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Yum Brands Bad Publicity in China, Or Is It?

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YumBrandsThe headline on the cover of the Marketplace section of this morning’s Wall Street Journal caught the eye, “Bad Publicity Dents Yum Brands.” Woah. Must be really bad for the other side to add that key word, “publicity,” in a call out.

Jumping into the story, I got 2/3 through still seeking any mention or indication of bad PR. The story is about how the brand and its KFC stores continues to bounce back after a government review of China poultry supplies, the outbreak of SARS, and a dye potentially linked to increase cancer risk.

What the Chinese consumer is being extra cautious about, however, is whether KFC poultry is tainted with more antibiotics than what’s permitted. Food safety, in the wake of tainted milk issues that plagued the country, has become a top-of-mind issue.

The headline on top of the story says, “China Woes Put Dent in Yum Brands.”

Uh-huh.

That’s more like it, copy desk. The call out header on the section cover implied that Yum Brands was really messing up in China with negative media coverage – after all, isn’t publicity defined by news coverage?

The story didn’t read that way at all. It told about a brand suffering from the natural ebbs and flows of economic issues and stressors that affect any business playing in the food industry.

I think the headline writer wanted to dig at we in public relations and earn a few more readers by using “publicity,” a rare word in a headline for a global daily newspaper the likes of the Wall Street Journal.

 

 

 

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How To Nurture A Social Media Community

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Credit: Pioneer Outfitters, Alaska

When you nurture social media community, there’s a lot to think about. Communities and moderators collide on social media channels, it’s one person’s style against the other with no hard or fast rules. Nurturing social media community takes gentle enforcement with just enough engagement to attract the lurkers and a welcoming gesture every now and again to keep those a bit shy engaging.

Google+ Communities spawned a fire storm last week when everyone flocked (yes we did, albeit there were a handful of naysayers and bah-humbuggers) to either launch or join a community. (This is your own very special invite to join my Bloggers Unite! Google+ Community.) [Read more…]

Reading Online Vs. Print Publications

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When Bacons, now , published its media directories online, I was so accustomed to turning the thin pages of the five green telephone bookish resources that I was forever lost. I needed to skim and scan and quickly flip the dog-eared newsprint with the flick of a licked tall man to make my media list.

Tactile. Tactilization. Tactilness.

I think the latter two mean something like, “I’m so old, I like to physically turn the page.”  And, guess, what? That goes the same for my morning paper.

  • I want to have a coffee and scan the headlines of the every day for blog fodder and client news.
  • I want to take the entire sheet into my sight line and  scan down the page without clicking, scrolling, tapping or sliding pads and mice and pointers and other spongy-tipped gizmos along a colored screen.
  • I want to recycle the soy-ink, best newsprint for , who uses stacks of wet Wall Street Journals to shape and cool near-liquid glass into paper weights (I made two of them!).
  • I want to mark up the story I need to read later and tear it out. I want to use it as reference to write a blog post and extrapolate snippets from the story. How can I do that from the iPad when I’m writing on the iPad?

I’m on the computer all day, and when I’m not I’m thinking about being on the computer; I dream of being a computer. I don’t wish to read my media online. Some outlets require that, but I’ll tell you I prefer to see the pretty colored pages with lots of advertising hit my mail box to the kitchen table to the dining room table to the office to the floor of the office and then eventually to the recycle bin. Or, perhaps I share copies of some pieces, like or .

I haven’t counted in awhile, but I subscribe to likely two dozen periodicals; there are stacks and stacks of them all over the office shelves. I could probably keep an art class swimming in collage materials for years. Do not even think of me as a hoarder! That’s not the case; it’s just that I will one day get to my reading and find a gem to inspire my story writing.

Don’t you wonder how I write about such a wide range of topics? I read a wide range of print publications. I am not inspired as much when I read online. I am unfocused; over-stimulated and cannot pay attention to the story and the never-ending clicks that take me deeper with snarky comments from anonymous idiots.

Think about the peacefulness that goes along with reading a publication that smears ink on your sweaty hands? Then compare the experience of reading the same publication online with all the intense distractions targeting your attention.

