Category Archives: Blogging

The Strategy of Basketball

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I loved to play basketball when I was younger. Though I wasn’t very good at it. My size and skill earned me the nickname “handicap” but I still enjoyed to play. Some of my fondest memories growing up centered around playing pick up basketball at the Genova house—games like 2 on 2, elimination, and 21 were summer vacation standbys when the sun was out, the days were long and the cicadas were loud.

But I have come to realize I do not like the game of basketball very much anymore. At 6’4″ tall I am sure I would be a rebound threat, but now I find the game boring. My life in advertising constantly has me thinking about how strategy can help the brand of my clients. How creative that represents the products or services of brands can alter perceptions. Or at least that’s the intent. For me, basketball is flawed in it’s strategy. Now, I am not taking about the game itself. Certainly, there is plenty of strategy that is executed throughout the course of a game. The coach draws up the plays, the point guard executes, picks are set, shots are made and the defense adjusts. What I am talking about is the fundamental strategy of the game.

Scoring is expected, and a guarantee.

For instance, the other major sports of baseball, football, hockey and soccer all follow a different strategy. You are not expected to score. Yes, by nature of sport, I guess you could say I do expect them to score, but it’s certainly not a guarantee. So maybe it’s more about the guarantee than the expectation. One spring evening while living in Atlanta, I saw John Smotlz of the Atlanta Braves masterfully pitch around hitters in a scoreless tie. The Braves finally won that game 1-0 in the late innings. And when the Braves finally scored the crowd erupted in celebration that shook the foundation of Turner Field.

That’s excitement.

In football I’d much rather see a high scoring game, but I live in upstate NY and this is Buffalo Bills country, where scoring is certainly not a guarantee. But when the Bills do score, the freezing fans at Ralph Wilson Stadium Stadium rise to their feet and cheer as one. Playoff hockey or World Cup soccer fans understand this. When the athletes score, there’s a massive celebration. The fans jump, raise their hands, hug. The athletes jump, raise their hands, hug. Again, because while they are expected to score it’s certainly not a guarantee.

Basketball’s one exception is March Madness. College Basketball, with some minor exceptions in rule differences, is essentially the same as the NBA. However, the NCAA tournament is structured win or go home. There is tension in every game. Cinderella’s are born and rivalries renewed. Every possession could mean the difference of advancing to the next round or boarding a plane back home…. just ask Northern Iowa. And winning the tournament is no guarantee either… just ask top seed Kansas. After the NCAA crowns it’s National Champion, April comes and it’s back to boring ‘ol NBA basketball.

I used to play basketball when I was younger. And looking back on it now, I know why…making baskets for me was never a guarantee.

(Originally posted on my personal blog at www.josephmayernik.com)

Next Step Junkie

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I’ve been accused on occasion of being a next steps junkie. What can I say, I get wrapped up in something, and I want to know what’s next. So, it’s no surprise that I think the best webpages are those that have a next step. What do I mean?

I just finished reading the latest blog post from Wegmans Organic Farm. Courtney the intern had a fabulous trip to a local Virginia farm and had loads of great facts and pictures about their yummy produce. By the end of the post I could almost taste those tomatoes, and thankfully, she ended with a link to a recipe for tomato salad. Great next step.

Another example: a theater review article in City Newspaper gives ticket information at the close, along with a link to the theater website, so you can buy tickets.

And of course, the obvious, if you tell me about a product, also link me to where I can buy it. Cnet does an especially nice job of this even though they’re not the ones making the sale (phone example).

That said, next steps don’t always make sense. Latest example – epicurious and their new wine widget. Here’s the idea: they pair several wines with each recipe, and give you links to buy it (for shipping). Here’s where it falls down: if you’re like me, you look up a recipe the day you want to make it. By the time you order wine and it’s delivered, the meal is long gone. What would be really cool, is if they linked you to your local wine shop for the sale, instead. Nice business arrangement there, too.

My point is that no matter what message you’re trying to convey to your website visitor, you can always win points by anticipating their next move, and making it easy. It’s good usability, and good business.

Roc Rocks!

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Rochester is home to considerable communications talent. On the heels of yet another successful Addy Award ceremony, the Public Relations Society of America Rochester Chapter celebrated the 20th year of its annual PRism Awards program. The event was held on June 11 at Casa Larga Vineyards.

The PRisms acknowledge the highest standards of performance in public relations. This year’s theme—“Who Says PR Is Easy?”—speaks to the process of making our clients look good while we make it look easy.

