LECHTANSKI.NET

Have you read The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR? If not, click over to Amazon.com and get it. It’s a great book.

As a mid-sized marketer, I see the value in PR much more than I do in advertising. I think an ad for one of my company’s products or brand, opposite a page from Maxell or Verbatim looks a little odd. If anything they paid way less for their space, yet the cost was a much smaller percentage of their budget.

And besides, there is an inherent mistrust in advertising. Advertisers can say anything they want because they are paying for the ink. But PR on the other hand is above reproach. If a reporter or editor put it in the magazine, it must be true. It must be news.

Hopefully.

But, not always. Magazine and newspaper reporters have a set amount of space to fill. And they are always on the lookout for interesting, new things. And strangely, there is not always an influx of new and interesting things to write about. Frankly, those that take the time to send out news releases get attention.

At their best, editors and reporters will receive a release and use it as a reason to call for follow up, or request a sample for review or put together a trend story. At their worst, editors will copy and paste the text of a news release directly into their publication. Either method gets your name in print, but savvy media consumers know the difference.

But even the worst case scenario helps you out in the Internet era of public relations. Each time your news release shows up on the web, Internet search engines see more value in it. And that makes your company and your web site show up higher in search engine results.

But to be most effective, you’re going to need to make a few changes to your news release style. Lose some of the news speak. Make it more like a blog. Go conversational and load it up with hyperlinks. Not too many; keep it to one every paragraph. Keep in mind you’re ultimately trying to appeal to a writer/editor, so keep everything pertinent. Link to your homepage, the web page of the featured product or service, try and tie the release to another more prominent company or trend, so you can link to their web sites. One neat effect of adding these hyperlinks is if your text gets copy/pasted, your links might follow and build more search engine juju.

But never forget you’re trying to appeal to a writer - reporter, editor, blogger, product evangelist, lonely teenager who spends too much time alone on the Internet - who in turn will share your news with their audience. So keep it human. Appeal to aspirations and fears.

Of course you can buy your way to the top of the Google results page, but those show up under the “Sponsored Links” header, and have less genuine appeal than organic search engine results. And people really do look at paid placements with a touch of cynicism.

So, for my time and money, I’d rather send out samples and releases, and call and email; I want to get to those writers who might be interested in the news I have to offer. As long as you’re honest and have something interesting to talk about, they listen.

Over the next few days I’m going to throw out some thoughts in dealing with Consumer, Trade and Local PR. Because they are all different, and yet oh so alike. It can’t hurt to think of them as cousins who like the same stuff, but live in different neighborhoods.

So, the flat-panel TV. All the kids are going to have one. Everybody from CNET to the Consumer Electronics Association is banking on the success of flat-panel TVs.

This trend got a big jump start with everybody on the show Cribs having one over the mantle. It’s not about just keeping up with the Jones’, it’s about keeping up with the Star Jones’. But that’s not the only influence.

Prices are finally getting into the Trading-Up ballpark. And more people are interested in the wide-screen action. And Congress finally voted and approved a hard date for ending analog television broadcasts (2/17/09). It’s widely thought ending analog TV broadcasting will create enough confusion in the general public there will be a rush to buy a new TV. (As much as I reassure by Cable-TV-subscribing Mother-in-law that she’ll be OK, she’s still freaking out about it.)

And with all of these new TVs, with new ways to show it and display it, the options go a little something like this.

• The Stand with which it came - All of these TVs come with some sort of a stand. This means you can pull it out of the box and set it up on the same old entertainment center you used for your CRT TV. (Yawn)
• Mount it… on the wall - Throw it up on the wall. This requires a wall-mount of some sort that’ll run you anywhere from $50-200 depending on bells and whistles. The problem that arises here is the cables. You can hide them by cutting some holes in your wall, which while being a pain, can look pretty slick.
• Stick your TV somewhere new - This is a cool option. And it applies more to your second or third TV. Stick it on the ceiling. The kitchen counter. A bookshelf. But keep in mind that most of you will need a satellite receiver or DVD player to get the most from even your secondary TVs. So following is a shameless plug for an Allsop product.

Our new TV Stands. They seriously make it easy to put an entertainment center in every room. And they do it without adding another piece of furniture or wall mounting.

As for me, I splurged on a 37-inch LCD TV at Costco. I am in love. My wife and I sometimes talk to the TV: greeting him or letting him know we will return soon. I dig my flat panel TV because it gives me and you more options in how to present the TV. Previously, a big TV became the centerpiece around which a room was arranged; because the TV was about the size of a Honda. With Flat Panels, you can take the focus off of the TV and let the room become more of a conversation area.

So after the initial purchase came the display dilemma. First we looked around the living room, where our old (CRT) TV was. We have an 80-year old house with a big fireplace. Should we go Cribs-style and mount it over the Fireplace? How about a media wall and put it on the opposite wall? Either way we were letting the TV become the focal point of our living room, our reception room, our main living area.

