The Bad Pitch Blog: In 2011 The PR World Puffs Up Its Chest

The Bad Pitch Blog: In 2011 The PR World Puffs Up Its Chest

Green Thoughts

Clients beware...tis the season for rip-offs

It’s that time of year again when every company, organization, and individual suddenly becoming incredibly environmentally conscious. When we all clamor to outdo each other to openly express the shrinking size of our carbon footprint…as well as the use of little understood scientific cliché's like “carbon footprint” and “global warming.”  When ironically more trees are sacrificed to the press release gods than any time except for financial earnings announcements…or mea culpa’s for stupid decisions or the cover up of same.

It’s also the time when the media…national and local…develop their own environmental consciousness through increased editorial coverage of this annual rite. Unfortunately it’s also the time when various rip-off artists disguised as PR professionals decide to prey upon these same companies with “special limited time offers” and promises of inclusion in their “Earth Day Campaigns” for a sizable fee, of course.  Campaigns they state, that will reach the likes of “Good Morning America, Today Show, New York Times, Elle.com…as well as Ellen DeGeneres, and Martha Stewart and Extra TV.”  What of course isn’t stated (other than “your company or product line will be included on one release with other eco-friendly, but non-competing products”) is any guarantee that any of these outlets will even bother to pick out or care about this press release amongst the thousands they are about to receive in the name of being “eco-friendly.”  Better to use the funds…usually anywhere from $500 to $5,000…to make a contribution to any number of legitimate environmental organizations, then write it off on your taxes and feel privately good about the act.

But if you’ve got a genuine story about impacting the environment in a positive manner, have a legitimate PR firm take it to specific media outlets that will determine if it’s newsworthy…and hopefully use it. The media is inundated this time of year with “green pitches”…most of which come from over-hyped print and electronic press releases extolling their green side. An individual would have a greater chance of winning the lottery than a company would of gaining valued media recognition through a “shared campaign” con.





There is no short-cut, nor cut rate way to media coverage, but you just might actually save a tree this Earth Day…and get some coverage with the right decision.

The Virtues and Perils of Virtuality

Some thoughts from the virtual world...

Ok, I recognize that “virtuality” does not exist in Webster’s dictionary, but it does have a nice way of rolling off the tongue, and seems so descriptive of the modern work environment. We’ve been practicing it at my PR firm (INK inc.) for the last thirteen years without really aptly describing it. We’ve described ourselves as a “virtual agency, but with a brick and mortar headquarters.” Or more aptly as saying, “most of our people work from home offices around the world.” Cool...very “global”...almost like Burson-Marsteller or Edelman, except without the pomposity and burdensome overhead. And most importantly for our clients, we learned long ago that a fancy high-rise office has nothing to do with the effectiveness of a media pitch...only the news value of the pitch itself determines this.

Virtuality not only has been the infrastructure of my company but also is apparently the wave of the future. The trend had clearly started prior to this current recession, but with the severe cuts in budgets, overhead, and consolidation of job responsibilities since 2008, virtuality almost has become the goal of many organizations as they reorganize to survive. Undoubtedly, the virtual office structure can and should save a bundle in overhead expense by eliminating the need to “house” employees in a leased building space with the attendant utilities like telephone, electricity, and heating and cooling costs thrown in. It saves the employees the costs of commuting in whatever manner, and possibly even clothing. And importantly, it saves the psyche from much of the stress of family separation and sometimes office politics as well as an occasional overbearing boss.

All of that said, virtuality has a few shortcomings as well. No communal water cooler or office coffee room to gather and share morning insights or a laugh or two.

Thus, making it difficult to catch up on TV shows or sporting events from the night before, or the latest on internal gossip. No external discipline setting the rules for workplace behavior or attire (if at all)…and no company storeroom to snitch some pilot pens or a work pad or two. And of course, there’s the conference calls that seem to be constantly scheduled just to keep that newly free and independent employee tethered tightly to home base. Conference calls, teleconferences, and now even more invasive…the webcast calls...all supposedly necessary for collaboration and synergy…require certain rules of etiquette. A recent forum in MyRagan, clarified two of the most important…learn to use the mute button to keep other participants from the extraneous noises of barking dogs, children or mates, and…very important, never initiate your call from the bathroom. Very uncool.

However, given those few exceptions, I’ll settle for virtuality’s lower overheard and increased productivity…just don’t forget to hit the mute button.

Pay-for-Performance PR

Not getting credit when credit is due....

For the sake of full disclosure, I have been a proponent of pay-for-performance PR, or more specifically, paying after-the-fact for media placements, for nearly twenty years now. I believe it is the fairest and most accountable way to charge clients for media outreach. Yes, there are many PR services that are time-intensive and not as easily quantifiable where a fee is appropriate, but media outreach can be easily judged by tangible success and should be charged accordingly. While obviously in the minority in this profession, I continue to believe that fat hourly fees or fat retainers based upon hourly fees are not in the client's best interest. The temptation to abuse this time-honored (pun intended) practice is simply too great for most PR firms, global or local boutique, to avoid. If exaggeration doesn't take place in the original cumulative estimate, it certainly occurs at the bottom end on the weekly time sheet.

