Old School Media Is Still Relevant, For Now

By: Vanessa Horwell

For all the funerals planned and obituaries written for traditional journalism — those things called newspapers, magazines, broadcast television, oh, and radio — one would consider them finished. Just how many years of revenue and circulation declines can an industry endure before packing it in?

Plenty, it seems.

Without question the last five years, or even 10, have not been kind to traditional media. Its influence has shrunk from a global superpower to merely a component of an increasingly diverse set of media outlets all vying for attention and relevancy. I liken traditional media’s current power position to the United Kingdom following World War II: Stripped of its empire status, the war-torn country reemerged as a component of Western power, no longer its sole mover and shaker, or indeed master.

In response to a rapidly remade media landscape, PR firms have rightly shifted their focus to all things digital. Can you imagine a PR company — or any successful organization — not relying heavily on the digital space to advance their company or client’s brand?

Our clients now expect digital competency as a matter-of-fact and not some retainer-plus extra. Many of the college graduates knocking on our door have been using Facebook for a third of their lives, they prefer texting to talking (which we try to undo) and some have even earned their Masters in social media.

But for all the hoo-ha over social media, it’s essential that companies, especially PR agencies, remember the UK analogy. Traditional media, may be a shell of its former self –at least in terms of average profit margins — but it persists. Our industry gives so much lip service to integration and being multi-channel. Perhaps it’s time we listen to our own advice and not jettison traditional media from the marketing mix?

At a recent mobile marketing summit in New York, I sat next to the mobile marketing director for USA Today, and talked with several digital media directors of magazines that many would consider very traditional – only they are far from it.

Their digital model has and continues to evolve as they realize that traditional media still does have a place — and is it not in the coffin. The PR industry shouldn’t forget this either.

In its annual report on American journalism, the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, highlights some positive news hinting that the worst of traditional media’s die off has ended. Newspapers, once a bulwark for our industry, saw its weekday circulation numbers contract by 5% in 2010. While not fantastic, the losses in 2009 were twice that. Revenue too, saw, similar declines, (a drop of 6.3%) but that softening was nowhere near the death spiral of 2009 where revenue atrophied 26%.

The revenue picture looked even brighter at cable news, network television and local news outlets, as all three saw growth. Overall local news and radio faired the best, as many stations added early morning programs. For instance, in 2010 69 US cities offered a 4:30 a.m. TV news program, up from 28 in 2009. Radio, which has long since found its niche on car dashboards, saw revenue tick upward by 6% in 2010 after an 18% fall in 2009. Finally, magazine ad revenue was flat, compared to a 26% drop in ’09. While readership/viewership struggled, all traditional media outlets combined still enjoyed many millions of consumers.

As for the fine print beneath the big picture?

The reports of old school media’s death (in all its forms) are exaggerated. Americans continue to rely on traditional outlets — along with newer ones — to consume information. They are still relevant to many of us, as least for now.

My advice to my PR peeps?

Don’t turn your back on traditional media. Not yet. Remain plugged in with your broadcast and print contacts – don’t overlook them for lure of likes and RTs. While the media pie has gotten bigger and there are more pieces to cut, you never know when you might need them.

Winston Churchill, England’s WWII Prime Minister, cautioned against looking too far ahead into the future, saying, “Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.”

Let’s wait and see how the future media chain links connect and how that affects the destiny of traditional media before we sever those ties for good.

Via Marketing Daily 

Next Generation’s New Pathways – And Potential Dead Ends, All Just A Click Away

A recent post on the Future of Media (my favourite new blog) predicts that the next big business boom is likely to be in occupational therapy, (OT) and intimacy counselors. Millennials, the generation born post-1985, will increasingly require their services, having become too plugged in to remember that a “friend request” isn’t always a mouse-click away.

Sadly, I don’t think this a prediction, it’s  turning out to be true – and growing. A report, “Cyber Communication on Today’s Youth,” by the American Counseling Association was already ringing alarm bells in 2008. Reading the document three years on, it’s fascinating to note how much the digital landscape has changed in such a short period. While Myspace gets at least minor billing, Facebook, which was already 4-years-old at the time, does not receive a single reference.

