PR Needed Here

More criticism of the FTC disclosure ruling

2009-10-20T21:25:26Z

Here's a hilarious video review - with disclosures aplenty - of the book "Inbound Marketing," by Steve Garfield.

Meanwhile, Ron Hogan at MediaBistro takes the ruling apart in equally funny fashion (courtesy of Maggie Bronny, student at Loyola University Chicago).

No humor here: The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) makes the case that the ruling is unconsitutional.

Read more on the FTC blogger disclosure decision at the Loyola University Chicago School of Communication blog.

The FTC and blogola: here comes trouble

2009-10-13T00:28:12Z

Last week, the FTC issued a ruling that will have the effect of cracking down on bloggers who write about free products without disclosing that they were, in fact, "compensated" for the post.

Disclosing payment is one of those "things you should have learned in kindergarten." It's common sense. It's a basic component of the PRSA Code of Ethics, for example. Who would be against that? For example, here is how an article on Mashable framed the issue:

Certainly, it seems like this is an update that's time has come. While most well-run social media programs already include appropriate disclosure, there's still no shortage of unscrupulous marketers using deceptive practices to sell products. Now, with the threat of serious fines, those who look to push the boundaries of ethical blogging will be doing so at their own risk.

Yet, something about the ruling seemed wrong to me. Then I read an excellent piece by Eric Felten in the Wall St. Journal. Felten writes the popular column, "How's your drink?" and he made my objections clear.

Specifically, he notes that swag is a part of life at even the most high-toned newspapers and magazines: "Jumbo are the shrimp and deep are the highballs at most media events," he writes. No newspaper is going to pay for a book reviewed in the Sunday section. No food writer is going to pay for the unsolicited cookbooks that arrive daily, hoping for some ink. And no sports writer is going to pay for that great seat in the media deck at the ballpark. Yet a blogger writing about an unsolicited book could be fined for failure to disclose.

In the United States, we don't license journalists. There's no corral that safely keeps journalists in and bloggers out. In fact, while the business model for newspapers slowly dies, we're seeing interesting hybrids, publications like the Huffington Post, Politico, and hyperlocals like the Chi-town Daily News and the Beachwood Reporter. Who's a journalist? Who can say? And the FTC rules also cover other, unspecified "word-of-mouth" marketers, whatever they are.

I agree with Felten: this regulation has a potential chilling effect on speech, while failing to show a serious harm that the ruling might protect us from. Dear FTC, give us some credit for being able to assess the veracity of what we read.

Here's a final question raised by the ruling. I serve as a professor at Loyola University Chicago. Let's say a prospective student arrives at my office and I provide a tour of our facilities, pointing out good things about our program. Do I have to disclose my salary to the student? Have I provided an "endorsement" for which I am paid? Am I a "word-of-mouth marketer?"

Does the FTC really want to look that closely into, well, everything?

photo credit: ashe-villain, licensed under Creative Commons

Sprint CEO throws down the sword

2009-09-15T00:47:34Z

Sprint Nextel President and CEO Daniel Hesse has his share of problems bringing his company out of the doldrums, but he has a nice asset in the Palm Pre. The Pre, which runs on the Sprint Nextel network, has received solid reviews. CNET gives it 3.5 stars out of five, applauding its multitasking, notification system, web browsing, and - gasp - phone call quality. That's right, people actually make and receive phone calls on smart phones.

For comparison, CNET gives the iPhone 3GS four stars. Consumers on CNET actually rate the Pre higher than the iPhone, giving it 3.5 stars to the iPhone's three.

But Hesse sounded like a beaten man when he described it on the Charlie Rose show:

Q: Is the Palm Pre making a dent into the iPhone market?
A: Aaah... It's-it's doing well, but you can almost put the iPhone, to be fair, in a separate category. The Apple brand and that device have done so well, it's almost not... it's like comparing someone to Michael Jordan.

This man needs some coaching. Who would buy the Sam Bowie phone when they could get the Michael Jordan phone?

The iPhone has lots of limitations, and any owner will tell you what they don't like about the device. No real keyboard. Terrible network. Lousy for texting. Promised features (MMS, tethering) not delivered on time (or at all). Terrible network (OK, now you know what I don't like).

Hesse should have access to intelligence about what people like about the Pre, and he should be quick to share it. The Pre is good enough to stand on its own in this kind of one-on-one confab. He should go on offense and tell his story. Rose is not going to grill him about the paucity of apps available for the Pre.

