Article Marketing

One of the best ways to promote a company is with opinion articles. Many magazines (online and print) welcome well-written articles. These articles should not be biased though – nobody wants to read a (blatant) sales pitch. As marketing professions will tell you – educating your target audience/potential customers is an effective marketing strategy.

Before starting to write, identify the target audience. Who are the readers of the magazine you want to send the article to? What are their interests? Do you have a direct connection to the editor, or only via a PR company? Does the magazine allow hyperlinks? Do they also want original illustrations? In short – do your homework!

Many marketing and copywriters ghostwrite – they write the opinion pieces for a company’s CEO, CMO or CTO, and when published, it will be under their name.

Points of attention when writing an opinion article:

1. It must be informative. The reader should learn something from reading the article.
   
2. It must be interesting. The text should flow and keep the reader interested to go on reading.
   
3. It must be based on facts, and not assumptions. References to recent events that were covered in the global media are a good hook, as are reports of leading analysts such as Gartner and Forrester.
   
4. It must be neutral. As mentioned before, nobody wants to read a sales pitch. A neutral article covering new or future trends, or “how to…” articles are popular. At the end of the year, articles about predictions for the coming year are in demand.
   
5. It should have hyperlinks (if allowed by the newspaper), footnotes and references. It makes the article trustworthy and increases the chance for publication.
   
6. Most magazines will ask for illustrations. Try to have original images in high resolution. No matter what industry you are in, the chance that your competitors use the same stock photos is high. Diagrams are always popular in tech pieces, as are product photos. Make sure to send different photos to various magazines – don’t forget, they all want to have original content!
   
7. Custom write your story, tailored to each magazine. Sending the same article to several tech mags is professional suicide, especially in today’s viral media.
   
8. Make sure to put a short bio with contact details at the bottom of the article.
   
9. Follow up. Once you see that your article in published, drop a thank-you note to the magazine (or journalist). Blog and tweet about it, and make sure to include the URL of the publication.
   
   To see an example of an opinion article, click here

Google's real-time serach - a search engine marketing dream come true?

Google announced the rollout of its new real-time search function. Search results will incorporate real-time content from Twitter feeds, blog posts, online news content, Facebook status updates, and content from MySpace , FriendFeed, and Jaiku.

According to Google, the latest results and the search options are also designed for iPhone and Android devices for info-on-the-go.

With this move, Google also tries to stay ahead of its main competitor - Microsoft's Bing that already has a real-time search function.

With its real-time search, Google will change SEO forever.

1. More and more companies will be "forced" to use social media to get the exposure they want and to keep ahead of the competition.
2. SEO and marketing experts will now have a plethora of new opportunities for SEO and marketing, since keywords and search terms will also be found in real-time news content, tweets, etc.
3. Companies need to be aware what content and information they release online, especially if they have to company with regulatory rules and regulations (SOX, HIPAA)
4. Users of social media have to be even more careful what to post on their Facebook page and what they tweet about. They can be hold liable for disclosing info without permission.
5. Facebook users have to be aware that info on their public profile will be found in real-time.

It is too soon to predict what the impact on SEO will be, but it looks like a search engine marketing dream come true....

How Freddo, an 80-year old frog, broke the mold - twice

On July 6, Cadbury launched its Freddo campaign, featuring Freddo’s first adventure: The Secret of the Golden Keys.

Freddo is the brainchild of Harry Melbourne, a chocolate mold maker at MacRobertson Chocolates, who told his boss in 1930 that frog-shaped chocolate would sell better than those shaped like mouse (the original concept). After making a sample and send to management, the marketing manager declared it a winner and history in the shape of Freddo, was born.

Eighty years later, more than 100 million Freddo chocolate frogs in a variety of flavors are produced in Australia each year. On its 80th birthday, Freddo is hopping into cyberspace with a series of interactive stories and games designed to stimulate and educate children to mark the occasion.

Cadbury (who acquired the Freddo rights in 1965), stated: "We designed The Adventures of Freddo as a free website which aims to educate and entertain children in the digital environment, a medium this generation is so familiar and comfortable with, using a more modern version of the cheeky, loveable frog that their parents and grandparents grew up with."

But not everybody is charmed by Freddo. Activists against junk food advertising claim that it exploits loopholes in the self-regulation system to market chocolate to children.

There are currently three codes regulating the advertising of unhealthy foods to children in Australia:

• the Children's Television Standards that are part of broadcasting legislation;
• the Australian Association of National Advertiser's codes on advertising foods, beverages and on marketing to children;
• RCMI, which food companies started in January 2009 Cadbury (NYSE: CBY) admits that Freddo chocolates are part of its "pre-teen" product range, but says that the campaign itself does not feature any chocolate, is educational, and encourages an active lifestyle.

Cadbury’s marketing motives are clear, and include launching Freddo internationally if he breaks sales records at home in Australia and New Zealand.
Cadbury obviously has a very good legal team on board. Since the Freddo character is a Cadbury trademark and there are no chocolate products showing in the animated films, the company does not appear to be breaching any rules in the various codes. Cadbury cleverly doesn’t actively market to children aged 12 (and under) and thus abides by its own action plan registered under the RCMI (Responsible Children’s Marketing Initiative).

Kate Watson, Cadbury’s spokesperson claims: "We're marketing to parents. Parents are the gatekeepers. Kids can't go on the website without parents registering the kids.”

Cadbury (and its legal team) must have been pleased when the Australian Senate voted down a bill down that would have banned junk food advertising to children. Our 80-year old amphibian friend broke the mold trice, and for sure will keep on enticing the next generation of Australian kids - with the help of its parent Cadbury.

A grasshopper’s marketing leap

Grasshopper, an 800 phone number provider for small businesses in the US, rebranded itself. To advertise the new name (they were previously known as GotVMail) and brand, they grafted a clever marketing strategy.

They started with compiling a list of the 5,000 most influential people in the US. It included influential bloggers, journalists, celebrities, TV anchors, and CEOs (Pete Cashmore, Adam Ostrow, and Tamar Weinberg).

Then they created a package to be sent by snail mail consisting of real chocolate covered grasshoppers ( a wink to their new name) with a simple message and video URL. The URL linked to an inspirational YouTube video about how entrepreneurs can change the world.

The packages were shipped out by FedEx last May. Some of the recipients (Josh Lohensohn of CNET) posted videos online of themselves eating the grasshopper. The campaign created a lot of buzz, especially on blogs and Twitter.

Some data (source: mashable.com):

• 4,911% traffic increase from April to May 2009
• 144,843 video views with 162 comments
• 1,500 tweets- 120 blog posts in one month
• Tweets from Guy Kawasaki, Kevin Rose, and Jason Calacanis
• 7 national TV mentions, including FOX

What are the success factors?

A sound concept
This was not just a renaming/rebranding, but a repositioning of the company. Needham-based GotVMail Communications LLC is a maker of communication systems for small businesses. They wanted to relaunch their company targeting entrepreneurship – a shift from being a telecommunications company to a company that helped entrepreneurs.

A theme that makes sense
The company chose the grasshopper to communicate the idea of jumping forward. Since grasshoppers can jump 20 times their own size, they nicely symbolize small businesses (their potential customers) that want to leap forward.

Flawless execution
The grasshoppers were farm-raised insects and dipped in chocolate. They were very professional packaged and clearly stated what was inside.

The front of the envelope said:
“Yes, these are real grasshoppers. Approved by the FDA of Thailand”.

On the back was written:
“You’re a risk-taker, a dream-realizer. What’s left to do that you haven’t already done? Eat a grasshopper. They’re farm raised, covered in chocolate and rich in protein. So, not only will you be breaking boundaries, but you’ll be eating healthy, too.”

The call to action was on the attached tag:
Entrepreneurs can change the world. Join the movement now!http://grasshopper.com/idea

Perfect marketing mix
This campaign combines a snail mail FedEx package with word of mouth (WOM) and social media. The landing page of the video URL made it easy for postings on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other sites using an AddThis widget.

Attainable goals
The Grasshopper campaign was able to achieve its main goals with a small budget:

• To get attention
• To hold interest
• To get people talking
• To be considered as a supplier

No word if PETA was among the 5,000…..

Corporate website 3.0 – Skittles brave jump into the marketing future

Skittles went where no candy maker has gone before – and launched a corporate 3.0 website.

Skittles are candy products, produced by Mars, Inc., and part of the Wrigley product line.

Mars spokesman Ryan Bowling told the Wall Street Journal, that the site was redesigned to better connect with its core teenage audience, which spends a lot of time using social media. "The teen audience relies heavily on their peers for advice on products. This is a unique, unexpected way to engage and to be a part of the conversation."

How does this site work? The “homepage” of Skittles is a small banner that fixes itself on the top left of your screen. No matter which tab you click, the URLs remain www.skittles.com/xxx.
The tabs link to customer-generated content (Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter)

1. “Home” and “Products” link to the Wikipedia page with the product description

2. “Media” has two components: “Videos” that links to YouTube and “Pics” that links to Flickr

3. “Chatter” brings you to the Twitter page

4. “Friends” links you to a Facebook page

5. “Contact” is the only tab that connects to a standard corporate website – the contact form on the Wrigley website

6. “Other Gobbledygook” will take you to the copyright notice and legal disclaimer

7. The middle part is a dynamic banner. Once you click for more information, a new window opens with a dedicated website ( e.g., http://www.havemorefunds.com/)

It is the first time that I came across such a website 3.0 of a reigning consumer brand. Instead of Skittles reaching out to its customers, it allows them to communicate directly and in a highly visible way. There are some possible pitfalls and dangers though......

Does the website reach the target demographics?
To enter the site, you must first confirm that you are over 18. (Before able to login, you get the message: “Hold your horses. Before you can check out Skittles.com, you’ve gotta tell us your age. So spill it”. Aren’t most Skittles-consumers younger?

Is Twitter a good choice?
According to Peter Corbett, CEO of iStrategyLabs, there are no children on Twitter - the majority of application-users are between the ages of 18-49 years of age. Is Mars aiming for the parents of their child consumers or for a whole new demographic?

How are negative comments handled?
Is there a staff that monitors content and communications and that can handle damage control? How does Skittles/Mars protect themselves and their customers from malware and Web 2.0 threats?It is quite easy for cybercrooks to inject malicious code in any of the pages. (Michael Gray provides some great advise on his SEO blog)

What about SEO?
The site consists of an iframe with almost no independent content. Technically, Facebook, Twitter or Wikipedia are not visited, but the Skittles’ website pulls the content for you into an iframe.

How will it affect the overall Mars brand?
Did the flood of obscene, racist, and otherwise tasteless tweets have an impact?

The website was launched in March 2009 and designed by agency.com. According to agency’s executive director Chad Stoller: “It is a very bold campaign in the sense that they are letting consumers speak on behalf of the brand."

My personal take: I love the fact that Skittles embraced Web 3.0 and is brave enough to relinquish control. But it might too much unchartered territory with unpredictable and even uncontrollable results. I hope that Skittles will tell us how they fared – up till now, there have been no announcements or reactions from Mars or the agency. No matter what, I predict that this one will make it many MBA course materials and marketing handbooks.

In the mean time, all I can say is: chapeau!

Chinese Web Marketing – A case study from Money Cat

Money Cat Consulting is and Australian multi-lingual marketing company.
It provides innovative marketing solutions for corporations wishing to reach Chinese communities in Australia and abroad.

They launched a Chinese-language financial & investment website (http://www.moneycat.com.au), to reach Chinese investors.

To reach out and acquire members, they used various marketing & PR tools – with different levels of success.When reaching for the Chinese market, these are the lessons that we can learn from Money Cat.

• Using newspapers is very expensive with a very low response rate. Especially advertisements have little effect, but some advertorials can generate a good level of interest depending on the specific product.
  
• Web banners can work sometimes, but they usually have a limited exposure period. It can be a good tool for branding, but Chinese web users do not click a lot on web banners anymore.
  
• Google Adword-campaign is not effective for reaching the Chinese market – the favorite search engine is Baidu. Google Adword and Yahoo keywords do work in Taiwan and Hong Kong, where English is is predominant Web language.
  
• Taiwanese websites are effective as a marketing channel, since many Chinese web users also look at Taiwanese websites for information. Especially articles on consumer goods and finance are popular.
  
• Blogs are highly effective, it generates consistent traffic. Chinese web users love to read and write blogs. Money Cat sent an article to 200+ blogs across Asia (and Australia), and saw their traffic grown tenfold in a month. However, it is important to target the right blogs for the right topics.
  
• Videos and Audios can be effective, but bandwidth is still a problem. Broadband infrastructure is not yet fully established across China, and quality is often distorted. Money Cat opted to upload video clips on Taiwanese and Hong Kong websites that can also be accessed by Chinese viewers.

