finally! i can catch my breath!

Well, it's all over. We pitched the client Monday. We turned in the campaign book. PR campaigns is over. Let me just breathe a huge sigh of relief. In case you were wondering, I turned the 12 page Spanish paper in and took the mass communication law test this week. I still have the 400- page Spanish novel to attack, but that seems manageable now.

I love that feeling you get in PR when all of your hard work pays off. After an entire weekend spent finalizing our campaign book and rehearsing our presentation, we were thrilled to see it all culminate into an excellent client pitch. To me, this is one of the most rewarding aspects of PR. You get to see the results of your efforts.

I'm in a class this semester that helps students choose a major and/or a career. (I know, as a senior shouldn't I have already picked a career, not to mention a major? It's a little late in the game to change my mind. It's a long story how I got there, but it wasn't a complete waste of time.) In this career planning class, we took about seven personality assessments. We even assessed our assessments sometimes. What I gleaned from all these tests was that my personality is completely perfect for PR. I also discovered that my work values sync up with what PR has to offer. One of my work values was recognition, and completing our PR campaign certainly brought that.

PR is by all means a collaborative effort, and my campaigns team is by far and away the best team I've ever worked with in college. Everyone contributed ad shouldered the work load together. Even more than that though, I have never met a group of people randomly assigned to one another who got along so well together. It's like our personalities just clicked. We all like being together.

To me, this social aspect of PR is what drew me to it. I didn't want to stuck in a back corner cubicle writing copy. I want to work with people. Especially if the team is as great as this one!

american idol anyone? that was some great pr!

Did anyone watch American Idol tonight? That was some great PR! This Idol Gives Back fundraiser is a major image boost for everyone involved. Ford, Coca-Cola and AT&T look smarter by the show for jumping on board. And let's not forget Exxon Mobile and News Corporation (but that one was sort of a given) with their contributions.

This fundraiser is great because it not only helps underprivileged children in Africa and here in the U.S., but it gets the word out about the hunger issue. Check out the videos about Idol Gives Back, which to a great job of communicating this issue. It tickles my PR instincts to see them focus so much on awareness of the issue. This obviously needs to happen because when most Americans think of people who don't get enough to eat, we immediately picture people in third world countries, but rarely our own. This campaign is going to do a world of good for informing people about hunger and homelessness problems for children in America.

Using American Idol as a platform benefits everyone involved. People are more aware of the hunger problem and how they can help solve it. Corporate America gets involved and demonstrates social responsibility, which improves the public's image of these companies. American Idol gets lots of celebrities involved and attracts a huge viewing audience which means higher ratings for the network and higher prices charged for ad spots so profits increase. Advertisers get their message out to a huge audience. And most of all: people in need, especially children, get the help they deserve.

Kudos American Idol to a job well done!

hectic shcdules, a pr person's life

My schedule has been so hectic lately that I count myself lucky if I even have a chance to sleep and eat every day. I have so much work due, it's not even funny. I feel compelled to list all of my assignments, just to fill everyone in. I have to read a 400 page Spanish novel, write a 12 to 15 page literary analysis of a Spanish play (in Spanish of course), a put together a 200-something page PR campaigns book, rehearse a client presentation for Monday, study for a mass communication law test, study for a Food Science test and look for a place to live after graduation.

This is nothing new, PR is a busy, fast-paced career, no matter what industry or sector you're in. Especially if you work at an agency, however, it's best if you don't mind it. It's also a good thing that I don't mind the craziness. Not to say that I enjoy having no life, I think it's more that I am used to this type of schedule. If you look at my calendar, every day is covered with reminders and due dates, but I guess I wouldn't have it any other way.

This bodes well for me going into agency work, since it's pretty much a mile a minute there. While some people consider this a disadvantage of agency work, to me it's exciting. Life's never dull and you always face a new challenge to tackle.

While it can be stressful at times, it's usually not more than you can handle. Which is what my current life schedule is like right now. Overwhelming.

My point here: I'm sure I can hit the ground running when I start working at an agency after graduation.

it's time for some good pr

It seems like my recent posts have been on the, er, more critical side, so for a change I'm switching to looking at a company who's doing PR the right way- Ford Motor Company. You've probably caught some of their new ads on TV and American Idol. Personally, I think those American Idol music video ads are a stroke of genius.

