Friday's Video Views

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Solis and Li

Brian Solis chats it up with Altimeter Group founder and Open Leadership author Charlene Li as part of his new "Revolution" video series.




The Phone Jail of Keith Kelly

Marketwatch's media maven Jon Friedman held a tete a tete with NY Post's media columnist (and industry scourge to many) Keith Kelly. The title of this item refers to Kelly's old voice-mail greeting: "You have reached the phone jail of Keith Kelly."




New Twitter Chief

Ad Age's recently anointed editor-in-chief Abbey Klaassen grabs some camera time with Twitter's newly anointed CEO Dick Costolo:




The Secret to Buzzfeed

O'Reilly Media's Max Slocum catches up with Buzzfeed founder (and former HuffPost pioneer) Jonah Peretti on viral marketing and other digital doings.




That NAMBLA Facebook Group

If you weren't on board the U.S.-Russian space mission this week, you no doubt heard about Facebook's big valley presser Wednesday to launch FB Groups. I followed it a bit, and then jumped in first-hand when master list-maker and Gladwellian connector Robert Scoble send me an invite to join his "Tech Leaders and Influencers" Facebook group. Of course, Facebook is now taking some backlash for forgetting the term "opt-in" for Facebook Groups. This lapse in product development/judgement was hilariously highlighted by one Michael Arrington who added Mark Zuckerberg to the NAMBLA group (man-boy love association). Here's the write-up on what subsequently ensued, and the All Facebook promo video for Groups:




I.Am New Twitter

Will-I-Am's hip hop homage to new Twitter, which (finally) arrived this week on this blogger's desktop.




Zuck Raps

As if The Social Network didn't have enough buzz, along comes this rap video (expletives and all) to hammer the message home. HT to Mashable (naturally).




Strangers in Elevators

The folks at TechCrunch posted their idea of "the greatest elevator pitch ever."

Gap's PR Ploy?

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Logo Remake: Before and After

One of the world's most vaunted consumer-facing brands changed its company logo this week. And what happened?

The new look was met with widespread derision from a public that today has the capacity to drive the conversation on such matters.

Buzzfeed rounded up the negative sentiment under the title: "New Gap Logo (Yikes):"

• A New Logo for Gap? More Like a Nap..."

• "New Gap Logo is a Box of Fail"

• "Mind the Gap: New Logo Goes Down Like a Lead Balloon"

Having sat through a fair share of brand identity brainstorms during my days in the Y&R family, and specifically alongside the smart folks at Landor, the process of transforming the look and feel of a brand or devising a new identity altogether has become an art into and of itself.

Maybe the the brand name should have a literal meaning, e.g., UnderArmour. Or perhaps it should be related, but not so literally, e.g., Nike, the winged Goddess of victory, Reebok, from the Afrikaans/Dutch spelling of rhebok, a type of African gazelle (antelope), or Zappos, a derivation of the Spanish word for shoes "zapatos."

Then, of course, there are totally made-up brand names, including today's most valuable: Google.

BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands 2010

But Gap didn't set out to change its name. It sought instead to change its look. More importantly, it appears that the company, headquartered in tech and social savvy San Francisco, set out to use this opportunity to create a little buzz. Huh? Did the marketing minds at Gap intentionally catalyze a consumer backlash for the sake of a little extra ink and airtime???

Tim Nudd, writing in AdFreak today under the headline "Gap's new logo: a social-media experiment?" ponders: "But maybe it's intentionally shitty?" He draws our attention to the Gap's Facebook wall on which the company posts:

"We've had the same logo for 20+ years, and this is just one of the things we're changing. We know this logo created a lot of buzz and we're thrilled to see passionate debates unfolding! So much so we're asking you to share your designs. We love our version, but we'd like to see other ideas."

Lohan in VF

If this is true, then the initial chink to its reputation may just pay off in the end. Has Gap taken a page from Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba's seminal book "Citizen Marketers" and its recognition of the value in creating "customer evangelists?"