How the mighty have fallen. Or, more to the point, how the mighty squandered a golden opportunity. But I digress…

If that much can change in three years, it’s rather hard to envision the next 1,100 days. While I’m praying for an economic rebound, I would hate to think that these new, or “reinvigorated” professions would be spurred by society’s digital addiction. When President Obama talked of job creation, it’s unlikely he was referring to these.

Taking advantage of our “click addiction”

A recent article in the New York Times looks at Americans’ growing reliance on their shrinks – online. Can’t make it to your weekly couch-session in person? Not a problem. Just fire up Skype and connect with your therapist anywhere. Having an anxiety attack, possibly caused by having to do an “in-person” interview? Get some webcam time with your therapist for an online RX.

And the irony continues..

Driving to the beach this morning, I was reminded of this growing “click-to-counsel” profession: A huge billboard touting a local hospital’s ER room “click and book your ER visit online.”

The scenario could go something like this..

Have an accident with the automatic carving knife. Put sorn-off finger(s) on ice. Log on to hospital’s ER booking system and reserve your place in the ER queue. Wait at home hoping you don’t lose conciousness in the meantime, or take a leisurely stroll for a few hours (with ice pack of course), stopping at a drive-thru before your appointed time slot.

“Turn on, tune in,” may have been part of ‘60s countercultural icon Timothy Leary’s well-known phrases. I doubt he would have imagined the phrase’s 21st century impact on the Children of the Sixties’ children.

Of course, “click-to-counsel” hadn’t been invented then. I wonder what he would have made of that?

Famous Last Words… Think Before You Speak

It would have been wise if John McWhorter, the renowned linguist, political commentator, lecturer, and blogger had taken his own advice from the title of one of his most recent posts: think before you speak.

McWhorter’s post for thedaily.com, last weekend was a controversial piece that in 842 words upended decades worth of linguistic study and knowledge. If we are to assume that different peoples speaking different languages perceive the world through different prisms, he argues, then the so-called “loser” of that arrangement  — the one with a subpar understanding of a given concept, be it love, hate, length of time, etc., etc. is doomed to inferiority.

“Before we celebrate this as showing that people…experience life in a dramatically different way than we do, we should consider that to embrace the idea of language differences as shaping perception in any radical way…denigrates the cognitive abilities of billions of the world’s human beings,” he says.

But ultimately, it’s McWhorter’s analysis that denigrates people, not the beauty and diversity of human perception. In fact, one could argue, that McWhorter’s all-or-nothing lens through which he views language is highly Amerocentric –that winner-take-all mentality that lay at the cornerstone of political beliefs like Manifest Destiny, rugged individualism and laissez-faire capitalism, and today very much resembles Monday night football.

Does this mean Americans view the world in two-dimensional, linear constructs. I do believe that. But that in no way implies that every non-American can’t view the world the same way if they so desired, and says nothing about different cultures, speaking different languages and their cognitive ability. The fact that IQs tend to rise in developed nations speaks –in whatever language you choose – to the power of opportunity, education and experience. It also suggests that most humans regardless of where live, have similar amounts of latent brainpower.

As PR agencies like mine continue adding new clients from across the globe, communication differences will undoubtedly create challenges in translating one idea and concept into another language and cultural context. I don’t know about you, but diminishing our clients’ cognitive abilities doesn’t sound like a good place to start.

Embracing difference, championing our linguistic uniqueness, and working with our clients to “get the message right” seems to me a far better approach.

Print’s Death March, Again

Here we go again. Another article predicting the end of print media, or to be more precise, referring to its now sunset years. A recent post called Editorial Exit on the Future of Media blog, joins a chorus of naysayers predicting the end of the traditional newsroom and dismantling of old school media.

But are we talking about a sunset or merely a solar eclipse?

Without question the last five years (and even 10 years) have not been kind to a host of traditional media. Web 2.0 (or are we nearly 3.0?), running lightening fast, interactive sites and “iWeb” – the Internet’s mobile revolution – is enjoying double-digit percentage growth. Certainly, traditional media’s influence has shrunk from a global superpower to a component of an increasingly diverse set of communications outlets, including web sites, mobile apps, blogs, Twitter feeds, and Facebook pages.

