Posts Tagged ‘pay-for-performance’

Dick Grove

Couldn’t Have Said It Better

02.01.11

http://badpitch.blogspot.com/2011/01/in-2011-pr-world-puffs-up-its-chest.html

This is an excellent post and deserves to be shared.  It is kind of sad however that it seems to always take a major shift in technology or in media culture to remind the PR profession of something so basic as ‘making their pitches relevant and newsworthy.’ Those of us in the pay-for-performance PR fraternity however also believe that much of the blame for the bad pitch lies with the traditional agency’s hourly fees wherein superfluous puffery and bloated verbiage is rewarded by higher billings.

That’s my opinion…what’s yours?

Categories: Behind INK, Behind the scenes, Grove Report, pr marketing

No Comments »

Cindy West

Is YOUR Brand Present in Social Media?

01.31.11

To build an effective presence in social media a brand has to maintain authenticity and transparency.   The question is, how do you use your brand’s mascot to compliment your existing efforts?

While looking at successful campaigns we asked these two questions. (1) What role does their mascot play in their social media strategy? (2) why does it work?

The Most Interesting Man In The World

His role is to actually be the most interesting man in the world and people actually want to hear what he has to say.  It works because Dos Equis has created something outside of the comfort zone of the average beer advertisement.  They dodged the commercial battles on television and created an identity for fans to interact with.

Flo The Progressive Girl

Her Role is to function as a complimentary identity to progressive on the social media platforms.  They allow fans to be comfortable with Flo as a personality and they integrate her presence on the Progressive page as well.  It Works because fans of Flo are comfortable with separating out her posted content and they don’t feel like they are being sold a product.

Categories: Behind INK, Behind the scenes, Social Media Marketing

No Comments »

Dick Grove

Pay for Performance PR
No conundrum, just misinformation…

08.31.10

Where to begin when there is so much with which to disagree. I am referring to the recent article on MediaPost by Vanessa Horwell .

I could start with the overall condescending attitude of the piece…”even the humble car salesman operates this way.” Or, “you have to assume that a company fixated on a PFP arrangement is not thinking about strategy as a priority.” Or better yet, “That model may have worked when we used to send press releases via fax…”

I could attack it on the attempt to give credence to weak arguments based on redundancy alone; or I could point out emphatic statements without any supporting evidence…”PFP is unethical.” Ms. Horwell’s personal opinion that ‘it lessens the overarching value of PR as a whole, and makes bad business sense…” does not make it unethical.  Paying for a tangible, measurable result instead of just ‘effort’ might be considered highly valuable, much more ethical, and extremely good business sense to most clients in today’s recessionary times.

Perhaps the best approach however is pointing out Ms. Horwell’s weak logic and naïveté on her way to determining her one answer, “No to pay for placement…” For example, her contention that, “We don’t own media and can’t guarantee you a placement in any publication because what we do is earned. We don’t live in reporters’ pockets — we “earn” the right for your company or brand to appear in a given outlet. That’s why you pay for advertising.” Ok, so? Doesn’t a client also pay for PR? And shouldn’t they expect some minimum measurable deliverable like an editorial placement in return?  Our firm, INK inc., doesn’t guarantee placements of any given size or length in any given medium, only that a client won’t be charged unless such a placement occurs.  Thus being paid for something of tangible value.  And if a PR person ‘earns’ the right for their client to appear in a given outlet but it never actually appears (which is often the case,) where is the logic in having the client pay the PR bill regardless?  Clients have a right to demand more for their PR budgets than the raw effort, relationship building, or endless strategic meetings at hundreds of dollars per hour all under the guise of “we earned it.’ Ok…then prove it.

Advertising agencies as well as law firms are exemplified as institutions where PFP might be acceptable to Ms. Horwell.  But her argument is that PR is ‘not finite’ in contrast to “…creating an ad campaign or defending a legal matter.  In both these examples, there are tangible deliverables, an assumption of costs and an element of control.” Is this comparison really valid? You might be able to buy an advertising placement, but if the ad agency is paying for the effectiveness of the ad, there’s no way to force or control people’s buying behavior. And law firms cannot control a jury or a judge’s ruling technically either. They can just do a damn good job pushing it in the right direction … sounds almost as “in-finite” as PR.

