Tag Archives: litigation PR

Marketing a Fundraiser

If you are a nonprofit, you probably hold an annual fundraising event.  It could be a gala, sporting event or one of a myriad of other events.  These serve two purposes.  First, to raise funds, of course, but also to being awareness and PR to your agency.

Putting together a successful fundraising event is not easy.  It takes lots of hard work, time, planning and initially an outlaying of funds.  And who knows how successful it will be? You won’t until the event is over and you subtract expenses from income.

One suggestion is to have a strong committee.  This committee’s role will be to create a dynamic program, bring talent to the table and most important to sell tickets.  And ticket sales, to a large degree, depends on having strong honorees.

Many people don’t like being an honoree because then the floodgates open for other organizations to ask them.  But getting honorees who have influence and funds, can be crucial to a strong fundraising event.

Last, it may take a few years to start making money.  Look at a fundraising event as a long-term investment that takes time.  It will eventually pay off.

 

The Weinstein PR Debacle

Harvey Weinstein debacle

Harvey Weinsetin

Few examples of a sudden fall from grace come close to the case of Harvey Weinstein.  One day he is king of Hollywood, the next he can’t get a seat at a McDonald’s in Hollywood.  Some call it a PR disaster.  It is much more.

The term “casting couch” wasn’t invented yesterday or by Weinstein.  It has been part of Hollywood for decades.  But with social media, and the 24 hour news cycle, what was once a news story can be turned into a major global debacle.

Weinstein will try all he can to re-build his image by going to “sex therapy.”  He will fight for his company and try to get his life back.

I don’t have a crystal ball, but it seems futile.

As they say, its a short step from the limousine to the curb.

The day the laughter died

nonprofit-pr-los-angeles-Jerry-Lewis--image.jpgThe day after Jerry Lewis died, the world went dark.

Yes, it was a coincidence, that the solar eclipse happened the day after, but a telling one.

Jerry Lewis had to have been one of the most famous people in the last 100 years.  Who doesn’t know Jerry Lewis?  Whether you remember his movies, his act, his interviews or his telethon, we all knew Jerry Lewis.

Jerry Lewis devoted his entire life, until the day he died, to making people laugh.  He also devoted it to raising money for MDA to help children afflicted with Muscular Dystrophy.

Yes, he had a snarky side. He had a larger than life, somewhat annoying ego, but he earned it.  Nobody comes from a poor Jewish neighborhood in New York and catapults himself into the most famous funnyman in history without being somewhat eccentric.

When we lose someone we all love and admire, like Dick Gregory a few days prior and now Jerry Lewis, we tend to say the same things — there never will be another one like him.  H/she was one of a kind, and all those platitudes.

In the case of Jerry Lewis, it is true.

 

 

When PR gets in the way of the message

All of us want to be loved.  Well, at least liked.

This is apparently no more the case than with our president.

President Trump is obsessed with what people say about him; what people think of him and his popularity.  This is not a political statement.  He has admitted it and displayed this obsession by watching what seems to be countless of hours of cable television to see what the media say about him.

Obviously, much if not most of it, is not good.  So how does he change that?  How does President Trump manage his own PR so he markets himself in a way that will improve his likability and make him happy?

There is only one way, and it is not through polished statements read off a teleprompter.  (Not his strength.)

The President needs to stop worrying so much about his image and start getting things done.

Certainly much of what he wants to get done people disagree with.  I won’t rehash the list, but we know what they are.

But one thing is for sure.  Everybody wants a stronger economy.  Everybody wants a job.  Everybody wants healthcare  If he can achieve this, and it won’t be easy, then his misstatements and political pitfalls will be easier to forgive.  At least for some people.  For many others there is nothing he can do that will redeem him.

He also needs to remember that presidential criticism is part of the job.  There has never been a president when everything he did received 100% approval.  Maybe Trump is facing more of an uphill battle than prior presidents, much because of his own doing, but he needs to swallow it and roll up his shirtsleeves.

So if he can, and that is a big IF, he should turn off the TV and get to work.  Americans want a better life, not someone who can deliver a pretty speech.  Doing both is better, but people will take what they can get.

