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Marketing in 2020: Trust, Relevance, and Regulation

Amanda Bohne, Chief Marketing Officer, AppNeta

Earning the trust of prospects is the greatest challenge facing marketers today, bar none. Sure, consumer data is abundant given the many channels brands use to interact with their target customers. But this information is also held at a premium, with consumers being more discerning than ever about the brands they do business with and which pieces of data they’re willing to share.

While shoving unsolicited content in front of prospects was never a best practice, there’s a “law of large numbers” element that drove many marketers to use that approach anyway. But especially in an age where ad-blockers are becoming more common and we’re bound by increasing regulation, marketers have to get creative about how to earn trust and entice prospects to want to learn more. Getting someone to share their data and opt-in to engage is more valuable now than ever before.

For starters, regulations pertaining to data protection and ownership are becoming more and more common across the Globe, adding a legal dimension to how companies access and leverage the data they use to qualify prospects. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), for instance, gives citizens of the EU unprecedented ownership over their data, allowing them to restrict certain businesses from accessing it while calling for it’s retrieval (or deletion) when an individual believes their data is being misused.

Similarly, the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) gives broad data protections and ownership to users in the Golden State — a document that many predict will be a model for larger legislation on the national stage. Like GDPR, the CCPA is designed to prohibit businesses from getting greedy with the vast quantities of consumer data they’ve been able to cull in an age where social media and digital commerce, to name just two culprits, have become behemoth data-collection channels in their own right.

It’s not all bad news for marketers, however. Instead of looking at these regulations as stifling or limiting, we should view these new mandates as a challenge that encourages us to “up our game” and put ourselves in the shoes of the prospects we’re targeting.

Just as real estate is all about “location, location, location,” for marketers, it’s about “relevance, relevance, relevance.” Regardless of whether they’re buying for themselves or on behalf of their businesses, people are more likely to engage with highly relevant brand experiences. By leveraging purposeful and targeted messaging — as opposed to “spray and pray” broadcasting — marketers can build trust with the prospects, increasing the likelihood of success and opt- in.

About the Author: Amanda Bohne (née LeVine) is the Chief Marketing Officer at AppNeta where she is responsible for all things marketing- related, including demand generation, product marketing, content marketing, and public relations. Prior to AppNeta, Amanda was the Vice President of Marketing and Communications at iboss, a cybersecurity firm, and the Director of Product Marketing at Carbonite, a cloud backup company. Amanda has also held marketing roles at other Boston-area technology companies including Care.com and Databox. Throughout all of her roles, Amanda’s blend of product marketing and general marketing experience has allowed her to tap into products’ unique value propositions to create compelling messaging that resonates with target audiences. Amanda earned a Bachelor of Arts in Communication from Stanford University and a Masters of Science in Advertising from Boston University.

Vision, Strategy, & Giving Back: How Women Can Increase their C-Suite Visibility

Durée Ross, President & CEO of Durée & Company

If I could contribute to one movement that would bring the most good to the largest amount of people, it would be empowering women. While it is challenging for women to get a seat at the table, sit on a board and break the glass ceiling, we have pushed ourselves and others around us to conquer the c-suite. Now that so many women have top positions in major corporations and organizations, how do we increase our c-suite visibility?

Having founded my PR, marketing and special events agency in 1999, I have experienced many incredible “ups” and “downs” over the past 20 years, all while learning a great deal along the way. Through it all, I’ve discovered a multitude of ways of how women can increase their c-suite visibility. I’m happy to share my top four leadership lessons.

1) Lead by example, and be a visionary. When there is little precedence and very few people who are willing to take on a task or challenge, be determined to navigate unchartered territory. Educate yourself, have a long-term vision, and tackle the issue at hand head-on. You may need to understand any complex legislation surrounding the subject, or perhaps event learn a whole new “language” related to the issue. When you do your research and take that step out of your comfort zone, your work can set a precedent for others.

2) Always have a strategy in place. A plan is essential, whether it’s for your staff, your clients, your company or your own personal brand. A leader needs foresight in order to lead. You and your staff should never, ever lose your passion for your work, your clients and your results. A plan helps you and your team to stay on track and continue to enjoy what you do.

3) Give back. Give to give; don’t give to get. Whether it’s doing pro-bono work with nonprofit organizations, organizing your team to participate in and fundraise for an event with a cause, or even creating your own nonprofit organization, you will get to see your work making a difference. It’s incredibly fulfilling to pay it forward, and people will know you not only for your professional efforts, but also your community efforts.

Volunteering for industry and nonprofit boards, signing up for speaking engagements, and mentoring others are just a few more examples how you can make an impact and share your expertise with others.

4) Ensure you are recognized for your work. Apply for those industry, civic and women-oriented awards. These not only provide you with even more credibility, but they also result in more PR and advertising avenues for yourself and your brand. Awards for women in business are especially important ― they bring you into an elite group of other women in the c- suite, and recognize specific attributes that only women can offer. About the Author: Durée Ross is founder and president of Aspen and Fort Lauderdale PR, marketing and special events agency, Durée & Company, Inc., celebrating its 20th year in business. An award-winning PR entrepreneur, Durée has a broad spectrum of experience spanning the corporate, agency and non-profit arenas for local, national and international clients. The reach of Durée & Company is global with clients who provide services and impact lives. Her firm is certified as a woman-owned Florida Certified Business Enterprise (CBE).

7 Life Lessons Learned Making Gravy with My Grandmother

Linda Descano, CFA®, Executive Vice President, Red Havas Perhaps like many of you, I’ve had the great fortune to be mentored and sponsored by so many fierce, fabulous women over the course of my career. When pushed, though, to name the one woman whose had the most profound influence in my life hands down it was my Grandmom Nina, better known among my Chietti family as the General or the Boss.

Growing up, I spent most family dinners and holidays in the kitchen as her sous chef. I sliced and diced, chopped and mashed, mixed and kneaded, stirred and sautéed, and, post- meal, washed and dried. At Grandmom Nina’s side, I mastered the art of whipping meager leftovers into a gourmet feast. I also learned to prepare a dinner for 50+ while entertaining unexpected visitors. And, when she turned “juice mixologist,” I was her trusty taste-tester although, honestly, seldom did any of her concoctions yield a “tasty” result.

While we dipped, breaded and fried pound after pound of chicken cutlet, I learned as much about how to “put food on the table” literally as I did figuratively. You see, at age 40, my grandmother turned family breadwinner when she was widowed with seven children, then ages 5 through 16, to support. She worked three jobs to keep them clothed, fed and sheltered. As it turned out, she had as good a nose for business as she did for making “gravy,” even winning a sales award for a line of cleaning products sold out of her home.

For a woman whose only degree was from the “school of hard knocks,” my grandmother’s insights and instincts on what it takes to succeed in life and business turned out to be an inheritance more valuable than any jewelry or any amount of money. They provided a powerful inner compass that has enabled me to become the person and professional I am today.

After her death, I jotted them down and distilled them into seven ingredients, which seemed fitting since she had seven children. They are:

1. Keep “gas in the tank”: keep your mind sharp by learning something every day. 2. Che sera sera: focus on what you can control rather than on what you can’t. 3. Don’t look back: stop beating yourself over mistakes. Let go and move forward. 4. Know who you are and where you are going: act with integrity and purpose. 5. Mind your words: say what you mean and mean what you say. 6. Never say goodbye: don’t burn bridges behind you. Think long-term and strive to find a win-win. 7. The more you listen, the more you learn. The more you talk, the more mistakes you make.

I think of all the time we spent together and the many lessons that were left on the table, so to speak, because I wasn’t wise enough—or patient enough—to catch them. I would give anything to hear my grandmother say one more time, “Linda, let me tell you a story.” About the Author: Linda joined Havas PR in 2015 to spearhead the agency’s digital, social and measurement practice areas. With more than 15 years of experience, she specializes in providing strategic counsel and tactical implementation of integrated communications programs, incorporating PR, media relations, social media, content partnerships, influencer marketing, thought leadership and advertising. Her work includes a variety of sectors including financial services, economic development, pharma and corporate responsibility. Previously, Linda was managing director and global head of content marketing and social media at Citi, where she launched numerous digital firsts and served as president and CEO of Women & Co., the bank’s award-winning financial lifestyle community for women. Her honors include PR News’ 2018 PR Professional of the Year, 2018 Campaign U.S. Digital 40 Over 40, 2014 Fox Information Technology Distinguished Alumni Award from the Fox School of Business at Temple University, 2014 Pinnacle in Leadership Award from the Girl Scouts of Greater New York, and 2013 Changing the Game Award from Advertising Women of New York (now known as She Runs It). Linda also served as a judge for The Content Council Pearl Awards in 2018 and 2017. Linda serves as a capstone mentor and advisory council member for the Fox School of Business M.S. in Digital Innovation in Marketing program. She currently serves on the board of directors of New York Women in Communications (and is a past president) and Servo Annex, a digital consultancy. Know the Basics to Soar with Social Media Marketing

Jill Kurtz, Owner, Kurtz Digital Strategy

Social media marketing usessocial media platforms to communicate and engage with people. The goal can vary, from making new connections, to solidifying existing relationships, to defining subject matter expertise, and more. Because of the person-to-person nature of social media, it is a great tool for any digital marketing strategy that focuses on building any kind of relationship.

Social Platforms Are an Opportunity to Reach a Wide Audience

Marketo reports that there are 2.31 billion people in the world who are active social media users. Of them, 1.97 billion people are active mobile social media users. Pew Internet has been tracking use in the United States and finds that today around seven-in-ten Americans use social media.

Social media is more than the traditional platforms that many marketers are familiar with—Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. There are many more activities and platforms that marketers can use to reach their target audiences, engage them with relevant messages, and build lasting relationships. Common to most are organic–free–options and paid advertising opportunities.

Social Media Marketing Builds Relationships

Social media marketing is marketing that targets relationship building of some kind. Social media marketing is designed to connect with fans, customers, prospects, and partners.

Your target audience is right now on one or more social channels. They are sharing their opinions about you online, whether or not you’re a part of the conversation. It is critical to participate and engage in a meaningful way.

The rise in social media usage by marketers, and our audiences, means that participation is no longer an option; it’s a necessity. With 68 percent of US adults using one or more social media channels, marketers need to be there too.

Women at Work: 5 Essentials to Power Up Your Personal Brand

Stacey Ross Cohen, President & CEO, Co-Communications

Despite great strides made in women’s empowerment and gender equality, women still make up a small segment of top leadership jobs. Successful women understand the power of personal branding. Personal branding is no longer a luxury – it’s a requirement whether you have your own business or are climbing the corporate ranks. Everybody has a personal brand – – it’s either negative, neutral or positive. And although it may seem personal brands “just happen,” they don’t — the best ones are carefully honed. Here are five indispensable tips to bring your brand to life:

1) Start with a Plan

Jumping into tactics w/o strategic direction does NOT work. You need to be intentional and proactive. The Discovery phase — a self-audit of your passions, expertise, achievements, values, and goals — is vital for success. But just as important as understanding you is understanding your audience — which may include board members, clients, potential employers, employees, strategic relationships, or the community at large. Define your target audience and arm yourself with intelligence about what drives them to take action. Determine who you’re talking to: consider age, gender, personality and profession. Then, identify your audience’s pain points: how can you solve their needs? What is their preferred channel of communication? Personal branding is not a matter of me-me-me—it’s about your value to others. In order to stand out, gather intelligence on your competition.Who else is doing what you’re trying to do? Why shouldyou be selected for that coveted position or promotion? Why should someone hire your company instead of another? By plotting all this out, you’ll crystallize your competitive advantage and be well-positioned to put your stake in the ground.

2) Bring Your Brand to Life

Once you’ve crafted a compelling brand, you need to create a powerful portfolio to showcase your value. Ensure your LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other online profiles are up- to-date and harmonized — make every word and photo count. You may consider a website, a digital resume, and headshots, to start. You might create other content, too — like customized infographics showcasing your accomplishments.And always ensure you adhere to your Company’s brand standards and policies (if applicable).

3) Deliver Content That’s Relevant (and Platform-Appropriate)

Think of yourself as your own news channel.Whether you develop articles, blog posts or videos, make certain the content is shareable, engaging and actionable. Humor drives further interaction when used appropriately. And don’t forget the “wow!” headline. It’s all about delivering value driven content. Good is not enough — you need to create remarkable content to capture your audience. Content is more than words; make use of striking visuals to engage readers. And before hitting the “post” button, take a step back and ensure your post is relevant and relatable. Take into account the recipient’s mindset: “What’s in it for me?”

4) It’s All about Relationships

At the end of the day, your network equals your net worth. Your network should be carefully curated – you want your network to include people who are relevant to your goals. People do business with people they like and trust. For this reason, it’s important to engage in both online and offline communities. Be transparent: should you receive a negative post or review, address it in a professional and timely fashion. Both prospective and existing clients will appreciate your honesty. Also, invest in networking and actively join committees and organizations (both professional and community) and go beyond just being a member – take a leadership position. Give before you get, and say “thank you” often. And always, always remember the simple stuff: a firm handshake and prompt replies to those important emails.

5) Measure Results to Ensure Success

Your personal brandrequires routine maintenance and monitoring to ensure your message is heard loud and clear. You need to assess What is moving the needle? Refine your strategy accordingly. Analytics include info on social shares, back links, page/profile views, favorites, retweets, mentions, and LinkedIn Social Selling index.

It’s important to note that the work does not stop here: as you progress in your career, you need to adapt and refine your personal brand. But don’t fret: it’s never too late to start! Here’s to jumping in the driver’s seat and powering up your personal brand.

