speaking of novel retail concepts, and Gilt, the company that put the flash in flash sale websites, I recently learned about a new store called Juniper Galaxy in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. It seems to be a Gilt-like concept at the retail store level. Juniper Galaxy offers great prices on top name women's (and soon children's) brands as owner Sine Hjort explained to me.  If you are in Brooklyn you should stop by and check it out (see store window photo above).

Weiner and Sheen: Possibly the Best Pitchmen for PR

For the very definition of unscripted, unplugged and a little if not a lot nutty public figures, you have first Charlie Sheen and then Anthony Weiner, possibly the best advertisements for PR in recent memory.

They both took us on pretty wild rides. Weiner's episode culminated in a surreal press conference yesterday that was almost carnival sideshow (see the New York Times article Confession and Apology...) in which conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart (who first broke the story) led off. Exactly how or why this came to be, I am not sure.

What is clear is that both celebrities pretty much winged it when it came to mixing it up with the media and going on public record (as the Times article said, Weiner did not use PR - As a politician, he was his own publicist, megaphone, strategist and multiplatformed tech man wrapped into a tightly wrapped Type A package - that now seems pretty obvious).

There will be some that say that these public figures deserved what they had coming, and no amount of spinning or image crafting would have helped. To them, I say: "are you serious?!!!" I guess if you enjoy watching public immolation and train wrecks that might be true (the stories also refute the myth that there is no such thing as bad PR).

How could PR have helped? Well by helping these guys not look like total idiots for starters. A little thought and planning when it comes to media relations, and some moves from the crisis management play book would no doubt have helped. Sure, they both probably would have crashed and burned anyway, but in a less horrific way, with easier paths to redemption.

Morrissey Gets a Bag of Popchips; We get an Article on the Tricky Art of Influence Tracking

Brian Morrissey, who write, tweets and blogs on advertising, related an episode in which he was sent a bag of Popchips.  Apparently the algorithms, CPG marketers and Klout reckoned that Morrissey was a snack food influencer.  His article (excerpt below) is a good read on the tricky are of tracking influence.

Sometime last year -- I don’t remember when exactly -- a box arrived at my apartment. Inside was a handful of bags of Popchips. I ate them, then didn’t think much about them again.By doing so I became part of an “influencer” program. I got the chips apparently on account of the sway I hold when it comes to snack food as part of the Klout Perks program. Like many regular Twitter users, I’d used Klout to gauge my social media reach on Twitter. I’m apparently a 61. The question that nagged me was why exactly was I an influencer when it came to snacks?

Towards A More Refined Publicity Stunt

The publicity stunt is the carnival sideshow of PR.  Sure, they are used and sometimes get great results across many different types of programs and industries; having said that, I think most would agree that stunts don't show off the profession in the most positive, intellectual light.

However I got a different picture of publicity stunts in reading the New York Times Book Review recently.  Tony Perrottet wrote an essay about litrerary publicity stunts.  It is a great walk through the history of book PR.  I share excerpts below, and encourage you to click the link and read the entire article.

• The most revered of French novelists recognized the need for P.R. “For artists, the great problem to solve is how to get oneself noticed,” Balzac observed...
• Hemingway set the modern gold standard for inventive self-branding, burnishing his image with photo ops from safaris, fishing trips and war zones. But he also posed for beer ads.
• But the tradition of self-promotion predates the camera by millenniums. In 440 B.C. or so, a first-time Greek author named Herodotus paid for his own book tour around the Aegean.
• Perhaps the most astonishing P.R. stunt... was plotted in Paris in 1927 by Georges Simenon, the Belgian-born author of the Inspector Maigret novels....Simenon agreed to write an entire novel while suspended in a glass cage outside the Moulin Rouge nightclub for 72 hours. ... A newspaper advertisement promised the result would be “a record novel: record speed, record endurance and, dare we add, record talent!” It was a marketing coup.

 

Black and Bloomberg (Video Killed the Education Czar)

Bloomberg's embattled pick for schools chief, Cathleen Black, was removed from the position last week. In the end, it seems the empress had no clothes - or at least not everything needed to convince others (and herself) that she could do a good job as New York City schools chancellor.

I don't wish any ill will to Bloomberg or Ms. Black. The whole episode must be an embarrassment for both.

But I do like to riff on topics related to PR and communciations, and to spot and call out irony when I see it, and this episode was rife.

I think it is ironic that someone who comes from the media world was undone by the media spot lights. If it wasn't video and media training that doomed her appointment, it played a role, and showed how unprepared she was, according to this New York Times article excerpt:

Ms. Black struggled to grasp the complexities of the city’s budget process, despite intensive tutorial sessions that began on the day of her appointment and, according to advisers, never really stopped.

When her staff sought to prepare her for television interviews, through mock question-and-answer sessions, she tripped over basic facts and figures, including the process for deciding which schools to close.... Aides decided she was largely unfit for such high-profile appearances and all but ruled them out.

Ms. Black clearly could have used some more media training, she does not appear to be a very sympathetic figure, based on excerpts from the Times article Black Admits Being Ill Prepared:

A day after her surprise ouster as New York City’s top education official, Cathleen P. Black acknowledged that she was ill-prepared for the demands and visibility of running the nation’s largest public school system..

Although she endured stinging criticism of her management style and public statements as chancellor, she said that she was particularly irritated by unflattering snapshots of herself that appeared in the New York City news media.  “The worst pictures!” she complained.

...in an interview with Fortune magazine, her first since Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg urged her to step down as schools chancellor on Thursday, Ms. Black also suggested that gender might have played a role in her rocky reception over the last three months.

Role of Publicists in the Oscar Chase; One Seat was Vacant

If you like movies and handicapping contests, there is no better time than Academy Award season.  And if you happen to be in PR, as I am, it is interesting to follow news reports about all the behind-the-scenes marketing, maneuvering and gamesmanship that is done to try to influence the outcomes.

I enjoyed the show last night - I thought the hosts did a great job, and the quality of movies that were up for awards seemed to be better in general this year.  I also enjoyed reading a couple of related articles in the New York Times.

The first article featured Times reviewer responses to reader questions about movies; one question, posed to Manohla Dargis, was about the Social Network vs. King's Speech - the answer highlighted the role of publicists and press in the Oscar race:

Q. What do you think accounts for the seismic shift from the total dominance of “The Social Network” on the awards circuit to “The King’s Speech” replacing it as the front-runner over the last few weeks?

MANOHLA DARGIS The idea that “The Social Network” was ever an authentic front-runner for best picture is a nice idea and a total media fabrication. Every year entertainment journalists, aided and abetted by movie publicists, try to spin some kind of drama out of what has become an interminable “awards season....”  Two easy ways to stir up interest and trouble are to locate a villain (as in late 2001, when nasty chatter about “A Beautiful Mind” oozed into the mainstream) or create a media-friendly slugfest, as with last year’s trivializing battle of the exes (Kathryn Bigelow versus James Cameron). With no obvious villains available this year the, er, reigning narrative is that “The King’s Speech” has unexpectedly emerged as the one to beat at the Oscars...

The second article ("The Missing Guest at the Oscar Party") sadly reminded us that Ronnie Chasen, a publicist who would normally be there and working the room, was not because she met an untimely death last year.