Where Ms. Horwell and I do agree is that the changing media universe today that includes blogs, social media, and other vehicles that completely alter how a company or institution interacts with its audiences and constituencies, is affecting both the value proposition of PR overall and traditional compensation structures…both retainer-based and pay-for-performance. As a PFP Agency, we learned to put values on and differentiate between the New Yorker print article and its online cousin years ago.  We know how the value in dollars between an appearance on CNBC and a short industry trade mention, and for over twenty years we’ve understood how to charge for syndicated and wire story pick-ups.  We’ve also understood that there are time-intensive PR services that don’t blend themselves to a pure pay-for-performance model but have developed performance-based compensation fees nonetheless.  Yes, today’s changing media landscape is a challenge to delivering measurable metrics under performance-based compensation, but it should not be an excuse to continue or even expand the frankly condescending traditional PR of “pay us for our hours, our knowledge, and our effort even though we may not be able to deliver something tangible and measurable in return.”

Categories: Grove Report

2 Comments »

Dick Grove

Social Media Has Made Us One Big Community Again

06.13.10

But many of the doors are now locked…

Locked Door

I come from the Midwest and grew up in a place and a time that symbolizes both in fiction and reality a simpler way of life and a more trusting way of life.  It’s actually true, you know, we knew most of our neighbors…the good ones and the bad ones…by their first names.  Communication technology was so advanced when I was a kid in that small town that most families even had a telephone…only one of course, and centrally located in a foyer or main hallway.  We even knew the local operator by their first name and she (yes, sexism was rampant at the local telephone exchange) would listen in, as all of us would periodically, on a party line to catch the latest gossip.  “Party line”…that’s similar to an online forum for you folks of less advanced years.  And it’s also true that locks more often than not went untested and unused.  It wasn’t a matter of naïveté’ but rather of trust amongst us that our neighbors within the community wouldn’t breach our privacy.  And if the need to do so arose, there must be a pretty damn good reason…not for their personal nefarious gain but usually for our own safety or protection.  We actually looked out for each other in those small communities.

But that was a long time ago in a place now far away.  Communities are no longer defined by geographic and cultural borders nestled against a river or mountain or seashore, and held together by a common goal of common interests, good will and advancement.  Communities in today’s Social Media age are virtual without physical borders.  And while still bound together with common interests and advancement, good will isn’t a key element any longer except as a courtesy to not impede the advancement of the common interest or knowledge.  Facebook, Linked in, Twitter, et.al. are the new “hometowns” of everyone, everywhere…hundreds of millions of human beings connected with other hundreds of millions of human beings sharing everything from the mundane of pet food recipes and relationship gossip to the importance of intricate technological formulas and global business strategies…and literally everything in between.  Staggering! .

And “privacy”…well ironically that’s gotten a little more complicated.  On one hand on the personal side we can’t wait to reach out and expand our network of relationships with others of similar interests, goals, and commonalities.  But to do so, we must by definition relinquish that same information to the Internet abyss as the bait to attract others to join our community network.  But isn’t that the point of using social media to expand and grow your community…to open ourselves up?

It’s on the business side however where the irony of social media privacy is even more prevalent.  Networking as a business tool is as old as social mankind itself.  Learning of someone or something new from another is the very essence of building or maintaining a successful business. I believe it’s called progress.  And obviously one of the real business advantages of the Internet and social media in particular is its networking capability.  Why then if networking is so important to success, do so many businesses and business executives decide to go “stealth” i.e., make themselves difficult or impossible to contact by others that might greatly expand their business acumen?  It’s like locking your door with a triple lock within the business community you’ve chosen to live.  My favorite is the private email or non-existent email address…but with an added layer of an old-fashioned receptionist gatekeeper to keep it even more secret.   Or on Linked in for example, one is forced to play a game of “Six Degrees of Separation” just to hopefully make contact…not to invade someone’s privacy but to simply network for positive results.