About the Author: Stacey Cohen founded Co-Communications, Inc. in 1997, an award-winning full service marketing and public relations firm with offices in Westchester County, NY, Farmington, CT and midtown Manhattan. Stacey began her career at Marsteller Inc. (a division of Young & Rubicam), where she was responsible for expanding the corporate communications program for advertising executives. She then held senior positions in both public relations and marketing over a six-year period at CBS/FOX Video, then the world’s largest home video company. Under Stacey’s leadership, Co-Communications has been awarded the Advertising Club’s “Best of Show” (2002, 2010, 2012) sponsored by Gannett, Forbes Enterprise Award (2006), and was inducted into the Westchester County Business Hall of Fame (2008). She was recently named PRSA Practitioner of the Year (2013) in recognition of her professional achievements, experience, and reputation in the profession. Stacey speaks often at industry conferences. Stacey is a HuffPost blogger and has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, Forbes, Crain’s, Sales & Marketing and other leading national publications. She holds a B.S. from Syracuse University, MBA from Fordham University and recently completed a certificate program at NYU Leonard Stern School of Business.

Communication Challenges When Your Industry is in 24×7 Disruption

Building Differentiation in Financial Services When Nothing Stays the Same for Very Long

Tracey Gordon, Managing Partner, TargetPositioning There was a time – actually not that long ago – when financial firms were able to introduce new ideas and quickly solidify first-to-market brand awareness before others emulated the success. Think of index funds, ETFs, online investing and most recently Robo-advisors.

Often, the first to market with the idea gets to define the space, to brand it – Vanguard, iShares, Schwab, Betterment.

But, very soon for all these ideas, competition came quickly. The battle for customers and assets was so strong that soon an assault on the idea and its originator began. And then, very soon everyone was doing it!

Today, the path from market introduction to emulation is happening faster and more furiously than ever before. For many firms there is the frustration of introducing a differentiated product and then watch an early edge quickly disappear as duplication begins. Frustrating and very challenging from a business, marketing and media messaging standpoint. The luxury of building a sustainable idea- ownership brand has gone.

But there is a positive. Sure, you may lose your introduction cachet, but the momentum for growth is so powerful that asset accumulation can be staggering and compensating. It’s no longer just a product or idea, but an entire market segment with potentially trillions of dollars. Robo-advisors, introduced just a decade ago, are now closing in on $1 trillion in assets.

When the numbers are that large and the potential so great, something else happens.

It’s not exclusive to financial services, but occurs across all industries when new, very popular ideas come to market.

With so much at stake, a very expensive messaging differentiation battle begins. Competitors – established firms and newcomers from the fintech world — don’t sit idly by but quickly come to market with their versions. Naturally, the idea originator doesn’t want to relinquish what its built, so very quickly billions are being spent across every channel that reaches a potential customer – sales, advertising, marketing, public relations, and social media.

Over the years, communicators have helped create many memorable and innovative campaigns. Historically, implementation had the luxury of time, months, even years to build a new business. But the days when companies could adjust in a methodical way with all units aligned to think, develop plans, rethink plans, and finally act have gone.

Now, with change happening so rapidly, from so many different sides and impacting huge swaths of the industry, rapid response is no longer reserved for crises, but becomes mainstream strategy for communication professionals.

Those who are narrow industry experts, say focusing on just the fund industry, financial advisors, blockchain/crypto, insurance etc., now have to be experts on everything as entire segments build for a still open future. Additionally, if they aren’t experts on how technology is changing the entire financial services space they’ll be left out of a significant part of the conversation. Communicators must also understand the macro impact on the industry – that it is splintering, restructuring, merging and re-emerging in ways that are new and very, very different than ever before.

The most important thing for any communicator to understand is that they have to go deep into the changes and their impact. What’s happening is complex and as always knowledge and insights ahead of everyone else still gets that early seat at the table. It’s just not effective for the media strategists to be brought in at the end of the planning. The very best are industry and trend experts first and foremost. They have broad business knowledge. They are anticipators, differentiation and visibility building experts. They don’t wait until a 6:00 am tweet to react to a competitor’s new assault. Today, communicators are the eyes and ears for business and that seat at the table is crucial for any company looking to succeed in a rapidly shifting world.

About the Author: Tracey Gordon became one of the most sought-after financial communication strategists building competitive media campaigns for Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, Charles Schwab and ING. Today, through www.targetpositioning.com, she works with both new FinTech disruptors and established brands looking to rise above the competition in an industry that is growing rapidly, but where market differentiation is becoming increasingly more challenging.

PR Women Who Changed History

March 12, 2020 – New York City

Use Discount Code HBCW202 to Save $25 off of a General Admission Ticket REGISTER

When: Thursday, March 12, 2020, 6:00–8:30 pm Where: 85 Broad Street, 30th floor, New York, New York

Decades of sexist ads, magazine covers and TV shows have had a profound impact on society’s perception of women, as well as women’s perception of themselves. The majority of media portrayals depicted women in caretaker roles — like housewives, mothers, and sexy girlfriends — or in typically female jobs like nurses, teachers, or secretaries. This depiction of women greatly influenced how women were treated in the office, at home, and even in the court. While these depictions have evolved — in part due to an increasing number of women creatives — we have a long way to go to see the image of women truly reflect the women of 2020.

Our speakers will address the role of public relations in addressing this issue, as well as showcase some of the PR pioneers who worked hard to change the image of women. The Panel

Judith Harrison, keynote address Senior vice president, Diversity & Inclusion, Weber Shandwick; President, New York Women In Communications

Dr. Caryn Medved, moderator Baruch College, CUNY

Dr. Karen Miller Russell University of Georgia, Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication

Dick Martin Former CCO, AT&T, and author of “Otherwise: The Wisdom You Need To Succeed in a Diverse and Divisive World,” “Tough Calls,” and other books

Registration

YOU MUST REGISTER to attend this event: Registration: STUDENT $20 | EDUCATOR $30 | 3-YEAR-AND-UNDER PROFESSIONAL $40 | GENERAL $75 | PRESS PASS

Sponsorships

Sponsorships are available: Sponsorships: BRONZE $1,000 | SILVER $1,500 | GOLD $2,000 | PLATINUM $5,000 | RECEPTION $2,500 | LIVE-STREAM $2,500 | VENUE $2,500

“PR Women Who Changed History 2020” is sponsored in part by Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication Department of Advertising and Public Relations at University of Georgia; and Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies, Public Relations & Corporate Communications. The Impossible ‘to Stomach’ Whopper

Dr. David Hagenbuch, Ethicist and Professor of Marketing, Messiah College, Author of Honorable Influence, Founder of MindfulMarketing.org

Green bumps, black specks, white fuzz. You saw the telltale signs when a piece of once fresh fruit or an edible vegetable fell to the back of a refrigerator drawer where it laid low for a few months. It took a deep breath and all the courage you could muster to pick up the nauseating produce and pitch it into the trash. So, why would one of the world’s leading fast food restaurants want consumers to see its most iconic menu item in a similarly sickening state?

Few food companies have the mettle to play with such fire, but one known for flame-broiling and often flagrant marketing does: Burger King. The fast food icon recently launched a “global, integrated advertising campaign showing its iconic Whopper® sandwich covered in mold.” A video from the company begins with the staging of a very attractive Whopper. Then, against a music bed of “What a difference a day makes,” filming turns to a rapid time lapse and the burger ages abhorrently before our eyes.

First, the lettuce starts to wither. Then the bun sags and mayonnaise melts. Before we can look away, white fuzz flows over the beef patty and a green/blue ‘foam’ appears, making a cross-section closeup look like a storm at sea. Thankfully, the camera pans out, but only to show a bun enveloped in mold with some black substance oozing from the burger’s epicenter.

The visual agony eventually ends as a text overlay briefly appears: “The Whopper DAY 34.” The grotesque burger vanishes into an all-black screen that frames the tagline “THE BEAUTY OF NO ARTIFICIAL PRESERVATIVES,” followed by an all-white Burger King logo.

Most organizations agonize over advertisements, trying to ensure that their products are presented in the most positive light. Those in food industries seem especially attuned to their ads’ optical appeal, and for good reason: Studies have found that visual stimuli such as color, evenness, and shape “exert cognitive top-down influences that can and sometimes do alter assessments of taste and flavor.” In other words, there is truth to the old adage: ‘We eat with our eyes.’

So, why would Burger King flame-broil conventional wisdom by plating a burger that could make the Geico racoons retch?

The main reason stems from the spot’s tagline, “The beauty of no artificial preservatives.” The company wants consumers to realize that it has made a clean-break from past practice and it no longer uses nonorganic life-extenders, at least not in “most European countries and select markets in the United States.” Furthermore, according to Christopher Finazzo, Burger King’s Americas President:

“The Burger King® brand is currently rolling out the Whopper® sandwich with no preservatives, colors, or flavors from artificial sources in the U.S. The product is already available in more than 400 restaurants in the country and will reach all restaurants throughout the year.”

Unfortunately, in terms of touting “real food,” Burger is painfully late to the game. Chipotle, Panera, and a crowd of fast-casual restaurants have been making that claim for a few decades. Even many processed food manufacturers, like General Mills, have kept better pace with consumer desires for healthier food. The company has already removed artificial ingredients from most of its cereals.

So, maybe Burger King needed to do something shocking to grab the attention of a populace likely to overlook or be unimpressed by what is an increasingly common change. The promotion certainly has gained the company free media exposure and gotten marketers like me talking about it.

A similar tact also must have worked, at least somewhat, when the firm unearthed its Halloween-inspired “Nightmare King” in the fall of 2018. Although it never seemed that the green-bun burger was a big seller, it did grab headlines and likely helped keep the restaurant top-of-mind among those who frequent fast food.

It’s also possible that the Moldy Whopper promo resonates with Gen Zs and Millennials, who are used to unconventional advertising and who demand transparency from the brands they buy. These age cohorts might uniquely appreciate the combination of candor and irreverence.

Still, the avant-garde ad campaign takes an extraordinary and nearly unprecedented risk by essentially forgoing the Maslow- level-one appeal of appetizing food. Maybe having “no artificial preservatives” hits a higher tier of the hierarchy, such as safety or self-esteem, but according to the theory, people’s desires will never ascend to those upper levels if their hunger is unsatisfied.

Burger King apparently is banking on viewers remembering the pristine burger that appears at the beginning of the ad for a few seconds, rather than the progressively repulsive Whopper that fills the other forty-five seconds. “Negativity bias,” however, upends that hope: Our brains are “simply built with a greater sensitivity to unpleasant news.” Said another way, there are some things we simply can’t ‘unsee’ and a mold- covered Whopper is probably one of them.

Although few organizations are so daring as to cast their products in a negative light, many do fall into the same general AIDA-defying trap: In an all-out effort to grab attention and retain interest, they sacrifice desire and action. As evidence, recall all the commercials you can from the last Super Bowl, then try to remember the companies responsible for each of them.

Like many other restaurants, Burger King is in an existential battle with all kinds of new competitors, especially those in the fast-casual space. It’s great that the fast food icon has taken steps to make some of its menu items more user-friendly, but those health benefits will never accrue to people who are put off by what they see in the company’s stomach-turning promotion. The new burger may be better for you, but etching the image of a moldy Whopper onto people’s minds must be “Simple-Minded Marketing.”

About the Author: Dr. David Hagenbuch is a Professor of Marketing at Messiah College, the author of Honorable Influence, and the founder MindfulMarketing.org, which aims to encourage ethical marketing.

Democratic Debate # 9: Bloomberg’s Las Vegas Gamble

(Prediction: In Vegas More Losers Than Winners, As Usual; And Three Important PR Lessons)

Arthur Solomon, Public Relations Consultant

It’s appropriate that the February 19 debate, the first after the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, will be in Las Vegas, Nevada. Because it’s time for the two front-running candidates, Sen. Sanders and Pete Buttigieg to wager a few bucks of their own money to show they have the confidence in what they have been saying for months: That they can attract peoples of all colors to their candidacy.

Unlike Iowa and New Hampshire, Nevada has a more diverse population and candidates from states with large minority populations have said that the two front runners cannot win the support of people of color voters.

(For a few years I spent time in Las Vegas, when playing key roles on accounts during the annual CES, the consumers electronics show, which despite its name was not open to consumers. At the CES convention, if you weren’t in the electronic trade, you were banished to the casinos. The display of electronics was only for individuals affiliated with the consumer technology business, disproving Gertrude Stein’s “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.” and William Shakespeare’s “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Prohibiting consumers from attending a convention with the name consumer in its title might make sense to some people; to others it’s a bit misleading, but that’s not unusual when you go down the list of names given to public policy organizations or statements issued on behalf of clients by people in our business.)

In Vegas, it’s not unusual for poker players to say, “Put-up or shut up.” It’s also time for the two front-runners to put up or shut up about their ability to attract people of color voters. Right? Maybe not. Vegas casinos stay in business because of people who know their luck will change with the next poker hand or roll of the dice.

The Nevada caucuses will be held on February 22. Early voting was allowed several days earlier. In keeping with the Las Vegas spirit, I’m wiling to bet a few $5.00 chips that regardless of the results, some candidates will say, “We’re hearing great things from our operatives regarding the South Carolina primary on February 29 and from the Super Tuesday primary states on March 3. Unlike a few other candidates who should have called it quits, Sen. Michael Bennet, Andrew Yang and Deval Patrick folded after New Hampshire, causing a colleague to say, “Patrick was a candidate? Surprise to me.” I’m also willing to place several $10 chips on black that other candidates will fold their cards before Super Tuesday.

However this column is about how the candidates who participated in the debate did.

But first, a brief review of how the hopefuls, in my opinion, did during the New Hampshire debate on February 7:

There was no clear winner. I thought Sens. Klobuchar and Sanders, along with former veep Biden and businessmen Tom Steyer all did well. However, Biden was the most improved. (The TV pundits disagreed with my evaluation regarding Biden. But they’re wrong much more often than I am, so I’ll not change my position.) Sens. Klobuchar has the best closing statement. Extra credit for Sanders and Steyer for being the first to turn their fire on President Trump. Sanders, early on, said, we re all united against Trump, and Steyer continually attacked the president throughout the debate, as he has in all the debates and reminded everyone he has been calling for Trump’s impeachment for much more than a year.

