Brand Central Station

Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman Public Relations, provides a panarmaic view of the future of media and, more importantly, the future of public relations.

Here are some of the major changes (or, as Richard calls them, “fundamental shifts”) occuring in the media world:

• Money is ebbing away from print media to online competitors.
• The 50 largest web companies are attracting 96% of the online ad spend.
• The number of in-home DVR’s is expected to tripple in the next five years.
• 24 million homes in the USA now have V.O.D. (Video On Demand).
• Publishing companies are moving from free content to a subscription model whenever and wherever possible.
• US newspapers are continuing to lose circulation resulting in staff and newsroom cuts.

The implications are pretty significant for the public relations profession, as you can imagine. To summarize the advice that Richard offers here (and others involved in social media throughout the blogosphere are offering on their various sites) amounts to a fundamental shift in how PR is practiced.

To summarize: we have to move from “telling” our story to “sharing” it.

We may look back on the next few years as the beginning of a new method of story-telling that is much more dynamic, much more interactive and much harder to control than ever before.

Take the time required to read Richard’s post and start making plans for the years ahead. To quote Bette Davis: “Fasten your seatbelts – it’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Public Relations, PR, Media, Journalism, Newspapers, Online Media, Edelman Public Relations, Richard Edelman

This post about zero tolerance policies appeared in Monday’s Church Of The Customer blog. It’s a great example and explanation of why zero tolerance policies don’t work.

For over-managed managers everywhere.

Technorati Tags: Management, Zero Tolerance Policy, Church of the Customer

This post in the Duct Tape Marketing blog provides some great insights into how you can delight a customer or client by surprising them once in a while.

John Jantsch, the brain behind the adhesive, suggests companies build surprises into their marketing efforts. They create great buzz for your company.

I love this blog.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Customer Delight, Duct Tape Marketing

Although there have been plenty of books written on the subject, the use of color continues to fascinate people. The fact is, the proper use of color can make or break a project.

Thanks to the Eyes On Creativity blog for this post about worqx.com, a site that presents a comprhensive color theory overview.

An important bookmark for art directors and graphic designers.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Advertising, Color Theory, Graphic Design, Art Direction, Eyes On Creativity

I took a few minutes out to lay out the future of outdoor media (as I see it, anyway) on our Media Advisor blog. This post combines new information released to the public this weekend (concerning the business relationship between Yahoo! and Clear Channel Mall Media) and some existing knowledge I have of a few start-ups who are trying to get into a similar space.

It’s interesting that a medium as decidedly low-tech as outdoor may, in fact, be the site of the first true convergence of online and traditional media.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Media, Outdoor, Out-of-Home Media, Internet, Convergence, Yahoo!, Clear Channel

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Outdoor and out-of-home media has always been a quirky discipline. Creatives love it because, in general, the format is very visual, the canvas is large and from a cost-efficiency standpoint, one-off concepts are not out of the question.

Media planners and buyers aren’t necessarily crazy about the medium – demographics, traffic counts and other metrics are only somewhat reliable, there are still a lot of independent players in the business with odd terms and conditions and everyone has a different idea as to an effective strategy that has as much to do with geography as it does with “reach and frequency.”

Clients, on the other hand, seem to love out-of-home media – when they see it. If a client doesn’t see his or her campaign, then it probably isn’t working. (As a point of reference, when I ran an agency, we made sure to include at least one billboard location on the route between our client’s home and office so he’d see it every day when he drove to work.)

But while the concept of “convergence” is making a lot of noise in the electronic media (i.e. television, radio and Internet), it’s also driving some significant change in the out-of-home market. This piece in MediaPost, announces a strategic partnership between Yahoo! and Clear Channel that underscores how the Internet is changing the face of outdoor. The new, digital billboards will eventually appear in 200 malls across the country. These boards will be more than just flat panel displays suspended from the ceiling … these things are big:

While this new technology and Clear Channel’s involvement is interesting on its face, I suspect it is just the beginning. The technology exists to take this same ad serving scheme and deploy it across kiosk-type displays as well. The combination of the large displays with kiosks carrying the same or complimentary messages gives an advertiser a significant one-two punch when trying to engage a consumer.