However sometimes a weakness can show itself in this compensation model...no, not to the client...but to the practicing PR agency. The soft spot lies not within the professional effort nor within how or how much a placement might be charged, but within the media outreach process itself. Like the proverbial needle in a haystack, landing a great story for a client, even with the established contacts and resources we all share, is more often than not a series of trial and errors, of contacts and hand-offs, of starts and stops, of steps and missteps, ...and, of luck. Then finally after all this activity and effort that may consume a few days to several months, a commitment is made, an interview is conducted, and a story appears...or maybe not. Under a traditional retainer or hourly fee model, the PR agency is compensated regardless. "Good job, Brownie, you gave it the old college try....here's a check anyway." Under the pay-for-performance model that story must actually appear before a check is issued.

But every so often, another weakness of the model shows itself when three-fourths of the way through the process, rather than a commitment being made and an interview being set up, the reporter or producer decides to shelve it or sit on it or becomes distracted...and nothing, silence. Until one day, something extraneous in the way of breaking industry news kick starts that producer or reporter into action...and he goes straight to the client for comment...and a story utilizing much of the original background effort results. If there is not sufficient documentation to demonstrate the winding circuitous route the agency took to find that proverbial needle, and the client so chooses to believe that it simply revealed itself miraculously with a phone call, a check will not be forthcoming.

Fair to the PR firm, not really...but part of this real recessionary world, yes. Worth the trade-off of short-term revenue for a sense of self-respect and knowing it will balance out in the end, maybe. I've never been a believer in that cliché that the client is always right, but I am a believer that every client treated fairly will usually reciprocate. And, it's still a better option than trying to get paid against a bunch of phony time sheets.

PR for the Greater Good

A reflection on good times past....

In general, we in the PR business deal with the softer side of life and of news. Even the categories have a soft, non-confrontational sound to them…business to business, consumer, lifestyle, healthcare, and so on.We’re hired to help sell products from cosmetics and jewelry to software and underwear…and management philosophies responsible for thousands to celebrities responsible only to themselves. And then, every once in a rare while, we’re asked to assist in doing something for the greater good…something that allows us to utilize our talents and experience for simply the betterment of others without an economic judgment call. 

In perusing a recent Sunday NY Times, I was stopped by an article that took me on a memory jag of just such a circumstance. The piece by Clifford Levy, Explorer: Israel With a Russian Accent (and Pork) Israel city on the south coast of the Mediterranean inhabited by a large number of Russian émigré. He explains that the vast majority of these Russian expatriates migrated from the former Soviet Union over the last couple of decades after the fall of the Soviet Union and where they have settled, gives Israel a distinctive Russian cultural flavor.

The piece reminded me of a call I received now some seventeen years ago from the then chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, Marty Stein, asking if my firm would be interested in “spreading the word through the U.S. media of the plight of Jews in Moscow and throughout the Central Asian republics (once a part of the Soviet Union) desperately trying to migrate to Israel.” It seems that the UJA, an enormous philanthropic organization, needed to raise additional monies to provide the on-ground assistance and the flights to help the thousands still living in these isolated Jewish colonies to escape the continuing religious and economic persecution.The problem in raising these needed funds was in greatly raising awareness in the U.S. that in spite of the fall of the communist state, the persecution and the desire to find sanctuary in Israel still very much existed.The UJA needed to get the U.S. “secular media” to pay attention and start covering the story…but wasn’t sure how to go about it. Thus, the call.

I was honored, not only because of the nobility of the cause but in the fact that my firm, distinctly small and non-Jewish in ownership but noted for our national media successes, would be asked to carry out such an important task.Over the next two years, we devoted ourselves to their cause but utilized our PR skills and news instincts to find the stories that would resonate with U.S. media.I sent teams (including myself) to Russia and Central Asia, we interviewed officials and peasants, we traveled on stealth overnight flights from Uzbekistan crowded with Jewish emigrants and their families lugging their allowable two duffle bags of life’s belongings…and we spent time in Israel following the freshly arrived Diaspora as they slowly and sometimes with great difficulty assimilated into modern Israeli life. And we chronicled all into real stories, not press releases, for the U.S. media…NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, USA Today, NY Times, and all the major dailies carried the tales of their plight and their successes. And importantly, contributions began flowing again.

So now fifteen years later, It’s great to read that many of these brave folks that we shared an incredible experience with are doing well and have made homes for themselves in that little sliver of land called Israel. It’s also great to remember and reflect on the power that PR can have beyond buzzwords, endless press releases, internal bickering, sales metrics, and indeed greed…when actually used for the greater good.

The Lord Arrington and prMac

A pox on both your houses…

I’ve been wisely counseled that it’s better to tone down my blog posts and do less railing against my own brothers and sisters in the PR industry and write of the great positives that transpire and inspire us to keep persevering in this vastly misunderstood profession. It’s no secret that I don’t subscribe to the traditional PR compensation model…fat retainers based on even more bloated hourly fees; and that I believe that the accountability of pay-for-performance PR is fairer and ultimately more productive for all the parties. And, that I particularly don’t like the arrogance of many PR agencies nor their counterparts in the media…old, new, or social. Thus, I’ve tried over my last few blog posts to follow a reformed line and stay toward the beige of the profession.

