Young Guns Take on PR

The Washington Women in PR Emerging Leaders Awards is at the National Press Club and it’ll be one crowded event, and deserves to be.  It’s fantastic that WWPR takes the time and energy to salute up-and-comers in the industry.  Without kids passionate about PR earning their stripes, where would our industry be going?

The terrain has drastically changed over the past few years and will continue to shimmer and shift as everyone scrambles to learn more about the changing technology and how to integrate it into our communications practices.  No, not every new app, platform or blog site is right for marcomm, nor will every new app or platform survive, but it sure helps the industry to have youngsters come aboard who have been spending the last few years soaking up the new stuff and applying it whenever it makes sense.

It was the younger crowd in my agency that suggested we work with Pandora, Pinterest, QR codes and She Speaks on behalf of clients, and also know the exact online video hosts to reel in the right audience.  And if I ever have any question about what 20- and 30-somethings are plugging into, I just ask them in a meeting and we bat around new and juicy ideas.  Talk about off the grid.  Without emerging leaders, we wouldn’t have the freshest most innovative thinking.

And when we fold the new ideas into our proposals and programs they not only sizzle, but also provide new channels for an industry that has its roots in radio, print and online.  Why not leverage the video and audio and place it on key blog sites, partner with blog networks, catch active consumers in fitness clubs, grocery stores, even bars?  Let’s touch our audiences at home, on laptops, on tablets, on smartphones, while they work out, in airports, when they shop and when they go to the doctor.

So a big thanks to WWPR for putting on the event and props to the young guns who are smokin’ and propelling PR to new heights.

Spanish Spoken Here, There and Everywhere

This post is part of a series written by zcomm interns. Be sure to check back each week for their take on the latest in the public relations industry. This week, Claire discusses the importance of knowing your target audience.

If you’ve been living under a rock, you may be surprised to learn that America’s Hispanic population has grown to more than 50 million people, meaning nearly 17% of the country is Latino.

What’s more, Latino buying power this year is estimated at $1.2 trillion.

And if you’re not specifically targeting these consumers, chances are your brand is not relevant to them…a study on advertising effectiveness showed that 38% of Hispanics surveyed found English language ads less effective than Spanish ads in terms of recall and 70% less effective than Spanish ads in terms of persuasion.

But creating a Spanish-language campaign is only the beginning.

Researching your Hispanic audience to gain understanding and insight into their culture and lifestyle is key.

I’ll illustrate the importance of getting to know the unique needs of your Hispanic target audience with two examples, one about lifestyle and another about media consumption habits – – –

While in college, I attended a presentation by a Hispanic Marketing specialist that discussed the vitality of going beyond English-to-Spanish translation in your Hispanic campaigns.

To highlight this point, she told us the story of a client that came to her agency confused as to why their product was not seeing increased sales among Latinos, even though they had created new commercials in Spanish and placed them on Univision and in key TV stations in Hispanic-heavy markets.

Initially, the presenter’s firm wasn’t sure either. After conducting some research, however, they realized that the problem was a scene at the end of the commercial where the family dog jumped on the bed, the Latino owners petted him and he rested at the foot of the bed.

…Nothing out of the ordinary here, right? Wrong. While many aspects of the English commercial translated over, one cultural difference was a major turn-off for Hispanic consumers and affected their purchasing decision: allowing a dog on the family’s bed.

This example illustrates the importance of going beyond just translating your message from English to Spanish, and really delving into the culture and lifestyle of your Hispanic audience.

When customizing your communication to Latinos, it is also important to consider the way that they use and engage with media.

Here at zcomm, we deal primarily with broadcast and new media, so the staff understands the listening/viewing habits of many different segments of our population. While working on a radio promotion for one of our clients, I learned that, while Hispanics consume every type of media, radio is the most effective way to target this population.

Did you know that Latinos listen to the radio, on average, for 26-30 hours each week? To put it in perspective, that’s more than 13% more listening than the general population.

TV is another heavily-consumed media – with the growth in our Hispanic population, Univision has become the #5 television network in the US.

