Friday, March 26, 2010

My top Ten PR quotes


This week, I transversed the world of PR and collected a few quotes that should make us appreciate our beloved jobs. Welcome to my top ten PR quotes for the week.

"Don't believe your own publicity. You can't; you'll start thinking that you're better than you are."
Leif Garrett
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"There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary."
Brendan Behan
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"A reputation once broken may possibly be repaired, but the world will always keep their eyes on the spot where the crack was."
Joseph Hall
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"The caterpillar does all the work but the butterfly gets all the publicity."
George Carlin
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"I'm all in favour of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with computers in the newsrooms."
Anonymous
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"It isn't what they say about you, it's what they whisper."
Errol Flynn
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"The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all."
Mark Twain
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"Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know."
Jim Rohn, American businessman
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"Publicity is the life of this culture - in so far as without publicity capitalism could not survive - and at the same time publicity is its dream."
John Berger, Ways of Seeing, 1980.
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"Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain."
Lily Tomlin
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Which one would you choose for the number one slot?

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Why former journalists thrive in PR


A few years ago, before I transitioned into the corporate communications world that would be my career for the rest of my life, I was a newspaper reporter. I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything other than writing hard news and in-depth analyses for a newspaper. The transition to corporate communications wasn’t easy. It took a while to understand that I was no longer a watchdog, but rather I was working to further my employer’s business goals. True, I continued to use many of the skills I’d acquired as a journalist; I still use those skills today.. But while the skills apply it is not all about journalism.
Nevertheless, the other day i happened to meet one of the top CEO's in the country and he stated strongly that he would never hire a former journalist to do employee communications because reporters know only how to report; they are reactive.
In my day to day work I always meet former news reporters in the PR industry,whose responsibilities go beyond media relations and other externally-focused communications. But one story that we always share is that,those doing media relations need to do more than put themselves in a reporter’s shoes; they need to have worn those shoes…I’m not saying that only former journalists can be great at media relations. What I am saying is that the likelihood of a former journalist making some of the basic media relations mistakes is slim.
It would be easy to make analogies here suggesting that anybody who deals with a particular audience needs to have once worked in that audience’s field (e.g., to be an effective crime reporter, you need to have pursued law). But that response skirts the issue, which is that public relations practitioners need to be trained to understand their audiences. The problem with agencies sending lame press releases to reporters whose beats are far afield of the releases’ subject matter aren’t making this mistake because they’ve never been reporters. They’re making the mistake because they haven’t been taught what will offend a reporter or piss him off. Pollard suggests “PR neophytes without journalism experience can learn media relations via baptism by fire.” No such baptism is required if their schooling includes an understanding of what reporters want and don’t want.
Looking for journalism backgrounds, though, could actually hinder public relations efforts that are getting far more conversational and much less one-way, top-down (for instance, the ability to participate in a blogospheric conversation). And strategic public relations isn’t necessarily about media relations, which, while it will never go away as an element of PR, is certainly diminishing in overall importance.
One of the benefits of hiring a journalist is that you’ll get a communicator who can write. I’m routinely shocked to hear about another PR graduate who went through an entire four-year degree program without having to take a single writing class. But any entry-level PR job candidate should be subjected to a writing test, and there are plenty of communicators without journalism backgrounds who can write the socks off of many journalists.
Obviously, I have nothing against the many former journalists in the PR industry, since I used to be one myself. But I do resist the notion that it should be a prerequisite to a PR job

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Defining the big idea in your brand


Brands are about you not me.

Brands are about people not products.

Brands are about customers not companies.

A great brand is one you want to live your life by, one you trust and hang on to whilst everything around you is changing, one that articulates the type of person you are or want to be, one that enables you to do what you couldn't otherwise achieve.

Brands were originally developed as labels of ownership. However today it is what they do for people that matters much more, how they reflect and engage them, how they define their aspiration and enable them to do more. Powerful brands can drive success in competitive and financial markets, and indeed become the organisation’s most valuable assets.

Yet there are few great brands around.

Most brands are still labels, relying too strongly on brand names and logos, and focused too heavily on the companies and products that they help identify. They are articulated through superficial strap lines, and delivered through generic service. They make promises that the organisation struggles to deliver, often failing to even attract attention, and rarely gaining the trust of skeptical customers.

Powerful brands have the ability to cut-through the noise and competitiveness of markets, and to engage and retain the best customers in a way that delivers superior financial results in both the short and long-term.