But then I run across Michael Arrington’s latest rant in his (I’m sad to admit) influential TechCrunch posting, “I Pissed Off a Spammer Today” regarding his encounter with press release spammer, prMac, and I can’t help but fall immediately off the wagon and head for my keyboard with a vengeance.

Here’s a snippet of what the Lord Arrington has to say…


“It’s no secret that we consider the PR industry, for the most part, the bane of our existence. They’re just under too much pressure to get results, and when we don’t do what they want (write about their clients), things turn ugly. And before things turn ugly, we get spammed. By phone, by Twitter, by Facebook, by email, by mail and by fedex. Some PR firms will lie, cheat, manipulate and then just smear your reputation to get what they want.”

Really, Michael? And technology blog postings…particularly those that have made a practice and considerable revenue by deciding which companies and which technologies deserve their lucrative praise… are the purest form of media journalism and therefore deserve to throw stones at will at an entire profession dedicated to supplying that which has made you so important…information that you pass along, true or not. Give me a break…

Ironically however, the Lord Arrington was at least half correct in his hyperbole. Not in his rant against PR-types in general, but about the firm, prMac, that is not a public relations firm per se, rather a distribution company for press releases written by the PR-types that seem to plague Arrington like a swarm of gnats on a summer picnic. But again to add to the irony, Arrington is not upset about what this firm does…distribute multitudes of written material of dubious news value and charge their customers accordingly…but that he can’t get them to leave his particular picnic alone. And because his picnic has been ruined for the day and put him in such a bad mood, he decides it’s worth a ridiculous inference…that spammers of email press releases are PR professionals…

“…the whole PR profession really needs to get a grip. We aren’t here to do their bidding. We serve our readers. At least, the readers we like. And our community. If they want to be part of that community, they need to lose the sense of entitlement…”

Arrington’s arrogance however isn’t any greater than that of a company that seems to believe that the mass distribution of press releases via email spam is a legitimate means of gaining positive awareness…nor the ignorance of those PR firms that pay these folks for such a dubious service.

Next time…back to beige.

Win Some, Lose Some...

No Hall of Fame for PR rainmakers

As CEO of a pay-for-performance public relations firm, I spend much of my time on new business…accounts that will be both interesting and challenging to our army of pros as well as profitable to the company. And as many of you in this industry know, the two are not always compatible. Even if rainmaking has become more of sifting through referrals than cold calling, it’s still requires a skill set and mental discipline developed through experience and over time. Plus, finding that rare new client that is both fun to work on and produces solid revenue is often as difficult as hitting an inside curveball or as daunting as driving the lane clogged by an NBA center.

Sure, there are actually specialists these days that rent themselves out as rainmakers-for-hire; and most of the larger PR firms have at least a designated new businessperson or even a whole department dedicated to seeing the pipeline is always full. More often than not, these new biz pros know more about sales technique than PR, or how a new client might or might not fit the culture or business sense of the firm. They might win a game or two, but not sure they have the consistency for a whole season.

I remember a very successful ad exec and mentor of mine telling me when asked who handled new business for his global firm…”Me”, he emphatically stated. “I’m the guy with the passion and the name on the door…and most importantly, know the people behind it.” I’ve followed a similar philosophy for my firm over the years, and while it may not work for some larger more anonymous PR institutions, it’s worked for us in welcoming the kinds of clients that best fit us. We’re fortunate that referrals from current and past clients along with internet and social media inquiries make up the bulk of our prospects today, but each still has to be researched and carefully followed up with to determine whether the story is there, the compatibility exists, and if it can be a profitable relationship for both us. I happen to enjoy this and prefer not to delegate something I believe is this important to our survival and growth.

No matter the new business methodology employed however, the metrics of success are as clear as a ball game…you either win or you lose. Yes, you may go to extra innings or overtime, but there are no “kissing your sister” ties, only winning or losing. You land the account or you don’t. And when you do, it’s exhilarating and heady stuff. When you don’t, it sucks. Sound familiar? The big difference from this sports analogy of course, is that when the new business game is over and the celebrating has ceased, then the real work begins.

And, of course, there’s no Hall of Fame.

PR's Great Reporting Gap

Media: "Don't bring me no stinking nuance...."


It struck me this last week watching the State of the Union address and later the President's give and take at the annual Republican Retreat, the rather enormous gap between reliable reporting and the communications of the complex issues being reported. We live in a world of nuance, both singularly and plural, but the media does not...particularly the broadcast media. Subtleties, complexities, enigmas...? Media's got no time for them and no budget to cover them...just bring them straight facts based on some kind of convenient authoritative source in the form of a talking head, or short of that they'll settle for a good repeatable short sound bite.


And, it's not always based on which side of the political spectrum the media is suspected to lie. The truth be told, except where openly stated, the largest percentage of the media likes to believe they are "independently centered" because they believe that is not only being "unbiased" but also where the largest audience and therefore the most advertising dollars linger.


