Imitation is flattery but this is ridiculous

2/28/09 - Quite the phone call this morning from our client at BusinessCashAdvance.com. Turns out that a news release we drafted and distributed on the company’s behalf was copied, nearly word-for-word, by one of its competitors.

You be the judge. Here's a snippet of our client's original news release:

And the competitor's copycat:


Has anyone ever had this happen to them? This is my 20th year in the PR biz, and I have never seen anything this brazen.

Our client is steaming, and rightly so.

--John

Nice Hit in Miami Herald Business Monday

2/18/09 - Here's one that answers the regular question: What do you guy's do?

For one, we get our clients ink, such as this profile in The Miami Herald's Business Monday section. Our client, ParkSouth, was featured in the Sunshine Industries profile in Monday's paper. It was a nice piece about how the developers of ParkSouth are playing an integral role in the development of the Homestead Park of Commerce and adding industrial/warehouse space into the mix in Homestead.

The Herald's Spanish-language counterpart El Nuevo Herald ran a version of the story yesterday.

--John

Another example why newspapers are struggling

2/6/09 -The Internet, YouTube and people’s access to the Web have shortened the news cycle (some call it the 24-hour news cycle) to the point that it is difficult for newspapers to compete.

Here’s the example:

• Yesterday morning, University of Tennessee football coach Lane Kiffin said at an alumni and booster breakfast that University of Florida football coach Urban Meyer violated recruiting rules. Kiffin basically called Meyer a cheater – a hefty allegation in the rule-sensitive NCAA circles.
• By 11 a.m., a Tennessee TV station posted on its Web site that Kiffin called Meyer a cheater.
• By 3 p.m. (and probably earlier) video of Kiffin’s speech was available on YouTube.
• By late afternoon, UF issued a statement saying Kiffin didn’t know the rules and that Meyer had been slandered.
• By day’s end, the Southeastern Conference had rebuked Kiffin and he quickly apologized.

A few years back, pre-Internet and YouTube, daily newspapers would have controlled this story. The day after the speech, a paper would run the story which might get picked up by other papers one day after that. And a few days later, the apology and rebuke would have surfaced. What I’m saying is that not too long ago, this story would have played out over the span of a week – driven by newspaper coverage – rather than playing out in hours over the Web.

This is just another example of how tough it is for printed editions of newspapers to compete in the age of the 24-hour news cycle.

--John

Building Brand Value, Turkel-Style

2/4/09 - I attended a great presentation last night featuring brand building expert Bruce Turkel. He spoke at the Society for Professional Services Marketing meeting at Miami-Dade College. I have actually known Bruce for more than 15 years, and he is truly one of the good guys.


He offers an entertaining and thought provoking discourse on how well-known companies have built their brands, and more importantly, how to build your own. His lessons are of value to any business, so I'm going to share some of his wisdom.


He wrote a book on brand value, but he shortened it up last night. Here's his "cheat sheet."



1. All about them. People care most about things that affect them. In order to reach them, you need to communicate in a way that tells them "what's in it for me?"


2. Hearts then minds. People make decisions based on emotions and justify their decisions with the facts. To get someone to pay attention, you must get them emotionally.



3. Make it simple. Today's world is a busy, confusing place. To make an impression and an impact, your message must be succinct and digestible.


4. Make it quick. Enough said.


5. Make it yours. A message is truly powerful only if it is associated with you or your product. make sure that the message you're presenting belongs only to you and you alone.


6. All five senses. Conversations involve all of the human senses. To communicate effectively, make sure you're engaging as many of your audience's senses as possible.


7. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Your message must be repeated often enough that your audience can act on it. Ironically, this doesn't give you license to be repetitive, but demands new and creative ways to reinforce your position.


Bruce has a bunch of Web sites. His doodles are at turkeldoodles.com. His blog is turkeltalks.com. He is also an avid harmonica player, and he indulges himself and his audience. Here's a clip of him playing his harmonica which I am playfully calling Turkel Blows (he knows I tend to kid). For more info on Bruce, visit http://www.turkel.info/







--John

Twitter Power Firsthand

2/2/09 - Today, I experienced the power of Twitter and social media firsthand.

I read a great story in yesterday's Miami Herald about the so-called "Cuba Plan," the newspaper's guidelines and plans for how it will cover the eventual death of Fidel Castro. I really enjoyed reading Manny Garcia's story and decided that many folks who I know would like it too -- and guessed that many might have missed it.

This morning I sent out a twitter post with a link to the story. (Remember that twitter posts are short bursts of info and limited to 140 characters.) Here's what I said:

johnpdavid Miami Herald waits on death of Fidel. And waits..and waits...http://tinyurl.com/caq578

Within minutes, I had five new twitter followers, and more were coming in by the minute. At this moment, about three hours later, I have 19 new followers -- an increase of about 30 percent from this morning. That's a nice number of people to newly expose to our business and our services.

It turns out that my most famous follower is Rick Sanchez of CNN. He read the post, liked it and mentioned it on his twitter account with a link to mine. Rick has almost 50,000 people following him (but he only follows about half of those.) Rick drove a ton of traffic to my twitter page.

And there you have it. Social media can do interesting things if the right folks connect to each other and exchange interesting facts and ideas.

I was already a believer in twitter and other forms of social media, but now I have a great, personal example to cite.

--John

Here's a link to the original Herald article: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/issues_ideas/story/880787.html