Tag Archives: Los Angeles Times

Marketing nonprofits in the age of the soundbite

One of the most frustrating aspects of marketing is not getting the space or time needed to fully tell your story.  Not all products, services or organizations can be explained in six words.  Yet, today’s media demand that you find a way to do that.

It is called the soundbite, but we are all familiar with it.  The media move at lightening speed.  Guests on TV are given only seconds to explain their organization before the host shoots a follow up question.  The thinking is audiences today have the attention span of a two year old.  And they probably do.  With switcher in hand, TV watchers are all to eager to hit the button and turn to a another show if they find themselves just slightly bored.

There is nothing PR and marketing people can do about this.  It is the way of the world.   All we can do is deal with it and prepare our clients.

That’s why when we prep clients for TV appearances, we teach them to talk in soundbites.  They need to get the essence of their messages across immediately. If they don’t, their comments will either be chopped up or deleted entirely.  Host and reporters have it easy.   They have pre-prepared questions they fire off in one liners.  Those on the receiving end are not so lucky.  They need to be prepared for any question, and be prepared to shoot back an answers as short and meaningful as possible.

Some call it the “elevator speech.”  But we are not talking about a speech here to explain your organization to a group.  It is much different being in front of a camera, lights shining in your eyes, microphone in your face.  The nerves can set in.  Words don’t always come out as you intended.  And if it is live TV there are no second chances.  Making a difficult situation worse, it lives on via YouTube.

The only way to handle these situations is simple: practice, practice and more practice.  If you believe in what you are saying — and that is step one, then practice saying it in succinct language.  Practice answering different questions, and the same question asked differently.  The more you practice, like playing an instrument, the more proficient you will become at conveying your organization’s marketing and PR message.

Marketing 101 — working with vendors

If you’re in the marketing/PR business, or want to be, you will work with a number of vendors.  No way go get around it.  You will need graphic designers, printers, web programmers, photographers, event planners and more.  So how do you find the right vendors who give you what you need when you need it for a price you want to pay?

Oddly, finding a good vendor is a lot like finding a good doctor, CPA or plumber.  You ask your friends who they use.  Sometimes referrals work out, sometimes they don’t.  It can be a bit awkward if a close associate recommends a certain person or company they love, and it turns out that you don’t.  But you need to make your clients or boss happy.

First bit of advice I would give is to decide whether you want a large, medium or small company.  Or a company at all.  In today’s wired world, an abundance of talent can be found in people who work in their pajamas in their bedrooms.  They usually have solid professional experience, but want to be independent.  If someone is a sole practioneer, don’t discount them.  They could not only be brilliant, but they might provide you with better service and pricing than a large firm.

Second, make sure you have similar work styles.  If you prefer working informally, meaning you can call the vendor at odd hours and weekends, then you need to find someone who shares that style.  The larger the firm, the more formal they are, usually.  They tend to keep normal hours and if you exceed their normal time structure, you might get charged.

Third, and this is obvious, hire people you can afford.

Fourth, and this is personal preference, if you find someone good, stick with them.  The more you work with one person/company, the better they will come to know what you need and want.  People reward loyalty, so if you keep the same people, when crunch time comes on a project they will be there for you.

Putting together a reliable, talented team can make all the difference in the world for your marketing campaigns.  Take your time finding the right people, then stick with them.

 

How LA Times Move Will Impact PR

How will the sale of the LA Times impact local PR and marketing opportunities?

As is well known, last week, the Los Angeles Times announced it has a new owner. Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a surgeon, part LA Lakers owner and pharmaceutical billionaire purchased the paper for a reported $500 million. Along with the purchase, he moved the paper from its historic and iconic building downtown to El Segundo.  El Segundo is a quiet city adjacent to LA airport.  He made the move for two good reasons.  First, the prior LA Times owners sold the historic building that is right across from City Hall.  It has been there well over a hundred years and a landmark.  When they sold the building, they made the paper renters, so not a good financial move.   Second, Soon-Shiong owns a significant amount of property in El Segundo including a major office tower that is now The Times’ home.  It is rather strange that the LA Times is headquartered in a sleepy suburb and not where the action is downtown.

How does this affect PR people?  There is no impact for pitching stories.  The paper still covers the same geography.  However, when the purchase was made, the new owner noted that the paper in recent years shrunk from an editorial staff of 1200 to 400.  That is an issue.

As someone who has worked with The Times for decades, there always was stability.  Times reporters and editors worked there for decades, covering the same beats.  We knew them by name, who to pitch and what stories would interest them.  Now, so many writers have left and those who are left have switched beats, cover multiple beats and some have been dropped altogether.

We all know that news and media is moving online.  There is more advertising revenue to be made online than in print.  That is a simple fact.  But advertising online is not the same as print.  There is something about holding a newspaper or magazine in hand that makes it different.  Online, stories change repeatedly throughout the day.  As news changes, so do news sites.  What is the top news story in the morning will likely be moved to the bottom of the past by the end of the day.

