January 2009 Archive

I’m not sure if I would enjoy or be terrified of hanging out with Tom Colicchio, Top Chef‘s co-host and head judge. He treads a line during the show between being a brutally honest judge and a chummy pal, but one thing is for sure, the guy has a good head (lol) for business.

Colicchio was recently (and awkwardly) paired with uber-geek Seth Godin in an interview for American Express’ Open Forum, Inside the Entrepreneurial Mind: The Business of Food. Despite the strangeness of the pairing, Colicchio’s signature hyper-direct style shines through in the diced (lol) video segments. Some of his insights pertain to the PR world:

• Getting people to talk about your brand for you starts with PR (duh)
• If you can’t afford a publicist, remember: you’re the story
• Pick up the phone and start calling people, they want to hear from you
• You need to put yourself out there, talk to every news editor

Of course, you would still want to hire a publicist or an agency if you really want to make sure that what you say resonates with the right people. That’s what we do in the PR industry and at Ruder Finn:

1. Resonate: the first step in any PR campaign and in developing any piece of communication for that matter should be determining what to say. This is often harder than it may seem. Agencies can help you embody the "think before you speak" mantra by researching and developing messages. Bad Pitch Blog has made it painfully clear that agency pitches are too often off target, but truly excellent PR pros can ensure that you are saying the right things at the right time to….
2. The right people: Do NOT pitch your advanced baby stroller technology to the New York Times Science Times editor. An agency can help you avoid those and much more nuanced situations.

What’s important to digital business trends is that much like traditional media, you need to put yourself out there in order to be out there. People who avoid new media run the risk of losing control of their messaging or worse, not being mentioned at all.

In the end, Colicchio explains that he’s selling an experience: joy and happiness. But I don’t know, he’s still fairly terrifying.

Last week, finalists were announced for the 2009 PR Week awards. Ruder Finn makes an appearance this year in two categories. The first, I’m proud to say, is a campaign I had the honor of working on: Ruder Finn and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater: Celebrating the Spirit (up for Arts, Entertainment & Media Campaign of the Year). There’s a great sample of a placement we got on CBS Evening news here.

More relevant to Left Brain’s focus on digital business trends, Ruder Finn is also up for the Best Use of Online Media award with: Ruder Finn and TiVo: Beyond the Usual Suspects: How TiVo Leveraged a YouTube Launch with Equal Parts Frugality, Street Cred, and Mind-Numbing Speed.

The gist is that the name "TiVo" has become synonymous with "DVR," endagering brand differentiation for TiVo. They were looking to once again set themselves apart by promoting TiVo’s ability to include YouTube.

The PR campaign focused on working with YouTube celebrity Corey "Mr. Safety" Williams to integrate TiVo unobtrusively into this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKRX5Z68sZk#

The concept reminds me of TV product placement, but is much more compelling than traditional placements like those spoofed in Wayne’s World. If done correctly, online placements can be much more effective because it seems to me that Internet audiences tend to be much less impacted by standard advertising than traditional TV audiences are.

The risk associated with a placement, however, is decidedly greater online, where personal reputations are built over long periods of time, are closely guarded, and highly reliant on relevancy and authenticity.

The Ruder Finn TiVo team worked hard to ensure that the placement would be integrated into the video, and campaign was extremely successful in terms of impressions, tone of response, and impact on a limited budget. Fingers crossed!

There’s also a great case study of our work with TiVo HD and Rhapsody located here.

The mob on Facebook? Fuhggedaboudit.

Former FBI agent Jack Garcia infiltrated and brought down the Gambino crime family, one of La Cosa Nostra’s most notorious groups. My Ruder Finn colleagues and I had the fortune of meeting Mr. Garcia at a recent Hudson Union Society event (click for video), when he stepped out from behind the veil of witness protection for the first time to share his experiences (and plug his new book).

None of us are sleeping with the fishes yet, so that’s good.

Garcia spoke extensively on the inner workings of the mob. He explained that by continually morphing and adjusting to changing circumstances, they often manage to stay ahead of the Bureau, and according to a New York Times article last week, it looks like the mafia might be turning to Facebook to do so.

There are groups popping up on Facebook in support of imprisoned mafia leaders, particularly in Sicily, where authorities have begun investigating whether the fan sites are crossing the line. Some controversy has emerged over whether these groups could be used for nefarious ends, and whether they should be taken down by Facebook.