Categories are included for web and print materials, direct mail, brochures, and press kits, among others. Both corporate and not-for-profit sectors are recognized in each category. For the very first time, the PRSA Rochester Chapter extended the awards to include social media categories. (With full disclosure on shameless self-promotion, Martino Flynn was honored for its innovative work in two of these non-traditional categories, including “blog” and “blogger relations”). This year’s Best of Show for the Corporate category went to Text 100 for their B2B campaign, “Xerox Takes the Headache Out of Office Printing.”

Individual PR professionals from the area are also recognized, like the CEO of The Year. The Rising Star award is rewarded to someone who demonstrates exceptional competence, skill, and leadership, and has no more than seven years of experience. The Sharleen M. Bruse award goes to a PRSA member with more than 10 years of experience who epitomizes the integrity and professionalism of a public relations practitioner. This recipient is also very involved in community service and routinely help advance the career development of other chapter members.

So congrats to all the 2009 PRism winners. As well, a BIG thanks to everyone in the profession for their contributions that are fostering growth in the field and taking us to new heights.

The Barbarian Group’s Adventure

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“Holy crap! I’m really glad someone is working on that!.” That’s the response The Barbarian Group (TBG) hopes to elicit from visitors to the GE adventure blog . It details behind the scenes action at client General Electric. Works like this: TBG goes on field trips to discover cool things GE is up to, and posts the experience. A simple premise that offers lessons for our industry:

1) Territory shmerritory – TBG is a digital agency. But here’s a partial list of other organizations that could have credibly proposed and delivered the idea: GE’s employee communication team, PR agencies, ad agencies, media agencies, a motivated summer intern. If you recognized that GE had cool things in the hopper and you could tell stories, it was your idea to pitch. Oh, and you’d have to know how to open a WordPress account.

2) Git ‘er done – I love that they started this without knowing precisely where it might take them (according to recent coverage). If the basic premise is sound, get started and learn on the go. To paraphrase General Patton, a good plan executed now is better than the perfect plan next week. He actually said “violently executed”, but I’d leave that out of the strategy brief.

3) Don’t wait to make an impact – By blogging this way, TBG is doing the research they would have done anyway to create a larger campaign. The campaign is still coming. They’re just making the “discovery” process public, and maybe getting more ideas from readers along the way.

One criticism. Better yet, let’s call it a question: Is the blog’s impact on the reader lessened by having an outside company telling the stories? I might rather hear from proud GE employees directly. You can tell me if I’m nitpicking.

Matt Jones

Social media duke it out

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Twitter and Facebook are seasoned veterans of the social media scene. Yet, there continues to be considerable discussion around these two behemoths of late—particularly when it comes to their mind-boggling growth rates.

Twitter is a phenomenon in its own right. With a 1,382% annual growth rate, it’s hard to disagree. There’s even talk about Google acquiring the micro-blogging site (which would warrant its own blog post if and when that happens).

Though I regret to admit I’ve been slacking on my own tweets, it seems I personally have been surrounded by all-things Twitter over the past two months. Our agency supported the Rochester Twestival—the first event of its kind that united 200+ local communities worldwide on the same day, using Twitter to raise money and awareness for a good cause. While watching NCAA basketball, commentators were glogging via Twitter to capture the action as it unfolded. Oh, and RAF requested to follow me too!

Now, what about Facebook and its robust 200% growth rate? Is it really taking over our lives? I was surprised to learn that Facebook’s fastest growing demographic is women 55 and over—up 175% since September 2008. Also, for the first time, I saw a commercial that included VitaminWater’s Facebook page—instead of the company’s website.

These are all solid examples of how both Twitter and Facebook have already transformed the way people communicate in general, as well as how businesses have adapted to reach their customers in new ways. It will be interesting to see how these two evolve, and what results from the competition between them. Will the companies continue to one-up each other? Will they remain private entities, or eventually be acquired? Ultimately, is their growth sustainable?

Facebook v. Twitter

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One of my facebook friends recently sent me this question:

What’s the advantage of Twitter over FB? Seems like you can twitter on FB and do so much more. What am I missing, Ms. Social Media Guru?

I’d been pondering the same thing over the past few months, and this is where I come out:

Facebook is for friends to share personal stuff about each other, and you choose with whom to share. The homepage view format resembles twitter, with its list of short status updates, but it’s much more. Sharing personal photos, sending friends whacky “gifts” among other things make Facebook fairly robust and highly social. While many people use Facebook for business contacts, that doesn’t feel quite right to me. Do I really want to see pictures of my work contact’s children, vacation places and potentially embarrassing moments?