I also predicted that If Sen. Sanders overwhelmingly wins the New Hampshire primary on February 11, the less liberal candidates will band together to try and stop his momentum. If the New Hampshire results are close, it’ll be every man and woman for themselves until after Super Tuesday on March 3. Then the field will be winnowed to a few, all less liberal than Sanders, but all definitely on the liberal side of the political spectrum and all exceedingly more liberal than President Trump. If after Super Tuesday, Mayor Pete is still a viable candidate, the other remaining ones will form a “Stop Pete” strategy, not because they are necessarily against his positions, but because a mayor of a small city with a little over a 100,000 citizens does not have the national governmental experience to be president of the United States. If this scenario plays out, it’ll open the door to some other Democratic senators or governors to declare their candidacy, and also strengthen the candidacies of Sens. Klobuchar and, maybe, Bloomberg. (My experience at the tables during the CES show proved one thing: It’s easier to lose than win. But at least if I’m wrong about this, it won’t cost me any money.)

To paraphrase former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, “How am I doing in the prediction biz?” So far, it’s a push. I’m now betting a few dollars that Sen. Klobuchar will draw closer to Sen. Sanders and Mayor Pete after the Nevada results are counted, and I’m also wagering money on a long shot candidate in the futures market – that Michael Bloomberg will be in serious contention after Super Tuesday.

Did Anything Happen After the New Hampshire Debate And Before The Nevada One On February 19? Yes, Some Were The Same Old, Same Old. However, there were significant occurrences.

The New: Three-and-a-half lines in a Wall Street Journal February 8-9 political column caught my attention. It said that President Trump’s State of the Union speech audience “dropped 20% from last year, from 46.9 million to 37.2 million, according to Nielsen. That’s a significant loss of audience that could mean people are tiring of his act and are tuning him out. (None of the TV pundits mentioned this nor did I read it anywhere else, but I know I didn’t dream it because my WSJ invoice was tucked inside the paper.) The Old: As soon as the Iowa caucuses were history, the candidates loaded up their ammunition and trucked them to New Hampshire, unloaded it and began attacking their competitors. Examples: Former veep Biden and Mayor Pete assailed each other about the experience of both, with Biden also stressing Buttigieg’s inability to attract black voters; Sen. Sanders attacked former mayors Pete and Bloomberg; Mayor Pete and Sen. Klobuchar traded blows. But there was also something new about the inter- party feud: The new Fighting Joe appears to have discarded his Democrats shouldn’t attack Democrats credo. Now the candidate who loves the others the most is Steyer. (Unfortunately for Biden his new demeanor might have come too late.) Significant occurrence # 1: In my opinion, the most significant event to emerge from the New Hampshire primary was the February 11 election night speech by Sen. Sanders in which he said, ‘What I can tell you with absolute certainty, and I know I speak for every one of the Democratic candidates, is that no matter who wins,… we’re going to unite together and defeat the most dangerous President in the modern history of this country,” His speech was noteworthy because in the 2016 election he didn’t issue a call for party unity and didn’t endorse Hillary Clinton until July. Significant occurrence # 2: That Michael Bloomberg qualified for the sound bite TV program; another first for Bloomberg was that for the first time, on February 17, he criticized another hopeful by name, Sen. Sanders, saying his tactics were similar to President Trump. Significant occurrence # 3: Bloomberg’s announcement that (unlike President Trump, who still owns his business) if elected president he would put Bloomberg L.P. into a blind trust with the intent of selling it. The company could be valued at up to $60 billion, according to reports. The Dirty: A few hours prior to the debate, the Sanders’ campaign, which has been accused of playing dirty, did it again, when Sanders’ press secretary Briahna Joy Gray told CNN that Bloomberg had heart attacks. When confronted, she said that she misspoke. One question Quiz: Was it Sen. Warren or Sen. Sanders who said the following, the day prior to the debate? “The financial system isn’t working the way it should for most Americans. The stock market is at an all-time high, but almost all of the gains are going to a small number of people.” Answer: Neither of them said it. The correct answer is Michael Bloomberg.

(By now, anyone who has been following the happenings on the campaign trail can recite the attack comments forward, backward and sideways. So let’s assume that the circular firing squad attacks will continue and unless something out of the ordinary occurs I’ll not mention them again in this column.)

What Happened During The Nevada Debate?

In addition to the former New York City mayor, others that were on the debate stage were Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden. Because there were fewer candidates, they should have had more time explaining their policies. Did they? Short answer: No.

That’s because, as usual, the candidate going into the debate with the most momentum was the target of the other candidates. So, it wasn’t a surprise that Bloomberg would be attacked because of his past policies, which he apologized for, and the money he is spending on his campaign, as if that’s a crime. (Notably missing from the attacks was the generous contributions he has made to liberal organizations over the years.) They didn’t ambush him, as Sen. Kamala Harris did to Joe Biden with her “I was that little girl story.” It was a full-fledged frontal attack, and they made it known days before the debate that Bloomberg’s past would be a significant topic during the TV show.

All of the candidates zeroed in on Bloomberg, as if he was the reason that they were cast as pawns in a made for television series that had them begging for time from inquisitors who probably don’t know the fine print details of the candidate’s policies.

Here’s my take-away from the debate.

As expected, all the candidates attacked Bloomberg, probably envious of his success as a businessman. The former NYC mayor responded that he’s the only person on the stage who has started a business and is giving away the profits from it. The most vicious attacks on Bloomberg were by Sen. Warren, who also seemed the most desperate, probably because her hope of winning the nomination is fading away. Former veep Biden, as usual, presented a cafeteria style of reasons that he said made him the best qualified candidate. Klobuchar was her usual confident self; nothing outlandish, nothing new. Actually, very little specifics about her policies. Mayor Pete, as usual, came across as Mr. Perfect, as if only he has the leadership qualities to lead the country. In fact. Sen. Klobuchar chided Mayor Pete by saying no one is a perfect as you are. (It would be unfair to say that mayor Pete has the biggest ego of the candidates. Anyone who thinks they have the ability to run the country has to have an over-sized ego. But because of his demeanor when speaking about other candidates Mayor Pete’s ego is always on display.) Surprisingly, early in the debate, Sen. Klobuchar, Biden and Mayor Pete ganged up on Sen. Sanders, regarding his health plan. As usual, Sen. Sanders had the most consistent message, as he has had since the first debate. Mayor Bloomberg said the entire discussion was ridiculous. All it does is help re-elect Trump. Even thought they are miles apart politically, Sen. Sanders and Bloomberg had one thing in common during the debate. They both were consistently attacked by the rest of the field.

But the big question everyone wanted answered was, “How would Bloomberg handle the incoming flak?”

He handled it fine. When criticized, he didn’t immediately start waving his hands or interrupting others to defend his position. He waited until it was his turn to speak before correcting mischaracterizations about him. He, and Sen. Klobuchar, acted like the adults in the room. But unlike Sen. Klobucher, Bloomberg’s comments were based on facts, instead of generalizations.

If I had to choose the debate winner, it would be Bloomberg.

(Advice to the candidates who didn’t do well during the debate: Don’t go to the casinos. Chances are you’ll also lose there.)

My Take:

I’ve been asked why Tom Steyer is dong so poorly. Here’s my answer: Mike Bloomberg is known nationally for his public-service campaigns on a range of issues, including climate change, gun violence, public health, women’s rights, anti-tobacco programs and education. People know about his interest in these subjects because he lets the public know about them through PR and advertising. Tom Steyer is campaigning “as a progressive outsider with a business record, calling for term limits in Congress, decriminalizing illegal border crossings and expanding the Supreme Court”. He says his top priorities are breaking the influence of corporations and addressing climate change. A good platform for a Democratic candidate. His problem is that most of what he has done has not been publicized nationally, and until he began his impeach Trump campaign he wasn’t well-known outside of the West Coast. A nationally-known candidate like Bloomberg can skip the early voting states like Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. But for new faces like mayor Pete and Steyer, participating in them was a must. They provide a vehicle to introduce themselves to a national audience. Now that the results of the Iowa caucuses are official, (I guess), before I take the last horse and buggy leaving the friendly state, a question: Do you think that except for individuals who are personally involved with the campaigns, (and I include the media, who depend on the campaigns’ happenings for news material, even though it’s often a rehash of yesterday’s news) that the average Jane and Joe Voters are upset that the results were delayed. I don’t. The situation is similar to most PR crises. People involved with the crisis are certain that what happened, what they do, how they respond is the subject of conversations at every meal. Nonsense. In all the years that I’ve been in the business, the only time I heard “civilians” talk about a PR crisis is when it happened and, maybe the next day, if it is of extended public interest. Far be it for me to tell anyone who to vote for, but fanatics should consider one thing: It’s better to win with a compromise candidate than to lose with a minority support candidate. Best statement from a candidate in New Hampshire: “Speaking about Donald Trump: “He is trying to divide us up. We are going to bring our people together, black and white and Latino and Native American, Asian American, gay and straight around an agenda that works for all of us, not just for one person.” – Sen. Sanders on Sunday, February 10. Most surprising, and best, action by a candidate in New Hampshire: Sen. Warren, on February 11, when she refused to end her conversations with supporters, even though MSNBC’s Ali Vitali wanted to interview her. The interview took place a few minutes later. The gap between President Trump and Sen. Sanders’ beliefs aren’t limited to political differences. On February 8, Trump tweeted that Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame, despite his betting on baseball games. (Not a surprise since Trump seemingly doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong.)Referring to reports that Major league Baseball was seeking to change the minor league system, Sanders said,: “If the multibillionaire owners of Major League Baseball have enough money to pay hundreds of millions in compensation to one superstar ballplayer, they damn well have enough money to pay minor-league players a living wage and prevent 42 minor-league teams from shutting down.” (Not a surprise considering Sanders policy statements.) Are the cable news political commentators really unable to add two and two and get as an answer four? Or are they really unable to make a sensible report? All during the lead-up to the New Hampshire primary they kept saying that Sen. Sanders will not be able to repeat winning the primary by the margin he had in 2016, when he won more than 60% of the vote. It would have been nice if they added that in 2016 his only opponent was Hillary Clinton. In 2020, there were enough Democratic candidates in the primary to field a baseball team. (Some commentators finally started to mention that the field was much larger than in 2016, but not for a few days. Maybe they had trouble figuring out two plus two equals four.) I never take seriously what the candidates say on the debate stage. Their off-the-stage comments are more revealing of their positions to me. (Read the print pubs for that information.) But I will take seriously what the eventual Democratic nominee says when debating Trump. The two candidates that have been most consistent with their messaging are Sen. Sanders and former mayor Bloomberg. Candidates attacking others on the debate stage are meaningless to me. If the attacks against certain candidates were consistent, I might take them more serious. But they change according to the candidate that polls show is leading (for the moment). Anyone who has closely been following the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates’ race should have noticed a similarity between TV political pundits, professional campaign mangers and self-anointed PR crises specialists: They all speak a good game but the results are often less impressive then their rhetoric. Important PR lesson for people in our business without impressive titles: Not having a supervisory title does not mean that you know less than those you report to. Do not let your good creative ideas and other work be co- opted by others. Keep a diary of your contributions to the success of a program and, if necessary, send them to top management if others take credit, which is another similarity between political and PR people—taking credit that they don’t deserve, but freely assigning blame to innocent staffers when things go sour. I enjoy reading the New York Times’ political Op-Ed columnists, even the conservative ones I don’t agree with. Politically, I lean left of center. But I was taken back when liberal columnist Charles M. Blow suggested I can’t be a liberal unless I trash Bloomberg. To quote from his February 17 column, referring to Bloomberg’s past positions: “That doesn’t sound like the kind of leaders liberals should want, followed by “…and writers kept telling him he was doing massive damage…” Golly gee, whiz. Now I should have writers telling me what to think? And further down in this most one-sided Op- Ed column I’ve read in weeks, (which in some ways reminded me of President Trump’s long tweets) “Bloomberg knows that he is twisting the truth here. He just hopes you won’t notice.” Mr. Blow obviously thinks he has all the answers (like President Trump) and unless you agree with him he’ll decide if you are a liberal or conservative. There are many issues that should define a person’s place on the political spectrum; more than a few purity tests. Mr. Blow’s column reminds me, not of something that Mike Bloomberg would write, but something Donald Trump would write.

In my opinion, holding a grudge against a candidate for what they did in the past is ridiculous. It’s the positions a candidate has now that should be the determining factor, and in this election, I’ll throw my lot in with the person who best can stand up to and defeat Donald Trump. While my heart belongs to Liz, my brain tells me that at this moment the best candidate to take on Trump is Bloomberg. And if circumstances change, so will my preference for a candidate, because as in all things in life, I believe flexibility trumps rigidity.

(Re the above: I don’t believe in going down with the ship supporting my favorite candidate, even though the chance of winning is unlikely. Instead I’m a believer in the philosophy of Tacitus, the famous Roman Empire historian, who said, “He that fights and runs away, May turn and fight another day; But he that is in battle slain, Will never rise to fight again.”)

Another important PR lesson from the political scene: Never assume. Always remember that your tenure at an agency is not secure. For over a year, Joe Biden was the assumed candidate. Now he’s barely hanging on. In the 2016 election, because she was assumed to be a shoo-in, Hillary Clinton didn’t campaign in “certain” Democratic states. They voted for Trump.

And most important: Do not assume that praise from higher-ups for the good work you are doing will assure you of a lengthy career or promotion at an agency. It will not. At agencies, it’s not what you did yesterday to help the agency; it’s what are you doing today.

And one more important lesson to remember from the political scene: Do what’s best for you, not your agency, as the candidates have been doing for themselves for the better part of a year, because in the final analysis, you are nothing but an employee number. In the political world, candidates and office holders always do what’s best for themselves. So does your agency management. So should you.

