The ‘Kony 2012’ video was created by the organization Invisible Children to raise awareness about the atrocities committed by the Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony in an effort to help bring him to justice. The video was posted last week and received 100 million views in just six days, making ‘Kony 2012’ a bigger media sensation than Susan Boyle’s performance on ‘Britain’s Got Talent’.

The new epitome of viral video, ‘Kony 2012’ is not only a supremely compelling documentary, but also an incredibly interesting case study from a PR perspective. To start, the ubiquity of the video over the past week has been phenomenal. It spread through social media as well as traditional media outlets like nothing we’ve seen before. But how did it become such an event? It’s not as though Kony’s story is breaking news, and there have certainly been equally horrendous atrocities documented across the globe, but for some reason this particular video, among thousands of videos with similar content, really resonated with people. But again, why? What is it that makes a video become viral?

I have a somewhat cynical theory that relates the popularity of the Kony video to the Tom’s Shoes fad – it’s a great way for Americans to feel good about themselves while being trendy without actually having to really do anything. I suppose it’s a sad commentary on American lifestyle, but hey, it got the message out there.

Which brings me to my next point: yes, the video was a “clickable moment” and spurred countless donations and purchases. However, how much action will the video actually prompt? Will it actually help the cause? Will Joseph Kony be arrested and prosecuted based on the strides taken by Invisible Children? Unfortunately, its seems like due to poor PR on behalf of Invisible Children, the popularity of ‘Kony 2012’ could actually hinder efforts already underway. As soon as the video went viral so did the criticisms of Invisible Children’s background. Rumors circulated about the organization’s funding and leadership, and a great deal of controversy began to envelop the message they were trying to communicate. Only recently, one of the co-founders, Jason Russell was arrested under unseemly circumstances, which is, again, creating buzz and ink for ‘Kony 2012’ but doing nothing to help the cause.

This, in turn, illustrates one of the problems with receiving news through social media. It seems as though if the content is scandalous, shocking, or moving enough and there is sufficient hype around the story, people don’t really consider the source of the news. People tend to take in the information at face value without considering that there is no “gate keeper” or publisher or editor that makes judgment calls about the news we read. It is completely unfiltered and we are left to deem for ourselves what is valid information and what is not.

Overall, I think ‘Kony 2012’ delivers an important message about an important topic. It raises awareness about a serious global issue and was able to permeate the social web with unprecedented speed and reach. But the fact is, the public relations and personal issues of the Invisible Children may have hindered any positive attention that the viral video had attained for the cause. I’m still on the fence about whether the adage is true – is there really no such thing as bad press? All of the negative publicity may be keeping ‘Kony 2012’ in the news, but is it productive?

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Technorati Tags: Invisible Children, Joseph Kony, Kony 2012, Social Media, Viral video

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Journalists grumbling about PR people and how we’re apparently so annoying. They Tweet things like “the “spray and pray” PR pitches are arriving en masse this morning. Resistance appears futile.”

There are even some editors who’ve said on LinkedIn that female PR reps are especially annoying (true story!)
And now, an anonymous 35 year old PR executive apparently has it straight about all PR people.

Yes, Mr. Anonymous, we all send out crappy pitches and don’t do our research. None of us work hard to do our best for clients. At least, that is the scenario you have suggested.

But much of your rant is simply off base.

Okay, maybe some of us do open our notes with “hope all is well”.

Beyond that, however, some of us actually do try to ensure that we:
a) Don’t spam reporters
b) Only send news that is relevant to the editor we are approaching
c) Make the pitch as succinct as possible
d) Offer unique angles
e) Keep our story ideas fresh

Is there room for improvement? Yes. Always. But are we guilty of the PR crimes as charged by Mr. Anonymous? No, your honor, we are not.

But maybe you disagree? Let’s discuss.

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Technorati Tags: PR Twitter Editor Journalist

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Look at Toyota, for instance. They were in a publicity nightmare due to “unintended acceleration” resulting in deaths and injury, although what caused those incidents has yet to be determined. The company has taken a long term approach, using multiple marketing channels to communicate their commitment to solving the problem and to tell stories of loyal customers who are sticking with them. Komen should do the same. Refocus on their population. Tell true stories of Komen making a difference in people’s lives. Get that story out via mass media and social media channels. Repair the disconnect that seems to have occurred between Komen’s executive management and the grass roots supporters who are the lifeblood of the organization.