A powerful brand is one that:

· Defines a compelling purpose, a big idea that stands out from the crowd; that goes beyond the product or industry, and really matters to people.

· Reflects the customer, builds an image and reputation in the mind of the customer that has personal relevance, even if it alienates others.

· Engages customers in achieving the big idea, delivered in a style through which people say "this is my kind of company".

· Enables customers to do more, reinforcing the benefits, and supporting their application, but also enabling physically or emotionally to do even more.

· Anchors customers around something familiar and important, whilst all else in the market, or in their personal world, continues to change.

· Evolves as markets and customers evolve, with the portability to move easily into new markets, and glue to connect diverse activities.

· Attracts the target customers, building preference, driving purchase behaviour and sustaining a price premium.

· Retains the best customers, building their loyalty, introducing new services, and encouraging advocacy.

· Drives shareholder value, not only through profits, but also by improving investor confidence, credit ratings and reducing cost of capital.

A powerful brand does all of this. However a brand that attracts great attention because of its impressive ads, and that is perceived to be cool and desirable, and drives huge demand, is still not "powerful" unless it can also convert this demand into sustained profitability.

Monday, March 1, 2010

What is in a name?

On a recent road trip, I decided to check out different signboards and shop identities along the highway. One thing was evident, every single business entity had a unique name with different brand attributes, ranging from a small tea kiosk in Mai Mahiu rather optimistically called “Panari Hotel” to a matatu was christened “Airforce One”.

It wasn’t clear if the kiosk's quality of service could rival that of the real Panari or even if the matatu had the security details of the real Airforce One, but what I concluded from this and other many instances is that a brand has to have unique attributes – even if borrowed from other sources – to stand above its competitors in its local operating environment.

A brand is a baby that is born, bred and nurtured to become a household name representing several attributes.

Even before a 'brand' is launched in the market, the father, the mother, and the entire family of the brand, spend considerable time thinking and planning for its conception, launch, growth, nourishment, management, and marketing.

I believe a brand is not just an intangible entity but a concept, indeed a phenomenon!

So, let me describe a brand as a planned phenomenon, spread over various phases, which enables a consumer to form tangible or intangible associations with a company or its product to effectively differentiate them from similar commodities.

Ideally, a brand should have the most representative name and the right kind of associations. This is to ensure the right positioning, or sometimes, owed to the right positioning! Even so, ironically, some of the most successful brands are born with the most misleading and deceptive names.

Some make it difficult for us to form an association or connection with the brand, like Apple, which deals in technology not fruits. Kiwi, which is a shoe polish brand not a collective of birds, and Bata, which is a shoe outlet not the Swahili name for a duck.

Locally we have Zap, YU, Geisha, Enkarasha and Bumba. I will not debating the success or failure of these names, since a number of factors go into making a brand a successful!

After the brand is born and named, it is pushed to the public. This is where Advertising, BTL (Below the Line) promotions, and Public Relations become crucial for promotion and top-of-the mind recall of a brand.

However, I am just trying to question the relevancy, the association and the connection of such names - and figure out if it's a safe marketing tactic!

There is no dearth of such misleading and mis-associated names. 'Zap' to me sounds like a fast moving machine; probably the idea was to position the m-commerce service as fast solution to your cash problems.

Similarly, 'Bumba is the title for some local music; could they have wanted to relate the brand with the youthful? On the contrary, one of the most apt names locally is 'Safaricom, how significant? Safari-stands for travel while Com is for communication...and it is evident the brand has been a success.

How do you explain the phenomenon of successful brands that originate from people's names, Guinness, Toyota which was adopted from Toyoda, Colgate, Ford, Chrysler, Mercedes Benz, Ogilvy and Mather. Locally, Ngenye Kariuki Stock brokers, Ronalo Foods and Gina Din Communications.

All the same in my opinion, a brand name usually rests upon one of these premises,

1) A quality or an attribute, often intended to be associated, with the brand, e.g. Rhino Match sticks -Strength

2) A benefit derived, or promised to be derived, from the brand, e.g. Energizer

3) Association with the parent-brand, e.g. Sarova Stanley's or Sarova White Sands

4) Association with the product-line of the brand, eg. Auto Assured

5) Association with the industry-segment of product, e.g. Ebrahims Electronics.

