We’re all aware of the challenges facing the residential custom installation channel, but difficult times are also an opportunity for ESCs to enhance the user experience — not just with outstanding service but also by growing their own echnical k
nowledge. That’s why I’m looking at this year’s CEDIA EXPO as a learning opportunity like no other. CEDIA helps ESCs gain an edge by offering education, training, networking, and analysis of the new technologies that they may want to sink their teeth into, like home health, security, and sustainability. Looking back on the last 20 years, and having attended more than half those EXPOs, I’m looking forward to a great show and coming back from Atlanta with a renewed outlook on our industry’s recovery with consumer enthusiasm for product categories like 3DTV and more.
SHOW BUSINESS
CEDIA EXPO 2010 Outlook
MOMENTS OF CLARITY
BP: What Not to Do in a Crisis
It’s late August – and while the BP Gulf oil disaster may not be top news anymore, the aftermath and consequences for the environment and Gulf Coast economy are likely to be felt for decades. Sitting haplessly in the middle of the fray is BP — a textbook case for how not to handle your image in the face of disaster. In my mind, here are a few no-brainer crisis communications tenets that BP has violated:
#1 – Prepare for the worst. If I were going to take on the enormous technical challenge of drilling 5,000 feet under the ocean, I’d make sure I knew what I was doing – and would have thought through the worst case scenario. If BP had prepared for the worst, it might have plugged the leak much sooner and averted a PR crisis of epic proportions. Instead, what we saw were weeks of flailing around with top hats and top kills and all the other failed attempts that just served to make BP look more and more incompetent, until the well was finally plugged after more than 100 days.
#2 – Put your best foot forward. Make sure your public spokesperson is informed, not gaffe-prone, and genuinely sympathetic to the plights of the victims — in other words, everything BP CEO Tony “I want my life back” Hayward wasn’t. It’s astonishing that BP kept Hayward in such a public role for as long as it did. Read more…
WORKING GREEN
Being Honest about Being Green
In today’s eco-conscious, environmentally aware society, it’s truer than ever that being green is good business. And by extension, being green is good PR for your business.
If your company’s management is genuinely interested in minimizing its effect on the environment, then you have likely already taken serious steps toward greening your production line processes and offices, and/or even reduced your products’ toxicity and energy consumption requirements. There is an authentic story to tell here, and a PR firm or team can act as an ambassador to help you spread the word, placing news articles, communicating about your company’s environmentally friendly activities, and boosting awareness of your environmental efforts.
There’s actually an increasing number of green promo opportunities into which PR folks can dig, regardless of the business sector. Trade publications in a wide range of industries are hiring environmental editors and green beat journalists, and some pubs are even devoting entire issues to the greener side. There are also green technology trade shows, events, and associations around the world devoted to helping businesses reduce their global footprint through new technologies.
But before you jump on the green bandwagon, some self-scrutiny is probably in order. Read more…
MOMENTS OF CLARITY
Dear Concerned PR Expert: M.Y.O.B.
Most of the time I’m very proud to identify myself as a PR guy. Then some scandal involving a celebrity happens and I’m sorely tempted to turn off the television set for a week just so I can avoid seeing any other PR guys. Take, for example, the affair of the famous golfer that broke in November. Almost instantly every cable network trotted out “PR experts,” all of whom were doling out the same rather insipid advice about how the celebrity should handle the situation. It occurred to me that most professionals in any category would never dream of offering unasked-for counsel to a total stranger on national television. Todd Defren has recently compared the respective standing of lawyers and PR people in the public eye. The problem is that the Clarence Darrows of all professions are less likely to be recognized than their Nancy Graces. And PR is all about publicity, so perhaps it’s inevitable that more than its share of practitioners assume the role of professional busybodies—forgetting perhaps that busybodies aren’t liked or respected very much by anyone. The nadir of this latest scandal from my point of view was this blog post, in which the author, not content to provide unasked for advice to the golfing star, directs his words of wisdom at the same time to the President of the United States. Appalling as that is, on so many levels, I’m sure the guy was only trying to be helpful. Yet PR as a profession can only gain in stature when more of its practitioners learn that sometimes the most helpful thing is to keep their own counsel and butt out of situations that are none of their business.
