Volvo's 1993 "Survivors" TV commercial, best of the year.

Look around us. Listen. It seems we are becoming, in America, a culture of noise, coarseness, exploitation, avarice, and division. Real life mirrors television, television mirrors real life.

On roadways, motorists drive with the same reckless deference they see in TV car commercials. But, the commercials are often made with animation.

Pundits – those minds of the great mentioners, according to David Brooks – act as if discussions are won by shrillness, interruptons and spewing more words than the person across the table.

Eavesdrop on a conversation in a cafe, and you may hear people parroting – perhaps without even realizing it – the words and speech affectations they heard on popular TV shows.

A couple of days ago, I wrote about a two-minute TV commercial for P&G airing in Britain that has captured widespread attention and influence by its simplicity and quietness. There is a reason the commercial is getting attention. Think about it.

In 1993, nearly 20 years ago, I was involved in producing a similar creative contrarian way to deliver a message. I facilitated the use of an original composition by English choral composer John Rutter for a 60-second Volvo commercial that won most advertising industry awards that year and is still talked about because of its simplicity to deliver a powerful message. Here it is:

I believe that few people comprehend noise. Most people, in my opinion, are fundamentally, perhaps instinctively, attracted to beauty and simplicity … and a human story they can relate to.

The contemporary chronicler of the human condition, writer William Boyd, once said, “The last thing we learn about ourselves is our effect.”
 

The Carnegie Deli, one of New York’s fabled artery clogging eateries recently added the “Jet Bow” to its menu, a 4 pound edible edifice named in honor of Gotham’s newest celebrity, the genuflecting back-up quarterback of the New York Jets, Tim Tebow.

The "Jet Bow" sandwich at New York's Carnegie Deli.

Whether it’s a sandwich emporium with a worldwide reputation or a neighborhood coffee shop, most of us expect to see a new item on the menu from time to time. In the case of the Carnegie Deli, it’s the continuation of a decades-long exercise in acknowledging accomplishment or, in the case of Tebow, (and to paraphrase a meritorious New Yorker, Woody Allen) merely showing up.

By the time the check is placed on the table by the waiter, we realize…it’s just another sandwich.

Granted, public relations firms aren’t populated with the sort of characters that push the pastrami at the Carnegie but they have seemingly taken a page from the deli’s playbook to gain attention from prospective diners…I mean…clients.

Take, for example, an item that appeared in the 4/17/2012 issue of PR Week. The headline read:

“Edelman launches executive positioning offering.”

My inner Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler rumbled: Really!

In the spirit of full disclosure I once was in the employ of that organization and consider Richard Edelman, its globe-trotting CEO, one the most driven, dynamic and inventive minds in the industry. I also believe its annual Trust Barometer to be useful research, not self-promotional sludge.

Steve Hoechster, New York PR executive.

That said, how is a “service to help clients position their top executives in a relevant and credible way” a truly new offering. Isn’t this a fundamental part of just about any executive positioning or visibility program? The Edelman wrinkle appears to be the use of subject matter experts and former members of the media brought together as a sort of communications SWAT team to produce the CEO equivalent of “The King’s Speech.”

In the digital realm, the folks at Hill+Knowlton Strategies just announced availability of “a new service called Influence Point” that “can serve online ads directly to individuals identified as influencers” using “a proprietary methodology” to spot the desired influencers who are then served various digital ads to computer and mobile platforms.

The firm’s claim is such targeting cuts “wasteful spending on large online ad buys.”

To restate Seth and Amy: Really! Since when is any media planning and/or buying effort not oriented toward the highest possible efficiency in terms of reaching a defined audience?

Honestly, is either of these so-called new service offerings clear indications of the firms’ awareness of marketplace needs or something they’ve always had but now make on rye instead of whole wheat?

Whether it’s at a deli or in a conference room, the next time you sit down with a PR firm…before asking what’s new…ask what’s good today. (Or, are they just recycling what they should be already offering?)

[Steve Hoechster's email is:  shoechster@aithent.com]
 

Screen capture of GlobalPost.com

One fisherman told Al Jazeera that some of the crabs she’s seen appear to be “dying from within…they are still alive, but you open them up and they smell like they’ve been dead for a week.” Yum.

Note the word, “Yum,” among other embellishments.

