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Handicapping Social Media Success

Friday, March 11th, 2011

Mashable recently named our Breeders’ Cup “Quest for Perfection” campaign one of “5 Smart Social PR Campaigns to Learn From.” Great honor, but not something we set out for last summer. We just wanted people to care about the story we had to tell.

We had a pretty good one in Zenyatta, the mare with the movie-star personality and rock-star pedigree. Social media provided us the microphone. While it was fun telling her story through various social media channels, it also taught us, or reinforced, a few lessons along the way.

Content is King
Yes, you’ve heard it before. But, it’s true. Without content, you have nothing. One of the things we heavily promoted throughout the campaign was exclusive content—a grainy photo snapped during her morning bath, workout updates straight from her trainer and real-time updates about her travel plans. Providing audiences with behind-the-scenes information makes them feel like they’re part of the team, strengthening their loyalty to your brand.

Personality Says it All
We were lucky; Zenyatta is a horse you’d want to have a beer with. Bringing her to life was the easy part. Find the parts of your brand that are most relatable and highlight them.

Create A Conversation Starter
Upon winning her 19^th race, we launched a YouTube video that put Zenyatta on the same playing field as legendary Secretariat. In reality, hardcore racing fans knew she wouldn’t have had a shot. Didn’t matter. People loved it and couldn’t stop commenting. It reinforced that you don’t need fans to agree with you 100% of the time. Give them a compelling forum to talk about the brand, guide the conversation with engaging content, and they will follow. Introducing a conversation starter will also help identify and activate your brand’s advocates—let them help build your case.

It was fun, engaging and a success for Breeders’ Cup. And we learned a few things along the way. While we couldn’t control the outcome, the engagement helped establish a huge audience for that breathtaking finish.

Posted by Jenna Browning | Share: Twitter, Facebook, Del.icio.us, LinkedIn

Tagged: Breeders' Cup, Mashable, social media, Twitter, youtube, Zenyatta

Academy Awards Publicist Talks Oscars, Twitter and Jeremy Renner

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

Ever wonder what it’s like behind the scenes at the Oscars? As Sunday’s 83rd Annual Academy Awards approaches we turned to our friend and CTP PR alum Tarrah Curtis for an insider’s look at what goes on from a PR perspective. Tarrah is a publicist at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. This will be her 7th Academy Awards.

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This is a great PR job because it’s one of the few where the press comes to you.

The biggest PR challenge is the sheer volume of press. During Oscar Week more than 2,500 members of the media descend upon us at Hollywood & Highland. So for us it’s less about pitching and more about managing requests and strategizing information release. It’s determining which requests you can make happen and which ones you must make happen.

We’ve really started to embrace social media over the last year. We have utilized platforms like Twitter and Foursquare for the first time; began live tweeting entire events; drove engagement on Facebook via daily polls, custom tabs, games, discussion topics and contests; expanded our iPhone app to be a year-round experience and increased our level of media and information sharing on all platforms

We’ll start Sunday with a 7 a.m. staff meeting, continues through the final media opportunity in the morning, final set-up on the red carpet, the arrivals, the backstage press rooms and finally winds up at the arrivals line of the Academy’s Governors Ball. Typically we are off duty and eating the staff dinner around midnight. Then it’s back in the office at 8 a.m. the next morning to answer questions about the show.

I’ll spend most of Sunday escorting media, arranging interviews for the mtvU Oscars Correspondent Contest winners, managing staff assignments, troubleshooting issues in any of the press areas, basically a lot of running in heels. By the time the Governors Ball arrives I’m escorting winners, nominees and presenters through the press line.

My favorite moments have been the unexpected ones…you don’t expect to have P. Diddy take you by the arm and walk you to the Governors Ball. And you certainly don’t expect to be rendered speechless by Michael Sheen.

Henry Winkler is one of my favorite celebrities to deal with. He is more than generous with his time.

Of the movies not nominated for Best Picture, I loved “The Town.” Jeremy Renner was nominated for Supporting Actor, but it was not nominated for Best Picture.