This President, not as unlike his predecessors as we'd like to believe, is extremely difficult to define through simple labels like left, right, liberal, conservative, etc. This lack of a simple definition certainly adds to the difficulty of the media reporting on his presidency and his own inability to simplify his narrative to quick sound bites. "Change" and "Yes We Can" were simplistic campaign slogans, not detailed policy statements. Now we're into the real world of governing and legislating where simple is impossible and nuanced compromise reigns...not exactly the forte of the modern media. The instances I cite above are the latest but perhaps clearest examples of why it's still good to hear the long form position from the source, agreeable or not, rather than just its simplified reported interpretation.


We in the PR world unfortunately seldom have the advantage of presenting our clients, unadorned and transparent, direct to their chosen audiences like the President. We must rely on gaining the attention of the media through cleverly worded pitches and releases that pique their interest and turn their budget and time conscious bosses into backers. And remembering that it's the simple, not the complex, the clever sound bite, not the nuanced long form statement, is what is desired and used, we adhere to this formula. The sad, but good thing for us in PR, is that this formula continues to work at least with most modern broadcast outlets where time and cost are at such a premium. The sadder thing is that these same broadcast outlets do so at the behest of their audiences...us.

Time is Not on Your Side!

The Stones got it wrong….

Around my PR firm we’ve never believed that classic Rolling Stones’ song about time being on anyone’s side…and certainly not clients’…not when it can cost as much as $300 and up per hour for little to nothing in return! We thought it was about time to break the clock watching habit and billing by the hour. Don’t believe me…watch this






“No flacks were injured in the filming of this video.”

Healthcare Reform Has Nothing on PR

You think the healthcare debate is polarized...try pay-for-performance PR

I recently joined what I thought would be a reasonable sedate professional group on LinkedIn, the Public Relations and Communications Professionals. I thought it might be another way to expand my company's network for both discussions and recruitment. After all, we're always looking for professionals in this industry that might be in a position to join our virtual world in sharing client experiences, media tips, or even some insight on exactly how each of us define being a "professional. And given that I represent one of the largest PR firms specializing in being paid for results and not just billing hourly for effort, I thought it appropriate I join in on a group discussion centered on a group member asking about firms utilizing the "pay-for-performance" model.

That's when sedate became debate.

I've been practicing the model successfully for nearly twenty years so I've obviously known for a long time that pay-for-performance PR is the ugly stepchild of the profession and considered by a few in this industry as akin to selling tin siding to the elderly on a pension.But I guess I didn't realize the depth of both the misunderstanding of the model or the resentment and anger that it can foster in a "professional discussion. After one or two comments to the group extolling the benefits to the client of paying for tangible results after-the-fact, I soon found out. The level of the discussion quickly went to the shouting level of a town hall meeting last August on healthcare reform.The pay-for-performance model was labeled with everything from "devaluing PR," "being dishonest" and of course, "unethical." The only thing missing was an analogy of "pulling the plug on grandma."

I sensed real fear of a threat of the unknown. But isn't that always the case.We tend to fear that which we don't understand. The PR establishment of which I was and continue to be a part of over the years has done an excellent job of downgrading pay-for-performance PR firms as little more than ambulance chasers in a world of professional consultants. After all, we now can even be certified with initials following our names.

After a brief defensive stand where I raised my own voice in protest, I realized that as in most arguments, you're not going to change anyone's mind with a point, counterpoint kind of debate. And I know this may come as a shock to my fellow professionals and group members, but what we're talking here is PR, not rocket science or cancer cures.We provide a service.Sometimes there's a science in it and sometimes there's a lot of creativity in it; but mostly it's just using good sense to assist our clients to reach their communication goals...whether commercial or altruistic.And since we all proudly carry the label of professional, that assumes we charge for this service.If we're providing this service successfully and consistently, then how we charge should not be that big an issue as long as our clients believe they've received value.

But value is in the eyes of the client whether we like it or not. And in this age of tight budgets and reduced spending, accountability is very much a part of the client's evaluation of our services.To believe that different compensation models like pay-for-performance or a small base retainer plus bonuses for benchmark achievements, that appeal to these clients, are a threat to standard billing rates is accurate. But if a traditional billing firm can objectively demonstrate the value in their model to their clients, it has nothing to fear.

To all the others however, that rant against accountable billing in this profession, to borrow a phrase, "me thinks you doth protest too much"

The Grove Report: Time to Reinvent Our PR Selves

The Grove Report: Time to Reinvent Our PR Selves

Time to Reinvent Our PR Selves

Yet again...

The beauty of the end of the old year and the beginning of a new one is that it gives a perfectly good and timely excuse to do something for ourselves and our profession that we should have been doing on a continual basis all along...re-evaluation and reinvention. Forget the clichéd New Year Resolutions thing...they never seem to stick beyond a few days or weeks at best regardless. We're talking wholesale reinvention, not some minor personal tweaking like quitting smoking or losing ten pounds. (For the sake of honesty, I must fess up to the fact that twenty-three years ago, a new year resolution to quit smoking not only held but also was the best thing I ever did for my personal health. Now, that ten pounds thing has been a bit tougher...)

