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The Difference Humanities Makes in Business

What do you do with a BA in English?

What is my life going to be? 

Four years of college and plenty of knowledge

Have earned me this useless degree.

 --Avenue Q (Broadway Show)

The above verse from the Broadway show, Avenue Q, sums up how so many feel today about a degree earned from majoring in the humanities, specifically English majors.  This attitude has lingered but it was personified in this hit show, which picked up steam in the heat of the financial crisis.  The show’s takeaway:  Be practical!

This thinking is further evidenced in a recent article by Verlyn Klinkenborg in The New York Times.  The author of “The Decline and Fall of the English Major” cites some depressing statistics from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences:  at Pomona College, only 16 students graduated with an English major out of a student body of 1560, a fractional number. In 1991, 165 students graduated from Yale with a B.A. in English Literature; by 2012 that number was 62.

Of course, I find these numbers shocking only because I believe so strongly in how the humanities shape us as individuals, who cannot only write and think clearly but can carry on a conversation with the world around us.

For those who choose public relations/communications as a profession, focusing on the humanities, as I did during undergraduate years, provides other advantages.  Our business is all about being a quick study of a client’s business and the environment in which the client exists.  The ability to capture the essence of that information quickly, assess its strategic value and communicate the story with the right messages are skills developed in humanities courses.

We, at our firm, often debate the value of humanities majors vs. public relations majors.  As I see it, the study of humanities builds the foundation that supports an array of sophisticated public relations skill sets.

Nevertheless, as the Times article points out, “Parents have always worried when their children became English majors.  What is an English major good for?”  In other words, will it lead directly to a job?  The article offers this answer:  “Wait and see – an answer that satisfies no one.  And yet it is a real answer, one that reflects the versatility of thought and language that comes from studying literature.” 

The editor asserts that former English majors turn up almost anywhere.  In my opinion, many have the edge in public relations over the more practical PR major. Need everything we do in life pay off immediately?  Perhaps “it takes some living” to find out that the gift of the humanities is “clear thinking, clear writing and a lifelong engagement with literature,” giving us the “word consciousness” that makes copy sing.

A deeper issue is that thought leaders in the humanities have done a poor job of marketing the value that humanities bring.  And right now, there has never been a greater opportunity.

As a friend notes, “since content and content development are the bloodline of the commercialization for nearly all businesses because of the internet, writers are critically important.  Positioning humanities as a ticket to work for online publications of the 21st century could change this perception of students that studying the humanities is not a viable choice.”

Writing well is a fundamental principle of the communications business, deeply appreciated by clients and all others we work with.  Our business is just one of many examples where training in the humanities stands strong.  Whether you are an engineer, mathematician, actor or senior executive, everyone who possesses the “grace and energy” that the humanities develops in us, can only be secure in appreciating the rich heritage they have been given.

- See more at: http://www.makovsky.com/insights/blogs/my-three-cents/27-insights/blogs/my-three-cents/493-the-difference-humanities-make#sthash.UTLdwjxK.dpuf

The Myths about Paul Revere

“Listen, my children, and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five;

Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year.”

Sadly, the great poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow understates.  As I wrote last month in my blog — “Is America Clueless? — 30% of Americans can’t name the vice president of the United States.  So I wouldn’t be surprised to find that — not only didn’t they recall an important date in American history — they probably didn’t know much about the man behind the date.  If they remember Paul Revere at all, it’s probably in the vaguest of terms:  as a patriot … something to do with the American Revolution.  But there was much more to the man and, as the Fourth of July draws nearer, it’s a good time to remember Revere as a great American communicator. 

Long before his midnight ride, Revere did what all good communicators do:  as the member of a secret group in Boston known as the “Mechanics,” he gathered intelligence on the activities and movements of a key stakeholder group:  British troops.  He also helped organize an early warning system and arranged for delivery of important messages directly to the rebels, another key constituency.

History.com has a fascinating posting on the “12 Things You May Not Know about Paul Revere” and his fateful 1775 ride.  Here are the top three popular myths about the Revolutionary War hero … busted. 

• He didn’t ride alone.   He was accompanied for a part of the journey by William Dawes, who was tasked with warning John Hancock and Samuel Adams that they were in danger of arrest.   Along the way, Dawes and Revere were joined by Samuel Prescott, a young physician.  By the end of the night, as many as 40 men on horseback were spreading the word across Boston’s Middlesex County.

• He never shouted, “The British are coming!”  The operation was meant to be conducted as discreetly as possible, since scores of British troops were hiding out in the Massachusetts countryside … so no shouting.   Also, at the time, the colonists considered themselves British, so it’s more likely the colonists would have alerted other rebels that the “Regulars” — a term used to designate British soldiers — were on the move.