“The screens, which measure 4 by 16 feet, will be divided into three parts: the far left section will display Yahoo! content, while the middle and right-hand sections will show ads, including 30-second video ads. The Yahoo! portion of the screens will show just a headline, sports scores, entertainment blurbs, or information from the Yahoo! Buzz Index. Content will be refreshed every 15 minutes.”

The plan appears to be to give advertisers the flexibility to advertise in different dayparts, to change creative every fifteen minutes and to target ads based on the location of the display and corresponding demographics of the audience. The beauty of this plan is that everything can be served off a central server, so message/brand management is relatively easy.

More importantly, by adding a Point-of-Sale device to the mix, out-of-home media steps to the head of the pack when it comes to evaluating the effectiveness of traditional, main-stream media.

Superior customer demographics, high-level engagement, targeted creative, big, bold and interesting … who ever would have thought that out-of-home media would be leading the way in the ongoing integration of traditional and new media?

From the Advertising/Design Goodness blog:

This campaign has been running for Goodyear in Spain. The “knife” in the tire promotes the new “Run On A Flat” feature now available with Goodyear tires.

Cost effective and a real eye-grabber. (Just don’t run with it in public.)

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Out-Of-Home Nedua, Buzz Marketing, Guerilla Marketing, Goodyear, Spain

Blogger extraordinaire, BL Ochman, gives us a quick run-down on the SonyBMG fiasco that we reported on last week (Much Ado About Marketing: Another Fine Mess).

BL also provides a link to this article in InformationWeek detailing what’s happened to-date and the impact the blog community has had on this issue. To say SonyBMG sounds “arrogant” might be soft-pedaling things a bit.

Burried under all of this are SonyBMG’s intellectual property concerns, which is why they developed the “content protection technology” in the first place.

For more information on the whole fiasco, click here (for part I) and here (for part II).

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Intellectual Property, SonyBMG, Blogging

Special thanks to Adrants for the tip on this one … Absolut has launched its holiday campaign with this site touting four singing vodka bottles and some very cool effects. The interactive dictionary for mixed drinks is really fabulous.

Great site for flash junkies, creative types and vodka lovers everywhere.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Advertising, Sales, Viral Marketing, AdRants, Absolut Vodka

If you saw this sketch on Saturday Night Livethis weekend, you know this was one of the best bits of the night. Weekend Update spoofed Apple’s relentless releases of its various iPods in this bit.

Not work related, but damn funny.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPod, Steve Jobs, SNL, Saturday Night Live, Weekend Update

Sam Decker, writing on the Decker Marketing blog, provides a handy list of 10 ways to create and manage experiences.

This isn’t just a simple checklist of compulsory items you have to complete to have a “branded experience” but, rather, a list of ten thought starters to get you to consider the experience customers and employees share. And it’s the quality of that experience that will serve as the litmus test for the authenticity of your brand promise.

Find a way to work the ten points of this post into your next operations agenda or (for agencies) client meeting with operations staff.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Branding, Branded Experience, Experiential Design, Decker Marketing, Sensory Experiences

Shel Holtz provides an update on the PR licensing debate on his blog. To tell the truth, I wasn’t even aware of a serious debate on this matter but have always considered it to be more like a lingering flirtation. Shel does a nice job summarizing the pro and con positions on this discussion and includes some new information from the chairman of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations in Wales to add credence to the pro position.

I understand the appeal of a professional certification for PR’s. In fact, there are several professional designations that indicate advanced training, adhearence to a standing ethical code of conduct, etc. There’s even a process by which a PR firm can achieve an ISO certification for quality control.

But I don’t really think those are the issues at stake.

In reality, I see the debate for or against licensing PR professionals as a quest for legitimacy. You even see this in Shel’s post. PR pro’s desire to be viewed on par with lawyers, doctors and CPA’s – and some believe a professional license would do that.

I think that may be a hollow promise. After all, real estate agents, roofing contractors and plumbers are also licensed and no one will confuse the former with the latter.

No, if PR’s want to be taken as credible business advisors, a piece of paper on the wall isn’t going to make the difference. It will take PR people who will not only offer wise counsel but who will also stand up and defend that counsel in the board room or the executive suite.

Technorati Tags: Public Relations, PR, Professional Licensing, CIPR, IPRA, Shel Holtz