There are many people that Komen will never get back. Thankfully, other organizations in the fight against breast cancer can benefit from their contributions. But that doesn’t mean Komen can’t recover some of the people they’ve lost while still growing their organization through the countless number of people who unfortunately have been and will be impacted by breast cancer. As long as Komen stays on message with their core audience, there’s nothing to stop them from getting back on track and even going beyond what they’ve achieved already.

What do you think Susan G. Komen should do to repair the damaged brand?

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Technorati Tags: Detroit Free Press, Komen, Mediapost, PR, Susan G. Komen for the Cure

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Realizing how social media has changed the way fans enjoy the game, Mullen, Radian6 and Boston.com are sponsoring Brand Bowl 2012, a social media event that will analyze the Twitter commentary and rate the most popular and disastrous Super Bowl commercials. The virtual event at BrandBowl2012.com will feature an up-to-the-minute stream of tweets about Super Bowl commercials to determine which brands are the most and least effective. The brands will be ranked based on volume (who has the most/least chatter) and sentiment (who has the most/least positive and negative comments).

Were you always picked last in dodgeball, baseball or soccer? Don’t worry about it. You don’t need to be recruited to play in the Brand Bowl. The power to rank commercials you liked best, or least, is in the palm of your hand – or really, fingertips!

For those of you who plan to tweet your opinions about this year’s Super Bowl commercials, include the hashtag #brandbowl or reference a specific commercial in your tweet. The tweets will be streamed live on Boston.com during the game.

Brands are beginning to realize the influence the armchair advertising critics of the world have in the social media realm. The savviest brands are recognizing the power of social media and are releasing their commercials before the Super Bowl to build buzz online, and are orchestrating large-scale social media campaigns to maximize the impact of their multi-million dollar investments.

Will you be participating in Brand Bowl 2012?

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Technorati Tags: Advertising, Boston.com, Brand Bowl, brands, commercials, Giants, Patriots, Super Bowl, Twitter

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The quick lesson: if you’re in a public role, either as a business leader or a politician, plan for the worst. PR people can help you: we’re natural-born catastrophizers. We see downside everywhere; it’s part of the job description. First we think of something positive about a client’s products, services and value proposition and then we turn around and attack those assumptions from all angles. It’s the only way to prepare for the tough questions inevitable from the press and, at some point, consumers.

Apparently Mitt Romney thought he was immune from catastrophe. Either that or his PR counsel didn’t worry enough about worst-case scenarios, especially with regard to timing of disclosure of details of his taxes, financial status and the disposition of his investments. Perhaps he was holding the story for the fall when the Democrats would certainly raise a challenge, and his PR counsel went along with it (which seems inexplicable). Whatever. The strategy failed. His own side attacked, making things much easier for the incumbent and making the GOP look like a pack of clowns.

As a mostly-private person I am on Romney’s side. I wouldn’t disclose that information. But he chose a public life, and with the choice comes a diminution of personal rights, especially the right to privacy. (That’s a whole separate subject with Google’s Monday announcement.)

It doesn’t matter that Gingrich soaked Freddie Mac for millions as an ‘historian’ or that John Kerry hides behind Teresa Heinz Kerry and tried to fool people and dodge taxes by berthing his (New Zealand built, for shame) boat in Newport, R.I. It doesn’t matter that the Kennedys built their fortune rum-running, or the Bushes through banking and oil. It doesn’t matter that Bill Clinton is cleaning up, post House impeachment and general running around, giving speeches. What matters is Romney was caught flat-footed, and it’s critical for a politician to be on the front foot, anticipating everything.

PR, properly strategized and executed, keeps you on the front foot. It helps you prepare for questions you don’t want to answer. It makes you consider a position from many points of view. No one is immune from catastrophe. Plan accordingly.

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The newest controversy is about anti-obesity ads targeting children. NPR focuses in on Georgia, a state with the second-highest obesity rate in the nation, where close to 1 million children reportedly obese. The ads show obese children ‘scared’ of what’s happening to them and why they’re fat. Those children are accompanied by graphic images of other fat children or horrible diseases one gets from obesity, such as hypertension. Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, which is spending $25 million on a five-year campaign to fight obesity, justified the scary tone it’s setting:

“It has to be harsh. If it’s not, nobody’s going to listen,” says Linda Matzigkeit, vice president of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, the pediatric hospital running the campaign.