Twitter, on the other hand is an easy way to keep up with the thoughts and goings on of people who you may not even know. That’s where it gets interesting. Follow people or organizations you admire, and you get regular exposure into what makes them successful. A great example is Barack Obama. By tweeting regularly, he’s making good on his promise of transparency and creating a great way to get buy in.

Businesses I think should tweet:

  • Wegmans, when they have new products
  • Restaurants, when they change their menu
  • Organizations when they host events
  • Growers when crops are progressing and promising good yields (okay, I’m really thinking about wine, here)
  • Any kind of business when it offers new services

That said, I wouldn’t start a twitter page unless you’re going to tweet at least a couple times a month.

Andrea Zuegel

Meet Gary, Social Media Ninja

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Gary Vaynerchuk owns a wine shop in New Jersey named the Wine Library, and also happens to be a social media expert. Now, I understand that you can’t swing a dead cat on the web these days without hitting a “social media expert”, but Gary’s the real deal, i.e. he uses tools like online video and twitter to actually increase sales, seemingly the point of our efforts.

His experience captures a dilemma facing the advertising industry: For very specific brands in very specific categories, digital technology will replace a big chunk of the “traditional” advertising spend. And with a bit of courage and panache, clients can do it themselves. This quote from an article in the New York Times on Gary’s approach sums it up:

“Last December, seeking to enhance sales, he offered free shipping and promoted it three ways. Direct marketing cost $15,000 and brought in 200 new customers; a billboard cost $7,500 and won 300 new customers; and tweeting the promotion on Twitter attracted 1,800 new customers.”

Sales up, costs down, and he’s humanized the store. I’m the first person to say that for 99% of brands, apps like facebook make little sense. People don’t want to be friends with detergent. But there will be exceptions and there’s more to social media than facebook. Here’s my free advice to agencies: have a point of view, educate your clients, and experiment like crazy under your own roof. Unlike Gary, most will want a partner.

Matt Jones

What the Dream Team was to basketball, this team is to blogging

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Ok, you’d have to know USA Olympic basketball to get that. Even then, it may not make sense. But this does: we recently invited 5 area pro’s to form the RIF RAF blog team.

The group was recruited to represent a range of specialties, and each member will be bringing it a couple times a month, beginning this week. Here’s the lineup:
1. Michael Chatfield, Account Planning, Partners & Napier
2. Duane Bombard, Freelance Creative Director
3. Sharon Harper, Public Relations, Martino Flynn
4. Susan Cregan, Media, Butler Till
5. Andrea Zuegel, Freelance Internet Strategy

To round things out, you’ll also see posts from RAF board members. Consider this an invite to join the conversation. And if you’d like to be included on a future roster, drop me a note.

Matt Jones

Powerpoint doesn’t kill people, we do

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Death by Powerpoint. If you’re not familiar with the disease, you know some of the contributing factors:
1) reading from slides
2) multiple ideas per slide
3) all text

I could go on (clip art). Suffer through enough of these, and you understand why some audience members leave laptops open (not really, stop that). At any rate, there are short and long term hits to bad presentations. Short term, you fail to persuade, seemingly the point of being there. Long term, you miss an opportunity to demonstrate clear thinking – a unique trait in any industry.

Since bad presenting is pervasive, doing it well may be the easiest way to separate you or your organization from the pack. To help, here are 2 sources of inspiration on the “how” of effective presentations.

1) slide:ology – from Duarte Design, the group that helped Al Gore with his “An Inconvenient Truth” show.
2) Presentation Zen – from Garr Reynolds, an American marketing professor teaching in Japan. Big on eliminating clutter and taking into account how people actually process info. Download the presentation tips – its all there.

Crickets

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helloooooooo…is anybody out there? just wondering cuz it gets pretty lonely in here. if you’re listening, i got a proposition for ya. done any good work lately? something you’ve been itching to show off? well, let’s have it. honestly, i’d (heck, we’d) love to see it. and post it here for the other two people who read this blog (not counting my mom, natch). let’s start our own little exhibit of cool work being done in this town. because we both know it IS happening, right? send a nice jpg of your latest and greatest to kate@katesonnick.com and i’ll post it here. be sure to include credits and a brief description of what it was for. students, this includes you, too! show us what you’ve got.