Mayo de Cinco Marketing Mania

Cinco de Mayo is the celebration of the victory of the Mexican people over the French army in the La Batalla de Puebla on May 5th, at Puebla, Mexico.(Puebla is 100 miles east of Mexico City). It should not be confused with Mexico’s Independence Day.

The reason why Cinco de Mayo became such a national celebration in the US is a nice lesson in marketing.

It started in 1966, when Coors Brewing Co. was facing a crisis. Chicano activists began protesting against the employment discrimination against Latinos working at Coors breweries and called for a boycott of Coors beer. Not exactly the corporate image you want for your company.

Coors did some brilliant crisis marketing – they started sponsoring Cinco de Mayo. It served multiple purposes: it kept them on the good side of their ethnic workforce; they kept their Latino customer base, and they bumped up their May beer sales to college students.

That’s the reason why Cinco de Mayo celebrations mainly take place across the U.S. and only locally in Mexico. The US-based Hispanic advertising community uses it as great promotional opportunity for their clients – promoting a wide range of products, including alcohol. Since Cinco de Mayo has been warmly embraced by the US population as a whole, there are now marketing campaigns galore.

A small selection:

1) The Food Network tells its consumers how to get ready for Cinco de Mayo – with a Rachel Ray fajita pan and a corn zipper

2) The Fine Living Network sends their customers 10 margarita recipes

3) Maxim magazine invites its readers to pick their favorite Mexican hottie

This year, Cinco de Mayo marketing activities got a setback. Many Cinco de Mayo festivals got canceled across the U.S. because of swine flu. Unfortunately, anti-Mexican sentiment also reared its ugly head in some places.

Similar to St. Patrick’s Day, Cinco de Mayo has become a marketing tool for many companies – especially alcohol companies.

Rest me to wish you all a fun Cinco de Mayo, but please be responsible - don’t drink and drive!(illustration by courtesy of TMN).

How do you promote a tourist destination during a recession? By linking it to a global job hunt!

To promote their Great Barrier Reef, Tourism Queensland launched in January 2009 a highly successful marketing campaign to get media exposure. They announced that they were looking for a caretaker for the Great Barrier Reef. Job applicants were cordially invited to apply for their Barrier Reef “dream job”.
According to the especially created website www.islandreefjob.com, the “best job in the world” is Island Caretaker, living on the Hamilton Island.

The job is for 6 months, with a salary of Euro 10,000. The real work is to create weekly blogs, keep a photo diary, make video updates and conduct ongoing media interviews to promote “the wondrous Islands of the Great Barrier Reef”. With wonderful tongue-in-cheek humor, additional duties are listed as: feed the fish (since there are over 1,500 species living there, they pretty much feed each other), clean the pool (an automatic filter is in place) and collect the mail (by joining the aerial postal service).

Applicants were invited to apply by sending video – close to 35,000 respondents from 200 countries followed up. To make sure that the videos were not boring, the advertising agency (CumminsNitro in Brisbane responsible for the campaign) posted a (fake) video showing “Tegan” (one of their employees) getting a tattoo of the Great Barrier Reef to show her devotion to the tourist destination.

The focus will now turn to short-listing the Top 50, which will be announced on the Island Dream Job website on Tuesday, March 3. The Top 50 will be narrowed down to a final 11. In a clever marketing gimmick, 10 candidates will be short listed by Tourism Queensland, while an 11th 'wild card' applicant will be chosen by popular vote, thus guaranteeing ongoing media coverage. These eleven applicants will be flying to Hamilton Island in early May 2009 to take part in the final selection process. The final selection will be announced on May 6.

The applicants neatly represent the targeted tourist population. The highest number of applicants came from the United States, followed by Canada, Great Britain and Australia. Applicants are all ages, nationalities and come from all walks of life – including writers, tour guides, marine biologists, environmentalists, students, bloggers, mums and dads and retirees and celebrities such as an Amazing Race winner, a New Zealand travel show host and a former Young Australian of the Year.

The main question remains if the costs justify the results. One this is already clear – it put Hamilton Island firmly on the (media) world map!

Legal oversight, marketing blunder or a stroke of marketing genius?

On Election Day last November, Starbucks launched a one day marketing campaign. It offered a free 12 oz. drip coffee to anyone who voted. However, this is illegal in the US. Federal law prohibits payment of money, goods or services in return for voting. Starbucks advertised the voter promotion on television during the comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live (for a brilliant spoof of the coffee chain click here).

Starbucks did some quick crisis management issued the following statement:“To ensure we are in compliance with election law, we are extending our offer to all customers who request a tall brewed coffee."

As a result the wires buzzed with, "Did you hear about Starbucks?" which went hand in hand with: "Do you think Obama will win? "Theis kind of viral buzz is a marketer's dream. Starbucks profited big time from their freebie:

• Many that came in for the free coffee left with purchased sandwiches, cookies or muffins.
  
• Others opted to upgrade their free plain coffee for a fancy grande mocha frappuccino latte or espresso.
  
• The Starbucks brand was plastered all over the media

The question remains if Starbucks made an honest mistake (in which case they should fire their legal advisor) or if it was a clever marketing ploy (in which case they should promote that marketing professional to a senior management position).

Quite likely, it was a case of an eager marketing beaver running off with a campaign without clearing it with legal first. If that is so, Starbucks presented us with a wonderful example of effective crisis management.

Although it turned out great for Starbucks in the end, I strongly advise all companies (regardless of industry or location) to run all planned marketing, sales or PR campaigns via their legal department or advisor before launch. This is even more critical if the company operates internationally.

PETA’s rebranding of fish – will its Sea Kitten marketing campaign work?

PETA is known for its often provocative and controversial campaigns, such as comparing factory farming to the Holocaust.

In its latest campaign, it tries to convince the public that fish are capable of showing physical affection, of feeling pain and of grieving when their companions die. They are in PETA’s opinion not different from pets such as dogs and cats.Since fish are not furry and cuddly, PETA tries to change the public image of fish from slithery and slimy to cute. Similar to happy Disney characters, it launched a website featuring “Finding Nemo”- like Sea Kittens.

Aimed at small children, the website allows its visitors to create and name their own Sea Kittens.

There is also a section on the website with (rather scary) bedtime stories trying to get the PETA point across. One of the stories read: “Tony the Trout is the smartest Sea Kitten in his school. Already litter-trained at 2 months old, Tommy went on to double-major in neuroscience and environmental studies at Clamford University, eventually graduating with honors. When Tony is caught and fed to a precocious young child who, having eaten one mercury-filled sea kitten too many, falls to the bottom of his class, the irony is not lost on him.”

A spokeswoman of PETA explained, that "If everyone started calling fish 'Sea Kittens,' they'd be a lot less likely to violently kill them for food, painfully hook them for 'sport,' or cruelly confine them to aquariums. When your name can also be used as a verb that means driving a hook through your head, it’s time for a serious image makeover.”

PETA kicked off its marketing campaign at the beginning of October 2008 at a school in Fayetteville, NC. As a gimmick, a huge Sea Kitten welcomed the children, explaining that Sea Kittens are just like puppies and kittens and should not be eaten. As part of the marketing campaign, PETA launched a petition calling for the US Fish and Wildlife Service to abandon its backing for fishing (or Sea Kitten hunting in PETA’s language).

Will the campaign work? Doubtful…….

How I see it, the main “mistake” of the campaign is its target group. PETA wants to stop fishing, which per definition is an activity not conducted by totlers. The best what PETA will achieve is changing the eating habits of the little ones, which will disrupt a balanced diet. It is doubtful that school cafeterias serve fish as a whole, including heads and fins. It’s hard to make the connection between a fish finger and a real fish/Sea Kitten. Fish is also a main food source for many communities, and is a great source of omega-3 fatty-acid which helps reducing the risk of breast cancer.

Furthermore, no matter how you look at it, fish are just not cute! Even the biggest dog or lion has a high hugging factor: nice fur and two eyes looking straight at you. Fish have pointy heads with two large eyes on each side, staring unblinkingly at you (whether dead or alive – as we all know from eating trout in restaurants). They are scaly and cold-blooded, which makes it not exactly appealing to touch. Being cold-blooded and living in water it can hardly strive to become our favorite pet. It is also difficult to relate to the mood of fish – how do they show that they are unhappy? They don't growl, purr or bark... (OK, they do show anger, if I rememberJaws or Moby Dick correctly) And there is the “fish-eats-fish” angle; big fish eat shoals of little ones, which don’t score high on the cuteness scale.

The main result of the current campaign is its high entertainment value. Apart from creating our own silly Sea Kitten (see illustration), many of us are making relentlessly fun of PETA’s Sea Kitten in articles and on blogs. It downgrades the campaign to a Jessica Simpson-like gaffe level, similar to her "Is this chicken or is this tuna?" question while looking at a can of Chicken of the Sea tuna on her reality show. As Michael Pearce of the Wichita Eagle pointed out in his hilarious article, calling fish “Sea Kitten” needs some serious rewriting. He pointed out that according to the New Testament; Christ fed the 5,000 with five loaves of bread and “Sea Kittens”; not to mention the fact that several of his disciples were Sea Kitten hunters. Oy!

Marketing during economic turbulence

In times of an economic recession (and especially during a depression) marketing is the business area that is normally hit hard. When companies want to cut cost or downsize, it’s to the marketing budget, expenses and department they look first.
However, this is a strategic mistake. To adapt to the new economic reality, companies need their marketing professionals to analyze their current market position and to find out what their best strategy to survive will be.

Marketing is uniquely positioned to analyze the changes in customer behaviour and advice on the optimal way to reach them.

To give an example, luxury research firm Unity Marketing interviewed 1,200 affluent consumers (average income $209,500) at the top 20 percent of U.S. household during October 3-8, 2008 about their mindset since the bail-out of Wall Street. The result shows that the respondents are overall spending less on luxury items. However, they do splurge on those items that they really want, even increasing their spending for those targeted luxuries. The way they shop has changed as well – to resist temptation, they avoid stores. Luxury store owners have to come up with new marketing and sales techniques to lure these customers back, such as cash-back gift card sales as Bergdorf Goodman is conducting.

Analyze your company image and overall performance
Any crisis, especially one of the current magnitude that is riddled with insecurities, forces companies to take a long, hard look at themselves. They need to evaluate their corporate vision and mission – are they still the same ones that are in the annual reports and the corporate website? Are they still in sync with the current times and new reality or is it time to refresh or reposition? Many high-tech companies launched a technology that they wanted to bring to the average company or consumer. Many of those technologies and products never took off. Computerworld published an overview of the 21 biggest technology flops, among them ebooks.

Even when a company is doing all right now, what are its survival chances? Will its customers allocate more, less or the same budget for items such as Internet security? It might be time to kill some scared cows, even (or especially) if they are the brainchild of the owners. Apart from using your in-house marketing experts, the best option is involving an external strategist to get a clear view.

London-based Financial Times is building steam, especially in the US. Any crisis is always good for the media, since the public is information-hungry. FT did well by the latest “if it bleeds, it leads” - its September newsstand sales rose with 30% in the US and 20% in Europe and Asia. Registered users of www.ft.com rose in one year from 30,000 to 750,000. FT also advises media companies to bring out their newspaper in several formats, push equally to enlist hard copy customers and online subscribers, using tools such as RSS. FT is also in favour of video, based on more than 1 million views a month.

Build new marketing strategies, be creative
One the main drives of survival is creativity – the ability to adapt to new circumstances. Based on the analysis mentioned before, it might be time for the company to reexamine the current offerings and adjust the current suite of products or services. There might be “sleepers” among them – a product of service that is now less-promoted, but is more affordable and consistent with the overall brand.Based on the advice of the in-house marketing experts, it might be time to make a bold move and sell your product in new markets. Based on the reshuffling of the economic landscape, there will be emerging market niches and customer groups and demands not identified before. Clever companies grab these opportunities – being an early market entrant always pays off.

A recent example is the Australian Tourist NT which is concentrating on local visitors, since the number of international visitors is dropping. "Certainly we would anticipate we might have some softening in international arrivals, so our focus will be to further strengthen our domestic market. Tourist NT stated that it will “certainly continue investing in our marketing activities with partners to ensure that we have a sustained presence in the market to do what we can to ensure we get people visiting."

Communicate with your employees
During economic turmoil, employees are worried about their jobs. They want to know (and have to right to know!) how healthy their company is and if there are any plans in pipeline for cutting costs. Employees are the most valuable asset a company has, so it is foolish not to leverage this main asset!

A new research released today by global public relations firm Weber Shandwick shows that 86% of the respondents see their senior executives or management as "believable" and "trustworthy" sources on the topic. Sadly enough, more than half didn’t hear anything at all from the company leaders.

