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Just as the aphorism goes that “there are lies, damn lies and advertising,” I wonder if it’s time for someone to come up with one about stunts –especially the PR variety.
Let me be clear. I don’t condemn stunts. In fact it might be construed as another word for ‘tactic’ or creative attempt to make a point.
So I was about to classify this latest ‘underwater cabinet meeting‘ by the President of Maldives as a stunt, but I thought I’d put the question to my readers to check the pulse first. I won’t go into the details here, suffice to say that it takes a bit of effort to get your cabinet to strip down to scuba diving suits –and anchor desks to the coral– to pull off something like this.
But back to the definition of a PR stunt. Here are some past examples that might fall into this category.
- Pole dancing in the streets of Manhattan
- Admitting to a PR stunt -charging for use of bathrooms on planes
- Boy lost in runaway balloon –a stunt that looks like an accident
I know, there are more. But for our purposes, let’s ask if promoting a cause or a brand validates the approach. Governments are quick to blame each other when an international or bilateral crisis arises, calling it a stunt, even though there had been no specific public facing activity. Headline writers find it a useful 5-letter word to spice up a story. (As in this one, that was clearly a misplaced use of money, rather than a stunt).
I would think a PR stunt is anything that
- Involves an event or a sustained activity that is staged, primarily for gaining media attention
- Is unusual or controversial
- Is connected with an extended campaign that does not involve PR or advertising. Behavior modification, for example
The first --gaming the media –can be dangerous, if done to fool the media. If the balloon incident being debated this week proves to be an act of self-promotion by wasting time and money of a sheriff’s department, that’s a dumb stunt, indeed.
The second –is often creative and harmless. The guy who dons a pizza delivery attire and ‘delivers’ his resume (attached to the box) to a marketing director, is clearly breaking out of the old method (email or mail) to get his application to the top of the pile.
The third –wins my approval, hands down. This is what all good (insert the word ‘marketing,’ ’cause promotion,’ ‘advertising’ as a prefix here) campaigns ought to be.
President Nasheed’s course of action seems more like the third category. He has a point to make, and what better way than for a leader of a country surrounded by –and threatened by– water to do this?
This morning I am participating in a web video conference for the US embassy in Sri Lanka on how to think about social media.
My working title for this is ”Think Outside the Blog,’ considering how blogs have become the center of gravity for so much of what we do –what we produce, consume, how we distribute, connect, and participate in the so-called link economy.
I therefore will be digging deeper, and framing it around Cocktail Conversations –how web 2.0 (which has infected our listening and speech faculties) lets us communicate in a very crowded room.
Why is the room crowded? First because everyone is gate crashing the party! It ’s not just crowded, but noisy because everyone –and not just PR people, journalists and marketers– has a voice. Unfortunately everyone has arrived at the party with a megaphone, rather than an antenna. As such in social media (as in social life!) the best communicators are the best listeners.
But I will also be broaching the topic of whether content is still king. I hear this all the time, at new media hangouts, writing seminars etc. I don’t dispute that cointent is VERY important (the alternative is fluff) but we don’t give enough respect to context. It’s way too easy to come up with, and deliver content. Context takes more work.
Another way to think about this topic is to think about who really has a voice today? In the market economy, those who had the money to run ads and PR campaigns controlled the conversation. In the link economy there are new contenders to the throne.
“We’ve just had a demonstration of democracy.”
Senator Arlen Specter, after a person attending a town hall meeting shouted at him. The man was escorted out of the room, at a Harrisburg Community College.
“The Obama administration has delivered … a message of tough love. We are not sugarcoating the problems. We’re not shying away from them.”
Secretary Hillary Clinton, summing up her trip to Africa
“The Internet disrupts any industry whose core product can be reduced to ones and zeros ..it is the biggest virgin forest out there”
Jose Ferreira, founder and CEO of education startup Knewton
“Doing sustainability is fine, but being sustainable is where we want to wind up.”
Michelle Bernhart, author of “The Rules of the Game” in an upcoming edition of IABC’s Communication World magazine, interviewed by Natasha Nicholson.