WORKING GREEN
Steps to a greener office
Are you concerned about how green your workplace is?  I’m not talking about the more obvious (and potentially higher-profile) green issues such as the sustainability of your building’s construction or the environmental impact of your company’s products, manufacturing processes, and packaging/shipping methods. I’m asking just how green your office is from day to day.
Whether you work in a conventional office or from a home office, as I do, then every day you’re handling various materials that help you do your job; creating a certain amount of waste; using cleaning products to keep your desk spic and span; and consuming various beverages and foods to keep you sufficiently distracted and somewhat mentally alert. All of these actions add up to produce a footprint that has a collective impact on the environment.
You may not be contributing as much waste to the environment as a factory, but even so you’d like to make a difference. If you’re wondering what’s the best way to start, let me share with you what we’ve done so far at Wall Street Communications. Read more…
TELEVISION CITY
Before You Hire a Social Media Evangelist
There hasn’t been this much hype about a new internet phenomenon since … I don’t know, maybe the dot-com bubble when everyone rushed out and changed their company name to “Something.com”, and had to hire an “Internet-specialist PR firm.” Right now “Social Media” is getting that same kind of attention. Will it live up to it? Should we all be jumping on the bandwagon?
If you’re reading this, you had to find it on a blog or posted on LinkedIn, and that means you’ve already bought into social media to some degree. And so have I. So the questions become: how important is it, how different is it from traditional forms of business communication, and do I need a specialist to guide me through it? Read more…
MOMENTS OF CLARITY
Writing Matters: Welcome, NOA Audio
One of my jobs at Wall Street is to maintain a list of the agency’s clients, including a short summary of what they do and a link to their company web sites. In adding NOA Audio Solutions to the list last week, I was gratified in more ways than one. First, it was nice to see that this is the eighth account Wall Street has added since the beginning of this year—a good accomplishment for an agency our size in the context of an economic downturn. Secondly, I was pleased that it was necessary to go no further than the first sentence on the NOA Audio web site to find a concise statement of what the company does: “NOA provides software and hardware tools for digitizing and managing archive essence material with a focus on audio archives.” Wow. If only every technology company were this clear and succinct about what they make and what it’s for. Then a lot more of them would be successful! After all, if you can’t explain what your company does in 25 or fewer meaningful words, then maybe it’s not such a necessity after all. How lucky we are to have clients like NOA Audio who have a clear idea of what they’re doing and can describe it without resorting to buzzwords. It makes our job so much easier. But don’t tell anyone I said that.
TELEVISION CITY
Why advertise in the trades?
Many companies have either cut advertising or drastically reduced their spend in the trades for obvious reasons…. the economy. However, I’d like to make a case for why it is important to try to find the funds to continue to advertise, even just a little bit, in the trades – even in tough times./
It is not because advertising will help you sell your product or services, gain market share, or any of the other marketing 101 reasons you might think.
Why advertise? Because we need to support the trade media brands whether they are in print or on line so they stay in business! I am not talking charity here…. I am making a case that it is good for your business to make sure these media brands stay in business.
Why do you care if they stay in business? These brands provide credibility to your marketing messages. Their readers, subscribers etc. are loyal to these brands because they provide them with information about the products and services in their respective industries that they need to know about to make decisions. These media brands have the thousands of subscribers they have because they are viewed as a credible resource for information. So when your company is covered by a journalist in the trades, that information has much more credibility than if the company provided it on it’s own to the reader.
As a PR professional, it is my job to get my clients covered in the media. But if the editorial outlets don’t stay in business, where can I push my client’s messages? Direct to customers? Social Media? Sure, those things are fine as PART of the marketing mix – but do not under estimate the value the credibility of the media has for your business.
I hear of too many PR agencies telling clients to invest in PR or social media campaigns instead of advertising. I think this is so wrong and really doing a disservice to their clients and to their respective industries now and for the future.
We must support the trades so they stay in business to carry the valuable editorial information about you to your customers. It doesn’t matter if it’s print or electronic – it is about the media brand (and the journalists that make it up).
You don’t need to run an expensive ad plan… if everyone just found some money to run in the trades it would make a difference.
Great journalists are looking for work because these brands are suffering. We all need to act like a community and support each other.
Please let me know your thoughts on this!