As long as publishers are foolish enough to offer me a subscription for $10/year, or thereabouts, I’m good to sign on the dotted line and have a hard-copy publication arrive in my mail box.

What’s your practice? Online or print publications?

 

 

GoPro Is Perfect Example of National Media Pitch for PR

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I looked at the byline of the reporter; was I reading this amazing story in Fast Company? Close, but not. Tom Foster “has been an editor at Men’s Journal and Fast Company. This is his first story for Inc.”

My two all-time favorite ‘zines for business news, company innovation, entrepreneur success, and so much more. This story, “The GoPro Army—How a scrappy little camera company turned its customers into a stoked sales force and became a $250 million industry leader.”

Crumbs. You can’t beat that headline; it tells the story right there (and it took the whole page with 16 images from GoPro cameras to illustrate the first spread of the article). In true Fast Company form, the first two pages are in its style, while the last four are Inc.-esque.

What’s needed to get this kind of coverage money can’t buy?

Before I go into the elements for a national story pitch, I want to reference my message mapping articles again, and for good reason. I started writing this with the angle of “backing into a message map” because I had no idea this company existed (I’m not an extreme sports fanatic, nor would I ever consider the daredevil stunts GoPro does). As I was reading the first two pages with every line circled in three out of four columns (as blog fodder), I saw what the reporter told me come to life, “GoPro is a company that’s deeply invested in storytelling (primarily in the form of extreme sports videos.”)

As the reporter told his story beginning with hair-raising visuals as a passenger skedaddling through the Santa Cruz mountains in a Ford GT40 replica Le Mans racing car with GoPro CEO at the wheel, I was hooked. Not only was GoPro being acknowledged for its storytelling finesse, a master storyteller in Editor Tom Foster was recanting his personal adventure, too.

Just read the article, OK? You’ll get what I’m saying spot on.

Story Elements for National Media

So, let me try to share the elements you need for your company or client to be considered by national media.

The basics in this story are covered well.

Zany and photogenic CEO under 40-years-old

Proven profits and exponential company growth

Successful product with adoring consumers

Market monopoly (90% market share)

Industry everyone and anyone will drop jaws about.

 

The added bonus to making the pitch all the sweeter:

Product Line.  It’s a suite of “wearable, mountable and affordable HD video cameras that make all kinds of previously impossible shots much easier to capture. …they pack a surprising amount of power and versatility, especially for their $300 price tag.”

YouTube Views. The writer references three YouTube videos shot with GoPro cameras each with 12.4 million views, 2.8 million views and 2.1 million views. These postings are part of the arsenal of video posted to YouTube every two-to-three minutes (either by customers or the company’s 20-person in-house media team).

Industry Analysts. While it’s not always up to you to include industry analysts in your pitch to national media, it is an added bonus. “IDC estimates GoPro’s revenue at $250 million, on sales of 800,000 cameras world-wide. He (industry analyst) calls GoPro “the fastest growing camera company in the world.” (Redirect to sentence above – “coverage money can’t buy.”)

Customers/Users. GoPro has a Facebook fan base we can all drool over. “In 2011 alone, Facebook fans grew from 50,000 to more than 1.3 million.” (Gasp, who manages that community?)

Customer Engagement. Using the BARE (brand audience rate of engagement) score to track activity on Facebook, the CEO mildly states, “I think we have the most socially engaged online audience of any consumer brand in the world.” Indeed.

Social Brand. Read those words again. What do they actually mean? When you have a tiny video camera (any large corporation could’ve made, right?) you can wear, a global army of camera users is created every single day. Their videos of bungee jumps, an Alpine downhill, a coral reef exploration, or a kid’s race track excursion are all posted to YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Tumblr, Twitter, Google+ and every limitless social media channel imaginable. Globally. This exponential, ubiquitous growth is unimaginable, but here it is right in front of us being presented by an upstart. (Is this CEO the future Steve Jobs?)

I’m blown away. No way in my lifetime will I ever get the chance to pitch a company story like this, and I’ve been pitching media too many years to count. I’ve had success with national media, for sure, and I know what it takes to see it through (sweat and tears). I also realize the challenges media relations professionals face to tell a story like this.