Re-evaluation? Reinvention? Ok, the re-evaluation is the easier of the two...but not always. It's tough to take a hard look at ourselves and how we've conducted ourselves professionally...and be brutally honest in the examination. The PR profession is an easy target for others and most of us are used to being on the defensive against criticism. However most of this criticism comes from outside our professional ranks from those that have the least knowledge of either the business framework or the processes employed. The criticism generally falls in the category of some kind of "devious manipulation of the truth or the public good" through some nefarious campaign designed and executed by a bunch of suits in a corporate boardroom. There are times that every PR pro wished that that kind of absolute control were possible, but in my forty years I've never seen it...zip, nada.

But on a smaller more individual scale there is not one of us that cannot look back on shortcuts we've made, clients we've taken with less than noble causes to promote, disingenuousness (lies?) to get a reporter interested, or my continuing favorite...client fees (both hourly and otherwise) inflated for the bottom line (ours, not the clients'.) These, plus the one most abused...an exaggeration of our own self-importance...are the critiques we need to make upon ourselves and note. Ah, but correcting them, therein lies the real problem. Making and committing to that effort in a tough economic time when clients are scarce and PR budgets even scarcer is no easy challenge.

Given that each new year and decade opens with an attitude of self-renewal and a positive vibe for what can yet be accomplished, and that this year being even more so because of the depths of negatively from whence we have just come, why not give it a shot? I'm personally betting on the future more than ever... that my and our collective actions together can influence change this year. That clients, the media (old and new) upon which we depend for so much, and others in this profession will respond to difficult, but oh so simple, changes... like fairness in billing and in payment, promotion and coverage of real news not opinion, and a little humility and civility in our interaction with each other.

As my favorite politician said a long time ago...."Some men dream of things that never were and say, why? Others dream of things that never were and say, why not?"

Sounds like a good way to start this new year.

Tiger Dissappears

Does an 800-pound gorilla leave a shadow ?

Accenture, the global consulting firm announced this week it had the perfect plan for solving its current public relations problem, i.e., commercials, ads, billboards, posters, etc. touting its close and paid association with the world's most recognizable professional athlete, Tiger Woods. The plan, undoubtedly cooked up over several high priced meetings between management and corporate PR consultants, is a simple one...eradicate the cheating philanderer from our corporate life and pretend he doesn't exist! I can't imagine the number of high-priced hours that were charged against this winner.

Accenture, as if Tiger Woods Were Never There

How exactly...by removing the "Tiger brand" from all advertising, web sites, posters, internal displays, T-shirts, caps, tchotchkes...and, I assume from all jokes around the water cooler or board room table.

"The company's advertising campaign is about "high performance" and Mr. Woods 'just wasn't a metaphor for high performance anymore,' a spokesperson for Accenture said." Really? Juggling thirteen plus affairs while being married... and winning Athlete of the Decade, might cause some to doubt that, but that's fodder for others to debate.

Ironically, Accenture's Orwellian decision has caused even more focus to be put on the company's decision making and not for its decisiveness, but for its silliness and perceived pettiness. Rather than suffer a little self-effacing embarrassment, stand by their original decision, or at least judiciously move to a new marketing strategy, Accenture has chosen to come across as humorless, self-righteous, and a shade petty. Just the traits we all want in our high-priced corporate consultants, I guess.


For the record, I'm one of those naysayers that actually do believe that Mr. Woods' does not have a "public obligation" to come clean...to open his broken personal life to the public hordes that may or may not have purchased consulting services, a watch, a Buick (which he obviously doesn't drive personally) or a razor because of his face and scripted word. Mr. Woods is one hell of a golfer, arguably the best that ever lived...and as a golfing role model with his picture perfect swing, power, and single-minded on-course competitive intensity, he should be admired and imitated...and well-paid as a professional athlete. If these same attributes...some God-given but most learned through hours and years of practice...also attract advertisers, PR-types, corporate hanger-ons, fawning sports writers, and yes, beautiful adoring women...does that present an obligation for him to "go public" with an explanation or act of contrition so all can feel better about their own foolishness. The corporate sponsors and their PR minions are no different than the women that threw themselves in front of him...hanging out with Tiger so they can feel better about themselves and maybe add a little value to their lives (products, services, etc. etc.) They all got something in return.

The only people that Mr. Woods has an obligation to are himself and his family...and maybe his golf game that brought him the fame in the first place. The rest of us self-righteous souls need to get back to work.

Not Again…Burson Takes it on the Chin

Mark Penn makes it easy to violate the 11th commandment...

Let’s get this on the record and out of the way early…I like to think of myself as politically semi-independent. I lean a little toward being more fiscally conservative as I approach retirement but definitely to the left on social issues. But as the politics of 2010 go, I would definitely be considered a liberal latte-sipping leftist. Ok that being the case, then why am I constantly criticizing Mark Penn, the self-anointed political PR guru, advisor to Hilary and other Democrats, and head of one of the great old PR institutions and my alma mater, Burson-Marsteller?