• He never reached Concord.  Revere was temporarily detained by the British at Lexington and Dawes lost his way, leaving to Prescott the task of alerting Concord’s residents.

What the Revenue Machine Is Dependent Upon

Peter Drucker, the business sage, once commented that relationships drive revenue.  Like much of what Drucker says, this deceptively simple statement is packed with dynamite.

We operate in a numbers-oriented business culture.  Nearly everything that determines value in a business, we are told, relates to something explicitly measureable on the balance sheet or P&L statement.  The quintessential business measure, of course, is operating earnings, which, in turn, is most directly driven by revenue.

We forget, however, that revenue is largely a proxy, a number that ultimately reflects other, often non-quantifiable, values in the business.  Foremost among these is the strength of the company’s relationships — specifically, relationships with customers, employees, distributors and other corporate audiences.  As Drucker understood, business is ultimately about people.  If a company’s business relationships are stellar, weak revenues will almost always be short-lived.  If relationships are dysfunctional, strong revenues can rarely be sustained.

Maintaining good relationships in business has never been an easy task.  But today it is both more challenging and more important than ever.  Most companies operate in a marketplace that has become both global and hyper-competitive.  In this kind of environment, loyalty has gone the way of the three-martini lunch.  At the same time, the internet has dramatically increased the number of eyes on a company, and it has given once powerless “citizen experts” the ability to dramatically affect reputation.  These are just two of the many new relationship realities facing business.

Today’s business operating climate is indeed a reputation economy.  It is an environment where reputation has become an asset as vital as plant, property or equipment.  Therefore, one of the major management challenges facing executive leadership is vigilance about the company’s reputation, assessing the many ways in which its credibility could be damaged and its trustworthiness enhanced with all of its most important constituents.

Building, strengthening and protecting relationships is the centerpiece of corporate growth…as fundamental as the quality of the service or product provided.  At the very root of reputation and the relationships that build it, is corporate organizational behavior, which resonates today throughout the internet’s echo chamber every minute of the day.  Each and every one of us needs to be conscious of that every minute of every day.

As a child I was always taken by kaleidoscopes.  I look back on those days and wondered why they fascinated me so.

Was it the designs—which appeared to be glass chips falling apart  and then, once shaken, coming back together again, only to make new beautiful designs?

Was it the chips that appeared to change colors and shapes miraculously falling in and out but always seeming to land in the right place.

Was it the toy itself?  How did all those pieces remain contained in that cylinder and not fall out?   If I had tried to destroy the toy, would the inside pieces just melt away as they chaotically scattered and spread all over the place?  What were kaleidoscopes communicating?

All of this came to mind as I was reading about a person whom, it turns out, I knew.  He had a collection of these kaleidoscopes that he treasured. No, this was not a child.   It was a grown adult.  I finally reached out to him and shared my observations, as stated above, to see if those were the qualities that made kaleidoscopes so magnetic for him.

No, the significance of the kaleidoscope for him was as much philosophical and symbolic as it was beautiful.  Sure, he related to all of my observations…but he saw something more subtle and profound.

He said, “When you look into a kaleidoscope, you see something beautiful.  But after you shake it up, destroying what is there, and hold it up to the light again, you will see something new and different, but equally beautiful.  Life is much the same as the kaleidoscope,“ he emphasized.  “After being shaken, it will always reveal something new and beautiful, but only if we take the time to hold it up to the light and look inside.”

Thus, the kaleidoscope has taken on a new meaning for me.  It represents the initiative we all must take to sustain beauty in our lives and land in the right place, as life continues to change and we are continuously challenged.  Things fall apart sometime, but they can always be put back together again, achieving ultimate beauty with a new look, but only if we “hold it up to the light and look inside. “

The Advantage of Social Analytics

What is social analytics? It is an analysis of the tweets, blogs and other postings on the social web, with a focus on a particular subject area. According to Jared Feldman, president of Mashwork, a leading social analytics firm, every second there are 4,630 tweets. Further, Tumblr has three times the traffic of The New York Times and CNN. The examples tell us the noise ratio is huge, and so is the number of subjects that people are conversing about.

"We derive actual meaning from the conversation and help clients make sense of it, " Feldman advised. "Now that stakeholders can talk back, monologue has changed to dialogue. We need to measure and curate that. We also can determine who is influencing the conversation, so communicators can reach such targets with their clients' messages. ... for example, for HBO, it's what people think about their show. For Gatorade, it's what teen athletes talk about."

This does not negate the importance of traditional research, where focus groups give you a private view on possibly sensitive topics or a questionnaire is filled out by 500 people in a designated age group or profession. No, social intelligence enables us to get a very public view of people speaking, unprompted, from the heart, about how they really feel on a range of subjects.

