Clint Eastwood Makes Whose Day at Republican National Convention?

The Republican and Democratic national conventions by their nature are coronation affairs attended by staunchly aligned supporters. Let's face it, they are more pep rallies than platforms for serious political discourse. But still they are the one time that each party has the national stage to itself and has the opportunity to reach beyond their constituency to tell their story and hopefully sway independents. These events are carefully orchestrated and scripted. The individuals chosen to speak work for weeks, even...

Social Media's Impact on B2B Technology Decision Making

For a long time, we've known from CIO's and our clients that the Gartner Magic Quadrant was on the short list of technology decision making factors. This has been slowly changing, as we've seen data from the likes of Forrester that reveal that more IT decision making is based on feedback and influence from peers via social networks. Source: blogs.forrester.com via Ted on Pinterest As I cited in a blog post last year on social media strategy for B2B technology...

The Intersection of Social Data and Storytelling

Thanks to Steve Olenski for tuning me into a recent white paper released by Bazaarvoice called "Chief customer advocate: How social data elevates CMOs". The paper focuses on how the mountain of data emanating from social networks empowers the CMO to become more strategic within the "consumer-obsessed C-suite." Specifically, it highlights the value of social data as real-time insight into the voice of the customer by revealing "first person words and sentiments" about a brand. It then presents data from...

Worst PR Jobs August 2012

Marketing and communications isn't for the faint of heart. It's a tough job even in good times, with many challenges and the need to constantly be looking ahead to make sure your communications and marketing strategies are gaining traction and not being undercut by a competitor or new entrant to your market. And translating complex products and services into higher level messages and stories that resonate isn't easy. But then again, the B2B world of communications and marketing looks like...

Age Ain’t Nothin’ But a Number

You need to be 18 to buy cigarettes, 21 to drink, and 30 years or older to run social media platforms. Oh, you didn’t catch that memo? Well it’s something like that, according to Hollis Thomases's article in Inc. Magazine titled "11 Reasons a 23-Year-Old Shouldn't Run Your Social Media." A good indicator of when someone is about to use a stereotype is when they start with, “Pardon the generalization, but.” Thomases doesn’t waste time getting right to it, bulleting...

Be the Reporter, Editor and Newspaper Boy For Your Own Stories

In one classic episode of "Seinfeld", Kramer stated to his co-stars, "You meet a proctologist at a party, don't walk away. Plant yourself there because you will hear the funniest stories you've ever heard." The same can be said of journalists and former journalists and their ability to retain and regurgitate facts and figures. Like this one from Corrine Kovalsky, former broadcast journalist and now director of Digital and Social Media, Corporate Affairs and Communications, at Raytheon Company. "In 2012,...

The "Back to School" Kit Bag for Executive Spokespeople

September always brings "back to school" ads and a sense of "getting ready" for something new, no matter whether or not you are sending youngsters off to the classrooms or are heading back yourself as a teacher or a student. We've seen an interesting phenomenon recently that seems to be part of that "getting ready" push -- an increase in requests for media training to help spokespeople learn to tell their story to the media most effectively. Many companies are...

Avoid Damage Control, Stick To The Script

So, you don't think media training is necessary? Let me introduce you to Anne Torres and Andrea Saul. Oh, you may be familiar with Saul after having read about her in the news last week. She's Mitt Romney's spokesperson who tried to defend him following an advertisement that intimated the wife of an employee at a steel mill closed by Romney's company, Bain Capital, died of cancer because the family couldn't afford health care. In defending the attack during an...

New Austin Office: Still At The Center Of It All

The Austin LPP team has spent the past 5 years in the Bank of America Building at 6th and Congress, which is arguably the center of downtown Austin. We were a few blocks from the Texas Capitol, the infamous East 6th street party zone, and the new entertainment districts that have cropped over the past 8 or so years. We took full advantage of the location and our clients enjoyed it, as well. Our new Austin digs and our front-door...

What Would Mom Say?

When New York Times Food columnist Mark Bittman issued an apology for using an "inappropriate phrase to refer to the late VP of PR for Chick-fil-A," reaction was what you would expect. The Huffington Post did a short write up, which covers off on the details. The offending phrase was removed, and Bittman's original post now omits the "inappropriate phrase." While mentioning this on Twitter, Liem Nguyen noted in a tweet response, "If you can't say something nice...." Which got...