“Will Podcasting Steal the Show?” -- YOU BET!
eMarketer published an article today titled “Will Podcasting Steal the Show?” http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?1003851 that we think nearly hits the nail on the head. We think podcasting will be a huge hit in the coming months and years. In fact, we think it holds more promise than blogging for two reasons:
- The pervasiveness of the iPod and other highly-portable digital media players.
- It is a medium driven by audio, which is easier for media consumption.
What this article does not touch on is the thought leadership and educational uses of podcasting. This will make narrowcasting more important than before (finally living up to its hype). Marketers who just look at podcasting as another medium in which to insert a commercial ad or sponsorship are likely to miss the bigger boat.
Heck, in March we are even launching our own podcast. Already in “softlaunch” the B2B Marketing Minute is one of the first podcasts created expressly for business-to-business marketers seeking to generate revenue and accelerate growth through intelligent strategy, branding, marketing and public relations. You can access it at www.arketi.com/minute.
To read more about the eMarketer article check out SurveyCity, a blog also created by Arketi:
http://surveycity.blogspot.com/2006/02/will-podcasting-steal-show.html#links
Dictionary of Public Relations Measurement, A Must Have
Since the Dictionary of Public Relations Measurement and Research was first released in 2002, it has become one of the most popular papers on the Institutes' free website ( http://www.instituteforpr.org/). The second edition, edited by Dr. Don W. Stacks, University of Miami, has expanded by almost 100 terms, with input from a broader group of scholars and research experts.
This is a very helpful, and easy to understand, resource that should be on any PR person's desk! If you have not spent any time on the Institutes' website I suggest you set aside a few minutes to do so. The information on this site is awesome and every bit is free.
Can't we all just get along?
I read a great blog posting today. Yes that’s right, I’m reading my fellow bloggers’ work. How else am I to learn about this new-fangled technology? I had to laugh as I was reading, the author pointed to something that I have perpetrated. Something that I know to be questioned by many, but something so tempting that I cannot resist tasting the forbidden fruit.
All of my clients are leaders in their industry.
My fellow blogger continued to ask why PR folks do this. Low and behold, there were a number of comments that stopped just short of calling people who use this phrasing in their lead a plague on the industry. That my apparent “lack of contacts and know-how” forces me to resort to pitching in such a mundane and down-right horrific manner that I should be forced to choose which finger to cut off – so as to slow the spread of my infernal message.
Slow down people. Please.
Is there nothing to be said about repetitive messaging? Can we as PR people not understand the concept of branding? People associate phrases with companies all the time. Just do it, The ultimate driving machine, Plop plop, fizz fizz, oh what a relief it is.
Now before you jump on your soapbox and reply telling me I don’t know what I’m talking about. That those are taglines and ad jingles I say that it illustrates the point that by repeating a message it increasingly gains acceptance. Acceptance from an industry at large, acceptance from editors, acceptance from the general public and maybe even acceptance from our client, “Hey, maybe we are a leader in space XYZ.” What’s wrong with a little self-motivation?
So I return to the point that all of my clients are leaders in their industry (please note, they are not referred to as the leader).
Let me be frank here. [Insert your “Ok, but can I still be YOUR NAME” joke here] I love my clients. Not only are they great companies, they are also great people. But are they all the “leaders” in their respective industry. Maybe not…yet. But, that’s my job to help remedy.
The News Media It Is A Changing…
Wednesday at the MIT Enterprise Forum of Atlanta (www.mitforum-atlanta.org) Randy Covington, director of Ifra Newsplex at the University of South Carolina, shared with the group how the news media is changing.
He discussed how "citizen journalism" is changing news rooms and pointed to South Korea Ohmynews (http://english.ohmynews.com) as a prime example of this change. Founded in 2000, the news organization’s motto is "Every Citizen is a Reporter." With the efforts of 70 full-time professional journalists and citizen reporters that now number in the more than 40,000 the site is the country’s leading news provider.
Here in the U.S. the news media is change too. On Wednesday Dow Jones & Company announced a new structure that we suspect other news organizations are likely to follow – organizing around the consumer not the media channel.
The company’s news release stated: "Dow Jones will now organize and report its business around three markets: consumer media, enterprise media, and community media. The Company was previously organized around its channels of distribution — print publishing, electronic publishing and community newspapers. This new approach will better align Dow Jones' organizational structure, leadership team, and franchises with its strategic and financial goals."
Richard F. Zannino, chief executive officer of Dow Jones said, "This new structure and leadership team is a major first step in transforming Dow Jones from a channel-focused publishing company to a franchise, market, and customer-focused media company."
Read more about this news
Keeping Quiet Works As A PR Strategy For The World’s Largest Aquarium
Bernie Marcus Speaks About The PR Behind The Georgia Aquarium
At a recent PRSAGA (www.prsageorgia.org) meeting Bernie Marcus, co-founder of The Home Depot and the Georgia Aquarium’s benefactor, share with the group that he opted for a PR strategy built around not doing any advance publicity for the aquarium until a month prior to opening.
Going against the conventional PR grain, Marcus instructed his team not to share the aquarium’s story with the media in advance of the opening. The benefactor himself admitted that he didn’t know if this strategy was going to work. However, he feared advance media coverage prior to the opening could make the aquarium’s story stale before it ever opened its doors.
The end result was the building of excitement to a crescendo just prior to the aquarium’s late November opening. In fact, Marcus shared with the group that more than 400 broadcast and print outlets attended Media Day at the aquarium on Nov. 19, 2005. Print impressions from the opening days of the aquarium exceeded 100 million and broadcast reach topped 3 billion. Every major market across the U.S. covered the opening of the world’s largest aquarium.
Some of the information above was taken from PRSAGA’s website http://www.prsageorgia.org, a key organization for any PR or communications professional working in Georgia.
Fun Facts About the World’s Largest Aquarium From the People Who Built It – Brasfield & Gorrie (disclosure: an Arketi client)
Aquarium Facts and Figures
Almost 100,000 cubic yards of concrete – enough to build a 100-story office tower
As a five-foot-wide sidewalk, the concrete would stretch from Atlanta to St. Simons Island, Ga. – 307 miles
434 miles of electrical conduit – would stretch from Atlanta to Orlando
3,600 tons of air conditioning capacity – equivalent to 1,200 average homes
4,500,000 gallons in the Open Ocean tank – to fill it with a garden hose would take one year
218 pumps moving 216,000 gallons per minute – like draining and filling an Olympic swimming pool every two-and-a-half minutes
The life support system features 54”-diameter piping – large enough to drive a small car through
11 computers control the water piping system, making 150 million decisions per second
The 8 million-gallon ecosystem is equivalent to 800 typical hotel swimming pools
25 miles of wiring connect 3,200 control points and valves for the water piping system
Less than 3 gallons of water per day are needed to top off the efficient water recirculation system
Teams of 15 workers rubbed every square inch of the tanks’ floors and walls to ensure they were smooth and dust-free.
Information above from Brasfield & Gorrie (www.brasfieldgorrie.com)
Right on BtoB magazine!
Tying it all together
Companies help clients maximize list impact with integrated tools
With the endless fragmentation of media channels and long selling cycles typical in b-to-b, marketers are as challenged as ever to find and keep customers. One strategy that continues to gain steam is integrated, consistent messaging to customers across channels over a set period of time.
Despite the volume of discussion devoted to integration in the media world, so-called integrated marketing is for many marketers still in the concept stage. Still, an estimated 25% to 35% of marketers have figured out how to integrate their direct mail activities with media including print, e-mail and the Web, according to the Direct Marketing Association.