And everything is measurable. You can segment people by their emotions and attitudes, based on what they are saying. You can establish a baseline of context from which you can draw insights historically and in real-time (very useful in a crisis situation). For one client in a crisis, Mashwork tracked confusion, benchmarked it and then watched the confusion decrease over the next two weeks.

What you can track in social responds to and informs public relations issues, as noted below.

SOCIAL                      PR ISSUES

Sentiment       [        Perception

Trends            [        Top-of-Mind

Competitors    [        Context

Influencers      [        Reach

Personas         [        Segmentation

One of the most valuable things that social analytics can do is enable course correction. To achieve that with traditional tools with the same speed is impossible. While there are many traditional tools that get topline research results, few can go as deep as a social analytics firm with proprietary tools.

Nevertheless, the acceptance of social media varies from progressive in the consumer products area to more deliberate in the B2B sectors. So, how do you convince clients who are skeptical about the value of social media to use social analytics? Speak to them in their own language. Don't talk about the dashboard; talk about awareness. Make the key performance indicators look like what they are already comfortable with.

Is America Clueless?

Well, that is what New York Times op-ed columnist Frank Bruni is suggesting, based on recent research: 

• Roughly 40% of Americans are unaware that Obamacare is an actual law
• 65% of us can't name a single Supreme Court justice
• 30% can't name the vice president of the United States
• 21% believe that a U.F.O. landed in Roswell, NM, and the federal government hushed it up
• 14% believe in Bigfoot

Despite the fact that "many Americans would flunk the citizenship test that immigrants must pass, we mostly gloss over our ignorance or deny it," Bruni says.

Why is this happening?  This is tough, but here are my observations.

• THE ILLUSION OF CHOICE.  On the one hand, the rise of the internet and the proliferation of new social media outlets provide powerful new opportunities for those in business, politics and special interest groups of all kinds to take their messages directly to the public.  (Of course, this also allows people with fringe interests to choose the media that confirm, rather than challenge, their fixed beliefs.)

On the other hand, almost all mainstream media comes from the same six sources — GE, News Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner and CBS — consolidated from 50 companies, back in 1983, to a tiny, powerful handful.  The Big Six account for 90% of what we read, watch or listen to!  [See this eye-opening-and somewhat scary-infographic for more details.]   Bottom line:  People may not be  getting the full story.

• DWINDLING OF "MAINSTREAM" MEDIA.  Everyone is well aware of the precipitous cutbacks in the newspaper industry.  TIME magazine, the only remaining major print newsweekly, cut roughly 5% of its staff earlier this year.  In local TV, sports, weather and traffic now account on average for 40% of the content produced on the newscasts, while story lengths shrink.  According to the Pew Research Center's Study of the Media 2013, "a growing list of media outlets are using technology by a company called Narrative Science to produce content by way of algorithm, no human reporting necessary.  This adds up to a news industry that is more undermanned and unprepared to uncover stories, dig deep into emerging ones or to question information put into its hands."  It may also increase the boredom factor, and thus fewer people are paying attention to the news.

• JUST PLAIN BAD REPORTING.  The Pew study also found that, in the last election campaign, reporters were "acting primarily as megaphones, rather than as investigators, of the assertions put forward by the candidates and other political partisans."  Important news is often just glossed over today.  Is this the reason?  Or is the clueless public among those who are reading little to nothing at all?

• SOFT NEWS VS. HARD NEWS.  I found an interesting paper published in 2010 that examined the phenomenon of "soft news," which the authors said was becoming an increasingly important ingredient of the information environment.  In a market-based system, like ours in the US, it's possible for consumers with limited political interest to bypass hard news altogether and become "specialists" in soft news.  So, while you're reading The New York Times from cover to cover (including the theater, TV and movie reviews), a soft news addict is watching "Entertainment Tonight," reading People magazine and following Kim Kardashian on Twitter.

What's the solution?  The only one I can think of is education in various forms aided by a reversal in some of the reporting issues cited above.

Late last year, the U.S. was ranked 17th in an assessment of the education systems of 50 countries, behind several Scandinavian and Asian nations, which claimed the top spots.  Finland and South Korea grabbed first and second places, while Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore ranked third, fourth and fifth, respectively.  The study, carried out by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), combines international test results and data such as literacy rates and graduation rates between 2006 and 2010.  Our rank is disappointing.

The alarm has been sounded.  Now let's figure out solutions that reverse this scary trend — and end our state of denial.

What We Can Learn from the Social Side of Sports

I have always believed that listening to and watching what others are saying and doing often influences what I might say or do.  And the listening and watching may not always be among those in my ordinary milieu.  I try to be especially attentive and observant in areas in which I otherwise would not be:  on the subway, in the theatre, in foreign countries.   Even among other generations (like the ever-fascinating millennials).