And right now, people aren’t asking for much.  They just want to pay their bills, raise their families in peace and have the dignity of a job.

If he can do that, his PR and image will rise.

IF he can do that.

 

 

New marketing terms — “Optics” “Reaching Out” “Space” and more

Just when you think you know all the marketing and PR terms, new words enter our lexicon.

People no longer “contact” one another.  They “reach out.”  Situations don’t “look bad.”  They have bad “optics.”  Having “expertise” in a certain endeavor is gone.  Now it is working in a certain “space.”

Interesting how new terms come about, catch on and then become normalized.  These words have always existed, but never used in the context of marketing and PR as they are now.

It is almost as if you date yourself if you don’t play the game.  You can’t tell a client “doing that would be a mistake. It wouldn’t look good.”  You have to say, “the optics of that would be questionable.”  Makes you appear more contemporary.  And heaven forbid you invite someone to contact you with questions, rather than offering them to “reach out.”

Much of this is fueled by mainstream media where on-camera reporters and anchors want to appear young and with it.  It fuels the language, pushes it forward, and makes everybody feel young.

There is nothing wrong with tweaking English.  New sayings and terms come about all the time.  But with the pervasiveness of social media, with billions of new posts a day, new language can take on a life of its own virtually overnight.

So I guess Farr Marketing is no longer a PR consultancy firm.  We operate in the PR “space.”  We don’t contact press to pitch stories, we “reach out.”

We admittedly are guilty of using these terms and more.

We need to be aware of the “optics.”

Trump’s PR problem

This post is not pro or con President Trump. FMG’s political views are irrelevant. What is important, is Trump’s communications policies, imaging, branding his PR, and what we can learn from President Trump’s success and failures.

Prior to running for President, Donald Trump thrived attention. He became one of the best known private citizens in the world. He did this not only through his business success and television show, but the fact that he relentlessly sought media exposure.

His name recognition undoubtedly contributed to his ability to run an effective political campaign for the highest office in the land, and winning. Rather unbelievable, but studies prove that name recognition is a major asset for anyone seeking a political life.

But how much attention is too much attention? How much Tweeting is too much Tweeting? Is it helping or hurting him? He obviously contends it helped him win and continues to help him push his political agenda. On the other hand, his incessant Tweeting has resulted in jokes for misspellings, misstatements, and is being used against him in Congressional hearings.

So the lesson has to be balance. Far be it for us to give President Trump advice, but we would recommend using all forms of communication not only wisely and often sparingly.

New PR target: airlines

It seems you can’t turn on your computer without the latest cell video of someone being abused by an airline.  Passengers being dragged off flights to make room for airline employees, families thrown off because the child’s name doesn’t match the ticket, and passengers simply frustrated at being treated with disdain by flight attendants and pilots.

The strange thing is the airlines are almost always right: legally.  They do what their manual tells them they must do or be fired.  And they blame the FAA as the culprit. These flight mishaps, that end up on CNN and all over social media, are not because the airline is doing something wrong.  It is the way they handle the situation.  Again, as in most crisis communications scenarios, it is not the act, it is the coverup.  It is not asking someone to leave a plane, it is how it is done.

When incidents hit the media, and result in public outrage, the airlines cave in.  The CEO goes on Good Morning America to issue an apology and the case usually ends up with the passenger much richer.

What is missing from these crisis scenarios is some common sense.  If flight attendants and pilots worked on alleviating an escalating situation rather than bulldozing their way to follow the manual, nobody would be filming the situation and nobody would think that airlines have become the most non-customer relations sensitive business in the world.  Right now, people would but airlines at the bottom of the list for customer service and in many cases rightfully so.

Issuing apologies and paying passengers millions of dollars doesn’t solve the PR problem.  The airline admits guilt and stupidity and is out a lot of money.  The answer is to stop a PR crisis before it begins.  Give flight attendants and pilots authority to solve problems on the ground before they escalate.  Don’t call the police whose job is to do whatever it takes to get a passenger off the plane.

And have better staff training in how to deal with passengers who have done nothing wrong other than buy a plane ticket.