When I contacted Silverstein through Twitter (@amysilstein) to ask about the misleading photo, her reply was: “Stock photo fail!” Yet, even admitting an error, GlobalPost didn’t change the photo.

Less than twelve hours later, more than 3,000 other media outlets around the world had picked up and spread the story, according to a Google search. It reminds me of an old phrase about reckless journalism, “Don’t let facts get in the way of a sensational story.” So goes it in today’s media world.

I know nothing of Al Jazeera’s thoroughness and skill in covering stories but their video report was sloppily done, in my view, with incomplete or questionable sources and unattributed statements. Furthermore, the Al Jazeera reporter never mentioned whether the story could have been cooked up by plaintiff’s attorneys trying to extract more money in damages from BP as a result of the oil spill in the Gulf two years ago.

This, my friends, is the media world we are living in.
 

Apple learned that fundamental pillar of effective communications years ago, a style that’s help rocket sales. P&G is the latest shining example, using a stunningly beautiful and storytelling TV commercial now airing in Britain.
 

 

What’s particularly powerful about this TV commercial is the minimalistic music interwoven with natural sound so as not to be intrusive … a polar opposite of many videos produced today with bombastic music.

This is P&G’s elegantly simple message:

Being a mom is the hardest job in the world. But it’s also the best.

This Procter & Gamble commercial honors everything that all moms do to help their children succeed by showcasing the amazing moms behind Olympic athletes at the London 2012 Olympic Games. The hardest job in the world is truly the best job in the world.

Join P&G in saying “Thank you, Mom” by sending your Mom a message of thanks at: www.facebook.com/thankyoumom

P&G’s Facebook page has received more than a half million “Likes” in just a couple of days. They know … it’s not about their company, it’s all about finding an emotional, meaningful connection with audiences.

Let me just add that if this TV commercial were to air in the U.S., it might become a centerpiece of this year’s Presidential race.
 

Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten

Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten has gotten fed-up with PR people and is taking his beef public. In a May 6, column, Weingarten wrote, “Their (PR people) entire existence teeters on a ludicrous lie they tell their clients: that they are tight with the media.”

“A PR pitch tends to be an enthusiastic description of a product or service that is so lame it actually needs the help of a PR professional. As pitches go, they’re particularly slimy — not like spitballs so much as snotballs. Loogieballs,” in Weingarten’s words.

Bravo! More professional journalists need to speak out, as well, about the pervasive fear that many if not most PR people have of actual contact with the media and PR’s widespread ineptness about how to present a legitimate and timely news story to the media.

I see it often … a PR firm lies to a client about tight connections with the media, and then, uses a press release distribution service to blanket the media’s email in-boxes with more meaningless and misdirected spam.

Will the PR industry hear and heed Weingarten’s warning? Probably not. PR people I know are too busy billing clients to read newspapers much less ever talk with a reporter.
 

Raf Stevens of Corporate Storyteller

Raf has found that the more companies self-promote, the less likely they are to connect with audiences. It’s the same in Europe as it is in America.

The digital era is all about connecting with and engaging audiences.

This week, I had shared with some colleagues, including Raf, yet another example of a company undermining itself and any opportunity to build awareness … a consultancy located near DC claimed it had done speculative trend research on the baby boomer generation. Yet, there were no stats, no proof of substantive research.

The virtual consulting firm’s press release gushed self-promotion of the consulting firm. There was no story, no authentic awareness achieved, no media attention. Pure rubbish. Such things give PR a bad name, in my opinion, particularly in today’s highly competitive environments.

Here’s what Raf wrote back … and I could not agree with him more:

“Content marketing means that companies today are quite busy producing lots of online or offline content, writing corporate messages and creating images, video or audio. They are blogging and publishing articles highlighting their expertise with tips, advice and commentary.

“They issue all kinds of newsletters and publish their content much like you would on a blog. They use it to build a subscriber list that could come in handy when promoting products and services later. Or to write white papers showing off their knowledge and proving their expertise in their field. They do webinars and e-courses and all of that to demonstrate expert knowledge in a subject area and try to teach others. Obviously they bring in their credentials and experience to back that expert status up. They run video blogs or Web series. They podcast or Internet radio shows.