“FriendFeed, in my mind, is the new RSS reader.”
Robert Quigley in Old Media New Tricks
“Macaca Day, for those of us who make our living from video on the Internet and elsewhere, is a holy day – the day that marks the birth of YouTube politics, and reminds us that citizens with cellphone cameras and a YouTube account – or at least an election.”
Dan Manatt, at Tech President, on the infamous comment by senator George Allen during the election campaign
“Google Voice “is merely symptomatic of that larger question.”
Ben Scott, public policy director of Free Press, a Washington-based consumer advocacy group in Washington, on the investigation on whether the carrier (AT&T) and handset maker (Apple) had anything to do with banning Google’s voice application from the iPhone.
“This is a decision based upon consumer experiences, child protection and our strategic investment to build up MSN Messenger.”
Geoff Sutton, GM of MSN Europe, on the decision to shut down Microsoft chat rooms in 28 countries.
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“The narrow prism of terrorism”
John Brennan, President Obama’s new counter-terrorism chief, saying the present administration won’t be looking at allies and other nations this way anymore.
FACT: You do own your brand and brand messaging
FACT: You don’t own relationships customers have with your brand
Beth Harte, at SocialMediaToday.com on Brand Vs Brand Relationships
“Washington Post Magazine ceases its XX Files feature in Sept. Probably cause?…the essays tended to focus on negative experiences with men.”
“But the pleasure of turning the page! I protested. The feel of something organic, not electronic, in your hands. The crispness…”
Jessica Burnette-Lemon, on looking at the Amazon Kindle
“Scare you away yet?”
Job description for AXIS Inc., for entry-level marketing position that requires knowledge in PR, customer service, sales…
“Successful candidate will have: 1) LinkedIn, MySpace, and/or Facebook account; 2) Twitter account with consistent, frequent updates; 3) Personal blog”
Job description for Social Media Director at ADF
“It’s a big surprise to me that my blog has meant that 250m people have not been able to enter Facebook.”
A blogger names Georgy, on the reason for the denial of service attacks on popular networks Facebook and Twitter.
“Military computers off-limits to tweeting GIs.”
Headline of article about the Marine Corps banning soldiers from using military computer networks to access FAcebook, Myspace and Twitter.
As we say farewell to ‘the most trusted man in America, I wanted to dedicate this week’s Quotes of the Week to Uncle Walter, a role model for me, and for many in journalism, and storytelling.
“In seeking truth you have to get both sides of a story.”
“Everything is being compressed into tiny tablets. You take a little pill of news every day – 23 minutes – and that’s supposed to be enough.”
“Television [is] a high-impact medium. It does some things no other force can do-transmitting electronic pictures through the air. Still, as an explored, comprehensive medium, it is not a substitute for print.”
“Objective journalism and an opinion column are about as similar as the Bible and Playboy magazine”
“It wasn’t just that he narrated the spikes in modern history …Mr. Cronkite’s air of authority, lightly worn and unquestioned, was unusual even then.”
Allesandra Stanley, in The New York Times, about Walter Cronkite, who died on Friday.
“And that’s the way it is.”
Great summaries of his life here:
I love Don Henninger’s column in the Phoenix Business Journal. He comes across as the neighbor you always bump into when you mow your lawn –and happily gets in the way of that awful chore.
A few weeks back, when he wrote about ‘Seeing a Tweetie bird‘ I knew this was the moment I was expecting. “I’m a Twit” he opened with, admitting he was late in arriving, but inviting us to interact –minus the what-we-have-for-breakfast stuff. (Find him here on Twitter.)
E.J. Montini, another wonderful writer here in the Valley is right now going through a similar process. In last week’s Republic he’s all Facebooky but not all atwitter, he says. Montini already maintains a blog. My guess is that it won’t be long before he’s carving out 140-character column-like posts. Any bets?
I’ve seen news people I would least expect take on parts of social networking and blogging that must have gone against the grain of what they were taught at J-school.
You can do it Montini!