Rodney Lyn of Georgia State University’s Institute of Public Health disagrees with the tone of the campaign, saying,

“This campaign is more negative than positive…We know that stigmatization leads to lower self-esteem, potential depression. We know that kids will engage in physical activity less because they feel like they’re going to be embarrassed.”

Both of the individuals are correct. People are naturally lazy, and if they aren’t scared, they won’t do something because they ‘don’t have the time’ (read: interest) in taking care of their health. The result? Millions spent on healthcare that could be saved if they weren’t so fat. That said, Lyn is correct that the campaign is a scare tactic designed to make kids and parents feel if they don’t immediately take action, they will suffer drastically. The fear-mongering is not necessary to inform the public about the dangers of obesity: too much scaring could lead either to more psychological problems, or more visits to the Emergency Room that increase wait time and over exhaust doctors, when those problems could have been solved at home instead.

I personally side with Matzigkeit (names NOT to be tested on the spelling), and say there are times fear-mongering is a good thing. Having just returned from Israel, I can contrast the foods eaten and portion sizes (smaller, more fruits and veggies, more natural) there to America (processed, hormone-injected, larger, more salt) and I felt like I ate much healthier there than I do here. Given the difficulty then of getting people into good eating habits (myself included) is no doubt difficult, but scaring them to take actions that ultimately lower healthcare costs might work.

What do you think? Is it justified for government and advocacy groups to scare people into doing something if it makes a positive difference? Or should they try to educate people rationally and make them see why eating healthier is better, all without fear-mongering?

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Technorati Tags: Advocacy group, Atlanta, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, Georgia, NPR, Obesity, Public health, United States

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SOPA Bill Faces New Hurdles – Over 10,000 websites went dark yesterday to protest the Stop Online Piracy Bill, which has now become a fight between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. The bill’s roots aren’t inherently bad (all it seeks to do is stop piracy) but along the way, the bill’s language would allow every single website – especially Wikipedia – to be shut down by the copyright holder. Imagine you’re a student doing a report for school, and you Google some books or keywords. If any of that information had been reposted, it would immediately be taken down. In the scope of the Internet, a small percentage of websites actually seek to harm the copyright holder. South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint tweeted, “I support intellectual property rights, but I oppose SOPA & PIPA.” This seems to be the new position of a lot of former supporters. The Internet hosts free knowledge, so where would we be without it? In the Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley fight, who’d win?

GM Looks to Protect Green Image with Volt Fixes – The Chevy Volt is being referred to as a “halo car”, or the image of everything Chevy wants to become. GM will ask Volt owners to return the cars to dealers for structural modifications — repairs that fall under a “customer service campaign,” which is similar to a safety recall but allows GM to avoid the bad publicity and federal monitoring that come with a formal recall. The fixes are similar to a recall and involve about 8,000 Volts sold in the U.S.in the past two years. GM is making the repairs after three Volt batteries caught fire following crash tests done by federal safety regulators. Although GM has fallen far below its sales projections for the Volt, the image of this car improve GM’s image for the future.

Weight Watchers Secret Recipe for Rebranding? Patience – You know me, I love a good corporate branding story. And add a fitness component? I’m all over it. Weight Watchers has been known for being the most successful lifestyle change program, because it doesn’t have a “diet” element as much as its portion control element. WW overhauled its points system, giving 0 points to fruits and veggies, and giving lower points to foods based on their nutrients. However, they waited an entire year before launching it – why, you ask? It’s because they dedicated an entire year to training staff and nutritionists, holding focus groups, and signing powerful people like Jennifer Hudson and Charles Barkley. What do you think, knowing what you do about WW? Was waiting a whole year the right way to go?

Now it’s time for the PRobecast PR Power Ranking – which is when we go around the room and pick the story that we think ranks the highest PR-wise – meaning any aspects of PR could be the reasoning behind the pick. Is it the story itself, good data that was used, what’s getting the most pickup, was it a good PR move the company made, etc.

We chose the SOPA story as this week’s PR Power Ranker. It grew as a national campaign over the course of a few weeks, and with website blackouts like Wikipedia’s, it forces everyone, even our nation’s non-political teenagers, to face what could happen to the Internet if SOPA passes. But what comes next? We think it’s important to recognize this isn’t the end of bills like this, and we should be able to handle it next time around.