Luckily, our own authorities in the U.S. are also on the job. The FBI actually has a Cyber Crime division focused on "dismantl[ing] national and transnational organized criminal enterprises engaging in Internet fraud."

Do you think legitimate business could learn from the mob or it that totally oobatz, you cafone?!

DISCLAIMER:
The Left Brain blog is associated with Ruder Finn, a family-owned business of the legitimate kind.

It’s your last chance to get your votes in for your favorite "producer of short content" with the Shorty Awards!

Voting for your favorite twitterer/tweeter lasts until Friday, January 23. Finalists appear in 26 official categories ranging from health, business, and finance to startups, videogames, and "weird."

If anything, it’s a good way to find new people to follow. From a digital business trends perspective, it’s interesting to note how few corporations are involved. In fact, after a quick glance, the only recognizable corporations I saw were Marvel Entertainment (as in Marvel Comics) and Epicurious.com, although they’re a sponsor for the food category, not a finalist.

Where are @zappos, @southwest, or any of Dell’s Twitter properties?

Who will you vote for?

(credit to Sawhorse Media for organizing the awards)

(via brixton on flickr)

A colleague of mine at a notable advertising agency recently lamented to me that his boss is overly reluctant in using new communications tools like Twitter and even Facebook for their campaigns. In other words, his boss is an innovation hater.

You know the type.

It’s that roommate who was the last person in the world to get a cell phone. It’s your friend who still isn’t on Facebook and shudders at the thought of commenting on a blog. It’s your Lithuanian grandmother, whose greatest technological achievement is preserving rhubarb in bell jars (and we’re all grateful for that).

This all reminded me how important it is to be open to innovation and change. As Obama said today during his inauguration speech, "the world has changed, and we must change with it." He went on:

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted – for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things – some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

From a digital business perspective, these risk-takers are the ones who are staying on the cutting edge. They will ensure that business’ transition to digital will propel our economy moving forward.

Have you done anything innovative lately?

Ruder Finn client crowdSPRING won the recent WIRED Small Business Contest!! The crowd sourcing design website beat several other far less interesting (in my humble opinion) projects to win $40,000 in prizes.

Congrats are in order for the Ruder Finn Chicago offices for their efforts in supporting crowdSPRING.

And in case you missed it in Left Brain’s take on crowd sourcing last month:

crowdSPRING is the community-driven marketplace for creative services, bringing the power of crowdsourcing to creative challenges worldwide. Whether you need a new logo, website, marketing materials or other creative content, you simply post what you need, when you need it and how much you’d like to pay. Once posted, creatives from around the world will work on your project and you’ll begin to receive actual work – not bids or proposals – to review.

Here’s a link to their contest entry video.

Looks like my colleague Yan’s 2009 "un-predictions" are already starting to come true. "Hope it doesn’t happen in 2009" prediction #2 was a wish against spam on Twitter. Well, it looks like hackers have been able to access the accounts of and send spam messages from:

• Barack Obama
• Brittney Spears
• Fox News
• Rick Sanchez, CNN
• Facebook

(the offending posts have already been taken down)

From ReadWriteWeb:

Twitter Security Collapses; Obama, Fox and Britney Accounts Hacked
Days after a wave of phishing attacks fooled thousands of Twitter users, it appears that another security hole has been found by…someone. Obama’s account, unused since election day, sent out an affiliate link to a survey with a gas card prize, Fox News said that "Bill O’Reily is gay" (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and Britney Spears’ made a lewd post about her anatomy. Rick Sanchez, the Twitter loving CNN anchor, says he’s "high on crack and might not be coming into work today."

(click through for screenshots above or on Techcrunch)

Clearly, this will be a major blow to Twitter as they attempt to build a secure enterprise monetization strategy. Twitter’s reputation has already been damaged by technology hiccups, fail whales, and questionable user authenticity, certainly leading some marketing execs to wonder how Twitter could help their company (or hurt). Will Twitter manage to retain its largest users and continue to attract new ones despite these troubles?

Twitter has not yet addressed these latest attacks, although they did post on their blog about the phishing scam this weekend.

As a side story — did anyone note how Barack Obama’s Twitter account has not been updated since November 5? I think that speaks more to Twitter’s use as a tactical campaign tool versus as an ongoing communications and reputation management tool.