Brand Central Station

Actually, the soon-to-be-opening Advertising Icon Museum is waaaay off Madison Avenue (in New York City) and located in Kansas City, Missouri.

More marketing fun from the Advertisng/Design Goodness blog.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Advertising, Brand, Icon, Icon Museum

William Lozito, over at the Strategic Name Development blog provide a review of the recent trend in naming towns after brands – a noteworthy publicity stunt the first dozen or so times it was done. But now this is starting to get a little ridiculous.

Technorati Tags: Brand, Branding, Naming, Product Naming, secretsanta.com

The new year is the time for thinking about possibilities and what can be. All that potential. All that hope.

So, what gets in the way of turning that hopeful vision into a reality? Sometimes it’s those darn clients.

Not every client relationship is worth keeping. And in this handy article by Michael McLaughlin, author of the Guerilla Consulting blog, you’ll learn how firing a client might be the best strategic move you can make.

Thought-provoking.

Technorati Tags: Consulting, Strategic Planning, Management, Corporate Leadership, Client Relations

Toby Bloomberg, the gal that put “Diva” into the Diva Marketing blog has provided a fairly exhaustive list of wishes for the blogosphere in 2006.

Here’s wishing all of you the best in the coming year as well.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Blogging, Toby Bloomberg, Diva Marketing Blog, New Year’s Wishes

Blogger Ephraim Cohen turns the conventional “What’s the future of PR?” question on its head in this post on the future of the PR professional. The question, according to Ephraim, is not will PR exist in the future but, rather, how many qualified PR people will be around.

Ephraim’s take, in summary:

“PR professionals will always exist in some form as ompanies all too often need help figuring how best to communicate with their constituencies. The real challenge is coming up with enough PR professionals that do understand today’s communications environment. Agencies and companies should be looking at not just blogging but beyond.”

When it comes to predicting how many PR practitioners will be able to maintain the skills they’ll need for the future, Ephraim’s concerns seem to reflect those of the industry, from leading practitioners (like Richard Edelman, who recently pondered the skill set required for the corporate blogger of the future) and students still in college.

The best comment I’ve seen on this subject came up just yesterday on the YPRP discussion group (a Yahoo! Group). PRWeek’s Elly Trickett shared the following insights on what skills an aspiring PR professional should have:

“These are the skills expected of someone in the first 0-3 years of their PR career:

Writing
Proficiency in spelling, grammar and language structure, and ability to write news releases, newsletter and magazine articles, video scripts, basic speeches, and proposals.

Media Relations
Understanding the needs of various media outlets, both general and trade,traditional and non-traditional; steps necessary in story placement; relationship building; the history of the firm/client’s successes andfailures; successful phone-selling techniques.

Research
Basic understanding of scientific research and its application to PR, including the difference between qualitative and quantitative; research,data collection, and evaluation methodologies; budgeting and costs.

Client-Service Management
Meeting client expectations through quality-management of work; projectmanagement; conflict-resolution skills; budget management.

Public Speaking
Confident client and small-group presentations, and face-to-face and peer communication.

Electronic Communication
Basic proficiency in software and internet skills, including PowerPoint,Access, projectors, and databases.

Administrative
Proficiency and understanding of basic operating procedures, includingpersonal time accounting, budgets, and activity reports.

Leadership/Team Building
Understanding management skills and styles, group dynamics, and teambuilding.”

These are great insights. You can read the entire conversation (held between dozens of PR pros and PR students) by subscribing to the YPRP discussion board here.

Technorati Tags: Public Relations, PR, Journalism, Blog, Bloggin, PR Education

Yes, another end-of-year, wrap-up story. But this one is particularly interesting for those of us dealing with brands and branding issues.

The folks at the BrandXPress blog have provided this helpful summary of branding-related stories for 2005.

Very helpful.

Technorati Tags: Brand, Branding, Marketing Practices

Everyone knows Star Trek fans (Trekkies, Trekkers, etc.) are a different sort. Fans of the original series (TOS, in Trek-speak) are particularly nuts – after all, a vast majority of them still think William Shatner can actually act.

Ok, that was a joke.

In the history of entertainment, though, Star Trek fans are unusually fanatical in their devotion to the mythos. They rescued the series from its first cancellation (“Arrested Development” fans, take note); proppelled it through a series of hit and miss big screen appearances (hint: just see the even-numbered movies); and helped make the resulting spin-off television series the most successful in the short history of television syndication. Star Trek is a “franchise” built around a very unique brand.