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Twitterchats, Tweetathons, T-chats, Tweetups, whatever you want to call them, require a 100% team effort. If done right, they can greatly increase web traffic, improve organizational transparency, increase your Twitter followers, and build up or improve your community. It may be hard to convince your client this is a great thing for visibility, but all evidence points to success.

Since I’ve wanted to organize a Twitterchat for months now, I went searching for the best way to go about the task. I found a step-by-step blog from The Blue Key Campaign, which spent a week promoting and organizing its first one. The first step, of course, is that you need an established community. If there’s no one there to participate, where will your responses come from?

I mentioned before that this effort requires input and time from every team member. In our agency case, we’d need the PR team plus our clients, in order to answer questions in the format they arrive, whether it’s Twitter @reply, DM, or email. My hope is that once everyone gets on board, we’ll see results for our clients and as an agency. If you’re looking for a way to start a Twitterchat, check out Blue Key Campaign’s steps. They are as detailed as they come!

Have you ever tried a Twitterchat? What were the results? What would you do differently next time?

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Technorati Tags: community, PR, Social Media, Twitter chats

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OK, not so fast.

What’s got me going today is the topic of jobs. Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain, and the accusations flying around about his role in destroying (and creating) jobs with the blunt instrument of private capital, is everywhere in the news. Data-driven analyses of job trends are much harder to find than criticism of Romney, although this piece by Holman Jenkins in the Wall Street Journal is on point.

Anyone who’s been in the work world for more than a year knows what it is to fear his or her job is at risk. In a way we’re the lucky ones – we have jobs – but to be a private-sector employee is to live with uncertainty, to constantly worry if skills are up to date, your employer is financially viable, good recommendations are available, your personal network is bigger than you and your spouse/partner, gray hairs don’t show and so on. Being in a job today, in short, is no guarantee of having a job tomorrow.

Norma Clarke, a very wise woman who was VP of HR at the Open Software Foundation, once told me no one had the right to deny another person the basic dignity of a job.

Of course the comment above is out of context – we were having a discussion about a staffing problem – but her comment stuck with me, even if I don’t completely agree. I’ve been a manager, an employee and self-employed. I’ve worked for crazy people, lazy people, brilliant people and clueless people. I’ve worked with superb writers, designers and craftspeople, idiots-savant who were brilliant at certain things, entrepreneurs who were terrifying in their single-mindedness and manipulators whose malicious and selfish impulses nearly destroyed the workplace. Most of the people I’ve worked with and for have been decent, hardworking, intelligent and reasonable. But all of us – employers and employees alike – have always been at the mercy of the markets, the government and the inexorable march of technology. There is no guarantee of a job. There never has been.

Economists (Schumpeter is credited with coining the term) like to call one of the forces most affecting the average employee ‘creative destruction’. As Holman Jenkins points out in the WSJ today, it’s a continual process. What he doesn’t get to is what each of us can do to guard against becoming its victim.

In my fairly limited experience the only way to protect oneself from creative destruction is to keep moving. Constantly learn, retrain and expand your skills at every opportunity. Push for on-the-job training; read widely, take classes and go to networking events. Live as though every day is your first day on the job, and possibly your last day. Be prepared.

Back to where I don’t completely agree with Norma: carry your dignity within. We are not all, it turns out, afforded the dignity of a job or continuous employment. So don’t count on work to make you a whole person. Live with dignity and curiosity, and the job will come.

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Technorati Tags: creativity, economy, jobs, Romney

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The Lenox Hill Hospital’s spokesperson said that she did not hear any of these complaints and that they hold their patient satisfaction to the highest standards. Is this her way of completely dodging a question? Hospital staff reported anonymously that parents were being blocked from the nursery all night long, as if the stresses of bringing a complicated birth child into the world aren’t enough. One father of premature twins said, “This is the NICU. Nobody cares if you’re a celebrity. Nobody is star-gazing. They just want to see their children”. The story goes on to say that the man had to fight with security for twenty minutes just so he could see his newborn children. (This was after they kicked his family out of the sixth floor waiting room).

So what do you think? Did the hospital spokesperson handle this properly or was she just brushing it off? Is this just another story of how celebrities can throw money at a situation and get what they want? Does the father of the newborn twins have an argument and deserve an apology? Or is he looking for his fifteen minutes of fame?

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