Debate # 9 did provide a truly unique situation: Never before have I heard candidates bragging about not having a large amount of money.

Solely because of Trump’s vindictiveness after the Senate voted to acquit (a picture of the president will now be aside the definition of “sore winner,”) I award this debate to the Democrats. The score is now Democrats 5, Trump 4. About the Author: Arthur Solomon, a former journalist, was a senior VP/senior counselor at Burson- Marsteller, and was responsible for restructuring, managing and playing key roles in some of the most significant national and international sports and non-sports programs. He also traveled internationally as a media adviser to high-ranking government officials. He now is a frequent contributor to public relations publications, consults on public relations projects and is on the Seoul Peace Prize nominating committee. He can be reached at arthursolomon4pr (at) juno.com or [email protected].

Layne Schmerin on The Growth and Domination by Top Tree Agency

CommPRO Editorial Staff

Layne Schmerin and Top Tree agency have started to become common names and buzzwords across the marketing space. As the world of marketing is almost solely done on the internet, Top Tree capitalized on this as the marketing techniques of our parents’ time are rather vague and useless today.

According to correspondence with the co-founder of the marketing firm, Layne Schmerin, we got a decent understanding of how his organization isn’t just remaining focused however how it has gotten one of the pioneers of the showcasing game.

Top Tree began right off the bat as a cannabis dedicated firm founded by Layne and his brother, as they understood that the expansion procedure his office made out of need filled in as a solid base for all hurdles he immediately moved core interest of the organization.

Initially founded to increase interest across the board of the medicinal uses of cannabis due to their family member’s battle with cancer, the co-founders decided that it was time to take matters in their own hands to educate the public about the good that comes from cannabis and shun negativity thrown towards cannabis by mainstream marketing media.

Hence was brought into the world Top Tree Agency by Layne and his brother.

Layne claims that they saw that they were acceptable at making efforts and acknowledged that they could help such a large number of different organizations, so the switch to a full marketing service to other clients was a no-brainer.

The Agency has now worked with significant brands, for example, Advanced Nutrients and Ignite Cannabis. With their web based life reach of more than 10 million clients, they can contact for all intents and purposes any crowd. Top Tree has lead marketing campaigns for companies affiliated with Shark Tank as well as music giant Macklemore. The firm presently has over 619k followers across the globe and is growing at an increasingly rapid rate with the ability to provide quality service across the United States. The page is developing by hundreds day by day. With this unfathomable, totally natural, reach, Top Tree Agency can make showcasing efforts of any size for any crowd.

In the same way as other marketing firms, @toptree was developed utilizing images and relatable social media substance. One thing they really push for is using social media influencers such as celebrities to effectively promote by organic traffic growth. As individuals saw this substance they would tag or impart to their companions to get a giggle. With each tag, remark or offer the page developed. The crowd expanded, and soon it was its very own specialty.

In addition to the fact that Top trees have the range and establishment to make marketing efforts, they likewise have the persistence and ability. ”We treat every customer as their own substance. We make a customized arrangement and guide them consistently” Layne mentioned. This personalization can make any customer feel good confiding in the organization. The total straightforwardness that Top Tree guarantees is actually what organizations need when they really need to develop and pick up commitment.

We are now living in a period in which advertising can be utilized to persuade individuals to do anything. Brands and Agencies are utilizing online networking to adapt everything. The wave is moving rapidly, be that as it may, through adjusted development and careful personalization, Top Tree Agency stays probably the greatest rival in the showcasing business.

Top Tree is en route to expanding rapidly in the coming months. The firm is looking to add valuable clients and provide excellent customer service while being agnostic to brand, service, or business.

5WPR CEO On What’s Changed In Searching

There’s a line in the 1957 Coasters’ number one hit song that says, “Searchin’ every which a-way.” It seems so appropriate based on what ten national marketing experts shared recently about the future of searches with search experience cloud company Yext.

More Conversational

Ed Doran, Director of Product Management, Microsoft Research and AI CoFounder, at Cortana, Microsoft believes AI and machine learning will drive deeper and longer conversations during searches. “We’re interacting with AI more than ever, and it’s going to be great,” he told Yext.

More Intuitive

Like Doran, Marisa Thalberg, Former Global Chief Brand Officer, Taco Bell Strategic Advisor, Yum! Brands also believe that AI, along with voice and touch, will provide seamless and intuitive searches. She added that marketers who are able to combine “creative expression and individualization of a brand persona” would see greater results.

More No-Click Searches

That’s the prediction of Lily Ray, SEO Director at Path Interactive, who suggests that brands will have to work harder in heightening everywhere they appear on Google because consumers aren’t clicking on organic results as frequently as they used to.

What’s the Customer’s Voice?

Google is working to better understand customer interests beyond consumers’ general and initial questions, and brands will need to anticipate answers to follow-up questions in order to be found. That’s the prediction of Del Humenik, Chief Revenue Officer at SEMRush. Brands that answer these anticipated questions can expect positive responses, said Humenik.

It’s About Intent

Similarly, Christi Olsen, Head of Evangelism for Search and Advertising at Microsoft, also believes that in order to be successful, brands need to anticipate and understand consumer intent and utilize digital pr and social media. Understanding the customer journey is key, said Olsen. Everything from organic to paid search and email to social marketing must align with customer intent.

Direct Answers

Consumers’ expectations today are that any question that’s asked in search will be answered, according to Jeanna Corley, VP Digital Strategy and Analytics at Massage Envy. As a result, she said that her company is doing their website now in more of a natural language protocol and attempting to show consumers that they’re addressing their questions.

Tug of War

Hamed Wardak an entrepreneur, conceded that along with the desire for more personalized information, consumers are also concerned about their privacy. Companies will have to find a balance between both to satisfy their audiences.

Whose Journey Is It?

Brands no longer own the customer journey, according to David McCafferty, CMO for Romeo’s Pizza. He said customers now own their own journeys and decide who’ll they permit into it. As a result, McCafferty said companies need to figure out how they can best get in front of consumers and generate brand awareness.

Predictive Search

Dave Isbitski, Chief Evangelist at Alexa, Amazon believes searches will become more predictive. He said it’s impossible to know when consumers search for things whether they’re seeking factual data or looking for a new experience and brands should prepare for both.

Personalized Results=Clean Data

Cody Crnkovich, Head of Platform Partners and Strategy at Adobe Experience Cloud said brands need to recognize two things. The first is obvious and that is to understand their customers, their expectations and interests. He described the part of gathering data around their interests as being more difficult. This is where he said careful attention should be given so that the results of the gathered data accurately align with consumer interests.

About the Author: Ronn Torossian is a PR executive.

5 Elements of a Strong Inbound Marketing Strategy

Nick Veneris, Marketing Manager, Refersion

Have you ever scrolled through a social media feed, a blog post, or maybe just your search engine results and completely ignored the advertisements? If you have, you’re not unlike a lot of consumers. In fact, 82 percent of Americans ignore online advertisements. That is because people are not online for ads. They are there for the content. So, with this many people ignoring the advertisements, how is your company supposed to get the message out?

You become what your consumer searches for. This is the essence of inbound marketing and why it has been shown to generate three times more leads per dollar compared with traditional methods of advertising. With inbound marketing, your brand provides the content that your potential customer is searching for. You are not interrupting their online experience. You become their online experience. If you want more bang for your buck, you will want to start an inbound marketing strategy. And, if you want an inbound marketing strategy, you will want to know these five elements that will make it as effective for your business as possible. Knowing Your Customer

For inbound, you must know your customer/potential customer inside and out. Remember, you are attracting customers by providing something of value to them. You need to know what that is. There are a few ways to go about getting this information.

Interview Your Customer – Contact some of your customers and ask them a few questions about themselves. This is not only helpful for your inbound marketing strategy, but is also a way to improve other aspects of your business to better serve your customer. For inbound marketing specifically, some of the questions that you want to ask are: What problems do you face? Is there information that you search for on a regular basis? What type of content do you prefer to consume? With personal interviews, it is good to really dig deep. Get to know your customers and what their day to day looks like. You never know what insights you may gather that can be incorporated into your strategy down the line. Conduct a Survey – Use a service like SurveyMonkey or Google Forms to conduct surveys of your customers or potential customers. You will want to ask similar questions to the ones asked in the personal interview above. Surveys are not as good as personal interviews to delve into the details, but they are good to get a wide range of views. For instance, you could interview a customer, and they may say they like to consume their content through video, but this is only a single person. A survey can give you a better idea of whether that is true for all of your customers or not.

Building Content

You want to use the data collected above to inform the type of content that you are going to create. Creating valuable content is an absolute necessity when you have an inbound marketing strategy—as in, without it, you don’t really have one. Creating content is about providing “value.” All this really means is that you want to provide content that is extremely helpful/entertaining to your potential customer.

Your content is not about directly promoting your company. Remember, consumers are not on the internet to see advertisements. You can make references to your products and services, but the bulk of the content should not be about promoting it. There are many different types of content that you can provide:

Blogs Video Social media content Infographics Newsletters And many more

What you provide exactly should be tailored to what you learned about your customers from your interviews and surveys.

Leveraging SEO

If you are creating blog or video content, SEO is very important. SEO stands for “search engine optimization,” and optimizing for search engines helps your content appear in search results. There are three basic components of SEO for search engine ranking:

Content Keywords Backlinks

We have already been over content, so let’s move on to keywords. Keywords are what searchers type into a search engine’s search bar. You want to optimize your content for “long-tail keywords” (three or four words), as they have less competition than “short-tail keywords” (one or two words) and are more likely to be specific to your product or service.

Backlinks are links from other sites to your site’s content. This tells search engines that your site is trustworthy and will help you climb the rankings. You can gain backlinks by earning them naturally and through guest posting on other blogs, among many other methods. These are the basics. There is a whole lot more to SEO than what is discussed here. If you plan on taking SEO seriously, you will need a lot more information. Moz’s SEO guide is a great place to start to get in-depth information on SEO.

Promoting Your Brand

This may seem counterintuitive to an inbound marketing strategy, but paid promotion is a great way to get more clicks on your content and sell more of your product or service. There are a few ways that you can go about this:

PPC – PPC stands for pay-per-click. Whenever you see advertisements on the top of Google search results, they are from companies who have paid for those placements. Usually they are trying to sell a product, but it can also be used to promote your content. It helps get eyes on your content with keywords that your site may have a hard time ranking for without it. In turn, this helps you acquire more customers and maybe even more backlinks.

Influencers/Sponsors – You can use sponsors or affiliates as a way to promote your content and brand. The most important part about this is finding the right people—i.e., people your customers/potential customers are following—and by building relationships with those people. As you build those relationships, you can start to ask them to promote your content and product/services by sponsoring them. Consider using affiliates to guide people to your site as a method of word-of-mouth marketing. You canautomate this through affiliate marketing software that monitors, analyzes, and tracks your whole program.

Sending Emails

All right. Getting people to consume your content is all well and good, but what about actually converting them to customers? This is where a solid CRM and email software come in. MailChimp is a popular option that many businesses use.

You can entice potential customers to sign up for your email list through a solid piece of content—maybe an e-book or a white paper. In exchange for their email, they get the content. This gives you a direct line of communication to convert those potential customers intoactual customers. Furthermore, it keeps them happy customers because you can keep providing valuable content through their email.

That is it. Your five essential elements of your inbound marketing strategy. Use this as your starting point, continue to adapt and improve your strategy, and you will be well on your way to acquiring customers for less.

About the Author: Nick is a digital strategist with over twelve years’ experience in planning and executing marketing plans for B2C/B2B brands. Currently, he’s the Marketing Manager for Refersion, the advanced affiliate marketing platform that helps brands manage, track, and grow their affiliate network. Public Affairs Trends for 2020

Ronn Torossian, CEO, 5WPR

Public affairs is crucial to inform the general public directly on all kinds of issues, including laws, policies, public health, local ordinances and public administration. The core purpose of a public affairs campaign is to effectively disseminate information, build public consensus and prevent disinformation from gathering pace on social media platforms. At the same time, public affairs can work in the other direction and aim to influence public policy, build strong reputations for key players in a public issue, and find common ground with all stakeholders. That messaging tends to be less commercial and instead focuses on drawing attention to long- term issues.

This doesn’t mean, however, that the world of public affairs is a stagnant one compared to her sister industry,public relations. In fact, between a U.S. election, escalating political tensions in Europe and the ongoing coronavirus, 2020 is set to be a pivotal year for public affairs.

Here are three public affairs trends to look out for in 2020:

1) Keeping It Local

When it comes to guiding public opinion and influencing public policy, local news will reign supreme in 2020. From local television and radio stations, to local influencers online, public affairs communicators will be looking at a smaller scale in order to have the biggest large-scale impact.

Often, public affairs communicators are pushing out a campaign against competing interests. In an election, for example, advertising spending from several candidates typically competes for the same bandwidth. In traditional media, this is a zero sum game: more political advertising for one candidate means less for another, and even less for communicators on a separate campaign altogether.

As a result, public affairs professionals must focus on securing the best impact for money, while ensuring they are truly hitting home with target audiences. Curating, launching and managing campaigns on a local level, then, will prove a public affairs priority in 2020.

2) Taking on Fake News

The fake news phenomenon is only young, but it has already had a devastating impact on a range of public affairs deliverables. The ease with which an inaccurate, or even deliberately misleading, comment, infographic or video can be shared across social media has a greater impact than harmless pranks. When it comes to public health, the effects can be deadly.

Amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, public affairs professionals have their work cut out for them like never before. Fake news and conspiracies surrounding the virus are prolific: coronavirus is a lab-made bioweapon, the streets of Wuhan are littered with dead bodies, domestic animals are carriers to be feared. That is what the people creating this disinformation want the public to believe.

As such, governments are launching their own anti-fake news campaigns to tackle disinformation. Concerted and coordinated efforts from authorities and social media firms alike will evolve and streamline throughout the year.