 

 

 

Is your PR fake news?

Since Donald Trump became president, there has been an awful lot of talk about “fake news.”  The term is now routinely used on news programs, White House briefings, congressional hearings and even PR symposiums.

My understanding is that President Trump coined the phrase.  He likes giving names to people or issues he doesn’t like or who disagree with him.  For some reason, the tactic works for him.

In the public relations, seo services and marketing business, we put out news on a regular basis.  That’s our job, well, at least, part of it.  So if we distribute a news release that makes a claim, and someone disagrees with the claim, does that give them the right to call our release fake news?

This hasn’t happened, but it got me thinking.  In a short amount of time, the term fake news has taken on a life of its own.  And anybody who wants to deny facts, can simply label it fake news and everybody knows what he/she is talking about.

That’s why when we write a news release and make a claim for a client, we always back it up with facts.  It could be a study.  It could be a credible news source or individual.  But we’ve been doing this long before Trump became president.  It is something every organization or corporation should do.  If you claim to be the “best” or “biggest” or “most-respected” or whatever, you need to cite a source.  That’s one of the rules of a submission to Wikipedia.  When a claim or fact is stated, it needs a citation.  If not, the article will be flagged to make the reader aware that it lacks backing.

So keep that in mind.  In your PR, whether it is a news release or social media posting, back up your claims with reliable facts.  Otherwise, someone may come along and with a few keystrokes, label it “fake news.”

Trump’s public relations strategy. Brilliant or disastrous?

Since I am essentially apolitical, I can’t comment on President Donald Trump’s political savvy.  But I can comment on his public relations and media savvy.

For decades, Donald Trump has made it a point to be in the media.  If it wasn’t a whirlwind marriage, or divorce, or a new skyscraper, or a new product, show or whatever, it was a regular appearance on the David Letterman show and countless other programs.

It is obvious Trump craves attention and PR.  Oddly, he doesn’t seem to care if the PR he gets is positive or negative.  If it is positive, he will re-tweet it.  If it is negative, he will attack the person or news organization that reported it.

It is clear his voracious need for media attention propelled him into the White House.  Maybe it was an accident, maybe it was a grand plan.  In either event, it worked.

The president of the United States is the most watched and reported person in the world.  His every word, every action, every nuance is recorded.  He can cough at the wrong time during a speech and send the financial markets into a spin.

One would think that a president would want a good relationship with the media.  John Kennedy was a master media manipulator.  He loved his news conferences and the press repaid him by keeping his secrets secret.  Richard Nixon hated the media and they virtually ran him out of the White House with relentless Watergate reporting.

In office a mere two weeks, it is clear Trump marches to his own beat.  He doesn’t care.  If he isn’t attacked, he attacks first.  He seems to relish a good fight and will often raise issues nobody is talking about and nobody cares about.  He just wants the attention.

It is a very strange strategy for someone like myself who has spent a lifetime working to curry favor with the media.  I want the press to like my clients and to report favorably about them.  Negative press is never good, in my view, but not in President Trump’s.

We will have to just wait and see if the friction between President Trump and the White House press corp. is a fluke or a permanent reality.  If it continues for months, it will continue throughout his presidency, and for Donald Trump, that may be just the way he wants it.

The PR plan: Don’t start a campaign without it

You wouldn’t embark on a cross country car ride (do people still do that?) without giving some thought to a route, would you?  With GPS today, it is certainly easier than in past years, but still, you want to plan your journey.  If you’re going to drive 3,000 miles, why not give some thought to whether you want to see the mountains or the desert?  Landmarks or just open road?

The same holds true when planning a PR campaign.  It is not enough to do PR and marketing just for the sake of doing it.  You need to know your objectives.  What are you attempting to achieve?  Is it to increase sales or brand your company?  Create a reputation or protect the one you already have?  Or, all of the above?

There are two schools of thought when planning a PR and marketing campaign.  You can do lots of things a little bit, or a few things well.  In most cases the latter is the better choice.  Select a few activities that your organization has the talent, time and budget for, and focus on them.  If you take this approach, you will be sure to achieve success in some areas, rather than limited success in many.