So take this one step further.  Corporations generally research their customers and customer prospects.  And they often look at competitors.  But do they look at sports teams and their fans? 

The answer is more complicated than you might think.   According to sponsorship consulting firm IEG, sports is ranked number one among sponsorship opportunities in North America—with $13.8 billion projected to be spent in 2013 (up 6% over last year).  But beyond the obvious benefits to corporate sponsors, are there other lessons for us to learn from sports marketers about building awareness, support and brand loyalty among customers?

The answer is “yes!” 

I recently attended a seminar on social media that featured the heads of marketing and digital  from the New York Rangers (hockey) and the Brooklyn Nets (basketball).  Here are some relevant points that were made:

·         Michigan football fans can chat with each other as they watch the game itself. They also can connect to people of like ages, marital status, etc.  Might companies do that with their customers, thereby promoting conversations that may stimulate sales?

·         The NBA Game Locator allows fans to map their location against the locations and schedules of where the NBA is playing nearby. Business should have this one mastered.  For example,  Google Maps can do that for any customer who wishes to locate a company branch or other relevant location, or companies should have their upcoming events on their mobile version of their website.  70% of companies don’t even have a mobile site, according to a recent survey by Econsultancy’s Conversion Rate Optimization Report, produced in association with RedEye.

·         During the NHL lockout, the league reduced its Facebook postings from 5 to 2.  “We turned everything down until everything calmed down a little.  We needed to reengage with fans after the blackout.”  Following a crisis---sometimes corporations need to take a pause before rushing into doing something that may be regrettable. That said, the CEO generally needs to pick up the bar immediately and address all the stakeholders, whether the corrections are in process or not.

·         After the NHL lockout, the Rangers were asking themselves how to reach their angry, alienated fans who simply wanted their hockey back.  Once the lockout was over, users were offered coverage through Facebook.  They could select images to create for their own cover photos (“Here’s My Own Blue Shirt Pride!”).  Fans seemed to enjoy it.  They were excited that hockey was back!  Corporations can also manage their triumphs with the same sense of humor — involving their customers.

·         A team blog can be “private” — just for the team and the fans — with no sponsors.  Featuring raw footage and access to the players can bring the fans closer to the team.  Within regulatory constraints, the advent of the internet means that customers can be offered the opportunity to dialogue with a company’s leadership, thereby strengthening the relationship.

·         Increasingly, stadiums are getting wired.  Fans’ smartphones can connect to the Jumbotron, using a simple app, and the huge screen reflects the fans’ “likes.”  Recently there were a million likes.  Reviews are nothing new (e.g., Yelp and Amazon have been around for years and at the Consumer Electronics Show, attendees regularly vote for the winners of the People’s Voice Awards); but what if there were the equivalent of a jumbotron in every large venue in which their customers gather.

All of these ideas are designed to create value for the client, and all of them are employing social media as a tool which fascinates and captures fan and customer attention.  

A Higher Purpose

Public relations and capitalism have something in common.  Both rely on some of the same principles:  relationships, mutuality and community. 

Capitalism is grounded in value creation for all stakeholders.  If business becomes more conscious, it can do what it does even better.  It can create more community, stronger relationships, more mutuality and…more profit, by engaging everyone in the system, and thereby creating still more value for stakeholders. 

The above is the conclusion of part one of a three-part post by Sandra Duhé, on the Institute for Public Relations website.  Her article takes as its launching pad  the 2013 book, Conscious Capitalism, by Whole Foods Co-CEO John Mackey and Conscious Capitalism co-founder Raj Sisodia.

Duhé’s article suggests that it is public relations’ duty in “conscious capitalism” to help organizations find a higher purpose, stakeholder integration, conscious leadership and conscious culture and management. 

I very much like the way an organization’s purpose is defined:  “the difference it is trying to make in the world.”  Driving an organization to lofty heights by inspiring them to celebrate who they are is enormously satisfying.  But it would also be wonderfully satisfying to know that public relations was the one discipline that truly is responsible for driving a company to establish a higher purpose.

Duhé considers “higher purpose” the factor that guides public relations practices with certainty.  She also states that operating at a higher level of purpose “renders decision-making that is strategic rather than tactical, positions practitioners to be managers rather than technicians, and enhances the professionalism and perceived value of the practice.”

Here are some examples of statements of higher purpose:

·         Disney:  To use our imaginations to bring happiness  to millions

·         Charles Schwab:  A relentless ally for the individual investor

·         Humane Society:  Celebrating animals, confronting  cruelty

·         3M:   Improving every company, every home, every life

·         Merck:  Improving health and well-being around the world      

News about Your Brand in a Mobile World

"Getting mobile right these days is more important than ever," said Chris Rippey, Google's Head of Industry, Investments Advertising at a Makovsky seminar.  "If companies do not get it right, there is a price to pay."

