Tag Archives: PR

A Picture is Worth a Senate Seat

The old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” has never been more true than with the situation with Sen. Al Franken.  Caught in the middle of the avalanche of allegations of sexual improprieties, Franken tried having it both ways.  His initial statements were that he respected the rights of women to express their feelings, while at the same time saying he didn’t remember events as they were portrayed.  He said he wouldn’t resign and keep working for the people of Minnesota.

Then the picture appeared.

While he tried to hang on to his job and senate seat, the infamous photo that he took before he became a politician haunted him.  It was everywhere and he couldn’t escape it.  One has to wonder if he hadn’t taken that disgusting and not very funny photo, whether he could have weathered the storm and hung on.  But photographic evidence, especially a picture as blatant and posed as this one, was more than he could withstand.

Photography and video are powerful instruments, perhaps the most powerful we have next to in-person statements.  The world has changed — for the better and sometimes for the worse — because everything we do seems to be caught on camera.  If there aren’t security cameras mounted on building rooftops capturing our every move, there are a dozen people with cell phones who will.

This new reality has made the world a bit safer. It has helped law enforcement catch and identify criminals.  And today, it brought down a sitting United States Senator.

In the public relations business, we promote and encourage clients to use photos and video.  Let’s face it, people have short attention spans and always prefer looking at a photograph than reading a story.  It is faster, easier and shows what really happened.

When marketing a product or business, the use of pictures and video is a must.  It cuts right to the core of messaging.  Photos that are not too arranged or Photoshopped, display the truth more than words ever can.  Sen. Franken discovered that today when he lost one of the most powerful jobs an American can hold.

Maybe if he goes back to comedy, he will think twice about doing something so foolish and denigrating, and think a second time about having it caught on camera.

PR vs. Marketing vs. Publicity vs. Advertising. War of the Words

Words matter. But does it matter in the public relations (PR) and marketing business?

If it matters anywhere, it matters in marketing. We have had many meetings when clients say something like, “we need some publicity for this new initiative.” To us, “publicity” means media relations — working with reporters to get articles and TV segments for the client. To the client, it could mean taking out an ad. In one case, the client was referring to billboards.

So it is important to define terms and everybody be on the same page. That’s why organizations hire PR / marketing firms to create strategies. But when talking with one another, defining what terms mean, and what makes the most effective marketing sense, can make all the difference in the world.

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.

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.”

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.

 

Will the press recover?

Thankfully, the presidential race is over.  It was an ugly, brutal, vicious fight of the left against the right, or whatever the other side is called.  And as everybody can’t stop discussing, the outcome was a surprise.  We now have president-elect Donald Trump.

Many would say it wasn’t a fair fight.  However, the person who had the cards stacked against him, won.

The huge part of the “finger on the scale” was the mainstream media who were overwhelmingly in favor of Hillary Clinton.  Clinton got something like 28 editorial endorsements while Trump got two.  Not to mention night after night of critical reporting, that didn’t even pretend to be objective.

In journalism school, which eventually led me to a career in PR, objectivity was king.  There was an era of “yellow journalism” where the press had no problem making their political views known.  That was before my time.  But in the last 40 years at least, the media has lived by the credo that they report the news, not make it and certainly don’t promote it.

This election proved just the opposite.  The media, led by the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, CNN and most others, didn’t even pretend to be objective.  They were so pro Clinton that they didn’t even try to mask their favoritism.  They chose partiality over the basic tenants of their profession.

Now that the election is over, my question is will the media ever regain the trust of the American people?  Will it ever again be viewed as an impartial source that reports facts “without fear or favor” as the famous New York Times founder Adolph Ochs said more than a hundred years ago.  How long will it take to regain the trust of the public?

Perhaps the real question is whether the media even want to regain that trust. Perhaps the media is fine being advocates rather than reporters.  Perhaps the era of objective journalism has passed and now the media serve to elect politicians whom they choose, pass bills they like and assure that pet projects are initiated.

Time will tell, and I remain impartial in the recent election.  But I sure miss the days when my local newspaper just reported the facts.

“Walking back” — the new darling in media terminology

With the presidential race in full swing, news stations (primarily cable) are in 24/7 mode talking with and interviewing “experts” and “surrogates” for both candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

As both sides send out their PR, marketing, polling and media experts, these poor souls have the unenviable task of having to explain the positions of their bosses (the candidates) and more often than not, “clarify” what the candidate meant to say but didn’t.