But referring to the present time period as traditional media’s sunset years is premature at best, and dead wrong at worst. In its annual report on American Journalism, the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, highlights some quite positive news hinting that the worst of traditional media’s die off has ended. Newspapers, once a bulwark for the communications industry, saw its weekday circulation numbers contract by 5 percent in 2010. While not fantastic, the losses in 2009 were twice that. In revenue terms the picture looked even brighter at cable news, network television and local news outlets as all three saw growth.

The bottom line: Record stores still exist, vinyl can still be purchased, and the “paperless office” has yet to fully mature. Traditional media may no longer be king, but it’s still serving in the king’s court

Lose The Word INNOVATION And Focus On What Really Counts: DELIVERING

“Avoid clichés like the plague,” is thrown about frequently in journalism and media circles as it is at ThinkInk. Like a well-worn record, or maybe I should update my own tired imagery to something like an endlessly re-tweeted tweet, clichés usually succeed in getting their point across, but not without the listener rolling their eyes over yet another hackneyed phrase. Too much use with too little care and the force behind the words is totally lost.

In today’s schizoid re-invent-the-wheel-every-day atmosphere – from wordy ways to jump start the job market, to long-winded debates over the commonsense logic of having the US government meet its debt obligations (yawn) – even the word “innovation” has lost much of its sparkle, according to Jack Springman, author and growth strategies consultant in a recent Harvard Business Review blog post.

His advice to readers: jettison the word “innovation” from their business vocabulary. Doing so, he says, refocuses a company’s attention on delivering quality to its customers, not the manufacture of buzzwords directed inward at corporate higher-ups.

While so deliberately discarding a word sounds a little sophomoric, kind of like having a “no-cursing” change jar to dissuade poor language (which definitely hasn’t worked at our agency – we simply love a good swear), Springman is nevertheless on to something. While doing research for his piece, a search of the term “innovation” on the HBR site came up with 4,700 results. Perform a similar Google search for “innovation” and “business” and you end up with 423,000,000 hits. Clearly the term innovation has, wait for it….. had its day in the sun.

Innovation, like guru, and expert, among countless other words, is a term that should be used like salt in a recipe, sparingly and with extreme care to not scuttle the dish. PR and communications firms should also take note Springman’s advice. I don’t know if innovation should be completely excised from our corporate lexicon, but a timeout is certainly in order.

What’s Your Digital Fitness Level?

Work It Social Media!

Earlier this week PepsiCo’s director of digital and social media B. Bonin Bough again chastised the PR industry for being digitally out of shape. “Digital fitness,” or knowledge about how clients use social media and a 101-understanding of the science behind search algorithms, said Bough, is essential if communications companies wish to stay on top of the ever-changing digital front.

To a large extent Bough’s tonic for the industry falls flat – pun intended. Put another way, if the PR industry –and the country – were as physically fit as we are digitally, we wouldn’t have an obesity epidemic on our hands. Digital fitness may be a great buzzword that generates web traffic, (of course we wouldn’t know  as digital luddites) but the reality is, social media, be it Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds or the almost-antique email, are already major components of our communications tool belts.

Think about it. Can anyone really imagine a PR company – or almost any successful organization – not relying on social media to promote their brand in some way? Moreover, today’s clients expect social media outreach as par for the proverbial course and not some gimmick-driven extra. Many of today’s college graduates entering the working world have already been using Facebook for a third of their lives, first signing on when they were in early high school in 2004.

A growing number too are graduating with degrees in social media.

And while demographers and the like forecast a graying workforce, data indicates that 78 percent of the US workforce in 2009 was made up of individuals ages 25-54. I don’t know about you, but I know plenty of 40 and 50-somethings who are just as (and if not more) iPad-savvy as the next 20 or 30-something.

To Bough’s point that Facebookers and Tweetters must intimately understand the science behind their media outlets, comparing the process to how children learn to ride bicycles, I cry foul. Yes, it’s true children don’t learn to ride a bicycle watching it sit idly by the curb. That’s why they get on and pedal. But ask a five-year-old about the basic laws of Newtonian motion that lie at the underpinnings of his first successful ride and he’ll draw a blank.