If you were counseling Hesse, what would you tell him?

image sourced from Wikipedia Commons

United's nightmare not over by a longshot

2009-07-17T18:58:24Z

On July 17, 2009, Dave Carroll's video was the number three search result for "United Airlines."

♫ United breaks guitars; everyone sing along! ♫

2009-07-10T16:47:54Z

Good morning class:

For today's lesson, please view this video:

Now, please take note of the number of views on the video (as of this posting, it's more than 1,300,000).

Now, please visit Twitter search and see the traffic:

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=united+breaks+guitars

Now, let's review the ways it pays to "be good":

1. It's a nice feeling.

2. The luggage handlers could take better care of their customers' things.

3. The airline could be nice to the customer, even if it can't admit fault.

4. The airline could let the musician carry the guitar on board.

5. The airline could apologize and fix/replace the guitar.

The airline personnel could be so awesome that it inspires customers to write letters of thanks, prose poems, even songs of praise.

But no.

And this nice young man doesn't have to take it like he did in the old days. He wrote a song. He made a video. He shared it with 1,300,000 of his friends. The message is simple: United breaks guitars. It's a catchy song. In fact, it's still playing in my head.

What's the cost of this incident to United (the airline that breaks guitars)? Hint: it's more than $1,500.

The takeaway: love your customers, when you see them, in the deepest recesses of your organization, and everywhere in between. They were so nice to you: they gave you a job, helped pay for your daughter's iPod, your son's braces, and your home, your car, your dinner.

Give a little love back. Is that so hard?

Class dismissed.

U.S. to Sanford: shut yer pie hole

2009-07-03T12:38:35Z

Every so often the news brings us a complete train wreck, the person who can't help but do everything wrong. Today it's South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, who has been discovered having a very public sexual liaison with an Argentinian-woman-not-his-wife. In so doing, he has given us a new euphemism for sexual misconduct: "hiking the Appalachian Trail."

Let's count the ways Sanford has screwed up: Having the affair. Talking about it. Lying to his staff. His family. The citizens of South Carolina. Co-mingling business trips with personal trips. Public disclosure of intimate emails. Talking and lying some more. Feigning remorse. Prattling on about his "soulmate." Making the painful observation that he would try to fall in love with his wife again. So much talk.

Some free counsel: keep it in your pants, governor. Shut your pie hole. Try something else, I don't know, how about governing. Succeed publicly and fail privately. Get out of the news, pronto. Keep your schoolboy crushes to yourself. Respect your family. Tough it out.

Be a man.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Shut Up, Mark Sanford

thedailyshow.com

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Jason Jones in Iran

Dear graduate,

2009-06-08T23:39:38Z

Paul Hawken gave a brilliant graduation address to the students at the University of Portland. I urge you to take five minutes to read it. You may know Hawken for the company he co-founded, Smith and Hawken, which started out selling durable tools for living (today they sell stuff like patio furniture). I purchased a wonderful English garden spade from the company in 1983, and still use it regularly. Hawken is an investor, entrepreneur, environmentalist, a do-gooder in a world that needs lots of good to be done. Here's hoping that some of that rubs off on you.

Richard Edelman is President and CEO of Edelman, a leading international public relations firm. Read his advice for gaining entry to the public relations business. And while you're at it, grab the RSS feed for his blog, 6 A.M.

Pictured above: my daughter, Anna, 2009 graduate of Wichita East High School

Who are you?

2009-04-27T15:38:36Z

Last week I spent some time in my campaigns class helping students think about life after graduation.

Identity, online and off, was a topic. The main goal is to be "findable" online, which is easier for someone with an uncommon name and much more difficult if your name is "Smith" or "Johnson." One student said she shares a name with an adult film actress. What to do?

There are no magic answers here. But everyone can proactively manage this problem. Use your name consistently. If it's common, think about using your middle initial or nickname. Secure relevant domains. Create a Google Profile. Participate intelligently in the social web. And register for services that can help create "breadcrumbs" that lead back to you.

I counsel clients to sign up for Twitter, or other services, even if they have no intention of using them. At least you know other parties can't use your identity.

If online identity is a concern to you, take a look at knowem.com. This service can instantly check if your preferred name is available on 120 social media websites. For about $65, the service will sign you up for all of 'em. That's right, every one, from Aviary to Zooomr (If you're not familiar with all of these services, you're not alone.)

For an additional $20/month, the service will continue to sign up for new services as they launch. (Please note that I have not evaluated this service.)