And according to a series of surveys, Rippey is not only right on target, but large numbers of companies are asleep at the wheel, passing up an enormous economic opportunity.

Mobile units are growing by leaps and bounds.  Rippey advises that mobile devices account for greater than 13% of web traffic and, in a year, mobile queries will rise significantly.   Globally, mobile devices will outnumber PCs next year, with PC sales experiencing their worst drop in history at -13.9% from '12 Q1 YY to'13.

Over 50 % of Americans now own a smartphone.  Within two years of their introduction, 40 million tablets have been sold, and the iPad has been Apple's fastest selling device.  TechCrunch reports that 50% of Facebook interactions are now from mobile.  Overall, tablets are growing much faster than the growth rate of smartphones.

Despite all of this, more than two-thirds of companies (70%) have yet to optimize their websites for mobile use, according to Econsultancy’s Conversion Rate Optimization Report, produced in association with RedEye, based on a survey of more than 700 client-side and agency digital marketers.

Because of the many companies "mobile-ly" behind the eight ball, Rippey cites these statistics regarding those using mobile units:

·         55% say a poor mobile experience hurts their opinion of a brand

·         79% will turn to a competitor's site after a bad mobile experience

·         52% said that a bad mobile experience made them less likely to engage with a company

So what to do about it? More companies need to pay attention and start optimizing their websites for mobile, and — when they do — make sure that the visitors' mobile experience is equal to that of their regular website.  Companies also should be monitoring the levels of traffic that arrive at sites from mobile devices, so they can determine a level-of-activity standard (e.g., 20%), at which conversion must take place.

An interesting example is eBay, where mobile now accounts for 10% of all UK sales and, globally, a product is sold via mobile every second on average, amounting to $5 billion in global mobile sales in 2011.  Rippey points out that 22% of financial consumer purchases were made through mobile in '12 and 38% of such purchases are forecast by 2015.

Mobile units are changing the world. They present a major opportunity … if companies take the time to study the landscape and properly optimize their sites, so they achieve the clarity and speed that every consumer wants.

TAKE NOTE: Shifting Sands in Technology Decision-Making

Corporations everywhere in the world are now in the midst of a transformation with respect to information technology.  This is not necessarily about a revolution in technology processing power, but rather a fundamental change in the power of technology process – an internal shift in responsibility over IT decision-making within organizations, away from its traditional center, the Chief Information Officer, to the Chief Marketing and Chief Financial Officers.

The trend was signaled in a Gartner Group study, which found that Chief Financial Officers alone authorized a whopping 26% of all IT spending decisions at their organizations, as opposed to just 5% by CIOs.  And a related, more recent Gartner study predicted that by 2017, Chief Marketing Officers will outspend CIOs on information technology.

These watershed changes pose both opportunities and threats to those who sell enterprise technology.  At a minimum, it means that they must re-evaluate the very premises of their customer interactions in order to stay relevant to the new sources of decision-making.

The internal shift in control over IT responsibility is occurring for a couple of reasons.

One has to do with the growing importance of e-commerce in any company’s financial outlook, and the increasing role of social and mobile media in that equation.  Today, the big money in IT spending increasingly lies in tools to mine social media for product ideas, in mobile applications to enhance products, and in creating social interactions with customers to build brand loyalty.  CMOs have claimed all these responsibilities as strategic marketing/communications imperatives; they are driving the technology decisions to make these tasks possible, often leaving the CIO in the back seat.

Second, an expense-conscious global marketplace has rendered IT even more of a cost center, inviting closer financial oversight.  Enter the CFO.  As American Banker has reported, “With limited funds available for investment…CFOs are inserting themselves into the [procurement] process to make sure each IT project provides value.”   Not surprisingly in this climate of tight ROI accountability, Gartner noted that at roughly half of mid-sized to big corporations, CIOs report directly to the Chief Financial Officer.  It’s a trend that will increase over time.

– Selling Tech to the CMO and CFO –

Thus, selling technology to the CMO and CFO demands a more strategic business orientation.  CFOs for example, generally misperceive IT as a commodity – even while they are desperate for it to serve that role.  Seventy percent, according to Gartner, do not think technology is providing business benefits.  Only a little more than one-third see it as a strategic driver of business performance, and only eight percent view IT as a key contributor to the enterprise’s competitive position.

Both CFOs and CMOs speak the language of Return on Investment.  They want to know not only how the performance of a solution will be measured over the lifespan of a project, but what assumptions you are using to make that evaluation.