My point: Intimate knowledge of the inner workings of social media is important, to be sure, but just by using social media and receiving immediate feedback from our clients ensures that its usefulness and effectiveness grows organically.

Of all the ailments besetting our economy and the challenges communications companies face at attracting new clients in these difficult times, our collective digital fitness is not one of them. Now that I’m done exercising my fingers with this post I’m off to hit the pavement for a 5-k run.

“Gearing up for the holidays: more retailers integrating mobile this year”

While it’s a little early for sleigh bells and cheesy holiday tunes, there is a sound of anticipation going on in the retail industry as merchants start ramping up their 2011 holiday season campaigns. But instead of relying on in-store displays and traditional holiday campaigns, many merchants this year are turning to mobile for to help boost multi-channel campaigns. They are also using the holiday season to start developing mobile databases that will perform year around –not just until December 31^st.

An upcoming webinar from SoundBite called Mobilizing Retailers: Leveraging Mobile Marketing to Connect with Shoppers this Holiday Season will explore some of the challenges facing retailers this holiday season.

Part of a series of mobile education programs from SoundBite , the webinar will demonstrate the ways in which mobile marketing can be leveraged across retail campaigns and provide a practical guide on how to integrate strategies from express consent to mobile databases.  It will also provide key takeaways from national retailer Stage Stores on how these solutions can be applied to increase profits using strategic approaches to consumer communications that will grow loyalty and sales beyond 2011.

To register for Mobilizing Retailers: Leveraging Mobile Marketing to Connect with Shoppers this Holiday Season on Wednesday, September 21, 2011 at 2pm ET/11am PT, please click here.

Making Marketing Work What works, what doesn’t and what hoteliers should expect for 2012.

Hoteliers need to think beyond the press release. That’s the philosophy at ThinkInk, a public relations company that deals with the travel sector.

Chief Visibility Officer Vanessa Horwell said the idea is to use creative thinking and experience that goes beyond PR to develop compelling stories as a more effective way of generating coverage and interest. She said this approach has generated better results for clients – results that change perceptions, shape opinion, and create new business opportunities.

Buyer Interactive asked Horwell to share her insights for marketing in 2011: What works, what doesn’t and what hoteliers should expect for 2012 and beyond.

As far as marketing: why don’t you start by giving a definition of what marketing is, and how it differs from public relations, advertising, or social media. Then, please explain how these four disciplines intertwine.

It’s easy to see how public relations, advertising, and social media can be related to or confused with marketing – particularly with mentions of new hybrids and the overlap of these industries. Differentiating marketing from public relations has a lot to do with agenda: marketing is concerned with the public and selling, whereas PR starts with the relationships both interoffice (a CEO and employees) and with those linked to the company for a variety of reasons (such as shareholders or investors) – and it’s seen as a two-way street. Marketing’s goals are business driven and customer focused.

That said, marketing and public relations do overlap. They are complimentary; a public relations team can create the company reputation that a marketing group seeks to promote. As for advertising? It’s a single component in the marketing process that can create positive talk and awareness about a product, a business, or service. Social media marketing is an additional component of the marketing process recognizing that we can influence a consumer both before and after sales – and it’s best when combined with other forms of marketing. There should also be a lot more discussion between these groups as the outcome can be so successful. When we integrate our efforts with a client’s ad agency, creative team and/or marketing department, the results are incredible.

What marketing does work for hoteliers?

Recent observations about the hotel industry can rattle hoteliers who aren’t entirely engaged with marketing. Value is king; consumers want to be more comfortable than ever – with perks – but they also don’t want to overpay. They know they have the power to affect a hotel’s reputation with a few clicks, too which has created an entirely new breed of hotel guest. Before settling on a marketing campaign, hoteliers needs to dig deep and ask themselves what reviews they’d like to see in a best-case scenario perspective. After they envision the hotel they’d like to be known as, they can begin making that a reality. Developing a service culture starts with such a vision, and that is what guests buy into. Some basic marketing strategies that work for hoteliers include:

Refining Copy and Being Consistent – this may sound trite or very common, but many hotels are repeat offenders. Copy and layout across all the channels you use (web, email, print) need to be professionally polished and completely in line with your marketing goals. Who is your audience, and does your site/channel speak to them? Too many hotel marketing campaigns lack creative spark, are template driven, and are not sufficiently targeted or personalized.