Some useful links:
- How to use Twitter for journalism
- MuckRack has a good list of journalists using Twitter, photos
- Media On Twitter: If you’re a journalist, you can add your name to a database
In case you’ve been following the thread about a new attitude toward reporting and some of the trends we occasionally highlight, you may want to check how some parts of the media is covering the Iran elections.
The New York Times, which is as mainstream as you can get, is unleashing its full force of new media smarts in the online section called The Lede. Check how they are updating, aggregating reports from a variety of sources, and keeping the story alive.
Here is how they describe the new experiment:
“The Lede is a news blog that remixes the day’s top stories, adding information gleaned from Web sites around the world or gathered through original reporting by writers, editors and readers of The New York Times, to provide fresh perspectives on events and to draw readers in to the world-wide conversation about the news taking place online.”
- Cross posted to Blink
- Updated post at Communication World
“Authentic communication is the new requirement, a paradigm shift has already happened, and most companies and communicators haven’t made the shift.”
Barbara Gibson, in her last post (The Last Hurrah) as outgoing IABC chair.
“that onerous system of checks and rewrites and hand wringing where legions of non-writers add their personal stamp to a piece of communication … to the point of unreadability.”
Steve Crescenzo, citing one of the two biggest obstacles to effective internal comms. The other is an overzealous IT Team.
“Twitter Tees brings community-powered t-shirt design to Twitter.
Threadless, which launched a way for Twitter users to vote on 4 T shirts with tweets that include “in space, no one can hear you tweeet” and “140 is the new 420″
“He’s the most … trollish person I’ve ever worked with!”
Leo Laporte, after cutting off Tech Crunch’s Mike Arrington, who suggested that Laporte had received a free Palm Pre.
“Did I really want to tell the world that I was out of town? Because the card in my camera automatically added location data to my photos, anyone who cared to look at my Flickr page could see my computers, my spendy bicycle, and my large flatscreen TV all pinpointed on an online photo map.”
Israel Hyman of Arizona, who claims his house may have been robbed because of his Twitter updates.
“We got the cure for Search Overload Syndrome.”
Microsoft Bing copy, on Facebook
“Every three years, the world completely changes, which makes strategic planning difficult. But while you can’t predict a future, you can prepare yourself for multiple futures.”
Mike Curran, the unofficial jobs guru of Silicon Calley, who is retiring after 23 years as director of NOVA
“we forgot the relationship part of public relations”
Lee Hopkins (@leehopkins) tweeting at the #IABC09 conference in San Francisco this week
“Although the pandemic appears to have moderate severity in comparatively well-off countries, it is prudent to anticipate a bleaker picture…”
Dr Margaret Chan, Dir Gen of World Health Organization, on raising the global pandemic level to Level 6
“a high-stakes poker game”
Former U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson, on North Korea sentencing of two US journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee
Happy to note that I now have six podcasts published on iTunes.
They are also here at the Decision Theater blog.
More to follow!
I began the podcasts, Light Bulb Moments as a complement to the Decision Theater blog that bears the same name.
But none of this happenned overnight. Podcasting is an interesting a curious exercise. As those who do it will tell you, there are many components to it, from the interview prep, to the editing (if you’re not going live to the drive, as some pros like Mitch Joel and CC Chapman do), and the publishing.
My deep appreciation to two people –fellow IABC members– who have been my inspiration to get started: Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson. For the past –what was it?– three or more years I’ve listened to several communications and PR podcasts, and still do. But For Immediate Release has been one show I never fail to get back to. I learned the nuts and bolts of the trade from their book, How to do everything with podcasting, then took a class at ASU, and jumped in. Suddenly the deep-end doesn’t feel so intimidating.
A note about Light Bulb Moments. It’s a sort of a peek behind the curtain, if you will, at what goes on here at the Decision Theater.
The core area (left), a room with floor-to-ceiling screens is a high-tech interactive environment. It’s used for planning –scenario planning– systems thinking and policy making.
We work with cities, businesses, govt agencies, school districts / schools and non-profits; more recently in pandemic influenza planning exercises. It looks very complex from the outside. So since part of my job is to communicate and distill that complexity, podcasts are perfect for this. It lets me capture the light bulb moments, plus the nuances –right down to the ambient sound.
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