3) Public affairs influencers

Influencer marketing has long been a fixture of the digital PR industry, but now they are moving into more political waters. The #FridaysForFuture movement is a rapidly evolving machine with young leaders taking charge of the climate change debate. For the best grasp of what public affairs means in 2020, watch this space.

. Should the FCC Have Thrown a Flag?

Dr. David Hagenbuch, Ethicist and Professor of Marketing, Messiah College, Author of Honorable Influence, Founder of MindfulMarketing.org

The latest Super Bowl was another big game mired in controversy. This time the debate wasn’t whether a fourth- quarter play was a penalty, but whether the halftime show was pornography. Should the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have thrown a flag for ‘illegal use of the hips’ or ‘unnecessary raunchiness’? As armchair apologists argue, mindful marketers aim to analyze the action from each angle, hoping to make ‘the right call.’

Rocking hips, pulsing pelvises, and legs wrapped around a stripper pole sound like a scene from a gentleman’s club, but they were just part of the Super Bowl LIV halftime show featuring superstar entertainers Shakira and Jennifer Lopez.

Whether one enjoyed the performances or not, most agree that the show was a production spectacle, complete with elaborate scenery, extravagant costumes, moving stages, dozens of talented dancers, and amazing fireworks. The production level was fitting for the biggest television viewing event of the year, which this time drew an astounding 102.1 million U.S. viewers, making it the “11th most-watched TV show ever.”

With so many people watching the same thing, it’s not surprising that the show spawned differences of opinion. Some, like former Florida governor and U.S. presidential candidate Jeb Bush loved it; he tweeted, “Best Super Bowl halftime show ever.”

Many ordinary citizens have also sung its praises, including 2.3 million people who liked the YouTube video. Some of those fans have said:

“One of the most amazing shows ever.”—Lucy B. “Loved both”–manel manel “whos watched this more than 10 times? i know i aint the only guy”—Maxwel Rajcic “I love JLo but I can’t get over that Shakira performance. Damn.”—Annitah Lesley “One of the best Super Bowl halftime show ever”—grace khuvung

However, a smaller but still substantial number (134K YouTube viewers) didn’t think the show was ‘so hot’; actually, they thought it was too hot. Some tweeted:

“I saw way more of J-Lo than I ever wanted to. There was a moment there that actually made me blink my eyes. Everybody in the room was blinking their eyes.”— @TheAnnoyedMan “When your crotch shot reveals your panty liner than you’ve definitely crossed a line”—@meredithdicken1 “I’d settle for a halftime that is somewhere between Karen Carpenter and a pelvic exam.”—@Bookwormdearlor “My 13 year girl old said ‘man, that was TRASHY.’”—@FilthyMcN “My 9 year old asked, ‘Is this what sexy is?’”—@kdonohuenj “It was inappropriate for the venue. They can’t sell it as a family entertainment and then present something that millions of people had to quickly turn off AFTER their little people got an eyeful of soft porn.”—@Plainsspeak

Maybe detractors are being over-sensitive or narrow-minded, not giving enough consideration to factors such as:

The empowerment of women: The halftime show showcased two women’s exceptional voices and dance skills, physical strength and stamina, as well as their abilities to command one of the world’s largest stages. Furthermore, both women are over 40 years of age. The celebration of Latin culture: The show served up large portions of energy and excitement, along with vibrant sounds and colors, for which Latin culture is known.

Those are valid arguments that we may not fully appreciate, depending on our own demographics. On the other hand, one may wonder if those lauding the performance have considered issues like these:

Demographics: Unlike most TV shows, an extremely wide swath of the population watches the Super Bowl—everyone from two-year-olds to 92-year-olds. The lower end of that range should not be exposed to sexually explicit content, and many would argue that no one should see it without warning at 8:00 pm, on broadcast television. Legality: The halftime show may have violated the FCC’s mandate that “Indecent and profane content are prohibited on broadcast TV and radio between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience.” It’s hard to imagine that the agency would have allowed the same sexual content, which included very revealing apparel and highly suggestive camera shots, as part of a 30-second Super Bowl commercial; yet, the FCC permitted 14 minutes of the ‘exposure’ as a Pepsi-sponsored mini-program. Addiction: If the halftime show represented soft‘ porn,’ as some have said, there’s a risk that the show encouraged pornography addiction for some viewers. Lest one think that’s a wild claim, check out Google search results: In the period from January 29, 2020 through February 4, 2020, at the exact time of the Super Bowl halftime show, there were extreme peaks in searches for terms such as: Hustlers (name of the film about strip clubs, staring Lopez), pole dance, stripper, and jlo hustlers dance. Cultural relativism: Virtually every culture, past and present, has had good things to offer, but not everything in a given culture is good (e.g., segregation, subjugation of women). Latin dancing is known for its sensuality, which people may debate is good or bad, but for the situation at hand, the discussion should consider the prevailing culture and composition of Super Bowl viewers, as well as when, where, and with whom most watched the halftime show. Empowerment or Objectification: As implied above, my maleness limits my ability to appreciate the ways in which Shakira and J Lo’s performances may have made other viewers feel empowered. However, as one who has studied oversexualization in advertising, I saw many signs of objectification of women, i.e., reducing their personhood to specific body parts (e.g., legs, bottoms) and ‘serving them up’ as objects for others’ sexual gratification. For instance, in the YouTube video of the performance, there’s a camera shot at about 2:22 focused just on Shakira’s belly and hips, i.e., no head or feet, and another at 7:06 centered squarely on Lopez’s bottom, as she bent over, back to the camera.

In an article that includes several helpful illustrations, Ronnie Richie develops a seemingly useful distinction between sexual objectification and empowerment, the bottom-line being that a person is sexually empowered, not objectified, when she/he holds power versus the person looking at them. That analysis likely works on one level, such as for superstar celebrities like Shakira and J Lo, but the reality is that oversexualized images in mass media often impact others within the same people group (e.g., women, children) with tragic consequences.

According to UNICEF, “The objectification and sexualization of girls in the media is linked to violence against women and girls worldwide.” On a personal level, former Yale University student Veronica Lira Ortiz shared her unfortunate experience as a child in a Latin culture infused with machismo: “I was twelve years old, and a man on the street [in Mexico] was already verbally harassing me. He looked at me as if I were a juicy steak instead of an innocent child. Shakira and J Lo may have held power in their Super Bowl situation, but many indirectly affected by their performances do not.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” but when the beholders number over 100 million, including millions of children and adults anticipating family-friendly entertainment, and when many others are indirectly affected by what’s shown, the creators and broadcasters of ‘said beauty’ should demonstrate better discretion. So, the replay of the action suggests that the FCC should have flagged Fox, Pepsi, and others associated with the Super Bowl LIV halftime show for a broadcast communication violation, as well as forSingle-Minded “ Marketing.”

About the Author: Dr. David Hagenbuch is a Professor of Marketing at Messiah College, the author of Honorable Influence, and the founder MindfulMarketing.org, which aims to encourage ethical marketing. Media Lessons Learned From The Trump Senate (Impeachment) Trial (That Were Probably Not Taught In Communications Classes)

Arthur Solomon, Public Relations Consultant

On January 13, on this web site, I wrote an article regarding media lessons learned from the House impeachment hearings. Many of the examples I listed also applied to none political accounts that most PR practitioners who work at large and small agencies can use.

The natural sequel to that article, I thought, was Media Lessons Learned From The Trump Senate (Impeachment) Trial. And there were plenty.

But before the lessons, there are important happenings that occurred prior to the actual trial:

It’s not unusual that before a highly anticipated trial of a celebrity begins for the accused to claim that:

The charges are untrue, That the only reason for the trial is because of false media stories, That everyone is lying about the situation, That, in this case, it’s a witch hunt, and, also in this case, How can they impeach me when I’m such a great president?

President Trump has been tweeting a variation of the above for months, but on Sunday, January 12, he seemed unable to make up his mind about his upcoming trial. He tweeted backing for a Senate trial that would include Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Adam Schiff, Chairman of the House Committee on Intelligence, as witnesses. But a few hours later Trump said he didn’t want a trial; instead that the Senate should dismiss the impeachment charges without one. (Lesson: PR people should never release a statement unless it has been decided that it is the definitive one, the exception being if facts have changed between statements. Doing so will make you an untrustworthy news sources for journalists. Also, if necessary, perhaps as the president should have done, don’t forget to take your medicine before releasing statements.)

In addition to Trump’s tweet attacks, there was a lot of the usual give and back comments between Trump and his GOP defenders and the Democrats, but only one statement that no one can quarrel about: It was by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the December 12 “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” program. Ms. Pelosi said, “Ten months from now we will have an election if we don’t have him removed sooner. But, again, he’ll be impeached forever.” No one can argue with that fact (except some defenders of Trump among my friends, who don’t know the meaning of impeachment).

For people who have worked on Broadway shows, as I have, the lead up to the actual trial might remind them of how producers and publicists structured the advance publicity of shows with different daily announcements prior to opening night. The same techniques were used by Democrats in the days prior to the beginning of the Senate trial.

The sequence:

1. On January 14, the Democratic caucus met to discuss strategy. 2. At about 10 a.m., on January 15, Speaker Pelosi announced the seven Democratic managers who will act as prosecutors in Trump’s Senate trial. A few hours later, the House debate regarding approving the managers and advancing them to the Senate began. By early afternoon, both measures were approved. 3. At 5:24 p.m., after a short speech, House Speaker Pelosi signed the impeachment documents and it was delivered to the Senate at 5:36 p.m. 4. After each step, the Democrats made a spokesperson available to reinforce their points and answer media questions. 5. On January 16, Speaker Pelosi again spoke to the press prior to the Democratic impeachment managers reading the charges against President Trump to the Senate, which officially was the beginning of the trial. 6. On January 17, the Democrats released information regarding the relationship between Lev Parnas, President Trump and Rudy Giuliani. 7. Also on January 17, Ms. Pelosi said during a television interview that the Democrats knew more damaging information regarding President Trump would become public, but the new details were not necessary to bring impeachment charges. 8. On Saturday, January 18, the Democrats released its impeachment brief to the media. 9. On Sunday, January 19, Speaker Pelosi ceded the media mikes to Reps. Adam Schiff and Jerrold Nadler, both House committee chairman and impeachment managers, providing the media with an opportunity to get their perspectives on what will happen during the Senate trial. 10. On January 20, the Democrats transferred the platform to Sen. Bob Casey, and Rep. Gerald Connolly to make their case.

Of course, the great majority of you, if any, will not be involved in political campaigns, local, national or presidential, as I was when my first PR job was with a political firm. But if someone was crafting a publicity program with the objective of receiving continuous and long- term media coverage, using some aspects of the Democratic media plan is a model that should be considered. Some of the tactics resemble the strategy I always used at my two none political agency jobs.

Another tactic the Democrats employed, that I always used, was not to call a major press conference to announce news, unless there was truly blockbusting information. (Announcing a new and improved car seat cover does not fall into that category, no matter what your client may say; neither does the reformulation of a hair shampoo or the new packaging of a cereal). The Democrats made their points known by having short meetings with the media, sometime in a group setting, other times via one on one interviews.

(Because the media turnout at a press conference is never guaranteed, I would arrange interviews for the client with a handful of important news outlets the day prior to the conference, with the proviso that their stories not be released until the conference begins. All of these journalists were long time friends, from the days I was a reporter, or that I forged a strong-working relationship with during my PR days. Caveat: Don’t use this tactic with reporters that you can’t trust. A reporter breaking the story the day before a press conference can affect the turnout.) There are important media tactics that people in our business should remember regarding the above before trial tactics:

If you have good news, considers staggering its release over several days to gain continuous positive coverage for your client. But, if you have bad news, release it ASAP all at once, hoping that it will limit continuous negative coverage, which media history shows is mostly an unfulfilled wish. (This is still considered a must tactic of PR crises specialists even though it hardly ever works and never will in a major PR crisis. It might have, once in a millennium, during the days before the 24/7 news cycle, never now, regardless of what PR crises specialists say. It’s like the still used PR crises maxim that says, “Get ahead of the story,” whatever that means.) Don’t believe me. Ask President Trump, Joe and Hunter Biden. The way the Democratic leadership crafted their media strategy, so that their messages had a continuing flow of negative information about the president’s conduct, should be required teaching in PR 101 courses. Certainly savvy PR practitioners can craft brand and corporate publicity campaigns, as I have done a number of times, so they can be structured to have a long shelve life.

Media Lessons Learned From Proceedings During The Trial:

(I mistakenly thought the trial was about the abuses to the Constitution by President Donald John Trump. But once it began the Republican senators and their attorneys renamed the trial:” The Joe and Hunter Biden Punching Bag” piñata.)

