Public Relations

On last night’s episode of The Simpsons, Springfield was graced with the appearance of a fake Apple store, known as Mapple.  The iconic cube store appeared in cartoon form complete with MyPods, MyPhones, MyCubes and an appearance by Steve Mobs reminiscent of the 1984 commercial.  Should Apple take offense or is satire is the sincerest form of flattery?

[via Laughing Squid]

The folks at innocent drinks, makers of tasty smoothies, have revamped their site to include a rating and review section. Hoping to foster a more robust brand culture and connection with their audience, innocent is trying out a consumer-centric website. The new feedback area provides simple ratings along with more detailed reviews. A built-in feature promises to randomly select comments to be highlighted on the homepage and further entices visitors by awarding funky prizes each month. The site layout was designed by Soup with a goal of pushing the playful nature of the company into the digital arena.

[via Ellie @ Soup]

Creative Cities Summit 2.0 concluded this week in Detroit, Michigan, a three-day conference bringing together creative practitioners from across industries (from city planners to educators) in a discussion about the integration of innovation, social entrepreneurship, sustainability, arts & culture and business and their roles in our urban ecologies. Brand Avenue points us to one of the conference’s most enlightening panels - a talk between Who’s Your City?’s Richard Florida, COMEDIA’S Charles Landry, and The Creative Economy author John Howkins (moderated by Carol Coletta of Smart City Radio). As Brand Avenue retells, Landry brings up the important distinction between how big and small cities make a name for themselves:

Memorable was Landry’s commentary about icons and signature buildings, particularly for smaller cities that seek to raise their profiles: “rather than one icon, do 100 things well that together, become an icon.” In other words, avoid the overarching narrative, and look for ways to draw attention to the small, incremental, positive developments (architectural, economic, social, educational, etc) that together, make the image of the city greater than the sum of its parts. An interesting point vis a vis the potential fallability of a place branding approach.

An associated and similarly good point: that everything is a resource in the creation of place–every indvidual move… Or, to quote a conference organizer on Sunday, “you are a media channel:” your story is also a part; you are also an agent. Your small move is a resource, one that plays a role in the creation of place; and places are made out of, for, and by people.

Brand Avenue: Doing 100 Things Well

The dairy lobby has always been a powerful force in America, but recently they saw their classic ad campaigns overtaken by cartoon characters that children more readily relate to.  These new school cultural icons easily sway children in purchasing choices.  The proliferation of SpongeBob snacks or Spiderman cereals drove Big Milk to form a modern marketing group known as “Milk Media.”  In the venture’s first deal, school milk consumption increased 34% after the implementation of Disney’s Doug into the milk campaign.  While milk has enemies, they certainly have fans in the federal government who wish to promote the milk alternative to sugary foods. The New York Times reports in the Consumed section of their Magazine:

The goal of Milk Media, Long insists, is not to advance the interests of pop-culture products; the goal is to leverage their power to promote milk consumption. “You can have Shrek beating the drum for 500 different sugar products or the Transformers saying, ‘Drink milk and roll out,’ ” he says. “I think we’re doing a lot of good.” In other words, he sees Milk Media’s approach as responding to the realities of the kid-culture marketplace.

[via Murketing]

The PR industry as we once knew it is dead.  We’ve written about this topic before, but recently we came across some advice on creating the best PR through the social aggregator, FriendFeed.  SocialTNT explains the most efficient way to market yourself or your company in a well organized article.

The important lessons detailed involve staying current on the feed to maximize media research opportunities and taking advantage of the contacts you have.  In a new world that values usefulness over experience, staying current is critical.  Becoming involved is one of the central aims of FriendFeed and you can easily attain this by getting involved in discussion through comments or messages.  These straightforward pursuits can make the difference of using a site like FriendFeed and taking advantage of the tool it’s meant to be used as.

[via socialTNT]

Over the summer ISO50 linked a gallery of 70 business cards that are in a creative league of their own.  The business card is a time tested strategy to market oneself and many of those in the gallery exhibit unique characteristics that fit each business they represent.  These include a divorce lawyer with half a card, an asthma centers written on a balloon, a second hand store with the first contact info scratched out and plethora of simply laid out graphic designer cards.  The photos were all taken from a Flickr pool where people posted the coolest cards they’ve found, so if you have a particularly innovative business card, throw it in the bunch.  Your odds of landing a client may be better than winning a free lunch at your local restaurant.