I could go on and on with these examples, but I think you get the gist, and since studies show that people only read about 28% of the text on a webpage (this percentage decreases as the amount of text increases!), I’ll stop here…I know my audience 😉

And the Rockets Red Flare…Glare… oh, whatever

Typically speaking, we tend to lose the meaning of the holidays we celebrate. While each July 4^th, Americans have the day off to remember what is truly important, it usually equates to a day off from work.

Consider how many people know all the lyrics to the Star-Spangled banner, understand the lyrics, know who Francis Scott Key was, or understand that the beautiful display of fireworks could be seen as an homage to gunfire– albeit a colorful one?

So as we return from our July 4^th holidays, you might be thinking, why is this year special? Well, have you checked the news lately? Unlike past years, there was no shutdown of all things civic. Congress remained open, major trials took place, the country showed allegiance to our Independence Day.  If ever there was a time to celebrate and revere our Founding Fathers’ fight for freedom, the Declaration of Independence and our Bill of Rights, it is now.

Let’s start with Congress. Whatever the reason and whatever your affiliation, Republican, Democrat, Whig (some people just can’t let go), it is nice to see Congress not take their week off to celebrate our founding but rather use the week to keep America’s ideals intact. You know, freedom from the government’s really low credit rating. As PR professionals, we have all had to cancel vacation time to take care of things like an unplanned launch or crisis, so really, staying to solve the debt issue just seems like the right thing to do. We have a budget issue. You have a deadline. Sorry, but the trips to Disney will just have to wait. And, they did. There is a certain amount of civic pride glowing inside us all right now.

Unfortunately, our Founding Fathers didn’t distinguish between the rights of the just and the rights of the just awful.  And, sometimes our rights protect the wrong. If anyone is to breathe a sigh of relief for Freedom this July 4^th, it is Casey Anthony. While her rights may set her free on the streets, not sure if that would be in her best interest given the hordes of people angry with the verdict, including, but not limited to, Nancy Grace. Anthony may want to consider asking to be put in jail anyway since it’s very doubtful she will be able to do anything of value with her life as the new face of un-convicted murder or as some may say ’not guilty, doesn’t mean innocent.’ But she, for one, should have a renewed interest in the July 4^th celebration of freedom. Not sure OJ does anymore.

Whatever your celebration and sense of civic pride, we hope you had a nice holiday and watched some colorful gunfire simulations in the sky.

HARD TO MAKE HEADLINES

With today’s headlines centered on global issues such as Japan’s earthquakes, a shutdown in the US government, school shootouts in Brazil and, of course, the upcoming Royal Wedding, PR professionals’ jobs are getting tougher by the day. While finding your way into the news fold has always taken finesse, global turmoil has made it nearly impossible to get the latest survey, product launch or company announcement into the mainstream limelight.

So, what’s a PR professional to do? Here’s what — let the earth-shattering, breaking news dominate the print and broadcast media, and take to the digital streets. Go where the people are – online! Need some numbers to convince you that online is where it’s at?

According to the Pew Institute’s  2011 State of the News Media Report:

• 34% of respondents said they read news online within the past 24 hours as opposed to 31% who favored newspapers
• 41% said they get most of their news online, 10% more than those who said they got most of their news from a newspaper.
• The 18-to-29-year-old group overwhelmingly cast their vote with the web; 65% said the Internet was their main news source.
• Only 40% of people in the study said they read the news in an online or print newspaper, a 12% drop from five years ago.

And now, think about it logically, not only do blogs and online news sites not suffer from the “space” constraint of a 30-minute newscast, but your story doesn’t go away at the end of 30 minutes either. The Internet is a bank of information that never disappears. Your story becomes part of the archive, the longtail of the web that keeps stories alive. For better or worse, what happens on the Internet stays there for life!

And consumers aren’t the only ones getting their news online, journalists also search the sites for their next big story. Can’t get your story on the New York Times Online?  Try one of the hundreds of niche blogs that attract the right audience as well as reporters who are interested in the topic.

PR professionals are no longer locked into a handful of outlets. We now have access to millions of sites that are a better fit for our news and will generate more attention for our client. Sometimes the sites may reel in smaller audiences but they carry a lot of weight with their fans.

Ssssso, take a tip from the Bronx Zoo Cobra, if you want attention go out and make some noise ! If a venomous snake on the town can make headlines with all the breaking news, so can your story!