We are not suggesting that IT sales representatives must magically morph into IT consultants.  But providers must be able to engage a CMO or CFO at the place where consultants operate:  strategy.

Finally, despite their new responsibilities overseeing technology decision-making, few CMOs and CFOs are technology experts.  They need objective guidance.  Suppliers plus the CIO can fill an important role here.

Taking a new step is often what people fear most.  But for those who can address the needs of a newly empowered CMO and CFO through fresh marketing and sales strategies, a world of opportunity awaits.

The ABCs of QR Codes

You’ve undoubtedly seen one … though it’s possible you’ve never used it.   It’s a QR code:  a  more sophisticated, two-dimensional version of a bar code — consisting of square black dots on a white background — that was originally designed in 1994 for Japanese auto-makers to track car parts.   

Big in Asia and Europe, QR codes were a little late coming to the U.S., but now they are an increasingly valuable element in marketing campaigns.  Smartphone users with the right app can simply scan a QR code and be swiftly directed to a rich media experience on the web.  In my vlog today, “The ABCs of QR Codes,” I interview Makovsky VP and Director of Digital Media, Dan Scholz, on the evolving role of QR codes. 

Communicating “Real Beauty”

What is real beauty?  That is a question that apparently is never really answered by Dove in its attention-getting ad that has become an online superstar, having gotten almost 14 million hits on Dove's YouTube channel.  Nevertheless, Dove says that "real beauty" is the theme of its brand campaign and has been since 2005.

The ad has a forensic sketch artist, hidden behind a curtain, drawing the face of a woman  whom he cannot see, based on her description of her own facial features, followed by another person's observations of the same women's facial features.  Separate faces are sketched on separate sheets.  In every case, the sketch depicting the other individual's observations is prettier than the one providing a self-evaluation.

Thus, the tagline for the ad is "You're More Beautiful Than You Think."  The campaign is based on a survey that shows that only 4% of all women see themselves as beautiful.  The message clearly is that Dove is a critical element in enhancing and maintaining beauty. 

There are 3-minute and 6-minute versions of the ad, making it strictly for online exposure rather than TV.  Capturing audience attention for that long is significant. 

While it is clear from the ad that women are concerned about their appearance and undervalue the way they look, it seems Dove has a bigger opportunity to extend the beauty platform beyond the physical, and thereby capture the attention of a still larger audience and further build brand value. 

Our culture today defines beauty as not only skin deep.  Thus, female beauty involves the total person.  Men would never be positioned the way women are in this ad.  One woman quoted in a New York Times piece on the Dove campaign had mixed feelings about the ad, saying, "What if I did look like the woman [in the less flattering sketch] on the left.  There are people who look like that."

"Real Beauty" in that case would be expanded to include both inner and outer beauty, making women think about the value placed on both.  Dove's impact on a woman's skin will be important no matter what, and the campaign theme, "You're More Beautiful Than You Think," will have a broader meaning and expand the customer base.  

Look for the Helpers

This advice came to mind on the heels of the latest Boston Massacre -- the bombing at the finish line at the Boston Marathon.   

It has been all over the web the past couple days via the persona of the late Fred Rogers, whose famous children's show was the champion of many parents.  What he said, as noted below, stands as great communications for those who sympathize with the victims and the victims themselves.   I paraphrase Mr. Rogers below, and also provide the link, above:

My mother used to say a long time ago that whenever there is a catastrophe, “always look for the helpers … there will always be helpers. … If news programs could make a conscious effort of showing rescue teams — or showing anybody who is coming into a place where there’s a tragedy — to be sure they include that … because if you look for the helpers, you’ll know that there’s HOPE."

Journalism: Money vs. Merit

I am particularly troubled by obfuscation, which I define as the art of attempting to confuse people.  I have always believed that playing it straight sets all of us on a better course.

This came to mind the other day when The New York Times ran a piece, “Sponsors NowPay for Online Articles, Not Just Ads.” 

So, what does that headline exactly mean?  Everyone knows what advertisements are.  Everyone also knows what articles are.  What the Times story is addressing is the marrying of the two:  articles that are ads.  Anything wrong with that?  Not at all.  As long as the articles that are ads are clearly identified as such, and not in print so tiny that the reader would not know whether the article was paid for by a sponsor or objectively written by a journalist who works for the publication.  The problem is that the way these “sponsored articles” are often positioned, it is hard for the reader to decipher the difference.  But below I note some other problems.

Why are advertisers sponsoring articles in online publications these days more than previously?  Because of a decline in audience receptivity to banner ads, largely due to online readers’ orientation toward conversation, stories and softer messages.  Articles, essays and op-eds fit that profile.   The latter have always been the domain of the public relations professional, who communicates client messages editorially, but only if the publication sees value in such messages for its readership.  Now the ad agency has entered the fray via paid content.