Who are you wearing? That’s one of the most asked questions on the red carpet. I’ll be wearing a black vintage lace dress with jewels by Gabrielle Frantzen and Jessica Matrasko Jewelry.

Posted by Brian Heffron | Share: Twitter, Facebook, Del.icio.us, LinkedIn

Tagged: Academy Awards, Facebook, FourSquare, Gabrielle Frantzen, Jeremy Renner, Oscars, PR, Public Relations, Tarrah Curtis, The Town, Twitter, youtube

The Force of Viral Views

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

A new study is out ranking how well Super Bowl ads fared online. I’m doubtful this is consistent with a ranking of the creativity or entertainment value of each spot (aside from VW Force, perhaps). More likely, it’s a factor of how effectively each spot was merchandised to spread more quickly in advance of the game. Doritos/PepsiMax’s contest strategy surely resulted in more executions and garnered it more online views than they would have otherwise received.

More interesting to me is how these ads will be shared over the long term. What happens with the online life of these spots over 5 years? 10 years? For example, our esteemed Creative Director Grant Pace’s SmartBeep spot has garnered millions of online views over the years, not to mention the TV media coverage it has received. Not bad for an ad launched before the YouTube era, for a brand that no longer exists. Maybe we’ll need to establish some new metrics for the Long Term Value of a creative concept?

See the study summary by clicking HERE.

Posted by Steve Angel | Share: Twitter, Facebook, Del.icio.us, LinkedIn

Tagged: earned, metrics, online, shared, smartbeep, viral, youtube

Attacking the attacker

Monday, January 31st, 2011

Fight or flight? How you react to taunting as a kid can help shape your reputation in the neighborhood. It’s no different in business.

Growing up, my mother told me it was best to ignore troublemakers. My dad, on the other hand, knew that wasn’t always possible. “Don’t let them push you around.” If someone takes a swing at you, poke them right back.

They were both right. If you’re too defensive you can hear a slight in even the most innocent comments. That means you spend a lot of wasted time repairing damage you needlessly created. But to dad’s credit, you sometimes have to push the instigator back. Taco Bell agrees.

A class-action suit that claims those burritos and enchiladas are filled with something less than real beef can take a bite out of your $7 billion in annual sales. So you have to swing back with force, speed and precision. Your lawyers will take care of the lawsuit. But if you’re a national QSR you better have a top-notch crisis response plan, one that treats traditional and social media with equal importance. (Right, Domino’s?)

Taco Bell seemed well prepared and ready to fight back. It is countering the “beef filler and extenders” claim with a Truth campaign that has used media relations, social media, paid search, online video and full-page ads in high profile newspapers. The integrated response has helped regain control of the story. Has the response been perfect? Probably not but it’s been pretty effective. Thanking the plaintiffs for the lawsuit, as it did in its ad, may seem like false bravado but the company has at least taken back the offensive position. And if a fight is necessary that’s the position you want.

Posted by Brian Heffron | Share: Twitter, Facebook, Del.icio.us, LinkedIn

Tagged: Brian Heffron, crisis, PR, Public Relations, social media, Twitter, web 2.0, youtube

When Brands Inspire Fandom

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

It’s the holy grail of brand loyalty -- customers within whose DNA your brand is so embedded that they actually create original music about you. Heck, not just that, but music videos about you. Brand Fandom.

Trader Joe’s (or TJ’s as it is affectionately known) is one of those brands that inspires strong feelings -- passion, even -- among its customers. It’s really rather remarkable, even if that passion is sometimes tinged with frustration about TJ’s, um, quirks. And that’s what I think is most interesting: people are not perfectionists when it comes to a brand experience. Sure, we hold brands up to a high standard. But folks seem to look at the quirks of TJ’s (like the parking lots that are never big enough?) as the inevitable and somewhat lovable failings of an old, dear friend. That’s pretty powerful stuff. And what about the implications for the ways in which consumers shape brands? Well, more on that in another post.