6) Association with the founder, et al, e.g. Ronalo foods

With thousands and thousands of brands in the closet we live in, I am sure there must be many more interesting names, worthy of a mention! So, do share some with me if you have an interesting take on any.

Become the brand you fancy

For the better part of late last year and again this year, I have been talking to my friends about their 2010 plans. To my amazement, about seventy percent of my young corporate friends keep talking about their personal branding plan for this year.

This made me think about how you build a personal brand. I stand to be corrected but a few years ago when former East African Cables CEO Mugo Kibati announced that he was leaving, we observed ripple effects on the company’s value at the stock market. A personal brand that was driving the corporate brand had moved on.

Just the other day Tiger Woods was one of the few unique sportsmen that every brand wanted to associate itself with. But now, with the scandal around his morality on everybody’s lips, the ‘Tiger brand’ has been torn into pieces. Only time will tell if the brand will ever resurrect.

These examples show the importance of being conversant with the dynamics of sustaining a brand. There are some critical steps that one should go through to emerge as a brand. These steps are not that complicated; just that we make it harder for ourselves to become brands.

But how do you become a brand?

There is need to focus and be clear on your specialty. You cannot be all things to all people. You must be clear about the one thing you can do to serve and help people. You can’t be known as a master of ten different things. When you think about psychiatry in the Kenyan market for instance who comes to mind? To the masses Dr Frank Njenga does. He has successful singled out his specialisation.

A lot of people can’t really tell you the one thing they do well, because they don’t want to miss an opportunity by being too narrowly defined. I do not disagree with lawyer Paul Muite’s quest to ensure equitable distribution of resources though out the country, but in reality what does the former MP specialise in? He is neither a constitutional lawyer nor property lawyer.

One should polish his/her ability to clearly articulate what they are talking about. If you cannot clearly articulate what your specialty or skill is, your personal brand will be muddled and confusing.

You have to make it clear

Recently I had a chance to have a chat with Mr Peter Nduati, the Resolution Health CEO. One thing that strikes you, the moment you start talking with this self assured CEO, is the passion he has for medical insurance. He is slightly short of a Doctor despite his marketing background. He reminds me of another factor in self branding – have the right words when explaining or talking about yourself. You have to make it easy to understand. And if you have to explain in detail what you do, you’ve already lost.

The two concepts above are not rocket science.

So what’s the hard part? Being disciplined enough to execute on these points over time. If you can do that, you will be on the right path…and your personal brand will be one that resonates and helps you go-to-market with strength and clarity.

Smart brands should identify and capitalize on unmet expectations. People who understand where the strongest expectations exist will be the brands that survive, and prosper, this year. If you believe you are a good strategist, get down to strategies. If you can implement them, specialise in implementing.

For me, my resolution is to adopt and devour the latest technologies and innovations, and hunger for more.

So ask yourself, “Am I really keen on becoming a brand?” Be honest and good luck in year 2010.

Brand building: who should take the lead, PR or Advertising?

I will try to be as sane as possible here, because the last time I got myself into these arguments I ended up losing it. Just the other day Public Relations (PR) practitioners (who incidentally consist of former journalists) had a conversation with journalists about how far PR can go when it comes to brand building.

The media is constantly pressured to compromise its impartiality. For one, there is a relentless need to produce news, sometimes 24 hours a day 7 days a week. In addition, these media houses are owned by mega sized corporate entities that, more than ever, are in the business primarily to generate profit. The press survives by selling airtime and print space to advertisers. These two factors together, in addition to any bias internal to the culture of the media entity itself, leave the media vulnerable to press releases and other prepackaged content put together by private agencies hoping to get the word out about their clients. This is especially so if those clients are willing to underwrite advertising time and space.

People are not stupid. When a television segment on financial matters is sponsored by say Bank X, which is featured in the same program, it makes the media producer for the program lose credibility.

If the media is compromised in terms of its trustworthiness, then the argument of saying that PR builds the brand falls apart. No credibility = no brand. Personally, I would argue that, the role of PR was never really to build a brand in the first place. Rather, it was to do more harm to it. PR is inherently a tool for building a great reputation, “A strong corporate reputation is increasingly a PR responsibility.” The corporate image should be generated through an advertising campaign or a corporate document or the look of an organisation's premises, while the reputation should be built through developing relationships as well as the organisation’s performance. After all PR is more about what others say about you.

What makes a brand?