Using SEO – Organic search results are a great place to start refining your marketing efforts, and it reduces or balances dependence on OTAs. This latter point, reliance on OTAs, is a theme we are going to see come up again and again over the next year as hotels (and travel operators) try to regain control of their customers and those relationships.

Engaging Mobile Travelers – The mobile channel opportunity is immense, as is the market potential for relevant ancillary services. Aligning yourself with a mobile-ready site and strategy can help you attract the always connected guest whether for business and pleasure. More and more travelers are also using location-based services, and combing mobile commerce and social into their travel purchasing patterns.

Promoting Your Hotel’s Green Side – It’s not a trend that you should approach through greenwashing, but if you have made real attempts to be green, you should find a way to make the most of it. I don’t think green has ever realized its full potential – certainly not from a hotel marketing standpoint. But it can be a differentiator, and it will appeal to a passionate and dedicated demographic.

Developing Appealing Special Offers – The more you learn about your visitor profile, the more you’ll be able to appeal to them – and through a variety of channels. But beware of “the deal.” While deal platforms may be all the craze this year, like social media, consumers are going to experience deal fatigue quite soon. Establish your value proposition and stick with it. Don’t undervalue your brand for the sake of a short term cash spike.

What doesn’t work, marketing-wise and why?

Following trends won’t necessarily help attract new customers. As I mentioned above, deals are the new marketing go-to for some hotels, but dangerous in my opinion. Any initiative that devalues a hotel brand through discounting tactics also works against building loyalty. And while maybe old-school, communicating value, service, and most importantly, relevancy is very effective. As is personalized communication. I can’t tell you how many times I have received the most off-target emails and offers from hotels – and ones that I am loyalty program member of. If hotel marketers thought more like retail marketers, the end results would be drastically different. Hmmm, now that’s a thought…

We’re entering 4th quarter 2011, and travel is going to ramp up with the holidays. How can hoteliers take advantage of this busy season?

Strategy is key. In order to maximize bookings, make sure that everything is functioning on your sites and on all partnership sites/OTAs. Think about solutions that maximize revenue opportunities. It’s a basic step, but you’d be surprised how often a booking bug can affect performance, particularly in the case of high-volume traffic.

Look at previous numbers to determine accurate patterns of traffic surges to better time promotions and special offers. Consider what perks – not discounts – you can use to enhance the booking experience this season since we know that customers have become more demanding in terms of value-for-money. Seasonal social media promotions are just as important as they are year-round.

What should hoteliers expect in 2012?

Market predictions provide the most eye-opening glance at 2012. A new PhoCusWright report reports that by the end of 2012, one in three hotel stays will be booked online. Social media will continue to play a large part in online promotions, and we can expect even more customer service issues to be handled in an accelerated manner online, thanks to social media. Leading on from that I think that experiences will be key for hotels in 2012. Creating experiences “beyond the room” will drive incremental value and turn hotels into destinations. Look at SLS. Hoteliers can bank on that.

What’s the best piece of free advice – that hasn’t been heard before – that you can give our readers?

Pay attention to developments like Google’s Hotel Finder, which can help fine-tune online efforts for maximum bookings. While still in beta, Google’s experiment has opened up a lot of opportunities to examine best practices from a new perspective and re-evaluate hotel sites with the most current recommendations in mind. Work with channel partners that can help your brand grow. There’s a lot of new information about what travelers need and want. The booking window has shrunk, booking behaviors have changed, we are dealing with mobilized consumers, and strategies and tactics need to change as a result. Hoteliers by and large are risk averse, but a degree of risk taking is absolutely needed in this market. I hate to use the cliché “adapt or die,” but it’s true. Many hotels are marketing like it’s 1999, not heading into 2012. I was recently brought into a project to work on a very large chain’s loyalty program, and the marketing they were using was the same as it was five years ago. Look head, not behind. This may not be said often – or at all (because no one really wants to hear it), but that is my free advice.