Don’t cut your marketing budget
The first thing that most companies do when times get tough is cut their marketing budgets. The recent Bellwether survey, published by the IPA, found that Q3 annual marketing budgets have been cut at a record rate as the economic crisis weakens business confidence. Key budgets hit are main media advertising, PR, events sponsorship and market research.

It is a strategic mistake to ignore your customers when your competitors are still out there approaching them, as Post found out. In 1929, Kellogg’s and Post were in a neck-and-neck race for the breakfast cereal market. Unlike its rival, Kellogg's continued to advertise through the Great Depression, gaining a position of market dominance that the company still enjoys today.

Instead of cutting your marketing budget, look at your marketing mix and communication channels to your customers and readjust. Instead of going to a tradeshow, you might opt for more SEO and PPC, conduct more online campaigns, or increase the frequency of your corporate newsletter.

Avoid cutting your prices
In a time when customers become more conservative in their spending, it is a lower price that will sway them to purchase, but their need for the product or service. Impulse buying is replaced by ROI buying. Slashing prices for consumer goods can lead to cheapening your brand, which will result in long-term brand image damage.

Again, marketing professionals are uniquely placed to analyze how the current mixture of price and product/service is perceived by the customers. Adjustment to the overall marketing strategy might be needed. If a company is focusing too much on one small market niche with customers most hit by the crisis, it might want to branch out.Before adjusting prices, analyze all of the elements of the marketing mix and make sure to fully understand what drives current and future customers.

Pamper your customers
As outlined above, customers will be driven by quality and service, and less by the actual purchase price. Customers have to feel good with the product or service itself, but also with the company that provides it. Giving customers extra attention pays off big time. In tough times self-esteem suffers, and companies that care about their customers will maintain existing customers more easily as well as build long-term brand loyalty.

A recent example is investment firm T. Rowe Price that began running a new ad campaign in the last two weeks, with the headline “Confidence.” The campaign ran in the Financial Times, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, communicating that “ultimately, there's one thing that will see our investors through these unsettling times ... confidence.”

Is the SEC killing the press release – not likely!

On July, 30 the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published its recommendations for public companies in their efforts to comply with the securities laws “while developing their Web sites to serve as an effective means for disseminating important information to investors”.

sparked a hot debate among IR and financial PR professionals, who are trying to figure out what the impact is. Many IR/PR agencies make good money writing and distributing press releases on behalf of public companies. Since a public company must announce any change in ownership and significant deals as well as notifications, earnings, profit warnings etc. to the public at large, the financial press release was the only way to go.

By opening the possibility of posting all of the above on a corporate blog, it could mean the “death of the press release” as one PR professional put it. IR and PR circles were abuzz with speculations how the major new distribution agencies such as PR Newswire would take it.

Public companies have been weary of using the Internet as a public space for the dissemination of material information, not in the least since they need to comply with Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg-FD) and Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) rules. The SEC is now opening the possible for companies to adhere to regulatory policies without using some of the more traditional methods such as financial press releases. If public companies would opt en masse to use the Web for information distribution, particularly for earnings disclosure, it would have a huge impact on IR and financial PR agencies as well as the newswires.

Thus far, most companies have been leery of using websites to provide investors and other audiences with regulated information, such as earnings.
Beth Harbin, director of PR for Southwest Airlines, is hesitant about changing its current system with PRN, though she acknowledges the positive benefits, which have helped carve out a place for earnings on the airline's website."Since we started our... site, we've always had a vision of making it extremely robust," she said. "We currently have earnings up on our website, as part of a system developed through [PRN]," she said. "It also puts that release right in the hands of the reporters who need it."

It is at this moment not clear what the full impact will be. The SEC document seems to indicate that the SEC wants to open the use of public companies’ websites as part of the whole process of disclosing information in accordance with the Regulation FD.

The SEC stated that it “believes that company disclosure should be more readily available to investors in a variety of locations and formats to facilitate investor access to that information. Investors are turning increasingly to electronic media and to company and third-party websites as sources of information to aid in their investment decisions."

It seems that the SEC does recognize a company website as a channel of distribution. The information must be disseminated in such a way, that it is available to the securities marketplace in general.

How can a public company guarantee that? By taking more affirmative steps so that investors and others know that information is or has been posted on the company's website.

Trying to avoid the costs of issuing a financial press release (of which many companies complain), would not only incur alternative costs (e.g., mailing list and distribution + follow up, SEO, administration, legal & accounting department) but could also jeopardize compliance with SOX.

What would therefore be the best option for public companies to ensure the availability of their information to the investor and securities communities? Correct, by sending out their announcement as a press release!

Using (only) their website for announcements will be risky. Companies will need to consider whether the postings on their websites are “reasonably designed to provide broad, non-exclusionary distribution of the information to the public.” This would entail serious organic SEO or in-house website management with tracking and reporting capabilities.

Another issue is the requirement that the website's capability must meet the “simultaneous or prompt timing requirements for public disclosure once a selective disclosure has been made." This puts a strain on a company’s resources. For practical reasons alone, sending a financial press release via the newswire remains the preferred option, since it will be pushed to Yahoo Finance, MarketWatch, MSN, CNNMoney, CNBC, Factiva, Forbes, Fox Business News, Lexis/Nexis, sites operated by major financial institutions and trading firms, blogs etc.

It relieves the public company from the burden to determine whether its website qualifies as a "recognized channel of distribution" and whether web posting achieves simultaneous disclosure. If you are the IR Officer, CFO, CEO or Legal Advisor of such a public company, you would have your work cut out for you, and the SEC doesn’t supply comprehensive guidelines or instructions to that effect.

The SEC's Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting states in its final report: "Of course, the increased use of corporate websites is not intended to affect the valuable role that newswires and other news vehicles play in disseminating important company information to investors and the public."

Despite the fear of many IR and PR professionals – the SEC is not killing the press release, it just hands us another IR & PR tool.

Branding Rutland – a lesson in branding a small town

Branding is an art – it tries to capture the heart and soul of a product, service or organization, making it highly recognizable if not unforgettable. Brand loyalty is the key to successful companies such as Proctor & Gamble, Unilever, Coca-Cola, and General Motors (to name just a few).

Countries and cities are entities trying to brand themselves: “I love NY” and “What goes on in Las Vegas, stays in Las Vegas” are two slogans that made the cities they are connected to memorable. Smaller cities and towns have a harder time to make an impact.

That makes Rutland, in the US state Vermont, such an interesting branding case. Rutland’s city officials, regional development officials and the local business community want to put the city (and region) on the tourism map. They are looking for a slogan that sums up the finest qualities of the city, its economic potential and the tourist attractions. It wants to emphasize that it is within easy driving distance (e.g., from the Tri-State area). However, the slogan must be short enough to fit on a bumper sticker.

Not so successful past attempts included:

• “The Crossroads” (which sounds like a rehab center to me)
• "The heart of the "Marble Valley" (which doesn’t make sense if one doesn’t know where Marble Valley is located)
• "City for Weddings" (isn’t that Las Vegas?)
• "Rut Vegas" (which doesn’t have a nice ring to it)

It’s tough to brand a city or town. When it comes to branding, being small and relatively unknown doesn’t help. Lack of substantial marketing and advertising budgets is another restraint.

To brand properly, we must first look at Rutland’s strong points:

• Downtown shopping, dining and theatrical opportunities
• Pastoral settings of the rural communities just beyond Rutland's borders
• Lakes, trails, rivers, ponds, ski slopes and other recreational fun within easy driving distance from the big cities
• Part of the highly popular Vermont

The branding guru taking on the Rutland branding challenge is Peggy Bendel, senior vice president of Development Counselors International, who worked on the massive "I love New York" ad campaign, pointed out that branding a small city like Rutland takes a different approach. She recommends that Rutland adopts a catchy slogan and logo that sums up Rutland's best qualities and is easy to remember. The idea is for the city is to change the way visitors – and residents – perceive the community.

She makes an interesting point by stating that small town branding only works if everyone from the Chamber of Commerce and municipal officials down to small business owners and the average Rutland citizen can identify themselves with the slogan and logo.

Branding comes with a hefty price tag - consulting fees, marketing expenses and advertising are roughly $100,000. Rutland can apply for a state grant to be reimbursed for the consulting costs. Needless to say, research into attitudes, impressions and associations with the community are essential for branding success.

Rutland organized a preliminary meeting between a consultant company and about 20 regional and city commerce and development officials, city officials, representatives from recreational nonprofit groups, business leaders and residents. No suggestions for a new slogan or logo were brought up, but the qualities of the community were discussed extensively along with some of the challenges it faces including concerns about overcoming what some perceived as the main public perception problem: the name of the city and county, Rutland, is perceived as unflattering. However, on the upside – it’s easy to remember and spell, which is in our current Internet/Google age a must!

Two regions to the north and south of Rutland have successfully launched rebranding campaigns.
Burlington reintroduced their 1980s slogan "The West Coast of New England." It resulted in a high volume of downloads of the rebranding toolkit, complete with logo, slogan and other materials, coupled with T-shirt and sweatshirt sales bearing the rebranded imagery. The positive feedback from the public is also a sign that the rebranding is successful. The Chamber of Commerce stated that it only paid $30,000 for the consulting fee and left the advertising left to grassroots efforts.

The Green Mountain Regional Program (in the south of Bennington County) successfully concluded it grassroots efforts by introducing its "The Shires of Vermont” brand. According to the group's regional marketing coordinator, the slogan comes from Bennington County's unique designation as the only county with two shires that served as judicial districts in colonial times. It will be interesting to see how the rebranding of Rutland will unfold.

Until then, I would like to finish with a great quote from Bill Baker: “A brand is a promise - whatever you project, you must deliver on it and you can't have variations with everyone doing their own thing. The message has to be the same."

How will the current recession impact Public Relations?

Whether the current recession is real or perceived (depending who you listen to), the PR industry is looking at the impact it is going to have.

Possible trends to watch:
When media professionals will be laid off or move into other areas, PR professionals (both in house and at the agency-side) will lose established relationships – one of their core strengths. Especially agencies will be hurt by contacts at leading magazines and news outlets that will have no more business value, and need to be replaced. This requires heavy investments in time and effort.

The media organizations that are sizing down (also due to less advertising income) will have to figure out who will be cover their different market niches. They might opt for merging some of topic areas (e.g. lifestyle and health) or cutting some areas in an effort to go back to their core business. PR professionals might find that they cannot pitch their stories anymore, since that specific technology or topic is not covered by that specific media organization anymore.

Both media organizations and PR agencies might start cutting down on their high-level, high-salary employees and replace them with junior or entry-level people who will learn on the fly. This will come at a price – lower quality and less focus. If this trend leads to fewer people and more newbies, readers might punish a media organization by canceling subscriptions. Some media outlets will close down, which will give PR agencies and professionals less opportunities to pitch their stories. The competition for placement in the remaining media outlets will increase, and PR agencies will have a tough job explaining to their clients why they cannot be covered by certain news media.

In this highly competitive market, the strongest and most creative PR agencies and professionals will survive. The media will be looking for quality to keep a competitive edge and to compensate for the loss of in-house resources. Receiving ready-to-print top-notch articles will help the news media to compensate for the lack of experience of newbies.

So is it all bad news? No, not really. It could benefit experienced copywriters, editors, journalists working as freelancers. It could also make it easier for seasoned PR professionals to enter the market as an in-house PR person or at a PR agency.

In the US, being fluent in Spanish as well will become a major asset. It will extend the reach of a company or PR agency significantly. For Europe, being multi-lingual is the key. Since most of the wealth in Western Europe is concentrated in the Germanic countries, German is the additional language to go for. Fluency in French not only secures coverage in the French media, but also in all francophone countries.
Don’t forget: no matter how fluent journalists might be in English, they still have to write their articles in their native language……..

The rebranding of President Bling-Bling aka N. Sarkozy

Nicolas Sarkozy was elected based on the conception that he was different from his predecessors. During his campaign, he built his brand as the simple guy (an immigrant’s son without a patrician elite education) who would change things around (an overhaul of the welfare state which he sees as financially unsustainable, unfair and discourages work).
But on Sunday, March 16, the French voters sent a clear message that they were not impressed with M. le President. Sarkozy’s UMP party lost local-government elections in several major cities, trailing behind the Socialist party.
The main reason is the increasingly pessimistic attitude towards Sarkozy’s government policies aimed at boosting purchasing power as the global economy grinds slower.
At the same time, his lifestyle came under attack as well - indiscrete and bordering on ostentatious. Apart from his recent (and very public) divorce from wife Cécilia Ciganer-Albéniz, followed by marrying former Italian model-turned-singer Carla Bruni within 4 months, Sarkozy vacationed on a billionaire friend's yacht, jogs wearing Ralph Lauren and a $14,000 Rolex.
His obvious enjoyment of the Good Life got him the nickname "President Bling-Bling".
His current image is in sharp contrast to his election brand as the man-of-the-people.According to Denis Muzet, founder of the Paris-based politics-and-media institute Médiascopie, the French find it hard to accept Mr. Sarkozy's flashy lifestyle as they are feeling economically pinched.
In January, inflation in France reached a 16-year high of 2.8%. A CSA poll last month showed that 56% of French people thought that Mr. Sarkozy "badly represents the role of the president," an 11-percentage-point increase from January 2008.Sarkozy decided to "re-presidentialise" himself by toning down public displays of his lifestyle.
During state visits, he tries to present an image of “elegance and decorum” – sans Rolex watch and Ray-Ban sunglasses.He learned from past mistakes when he was giving interviews while jogging and using his Blackberry during an audience with the Pope.