In addition to the potential obfuscation by publications that don’t clearly label paid content for what it is, I am most troubled by the prospect of money eventually trumping meritocracy in journalism and making it more difficult for new ideas and investigatory work to reach a wide audience.  While I have no problem with properly identified paid content, I am concerned about the availability of choice locations for the topics that need to be communicated.

Public relations for years has fostered the value of advertorials (today called branded content, paid for by an advertiser), such as a dedicated magazine sporting a client’s message via articles and sewn into publications -- or one-page or partial-page takes.  There are magazines that have always been “pay-for-play” —particularly in the investor area—where every article is sponsored by a client advertiser who must get a point of view published, and this is acknowledged by the publication.  The head of an agency in India told me about the most horrific case I’ve heard of:  in that country, some publications now restrict free journalism among their reporters if the publication can get sponsored money for a piece that it would have ordinarily written on its own with its own point of view.  Thus, reporters now face restrictions in the investigation process.

Thankfully, many publications are still vigilant, and social media and some owned media channels provide alternative, credible ways to publish.  Nevertheless, I hope readers are sensitive to the environment in which information is dispensed and are scrutinizing in their selections.

The SEC and Social Media

Twitter and Facebook just had another rocket ship put in their trajectory!  They, along with other social media, have been officially deemed by the Securities and Exchange Commission to be acceptable venues for companies to disclose material information to investors.  The only caveat is that public companies must advise investors where the information can be found, most likely using traditional media to do so.

While this development has been talked about for years and greeted with criticism by some and enthusiasm by many, it also poses several challenges.

As The Wall Street Journal notes, only 14.4% of companies currently use social media, according to a 2012 Conference Board and Stanford University study.  Thus, the implementation may be challenging for those not very familiar with the social opportunities this presents.  It is also not clear how investors will respond to heightened use of social media in this area, despite the fact that millions of investors use social media now to check up on companies, monitor news and discuss investment opportunities.

John McInerney, a group vice president in Makovsky’s Financial Services Practice, notes in his blog, “Social Media Evolution:  The SEC and Bloomberg,” appearing  in “Word on the Street,” that most Wall Street broker-dealers, advisors, investment bankers, and traders cannot access the social web with the freedom that individual investors can.  “Required to document client communications and fearing insider trading tips, these executives are blocked by their compliance departments from accessing most forms of social media.”

He further said that for all of the SEC’s guidance, this means most of the advisors who are responsible for managing trillions of dollars in assets can’t take advantage of social media’s “information, speed and richness.”  Paradoxically, even if Wall Street could get material via social media, they couldn’t act on it. 

Until last Thursday.

McInerney points out that Bloomberg made a change that is far more important than the SEC’s announcement.  Last Thursday Bloomberg completely integrated Twitter into its terminals, creating a last-mile connection between companies, social media and Wall Street. 

Mr. McInerney says that this is not the time to sit on the sidelines.  Companies will need to join the party to compete for investor attention and to tell their story or risk letting others do so for them.  More than ever, Twitter and Facebook followers will be discussing companies in real time.  Firms will need not only to monitor, but also develop, mechanisms to be part of the conversations.

Why Communicators Must Be Optimists

I was recently speaking with a chief policy advisor to the president of a small but important country who said the president made a critical point:  optimists and pessimists die the same way but they live their lives very differently.  Optimists get things done, pessimists do very little.  I subscribe to this philosophy, and I believe it is particularly relevant to those of us who are in the communications business.

In fact, the success of our country has always been attributed to its optimistic posture.  In fact, I recall a research by psychologists Harold Zullow and Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania, who studied the level of pessimism in the nomination acceptance speeches by every U.S. presidential candidate between 1948 and 1984 and found that, in 9 of the 10 cases, the more optimistic candidate won.  (The one exception was Hubert Humphrey’s defeat by Richard Nixon in 1968.)  

Optimism was marked by seeing problems — whether global or personal— as temporary and correctable; pessimism was marked by taking the blame for the problems or by seeing them as intractable.

It would be interesting to take a survey of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies with respect to their optimism/pessimism and see where they stand vs. CEOs of startups, small businesses and midsize companies.

That said, why do I believe that being an optimist is important for those of us in communications?  Let me first define the word optimism and what it means to classify oneself as an optimist.  I am not talking about being a starry-eyed, mirage-making daydreamer.  I am talking about positive thinkers, those who imagine solutions for themselves or society and work to make sure they happen. "If you will it, it is no dream," said Theodore Herzel, a founder of the state of Israel. 