Nevertheless:

Despite his previous hard line stance regarding the rules of the impeachment trial, Mr. McConnell surprised senators with revising two of the most controversial ones on the opening day of argument, January 21. The majority leader agreed to permit both sides 24 hours to make their case over three days, instead of two days, that he advocated for the previous day, and also said that the evidence gathered by the House Democrats would automatically be entered into the Senate record unless there was an objection. Previously McConnell said the evidence would be barred. Lesson: Be flexible, even it if means contradicting yourself to achieve your goal. Too often during an agency press conference, the speakers are limited to one or two persons. That’s fine for pre and after conference interviews. But I’ve always crafted press conferences to have several principal speakers so journalists can have various ways of approaching a story to meet the needs of their outlet, assuring significant coverage. During the debate over the rules of the impeachment trial, the Democrats did the same thing. That’s a good technique that is too often not utilized. Lesson: Don’t be penned in by “do- it-by-the-book” tenets. January 21, was the day the Senate met to discuss the rules for the trial. But by using a clever technique, introducing numerous amendments to Sen. McConnell’s proposed organizing resolution, the Democrats presented their entire case for impeaching the president. Lesson: The Democratic strategy should be a template for press conferences and individual interviews: Important points should always be disclosed immediately because, history shows, not all reporters at agency press conferences stay for the entire show, and when a client is being interviewed the reporter controls the clock. On January 22, prior to the Senate reconvening, Democratic Senate leader Schumer held a press briefing summarizing what transpired the day before, which again emphasized the Democrats positions. Lesson: While it’s not possible to use the same technique the day after an agency press conference, there is a method of accomplishing the same goal that I have often used: It’s emailing a document to the reporters immediately after the conference or interviews emphasizing the key client points. Then send another email the following day, asking if any more information was needed. (But don’t be a pest and telephone.) If I was writing a Saturday Night Live skit I could use the words of Chief Justice Roberts verbatim during the impeachment trial session that began on January 21. Justice Roberts admonished both the House impeachment mangers and Trump’s defense team for using “ language that is not conducive to civil ” Nothing wrong there. But his statement also reminded the opponents that they are “addressing the world’s greatest deliberative body,” a ridiculous statement considering that all 11 Democratic amendments were rejected by a party line vote, without having the senators debate them, and that since Sen. McConnell became the GOP Senate majority leader, tabling legislation has become the norm rather than allowing debates. Lesson: When preparing remarks for a client, do not use grandiose or embellished language. Make certain the statements agree with the facts. The Democratic House managers repeated the same facts continuously during the trial, (much like advertising agencies repeat the same ads many times). By doing so, their messages of Trump’s wrong-doings were heard by TV audiences at various times of the days, reaching people who might have not heard the charges earlier in the proceedings. Lesson: In order to be successful, a PR program’s message points must be sustained over a long period in order to break through the clutter of others’ messages. On January 23, an important PR lesson that everyone should remember was played out on national television. Democratic House manager Nadler played a videotape of remarks that Sen. Lindsay Graham made when he was a House manger for the GOP during the impeachment trial of President Clinton. Graham’s statement contradicted his then Clinton position now that Trump is on trial. Shortly prior to the video clip being shown, Graham, who had a script of the power point presentation, left the room, returning when Nadler moved on. Lesson: Be careful what you say. It might be used against you. Speaker of the House Pelosi gave a lesson that all PR practitioners should remember when having a press conference: Despite being the leader of the Democrats, once the Senate trial began she deferred to those involved in the trial to hold press briefings. Too often during agency press conferences, the ceo, president or other high corporate executives are featured, instead of individuals who really know the details of the subject being discussed. That leads to an unhappy press and sometime disgruntled reporters who says the PR people wasted their time. (Not good for cementing relations with journalists.) Lesson: Do not schedule a press conference unless you are prepared to have a spokesperson who can provide specific details; never craft a dog and pony show for corporate execs to use as a promotional tool. Unlike some PR practitioners, who feel that if a client refers to notes during a TV interview it will give the impression of not knowing the facts, I have always told clients that they should always refer to notes, if necessary. During the q and a sessions during the Senate impeachment trial, the Democratic House managers and Republican lawyers believed the same as I do. It was clearly seen on TV that both referred to briefing books. Lesson: A client, or PR person, should never answer a question unless they are positive that what they are saying is correct. There was also one very important non-media lesson that should be remembered from the trial – the use of email – because it was used extensively by the House managers as evidence against President Trump. Sensitive information should never be emailed. It should be personally walked to others on a need- to-know basis. If the information has to be sent to colleagues in other offices, use overnight mail marked “personal.” Inter- office telephone conversations regarding sensitive information should be avoided, and used only when absolutely necessary.

Impressions from the trial:

Democratic impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff was far and away the best messenger during the trial, resulting in providing him with a national reputation should he seek higher office. The Democratic media strategy before, during and after the trial was the first time in many years that the Democrats’ tactics bested the Republicans. President Trump’s “scam” and “hoax’ remarks during the trial seemed old hat and didn’t receive much press coverage. Throughout the trial, the defenders of the president provided minimal evidence to contradict the impeachment charges. The lameness of cable TV news was again evident during the trial. During the trial breaks, the fish in my aquarium could have predicted the answers, when the reporters questioned the senators about their views of the proceedings: Democrats replying that their House impeachment managers are doing an excellent job; Republicans slamming the presentations.(Not exactly a surprise.)

General Observations:

Despite Senate Leader McConnell not allowing a vote on whether to allow witnesses until the second week of the trial, the Democratic House mangers found a way to use witnesses from the first day of their opening statements: As part of their presentations, they used video of the testimony of witnesses taken during the House impeachment inquiry; also of the president and “Mick” Mulvaney, Trump’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and acting White House chief of staff, who said at a press briefing that Democrats should, “Get over it. There is going to be political influence in foreign policy,” when questioned about the freeze in foreign aid to Ukraine.

The news reporting regarding President Trump’s defense attorneys once again confirmed what I’ve said for decades: Once an entity or individual has been involved in a PR crisis, it becomes embedded in its DNA and can be revived by the media at anytime. That’s what happened to Ken Starr and Alan Dershowitz, when they were announced as part of the Trump defense team.

Radio, TV and print media mentioned that both lawyers were involved with negotiating lenient plea deals for sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and that Dershowitz was accused of having sex with an under age girl, which he denied. Stories also mentioned a list of seedy clients that Dershowitz defended. A New York Times story said that” Starr was pushed out as the Baylor University president because of his handling of sexual misconduct by the football team.

TV reporters and pundits also continuously told of the advantage that some Democratic presidential candidates had in Iowa because senators sitting as jurors during the impeachment trial couldn’t campaign there and other early primary states. Of course, everyone in our business knows that’s nonsense. Because of technology dating back many years, a person in Washington can use video interviews to gain the media exposure in states across the country. By repeating the same facts continuously throughout the trial the Democratic House managers were pursuing a two-pronged strategy: 1) to convince the Senate to remove President Trump from office, (which they knew would not happen), and, 2) to convince the voting public of the president’s guilt so they will vote against him in the November election.

I thought the Democratic House managers did a superb job of presenting the case against President Trump, except for two facets: Too much of their presentation was about the past; too little about how Trump would continue to trample the Constitution and power of Congress in the future if he remains unbridled. They began to make these points later in the trial but it should have been a key message point from the beginning.

As a reporter and editor prior to crossing the line to the PR business, I’ve always known one truism about media reactions to major PR crises situations, which I’ve always told to clients: Diversionary public relations or publicity initiatives will result in temporary overlaying press coverage but will still be miniscule compared to that of the underlying predicament. Coverage of media reporting of the Senate trial, compared to the travels of President Trump and Vice-President Pence and other smoke screen tactics they used during the Democratic House manager’s presentations, again proves what I’ve said.

To lift a thought, and some words, from Jason Gay’s non- political sports column in the Wall Street Journal (January 24), regarding the baseball sign stealing scandal: (My take). Both the baseball commissioner and President Trump seemed to get what they wanted – an in-house investigation and a speedy trial before a fixed jury. But in both cases, suspicious media coverage will continue, because of the past conduct of cover- ups by baseball commissioners, and what the GOP Senate Majority Leader and other “impartial” jurors said publicly about how they would vote prior to the flawed Senate trial’s commencement. Eventfully the truth about both situations will become known. Until then the fairness of the in-house sign stealing investigation and the acquittal of the president will linger as a damaged piñata over the heads of baseball commissioner Rob Manfred and President Trump, waiting for the truth about both situations to be revealed by an investigative press, whistle blowers or, eventually, insiders who have had enough.

Because of the Republican control of the Senate, the Democratic leadership knew the chances of President Trump being found guilty were nil to none. But, looking ahead to the 2020 presidential election, they proceeded with the impeachment process.

That’s a very important PR media lesson that should be learned from their tactics: When crafting a media-oriented publicity program, it should include long-term as well as short term objectives.

In addition to the media lessons learned from the Senate trial of President Trump, and from the prior impeachment inquiries, there’s a valuable personal lesson that PR practitioners who work at small and large agencies should remember: Take contemporaneous notes of your daily activities and what is said to you (you’ll never know when you might need them). Be careful of what you say, what you write and what you do because no matter how complimentary your supervisors, top management and H.R. are to you, you’re still an employee number. And if circumstances change, (like a new client contact wanting a new account supervisor for an account you’ve managed for years), even if you’ve done nothing wrong and everything correct, management will feed you to the sharks if it helps the agency.

Final Thoughts:

The outcome of the Senate trial was known before it began. Even before the first words were spoken the outcome was never in doubt. The GOP Majority Leader was true to his word, when he said he would work step-by- step with the White House The Democratic House managers’ arguments were made with the November election in mind. The Republican vote refusing to allow John Bolton to testify was beneficial to the Democrats. If Bolton testified, the outcome of the trial would not have changed. By blocking his testimony, the Democrats can now claim, “what were they trying to hide,” from tomorrow to election day. I’ve said for years that when a client has had a PR crisis, as the president has had even before he was inaugurated; it becomes embedded in the individual’s or entities DNA and never goes away. It can be revived by the media unexpectedly at any time, even years later. That’s not true in this case. In this case, the media will keep the president’s crisis alive day-after-day until the election. There’s another important media lesson that people in our business should remember regarding the Senate proceedings. When a client has a PR crisis, self- designated crises specialists, in this case the president’s defenders cannot prevent negative coverage. Only the media can decide when to cease writing about the subject. And there’s nothing PR people can do about it. If you don’t believe me, ask the impeached president.

Are there overriding media lessons that can be learned from the impeachment trial? Yes there are. In fact, there are four. Lesson 1: For the remainder of his tenure, and during his next term if he is re-elected, the president, like Boeing, Wells Fargo, Facebook and so many other individuals and entities that have had major media crises, the president will always need a crisis team in place, because the negative press coverage will continue as new information emerges after court rulings and new books are published by people who have worked for his administration. Lesson 2: Even though much of their advice is flawed, PR employees should consider joining a PR crises firm. It’s an aspect of public relations that will always be in demand. Lesson 3: If you reach the stage in your career where you will manage a large group of people, be nice to them. If you’re not, don’t expect them to say nice things about you to the media, and Lesson 4: If you are ever interviewed by the press or an investigative body, remember that whatever you say can be used as evidence, if necessary.

The Senate trial ended in the acquittal of President Trump. But the history books will record him as only the third impeached president of the United States. And beginning right now, the day-to-day chroniclers of history – the journalists – will report on his plans to convince a divided country to reelect him in November. And the impeachment of the president will remain a continuing story line. Media Lesson: Despite the best efforts of PR crises specialists, the press will always have the final words.

About the Author: Arthur Solomon, a former journalist, was a senior VP/senior counselor at Burson- Marsteller, and was responsible for restructuring, managing and playing key roles in some of the most significant national and international sports and non-sports programs. He also traveled internationally as a media adviser to high-ranking government officials. He now is a frequent contributor to public relations publications, consults on public relations projects and is on theSeoul Peace Prize nominating committee. He can be reached at arthursolomon4pr (at) juno.com and artsolomon4pr (at) optimum.net.

What was the Effectiveness of the Super Bowl Commercials?

Arthur Solomon, Public Relations Consultant

Like past Super Bowls, there are so many commercials that’s it impossible to name the effectiveness of them, especially the most or least effective ones at this time, despite what the advertising pundits will say and write.That’s because the pundits would have to read the minds of all the marketers to know what their true objectives were — to increase sales or just to keep their product in front of the viewing public. Also, there’s a third reason that’s never mentioned: Advertising on the Super Bowl as a defensive move. I’ve had clients tell me that they advertise on mega sporting events, not because it will increase sales but to keep their competitors from being able to do so. If the reason for spending more than $5-million on a commercial was to gain sales, the effectiveness of the spot will not be known for some time. A short spike in sales, if any, doesn’t necessarily mean that it will continue.. And what’s the chance of a marketer saying publicly that, “What we did didn’t work”. Not great. More likely, regardless of the ineffectiveness of their ad they’ll say, “We’re very happy. It achieved our objectives.”

As for the commercials in the game: I didn’t see any that would make me switch from a product I’m using to one that was on the Super Bowl. Only two of the commercials caught my interest — Secrets commercial about women playing football, which I thought was the best of the night, and the Hyundai add about a self parking automobile, which I thought was the most informative. That’s something I didn’t know exists, and the next time I’m in the market for an auto I’ll check it out.

I thought both President Trump’s and Michael Bloomberg’s commercials were effective, but I give a big edge to Bloomberg’s, because he has a long track record of believing in the message of the ad.

About the Author: Arthur Solomon, a former journalist, was a senior VP/senior counselor at Burson- Marsteller, and was responsible for restructuring, managing and playing key roles in some of the most significant national and international sports and non-sports programs. He also traveled internationally as a media adviser to high-ranking government officials. He now is a frequent contributor to public relations publications, consults on public relations projects and is on theSeoul Peace Prize nominating committee. He can be reached at arthursolomon4pr (at) juno.com and artsolomon4pr (at) optimum.net.

Types of Digital Media Ronn Torossian, CEO, 5WPR

People spend an average of seven hours a day on the internet using digital media, this according to mentor-led data analytics and science educational company Springboard. While the history of digital media goes back to the 1980’s with those handheld video games, look at all the options today where just about anything that’s accessed via a digital device can be classified as digital media.

One way to best understand digital media is to break it down into categories. There are four basic ones.

Audio

Streaming audio online or listening to VOiP, midi, WMA or .mp3 or .mp4 files are but some examples. iTunes, YouTube and Google Play are among the most popular platforms.

Video

Here again, because of the combination of pictures and sound, YouTube and Google Play are very popular. Many sites also stream video which has been found to be a powerful sales tool. “Live” video via webcam chats, video conferencing, etc. are also utilized a lot.

Photos and illustrations

These are handy in supporting blog posts and articles. Infographics and digital art have also found their way among the favorites.

Text

Just about all digital media includes text. Text is particularly critical in searches and websites.