Why…because he makes it so easy. Burson-Marsteller supposedly under his expert guidance continues to make dumb decisions…not necessarily for the clients, but for itself.

The latest is a recent report that federal records show that Burson and sister company, Penn, Schoen & Berland, were paid $5.97 million by the FCC to promote the national switch from analog to digital television last Spring. Granted, $4.36 of this amount was spent on paid advertising through it’s parent, Young & Rubicam, but Burson readily and proudly admits that it was compensated $1.3 million in “professional fees for the work of a team of professionals.” Considering that the entire program supposedly lasted less than three months, that indeed is a team of at least very expensive professionals. And if I remember my days at Burson correctly, they all carried hefty titles and more importantly, even heftier hourly billing rates.

It’s hard to fathom the stupidity or frankly, the immorality, of such billing and even harder to understand in this supposed age of “change in politics as usual,” the hypocrisy of allowing it to happen. I had hoped that this new administration would at the very least be more diligent in its management of the sycophants who follow new leadership into office if not less inclined to such behavior. If not however, then we loyalists need and should not shrink from criticizing those of our own…PR profession or political party.

Burson itself is not without blame in this. Is it the recession or Penn’s greed that has clouded Burson-Marsteller’s judgment to such a degree that it cannot afford to turn down what is an obvious conflict of interest at worst, or at best a sketchy communication strategy…to haul in a few more million?

But my real question to the board of Burson-Marsteller or to whomever Mark Penn answers to these days, is why he continues to enjoy their loyalty when he continues to abdicate his responsibility of sound judgment and even, God forbid, good PR sense…

“Managing” without Lou Dobbs

It will be tough, but I’ll try…

This year we’ve lost Walter Cronkite and Don Hewitt…two giants of broadcast journalism. Now we’re losing CNN’s Lou Dobbs. Well…not quite. He certainly is still among the living; and while he is leaving the cable network, he has vowed to “go beyond the role at CNN and engage in constructive problem solving.”

I’d find this amusing given his last several years on the air except it seems there are a lot of devoted followers of Mr. Dobbs out there who professed this devotion on his radio call-in show the following day. (Yes, he has one too.) Not surprisingly most of the devotees hoped he would be joining their favorite “news source,” Fox, or even running for political office. "We need you in the Senate, Lou,” one caller exhorted. Now there’s a thought…next speech before a joint session of Congress, he could join Representative Wilson in shouting down the President over immigration issues.

In his on-air departure announcement Dobbs said, "Each of those (major) issues is, in my opinion, informed by our capacity to demonstrate strong resilience of our now weakened capitalist economy and demonstrate the political will to overcome the lack of true representation in Washington, D.C. I believe these to be profoundly, critically important issues and I will continue to strive to deal honestly and straightforwardly with those issues in the future." Those issues, he added, are defined in the public arena "by partisanship and ideology rather than by rigorous, empirical forethought, analysis and discussion," and he vowed to work to change that.

In my humble opinion, Dobbs’ first step in changing the fact that partisanship and ideology are defining the issues in the public arena is his leaving the bloody CNN pulpit he’s been using for the last several years. Amen.

Ironically and once again for the sake of full disclosure, fifteen years ago Dobbs was hosting a weekend half-hour CNN business show from New York titled, “Managing With Lou Dobbs” on which I was a featured guest one week. While I admittedly enjoyed the attention the show focused on my PR business, I was underwhelmed by Dobb’s lack of preparation for the interview. Ok, I admit managing a national PR firm is not the same as being the head of the Federal Reserve, but a little professionalism would have been nice. (For those of you devotees, this show was prior to Dobbs’ previous departure from CNN in the heady days before the tech bubble burst. He left then to start his own dot-com devoted to space exploration. Alas, the bubble burst and Lou, perhaps a little less flush but no less humble as the journalist/advocate, returned to CNN.)

It may not be CNN next time, but Lou Dobbs needs the adulation of the multitudes and not the clubby Senate camaraderie of Al Franken. He’ll be back on the air soon enough.

Failing Up

Some of our best and the brightest…

The monthly jobless report came out again this week and the picture was bleak enough to flatten the earlier upward movement of the markets. Double-digit unemployment…ten point two percent…not since Reagan was well into his second year had we had this many of our citizens standing in line or looking for jobs. And many of those standing outside looking in are us…journalists, agency types, marcom pros, PR practitioners, and even whole small firms just not able to withstand the tightened or withdrawn budgets or credit squeeze. And while I’m enough of an optimist to believe that I see a faint glow at the end of this nightmarish tunnel, it still is a personal tragedy for those directly among the “jobless.”

But then I read a piece in the Sunday NY Times and was reminded again that sometimes real positive growth comes from being forced to re-evaluate our circumstances of employment…nice way of saying, “being canned.” Or, as the Times puts it, “The Benefit of a Boot Out the Door.” In the column, Jeffrey Katzenberg, elaborates on how his forced departure from Disney “fueled him to get on…etc.” Hey, I recognize that most of us that get laid off or fired, do so without the warm fuzzies of a Disney multimillion-dollar severance package to help us cope. But the point that being fired, whether from a seven-figure position or twelve-buck an hour job, is not necessarily always a bad thing…and good things can actually come of it.