“All this marketing content rarely connects with an audience. Why? Because it doesn’t make them feel anything. All this stuff is really just marketing material thinly veiled as content, and it’s quickly becoming the kind of one-sided content that turns people off. What makes great content spread is how compelling and inspiring the message is, not how it slants into a direction that ultimately positions your company as the only one to buy from. Content should make connections. I would even go further: content follows connection.

“First you need to engage, build rapport and make your audience trust you. And pure information or marketing messages do not make that happen. All these new forms of storytelling can not change the fact that if you communicate in facts and figures, you communicate “brain to brain”. To be successful in any kind of communication, you need to go human to human, heart to heart, emotion to emotion.”

Thanks, Raf. Right on the money … again.

As Brooke Gladstone, host of NPR’s “On the Media” says: “Journalists are taught to talk and write in human terms. Tell me a story.” That’s how we humans are wired to communicate with each other. What’s so hard about that?

As Leonard Bernstein wrote so famously at the end of his opera, “Candide” – “Any questions?!”

Raf’s consultancy is Corporate Storyteller. Read Raf’s “No Story, No Fans”

Best known, perhaps, is Fred de Sam Lazaro’s Under-Told Stories Project at St. Mary’s, a program that combines international journalism and teaching. His remarkable stories air regularly on PBS NewsHour.

Thus, when I was contacted by Lasallian Brother Ed Siderewicz to help enhance awareness for a new program using the approach of brand journalism, I immediately agreed.

Brother Ed – as he prefers to be called – is one of the visionary leaders of the pioneering First Generation Initiative (FGI) at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota. It is a special program developed to help and empower youth who are financially disadvantaged with a chance at higher education. The program’s focus is to provide the academic support and mentoring they need to help make their dreams come true.

Saint Mary’s FGI is one of the nation’s most comprehensive solutions for first-generation students. What makes FGI unique – compared to other programs for economically disadvantaged learners – is that the program partners with multiple middle and high schools in low-income communities to create a seamless education from middle school to high school to college.

“The reality and potential is that it has a transformational effect on the families and communities that surround these children in the urban communities from which they come. We have watched it,” Brother Ed says.

A few of the First Generation Initiative scholars ham it up.

Through discussion with Brother Ed and Dr. Jane Anderson, the distinguished academic director of the program, we developed consensus that a storytelling brand journalism website was the best direction. Not hard news stories but rather stories, openly and transparently told, about personal value and importance.

In order to achieve the program’s outreach objectives as quickly as possible, we would bring alive the core value and purpose of First Generation Initiative through the faces, voices and stories of students who benefit from the program.

FirstGenerationStories.org has become our platform for the stories.

Driven by the power of WordPress, using a custom theme by Solostream.com and design by TM Design, we built the site and published 12 stories within two weeks. What has happened since is pure magic – the site’s popularity and online ranking have taken off like a rocket!

• U.S. online ranking of about 100,000, according to Alexa.com, within two weeks … and still climbing! That’s almost unheard-of.

It was a contrarian journalistic approach to quickly building awareness and appealing. Rather than the typical, boring (and somewhat narcissistic) style of talking “about” a program, we asked students to share their personal stories – hardships, challenges, achievements and dreams.  I found them to be astonishingly candid. This credible approach … first-person storytelling … has catapulted awareness and interest for First Generation Initiative. Its value immediately shines.

The lesson to be learned - if a variation on brand journalism works so effectively for this trend-setting university program, think how powerful it can be at other centers of higher education to underscore the critical importance of education in America.

On a personal note … I found the week I spent at Saint Mary’s to be deeply, profoundly inspiring. First Generation Initiative is one star in a galaxy of remarkable programs at the Lasallian university, an important center of leadership in higher education.

Credit: Remarkablogger.com

Jobs, promotions and key advantage are increasingly going to those who make the most noise and create illusion of importance … even if it’s nothing more than self-importance hype behind it.

Heck, a former unemployed guy who had time on his hands in the early days of Twitter to build an enormous number of followers has bragged that CEOs have paid him $22,000 for a couple hours of his “wisdom” … although whatever wisdom he possesses is based on nothing but hype and B-S.

No wonder some people abroad think America has given over to insanity.