No deals, we cleared out the home office we never use, and now have a fantabulous Media Room. The best place north of Seattle and south of the Colossus in Langley to watch a movie… or back episodes of the X-Files.

Our president’s lack of interest in nuance and his reveling in “straight talk” appear to have come back to haunt him. Two things in recent days come to mind.

First, President Bush goes on TV on 5/15/06 to explain the immigration policy. “This is not amnesty, because…” In explaining why the 11 million illegal immigrants who are here, have been a valuable member of society since they got here should not be herded up and sent back he required some nuanced words. A little strange seeing this coming from him. This required more than three words, a few commas and even some propositions thrown in. Well, his co-horts in the House of Representatives aren’t having any of it, passing a bill requiring deportation. The Senate came along, passing a bill along his lines of Bush’s preference. The two bills are polar opposites. Who knows what will come of it.

Then on Friday, a British reporter asked Bush about what mistakes he has made. Remember, if you will, the last time this happened, Bush couldn’t come up with an answer. This time he was ready for the question. His first thought was to say that his using lines of great bravado, such as “Bring it on” and “dead or alive” were wrong. He went further saying he learned he needed to be more sophisticated in how he communicates. This is a far cry from the tough talk campaign language of his presidential campaigns.

Apparently, someone in the communications office has decided that appealing to the lowest common denominator is not the best way to govern a country. Life is complicated. Governing is complicated. Policy is complicated. It takes more than three-word phrases to explain it.

So, we launched this great new product last week. We’ve been developing it for a while now, and really started showing at CES this year. It is taking on a really cool internet buzz. It’s fun when these happen and traffic to your site jumps, people started insulting your stuff, but more people get it and start proselytizing for you. It’s fun.

Check out the Splash Pack DriPod. It’s a simple concept. It keeps your iPod protected in an airtight case. But it still shows off the player and lets you control the volume or click around your playlists.

And check out a couple of these links.

• MacNN - Splash Pack DriPod keeps iPods dry
• CNet - Waterproof iPod case makes a splash
• iLounge - Allsop Splash Pack Dri Pod Protection from Water, Dust and Sand
• Daily Mac - Allsop Dri Pod

It’s fun when something catches.

I’ve had an unexplainable attachment to M&Ms for most of my life. I don’t remember the attachment initially, but as a child you could push me down on my diaper-covered toddler butt and I’d be fine, but taking away my little bag of M&Ms meant trouble. So I was surprised when Elliot threw down the Reese’s Pieces to coax E.T. out of the bushes. But in hindsight, it’s better to sacrifice your Reese’s Pieces. Save the M&Ms for yourself. Anyway, I gave a lot of thought to this subject. And Reese’s is probably happy about it. Because they paid Spielberg $20,000 to have their product featured in the movie, and their sales jumped 66% overnight. It’s one of the seminal moments in the marketing in movies. Along with Jaws being the first summer blockbuster. Another source of advertising revenue was found. Paid Placement.

As a marketer, I’ve bought magazine ad space. I’ve bought local newspaper ad space. I’ve even arranged for an on-location radio event for a warehouse sale at our headquarters.

But couple those things with my knowledge as a media consumer (ie. I read magazines and watch TV) and I am an expert in my mind.

And advertising is going through some growing pains. To a large degree, advertising dollars are a zero sum game. There are only so many dollars that will be spent on advertising. The dollars get shifted around from format to format. Old forms of advertising die. Types of companies that advertise change.

Take radio. It’s gone from a national advertising medium to a local and regional advertising medium. But it’s still viable for local businesses. TV is giving way to the Internet. The best commercials made for TV never get shown on network TV but become an Internet phenomenon. Ad words and banner placement based on the context of the searches made by browsers is giving way to behavioral advertising over time.

Internet business models have gone from “make money by selling stuff” to “build a killer app that people use and sell advertising to those who want to make money by selling stuff”. That’s a big part of what caused the dot com bubble to burst. There are only so many dollars in the online-ad well. Even still, I am amazed at how many successful companies are still popping up with this model. Though I hear we are on another bubble. And what are the chances that at some point we’ll see Google-Like ads appear somewhere on the screen during your favorite TV shows.

But here’s my product placement vent. When I was reading the Fog, I was amused and engaged when I read that a bottle Ragu was smashed over someone’s head. Because we had a jar of Ragu hanging out in the cupboard. But now, if this were pulled off in a movie, I’d immediately view this as product placement, done for a fee by the movie producers, and call all of my friends to bitch about it.

Sure: TV, movie, music and pc gaming producers and artists need to make money on their product. I get it and support it. If TiVO, disappearing CD sales, slacking box office receipts and online digital media theft are going to eat up their profit, go ahead and make it up on the front end. But remember that if it looks like advertising or smells like advertising, it will look untrustworthy and suspicious. Make your creative people be more creative.