Maybe the growing PR methodology of "no (PR) pain, no (PR) gain" applies? After all (and forgive the analogy), didn't Lindsay Lohan's bad behavior land her a cover spread in Vanity Fair?


Update 3:50pm: Ad Age reports that Gap says the new logo is the real deal.

Rahm on the Rails

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Rahm's Listening Tour in Chi-town 

Some months back, I blogged about the content aggregators that I, as the proprietor of a percolating PR consultancy, strive to follow.

I bring it up again since the subject of today's post was gleaned from one of the PR sites I keep tabs on, even if the site's master curator and incessant Twitterer ignored my offer to meet up with him during a recent trip to New York City. (He's expunged from the next list.)

Gawker today reports on Rahm Emanuel's deployment of play #35 in the PR pro's playbook: "the listening tour." Did Ari Gold's brother, now seeking the highest office in Chicago, borrow this tactic from candidate Obama's former political nemesis?

Mr. Emanuel's first political whistle stop didn't do much to help the trains run on time. In fact, his appearance on a Chicago subway platform appeared to cause more confusion than anything else. And anyway, how can a rush hour subway platform appearance succeed as part of a "listening tour?" Can anyone really listen to frenzied commuters struggling to slip past the invited cameras?

No matter. The image brought back memories of my only formal association with a political campaign other than distributing flyers for Hubert Humphrey or polling homes in Boston for a poli-sci class during Jimmy Carter's run.

Sen. & Mrs. Gary Hart (1984)

In 1984, I took a leave of absence from Hill and Knowlton to play a state-wide role in Colorado Senator Gary Hart's campaign to gain the Democratic presidential nomination. (Mondale ultimately prevailed.) We were gathering at 7:00am in NYC's busiest commuter terminal waiting for Sen Hart's arrival.

It was a pretty buttoned-down affair with stanchions, a mult-box for ENG crews to grab clean audio, and maybe even lights. The candidate finally arrived and did his best to strike up a few conversations. Suddenly, a group of activists began causing a huge commotion -- yelling and drawing attention away from our carefully staged photo-op.

As it turns out, this group actually supported Sen. Hart's candidacy. They were gay activists using Act-Up tactics years before Act-Up came into being. Their rude commandeering of a well-attended presser won't seem strange by today's standards. But back then, we were mortified that the PR decorum we so carefully orchestrated could be so unceremoniously disrupted.

Today I wistfully look back at my brief d'alliance in political PR, and wonder what could have been. In the end, however, I'm glad I chose the path I did. Working for a non-incumbent Democratic candidate was painful, as I'm sure those toiling for Chicago Mayoral aspirant Emanuel are now learning.

Friday's Video Views

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Eisenberg on Zuckerberg

The Social Network's long and much buzzed about ride to the nation's movie theaters ends today (though countless outlets jumped the review embargo. Was there one?) As predicted, critics have gone boffo with Rolling Stone's venerable movie guy Peter Travers handing out four stars and glowing words from which SONY will create a fab quote for an ad: "The Best Movie of the Year." The big debate, as described in my post earlier this week, asked whether the film will tarnish Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's image. Here's the opinion (via GMA) of the actor who played Zuckerberg in the film. (via the DailyBeast)




Making a Case for Innovation

AOL founder Steve Case, who tweeted his congratulations to Tim Armstrong for AOL's "playing offense" this week, talks to WashPost's video unit about innovation (via WashPost)




Going Mobile with Pogue

Mark Ragan chats up mobile with our favorite (and most influential) gadget guy David Pogue:



Advertising's Woes

If you missed it, this week was Advertising Week in New York,. Long time chronicler of the industry (and its output) Barbara Lippert of AdWeek talked with one agency chief Larry Woodard about the issues the industry faces:




Arrington's Disrupt

This week's decidedly richer Michael Arrington tweeted a link to CNNMoney's segment from his TechCrunch Disrupt start-up showcase confab:




Boing Boing on Media

Boing Boing founder David Pescovitz talks to Daisey Whitney about media's transformation and future -- in 2 minutes, no less (via Beet.TV)




Conan Loves Jimmy Kimmel

Finally, the folks at The Jimmy Kimmel Show took a parting shot at NBCU outgoing chief Jeff Zucker (via @TheWrap)

Much Ado About Zuckerberg

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Maybe I'm in the minority, but I found Mark Zuckerberg's character, as deftly played by Jesse Eisenberg in "The Social Network," to be somewhat appealing in a strange way. Jarvis, on the other hand, calls the film "anti-social."