Modern technology…the Internet…social media…If you’re going to enjoy the benefits, get used to a few inconveniences.  Even in a small town in a time long ago, we knew that hiding was a dumb way to grow a community or a business.

Categories: Grove Report

No Comments »

Cindy West

When One of Your Own is the Recipient of Giving

05.07.10

Here at INK we pride ourselves in taking on a good cause or two each year. We do that because we are publicists who know how to tell a client’s story to the media. And because of our media expertise, we have managed to raise a half-million dollars for a non-profit  for wounded veterans, Freedom Is Not Free,  and provide media coverage for a fair trade company called the Leakey Collection, a business created by Katy & Philip Leakey for rural Kenyans to provide food, education and medical care for their children.

Since we are usually on the giving side it was incredible when one of our own was recently part of an amazing experience for his child through  the “Make A Wish Foundation“.  So we would like to share his experience to hopefully inspire others to believe as we do that sometimes an action or experience can be a valuable gift.

Hi, I’m Matt Lowe.  For the last two years I’ve worked at INK’s Kansas City headquarters.  It’s rare to have an experience that you can describe as “once in a lifetime,” but thanks to the “Make A Wish Foundation” our family was given just that…an experience that we will cherish forever. I know, it sounds cliché, but that’s because you’ve never been on a make a wish vacation. So let me say this: it’s the most awesome gift you will ever give your child, when everything- and I mean everything (meals, condo, airfare, tickets to theme parks a rental car….) is provided for you by anonymous donors. And on top of that everyone you meet treats you like a King (or queen, or Princess, depending on your role in the family.)

Our family is blessed with an incredibly brave and unbelievably hilarious 7 year old girl named Josephine.  At age 3, Josephine was diagnosed with an illness called OMS an autoimmune neurological disorder. Its name describes its symptoms: opsoclonus is jiggling eye movements and myoclonus means involuntary muscle twitching. It is also known as Kinsbourne syndrome or “dancing-eyes-dancing-feet.” It’s a rare disease and not much is really known about it, so our family is kind of like a “test.” Needless to say this kind of uncertainty can be stressful.

So rewind to almost a year and a half ago when a co-worker of mine here at INK (the amazing Kristen) had returned from volunteering at a place called “Give Kids the World”, an entire village in Orlando dedicated to giving sick kids the time of their life. Kristan described her experience (the 24 hr Ice cream parlor, the daily visits from Santa…) all I kept thinking was “this sounds like something Josephine would LOVE.”

The months went by but the idea of “Give Kids the World” kept nagging at me, so I decided to just call. As it turns out, GKTW is run by the “Make A Wish Foundation”.  All it took was that initial call and the decision process was set in motion.  About one month later I received one of the best phone calls of my life. “Hi Matt, we at Make A Wish Foundation just wanted to let you know that Josephine will get her wish.”  I almost lost it. I was so excited, I had to call Rebecca right away as well as my  parents, brothers, best friends, co-workers. I did what came naturally, I shared the great news.

We were able to visit Disney World, Epcot, Universal Studios and Sea World- during an all expenses paid week long vacation. From the first moment your car arrives to take you to the airport (in our case a stretch Escalade limo with disco balls and laser show going), to the free admission to the parks, to spending time at the Give Kids the World Complex, not to mention the FREE ice cream parlor, the two pools and the  life size candy land park, it truly was a dream come true for our little girl.  Every morning  Santa dropped off a new supply of toys for Josephine. Our little princess got to meet and have a Royal breakfast with every princess at Disney World. We never had to had to wait in line, our meals were provided for us… but most importantly, it was the first time that we as parents, did not have to worry about anything.

For the first time in a very long time- Rebecca and I were able to relax because we were taken care of just as much as Josephine (and that made all the difference.) From the limo service to the airport, the airline tickets, the amazing accommodations- it was so nice to have the responsibility lifted from our shoulders allowing us to  sit back and enjoy this memorable moment with Josephine, without the concerns that normally fill our days. Truly a dream come true.

Categories: Behind INK

No Comments »

« Older Entries