It might be overkill for most individuals, but a quick scan of the list will show some services that you probably should consider. Of course, you can sign up without paying a third party. The takeaway is to a) think about who you are and want to be; b) take steps to identify and protect this name; and c) build the infrastructure of participation so the web is working for you, not against you.

Just remember: you can't opt out. The online conversation will continue and grow. So stake your place in it, and manage your online identity.

In search of ethos online

2009-04-15T15:08:23Z

Aristotle, the father of rhetoric, taught us about the three great appeals: logos, the logical appeal; pathos, the emotional appeal; and ethos, the appeal of reputation.

Who you are matters. And as we go through life, we create meaningful relationships with people, in large part based upon ethos.

But all that falls apart online. And as social media evolve, we need to fix this, or the communities will fall apart.

Arthur Frommer wrote last week of widespread shill reviews on travel sites, including popular sites like tripadvisor.com. Frommer reports that one travel site, beatofhawaii.com, says up to half of tripadvisor's reviews appear to be placed by PR firms, restaurants and hotels - all on their own behalf. He further reports that Royal Caribbean Cruise lines has engaged in a "pay for play" scheme to "wine and dine" frequent cruisers, in return for positive reviews on social media sites (note: do this search to see the blowback from consumer advocates about this program).

Locally, at kansas.com, the portal for the Wichita Eagle, the comments on stories are filled with hateful, cloaked comments, cheapening the site.

So, what can we do about this?

Require registration. Anonymous comments have no value. Only cowards hide behind anonymity.
Registration is a start, but websites and news services should require people to use their real names. A newspaper wouldn't publish an anonymous or cloaked comment, so why should a website?
People who carry out discourse publicly should want to tell us who they are. If you're a company or blogger, you can provide a link to your site. If you're not, consider a suggestion by David Meeman Scott, author of World Wide Rave: create a Google Profile (here's mine). A Google profile is free, easy to create, and provides basic contextual information about who you are.

You might use a LinkedIn or Facebook identity, but as Scott points out, you need to be a member of that network to see your page. Anyone can see your Google Profile.

Professionals should know better than to post phony reviews. As a member of the Public Relations Society of America, I am bound by the PRSA Code of Ethics, which includes the following:

Avoid deceptive practices
Reveal the sponsors for causes and interests represented
Be honest and accurate in all communications

It's not rocket science. Any professional should know that it's wrong to lie or fail to disclose an interest. And still, people do it all the time. And drilling down to the level of comments left on an online newspaper, there's no pretense of professionalism. It's a literal free-for-all.

In the end, people will tire of this tainted marketplace of ideas. Maybe that's what it will take to get people to pay for content online. Online communities that are honest, ethical and policed for trolls. Like a country club, you charge a fee to weed out the undesirables. And then say good bye to the public swimming pool.

In my daily life, I'm very selective about who I'll call a "friend." Online, I would also rather hang out with friends than people who won't even tell me their real names.

Let's raise our standards online, treasure our friends, and say goodbye to the trolls.

No wonder journalists hate PR; look at what we make them read

2009-04-13T16:03:40Z

The next time you attend a theatre performance, check the program to see how many of the performers are "thrilled" to be in the cast. Answer: most of 'em.

And now, take a look at your press releases. Is your solution "cost effective?" Is your client a "leading provider?" Is there "synergy" all over the place? If so, this blog post is for you.

David Meerman Scott, author of World Wide Rave, has conducted a content analysis of press releases, and has identified the top 25 Gobbledygook words and phrases from 2008.

Scott used Dow Jones Insight to analyze more than 700,000 press releases. In the pursuit of knowledge, he took a lot of flack, so to speak.

Our writing is not getting better. Like many other communication tasks, it has been deskilled, either by haste or economics. You know the drill: "just give me some verbiage for this panel." Business moves fast. Writing is a slow process.

So here's my plea: let writers do the writing. Not the executive secretary. Not the director of development. Not someone from IT. I marvel at how many computer geeks still write web copy, even today.

And let's learn from our brethren at newspapers: bonus points if there's an editor in the chain.

You can test your writing for cliches using Hubspot's Gobbledygook Grader. Just paste your text into a window, and the service will email you with its analysis (I have not thoroughly evaluated this tool).

Write conversationally. Write copy that you would want to read. Treasure your audience.

And, as William Safire so eloquently put it, avoid cliches like the plague.

These times call for ... radical transparency

2009-03-13T13:31:51Z

In a world of communication-empowered customers, businesses are starting to figure out that treating customers well is ... well, good business. They may also be treating customers well because they're scared to death of the consequences of not doing so (see: Vincent Ferrari tries to cancel AOL). And that's OK, too.