Types of Content

The four digital media formats are the basis for how social media gurus and marketers leverage them. eBooks

Some observers say the reason once popular Borders Books and Music went out of business was because they failed to recognize the dramatic change in people’s switch to eBooks. Not only do today’s eBooks entertain, but many also teach and guide consumers. Some are offered for free and used as lead magnets to obtain contact information of potential consumers.

Blogs and articles

Blog posts are utilized frequently by celebrity influencers to promote causes and products they support. Marketers, too, have long been publishing a variety of articles to reach their target audiences.

Social media

Social media is widely used today by everyone. Not only do people connect with friends and family, but it’s the favored platform for the news media, marketers and influencers. Advertising

Examples of digital media advertising today are banner ads on websites, video, search and social media ads. Some forms of AI on brand help pages might also be considered advertising as well.

Digital art

Creators of digital media have discovered a new marketplace where they can produce and sell their videos, music, illustrations and photos. Even stock photo agencies like Magisto and Getty Images have found new opportunities online.

Video games

Video games continue to grow in appeal via PCs, tablets and smartphones. It’s even found favor with some gamblers where one can place bets or gamble online.

Virtual reality

A recent newcomer to digital media, virtual reality brings the sights and sounds to users in near-realistic experiences through video, sound and graphics. It’s growing in popularity and, if it can overcome privacy concerns, as well as some health and safety considerations, it is considered by some to be the next platform for e-commerce.

As entrepreneur Hamed Wardak and so many others say often, “No matter one’s preference for digital media format or content, one thing’s certain: digital media will be here for a long time.”

“To Live and Die in Miami”… A Death-Defying Decision By an Insensitive Brand

Steve Cody, Founder / CEO, Peppercomm

There’s insensitive and then there’s the decision by the Kraft Heinz brand Planters to air a highly controversial commercial depicting the funeral of their 104-year-old icon, Mr. Peanut, during this Sunday’s Super Bowl.

The campaign, which debuted earlier this week with a creepy Tweet suggesting that Mr. Peanut had committed suicide was quickly followed by a video depicting an SUV rollover accident in which Mr. Peanut (along with actors Wesley Snipes and Matt Walsh) are flung from the car and land on a dead tree branch overhanging a deep canyon. To save the actors, Mr. Peanut decides to let go of his grip and falls to his death hundreds of feet below.

But wait, there’s more. Planters has a follow-up spot set to run during the pre-game events and third quarter of Super Bowl LIV in Miami. It will “broadcast” the funeral of Mr. Peanut.

Since I don’t claim to be an expert in branding or the role of comedy in advertising, I turned to two experts to ask their opinions.

Clayton Fletcher, a professional comedian who doubles as Peppercomm’s chief comedy officer (I kid you not), had these thoughts:

“We live in a world of 24×7 tragedy. Americans need respite from the nonstop negative news cycle. The Super Bowl provides just such a relief. It’s akin to what Major League Baseball was for Americans on the home front during WW II – a temporary escape from reality,” he said.

As far as airing the funeral ceremonies during the big game, Fletcher said he agreed with the decision. “People have short memories and the mourning period for Kobe will have ended, at least for the general public. Planters spent a ton of money and other resources in producing this ad, and it’s time to put it out there and just hope people laugh. Think of it as Hollywood on a smaller scale: The latter makes a lot of movies. Some work and some for many reasons turn out awful, but they still air. There’s just too much invested to do otherwise,” he added.

Hayes Roth, former Landor Associates CMO and principal of HA Roth Consulting, disagreed.

“First, I have been rather mystified by the whole ‘Death of Mr. Peanut’ campaign from its inception. To me it’s an obvious tease— Planters has invested millions in reviving the character over the past couple of years, so I doubt they really intend to drop him (excuse the pun) after that.

“More likely, since the spokesnut is currently on every package and piece of marketing, this is an attention-getting ploy to build an ongoing ‘Save Mr. Peanut’ narrative that will be introduced with the Super Bowl spots. Whatever the outcome, using death as a comic messaging hook under any circumstance is in bad taste and, I believe, a fast trip to branding hell. To push forward with such a theme on the Super Bowl a week after Bryant’s tragic death is potentially a one-way ticket to the Marketing Hall of Shame.”

I concur with Roth. Why would any brand willfully alienate a percentage of the public? It’s already a Darwinian survival of the fittest marketplace, so why cause a self-inflicted wound with the backlash that’s bound to follow?

I do hope someone with an ethical and sensitivity compass (as well as a pulse on the open wound that is the Kobe Bryant death) will step in and issue a surgeon general-type report to the Planters marketing team: “Warning. Airing this commercial will cause irreparable harm to your brand. Side effects could include boycotts, a huge drop in sales and death.”

The Mr. Peanut’s brand will live or die in Miami.

About the Author: I’m a comedian, climber and dog lover, but not necessarily in that order. I am also the founder and CEO of Peppercomm, a fully-integrated strategic communications firm headquartered in NYC, with offices located in San Francisco and London. In that role I’m responsible for everything from implementing strategy and counseling clients to leading business development and bringing new products and services to market. In short, I do everything but clean windows. My biggest passion is helping others. I derive immense satisfaction from mentoring students, guest lecturing at the universities who are brave enough to invite me to speak, and helping fellow mid-lifemarketing communications professionals who have lost their way in life. There may be hope for us yet.

I am the current chairman of theInstitute for Public Relations, a longtime member of the Arthur W. Page Society, a member of the advisory councils of theCollege of Charleston and the University of Florida, and was named one of Northeastern University’s 100 most successful alumni. I have also co-authored “What’s keeping your customers up at night?” which was published by McGraw-Hill in 2003 and has put thousands of readers to sleep over the years.

I’m proud to say that I’ve used my love of stand-up comedy to raise more than $100,000 for countless charities. I’m just as proud to see Chris and Catharine, my two children, grow up to become successful professionals. I’m confident the family tradition will continue with my grandson, Adrian Joseph “A.J.” Cody. May he outperform us all.

A sense of humor means:

A person has the resiliency to deal with the realities of the modern world while maintaining his energy, drive, enthusiasm and smile. Life’s far too short. Loosen up

Lessons That Sports Marketers, And Everyone, Should Have Learned From The 2019 Super Bowl (As We Approach The 2020 Game)

Arthur Solomon, Public Relations Consultant

A credible argument can be made that the Super Bowl craze began, not because it featured two teams battling for the U.S.A. Concussion Football Championship, but because it was touted by marketing, advertising writers, PR and ad agencies and TV commentators as featuring the best, most, enjoyable products of the advertising industry – TV commercials with superior creativeness and entertainment value – as well as shameful hype from sports writers. Cynics not associated with the promotion of the game and telecast believe that the commercials were never so superior. (Once in a while there was a brilliant spot). But what is actually responsible for the massive media hype is the cost of the commercials.

There have been many Lessons Learned by marketers who have shelled out the Big Bucks so their commercials can be seen during the Super Bowl and, hopefully, have enough legs to receive extended media coverage. Unfortunately for marketers, PR people and ad agencies, for the past decade or so more news worthy events than the cost of a TV spot have often over shadowed the commercials, as it did during the lead-up to last years telecast, when the cost of a 30 second spot was reported to be in excess of $5-million, as it will again this year.

Politics, violence against women by NFL players and health matters related to football are subjects that both sports marketers and the NFL would rather not be the subjects of news stories during Super Bowl week (or any other time). But as the football family and President Trump has learned the media doesn’t give into the wants of powerful people, either in the White House or in the NFL’s commissioner’s office, and all three subjects received major media attention in 2019, as they again did in the lead-up to the 2020 game between. the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami on February. 2.

As usual, there will be many lessons that sports marketers will learn from this year’s Super Bowl. But unexpectedly there was three idiosyncratic lessons learned just a couple of weeks after last year’s game, one that dated back to 2018. They concerned the relationships between employer, employees, public relations practitioners and the media.

Lesson 1 – Not even Bob Costas, the longtime voice of NBC Sports for nearly 40 years, could escape employer punishment for expressing his opinion about the concussion problem in the NFL. Because of his comments, he was removed from the 2018 Super Bowl, he said, and subsequently left the network in early 2019.

Lesson 2 – The second lesson should be remembered by employers: The more powerful you are in the business world, the greater the media coverage when a wrong doing is exposed. An example was the headline coverage on February 22-23 regarding New England Patriot’s owner Robert Kraft being charged in a sex sting, which he has denied. Lesson 3 – This one relates to people in our businesses, who work for individuals or entities that have been involved in PR crises, like Mr. Kraft: Despite the work of self-designated PR crises specialists, once a reputation is lost, it will forever be remembered by the media in subsequent stories of the same nature. (Believe me, Mr. Kraft will long be remembered in football circles for reasons other than his team winning Super Bowls.)

Of course, there were loads of lessons that are more mundane than the above ones:

Despite not knowing what the efficacy of the mega-costly TV commercials will be, along with the number of concussions and other bodily injuries players might receive during the 2020 game, one thing is certain: The Super Bowl will always provide lessons for sports marketers.

Here are some of the most important ones from 2019:

Arguably the most important one for marketers is that politics in now ingrained in the Super Bowl’s DNA, as it is in all entities and individuals who have experienced a PR crisis, because of President Trump’s S.O.B. remarks about football players who kneel during the National Anthem and the NFL’s obvious blacklisting of Colin Kaepernick for fomenting the kneel strategy as a means of highlighting racial injustice. Try as the NFL and marketers may, it’s now impossible to separate the NFL from politics. Even though Kaepernick was not on the field during the 2019 game, his presence was felt during the lead-up to and on Super Bowl day: A barrage of news stories contained quotes from entertainers explaining their positions about not taking part in Super Bow activities. And during the game, Kaepernick posted pictures of athletes and celebrities supporting him. All the hype didn’t stop the media from questioning NFL commissioner Roger Goodell about violence against women committed by NFL players, specifically, Kareem Hunt, the Kansas City Chief’s running back, and the San Francisco’s 49 ers Reuben Foster. While the NFL and its sponsors attempted to flood the media with “Super Bowl Fun Facts,” there are other statistics that they would rather not have received coverage: The mental and physical damage to their gladiators – the football players – both during their active careers and after. What has become a staple of the lead-up to the Super Bowl is media coverage detailing the physical dangers to those who play “America’s Sport.” And 2019 was no exception.

Here are several examples:

The first major article I noticed regarding the negative life altering affects of playing football caught me by surprise because of where it appeared – not on the sports pages or medical columns, but as a huge lead editorial in the January 19 New York Times. The author, Alex Kingsbury, cited examples, of injuries to players and research from medical journals that should be required reading by every parent before deciding whether to let their child participate in what should not be called a game. Astonishingly, the article also quoted New England quarterback Tom Brady as saying, “Your body gets used to the hits…my brain is wired for contact. I would say in some ways it has become callous to the hits,”(making me think Brady took one hit too many). Then, surprisingly, a new element that described the adverse health affects from playing football at all levels was reported on January 20 in the NYT. It was about how high school, college and NFL coaches encourage linemen to gain weight so they can better protect the quarterback from pass rushing defensive players. The story, headlined “The N.F.L.’S Other Scourge: Obesity” described how coaches encourage obesity, a life- threatening condition, by telling linemen to bulk up in order to play in the NFL. Because of the “gain to play” requirements, NFL linemen have higher rates of hypertension, obesity and sleep apnea then other players or the general public. As the Times reported, “blocking for a $25-million-a-year quarterback, it turns out, can put linemen in the high risk category for many of the ailments health experts readily encourage people to avoid. On Super Bowl weekend, the Times published two articles that detailed the horrific nature of what is dishonestly called a game, when rightly it should be called legalized assault. On February 2, a two page article beginning on page one of SportsSaturday told how a former NFL player’s anxiety about his worsening C.T.E. symptoms caused him to commit suicide. The next day, beginning on page one of SportsSunday, another huge article told of how football players become addicted to painkillers, so they can continue playing, and then how the craving follows them when their career ends. (President Trump and football controversy seem as tied together as are laces and shoes. In a Super Bowl day “Face The Nation” interview, when asked if he would want his son to play football, he said “Would I steer him that way? No, I wouldn’t. I just don’t like the reports that I see coming out having to do with football. It’s a dangerous sport and I would have a hard time with it,” he said. Trump is the second president who voiced misgivings about having their sons play football. Obama said that if he had a son, he would not let him play football.) An article by nutritionists at the Mayo Clinic Health System in Mankato, MN, said pizza, fully loaded nachos and fried chicken wings are among some of the most popular, yet most fat-laden offenders, at Super Bowl parties. They all have around 800-1,000 calories and about 50 g of fat in a typical party-sized portion. For example, two pieces of all-meat pizza contain 940 calories and 56 g of fat. (A meal that only people who have stock in makers of cholesterol -lowering meds might endorse.)

As the above article revealed, the lead-up to the 2019 game showed how damaging to a person’s health football can be to individuals who never even played a down and watch it on TV. Instead of being subjected to the big life-altering hits on the grid iron, the food served at Big Game parties can do the damage to internal body mechanisms.

Football has been called “America’s Game,” baseball it’s “National Pastime.” Both have a checkered marketing history, which includes proud sponsorships from tobacco, all sorts of alcoholic beverages and foods that health experts deem unhealthy. So it’s only natural that the 2019 game ushered in another activity that is detrimental to many Americas – legalized betting.

“Now fans are able to play the game within the game,” Lisa Kerney, formerly of ESPN, was quoted as saying in a January 30 Times story. Now part of a sports betting show, Kerney, the Times reported, now “rattles off N.F.L. point spreads and money-line odds as easily as a CNBC host talks stock prices and P/E ratios.” Also during the 2019-2020 season New York’s Fox 5 shamefully sold time to DRAFTKINGSSPORTSBOOK, a half- hour tutorial on how to bet on-line. Missing from the show’s script is a line saying that “anyone who has bet at a casino or with a bookie knows the house always wins.” (I’m certainly not puritanical in my beliefs. I’ve done my share of gambling and enjoying an occasional drink. But I find it hypocritical and deceitful to have sports leagues hawk their charitable activities and position athletes as role models and then permit products that can be detrimental to viewers’ before, after or on game telecasts, knowing that a large part of their audience are youngsters or other impressionable people.)

