The Power of Martha
If you noticed that mayo was trending today, you have Martha Stewart to thank. She asked her Twitter followers for their thoughts on Hellmann’s brand mayonnaise versus Kraft Miracle Whip and to “answer asap.” Within two hours, both brand names were trending topics.
- Date: 06.10.2010
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From the Streets to the Skies
In this day of digital and social media, things like billboards don’t seem like the best way of reaching a mass audience, let alone, calling people to action. It’s hard to read them when you’re driving by, and even if you can, it’s hard to remember that phone number to call or website to visit once you reach your destination. That is, unless the message is short, and there’s a homeless man sitting on top of the billboard.
Last month, Mobile Loaves & Fishes, a nonprofit company providing food and shelter to the homeless and working poor, along with marketing agency The Think Tank (T3), created the “I Am Here” campaign in hopes of raising awareness and funds for one particular homeless man, Danny.
The project started when T3 set up a text-to-give program for MLF. Their next goal was to “create a campaign that would not only launch the text-to-give option but also raise awareness about the organization’s mission.” They wanted to use tactics that spanned across all media platforms, but had to think of something that people couldn’t ignore, like putting a homeless man on top of a billboard.
And so they did.
The combination of media proved to be successful: the billboard (and sitting on top of it) a “traditional medium” and live event which told a story, the mobile call-to-action, supported by video, eventually broadcast through social media outlets and was picked up by traditional publications such as CNN and the Huffington Post. In all, it was covered by 230 news outlets in 30 different markets.
In 48 hours, the text-to-give program raised the $12,000 needed to get Danny and his wife a home to live in. And the donations continue to roll in, providing food and shelter for many others in need.
- Date: 06.08.2010
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Grammer and Why it Ain’t Rediculous
The Internet has given rise to fluidity in the use of the written word and created a new class of people – the so-called Grammar Police, who point out the written mistakes of others. This piece by journalism professor Don Ranly could serve as their “serve and protect” manifesto and, frankly, I say, “Preach it, Brother Don.”
Organization managers of communications are forever complaining about how the people they hire know little about grammar and the basic rules of punctuation and consistent style. This is true even of people who graduate from journalism schools. What is much worse are all of the “non-writers,” the executives, the engineers, the technicians and those from all walks of corporate life who contribute to publications of all kinds and to Web sites.
For nearly three decades, I taught a magazine editing class to juniors, seniors and graduate students at the Missouri School of Journalism. When I began teaching it, I had no idea how much time I would spend thinking, writing and teaching about grammar. I learned quickly that I could take absolutely nothing for granted regarding how much grammar the students knew and could apply.
For example, when I would discuss reasons for getting rid of the passive voice in most instances, I found that some students could not find the verb. I kid you not.
As a result, over the years (I am now professor emeritus), I discovered all kinds of myths about people and grammar. Here are seven of them.
Click here to read the rest of Professor Ranly’s essay.
- Date: 06.07.2010
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Oh Thank Heaven
Convenience store chain 7-Eleven is partnering with Zynga, the makers of popular Facebook games FarmVille and Mafia Wars, to offer specially branded items in almost 7,000 stores across North America. By purchasing promotional Slurpees® and Big Gulp® drinks, users can unlock virtual goods within the games or become eligible for gifts such as 50 Mafia Wars “Skill Points” or $200 of FarmVille cash.
This campaign is Zynga’s first retail tie-in and is being heavily promoted by 7-Eleven though outdoor, radio, online and print advertising. For a full list of special items available through July 15, click here.
- Date: 06.04.2010
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Oh Happy Day: Kim’s Dulce De Leche Bars
We celebrated some birthdays here at MS&L Digital (happy birthday Will, Shea, Marian!) and our own Kim Huston blew us all away with these Dulce De Leche Cheesecake Bars she made. They were, in a word, excellent. They were, in three more words, eaten pretty quickly!
- Date: 06.04.2010
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A Blogger’s Take on PR
One of our favorite blogs, If Charlie Parker Were a Gunslinger, There’d Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats, has an ongoing series called The Golden Age of Publicity. Say what you will about today’s PR but has any community manager ever penned a gem like this for Facebook?
London — Actress Katharine Hepburn grits her teeth and bares her claws in the direction of screen queen Elizabeth Taylor, as actor Montgomery Clift and director Joseph L. Mankiewicz become locked in apparent mortal combat during what seems to be a free-for-all at London’s Shepperton studios. The battle, which was impromptu, took place on the set of Columbia’s ‘Suddenly, Last Summer,’ the recently completed Tennessee Williams screenplay. (1959)
- Date: 06.02.2010
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Something to Make Your Daily Grind Look Rosier
Art of Manliness is a terrific men’s blog that I’ve placed with, contributed to as a guest blogger and which, of course, I read. A great piece today on working, excerpts from a 1914 book on vocations. See if this makes your daily toil look a bit more ennobled and, speaking of noble, have a great Memorial Day weekend:
- There is no honest vocation that cannot be made to some extent a fine art. That is, in every honest vocation, each day, growth is possible, if the work is loyally done; and that, we have seen, is the meaning of art. Indeed, the one supreme fine art is the art of living, and the particular vocation gets its meaning as a phase of that highest art. In most vocations, it is true, there is so much dull routine work that we can discover little growth in the action of the single day. To go to the shop and sell a spool of thread and a paper of pins, to make the physician’s daily round, prescribing for those who are ill and the larger number who think they are, to work over the lawyer’s brief for some petty quarrel, to write sermons for congregations that will not listen and that demand the sermon shorter every week—it all seems such a blind mill-wheel grind that one sees little progress in the day . . . It is, nevertheless, just such work, done cheerfully and loyally, to a high purpose, through the succession of days, that builds into the human spirit the noblest elements of culture.