Aside from his weirdly contorted smile, social insecurities, lack of personal empathy, and that misogynist opening scene, Zuckerberg comes off as super smart, driven and, believe it or not, reasonably grounded -- at least compared to Justin Timberlake's Sean Parker.

I had the good fortune to attend the Mashable-hosted screening of the SONY film last night on West 23rd Street where I saw editor Adam Ostrow, and his colleagues Adam Hirsch and Vadim Lavrusik, PR vet Drew Kerr, and NYU's Jay ("Why I am not a journalist") Rosen among the crowd of watered down filmgoers, including a good share of Columbia J School students. En route into the theater, we were all asked to relinquish our camera phones. No screen shots or tweets emanating from this theater!

Timberlake as Napster founder Sean Parker

But back to the Zuckerberg character, and all the expert predictions of how the film will have a deleterious effect on the reputations of the Facebook founder and brand.

Who can count the myriad stories and posts, including a few from this blogger, portending a Social Network-driven PR disaster for the company? And the Oprah-fueled news of Mr. Zuckerberg's $100 million donation to the Newark, NJ school system raised more than a few PR pundits' eyebrows considering its timing with the film's release.

Still, Zuckerberg denied it, as did the film's producer Mike DeLuca:

"I think he's joining the list of very benevolent philanthropic billionaires in our community and in the world, and it's only a good thing," continued De Luca of Zuckerberg, who was just valued at $6.9 billion by Forbes. "It's the honest-to-God truth. Anybody who does it."

Matthew Broderick in "War Games"

In the end, I found the Zuckerberg character in the film to be some kind of a hero, not unlike Russell Crowe as John Nash in "A Beautiful Mind" or, dating myself, Matthew Broderick in "War Games."

The public simply likes smart aleck geniuses, and Zuckeberg in this film is the smartest and perhaps most tart-tongued character I've seen on the screen in a long time. He even tempered his manic behavior by showing earnest concern when confronted with two moral transgressions in his midst (one possibly of his own making) in the early days of the fledgling social net.

On the other hand, his adversaries, the Winkelvoss twins who sued Zuckerberg for stealing "their idea," come off in a much less flattering light (and I say this with a son who's currently a varsity athlete and member of a final club at Harvard).

In the end, I wonder what all the fuss was about. Could Zuckerberg have saved himself $100 million, or minimally, have delayed the timing for his gift to Cory Booker? I wouldn't go so far to say that the company should be officially promoting this film. On the other hand, I do expect The Social Network to be a box office bonanza, and ultimately accrue positively to the company's fortunes, if not to the legend of its enigmatic founder.

Friday's Video Views

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The Digital Home According to Verizon

Verizon's Director of Consumer Product Management Ann Shaub gives her company's vision for the digital home at the 2010 Digital Home Summit (via Alan Weinkrantz).




CAPTCHA the Money

It appears I'm not alone in my frustration trying to decipher and record those squirrelly letters on many websites. They're called CAPTCHAs, and one enterprising company created considerable buzz this week with its business model that converts them into ad dollars. (via AllThingsD)


Solve Media from Solve Media on Vimeo.


The New Twitter Explained by company founder Evan Williams




Profiting from Twitter's Woes

As Twitter rolls out its new Twitter (where's mine already???), it received a shock to its system Tuesday morning with news that hackers created a security flaw on Twitter.com. Some enterprising Twitter host developer decided to exploit the hole to promote his Journo-twit as a flaw-free alternative.




Remix: Stairway to Hell

New York video producer Kirby Ferguson takes a look at Remix culture, also the title of Professor Lawrence Lessig's latest book. (from GigaOm's NewTeeVee.




Good Idea!

