PR on Ulitzer Lots of companies – especially those in B2B – still talk
about (or request) PR services that increasingly strike me as tired, fading
or dead. Press tours & press briefings – yes, there are still industries
where the press tour is alive and well (entertainment!) but most reporters,
editors and bloggers don’t have time to meet in person anymore. I always
felt bad for them during the height of this practice when an endless stream
of PR people with clients in tow stacked-up to get their turn updating
glassy-eyed reporters. Hits & clips – counting clips (printed editorial
coverage) and putting undue weight on offline publicity to measure PR success
should have died two decades ago. Ask Katie Paine, one of the leaders in
communications measurement. She says “hit” stands for How Idiots Track
Success. Press kits, brochures & collateral – in this era of ... (more)
The trade and news media need new business models to survive in the Internet
age. I’m not just talking about online editions of print publications.
The media has to completely remake itself. The profit motive can’t
support it anymore. News and trade publishers need to be more like Consumers
Union, the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports.
But can alternative business models like Consumer Union’s work on a
larger scale? Two precedents, one historical and one recent, say yes.
Back in 1939, Theodore Bodenwein, owner of The Day in New London, Conn.,gave
the new... (more)
My daughter Sophie participated in a great program sponsored by SkiNH called
“Earn Your Turns.” It’s for 4th-graders in NH who want to earn free
tickets and discounts to NH ski resorts with a slight catch - they have to
work for it. There are several homework assignments they can choose to earn
the ski rewards – make a poster, write an essay, draw a picture. Sophie
chose to conduct a survey of friends and family. Her question: Which ski
resort in NH is your favorite? While her survey wasn’t scientific, it
did result in a high response rate (64 votes from 100+ possible responden... (more)
PR on Ulitzer 10. New levels of ravenous mass media spotlighting. Arguably,
2009 featured an insane level of “we will not let this story go.” Already
saturated news stories were repeated - endlessly - way past the point of
saturation. From balloon boy to Octomom to Gosselin vs. Gosselin to Amanda
Knox, the same B-level stories were relentlessly beaten to death. While this
isn’t a new trend, it is an increasingly annoying one. 9. Under-reported
storytelling. One of the by-products of over-reporting is under-reporting.
Too many newsworthy stories either didn’t get covered or were... (more)
This is the third blog in a three-part series highlighting my one-on-one
visit with Edward Bernays, the oft-named “father of public relations."
Bernays passed away 15 years ago this week. One of the takeaways from my
visit with Ed Bernays was his belief in the power of doing vs. saying.
“I learned as a boy that actions speak louder than words. Words can
lie. If I say ‘apricots are good for
Bernays with David Letterman
you’ maybe they are and maybe they are not. But if I get Johns Hopkins
to report on the health value of apricots, that’s what I call g... (more)
Andy Beaupre is a 35-year branding and communications professional. He is a senior counselor with Beaupre and heads the firm’s clean technology practice.
Chris Koenig
Mark Clifton
Steve Cumings
John Igoe
Mike Benkovich
Scott Sellers
Anthony Franco
Daniel Morris
Wayne Walls
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