The challenge for us in the PR and marketing business is we have to be fast, know what’s happening every minute and be prepared to pitch on moment’s notice.  When a story breaks, we jump in and offer a client for their perspective.  The media look for that and want that. They want experts who can shed light on breaking news.  That’s why our staff are online all day, if not writing text for a client, we require that everybody have a screen open to keep an eye on breaking news.  Often we switch gears on a moment’s notice.

The fast pace of publicity, PR and marketing makes the PR business more and more challenging.  It also keeps us on our toes.  We need to know who the media are, their political bents, what reporters/editors will be civil to our clients and who will be hostile.  We need to know what to pitch and to whom.  We will never put a client in front of a hostile reporter just to get them PR.  We don’t subscribe to the notion that there is no such thing as bad PR.  In today’s Twitter world, there is such a thing as bad PR.  Just as Roseanne Barr.

The big question is how long will the LA Times continue to print a paper before it goes entirely online?  The new owner vowed to be committed to a print version, but let’s be realistic.  He is a businessperson and a good one.  Tragically there may come a time when all media will conclude that it no longer makes sense to run the presses.  By the time a newspaper or magazine rolls off the press, it is reporting old news.

In the meantime, we continue to work hard to get exposure for our clients, whether in print or online.  Online is great in that we can easily send links and keep our clients’ story alive.  Print is always good because people like to see their stories in print.  There is something about being in print that an online link can’t match.

 

 

 

The challenge for nonprofits to get their messages out

Those of us in the PR business, both as consultants and in-house, face the challenge of making our stories relevant and newsworthy.  This has always been a difficult process, but today it is even more difficult for marketing and PR people given the media environment.

When virtually all major news outlets are focused on any one story — in this case the presidency — makes breaking through with other news more difficult.  The media will cover what the media want to cover.  It just means that we in the public relations and marketing business have to be more focused and strategic to get the media’s attention.

This is not only for PR consultants, but nonprofits as well.  When they create programs and activities, they need to keep in mind how it will attract media attention.

Again, this is not easy, but it’s the reality of the times in which we live.

 

White House news “gaggle” block, good political PR or unprecedented PR disaster?

Today the White House held a “gaggle,” journalist lingo for an informal news briefing, but didn’t invite CNN, The New York Times, L.A. Times and other news organizations.  In the five weeks that President Trump as been President Trump, he has made the media his enemy.  Is this a good PR move for the White House?

While this blog is not political in any way, it is an extremely rare occurrence for a president of the United States to purposely block providing information to major news outlets, even though they can get it from other sources.  Press secretary Sean Spicer tried to explain the move as a news pool — where a limited number of media are briefed and they share it with others.  That is not unusual, but this is.  There are literally thousands of news outlets in American and tens of thousands around the world, and the White House can’t fit them all into a room.  So there is a selection process.

However, President Trump is on another campaign, and it is not to “build a wall” or to “lower taxes” or to “repeal and replace Obamacare.”  His campaign is to attack the media, and rally his supporters to this cause.

I think back to my days in journalism school.  We learned that the media don’t always get it right; often have an agenda; are often sloppy; and almost always are critical of the president.  And most presidents don’t like the media because they tend to focus on the negative.  But even Richard Nixon, who was legendary in his disdain of the media, didn’t go so far as to bar major media from news briefings.

It’s been said that Donald Trump is at his best when he is campaigning against someone or something.  He beat 17 Republicans for the nomination and one major Democrat to win the presidency.  He talks about the great things he is going to do for the country, and hopefully they will happen, but he has lost what really gets him going — someone or something to attack.

He has found it in the media, and hopefully it is a passing phase.

It will just be curious who is next.

 

The news cycle via Twitter

Since the invention of the newspaper, media outlets have always competed to be first.  Being first to break a story is everything, as was so well dramatized in the play and then movie “Front Page.”

Today, news organizations compete to be first to break a story, and when they do, they continually remind their readers, viewers or listeners that they were first.  Somehow being first means they know more about the story or they are more on the ball than their competitors.

But a major story in Los Angeles this week took the cake.

The city awoke to a huge fire of an apartment complex under construction in downtown Los Angeles.  It is (or was) a massive and controversial real estate development.  When the fire was knocked out, the Los Angeles Fire Department said they suspected arson and were investigating.

Later in the day, the fire chief held an update news conference to inform the public what he knew.  It wasn’t much, but he wanted people to know they had suspicions while investigators were combing through the ashes.

What I found fascinating is how the Los Angeles Times covered the news conference. Traditionally, reporters show up, take notes, then return to their desk to write the story.  TV and radio reporters would report from the scene after it was over.

However, in today’s “get it first” news cycle, the way The Times covered the news conference was for two Times’ reporters to tweet one liner updates while the news conference was going on.  The Times published a series of tweets along with some pictures of the scene.  The only thing faster than that would have been to cover the news conference live on TV or radio, which some may have done.

For a newspaper to disseminate one line updates via Twitter, I guess is ingenious.  But there isn’t a whole lot one can say in one sentence — even a series of disjointed sentences.  But on the other hand, The Times can claim they were first, at least among newspapers.

Something tells me this is not an isolated incident and will be used more and more.  Twitter may become our new news source with newspapers just write the wrap up.