[via ISO50]

We’ve been spending quite a lot of time in the last few weeks considering the right venue to hold our next conference. After a long search, we’ve decided that there couldn’t be anything more appropriate than holding an event that celebrates creativity in the region at the Asian Civilisations Museum. Here’s a little background to the venue

The Asian Civilisations Museum is the first museum in the region to present a broad yet integrated perspective of pan-Asian cultures and civilisations. As one of the National Museums of Singapore under the National Heritage Board, they seek to promote a better appreciation of the rich cultures that make up Singapore’s multi-ethnic society.

While Singapore’s forefathers came to settle in Singapore from many parts of Asia within the last 200 years, the cultures brought to Singapore by these different people are far more ancient. This aspect of Singapore’s history is the focus of the ACM. The Museum’s collection therefore centres on the material cultures of the different groups originating from China, Southeast Asia, South Asia and West Asia.

Tickets are selling well - get yours at: http://psfkconferenceasia.eventbrite.com/

Looks like the Apple vs. Microsoft war is heating up as far as advertising is concerned. Just as the Mac is releasing a set of ads that focus on the fact that they can transfer files from a PC to a Mac free of charge (”just like that”), Microsoft has decided to carry out one of their biggest advertising campaigns in recent times, and has roped in comedian Jerry Seinfeld to hold their flag high. At a cost of $300 million for the campaign and $10 million just for Seinfeld, we’re going to pay close attention to how successful it is going to be (or not).

Tech magazine Crave has actually crowd-sourced the whole topic. Their readers have smartly pointed out that Seinfeld actually used a Mac in the sitcom, and have a whole range of suggestions for alternatives that Microsoft should have considered. Check them out here. You’ll have a good laugh, that’s for sure!

[via Huffington Post, CNet and Mooch]

At Marktd offices, we’ve noticed a backlash against the PR industry from bloggers and other web 2.0 movers and shakers. On Silicon Alley Insider, Jason Calacanis tells budding entrepreneurs that they don’t need a PR agency.

As both subject and writer it feels like I’ve learned a lot about how the PR and the press works–especially in the technology business.

My philosophy of PR is summed up in six words: be amazing, be everywhere, be real.

You don’t need a PR firm, you don’t need an in-house PR person and you don’t need to spend ANY money to get amazing PR. You don’t need to be connected, and you don’t need to be a “name brand.” Today, many bloggers lament how much press folks like Kevin Rose and Robert Scoble get. They say that they get too much attention and that they got this attention too quickly and without earning it.

Michael Arrington, founder of Techcrunch, has similar suggestions:

I can’t speak for big media journalists who’ve been in the game for years and years, but from my experience with blogging for a few years, I agree that PR as a profession is broken.

They’re trying to apply the same rules they used when the number of journalists covering their companies was a manageable, chummy lot. Today there’s a whole spectrum of people writing about startups in big media publications, large and small blogs, Twitter, Friendfeed and everything in between.

Most PR folks don’t read blogs and certainly don’t understand them. All they see is a Google alert with their clients name, and rush to put out a fire. Down the road they may try to bring those bloggers into the fold, largely relying on word of mouth as to the best way to approach them in lieu of actually reading the blog itself.

That leads to the occasional massive clusterfuck and some truly hilarious moments that I would like to write a book about some day. To sum it all up, the relationship between bloggers and PR firms is shaky at best. Or at least it should be. Some bloggers really cultivate PR relationships, but for me PR is the last refuge when I’m attacking a story. They keep trying to put out the fires I’m starting.

So back to practical advice: what do you do if you’re a startup looking for help in getting the word out about your company? First off, don’t hire PR help until the volume of inbound requests by press are simply too much to handle without help. That’s way down the line for most companies.

PR professional Morgan McLintic suggests that maybe the quality of PR staff isn’t that high:

Is PR broken? Yes - but it has been broken for a long time. My friend Dennis Howlett taught me many of the things which PR firms do wrong in the mid-nineties: not reading the publication; not understanding the reporter’s beat; not having a firm grasp of the technology; not having a good story; not following up etc. These things have nothing to do with blogging or new technology.

Fact is, and I’ll whisper this, some PR people just aren’t that good. And, I’m afraid even good ones make mistakes (yes horrific huh?). And, others frankly are just busy sometimes.

Sure, the technical changes in communications can compound those mistakes and make them more public. And yes, we’re all learning how to use each new channel, and write new forms of more and best practice. But there are still low barriers to entry for PR, so there are still poor practitioners out there.