As usual, there was the always debates over the goal of Super Bowl ads: Is it to build brand awareness or drive product sales? Leslie Zane, founder and president of Triggers Growth Strategy, argued in an op-ed for Ad Age that Super Bowl ads should lead to sales and that far too many advertisements during the Big Game aren’t built to actually change brand preference.

An article in the Wall Street Journal revealed that even self- designated marketing experts disagree about commercial strategy. Some brands think commercials are more impactful by keeping them under wraps until they are seen on the Super Bowl telecast. Other specialists advise releasing the ads before the telecast so the brand can get the most free viewings of them

Clients and the creators of Super Bowl TV commercials also hope that their multi-million dollar ads will long be remembered by consumers and the media after the game. That’s what Anheuser-Busch’s Bud Light brew ad achieved, ever since its commercial disparaged Miller Life and Coors Light for using corn syrup in its brewing process. The “my beer is better than your beer” ad battle resulted in MillerCoors suing Bud Light for misleading advertising.

Newspaper articles regarding negative aspects of playing football, like the ones above before the 2019 game, usually begin a few weeks before the Super Bowl. But in 2019, on November 8, months before the February 2, 2020 kickoff, the New York Times launched a series about “footballs hold on America.” which included articles about the dangers to players’ health associated with playing football and other societal aspects of the game. Examples of negative football articles leading up to the 2020 Super Bowl:

The initial article told of the decline of participants in high school football and a meeting of NFL executives in 2017 that tried to create a strategy to save the game. The story said that “Over the last decade, the numbers of high school boys playing tackle football – the heart and soul of the sport – has dropped more than 10 percent.” On November 13, the Times reported on how “More Players Question Injury Treatment.” The story told how players are now questioning treatment by team physicians and are seeking second opinions. In an Op-Ed in the December 8 New York Times, Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown wrote that the National Football League is far behind the National Basketball Association in providing adequate pensions and medical insurance for players who helped build the sport, resulting in some past players not having enough money to cover their football associated medical bills. On December 12, the New York Times published an article about researchers at Stamford University who are trying to develop a football helmet filled with water that can prevent brain injuries. The story included the following quote: “My fear is that a better helmet will give false reassurance,” said Dr. Lee Goldstein, a psychiatrist and researcher with the T.E. Center at Boston University, which has carried out pioneering research on chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease linked to repeated hits to the head. “It’s like developing a better cigarette filter. It’s smoother and it might not give you a hacking cough. But you still get lung cancer.” “An exceptional special Times article on December 19, and updated on December 22, about the NFL at 100 by James Surowiecki included the following graphs: “Fans express outrage about the threat of brain damage to their heroes, so there must be at least a feigned effort at reducing hits. Where the league once celebrated violence, it now plays it down.” …“Of course, it’s impossible these days to treat the N.F.L. as simple entertainment. Watching football is necessarily an exercise in cognitive dissonance: Enjoying a game requires us, on some level, to ignore everything we know about brain injuries, the shortness of most players’ careers and the physical toll the game takes on their bodies, the team owners’ intolerance for some social commentary and the disregard for domestic and sexual assaults.” In its January 4, 2020, edition, the Times ran a feature about the how the NFL wraps itself around the flag. It detailed the history of how the NFL has attempted to make its product synonymous with patriotism, which is evident at every game. But the story included a few lines that the league, its networks, commentators and friendly sports journalists never mention: “Military personnel in uniform, fighter jet flyovers, field-size flags, and red, white and blue festooned N.F.L. jerseys have become part of the game’s landscape. Despite criticism from certain corners about politicizing the game, the league has continued to embrace symbols of patriotism. Certain teams even accepted money from the Department of Defensefor patriotic displays during games, with the league eventually returning more than $700,000 following an audit.”

The Times wasn’t the only pub to print stories about injuries suffered by football players:

A study in Annals of Neurology,by a team of researchers from the Boston University CTE Center, published on October 7 and reported in numerous publications, said that for every year of playing football the risk of developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) increases by 30 percent. And for every 2.6 years of play, the risk of developing CTE doubles, because of repeated head collisions. The December 2-8 Sports Business Journal ran a full page article on lower extremity injuries that “have plagued players for years.” Even articles extolling the virtues of football, like the one by Sam Walker in the December 21-22 Wall Street Journal, in which the author said that its “positive influence on kids will continue to outweigh the risks” if the right adjustments are made, noted the decline of high school participants in tackle football. The story included statistics from the National Federation of State High School Associations showing last season football “suffered its steepest loss of players in 33 years.” The pro-football article also mentioned the dangers of repeated brain concussions.

Even before the Times launched its “footballs hold on America”” series, stories about the negative health affect of playing football actually began in August, when a study published in Science Advances, a peer reviewed scientific journal, published an article regarding a study showing that even one season of playing football without a concussion can cause brain tissue damage. The results of the research, conducted with University of Rochester football players, received coverage in scientific and consumer pubs, including a August 20 New York Times article.

Of course, the above were only a fraction of negative football stories that were published.

(The sum of the negative articles? Football is not all fun and games. The message? With apologies to Waylon Jennings, “Mama’s Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be football players.”) The Times also ran an article on January 17 about how the seamy side of football is whitewashed by the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The impetus for the article was the announcement, on January 15, that Paul Tagliabue, the NFL commissioner from 1989 to 2006, was voted to the Hall. To all but the most fervent football junkies, and, of course, the team owners, Tagliabue is remembered for his denial that football-related concussions can cause brain trauma and for having a non-brain specialist MD defend his position. The story also named past players that the Hall inducted, despite their having been suspended for unsavory conduct, or worse.

And in a new variation of the Hail Mary pass, the Associated Press reported that the New Orleans Saints are going to court to keep the public from seeing hundreds of emails that allegedly show team executives doing public relations damage control for the area’s Roman Catholic archdiocese to help it contain the fallout from a burgeoning sexual abuse crisis.

This year’s Super Bowl telecast will unveil new twists for viewers – the “Three-card Monte” or “Flimflam” advertising approach. The Wall Street Journal’s’ May 6 “CMO TODAY” column reported that the telecast will reduce the number of national commercial breaks per quarter from four to five, but the total amount of ad time is not to be diminished. To put things in perspective: There were 49 minutes and 45 seconds of national commercials last year (2018).The actual amount of playing time in an NFL game is between 11- and 15 minutes.

Also, in addition to TV viewers getting soused and filling their bodies with unhealthy foods during the commercial special known as the Super Bowl, there will be a new destructive element added for viewers: They will be able to bet on individual plays while having “just one more” and maybe get cancer, according to Japanese scientific study reported in the New York Times on December 24.

As someone who has been involved in numerous mega sports marketing campaigns over the years – both nationally and internationally – but doesn’t bet on the outcomes, I can confidently predict, and be willing to put a few bucks on the following: 1 – Even before sales figures or audience surveys and attitudes are in, sponsors of the 2020 Super Bowl will say, “We’re pleased with the reception of our ads.” (Even if they’re not.) 2 – The Jennifer Lopez-Shakira half-time show will draw a greater audience than the commercial-laden few minutes of actual football play, and, 3 – Despite marketers spending more than $5-million dollars for 30 seconds of commercial time, all the ads will fall short of gaining the publicity that Michael

Bloomberg’s one- minute national ad criticizing Donald Trump will receive. Both Bloomberg and the president announced on January 7 that they will advertise on the Super Bowl. From what I saw, Bloomberg’s announcement generated much more media coverage than the Trump disclosure.

As soon as the Bloomberg-Trump commercials were made public, other advertisers became fearful that their ads would be shuffled to the practice squad, according to various news reports. And they were correct, as the pre-game publicity showed. So Fox decided to run the ads in close proximity to their own promotional ones. (In football terminology, that’s known as the “prevent defense.” But as football fans know, it often fails.)

The politicization of sports – especially the Super Bowl – is not a new story. Neither is the news that Facebook profits from permitting political lies on its site. What is new is a story that CNN broke on January 24 saying that, “President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign has run more than 200 misleading political advertisements on Facebook in the past day claiming the “Fake News media” will attempt to block the campaign’s upcoming Super Bowl ad — despite federal regulations that require the TV spot be aired.” (Is it only a matter of time before Facebook will run NFL ads saying that new scientific proof shows that football concussions help improve cognitive ability.)

Advertising on the Super Bowl, or any mega sporting event, instead of doing more targeted advertising, is like shooting craps. You roll the dice and hope for the best.

A sure to happen discussion about whether the cost of producing and publicizing a TV commercial is the best way for a marketer to advertise will surely occur after this year’s game. But on January 14, one opinion was already in: In her daily run-up to the Super Bowl advertising column, Jeanine Poggi, Ad Age’s senior editor, reported that, “After advertising in both 2010 and 2000, the last two times the census was taken, the U.S. Census Bureau will not run a commercial in the 2020 game.” “It isn’t an efficient spend of tax payers’ dollars,” says Alex Hughes, census program director at VMLY&R, which is handling the bureau’s 2020 ad campaign.

I’ve been told in confidence by some sports marketers who are pressured to advertise on sports mega events that they feel the same way as the census people. Before committing to advertise on next years Super Bowl at the very least brand managers should have their agencies present them with alternative options before agreeing to spend more than $5- million for a :30 spot.

About the Author: Arthur Solomon, a former journalist, was a senior VP/senior counselor at Burson- Marsteller, and was responsible for restructuring, managing and playing key roles in some of the most significant national and international sports and non-sports programs. He also traveled internationally as a media adviser to high-ranking government officials. He now is a frequent contributor to public relations publications, consults on public relations projects and is on theSeoul Peace Prize nominating committee. He can be reached at arthursolomon4pr (at) juno.com and artsolomon4pr (at) optimum.net.

Strategy for Super Bowl Brands as Bloomberg Duels Trump

Henry C. Boyd III, Clinical Professor in the Marketing Department at the Robert H. Smith School of Business

Aspiring presidential hopeful Michael Bloomberg’s timing is rather canny. On the eve of the 2020 Iowa Caucuses where he doesn’t appear on the ballet, Bloomberg — front of about 100 million Super Bowl halftime viewers — will unveil a political spot reportedly to attack perhaps the most polarizing president in U.S. history – Donald Trump. This decisive act imposes big implications for next-day discussions at the water cooler and over social media platforms. It also means the specter of presidential politics will now loom large – further fueled by equal time of Trump messaging. Hence, this classic battle of conservatism versus progressivism threatens to saturate an iconic pop culture milieu to the detriment of the other Super Bowl advertisers.

Pro football, along with these other advertisers, has been poised for a revitalized stage. Fox Sports in November reported that the network has sold out Super Bowl ad spots for the Feb. 2 game, marking the first time for such a bonanza in five years. This further bucked a recent trend of networks like CBS waiting as late as hours before kickoff to fill up commercial breaks.

Fueling the upswing has been this year’s strong economy along with especially-compelling regular season narratives that are helping the NFL make a comeback in a time when traditional and reality TV are struggling to keep up. Consider the nature of the game nowadays, especially the offensive side of it, where rising stars like Baltimore Ravens’ quarterback Lamar Jackson and Kansas City Chiefs’ quarterback Patrick Mahomes have helped to make it thrilling to watch football.

So how should brands position themselves alongside dueling Bloomberg-Trump campaign ads? First, avoid transparently political messaging used in 2017 spots by 84 Lumber (The Journey Begins) and AirBnB (We accept). I suspect that most viewers will have been inundated with political rhetoric. Instead, savvy firms ought to lean towards entertainment- infused commercials. Second, think in terms of drama-focused advertisements and aim to spark conversation on social media – broadly and especially among non-political junkies. I base this assertion on my doctoral dissertation research at Duke University, where I isolated key elements of drama-related advertising.

Super Bowl advertisers should approach their spots as 30-, 45- or minute-long mini plays or dramas. In each instance, the following ad elements need to positively stand out: the actors’ traits, the actors’ interactions, the dialogue, the delivery of the lines and the setting.

From the viewer’s standpoint, you naturally check all those boxes in your mind’s eye when watching a drama. If all the elements pass muster, the viewer experiences verisimilitude (i.e., a desired end state where the viewer buys into the performance). That’s a big win for any marketer. Audi’s 2017 “Daughter” spot exemplifies this – and significantly through delivering a glimpse of the future. This vision – about equal opportunity irrespective of one’s gender – significantly was portrayed in the ad between a father and daughter, making it relatable and subsequently inspiring to a large segment of viewers.

Moreover, for 2020, skip the lecture ads, especially, again, those making political statements, and go with something that draws audiences in and isn’t so explicit about the product. This will prompt viewers to draw and share their own conclusions via social media. Reward outweighs backlash risk when brands aim to inspire via social messaging. And, you have to entertain at a minimum. Effectively crafting inspirational and entertaining spots is never easy, but it’s paramount for a brand’s continued success.

About the Author: Henry C. Boyd is a Clinical Professor in the Marketing Department at the Robert H. Smith School of Business. He is also a managing director and principal at Ombudsman LLC, a diversified consultancy. He is licensed to practice law in Maryland, Wisconsin, and the U.S. District Court, Western District of Wisconsin.

Boyd received his Ph.D. in Marketing from Duke University (with an emphasis in Consumer Behavior) and his J.D. in Intellectual Property from the University of Wisconsin- Madison. At the age of 24, he received his MBA in Marketing from the University of California at Berkeley. Prior to graduate study, he obtained his A.B. in Chemistry (with an emphasis in Biophysics) from Princeton University.