Here's what Ford realized: the age of the gas guzzling SUV is over. Baby boomers who were buying and driving those vehicle, some as a status symbol at the time, have switched to smaller more fuel efficient luxury SUVs or fuel efficient cars, luxury or otherwise. Some no longer need the big SUVs because their kids grew up and moved out. Ford also realized they were losing their market share to Toyota and its highly economical, well-built vehicles.

So Ford stepped it up a notch and came out with an amazing PR campaign. I love the "BoldMoves" theme of the ads. If you think back a little bit, you'll recall the premier ad for this new series showing a 16-year-old getting her first car, a Ford Mustang her dad just bought for her.

Since Ford realized the market was changing, they re-branded and launched a new campaign targeting a younger generation. Great strategy- get them to buy a Ford when they're young and build some brand loyalty. Mustangs have always been cool to us young people, and we love innovative, high tech new vehicles like the crossover Edge. I love the commercial for it- catchy music and a clever, innovative connection between the crossover's name and where its driving, which is up and down the edges of city buildings.

Partnering with American Idol keeps their name in the forefront of young consumers' minds as well. Seeing the Top 8, 9 or 10 Idols in an entertaining music video featuring the Ford Edge, Mustang, Fusion and Hybrid Escape is an amazing platform to market these new vehicle to young people, to whom these vehicles have tremendous appeal. Ford has definitely gone about this campaign the right way. They stepped out and took a risk, and I think they've done a supremely successful job.

if i was doing pr for menu foods...

I saw an article on the MSN homepage today that calls me to take another look at the Menu Foods pet food recall debacle. Talk about a company going down like a sinking ship. In the complete and total absence of any communication efforts from Menu Foods, I have come up with some potential PR moves that Menu Foods would really benefit from.

1. First of all, why in the heck are tainted foods still on store shelves? If the pet food industry is as heavily regulated as the Pet Food Institute claims, why is there no action plan for immediate removal of tainted products?

My PR suggestion: This really needed to be something prepared ahead of time as part of a crisis plan, but since it wasn't, let's turn it around and use it as for our advantage. Create a contact list of every supplier carrying your pet food products with a direct contact line (i.e.- a phone number) to a department manager or other sales associate who would be immediately responsible for removing harmful items the minute they receive the call. Since we know a list like this doesn't exist, publicize the fact that your making one. This can help restore consumers' trust in the company and demonstrate that this incident has not been taken lightly by company executives.

2. Second, all of this lying low by Menu Foods does NOT improve their image in the eyes of consumers and the media. It just makes them look guilty. As you see towards the bottom of the article, Menu Foods declined to attend a hearing by the FDA.

My PR suggestion: Hiding looks bad. Accepting responsibility and facing the public looks good. Get out there and apologize. It is YOUR fault that people lost their beloved pets. Hire a spokesperson, an expert in the animal field that the public can trust. Hold press conferences where the spokesperson gives weekly or daily updates on the situation. Have the spokesperson show up at events like the FDA hearing and speak on behalf of the company.

3. Third, the lack of steady communication must be corrected immediately. In the article, Senator Durbin calls attention to Menu Foods' delayed notification to the FDA of tainted foods, even though tests showed animals were getting sick from it.

My PR suggestion: Wow, this one does look incredibly bad because it compounds people's possibly unfounded notions that Menu Foods was consciously hiding dangerous problems. But I'll tackle this one too. Communications is the key here. This message could be wrong. If it is, Menu Foods has no conduit to disseminate the correct information to the public. Use the Web and social media. Start a blog where consumers can go to get their questions answered. Have veterinarians involved in this process so that consumers can be confident they're getting the best advice on health for their pets.

Other tips I have:

• Set up a memorial fund in honor of the pets who died from the tainted food. Use the fund as a vehicle to promote pet health and to help adopt out homeless pets. It might also help to ease the pain of pets owners who lost their beloved companions.
• Work with another agency like the FDA or the Pet Food Institute to come up with a list of safe pet foods that consumers could switch to. This lets consumers know that you care more about the health and well-being of their pets than your bottom line. Take the financial hit now, in the long run it will pay off.
• Pet connection did a great job with this. Check out their page with a link to The Pet Food List complied by PetsitUSA.com. Complete list of all NOT recalled foods and info. about each one. Kudos guys for a great job!