Just to clarify, reputation – which can loosely be defined as trustworthiness – is not brand. Brand is image, while reputation is reality. What this means is that everybody knows when a brand is fake, or has elements of fakery, while reputation is closer to truth. Therefore, a brand is best conveyed by consistent sales/marketing/advertising "core message," while reputation is best conveyed by transparency.

I concur with the majority that Safaricom is a super brand, but are you sure the reputation is super? Now transparency, which is the real job of a PR professional (though majority of them are not be able to express it in practice); means to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the organisation – and in so doing to portray the organisation as trustworthy. Therefore PR is actually the antithesis of branding, which is to tell a very partial, even propagandistic, truth. Really, branding is pure selling, aimed at owning a single idea in the audience's mind. No matter what is written about them in the newspapers, brands like Safaricom, Zain, Tusker, Kenya Airways and Coca-Cola have little to do with the real world inside their organisations, and much to do with the image they represent to the public.

There is a recent example of a brand, a local private hospital, where although diligently sold to the public, reputation is yet to 'get buyers'. As much as the brand has been in the media as one of the most modern hospitals in town, they are yet to reap from it: simply because the public is still waiting for the reputation to grow. There is one exception. And that is where PR and transparency comes in. As mentioned above, PR uses transparency to build the reputation of a brand; to insulate its image against damaging attacks.

So when, say, Zain embarks on PR-driven corporate citizenship campaigns like "the strongest network in Kenya," the effect is not to build the brand but rather to enhance the company's reputation. Let's face it: Zain doesn’t enroll new subscribers because it is the strongest network in Kenya. The Zain brand is primarily built by all the activities it undertakes to promote this image. Some examples would be its television commercials; one showing a fisherman on the shores of Lake Victoria making a call, another portraying a youthful person pointing at all the towns on the Kenyan map.

Why reputation is crucial

To reiterate: The only reason for reputation-building activities, or PR, is to protect the brand against being damaged by scandals. Local cases of security firm G4S and Nakumatt supermarkets, demonstrated lack of skillfulness in this regard. The companies came out as organisations that don’t take care of the welfare of its employees. As much as the damage of reputation of the two companies has continued, they still remain brands to reckon with.

Thus far, we have established that PR does not build the brand, but rather defends the brand's reputation. But one can go even further than this. To go back to the initial discussion of the media's tarnished objectivity: PR has a new hurdle to face in defending a company's reputation, and that is to actually deliver transparency. It is no longer sufficient for PR to develop and disseminate "white propaganda" (the truth, delivered by a credible source, but emphasising only the positive). Rather, to counter the perceived bias of the media, PR has to deliver objective information about an organisation to the media; even when that information sounds negative. Otherwise, very soon, jaded viewers will discover that that the media has been corrupted by PR messages, and will simply tune out.

And another step further: advertising should not be perceived as a blockage to building a brand. This is because branding is an image-building activity, and advertising is explicitly an image-building technique. The audience expects advertising to try and "sell" to them. Finally from a consumer’s point of view, I think we enjoy the brand-building activities that advertisers create. We like a good advertisement or television commercial, and we enjoy finding out about a product or service that is new and interesting. What we don't like is to be tricked, fooled, or enticed to buy something from a company that is unethical or that doesn't deliver on its promises.

Social Media: Why your company needs in

Social media isn't a fad but a fundamental shift in the way people communicate, connect and collaborate

One thing that marketers should do this year is to wean themselves off press releases that are polished by their PR companies, and spun within hours after the CEO's approval, and embrace social media.

Yes, facebook, blogs and twitter are now growing quickly within the Kenyan media space. But what will prove to be a hurdle is selling the social media idea to the management.

It is the trend this year but will corporates buy the idea?

Social media is currently a hard sell, more so because the 35-year plus managers believe that they should be in control of the message, and also take control over who disseminates information from the organisation. Which again is why organisations have PR companies on board – to ensure the message/ organisation is seen as they want. And of course if the intended message does not resonate with the official position, you have someone to blame; to take the fall for you, after all you are paying them!

Notwithstanding a few brave corporates like Capital FM, Nation Media Group and Ghetto Radio, have jumped into the waters, and many by standers are watching. The question in most people’s minds are will they reap from the ‘free but no man's space’ in social media forums like tweeter, facebook, and their bloggers, or will they take a big hit?