- Date: 05.27.2010
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It’s a Dirty Job But I Pay Clean Money For It
The success of “Mad Men” has been in part due to its compelling storytelling and characters but also, I think, due to an interest in the dinosaur days of American society and how we behaved during the 1950s and 60s. Did PR ever have it’s “Mad Men” era, as advertising did? As a student of these decades and a collector of lore I think the answer is yes. Exhibit A: 1957′s “Sweet Smell of Success.” Written by an ex-PR guy, it’s the story of a Manhattan press agent, Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis), whose job it is to place items in the metro rags about his clients. His number-one target is the powerful columnist J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster), with whom he has a sycophantic relationship. Its most famous line, amidst other great ones, is “Match me, Sidney,” a gesture with an unlit cigarette Lancaster uses to convey his power over Curtis.
I recently used a reference to this film in a presentation to illustrate how the nature of social media has put the personal touch of desksides back into PR. Obviously, PR these days isn’t all about cocktails, jazz clubs, reefer heads, crooked cops and setting clients up with hookers, if it ever was. But it’s nice to take a step into that neon fantasy land, so if you’ve got room in your Netflix cue, won’t you consider making an appointment with Sidney? And let me know what other movies you know of that fit this genre. Hat tip from MS&L’s midwest director Joel Curran and next up for me is Jack Lemmon in “Days of Wine and Roses,” a film about alcoholism that also happens to involve PR. Coincidence?
- Date: 05.26.2010
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Virtual Playdates to Follow?
A modified Facebook for the younger set launched on Tuesday, to much fanfare. Aimed at 6-10 year olds, Togetherville was designed to help kids learn about online social networking within safe confines: kids’ accounts are created in tandem with those of their parents (who also vet children’s friend requests). Young visitors can create posts and comment on friends’ posts from pre-selected phrases; play games, make art projects, make and share videos, etc. Unlike Disney’s popular Club Penguin, kids use their real identities in Togetherville instead of avatars, ostensibly to encourage accountability, according to site creator Mandeep Singh Dhillon.
In terms of profitability, Togetherville has said it won’t charge a subscription fee or display advertising at the child level, though there are nascent plans allowing parents to give virtual allowances for virtual merchandise, leading the more cynical observer to wonder if it’s yet another venue to raise a “good consumer.” The New York Times quoted Vicky Rideout, analyst for the Kaiser Family Foundation, who dismissed it as an educational tool: “From the child’s perspective, I’m not sure what the benefit is. Believe me, kids will learn how to use technology and media when the time comes.”
Regardless of whether children need social media pre-K, financial backers alone could point to its potential: Floodgate, its primary investor, was an early investor of both Twitter and Digg.
Wall Street Journal reporter and blogger Katherine Boehret explored the different facets of the new social networking site and gave it a thumbs-up: “Togetherville will continue adding more content, but as is, it provides a social-networking environment that kids can enjoy and that parents will feel comfortable managing.”
Want more? Check out blogger takes from Wired and C/Net.
- Date: 05.20.2010
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Bloggers You Should Know: Leslie Loves Veggies
It’s time we brought back a tradition here at MS&L: sharing some Q&As with some of the great bloggers with whom we’re privileged to work. Meet Leslie, of Leslie Loves Veggies, a consumer-oriented blog that reviews products and practices the by now time-honored tradition of blog-based giveaways – she’s one of the tops at this!
Leslie’s site has a Google page rank of 4 and generates more than 20,000 unique visitors a month. She supports her work with Tweets to her nearly 4,000 followers @LeslieVeg and her 700-plus-member Facebook fan page. Not that site traffic or “impressions” are the only reason we value her; we’ll remind you – there’s also credibility and authenticity.
Blogworks: Leslie, how long have you been blogging? What got you started?
Leslie Loves Veggies: I started bloggin’ on Februrary 14th 2009! Happy Valentine’s Day! I started by actually entering blog giveaways. I won a bottle of POM pomegranate juice as my first win! NO LIE! I learned what to do, what NOT to do and how to play fair and square!
BW: Leslie Loves Veggies is focused on what we would call consumer reviews and giveaways. What kind of items do you prefer to work with?
LLV: I like to find companies with heart and soul. I love companies that give back to the community. That’s huge with me. I love eco-friendly companies. I’m a Vegetarian, Tree-Hugger, Love-the-Earth kinda woman! So I love a company that has the same philosophical ideals as I do! As for products, I like a vast array. If I like ‘em I know my readers will too!
BW: Any brands you’d care to mention, that you’re fond of?
LLVL: I love all the companies I work with (for the most part.) I adore Delta Faucet! Heidi’s Heavenly Cookies is just a wonderful sponsor and company I work with. I mention her because I visited her factory and work with her from to time to time. She is a lovely woman in real life. As sweet as her cookies! Charlie Kondek, he’s a real nice guy too! Fantastic PR Guy, totally on the ball BTW and always gets the job done! Since last July I have met so many amazing sponsors it would be pages and pages to name them all!
BW: *blushes* So, if you don’t mind my saying so, you run amazing giveaways and it is a pleasure to work with you. What’s your secret?
LLV: I am super organized and have insomnia!
BW: Hahaha! What’s the best way for PR people like me to get hold of you? How do you like to be pitched? Anything you absolutely do NOT want to be pitched on?
LLV: E-mail me at LeslieVeg@gmail.com. Just e-mail me and be straightforward about what you want! You can pitch me anything, I can always say, “No thanks,” right? This is all about marketing and knowing your target audience. This should be FUN FUN FUN! That’s why I like to keep it lighthearted and easy-peasy.
- Date: 05.12.2010
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