But many businesses have just put lipstick on the pig, hoping to fool their customers with the appearance of good customer care. Their business model is: up front, we cherish you and your money. In the back, not so much.

Here are some examples from my daily life of this "partial transparency":

• I subscribed to a new magazine, and received the first issue yesterday (March 12). It was the February issue, which probably was on new stands around Christmas. Also in my mailbox: the March issue. So here's my question to Rodale Press, which publishes the magazine: am I your customer, or just a convenient way to monetize your excess back inventory? I called Rodale, and they agreed to extend my subscription for one issue. No apology though, though I did get a "not a problem." I might still cancel the magazine.

• I flew United Airlines to Chicago, and on the way home thought I should join the frequent flyer club. It's easy to do so before you fly. After you're safely home, however, it's another matter. I endured a long-time tactic of an organization that wants to discourage a certain customer behavior: information buried deep in the website so no one can find it (hint: search for "retro credits"). When I finally found the right page, I was told I had to wait 72 hours after the last flight (translation: come back later, we're confident you'll forget).

• How many other organizations "talk the talk" of customer service, but absolutely fail to deliver it? Have you ever tried to call amazon.com? One customer who has had it even created a website full of codes that bypass the computerized voicemail hell that so many companies erect to keep customers out.

That's why it's so refreshing to see when companies get it right. When they're on Twitter, answering questions and acting like human beings. When there's a live chat option, so you can interact with a customer service agent. And when someone, anyone, says "thank you" and "you're welcome." Or, "I'm sorry; how can I make that right?"

Social media is about media, for sure, but it's first and foremost social. We now have the tools to be social in a computer-mediated environment. And the spoils go to those who welcome their customers and treat them like the royalty they are.

Skittles "tastes a rainbow" of sites

2009-03-02T18:01:58Z

Visit Skittles.com for a bold experiment. The candy company has temporarily taken down its normal website. In its place is a dashboard that directs you to its portfolio of social media sites. Click on "chatter" and it redirects you to a Twitter search of "skittles." Click on "friends" and it takes you to Facebook. Brilliant, bold move. We'll discuss it later, but for now, just check it out.

The end of a newspaper ... and rising from the ashes ...

2009-03-01T03:42:42Z

The Rocky Mountain News had a good run, but it's over. Here's a 20+ minute video on the end. It's worth your time:

Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.

While the news coming from the newspaper industry is almost universally bad, there are some glimmers of hope.

There are many, many more reasons to love your newspaper than as a destination for your press releases.

Publish magazines on demand with MagCloud

2009-02-25T15:01:57Z

Yes, we're sending more online messages and we're printing less these days. But print is far from dead. And I'm always looking for ways to leverage existing printed documents using online technology, from Issuu, which lets you display printed documents on screen while preserving layout (it's great for online presentation of printed portfolios) to Scribd, which includes social media sharing/embedding for formatted documents.

MagCloud is another print extender. With this service, you upload your formatted document and people can preview it online. You get a custom URL (like DavidKamerer.MagCloud.com), RSS, and a nice looking page that's indexed by search engines and can be visible to customers or other stakeholders. The game changer is that MagCloud can also deliver a high-resolution printed version of your work via First Class mail. If you want, the company will handle your mailing list and subscriptions. Or, you can print just one. Digital printing makes flat pricing possible, which is great if you're doing a small run.

You set the price of your magazine; the finished cost is 20 cents a page, plus $1.40 for U.S. shipping. If you allow a profit margin, MagCloud deposits the profit into your PayPal account.

MagCloud provides detailed instructions for setting up your document (including specifics for Adobe InDesign) and for creating the .pdf files that you upload). You're pretty much limited to the standard 8.5" by 11" vertical format, and the time constraints may challenge you (7-10 days to receive your proof, then another 7-10 days for your final copy to be delivered). But the end result, printed on high quality H/P digital printers, will look much better than the output at your local copy shop.

Students might consider MagCloud for printed portfolios and campaign books. This process also would facilitate highly targeted fundraising appeals and other micro-print applications.

It's time to start thinking about printed documents in new ways. This is a user- and web- friendly approach to interactive and digital printing.

MagCloud is a project of H/P Labs, and is currently in Beta.

Watch the Tropicana chatter in real time

2009-02-23T22:27:13Z

Follow the discussion of Tropicana's package redesign at search.twitter.com.

See the volume of Tropicana chatter on Twitscoop.