As communicators, we can influence what our clients say and ultimately do.  In an age when surveys show that engagement and integrity are key attributes by which our clients' customers judge them, we need to take responsibility for the strategy that will result in such best practices.  Our words can influence transparency.  Our words influence behaviors.  Our words influence collaboration.  Our words can inspire achievement and even save lives.  Client leadership with optimism makes all the difference.

What Swearing Can Do for You

Swear words?  It’s rarely acceptable to use them in public.   A politician could end his or her career if caught cursing in the media.  But the same is true of the less recognized business executive … or leaders of virtually any organization.  Even within an organization, using swear words as part of your management style, particularly when angry, is verboten.

Yet we know that everyone uses swear words privately among colleagues, friends, and neighbors, as just an expression or even as humor.   Politicians and celebrities also use them privately.  They are particularly handy when something has gone wrong and a horrible situation has developed.  You may even use them talking to yourself when no one else is around.

Now comes a study in NeuroReport which says that people who use swear words in painful situations experience less pain.  Neuroscientists tested this theory in various painful situations, including the birth process, and the results were consistent.  There’s an interesting summary by Juliette Siegfried  on the HealthGuidance website. 

This test does not change the public vs. private protocols previously discussed.  But it does instill some respect for the power of swear words as a crutch — on the private side — to help lessen some of the pain you may experience when going through a challenging situation.

The Hidden Advantage of Awards

This is awards season in the public relations business, when executives submit campaigns for gold, silver and bronze prizes sponsored by various organizations and publications. 

Agencies all over the US compete for this recognition and, obviously, it is thrilling to win. 

We had the good fortune in 2012 to be honored with 21 awards recognizing our client campaigns, our professionals, and the firm itself.  Among them were "Mid-Size Agency of the Year" and "Agency of the Year" given by PR News and the American Business Awards, respectively.  We have our fingers crossed for 2013.

There is little that beats recognition, but industry-wide awards provide other benefits for the recipient.  They are optimum benchmarking, indicating that the recipient agency's work and/or its professionals are standard-setting.   They build the credibility and strength of the agency, validating the agency's position with prospective clients.  They demonstrate the value the agency has brought to the client and, in this metric-conscious world, there is little better than that.  Such awards communicate to the individual and their peers that the winners are solid professionals whose achievements stand out.  Consistently winning them is reinforcement of all of these points.

We have also had the good fortune of developing national award programs for such clients as Schwab and American Management System (since acquired), a billion dollar software company, where the client in each situation was the donor and recipients were current or perspective clients.  The Schwab Impact Award recognized the various achievements of  its registered investment advisor clients.  AMS recognized innovation in tech among its prospects.  The awards were given annually, in these two cases, at or near ten years.  Outside judging panels were used.  Over time, these award programs built the authority and stature of these clients, and did for their prospects and clients exactly what I described in the previous paragraph. 

When it comes to awards, the ROI — whether donor or recipient — is big!  

The New Opportunity in Research

We are well into the “dialogue era” of public relations, where we can talk to our targets directly via  platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn,  Twitter and others.  Nevertheless, that does not mean that we no longer  believe in the importance of third-party endorsement — a foundational strategy in our business, where distinguished media or leading influencers carry positive messages about our client, thereby building client credibility and stature.  Both are important.

But what this construct does  is to create two different simultaneous systems for collecting feedback.  If a publication runs a story on our client, we may know the demographics of the readership, but we don't know precisely who is paying attention  and reading the publication at any given moment.  Obviously, a percentage of the audience is.  Whereas if you are engaged in a dialogue with a client target on one of the platforms, you are more likely to get sentiment on the spot that likely will be shared with others.  Sharing is a fundamental strategy of the social web.

Thus, there is traditional research, that is employed to get a specific constituency's opinions on a particular subject area related to a client campaign.  These opinions  have been shaped by third parties (e.g., magazines, newspapers, TV, websites) where we purposefully seek a cross-section, asking how they feel through surveys and focus groups. There is no guarantee they have seen the aforementioned pieces.   Most people are familiar with this research form based on studies reported almost daily. 

But many are less familiar with social analytics, research that addresses monitoring of ongoing dialogues on the various social platforms — what I like to call "voluntary research," because no request is made of those engaging in the dialogue and the constituencies are less likely to be tailored. 

For example, there are groups that talk about cars.  We can find out what aspects of cars they are voluntarily addressing (e.g., design, comfort, culture, ease of driving).  This chatter will likely influence car manufacturers.  We can also go deeper and look for dialogues on specific car brands.  While sometimes our client campaigns can trigger discussions, other influencers may do so too, and we can find out who those influencers are and dialogue with them. 

Social analytics enables one to release messages on the web and get an immediate reaction to them.  For example, it enables us to find out — immediately — how bad a crisis really is.

All of this has opened up the communications business and fine-tuned our responses on behalf of our clients.