The good folks at TED Talks have amassed an extraordinary collection of video presentations from modern society's greatest thinkers -- ideas that literally define our times. Not only that, they're embeddable. Here's a favorite of mine titled "Where Good Ideas Come From" delivered in July by the prolific author and always thought-provoking Steven B. Johnson.




Pogue Posits

Finally, the tweet below from David Pogue led me to this video:

@pogue You guys all say that this amazing video http://youtu.be/lK7IzfLmyco was done with bluescreen--but it's a handheld camcorder! Doubt it.

From Android to Randoid

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Crossroads of the World

Claire Cain Miller, writing from the left coast for the New York Times's Media & Advertising space today, reports on a new Google campaign to draw attention to its display advertising business.

What's curious about the story -- other than the idea that relatively few knew about this dimension of Google's primary revenue stream -- is just how Google intends to display its display advertising capabilities. Miller writes:

"...it has picked one of the most crowded advertising venues to get the message out — Times Square."

Google (AP Photo via Business Insider)

Yes, folks. Google has succumbed to the bright lights of the big city (versus those short text-driven contextual ads that appear alongside and atop Google Search's organic results rankings and elsewhere).

So let me understand. Rather than a targeted search campaign (SEM) to capture prospective display advertisers, the world's most innovative online advertising company has chosen to target the random masses in Times Square to drive its future fortunes.

Maybe Google's communications team took notice of how much buzz was generated with the recent Times Square Jumbotron display of Consumer Watchdog's 90-second video castigating Google chief Eric Schmidt on the firm's privacy policies? Whatever the motivation, this initiative will not require the craning of one's neck. Rather, it'll be a hands-on affair. From The Times:

"Google will erect a billboard in the center of Manhattan that will vie for attention with the hordes of other flashy billboards. But it will stand low to the ground and invite passers-by to touch it and watch videos about the display ad business."

Here's how Google rationalizes the irony in the company's decision to go offline to promote its online offering:

"One of the ways we could express our confidence in the space is to run what is primarily a display advertising campaign around our investment in the business and what our potential is,” said Neal Mohan, the vice president of product management responsible for Google’s display advertising products."

I still wonder how the company that invented online advertising efficiencies could pick such a far-flung venue to connect with prospective digital advertisers. Sure, the 364,000+ randoids that pass daily through Times Square is impressive, but this crossroads of the world is hardly the most direct means to Google's revenue creators.

Then again, there's today's editorial pop in The New York Times (and elsewhere) that could very well justify Google's Broadway debut.

Augmented Activation

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Steve Etzler and his crew at the Business Development Institute (BDI) drew some 300 attendees to CUNY Graduate Center (the former B. Altman Department Store) in NYC last week. The Mobile Social Communications Conference featured keynoter Naveen Selvadurai, co-founder of the "fastest-growing" location-based social network FourSquare.

FourSquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai

Naveen summed up FourSquare's underlying mission in five words: "making cities easier to use." He also shared his and co-founder Dennis Crowley's initial doubts about such a service, and specifically whether "software can change people's social behavior."

These doubts have clearly been put to bed. From TechCrunch (8/29):

"While Foursquare appears to be growing faster than its main competitor Gowalla, other location-based social networks have already hit the 3 million mark. MyTown, another location-based network hit that number earlier this month, and Loopt passed 4 million users in July."

Here are some notable quotables from Mr. Selvadurai:

• FourSquare now enjoys 1.5-2M check-ins per day
• 60% of its users are from the U.S., 40% overseas with Asia leading the way
• Foursquare now available on all smart phones; Nokia plans to pre-bundle on its new phones
• The company is currently overwhelmed with trying to meet marketer demand (According to the company's website, as of August 2010, there were over 15,000 venues experimenting with Special Offers on foursquare.);
• FourSquare and Facebook had been in talks "for months" to try to work something out over FB's entry into the location game.

My primary reason for attending the conference stems from work I'm doing with a pathbreaking company that has cracked the (QR and other) codes for delivering rich content across the (previously siloed) spectrum of mobile platforms. If you haven't heard, activation codes are the hottest thing in mobile right now.