For his rebranding he reshuffled his communications team. He started by firing his official spokesman David Martinon (a protégé of his former wife Cecilia).Martinon will be replaced by a trio made up of Sarkozy's chief of staff Claude Gueant (secretary general of the Elysee); Jean-David Levitte (advisor for international issues) and longtime aide Franck Louvrier (who is in favor of daily communications with the press, instead of weekly press briefings).Sarkozy also recruited Nicolas Princen, a 24-year old "cyber spin doctor" to detect and counter Internet attacks and rumors against the French President.
Princen will keep a keen eye on websites, chat groups, blogs and film clips -with good reason. A handful of clips released on video sites like YouTube or Dailymotion badly tarnished Sarkozy’s image in recent months.
The first one of Sarkozy being seemingly drunk at a press conference at a G8 summit in 2007 was watched over 10 million times on YouTube. His famous remark to a man who refused to shake his hand at the Agricultural Fair in Paris in February 2008 was caught on amateur tape and watched over 3 million times in less than one month.

Will Sarkozy be able to rebrand himself?
Will he be the patrician, discrete president the French want, implementing amazing new ideas?
If so, he could be one of the best presidents France ever had.
He made a great start with the appointment of this communication team and the toning down of his image.
But may be Riss, a cartoonist for Charlie Hebdo and co-author of "La Face Karchee de Sarkozy" by Philippe Cohen, Richard Malka and Riss, is on the mark with his observation “he will never change. Whether it rains or it storms he can’t change. It’s beyond him.”

Eliot Spitzer’s tarnished brand – can he remarket himself?

The Eliot Spitzer scandal will keep on mesmerizing us for some time to come.
For marketing and PR professionals, the big question is if and how Spitzer will reposition himself.
Over the years, he has been building his own brand as Mr. Clean and the Sheriff of Wall Street.
During his tenure as state attorney general he took on the insurance, mutual fund and securities industries, including a high profile and still unresolved case against former NYSE boss Dick Grasso.
He was even pegged to run for president in 2012.

Spitzer is not the first (and will not be the last) public figure that disgraced himself.
We all remember the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal – Clinton came out of that one almost unscratched, even finishing his term with a high approval rate.
Coby Bryant was able to save both his career and his marriage.
Barney Frank’s boyfriend ran a full-service prostitution ring out of Frank's Capitol Hill apartment – Frank not only stayed in congress, but heads the powerful house committee on financial services.
Inside trader and convicted white collar criminal Michael Milken is nowadays first and foremost know for his relentless fight against prostate cancer.
Hugh Grant’s career not only survived, but even prospered from his tryst with Ms. Brown.

The problem with Spitzer is first and foremost that he is not a likeable man.
This scandal hits him hard since he defined his own standards of right and wrong during his crime fighting years.
The “holier-than-thou” have it tough, in contrast to libertines such as Clinton, Kennedy and Frank. So what should Spitzer do?

Phase 1 – the bomb dropped and he has to deal with the fallout.
Hiring a good publicist aka a crisis management expert is highly recommended.
He has to realize that his situation is bad, with powerful enemies out for his blood.

Phase 2 – he has to make a public statement on a respected TV show (60 minutes, Larry King Live) telling the world what a fool he has been and how very, very sorry he is.
Hugh Grant’s mea culpa on the Jay Leno show did him (and his career) a world of good.

Phase 3 – He needs to drop out of the public eye for a while.
Both Martha Stewart and Kate Moss did just that, which excellent results.
Let the next scandal take up front page space.

Phase 4 – It would be clever to get therapy for his addictive, compulsive behavior.
The public loves a rehab story, just look at President Bush.

Phase 5 – He could embrace religion, it’s a proven way to reposition oneself as an ethical person. The world just loves a repenting sinner.

Phase 6 – He needs to embrace a charity; it’s a proven way for redemption and atonement. Milken and Armstrong have a stellar reputation as crusaders, putting their scandals in the shadow. But it’s crucial to select one that makes sense, such as the fight against sexual slavery.

Phase 7 – Once he has repositioned himself, he can start his career in the private sector.

Spitzer has to realize that his life will never be the same again.He needs an excellent sense of humor to weather this storm.
He will be referred to as “Client 9” and "Luv Guv" for years to come.
The best way to overcome this, is to write a tell-tale, tongue-in-cheek” book.
He has to make sure that the public has empathy for him.

Can he make it? It all depends if he follows the proven survival guide:
Public statement – teary confession – staunch support of wife & family – redemption.

Spitzer is a smart guy, and with the right advisors by his side, he will be able to remarket himself.

How a viral marketing campaign went vitriolic – the Mozilla marketing mess

Mozilla normally markets its open-source browser using its Spread Firefox site and a host of fans to drum up new users.
In an effort to get a chuck of Microsoft’s market, it came up with an innovative online campaign that sadly backfired.
The “Fight Against Boredom” featured a YouTube movie which echoes “We are the World”.
Only in this case, the singers poured out statistics, comparing Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer users with Firefox users.
It included “fun facts” such as:
“15% more likely to have watched cartoons on TV within the last seven days” and “21% less likely to fish”.
However, it also included:
“23% less likely to have cancer” ; “25% less likely to have breast cancer” and “20% less likely to live with others suffering from cancer.”
These “statistics” also included that Firefox users were less likely to have high cholesterol or heart disease.

The TechCrunch blog was the first one to report on and object to the marketing program.
The readers’ comments make fascinating reading.
To give an example, Zachary wrote: "As a Firefox user who has cancer, I'm less than amused."

Paul Kim, Mozilla's vice president of marketing, tried to do some damage control.
He wrote on his blog:
“This is Paul Kim, VP of marketing for Mozilla. I want to apologize to anyone who was upset or offended by some of the stats on the not yet final website for this campaign.
The list Techcrunch referenced was posted without a final review by Mozilla and wasn’t intended to be published as is.
We’re working right now to correct this on the site, which goes live in a final form later today.”

The apology doesn’t make sense. This kind of campaign should never have been conceived, not even as a rough concept.
I agree with blogger Tom Page, who points out that:
"Saying that it was not meant to be 'publicly available' makes it seem as if these comments are only acceptable as a private joke at Mozilla. Caesar's wife must be above suspicion, and if something like this came from Microsoft you'd go absolutely crazy."

Mozilla yanked the campaign.
What puzzles me most is the part that their PR Company played in this.
AKQA profiles itself as “ideas-lead agency” that holds the “Agency of the Year” title on “both sides of the Atlantic at the same time”.
You would expect more (cultural) sensitivity from an agency like this.
("Al AKQA", that also features a stuffed monkey on its website, claims $ 350M. in online media billing and 450 staffers).

Considering the gap between Firefox and its rival (according to the company Net Application, Inc. Firefox accounted for 16.8% of all browsers that visited the 40,000 sites the company monitors for its customers), this latest expedition in creative marketing will not help.

The lesson to be learned: marketing professionals need to be diligent in all their materials, even if it's only a rough concept.

Shopdropping – a cool marketing strategy or the nicer twin of shoplifting?

Shopdropping is a marketing and self promotion tactic by clandestinely placing altered or recreated objects into retail stores.

It is not new – in 1989, the Barbie Liberation Organization swapped the voice boxes of 300 Barbie dolls to those of G.I. Joes before putting the dolls back on store shelves.

The organization tried to make a point about sexism in children's toys.

There are two main groups that are currently using shopdropping.

The first group is promoting a cause.

Anti-consumerism advocates slip by replica products packaged with political messages onto store shelves and religious zealots insert their pamphlets between the pages of gay-and-lesbian magazines in bookstores.

The second group uses it for personal marketing and promotion.

Self-published authors sneak their works into the “new releases” sections of bookstores, personal trainers put their business cards into weight-loss books, music producers place their free CDs between commercial music CDs, and aspiring professional photographers place their homemade cards, URL included, in the greeting cards section of book and stationery stores.

No store is safe: Wal-Mart, Target (T-shirts with political message), Starbucks (free CDs of budding artists were shopdropped), Bloomingdale’s (music CDs) are just a few examples.In itself, shopdropping is not illegal (yet), in contrast to its evil twin shoplifting.

However, trade name and brand name infringements and product liability (especially when it comes to consumer products such as cosmetics and toys) do have legal repercussions.

A telling example of how shopdropping is evolving and becomes illegal is the case of a lead singer for an independent pop-rock band in the East Village, NYC.

The band started shopdropping by slipping their promotional CDs between the pages of The Village Voice newspaper and into the racks at large music stores.

They now changed their strategy and put stickers with logos of fashion designers such as Diesel, John Varvatos and 7 for All Mankind on their promo CDs. They then placed them in the pockets of those designer clothes.

Shopdropping seems to be limited to the US; outside of the US, there was only one major shopdropping recorded.

In 2005, the French Fondation Babyrul shopdropped hundreds of home-made CDs into record stores and mash-up DVDs into Blockbuster branches to “challenge the commercial space-time of a store”.

This brings the catching New York Times headline “anarchists in the aisles?” to mind.

What will be the future of shopdropping?

Will it be a passing fad or develop in a serious guerilla marketing strategy?

Time will tell – we will all be a lot wiser after the holiday season.

A whole bunch of Crocs

Crocs are clog-like footwear, made of a proprietary plastic resin called Croslite.
Currently, Crocs are sold in 27,000 stores in 80 countries and counting.
Croslite is a lightweight, water-proof resin material which softened with body heat.
This forms a shoe to the shape of the foot, making it very comfortable.
A Canadian company saw the possibilities for spas, and developed a clog which also hadholes for air and drainage.
Scott Seamans and Duke Hanson came across the footwear during a sailing trip from Islas Mujeres, Mexico, to Florida in 2002.
They started a company selling the clogs with a friend, sandwich chain executive George Boedecker.
For financing, they borrowed $5.2million to buy the Canadian firm behind the original design. Seamans added a strap across the heel to make it perfect for boating.They called their version “Crocs”, since the clogs would look as good out of the water as in it.
There initially market was spa and boating people. Once they went mainstream, they encountered fierce criticisms from the fashion industry. To put it bluntly – both the American and British fashion industry hated the Crocs with a passion. Customer disagreed – they made Crocs their favorite summer footwear. Kids, seniors and everyone in between snapped up the colorful clog-like sandals like candy - including Hollywood celebrities and Prince William’s on/off girlfriend Kate Middleton and her friends.
The company fares well as a result – they floated on the US NASDAQ exchange in February 2005.
Crocs' CROX stock has climbed since to over 300%.Recently, there was a backlash. Parents complained that their kids wearing Crocs on escalators could be hurt. The potential danger was highlighted on the CBS Early Show with CBS Correspondent Susan Koeppen. According to media reports, a child in Arkansas had to have a partial amputation after his shoe got caught last year. In Virginia, a mother managed to yank her little one free with only a deep cut.
However, it is important to keep in mind that escalator accidents can happen with any shoe. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission there were more than 10,000 injuries last year – 20 percent of which happened on the side or near the top or bottom of the escalator.
The negative media coverage didn’t affect Crocs’ popularity.Crocs decided to branch out and launch an Autumn/Winter collection, consisting of closed-toe and leather-trimmed styles and a strapless clog lined with microfiber.
It also keeps of closing licensing deals, including deals with Major League Baseball, DC Comics and Marvel Comics.
So what is the secret of Crocs’ marketing success?
Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD Group, gives a great inside.He labels their appeal as the “bulldog effect” – they are so ugly that they are cute, not unlike Uggs.
Other success factors are:

• They are comfortable.
• They are marketed through word-of-mouth marketing.
• They are affordable.
• They are widening the assortment to boots, flip-flops and fashion shoes.
• They are turning into a lifestyle brand.

Will Crocs have a long life?
Only if they stay hot and captivate the market – not an easy thing to do!
Just in case you wonder – do I own Crocs?
No, never in my life! I wholeheartedly agree with Amanda Platell in her hilarious article in the Daily Mail.