Here are my summary tips:

Get your message map(s) in order and tell your story. Put them into a format that lends itself to storytelling and not just word reading. Words on a page must come to life with passion.

Not involved in social media yet, Company X? OHMYGOSH! If this story is not your kick in the pants, nothing is…Get on it. I cannot tell you how serious I am; look at the fan engagement and the social branding (that alone rocks) behind GoPro success.

This story is a perfect example of what national media want to see in a perfect national story – social media engagement on a variety of channels along with this BARE metric. (Don’t worry,  I bet only the top 10% of companies are likely to have that metric clocked with any margin of influence.)

Engage with industry analysts. This is an aspect of public relations often ignored. It’s called industry analyst relations…simple. It’s different than investor relations and important for privately held companies that hold market share in their respective verticals.

This story is both an inspiration and a freak (no accident). As a public relations professional, work hard to touch upon these elements and show proof points in as many as you can. I’d hasten a guess this company is a media darling and one in a million, but it’s sure exciting to wonder what it’s like to be in the media relations and social media hot seats for GoPro.

(Image courtesy of GoPro Facebook page.)

Christine O’Donnell — Say NO More

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For the first time in my 27 years in public relations and media relations, I watched right here as a guest walked off a national prime-time, LIVE broadcast based on the recommendation of her “handlers” – those PR peeps who sit on the sidelines and direct traffic for their spokesperson while nodding heads or coaching silently. (I know, I’ve been one of those frequently.)

Christine O’Donnell, you may recall, is a Tea Party candidate who tried to run for U.S. senate in Delaware, and her book, “Trouble Maker,” details many of the issues she either believes or doesn’t believe in.

When Piers Morgan queried her about gay marriage and masturbation, she began to unravel.  You can watch the interview with link above and form your own conclusions. It’s a good lesson for everyone including public relations/media relations as well as those figureheads who deem themselves prepared for prime time television.

There are so many other links you can go find, and many are attempts by Christine to massage her weakened brand and accuse “the producer” (she calls Piers the producer albeit he’s the host) of sexual harassment during the CNN interview.

The point is, PR, that if your spokesperson, client, company executive is NOT ready for live, national, primetime and potentially raucous interview tactics (do you remember Sarah Palin and Katie Couric?), then by all means KEEP THEM OFF TV!

Here are some media relations thoughts for everyone’s digestion:

** In media relations, it’s your job to comb previous interviews with that particular host to understand the style and potential for the segment to go downhill fast. Always expect negativity!

** Negativity sells, and there’s absolutely no way a former politician (especially in the Tea Party movement) can be safe. I say “especially in the Tea Party movement” because their policies and beliefs are strong, and when you get the “liberal” media going 1:1 with a candidate, there’s going to be bashing and addressing the issues.

** At the first sign of discomfort by an interviewee, the host is going in for the kill. Obviously, Christine was not prepared for a negative interview and did not expect to be thrown off course – book promotion, not running for office, I don’t want to speak about this issue today, “you’re being rude.”

** I fault Christine O’Donnell’s media relations people for this debacle. Either they didn’t prepare well enough or thoroughly enough to identify all the possible land mines any host would attempt to uncover, or they were not seasoned enough to manage this situation.  With issues as contentious as gay marriage, abortion (I don’t know if she addressed that topic in her book), masturbation, and the like in a book she wrote and is promoting, it’s open season!

** Preparation for an interview of international importance like this should be oriented to diving into all the Q&A with possible discomfort zones. Role playing and watching tapes of previous interviews would be part of the prep; in addition, dog earing book pages with highlighted text should have also been part of the prep.

** Piers Morgan is an investigative journalist; it’s his business to uncover scuttle butt on everyone who sits across from him. He wants ratings, and boy was he enjoying himself – trying not to laugh at Christine’s obvious discomfort.

** Finally, when has a PR person EVER stepped in front of the camera on national live TV? Are you kidding me? Terminate.

What thoughts can you offer based on your own experience, your experience being interviewed, and the prep that needs to happen in this contentious media age?

(Image: CNN)