Finally, in closing, good PR by Menu Foods means that Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine, would never have to make this comment, "We didn’t have all the answers ourselves.”

what's the future of YouTube?

In my law of public communication class we just finished our section on copyright law, and when I saw this article on the Bulldog Reporter's Daily' Dog by Frank Zeccola, it reminded me of our class discussion about the YouTube-Viacom case. I find this case so interesting because it proves that legislation can never catch up with technology. As soon as a law passes making such-and-such illegal, tech-savvy consumers just find a way around it. That's not to say that copyright doesn't serve an important purpose for society. It exists to add creativity in the public domain by giving authors incentives to create new works, thereby improving and benefiting society as a whole. (On a quick side note, purchasing movies and music is a good idea, and I'm fully for it.)

I guess I should back up a minute here and explain why this YouTube case is so interesting to me. When Google bought YouTube, they set aside somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 million knowing that as soon as the deal was made, the litigation would start pouring in because now the copyright holders have some big bucks to go after.

Like Kaleel Sakakeeny said in the article, if Viacom is smart, they'll go for a deal with Google/YouTube rather than trying to hold fast to copyright that is becoming increasingly hard to protect. These massive we-own-everything copyright holders like Viacom have been clinging steadfastly to the dying notion that they will and should have an iron grip over every little piece of copyrighted material. Thank goodness for fair use, right? Well, there's a fine line between fair use and infringement.

Now, like I said before, if Viacom was smart they would try to get some good PR out of this and use it as a image boost in the eyes of young people/college students like myself who are the primary users of YouTube. Instead of looking like a bunch of curmudgeons, they should try come out on the better end of this and win some favor in the eyes of students. Many students share the opinion that big companies are just greedy and are out to get everyone.

It's going to be impossible to maintain the tight control over everything, so why not try to just try to strike a profit-sharing deal, or find a more innovative way to adapt to their ever-changing environment. The social media are not going to away. Just like systems theory explains, organizations that don't adapt to their environment die, no matter how big and powerful and tough they think they are.

It's ironic in a way that this study found most of the copyright-infringing videos were hardly watched. That begs the question, what are they really suing for here?

crisis communication

This pet food recall has crisis communication fresh on my mind. With a crisis like this on their hands, and no good PR to speak of, it begs the question, "What is this company thinking?!?"

There's simply no reason to lack PR plans for issues, crises and catastrophes. The lame old excuse of pretending like the worst possible scenario will never happen to our company doesn't hold water anymore. Bad stuff will happen to you at some point. It just depends on the degree of severity. Having a PR plan in place will help with the damage control. Yes, dwelling on all the disasters that could befall your organization is a scary thought, but it's not an optional task here. You MUST do it!

Look at it like this, what's worse, sitting there for a day or two at a time thinking up all the dreadful events that will place your company under glaring public scrutiny or having a well-thought out, smoothly executed action plan for when Awful Event X occurs? During a crisis, pandemonium will ensue, and rather than running around like chickens with your heads cut off, you and your colleagues will have a plan of attack.

If that still hasn't convinced you that you NEED an a crisis communication plan, think of it this way: you will look so much better in the minds of your customers, the media and the general public (and you might need any image boost you can find after your disaster), if you have a fast, effective way to communicate important information with affected publics and hopefully a method to come up with a temporary solution. When you're in a crisis, information is the sole factor everybody wants and no one seems to have. You have to find a way to get that information to the people who need it most.

Just imagine how much better (at least marginally better) the impression of Menu Foods might be right now if they had a plan that implemented these aspects. I mean, here's an idea, why not have a list of suppliers with direct contacts at each one, who they could contact immediately in case of a problem with their pet foods and have questionable foods removed from store shelves as a precaution. Pet owners would be inclined to think Menu Foods actually cares. Also, a comprehensive and easily located and accessed list of all the suspected tainted foods would help.

Out of curiosity, did anyone check the list on the Menu Foods Web site to see if their pet's food was safe? I did, and it was such a hassle! You clicked on the brand name, and you were taken to a link on that site and 10 clicks later you found the information you wanted. Tip: that was way too complicated. Make it much simpler for panicked pet owners who want to make sure their baby isn't being poisoned.

All I have to say: thank goodness one of my cats is allergic to wheat gluten.