Is Aquafina heading for a watery grave?

Bottled water consumption is increasing both in the US and in Europe.

Whenever there is a growing market, there is aggressive marketing.

Clever marketing campaigns have created consumer perceptions that bottled waters are purer or healthier than tap water.

What is inside the water bottle often remains a mystery to the consumer - not in the least due to lack of a defined standard for bottle labeling.

It gives water producers creative freedom in their product positioning.

Take Aquafina, the top selling water in the US.

Due to clever branding, it is perceived as generating from a distant spring in a glen or mountain.

However, this PepsiCo Inc. product is pws: from a public water source. In plain language - tap water.

A US watchdog group called “corporate accountability international” took action and forced Pepsi to reveal the source on the bottles.
Pepsi tried some crisis management.
North American spokeswoman Michelle Naughton declared:
“If this helps clarify the fact that the water originates from public sources, then it's a reasonable thing to do.”
In contrast, Pepsi’s competitor Coca-Cola (producer of Dasani) was a lot smarter marketing wise.

It clearly states on the Dasani website that it comes from local water supplies, is then filtered using a process called reverse osmosis, followed by enhancing it with minerals.

Coca-Cola spokeswoman Diana Garza Ciarlante went on record and stated:
“we don’t believe that consumers are confused about the source of Dasani water. The label clearly states that it is purified water.”

Coca-Cola further leveraged the Aquafina story by informing Reuters that it will post online information about its quality control testing later this year.

Coca-Cola is ahead on its competition in the social conscience arena as well – it supports nearly 70 public water projects in 40 countries, in partnership with such groups as CARE and the World Wildlife Fund.

Is Aquafina heading for a watery grave? Not likely.

For starters, the demand for bottled water rose by nearly 10 percent in 2006.The average annual consumption per person is around 26 gallons.Industry observer Beverage Digest estimates annual sales in 2006 at $15 billion.
Dave Kolpak, a portfolio manager at Victory Capital Management, said the environmental objections will have little impact on the bottom line for either Pepsi or Coke, though he admitted it could slow the market's growth rate.According to Dave Kolpak, portfolio manager of Victory Capital Management, people may talk about the issue, but will likely continue buying bottled water.

If Pepsi launches a clever marketing campaign, addressing the source issue and combining it with support for selected social causes; they will not even feel it in their financial results.

A twist on text marketing

Text marketing is not new.
According to Frost& Sullivan, text marketing will be the most important medium for advertising in the 21st century, outperforming print media and billboards.
Wireless Intelligence, a joint venture between the GSM Association industry group and the research firm Ovum, estimates the global number of cell phones at 2.5 billion; an increase of a half billion in just 12 months.
Of the cell phone users, over 95 million in the US alone are active text message users.
(Source: the Yankee Group).

For marketers, it’s a marketing dream: a low cost/high effective marketing & promotion tool. The potential customer can be reached anytime, anywhere.
The first area where text messaging has become successful is entertainment.
Using text messaging to vote off candidates on reality shows worldwide has become popular.
To give an example: the 2004 season of "American Idol" generated 13.5 million text messages.

As a marketing tool, text marketing is currently mainly used for participating in contests and sweepstakes.
McDonald's, Burger King, Procter & Gamble Co., General Motors Corp. and CBS Corp have all launched campaigns that require consumers to enter via text message.

Text marketing first took off in Europe and the Far East for two main reasons:
1) In most countries, cell users typically pay for messages sent, but not for those received.
2) There are less technical obstacles , since there are not that many carriers/mobile phone
platforms.

One way of approaching potential customers is with an opt-in program.
The US grocery retailer Meijer (based in Grand Rapids, Michigan) launched an opt-in program in the Indianapolis market with mobile-marketing firm SmartReply Inc.
Using the fluctuating gasoline prices as a hook, consenting customers of its gas and convenience stations were sent text messages whenever Meijer was about to raise pump prices by 5 cents a gallon or more, giving them two to four hours to fill up at the lower price.
A great way to build customer loyalty!

A new twist on text marketing comes from New Zealand.
The company Hoo Haa believes that the key to successful text marketing is paying the customer to receive the ads.
This way, nor customers, nor the phone companies get annoyed.

It works is as follows.
Cellphone users registered with HooHaa by listing their name, age, location and buying interests.
These data go into a database that can be accessed by advertisers, who can send text messages.
Each contacted customer gets a 10 cent credit for each advertiser text message received.
The credits are accumulated into lots of $2.50 that are then reduced from their mobile accounts.

Since its launch in January 2007 close to 45,000 people have signed up for the service.
The HooHaa database has a broad cross-section of consumers, with people aged 18-30 being the largest demographic group.

HooHaa is now moving into the Australian market.
CEO Brian Hawker is cautious and points out that it’s still early days.
"We've been surprised by the swift uptake and to be honest there is an element of our touching wood. But we think that we might have happened on a business model for marketers to reach mobile customers with tailored messages."

He could be spot on with his observation.
Cellphones are a great marketing tool, since it gives marketers direct one-to-one access to consumers.
In contrast, traditional direct marketing sends out 100,000 pamphlets or messages trying to reach 1,000 customers.
Rapp Collins Limb Walker direct marketing executive Robert Limb sees the appeal of text marketing in the permission to communicate that the customer has to give.
This could develop into close ties with between the customer and the advertiser.

The HooHaa business model is also based on the cooperation of the cellphone companies. Vodafone, Telecom and Pago are currently participating.
Will this concept become successful in other countries?
In my opinion, Europe and the Far East are more likely to adapt it than the US.
Paying a customer to receive a message will not work in the US, where consumers must pay for incoming calls and text messages.
But one thing is for sure, it’s a great and creative way to use text marketing.

Make Way for the Widget Marketing Wave

One of the latest trends in marketing is widget marketing.
Widgets are small applications that provide online functionality and content, and are distributed through a potentially vast number of websites.
A website or webpage owner integrates the widget from a third party website or webpage by placing a small snippet of code.
The code brings active content from the third party website (links, advertisements, images) without the need for the website or webpage owner to update the content.

Due to their nature, they are now becoming a new marketing & advertising venue.
Widgets are uploaded onto all kinds of sites, including profile pages, forums and blogs.

Widgets are sometimes called blidgets (TypePad) or snippets (PageFlakes).

Yahoo offers more than 4,300 widgets.

It entered the widget arena with the purchase of Pixoria, a producer of widgets.
Other companies, such as Netvibes, Snipperoo and YourMinis also offer widget galleries.
Apple and Microsoft have desktop tools in the form of constantly updating stock tickers, news feeds and airline schedules.
According to Google, “gadgets” are one its fastest-growing products.
But they don’t stop there.

Apple’s latest version of its Mac OS X operating system let its users build widgets from scratch and share them with others, even if they’ve never written a line of code.
Microsoft’s Vista comes with 11 standard “gadgets, as well as the option to create more and upload them to Windows Live.

Current users of widget marketing include The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and ESPN.
Flickr (a photo-sharing site) lets its members create a “badge” that they can post on their blogs and personal home pages to let friends know when they’ve uploaded new snapshots.
Fox Interactive Media (comprising all of Fox’s sites as well as MySpace, RottenTomatoes.com and AskMen.com) launched its own platform, called SpringWidgets.

What are the benefits of widgets?

1) They are low cost to develop.
2) They don’t require advance coding skills to create.
3) They are extremely easy to use.
4) They are pulled by the consumer, not pushed by the marketer.
5) They are a completely new marketing tool and a great addition to the current marketing mix. 6) They are low cost to distribute.
7) They have a much longer lifespan than traditional online ads.

A great example of widget marketing is Purina’s weather widget.
It lets pet owners know what the weather is outside when you wan to take the dog for a walk.
In the first two months, it was downloaded more than 15,000 times.
It means, that the Purina brand is now constantly in front of 15,000 pet owners, which gives maximum exposure for minimum costs.
The key success element of Purina’s widget is the fact that it is an extension of its brand while giving useful, up-to-date information.

Widget marketing is still in its infant stage.
It is hard to tell if widget technology providers such as well-funded Clearspring and Freewebs will be able to become profitable.

Widgets do have some disadvantages.
The state-of-the art interactive ones use a lot of computer resources, resulting in slow downloading.
People might download so many widgets, that their webpage becomes cluttered and therefore the marketing message of an individual widget is lost.
As a business model, it isn’t clear yet how profitable it will be as a promotion and branding tool. Advertisers are not yet comfortable with widgets, since tracking and analyzing its traffic is hard and their influence on consumer behavior not yet known.

Personally, I like this new addition to the marketing mix.
It’s exciting to see how it will develop.
For those of you who want to learn more about widget marketing, it’s worth while to attend WidgetCon 2007 taking place on 7/11 in NYC.
Let's widget away!

Marketing to Male Pigs – the Trojan Way

Trojan, the US condom producer, launched a marketing campaign “it’s time we evolve….interested?

In the campaign, men are portrayed as pigs– literally! (or may be hogs, it’s hard to tell).

The commercial shows bar filled with women and a bunch of bar-sitting pigs with cellphones. When one pig goes to the restroom and returns with a condom purchased at a vending machine, he is transformed into an attractive man.

The beautiful blond who had been indifferent now smiles at him.
The end of the commercial carries the message: "Evolve: Use a condom every time."

Printed ads will appear in 11 magazines, including Cosmopolitan and Glamour, and on seven Web sites.

The campaign certainly created a nice little media storm.
For starters, Fox and CBS refused to air the commercials, while ABC, NBC, and nine cable networks (including (MTV, Comedy Central and Cartoon Network's Adult Swim) didn’t have a problem with it.
In its rejection letter to Trojan, Fox stated that the ad was rejected since “contractive advertising must stress health-related uses rather than the prevention of pregnancy."
CBS didn’t take such a moral high ground – it wrote to Trojan that the ad “wasn’t appropriate for the network, even with late-night only restrictions."

The brains behind the campaign is the Kaplan Thaler Group.
According to CEO Linda Kaplan Thaler, the humor in the ad is a way of “ getting consumers’ attention and opening up a serious conversation about sexually healthy lifestyles.

Some people may be initially surprised by the imagery, but we’re really using the pigs as a metaphor for selfish behavior to call to attention a very important subject.”

Trojan defended its campaign by stating:

“Evolve is a wake-up call to change attitudes about using condoms and, on a larger scale, the way we think and talk about sexual health in this country.

Other than abstinence, the best way people can prevent unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection is to use a condom every time they have sex.

Unfortunately, that’s just not happening today—single sexually-active Americans between the ages of 18 and 54 use them only about 25 percent of the time. We urgently need to foster healthier attitudes about sexual health and condom use.”

Mens News Daily labeled the campaign “male-degrading”, adding that it’s not surprising in a country that “gives round-the-clock media coverage of any rich blonde who drives her car while drunk ... or emerges from it without panties”. (Paris, Britney, and Lindsey – are you listening?).
The website goes on with the cry for “killing the Trojan pig” by boycotting Trojan condoms and protesting against ABC, NBC, and the nine cable networks that air the commercial.

From a marketing point of view, the commercial is excellent. It created a lot of buzz, far more than a less controversial ad would have done.
The commercials are also done in good taste, and are entertaining as well.
They were directed by Phil Joanou (State of Grace). Special effects were done by the Stan Winston Studio (Jurassic Park), since our porcine males are animated – no real livestock was used.
Lots of people viewed the strong reaction of Fox and CBS with bewilderment. As Andrea Kalfoglou pointed out on Agora Vox:
“the message is all about thinking about your own health and that of your partners everytime — a great public health message.”

Personally, I don’t understand the rejection of Fox and CBS.

Both networks are using sex in their marketing.

They place Viagra ads and broadcast shows such as Temptation Island.
Even if you don’t like the humor or are offended by men portrayed as pigs, there is no doubt that preventing airing it or calling for a boycott is not the way to go about it.
Ironically enough, Fox and CBS made the discussion of condom use far more accessible, since their ban gives people a nice opener.
In the mean time, Trojan got a lot of free publicity, which is good for their sales, their brandname and (hopefully) the health of sexually active adults.

In conclusion, we have stumbled on an interesting paradox here.
In the US, sex sells every product (from cars to cosmetics) – but not condoms…..

Having fun with EMV - emotional marketing value

During a market research for EMV migration of payment terminals (EMV stands for Europay, Mastercard, Visa; the smart debit cards), I hit on a completely different EMV.
The Advanced Marketing Institute developed an Emotional Marketing Value (EMV) score.
It analyses the impact that a headline has on its readers.
It’s a tool for copywriters to check what the impact of a specific headline has on its readers.
Needless to say, I was intrigued.