So what happens when the ownership of a brand shifts from the creator/franchisor (in this case, Paramount Pictures) to the devoted fan? Brand Autopsy’s blogger, John Moore, provides this account of extreme customer evangelism as a case study in the making.

According to the IMBD Database, Paramount agreed to allow the producers of Star Trek: The New Voyages to make their show on the condition that no profit was to be garnered from the project. Trek message boards are buzzing with the news that original series stars like Walter Koenig (Ensign Pavel Chekov) and Grace Lee Whitney (Yeoman Rand) have agreed to appear in episodes of the fan-produced show.

Whether you’re a Star Trek fan or not, this is going to be an interesting story to follow. Sci-fi and fantasy devotees have always tried to co-opt characters and story lines before (there are scads of “unauthorized” stories using characters from Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc. – some of it pornographic and none of it particularly good). But it’s always been considered on the “fringe” of fandom and policed pretty well.

In this case, the intellectual property of the Star Trek franchise is being leveraged to a whole new degree with the help of the studio and the show’s original stars. (A more detailed review of what’s actually happening with Star Trek: New Voyages can be found here.) But all this makes me wonder: at what point will Paramount take over and turn this into a money-making venture?

We’ll keep this on our long-range sensors and report back from time to time.

(Thanks to other bloggers for bringing this to my attention: Jack Yan at Beyond Branding and Johnny Moore at Johnnie Moore’s Weblog)

Technorati Tags: Brand, Branding, Brand Extensions, Customer Evangelism, Fan Evangelism, Star Trek, Trekkie, Trekker, Paramount Pictures

When people play games with politics, they get burned – ugly, nasty, friction burns resulting from excessive spin. Thanks to Scott Baradell, the master gardener over at the Media Orchard blog, for providing his rundown of the ten worst spin jobs of the year.

I thought the list was great. But what I found even more interesting was the nature of some of the comments left (presumably) by marketing and PR professionals. Cheap shots from both political persuasions. Yech!

Don’t like what the blogger has to say? Why not offer up your own nominations for bad political spin? I suggested that Scott provide a list of the “Best Political PR Plays” for next year.

We can do better, people.

Technorati Tags: Public Relations, PR, Political Consulting, Media Spin, Spinmeister, Media Orchard

From the Advertising/Design Goodness blog edited by Frederik Samuel.

Technorati Tags: marketing, Advertising, Art Direction, Graphic Design, Creative

The sometimes irreverent but always insightful Scott Baradell, head gardener at the Media Orchard blog, draws on a practice shared between major media outlets and PR icon Richard Edelman in this post. Using comments from blogger Shel Isreal as his source, Scott notes that neither Richard nor major media are particularly generous when it comes to linking to others in the blogosphere.

Scott does point out (in the comments section) that Richard does a comendable job when it comes to responding to comments on his blog. I tend to agree, vaing the pleasure of several back-and-forth e-mail conversations with Richard as a result of comments I’ve left on his 6am blog from time to time.

Phil Gomes, identified as Richard’s “blog boy” provides a rebuttal on his own blog, Phil’s Blogservations.

It all seems a bit silly to me. Of course, if Richard wanted to link to “Much Ado About Marketing” from his blog, I’d be honored.

Technorati Tags: Newspapers, Journalism, PR, Public Relations, Media Orchard, Edelman

Is 2006 to be the “year of the vanishing blogger?” That’s the titillating headline used by Gary Goldhammer, the author of the Below The Fold blog on news and the media.

According to Gary:

“2006 is the year when blogging moves from novelty into the “utility” phase, where the mere act of blogging is subsumed by what is being published, as well as how to find, use and participate in that information.”

So does this mean that fewer people will be starting their own blogs? Not necessarily.

Gary’s point is that when everyone is blogging, there are no more “bloggers,” just people interacting with one another in the blogosphere. People will still gossip, share recipes, etc. – but individual blogs will become less important as larger blog networks begin to create content specifically for the medium.

It’s an interesting view of the future that may take some of the techie-edge off the blogosphere making it both more ordinary and, more importantly, more accessible to the vast majority of Internet users.

Technorati Tags: Blogs, Blogging, Social Media, Modern Media, Journalism, news, Public Relations, PR

Bob LeDrew, the author of the Flacklife blog, pointed us to a great article on how to make sure your media releases survive in a Web 2.0 world. It’s sound, practical advice worth the ten minutes it takes to read and consider.

Thanks for the tip, Bob.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Public Relations, PR, Journalism, Web Optimization, Press Release Tips