How then, do you sell to “the powers-that-be”? My advice is to start with the positives. I expect your conversation to start with one of these lines;

· Don't you think we should communicate directly with our consumers and stakeholders?

· Are we sure people actually listen to us and interact with us?

· Is it possible for us to build a community of fans or advocates for our organisation?

· Can we start with one of our brands or departments and see how it goes?

Well, social media can help you achieve those things, better and faster than ever before, but only if it’s wholly accepted and encouraged by the management, and the 'open brand' attitude is imbued across the organisation. Most importantly, because you are operating in real time, a dedicated resource person, who must have direct access to the CEO and all other important decision makers, is critical to the success of your interactions.

Is selling social media to the CEO your job?

If you're the person responsible for trying to get the CEO on board, you need to be 'the full bottle' on the vagaries, nuances, ethics and etiquette of the social web. You need to immerse in the space and get an intuitive feel for what works and what doesn't, as well as fully understand the potential pitfalls and opportunities that exist by 'opening up the brand' on the web. Put simply, you are kidding yourself if you think you can properly understand facebook without fully experiencing it first-hand. And that means jumping in personally and getting your feet wet, preferably before trying to sell it to the boss!

Reading about blogging is all well and good, but by starting and maintaining a blog, you will learn very quickly what it's all about. Starting a blog is easy but maintaining one is not that simple. I have tried before and three years down the lane I still struggle to update my blog. Reading about Twitter is all well and good, but only by setting up a personal account and participating in the Twitter-verse will you get a solid grounding in the subtleties of the micro-blogging platform. You get the drift...

If taking the positive tack doesn't work with the boss, perhaps try using fear. Threaten your management by telling them that;

  • The new reality is that people are more empowered than ever before (they have a voice and they're prepared to use it). A simple group on facebook can bring down the whole company.
  • Shouting at people (one-way broadcast of messages) doesn't work effectively any more. After all it is quite expensive due to the limited media vehicles, and again you don't get to interact with your customers.
  • Throwing your message out there and expecting people to listen is fast becoming a waste of time, money and resources. How many times do you flip the Monday business pictorial because you know that those are PR messages and photos?

It's obvious that social media isn't a fad but a fundamental shift in the way people communicate, connect and collaborate. To do nothing will mean your company will be left behind. Right now we have the grace period to get into social media, experiment and make mistakes...after that period, the public will expect you to be social media ready and engaging with them online. And they will be less accepting of those companies that get it wrong.

Lastly if all the above do not work, find out if any of your competitors are using social media and then show the boss examples of their activity.

Bankers, mobile telephony, data service providers and insurance companies are you hearing me?

Beware of brand destroyers

I'm keeping this short as it's based on the frustration of sitting in traffic while moving around the city. Nearly every time I get behind the wheels of any car, I get frustrated by people whom I will call ‘brand destroyers’. This frustration got me thinking about the companies, their drivers and their beautifully branded vehicles. Have you worked it out yet?

Every day on the streets of Nairobi we see companies advertising their brand on their company vehicles. These vehicles and their drivers in theory represent those brands. Everything from your large multinational FMCG’s, phone companies, to the more independent companies including ‘one man shows’.

Yet every day the drivers and vehicles that represent the companies brand terrorise other motorists on the streets. Whether it is driving bumper to bumper at 100KM per hour on Mombasa road, or how about driving like a maniac on an estate street, or even falling out of a pub or bar and climbing into the company van (who's to know if they have had a drink or not). Either way these acts by the driver and vehicle are being performed with your brand. The visual message is associated with your brand, represented by the person handling your brand asset.

I sometimes want to phone my telephone company to close my account on the strength of a driver who is using the company van to force me out of the way in the roundabout. I've wanted to phone a couriers services company and tell them that unless they deal with the driver of their van registration mark XXX then I will pull out of their contract (even when I don't have one with them). But my point here is, if I feel this way about companies that I have business with and even companies that I don't, what damage is being done to your brand it is being advertised irresponsibly and out of your control?

We have seen a rise in company lorries and even PSV vehicles with "How's My Driving? Call this number 070-000000" Do you ever call it? I once did it, and I hope that the driver paid the price for his irresponsible use of that company’s brand.

So when you provide a vehicle that promotes, advertises and sells your brand, your company, your livelihood, make sure that the person you are giving that responsibility to understands what it means to the company in current sales and future sales. Your brand makes you money so be sure who to trust it with.