The tool analyzes the words in the slogan or headline as follows:

• Intellectual impact
  Words which are especially effective when offering products and services that require reasoning or careful evaluation.
  According to AMI, intellectual impact words are best used to attune copy and sales messages aimed at people and businesses involved in the fields of education, law, medicine, research, politics, and similar fields. While not restricted to these groups, by giving presentations which are weighted with intellectual impact words, your clients and customers will be more positively influenced and you are more likely to attain a more favorable response.
  
• Empathetic impact
  Words which resonate in with Empathetic impact often bring out profound and strong positive emotional reactions in people.
  According to AMI, empathetic impact words are best used to attune with people and businesses involved with care-giving. For example, nurses, doctors, and counselors all tend to respond easily and favorably to empathetic words. Women, and especially mothers, are very strong in their use of empathetic impact words in the language. While use of empathetic impact words does not have to be limited to these groups, we've found that by selecting m ore words with empathetic impact delivers desirable conversion responses from those types of market segments.
  
• Spiritual impact
  Words which have the strongest potential for influencing people by appealing at a very deep emotional level.According to AMI, spiritual impact words are best used with people and businesses desiring to make an appeal to some aspect of spirituality. This does not mean religion specifically, but any product or service that resonates with “spirituality” oriented markets is appropriate. The clergy, new age, health food and related markets all respond favorably to sales copy heavy with spiritual impact content. Women and children also respond strongly to words in the spiritual sphere. Marketing documents with strong spiritual impact content can make for the most powerful presentations in the marketplace but must be used with considerable skill.

Again according to AMI, the English language contains approximately 20% EMV words.
Most professional copywriters' headlines will have 30%-40% EMV words in their headlines, while the most gifted copywriters will have 50%-75% EMV words.
A perfect score would be 100%. According to AMI, this is rare unless your headline is less than five words.

I played around a bit with the tool and try to find a top score in each category.

My first challenge was to create a headline with a strong intellectual impact.
I decided to zoom in on Apple’s new iPhone, and came up with the headline:
“iPhone best technology”.
It scored 66.67% in both intellectual and empathetic impact, which does make sense.
Orpak’s “fueling your business for success” has a 20% spiritual score.
A slogan I once coined for a high-tech company “your power to communicate” scores 50% on the spiritual scale. Not bad, considering the company was active in broadband-over-powerline (BPL or PLC).
By repeating words, the score goes up.
“Profit, profit, profit!” scores a cool 100% on the empathy scale; "free, free, free!" also scores 100%, but strangely enough on the intellectual scale.
"Opportunity, opportunity, opportunity!" even scores 300% in all three categories.

I also had a look at strong and successful slogans to see how they scored.

The US Army’s famous “we want you” scores 100% in all three categories.
Philips's new slogan “sense and simplicity” only has a 33.3% intellectual score. May be it is too close to Jane Austen’s novel title for its own good?
Unilever’s “feel good, look good and get more out of life” scores a measly 10% in the intellectual category, which I didn’t expect. I was sure it would do well in the empathetic and spiritual categories.
Bobcat’s “we are closer than you think” scores a nice 50% in all categories, despite it being slightly stalkerish.
Holmes Place (the global fitness center network) “One life. Live it well” doesn’t score at all. It is 0% neutral, although I expected it to score nicely in the spiritual category.
Nokia’s “connecting people” has as strong 50% score; but in the intellectual, not the emotional categories.

How reliable is this tool? I have my reservations, but it is definitely fun to use!

Has Jack in the Box gone too far?

CKE Restaurants Inc. (parent company of the Carl's Jr. and Hardee's fast food chains) sued Jack in the Box Inc. in federal court in Santa Ana, CA, accusing the San Diego-based chain of deceptive advertising relating to the business end of a cow.
The suit cites TV ads that tout Jack in the Box's sirloin burgers and lampoon those made with Angus beef, which happens to be what's in the Carl's Jr. Six Dollar Burger and the Hardee's Thickburger (and in premium burgers sold at McDonald's and Burger King).
In one ad, Jack, the mascot whose head looks like a ping pong ball, is asked to point to a cow's "angus area" on a diagram. He says sheepishly: "I'd rather not."
In the other, employees laugh hysterically when a colleague talks about rivals' "Angus burgers."
The suit, which claims that Jack's sirloin burgers are made from "frozen sirloin butt meat," seeks unspecified damages and asks that Jack in the Box run "corrective advertising."

There are two elements at play here.
One is the legal side, and a jury will decided if CKE has a legitimate case.
It all depends how much damage CKE endured – and the burden of proof is theirs.
Several legal experts on Fox News discussed the legal merit.
An ad that is clearly intended to be funny, gives the advertiser normally more protection.
The main issue in this case is, if the ad crossed the line.
The panel members on Fox News were divided.
Time and jury members will tell us what will prevail: free speech or offensive and harmful content.

The other element is the marketing one.
Using humor as a PR tool has been used for decades, if not centuries.
The tricky part is to define how far to go– and how effective it will work for a product or company.
Not many people will have a problem with the ad campaign of Ameriquest.

But humor can also be used to make the competition look foolish.
This is dangerous: not only can it backfire, but it can also lead to lawsuits, as the Angus Case proves.
In this case, it also gives misinformation about the product, implying that the source is not from prime beef.
"While Defendant may find humorous the aural and phonetic similarities between the words `Angus' and `anus,' " the suit says, the link is made to create "the erroneous notion that all cuts of Angus beef are derived from the anus of beef cattle.
If they want to have a war, we will take the gloves off," Andy Puzder CKE's CEO.

The irony is that both CKE (and the advertising agency that made the ads) got heaps of free publicity.
The agency, Secret Weapon Marketing of Santa Monica, CA will from now on be associated with the ads.
This could backlash - potential customers might be turned off by the crude humor.
The statement of their Chief Creative Officer Dick Sittig in Adweek magazine doesn’t help as well – he pointed out that the humor was "no more crude than a middle-school joke about the planets - one planet in particular."

Once the dust settles, it will be interesting to watch the legal and marketing fallout……

PR - we always have Paris (Hilton)

On May 11th, Paris Hilton was convicted to serve a 45-day prison sentence for violating the terms of her probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case.
In court, she argued that she doesn’t read her mail, and just signs what people tell her to sign. Her publicist Elliot Mintz testified in court that he gave her wrong advise about the status of her suspended driver’s license.
Paris promptly fired him but rehired him on Monday.

What is needed is sound crisis management.
Paris hasn’t quite grasped that yet, judging by her reaction after the court session.
She stated: "I feel that I was treated unfairly and that the sentence is both cruel and unwarranted and I don't deserve this," and promptly went off with her mother to shop.

She used her blog on MySpace to promote a petition to prevent her from going to jail.
She wrote on her blog:

"My friend Joshua started this petition, please help and sihn (the PH version of "sign") it. i LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!"

The petition reads:

"Paris Whitney Hilton is an American celebrity and socialite.

She is an heiress to a share of the Hilton Hotel fortune, as well as to the real estate fortune of her father Richard Hilton.

She provides hope for young people all over the U.S. and the world.

She provides beauty and excitement to (most of) our otherwise mundane lives."

It contunues with:

"We, the American public who support Paris, are shocked, dismayed and appalled by how Paris has been the person to be used as an example that Drunk Driving is wrong...

This petition is to ask Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to pardon Paris Hilton for her mistake. Please allow her to her return to her career and life."

How will this impact Hilton in the future?
According to veteran publicist David Brokaw, she can only benefit.

Longtime publicist Michael Levine agrees. He is convinced that it will actually increase her star appeal, since it’s seen as another very compelling plot line in the Paris Hilton soap opera.

Serving jail time harmed some stars but didn’t impact the careers of others.
Martha Stewart started a TV show after she served time; Robert Downey Jr. landed a recurring TV role that enabled him to be back on the big screen.

Bobby Brown and Heidi Fleiss on the other hand didn’t fare so well after prison time.

Hilton is playing a dangerous game by banking on her star appeal and her attitude that rules don't apply to her.
It will be interesting to see how her sponsors and charities (Operation Smile, City of Hope, Los Angeles Junior League) will react in the coming months.
Especially her sponsor Spyker has a problem – Paris was supposed to drive a Spyker C8 during the Bullrun race from 11-18 May.

And what about her promotion deal for Rich Prosecco, a canned sparkling wine?

I am not sure how the rehired Mintz is going to handle it, but I would suggest that Hilton starts apologizing, followed by volunteering in a project dealing with (the families of) DUI victims.
If she is considering penning a novel on her experience behind Swedish curtains, I strongly advise to stay away from that one.
She might see the inside of the courtroom again – this time by violating the "Son of Sam" law.

Paris filed an appeal against her sentence – it will be interesting to see how she and her team will handle her PR leading up to event.

Writing an annual report - no pain, no gain

It's annual report writing time again - a daunting task for many of us.
If planned and handled properly, it's a fun task to do.
Before starting to write an annual report, there are several questions that must be answered.

On which stock exchange is the company listed?
Each stock exchange has its own rules.
The NASDAQ has more stringent requirements than the AIM (London Stock Exchange).
Stock exchanges are on the merger & takeover warpath, which will influence the requirements of the absorbed stock exchange.

Who is responsible for what?
In general, , it’s the CFO that coordinates the writing of the annual report, not in the least since the majority of its contents consist of financials.
In some companies, this task is outsourced or is given to corporate communications to handle.

An annual report is a team effort:

• The CFO is responsible for the financials (based on the accountant reports);
• The chairman and CEO are responsible for the business overview;
• The CEO is responsible for description of products, markets and operations;
• The lawyer and nomad (nominated advisor)/broker are responsible for the overall content and final check that the report complies with the stock exchange rules and regulations;
• Corporate Communications is responsible for production.

What is the goal of the annual report?
Does the company produce it because it’s mandatory or does the company also want to use it as a marketing tool?
Is the main audience investors and the financial community or also prospects, potential partners and the public in general?
Does the annual report serve as a "crisis management" tool, dealing with bad news/bad results?

What is the timeline?
Producing an annual report requires a strict time plan. All stock exchanges have a strict due date.
The required filing dates vary by country. Most U.S. and European companies have a year-end filing date of December 31, and their Annual Reports tend to be filed between April 1 and June 30. Japanese companies tend to file their report during the month of July, and Australian companies file starting September 15th.

Working backwards, closing files and printing takes about 2 weeks.
A healthy internal deadline is therefore at least one month before the due date.
It’s finalizing the text part that is time consuming, since the different executives have to sign off on their part.
From experience, it will take about 3 months to get all the text written and approved.

How should the annual report look?
The annual report should reflect the company.
For industrial companies, it should look serious and reflect their business.
A good example is the annual report of MAN, a leading European motor vehicle, engine and mechanical engineering group with annual sales of around €13 billion.
A company active in the telecom field can be funkier.
An example is Adamind, a provider of software that enables mobile multimedia content and converged communications services.
Depending on the budget and industry, companies can opt for having the financial pages in black and white and only the text pages (with graphs and illustrations) in color.

What should be inside the annual report?
The average annual report has several sections, some of them mandatory (depending on the stock exchange), others customary.

General part

• Highlights – it gives a snapshot of the financial situation of the past year(s)
• Directors, Secretary, and Advisors
• Chairman’s statement – it covers changing developments, goals achieved/missed, actions taken and industry conditions
• CEO’s statement – it covers the financials, deals, milestones
• Marketing part- covers products, markets. (not mandatory)
• Corporate Governance Statement – it covers the broad, committees, internal control, going concern, relations with shareholders
• Directors’ report – included biographies
• US analysts like to see a stock price overview, consisting of stock symbol, high/low history and price/dividend trends (not mandatory)

Financial part

• Independent Auditor’s Report/ CPA Opinion Letter – consists of a one-page letter from the external accountant/CPA to the shareholders
• Consolidated income statements
• Consolidated balance sheets
• Statement of changes in equity
• Consolidated statements of cash flows
• Notes to the consolidated financial statements
• Appendices – consisting of list of group companies, brands, patents etc. (not mandatory)
• Shareholder information – consists of the contact details

Final steps

Once the annual report is ready it must be sent out to the stock exchange (to meet the deadline) and shareholders.
It must also be published in pdf form on the corporate website.
Printed copies should be available for any interested party to receive upon request.
It's finished and you can relax -until the next annual report!

The Don Imus Marketing Mix-Up

Apart from Knut, the Berlin polar bear cub, the whole world has been mesmerized by Don Imus’ spectacular fall from grace.
For those of you who missed it: Don Imus was the CBS Radio talk-show host of “Imus in the Morning”.
He was once named one of the 25 Most Influential People in America by Time magazine and a member of the National Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
His trademark was a combination of discussions about politics and culture, mixed with crude and vulgar humor.
In short, he was one of the first “shock jocks”. Insulting people was part of his show.
Even his corporate sponsors were not exempt.
During an interview with former General Electric CEO Jack Welch and his wife-unit Suzy Wetlaufer about their book “Winning”, Imus referred to Suzy as "been around more times than a fan belt."