Before someone out there says, “sure, easy for Mr. CEO to say,” it’s best for me to come clean. I’ve been fired, terminated, laid off, and generally just jobless on not just a couple of occasions, but several. And I’d like to believe that each time I’ve learned something about myself, and others. I also learned that losing your job whether self inflicted or not, is only failure if you fail to grow from it. I had a boss once, a man that had started three companies with the first two ending upside down…the third, highly successful. He believed strongly that only those that have tasted failure were worthy of employment consideration. His reasoning was that sooner or later most of us will stumble and fall, and he wanted to surround himself with those that had that out of their system and had grown accordingly.


I’m not sure I would go that far, but I certainly understand his thinking. My hobby is motorcycling and I must admit I prefer riding with those that have respect for the inherent dangers of the sport and ride accordingly. And more often than not, this respect is gained through a close call or even an accident…’going down’ as we say. The same can be said for a business enterprise…be it a news organization, corporation, or agency. Having a couple of close calls or even a job loss on your resume’ can be a positive…if you can demonstrate how you’ve grown from the experience and gained respect for the warning signs moving forward.

Yes, some may skate through life perfectly attuned to success and never be bothered with life’s annoying little stumbles…never being tested by a touch or two of failure and self-doubt. But come on, how many people really fit this description, and those that do…do you really trust them…or even like them? Me…I prefer to see a few scars on my associates and employees. To me, these are by far the best and the brightest.

What's in a name?

Shakespeare might have got it wrong …

As Juliet says to Romeo: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Well…maybe. I’m not sure Shakespeare would be so sure of his prose if he were to deal with today’s law firms, advertising agencies, and PR firms. I was reminded again of the difficulty and the egos involved when I recently read Stuart Elliott's
 In Advertising column in the New York Times. He answers a reader’s question Q&A section about the famous ad agency, BBDO, and its name being associated with a famous quote that the original name of the agency -- Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn -- “sounded like a trunk falling down a flight of stairs.” Indeed.

The story reminded me of the name of my second place of employment, N.W. Ayer & Son, often referred to as the oldest advertising agency in America…or affectionately (and despairingly) as “the old gray lady of Philadelphia.” The story goes that when the agency was founded in the late nineteenth century, yes, in Philadelphia, old N.W. had nothing to do with it. In fact, he was already deceased. His son, whose name escapes me as well as most advertising historians, decided that an enterprise as auspicious as America’s original ad agency needed more gravitas than his name alone bestowed. Thus, he gave the lion’s share of the letterhead to his deceased father and he took up anonymous residence to the right of the ampersand.

Naming an advertising or PR agency with just the right combination of gravitas and ego…mixed with trendy creativity is not an easy task as I learned when faced with just such a task a few years ago when I founded my own firm. (I cannot speak for law firms since they seem to be dedicated to gravitas and ego alone.) I ran through the usual boring suspects like…RH Grove & Associates, Grove Communications, and my personal favorite, Gordon, Geotz & Grove (or G3 as in “cubed”.) Gordon and Geotz, both being deceased high school friends, to add “size” and the gravitas while the “cubed” hit a note of ultra cool creativity. Thank goodness my daughter and experienced communication professional herself, stepped in to save me and the new firm from such an embarrassment. Her frank assessment…”why not just name the company for what it does, not who founded it. Call it, INK…that’s what you do for clients…get them ink.” Indeed.

Not as much gravitas, little to no ego, trendy creativity…maybe. But INK by any other name after all these years wouldn’t smell nearly as sweet.

Gullibility… media is thy name

The stunt worked and that’s what’s so pathetic

Face it. We all got sucked into the drama last week played out on the nation’s TV screens. Those at home paused to listen or watch. Those at work were interrupted by co-workers either attuned to breaking alerts on the Internet or an office television. But we all paid attention…even if just momentarily. We all paid attention. Why? It was a hot breaking news story with all the elements that we’ve learned make our senses prick up. It had a child in terrible, immanent danger. It had distraught parents. It was highly visual and perfect for television. And, it had gained the instant gravitas of CNN and Fox, with the other networks soon to follow. Perfect!

Except for one minor problem… it wasn’t true.

Then, of course, came the backlash of what Frank Rich in Sunday’s NY Times (In Defense of the ‘Balloon Boy’ Dad) referred to as, “a warm bath of moral superiority. No matter our own faults, we could never top Richard Heene, who mercilessly exploited his child for fame and profit. Nor as craven as the news media…”

I don’t believe the broadcast news media to be that craven. Gullible, sloppy, and driven above all else for the scoop in this age of the 24/7 news cycle, yes. Open to exactly this kind of a misfortunate publicity stunt by the same kind of individuals that are pathetic in this instance (and yes, smart) enough to feed off their kids to satisfy their and the media’s needs, yes. But I do agree with Rich in his Times piece, that we in the watching audience must share in that gullibility. Did we all suspend all sense or common sense while watching that over-sized Jiffy Pop floating over Colorado? The answer to that is also, yes. And it’s that secret knowledge of our own gullibility that adds to our outrage. “A massive fraud!” so thundered Bill O’Reilly.