Article by Erica Lamburg, posted on Hotel Interactive: http://bit.ly/mVt17i

10 Years Later: A Look At The Impact of 9/11 On Nonprofits And Giving

As most of the country spent yesterday, September 11, remembering and reflecting on the day of immense tragedy that took place 10 years ago, we also recounted that day, and how its events changed the course of our lives, businesses, outlook and, well, the world.

If you think about it, the period of 2001 to 2011 could go down in history as the “decade of disasters.”

Beginning with 9/11, threats of WMD, two (many will argue unnecessary) wars, a deep and still lingering recession bookended with a spate of natural disasters both at home and in every corner of the globe, and not least an extremely noxious political climate that threatens to divide the country: It’s hardly surprising that society’s capacity to empathize and to give often to charitable causes has diminished.

It’s The Economy Stupid

Of course, it’s important to remember the first victims of the “disaster decade,” even if a myriad of other events have shared the spotlight since, but a still-weak economy remains a sewer-sized drain on America’s almost empty wallets and has undoubtedly affected the bottom line of every nonprofit organization.

Data released last year (the most recent figures we have available) revealed that charitable giving dropped by a hefty 11 percent compared to 2009. At that time, nearly two-thirds of those surveyed in a Harris Interactive poll said they would be giving less than they were 12 months ago.

Worse still, the number of respondents who said they would be giving nothing as of last September doubled to 12 percent.

In the year since that report, the private sector has added a million new jobs (1.6 million from September ’10 to August ’11; 1.7 million from August ’10 to August ’11 – both figures seasonally adjusted from US Department of Labor: Bureau of Labor Statistics).

That may sound encouraging, but when you consider that at the height of the 2008 recession, American payrolls were contracting by some 800,000 jobs per month, it’s clear there is a very long way to go – in terms of job creation and rebuilding a society of Americans who have the capacity to give.

Today, some 14 million of our friends, families, and strangers remain out of work and the jobless predicament remains dire.

Perhaps we should look close to home and at our own neighbors to reignite our sense of empathy? Perhaps we should re-start our giving mindset by helping our fellow Americans – those 14 million who are jobless and in many cases homeless.  Their lives, after all, could have been ours. Perhaps 9/11 should be renamed Our National Day of Service, where Americans help fellow Americans – in any way they can.

Because charity begins right at home – around the corner, up the stairs, or across the street.  Perhaps then we can start to look outward again and start helping those organizations that rely on us to support their worthwhile causes and those in need.

Join us on I will to make your commitment to helping others in any way you can.

Feeding The Search Beast: Google Acquires Restaurant Guide, Zagat

 

Thirty points out of thirty. That’s how restaurant guide Zagat ranked its own acquisition by Google earlier today with a now-famous dining out scale.

Zagat-o-philes, too, will likely approve of the deal, which will help Google deliver even better localized restaurant, foodie,  and nightlife search results.

In a letter posted on Zagat’s website husband and wife team Tim and Nina Zagat referred to their 32-year-old company as a longtime innovator in user-generated content. “Google delivers the most relevant and high-quality information, and it’s the perfect home for our content,” they wrote. “We are thrilled to see our baby placed in such good hands and to start today as official ‘Googlers.’”

But Brad McCarty, blogger for thenextweb blog rightly points out there’s more going on than just improving Google searches and an older company moving into the “next course” of its career. Besides, the Zagat app for mobile devices is already onto version 4.0.4 and the latest one was launched just last month. Are foodies so ravenous for better search results?

The purchase by the behemoth search engine – and  the anything and everything portal to the web – comes some three years after Zagat reportedly put itself up for sale for $200 million but then backed out of the process. Today, Zagat will join ranks with the 100+ other companies already purchased by Google. Considering Google’s increasing forays into other travel-related ventures, there’s no telling what other markets Google plans on gobbling up next.

Advertising Age agrees, and says “the internet giant is starting to look a little more like a media company.”

The Very Hungry Google

From a PR perspective, such developments reinforce the need to make certain our clients figure prominently in Google searches. Our stories and releases must take into account search optimization and search marketing – it’s no longer an afterthought, but embedded in our thinking and our products.

The web, and Google, continue to remake how we as communications experts package and deliver our clients’ messages right down to the local dining out guide.

All this talk of restaurants and dining out has made me hungry and on that note, I’m off for a bite.