This holds true for both Trump and Clinton.  Trump with the immigration issue and Clinton with her email issue.  Both make large statements at large gatherings, and when what they say sinks in, the media want to know why they both keep changing their positions.

Typically this would be called “changing a position” or “taking back” a promise.  Simple and straight-forward language.  But a new term has crept into this election.  It is “walking it back.”

What exactly does it mean to “walk back” something?  Well, apparently it means the same thing as changing a position.

So while Trump originally said he wants to deport 11 million Mexican aliens, his reps have to go on TV and “walk back” that statement and say what he really means, whatever that is.  And the same with Hillary.  When she said she turned over all the emails she had, and the FBI said no she didn’t, then her reps have to go on TV and “walk back” that statement and clarify what she meant to say, but for some reason forgot.

We live in a world of soundbites and a changing of language to keep up with the changing times.

Most of it is fueled by the media, who for some reason find simple, plain English just to boring to adhere to.

Now that’s a statement I will never “walk back.”

 

In PR, timing is everything, well almost everything

As a PR and marketing firm that does significant work in crisis communications, people often ask me the best way to preserve their reputation when in a crisis.  I wish there was one “best” way that would apply to every situation, but there isn’t.  Every organization, situation and crisis is unique.

Of course the best way to come out on top of a crisis is to never get into one in the first place.  Everybody knows that, but that’s not how the world works.  Most crises situations occur due to no fault of the organization or company.  But then again, some do.

The overriding piece of advice I give is to be prepared for when a crisis may occur.  The second best advice I give is to allow yourself as much time as possible to think through the situation, consult with your crisis PR team, develop a strategy and then implement at the right time.

I can’t say how many times organizations come to us seeing a difficult situation looming down the road.  It could be two, three weeks or a month away.  They see it coming, and reach out to us for advice and counsel.  Our response is always to begin immediately so we have adequate time to prepare.  But it is amazing how many organizations wait and delay to address the issue and put together a plan.  People are on vacation, out of town, other matters are given priority.  And before you know it, the crisis that was a month away is now tomorrow, and there is no plan.

So first get your crisis team in place, but when you see a difficult situation about to unfold, don’t wait for the day before, thinking your PR consultant will magically take care of it. Yes, we often can work magic, but at least give us some time to polish off our magic wand.

Staying on message: A basic PR lesson

You undoubtedly have heard the phrase, “stay on message.”  It is currently being used widely by the Republican leadership to advise Donald Trump who, it appears, will be the Republican nominee for the 2016 presidential election.

What does this mean in terms of public relations, marketing and branding?  Or is it just a meaningless cliche?

In the world of politics, messaging is tested over and over again, day in and day out.  Pollsters and advisors want to know what issues resonate with certain segments of the public.  When the statistics fall in line, they advise the candidate to focus on those messages — at least in that State or to that group.

Trump is a different animal, it seems.  He speaks his mind to whomever, with some notable exceptions.  Lately, he has been going way, way off message by pounding a Federal judge hearing a case against Trump University.  While one would think capturing the presidency is foremost on his mind, he seems obsessed with this case, which he could afford to quietly settle and make it all go away.

So during precious airtime, when he could be delivering messages about the economy, foreign affairs and a million other issues that impact Americans’ lives, he spends it blasting the judge as being “unfair.”

This has not gone unnoticed by the Republication leadership who are screaming and yelling for him to stop with the judge and “stay on message.”  You only get to be president once, maybe twice in your life, and why squander the opportunity over a court case that is essentially meaningless to him.

But in the case of Donald Trump (our firm is apolitical and doesn’t do political consulting) it is obvious his emotions get the better of him and he simply can’t control his impulses.  When he gets angry, when he feels wronged, he lashes out.  And it is obvious he doesn’t care where the chips fall.

There is a lesson to be learned for all companies and organizations in this.  Staying on message means keeping focused and maintaining a connection between yourself, your organization and your audiences.  By wandering off message, for whatever reason, you are loosening or cutting that connection and losing the attention and support of your audience.

Find out what messages resonate with your target markets and audiences, and when you have opportunities to communicate to them, don’t waste those precious opportunities on trivial matters.