However we in the business of publicity must also applaud…no, not the sad use of one’s own kid to exploit for fame and profit…but the execution of the stunt to gain the incredible primary coverage as well as the secondary and continuing coverage. This story has great legs…not in spite of its falsehood, but now because of it. Amazing! The media can’t help itself.

“They put on a very good show for us, and we bought it,” the local sheriff said last weekend.

And, we are continuing to do so.

Is it blessed to receive?

From random fax-spam to blogger freebies …

There’s something strangely comforting about still receiving faxes in the age of the Internet and email…even if the faxes are solicitations of the absurd. My favorite this week was from Presidential Who’s Who, addressed to “Dear Company Owner” and exclaiming that “my information had been reviewed and accepted for inclusion in the 2010 edition.” Hot Damn! After forty some years I am finally being recognized for “outstanding business and professional achievements.” Well ok…it’s about time.


But wait. It then went on to ask me to fill out and return an attached form that asked my name and title, my company’s name, its industry, our principal product or service, and personal specialty. Hmmmm…just a random thought, but if my company and me have “reached the distinguished level of success in my chosen profession,” as stipulated, and I’ve already been reviewed and accepted to be in this fine edition, why ask? On further review, I choose to continue in anonymity.


Of far greater import than my personal recognition in yet another bogus edition of Who’s Who, was the piece in the New York Times Ad and Media section this week, "Soon Bloggers Must Give Full Disclosure", that the FTC has decided to crack down on bloggers plugging products sent to them by companies hoping for a favorable review. The FTC rules governing endorsements and testimonials in advertisements are going to be studied and possibly expanded to cover bloggers and social media like Facebook and Twitter. This kind of “freebie spam” has been a stable of marketing for just about forever; and certainly long before the invention of the Internet or social media. According to the Times, “For bloggers who review products, this means that the days of an unimpeded flow of giveaways may be over. More broadly, the move suggests that the government is intent on bringing to bear on the Internet the same sorts of regulations that have governed other forms of media, like television or print."

We all know that one of the beauties and really cool things about social media and blogging in particular, is the freedom of everyman or every woman to express themselves without the impediment of commercial or organizational restrictions…other than their sense of good taste and social mores. But all the FTC is now institutionalizing is what we’ve all known for some time was destined…that the Internet and social media have become tools for enterprise. Yes, on a macro level it’s still a great new way to communicate, share, and expand our worlds, and without doubt the phenomenal transforming tool of at least the early Century. All well and good…but it’s also a great way to push diapers or a cell phone. And it’s probably time to recognize that as well.

As one mommy blogger said, “I think that bloggers definitely need to be held accountable. I think there is a certain level of trust that bloggers have with readers, and readers deserve to know the whole truth.”

Accountable….there’s that word again.

So, where’s the value?

PR is worth real dollars, but only if it’s accountable …

I recently read an interesting blog post by Chris Brogan titled, "The Audacity of Free", wherein he expounds on the notion that in today’s tough economy, many people behave as if “free” is the watchword of the day. That the imparting of knowledge and information… in his example, it’s through conferences… somehow is often expected to be given away. “The sense of walking into somewhere and listening to sage words doesn’t seem like it should cost money….” But he argues, and rightly so, to, “Never apologize that something costs money if you’ve determined the value of it.” And, to not “ever feel embarrassed to charge for value.”

Well normally you won’t hear me do much supporting of something that seems to be closely related to charging for pure consulting, which can lead to hourly fees, which in my opinion can lead to nothing but mischief. But Mr. Brogan makes a point about what appears to be a trend in companies today believing that they and not the vendor (another term I dislike almost as much as hourly fee) are the sole arbiter of whether a service should have a charge attached, i.e., they determine the cost based upon their interpretation of value received. While I understand why today’s dreary economy and years of malfeasance and overcharging have brought us to this point, it is still a frightening thought… the inmates in control of the asylum? If only clients determined the price of our services, oh what a scary world this would be.

Or would it be? Maybe we deserve to have the moneychangers driven from the temple so that clients can once more believe that the cost of PR is directly related to value received. And most importantly, that this perceived value be determined on tangible results and not smoke and mirrors or spoken words alone. That kind of accountability leads not to mischief, but to a compensation model that is credible and just.

That is not to say that the clients determine the price of such compensation. I haven’t given total leave to my senses or control of the asylum. I agree again with Mr. Brogan when he says, “it’s not your buyers who decide this, no matter what we like to think in social media kumbaya-ville” We in PR must not be embarrassed to charge real dollars for the services we provide. But make sure these services are tied to the tangible, measurable results that our clients desire…not just our words. If we’re going to charge for “knowledge” be willing to demonstrate just how that knowledge provides such results. Once again to paraphrase Mr. Brogan with a modicum of literary license… “Free is beautiful, and costs are part of life.” But please… based on accountability.