I don’t dismiss “Self-promote or perish” because it’s akin to what I counsel companies and organizations – Learn to tell your own news in an attractive news-style or be relegated to the dark competitive shadows of obscurity.

Don’t count on the media to write a story about you, let alone read some boring, self-aggrandizing press release.

The news media as we’ve known it is disappearing. If a company or organization wants its news told, it must embrace new disciplines of news-style storytelling, get smart about online news sites and learn how to target audiences with timely and real news stories that attract attention and a growing audience.

Just scan MediaBistro.com to witness the grim demise of mainstream media, and the rise of sensation and titillation.

“Freelancers: Get $2 word to ‘spin a really great yarn’ about business news for Bloomberg Businessweek.”

~ MediaBistro.com, March 27, 2012.

You thought Bloomberg Businessweek was a respectable business outfit? Ha! Welcome to 2012. It’s P. T. Barnum time all over again.

1. Define objectives. No more than three objectives to achieve focus and clarity.
2. Develop strategies. One strategy to address each respective objective.
3. Appropriate tactics will naturally be revealed and fall into place.

Strategic planning – whether for the future of an organization or for a communications program – should not be a difficult or time-consuming process. Most of the time, however, it’s bypassed or ignored as panic driven organizations rush to embrace the latest trend or craze that everyone else is doing.

A not-for-profit, for example, may list “Strengthen our financial position” as its top objective. That’s not a objective but rather a wish. A real objective might be stated, “Create programs of greater value to attract new funders.”

Top leaders and management of an organization care about solid results that show favorably on their top or bottom lines as well as marketplace reputation. Results come from strategic plans, and therein is a disconnect with the field of communications or PR.

Communications people and PR agencies are often fools to the latest tactic fad, seemingly oblivious whether it might create the meaningful results their top bosses expect. If all you have is the latest shiny digital hammer, everything looks like a nail is commonly a PR agency approach.

Stop fixating on tactics!

The current focus on hiring people to handle Twitter or a Facebook page is tactic stuff and meaningless without a strategy. Hiring a search engine optimization (SEO) charlatan is wasteful. New SEO technology is automated.

Using one of those costly press release distribution services is not only a tactic but counterproductive in today’s media environment. Any in-house communications person worth their pay should personally know the thought-leaders in the news media who cover the company or organization and learn that the telephone is still one of the best tools for communications.

Think!

It’s time for the practice of communications to become more intellectually driven. Think. Learn. Analyze. Be curious. Explore. PLAN.

That’s among the take-aways from the 2012 State of the News Media report, released today by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The news industry, the report says, “finds itself more a follower than leader shaping its business.”

The Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) report points out that even though targeted advertising is one of the forms of online advertising expected to grow most rapidly, only a few of the top news sites use it. Meanwhile, the report says, tech companies like Facebook and Google “are using personal data collected over the internet to direct ads to specific consumers to a far greater degree than ever before – and to a far greater degree than most news organizations are capable of.”

The annual survey by Pew points out that mainstream news organizations could catch up, if they try. Most have the ability but are not yet utilizing their resources at hand.

Only three – CNN, The New York Times and Yahoo! News – employed high levels of targeting based on a user’s recent online activity. While targeted display ads account for just 10% of local online ads, or $1.5 billion, right now, by 2016, they are expected to grow to $14.6 billion and make up more than half the market.

Mainstream media up for sale?

A year ago, the Pew State of the News Media reported: “The news industry, late to adapt and culturally more tied to content creation than engineering, finds itself more a follower than leader shaping its business.” In 2012, that phenomenon has grown.

All this raises the question of whether the technology giants will find it in their interest to acquire major legacy news brands — as part of the “everything” they offer consumers. Does there come a point, to ensure the much smaller media company’s survival, for instance, where Facebook considers buying a legacy media partner such as The Washington Post?

There are already signs of closer financial ties between technology giants and news. As a part of YouTube’s plans to become a producer of original television content, a direction it took strongly last year, it is funding Reuters to produce original news shows. Yahoo recently signed a content partnership with ABC News for the network to be its near sole provider of news video. AOL, after seeing less than stellar success with its attempts to produce its own original content, purchased The Huffington Post. With the launch of its Social Reader, Facebook has created partnerships with The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and others. In March 2012 Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes purchased the 98-year-old New Republic magazine.

Read the complete report … click here.