Why did his guests put up with it?
Simple – to quote Jack Welch: "we have a book to sell and Imus is great for selling books."
Tim Russert, James Carville, Chris Dodd, – they all used "Imus in the Morning” to promote their books or ideas.
The Imus show was a marketing dream; supported by the crème de la crème of Corporate America. The top 10 advertisers combined spent nearly $3-million (GM spent $691,700; Sprint Nextel $363,000).
In short, shock jocks like Imus are irresistible since they attract so many loyal viewers and listeners. Corporate sponsors generate optimal ROI on their ad dollars.
Therefore, ex-heroine addict and former alcoholic 66-year-old Imus was what his employers and sponsors loved best – a money making machine.
But once a shock jockey moves from what the public sees as shockingly funny to indecent/unacceptable, the story ends.
Imus’ remarks on the looks of the Rutgers women's basketball team brought about his downfall. Ironically enough, this middle-aged Caucasian macho borrowed words from the less-than-half-his-age hip-hop moguls.His racial insult created a public stir.
Outraged listeners and celebrities started an international debate on all major news channels.But that was not what brought down Imus.

His fate was determined by the show’s sponsors (American Express Co., General Motors Corp., Procter & Gamble Co., Staples Inc.) pulling their advertising from the show.

Don Imus created a lot of inconvenience for his ex-sponsors.
The undesired publicity blocked a highly-profitable advertising channel, which leaves them with the challenge where to advertise to reach such a wide audience.
From a marketing standpoint, we have to admire the Imus Marketing Model.His marketing mix consisted of:

• Generating millions of ad revenue for his employer CBS radio.
• Providing employer MSNBC with three hours of cheap programming.
• Providing celebrities with a platform to tout their books and ideas.
• Providing politicians with free airtime to push their agenda.
• Fundraising for his charities.
• Promoting his wife’s green causes.
• Promoting his own merchandise (cookbooks, foods, cleaning products)

It looks now that all of the above suffered, including his wife Deirdre Imus, who saw her book tour cancelled by Simon & Schuster (the publisher of her book "Green This!").
But will this spell the end of Imus?Not likely – satellite radio (Sirius or XM) might offer him a sweet deal, especially since his apology was accepted by the Rutgers’ team.

On the pecuniary side of things, Imus could be entitled to compensation CBS Radio.He only recently closed a new five-year, $ 50 million contract.And although he didn’t have a contract with cable network MSNBC, there was a licensing deal between MSNBC with CBS.

Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if he already started penning his autobiography “from fame to shame” or something similar – and if anybody knows how to market it, it’s Imus himself!

Checkers Rapcat promotion - the cat's meow?

The fast food chain Checkers uses a blinged-out feline who wears a jersey and raps in its commercials.
According to Richard Turer, senior vice president of marketing for Checkers, the Rapcat commercials were an overnight success.
"We received dozens of letters from our guests requesting Rapcat merchandise.
Our new Rapcat Web site, cups and carry out bags are all in response to Rapcat's popularity and are intended only as a creative extension of our television campaign."

So far, so good.

But with its latest promotion gag, Checkers might have taken it too far. Checkers designed special burger bags that look like Rapcat’s jersey, complete with a 3-step process how to turn the bag into a “garment” for your own cat.

1. On the side of the paper bag, the instructions read as follows:
   Cut out the holes


2. Put YOUR cat in the bag


3. Submit the best pics/vids of your cat keepin' it real…

Checkers cat owning consumers were only too happy to oblige.
The video of a Persian cat being extremely uncomfortable in his bag jersey became a YouTube hit.
But not everybody was amused; especially not animal services such as Hillsborough Animal Control, stating that participants could be charged with felony animal cruelty.
As a result, the topic was discussed by Fox and other networks, making Rapcat an international phenomenon.

What is the logic behind the promotion?
According to Checkers management the rap cat bag promo is not intended to hurt animals.
As Checkers spokeswoman Kim Francis puts it:
"Of course we care about the animals. It's an extension of the rap cat promotion. The intent of the bag … is to be an extension of the TV commercial.”
Needless to say, Checkers was smart enough to have a disclaimer on their hamburger bags, stating: "Not all cats will be down with wearing this bag. Do not harm or endanger any cat."

The main question is: how effective is a promotion like this?
According to Checkers, they received dozens of letters from customers requesting Rapcat merchandise.

It’s hard to tell if this specific promotion really increased sales – especially since it’s part of the whole Rapcat PR campaign.
One thing is for sure – Checkers became a household name in countries where they have no presence…….

Cause Marketing – the Diesel way

Cause Marketing has become popular.It’s aimed at consumers that want to “do something good” with their purchase.

Needless to say, it should not infringe on their lifestyle.
Cause marketing campaigns peddle products while contributing to a worthy cause.
An example is the Red Motorazr cellphone of Sprint.
Motorola and Sprint contribute part of the revenues of each phone purchased to Bono’s Project (RED) to fight AIDS and other diseases in Africa.
Apple quickly followed with its red iPod Nano, retailing at $199 in the US. From each sale, Apple donates $10 to the Global Fund to fight AIDS in Africa.
Fashion brands are especially good at cause marketing.
Way back in 1990s, Italian fashion label Benetton launched its "Benetton Clothing Redistribution Project". It was a clothes drive, regardless of maker, that benefited charitable organizations like the Red Cross and Gifts in Kind America.


For the last decade, cause marketing has gone mainstream.Consumers are used to shop and save the world at the same time.Companies are selling products and a clean conscience. Wherever you turn, it’s there.But is comes to a point that it’s not effective anymore.
The pink ribbons of the breast cancer cause are all over the place, triggering a backlash (or "pinklash"). In such cases, both product and cause suffer.

So what are the key success factors of effective cause marketing?

• Define your marketing goals
  What do you want to establish as a company: reaching potential customers, increasing sales, brand recognition, PR?
  To reach their target audience for their next-generation Xbox and Samsung HDTV, Microsoft and Samsung Electronics launched a nationwide (USA) cause-marketing program entitled "Samsung's Hope For Education."
  The program will deliver more than $2 million in much needed technology and software products, to elementary, middle and high schools across America through an on-line essay contest.
  
• Make it part of your overall marketing strategy
  A good example is Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc.
  They launched a three year, global partnership with Special Olympics, in which Starwood Hotels will be the exclusive hotel sponsor of Special Olympics and the 2007 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Shanghai, China.
  In addition, Starwood will donate $50 dollars to Special Olympics for every Westin Heavenly Bed, Sheraton Sweet Sleeper Bed and Four Points by Sheraton Four Comfort bed sold through Starwood retail channels, until June 30, 2007.


• Define who your target audience is, and which causes appeal to them
  The company Clorox markets its products to the global adult population.
  They cleverly chose a cause appealing to this broad target audience. They will donate a small percentage of the retail purchase price of its bleach products to the Red Cross.
  Barclay's Taking Care of Christmas 2000 campaign benefited four charities chosen by Barclays' customers as the most popular causes.
  
• Choose a cause that fits your business
  A perfect example is Radio Taxis, a carbon-neutral, London-based taxi company, boasting more than 2,500 cars. It measures the carbon pollutants its 2,500 cars emit, and then invests proportionally in air-cleansing projects, from forestry to renewable energy.
  
• Define the timeline- how long do you want the cause campaign to run?
  Target Corp. operated a temporary, “pop-up” Target store, located on New York’s Times Square for 30 days. All profits made during this period were marked for breast cancer research.
  
• Make the relationship between company and cause clear to the public
  Vodafone communicated the following about its relationship with the National Autistic Society.
  “As communication lies at the heart of everything that Vodafone does, it made sense to partner with a cause that is closely related to communication. As the leading provider of mobile communications, Vodafone has a unique opportunity to employ its strengths, size and marketing power to: help the NAS improve the lives of people with autism; bring the issues to a wider audience; increase the capacity and accessibility of NAS services.”
  
• Be aggressive in your corporate communications and public relations
  Companies like Ben & Jerry's and Avon are good examples.
  
• Be creative – stand out in the cause marketing crowd
  The best example of creative cause marketing is the Italian fashion label Diesel.
  To promote their apparel, Diesel gives a positive spin on global warming.
  Its ads show Manhattan buildings and Mount Rushmore’s presidential faces half-submerged in water from melted glaciers; Venice and Paris are tropical and the Great Wall is covered in desert sands. Against these surreal backgrounds, Diesel's fashionable and immaculately dressed models live glamorous lives, having camel rides, relaxing on a yacht or applying suntan lotion to their partner’s toned back.
  To fight global warming, (potential) customers are invited to visit the Diesel.com website to buy are encouraged to by Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” on DVD.
  The creativity of Diesel is two-fold.
  First of all, its campaign is wonderfully tongue-in-cheek funny and gets the global warming issue across with humor.
  Secondly, Diesel doesn’t pretend to be a crusader – as its creative director Wilbert Das puts it: "We are a fashion brand. We want to sell product. We don't do anything more or less."
  Diesel’s cause marketing will definitely support its main cause – making profit!

Tween marketing – a dream or nightmare?

Tweens are (mainly) girls in the age group six to twelve.
They want to look older and hotter, like their idols Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie.
Where did this market niche come from?As with the teenage concept in the 20th century; smart marketers identified the gap in the marketplace between the girl who is still a child under the age of about nine, and a real teenager of 13 or 14 who has reached puberty.
These girls are getting older younger – hence a profitable new market niche was born.

The tween customer group has some unique characteristics.

• Tweens have their own budget, but most of their items are bought for them by parents and relatives.
• Their taste flips between those of a child and a young adult.
• The highest goal is feeling accepted by a peer group.
• They are more logical in their thinking about right/wrong and what is in/out of style than previous generations.
• Their favorite media to stay in tune are chat rooms and television commercials.

What are the market drivers?

• Image building by TV channels such as MTV.
• Globalization of brands, just look at the global success of Bratz.
• Spending power – the tweens have money and love to spend it.
• Peer pressure – no group is so susceptible to social pressure of their fellow tweens.
• Urge to grow up fast and to be an independent individual.

The Bratz dolls are the ultimate tween success story.
Created in 2001 by the US manufacturer MGA Entertainment, global sales reached 125 million dolls accounting for $US2 billion.
Archrival Mattel (the producer of Barbie) struck back with its line of My Scene Barbie dolls, that includes “totally blinged out and super fabulous fashionable” My Bling Bling dolls.
Mattel also hooked up with cosmetic brand MAC.

Cosmetics and clothes designers quickly followed in the footsteps of the doll makers.The Italian designer Anna Molinari showed her tween collection in Florence, choosing 6-year old Anna Ermakova (Boris Becker’s little girl) as the star model.
Tween fashion is nothing to sneeze at: padded bras for eight- to ten-year-olds and My Little Pony bandeau bras for two- to three-year-olds are bestsellers.

The marketing channels used to attract and keep these young customers are Internet and subscription TV channels.
Advertising in kits’ magazines is less popular due to declining circulation.

The best way to reach this consumer group:

• Target both the tweens and their (grand) parents - shopping is a family event, where the adults like to spend money on their tweens.
• Use chat rooms to keep abreast of tween consumer behavior.
• Use TV channels for promotion and product placement.
• Use models and spokespersons in the same (tween) age group.
• Recognize and respect the unique characteristics of the tweens.

The biggest challenge for companies is to build brand loyalty with the tween consumers.
The “get them early” part might be manageable, but what about “keeping them for life”?
It will be interesting to see how tween consumer behavior will change overtime.
Since tweens are “consumers in training”( and can therefore still be deceived), it’s the job of marketers to stay ethical. It will pay off in the long run.
The biggest mistake is to underestimate them. They are savvy and want to make decisions about the things that impact their lives.
It's wise to keep in mind: once burnt by a brand, they will not forget, let alone forgive – for the next seven or so decades...

Reality shows - a marketer’s dream of product placements

Any movie or TV program you watch nowadays has product placement. Some are subtle, some are blatant.
Why is it such a winning concept?

According Nielsen Media Research, it’s a wonderful tool for brand recognition.
When combined with a commercial, brand recognition can go up by 20%.
The reason is clear. The alternative is advertising during the commercial breaks.
Problem: a reported 90% of people that record the show skip or fast forward the commercials. When watching live, only 16% doesn’t do something else for the duration of the commercial break.
The beauty of product placement is that there is no escape, since it’s an integrated part of the show.
Therefore product placement is a great way to invest your advertising dollars.
Especially reality shows are a marketer’s dream – since there is not much of a script to follow, it gives the producers lots of freedom when and how to integrate the product in the show.

There is even a special term for it: “in-program product placement”.
The uncrowned king in this arena Mark Burnett, the creator executive producer of "The Apprentice" and executive producer for "Rock Star: Supernova" two name two.
"American Idol" did wonders for Coca-Cola; the highly recognizable red-and-white paper cups with logo have their own permanent place at the judges’ table.

Product placement is not limited to the English language reality shows.
In the Telemundo show “Protagonistas de Novela 2”, in which 14 aspiring actors living together in a television studio, compete for a role on a telenovella.
Sponsors include Miller Lite, Ford, Colgate Simply White, Truth and Terra.
Product placement for Miller Lite includes a cooler filled with the beer, logo placement on glasses, refrigerator magnets and the light above a pool table, and signage in the house.

But it doesn’t stop there.
Reality show producers are now allowing companies to have highly visible product placements in turn for covering the production costs.
Just look at NBC's summer reality show “The Restaurant”
The chef drives a Mitsubishi; any guest ordering a beer has one choice (Coors) and the only payment accepted is the American Express credit card.
Brands are becoming part of the reality show as an essential element of the story line.
Procter & Gamble is the producer of Herbal Essences.
In the WB reality show "What I Like About You" two characters competed for acting work in a new Herbal Essences ad.
The actual ad was then aired during the commercial break shortly after that scene.

It was only logical that the next step in this saga is sponsors creating their own reality show.
The Ford Motor Company is planning a reality show as part of its “Bold Moves” overall marketing plan.
The concept is a contest for aspiring car designers to design the next hot Ford vehicle.
The winning design would be built by Ford and shown at an auto show.
The aim is to get young drivers to change their Honda or Toyota for a hot Ford.
The investment funny enough, came from former reality show contestants.

One thing is for sure, the real reality shows are the sponsors!
And let's face it - the sponsor's products sometimes have more personality than the contestants....

How Target’s Che became a target

The image of Che Guavara, sporting a beret with a single star on it, has been popular since his execution in 1967 in Bolivia, where he tried to mastermind a communist uprising.
The photo was taken by Alberto Diaz (aka “Korda”) and became iconic.
Since Guavara's death, his portrait was put on everything from posters and T-shirts to schoolbags.
Che became a symbol of idealistic revolt for many, including students taking part in the 1968 Paris uprising in 1968 and Palestinians launching terrorist attacks against Israel in 2000.
As part of Target's positioning as a trendy discount chain, it decided to tap into the motley of symbols of retro cool, following the current trend at populate flea market stalls as well as in chic designer boutiques.
Target featured Che’s image on a music CD carrying case, wearing a set of small earphones, thus implying that he was tuned in to trendy music players such as iPod.
Target was not the first company to choose Che: Swatch put Guevara on a wristwatch and Smirnoff vodka featured the picture in an advertising campaign.
What Target didn't take into account, was the sensitivity of its Latin customers.
Guevara as a romantic hero is a myth.
Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (aka Che Guevara or el Che) decided as a medical student, that the socioeconomic inequalities in Latin America could only be remedied by revolution.
He became a Marxist and joined Fidel Castro's paramilitary 26th of July Movement, which seized power in Cuba in 1959.
He served in various important governmental posts.
In this capacity, Guevara signed at least 600 death warrants and executed children by firing squads.
According to the Investor's Business Daily, Guevara was responsible for at least 2,000 deaths during Cuba's 1961 mass executions.
The Cuban exile community in the US collectively took a stand against sporting Che’s image on Target's merchandize.
The story quickly hit the newswires and numerous blogs pounced on it.
They stated that Guevara was one of history's brutal mass murderers, in the same league as Pol Pot, Pinochet, Osama bin Laden and Adolf Hitler.
Showing excellent crisis management, Target Corp quickly pulled all the CD cases from its shelves and issued an apology.
"It is never our intent to offend any of our guests through the merchandise we carry.
We have made the decision to remove this item from our shelves and we sincerely apologize for any discomfort this situation may have caused our guests."
Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O'Grady applauded Target’s reaction, stating that Target made an "admirable decision" to correct the actions of some company employees who "allowed Target to become a target itself of the Che myth."

The irony of it all is, that Guevara’s iconic portrait is commercially used in the same capitalist consumer society that he died fighting to overturn…

The Brilliant Branding of Borat

When it comes to branding, standup comedians are champions.
They create characters that take on a life of their own.
Mike Myers “Austin Power” is a good example how to create a character, brand it and turn it into a major money making machine.
But the one that excels at this game is without any doubt the British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.
He created the character “Borat Sagdiyev”, a Kazakh television news reporter making a meager living in the struggling country of Kazakhstan.
Dressed in his trademark grey suit, a mustached Borat tells the world in heavy accented English about his beautiful home country of Kazakhstan (a urine-drinking, Jew-hating, inbred society).
The Borat character is homophobic ("Are you a homo sapiens? Because it doesn't matter if you are."), misogynic (at a feminist gathering, he "innocently" extolled the virtues of Baywatch) and anti-Semitic (“my city is 3 mile north of fence to Jewtown”)

Cohen also launched a website www.borat.kz, which was promptly shut down by a highly offended Kazakh government.It was rerouted to www.borat.tv.
If you look at the website, it is exactly in character and pokes fun at all the standard elements and mistakes that can be found on personal websites: black background color, emoticons, flash, common spellings mistakes, (ir)relevant photos, personal profile, MySpace.

Following the Comedy Store formula, Cohen capitalized on his character’s success by making a movie, aptly titled: “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan”.The movie was cleverly promoted by putting trailers on YouTube.

The main push however came from the personal appearance of the movie’s shining star.
The movie was first shown at the Cannes film festival.
Cohen, always acting as Borat, appeared on a beach in Cannes, dressed in a minimalistic bathing suit that resembled (as the Jaunted website put it) “an upside down Star Trek symbol”.
The pics were beamed across the globe.

Cohen repeated his performance at the London movie premiere.
Staying non-stop in character, he wowed the crowds by stating:
"I have come here with Bilak, my 11 year old son, his wife and their child, and we are hoping maybe to put some chocolate make-up on the child's face and sell him to Madonna.
I am hoping that Madonna will be a very good father for it."
He was, of course, referring to the singer's controversial adoption of a 13-month-old Malawian baby.

For the US launch, Fox studios decided to downsize the initial release of "Borat" from 2,200 screens to 800 because their marketing analysis determined most of middle America wasn't going to "get it”.
During its first weekend, the movie raked in a record $26.4 million in 837 locations.
Since the production budget was under $ 20 million, the movie was able to reach profitability within 3 days.At the beginning of December 2006, the movie generated $67 million.
Borat got the kind of exposure most A-list actors could only dream of.
He appeared on CNN, FOX, Letterman and O'Brien– to mention just a few.

For the Australian film premiere, Borat adapted to the Aussie way by greeting fans sporting cricket batting pads and a corked hat while holding a boomerang and later cradling a wallaby.
If anyone understands: “think global, act local”, it’s Cohen.

Marketing to lawyers

For marketing and PR agencies such as Tip Top PR, lawyers are one of the most exiting target groups.
Surprised? You shouldn’t be!

Law touches all aspects of human behavior and social interaction.
It is so flexible, that the Romans already categorized it as an Art and not as a Science
“Ius est ars aequi et boni”.

1. Lawyers specialize in all kinds of law that keeps changing.
2. Lawyers are a substantial target group – there are an estimated 650,000 lawyers working and more than a million registered in the US alone.
3. Due to their profession, lawyers are early adapters of technologies and trends.
4. Lawyers are also publicity savvy and realize that “publish or perish” applies to them.
5. Lawyers are creative and know how to use new media or venues to their advantage.

How do you market to lawyers?

• Know your customer.
  Find out who the lawyer you are approaching is and what services he/she provides.
• Keep it short and sweet.
  Lawyers charge per hour, so your approach or message must the short, sharp and to the point. The average window of opportunity to grab attention with a letter or email is 4 seconds.
• Keep it simple.
  Your message must be in clear and in plain text.
  Lawyers are the ultimate wordsmiths by nature; don’t go into competition!
  Forget about graphics and flash elements (such as banners in electronic newsletters) – l’art pour l’art wouldn’t cut it.
• Make a strong business case.
  Lawyers are business savvy. They know how to make money.
  They also are conservative in spending.
  The main message (no matter what your product or service offering is) should translate into more qualified client leads.
• Make sure it’s tailor-made.
  The vast majority of the lawyers (an estimated 90%) are small practitioners with a specific specialization and/or client base.
  It's therefore critical to make sure that the product/service meet the specific needs of that specific lawyer or law firm.

When a blog becomes a flog – the Wal-Mart-Edelman lesson

It all started when the PR agency Edelman Worldwide was hired by Wal-Mart to improve its image.
Edelman started by creating Working Families, a foundation to counter the criticism of union-funded interest groups.
Edelman went on to create a blog – a sort of travelogue following Laura and Jim traveling across the country in an RV.
The couple claimed that they wanted to visit their children, one at college in Pennsylvania and the other in North Carolina, so they came up with the idea to rent an RV and park each night a different Wal-Mart parking lot for free.
During their travel, they reported on the conversations they had with the happy Wal-Mart employees.
Needless to say, all of the postings were long and positive – especially about Wal-Mart.
Bloggers Laura and Jim were later exposed as Laura St. Claire, a freelance writer, and James Thresher, a Washington Post photographer.

(Nice detail: Laura’s brother works for Edelman.Edelman had flown the couple to Las Vegas and got them a mint-green RV emblazoned with the group's logo on the side, according to Business Week).

The fallout of the fake blog hit the blogosphere like a tidal wave.It also created a new cyberspace word: “flog” a nice wordplay on fake (read: paid-for) blog.Richard Edelman immediately kicked into crisis management gear and started apologizing “mea culpa” style all over cyberspace.Clever, since Edelman is one of the co-authors of the WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) code of ethics, which states:
"Honesty of identity: You never obscure your identity."

The blogosphere is still unregulated territory.
This case shook the PR world – it will force corporate bloggers from now on to apply a code of ethics.Both WOMMA and the PRSA (Public Relations Society of America) refused to take action against Edelman.
Disappointingly, they also ignored this great opportunity to formulate a code of ethics and start some regulation process.
As it looks now, Edelman will come out this escapade untarnished, with more free publicity than anyone of us can dream of…..may be his next step is to put his apology on YouTube as well?

Self promotion - is it healthy for PR agencies?

When choosing a PR agency, a company looks for a professional one, that knows how to generate PR.
Therefore, PR agencies must indulge in somekine of self promotion.
But how far can they go without loosing credibility?
Let’s look at two blatant self-promotors that are doing well.
The first is the mid-sized PR agency 5W.
Its founder and CEO Torossian loves to promote himself and his company. He brands his company with the slogan "5WPR, the fastest growing public relations firm in the US", a trick often used in viral marketing.
He is also a master at hammering out press releases, including client wins, growth and employment opportunities.
Torossian even put out press releases voicing his own opinion.
In one, he called Lizzie Grubman, another excellent self-promotor, "an embarrassment to the PR industry".
In another, he described Howard Rubenstein, president of Rubenstein Associates, who is the eminence gris of the PR industry, as "old and tired" urging his clients to defect to 5W.
These tactics don’t always go down well with Mr. T’s existing clients - Manhattan attorney Ben Brafman left the agency as a result.
Funny enough, Torossian is so successful at generating media attention that he is being mentioned in the same breath as his "victim" Lizzie Grubman.

Lizzie Grubman is the founder and owner of Lizzie Grubman PR.
Until her much-publicized car accident in 2001 (when she slammed a SUV backward into a crowd of people at the Hamptons club Conscience Point, injuring sixteen), she was known as a plugged-in publicist who interacted with Jay-Z, Sean "Puffy" Combs, Paris Hilton, Tara Reid and Britney Spears.
The accident made her lose clients such as Chanel, and her partnership with PR guru Peggy Siegal, dissolved.
After serving jail time, she carefully and successfully rebuilt her business.
She was able to keep clients such as Combs and Conscience Point.
She also does work for HBO, DreamWorks, and the MGM Grand and started a new partnership with fellow celebrity publicist Jonathan Cheban.

When does self-promotion become unprofessional?
When it leaves the marketing field and enters into the realm of meaningless hype.
Being on Page Six of the New York Post might work well for socialites like Paris Hilton et al, but it could backfire on PR professionals.
To quote MWW CEO Michael Kempner:
"When business ethics and values take a back seat to growing a business at all costs, self promoters become a major accident waiting to happen."

In short, generating publicity for the PR agency through self-promotion builds client confidence.
But it should never overshadow the publicity efforts for the clients.
Ironically, being too successful at self-promotion can lead to the demise of the agency…