Mobile Activation Codes

A smart phone user simply snaps a photo of a code in a magazine, store aisle or even on a stadium scoreboard, which in turn activates the delivery to his/her phone optimized multi-media content in the form of promotions, additional product/advertiser info, video...

Porter Novelli's John Havens

I had a chance to talk with John Havens, SVP of Porter Novelli Digital and co-author with Shel Holtz of Tactical Transparency, and his colleague Joel Johnson about these and other mobile marketing trends. Havens gave an eye-opening presentation on the imminence of augmented reality and what it means to communications professionals. Here is a link to the audio of our conversation (RT 7:38).

360i's David Berkowitz

Following the morning presentations, conference attendees split up into roundtables, each hosted by an expert in some dimension of mobile social. I decided to audit the group with my pal David Berkowitz, Director of Emerging Media & Client Strategy for digital agency 360i and weekly blogger for MediaPost's SocialMedia Insider.

Fortuitously for me, David's topic was titled "How Mobile barcodes Can Bridge Mobile and Social Media." I had a chance to catch up with him before his roundtable. Here's the link to the audio clip. (RT 4:50)

Net net, PR peeps: keep close tabs on the growing role the smart phone channel will play for advancing your clients communications goals. (Think beyond activation code recognition to face recognition.) And again, be creative in the kind of content you intend to share.

Friday's Video Views

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Kindle v iPad

Kindle sticks it to Apple's iPad with its new TV spot. I wonder how Amazon will deal with the product enhancements Apple released today - multi-tasking, printability...?




I Want My New Twitter!

The big news this week from the social spheres entails Twitter's simple redesign and enhanced functionality. Not only is the company creating cache and demand by rolling it out slowly to the anointed few, but it launched the new site by inviting some select influencers to its headquarters for the first demo. Fortunately, we had our trusty go-to guy, The Scobleizer, as Johnny-on-the-spot with his digi-cam feeding live via UStream. For some reason, the video was not embeddable, so click here to view.

Subtraction at NYTimes.com

Khoi Vinh, former design director at NYTimes.com, talks about design and news to a gathering in Zurich, Switzerland. (via NY Observer)


FREITAG am Donnerstag - Khoi Vinh (Sep 9, 2010) from FREITAG lab. ag on Vimeo.


God Save Providence

This could be the worst interview ever. Providence Mayoral candidate Chris Young talks with (sings to) a local TV talk show. (Via Village Voice; H/T to Richard Newman who assured me that The Newman Group had nothing to do with the media prep on this one.




Back to the Future with Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs cuts his teeth on the big stage, circa 1984, to debut the Macintosh. Fun to see the Apple hyperbole in its formative stages, i.e., "Insanely Great!" (Maybe I should have saved my Mac LC (Motorola 68020 processor) on which my three sons cut their teeth with apps like KidPix, MathBlaster, Reader Rabbit, etc.? (h/t Beantown video man Steve Garfield via Techcrunch.

Long Live PR (and the Press Release Too)

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Two posts caught my attention early this week. Both offered fairly dour assessments of the practice of public relations, and as expected, both were heavily re-tweeted into the media echo chamber.

The first, from a trade journalist who no doubt has been on the receiving end of myriad PR come-ons and spam, declared that the press release is dead. The murderer? Twitter, of course.

In his follow-worthy Ad Age column buzzily titled "RIP, the Press Release (1906-2010) -- and Long Live the Tweet," Simon Dumenco attributes Twitter's ascendancy and the press release's failure to two events this past summer:

"The long-suffering, much-maligned press release, I'd argue, finally died this summer, thanks particularly to JetBlue and BP, with a little moral support from Kanye West and just about every other celebrity with thumbs. (Of course, press releases will probably continue to stumble along, zombie-like, for years to come, because too many PR folks are still heavily invested in grinding them out.)

There's no question that a robust and RT-happy Twitter following can help publicly propel one's musings (PR and otherwise). We've seen how Ford, Zappos, Pepsi, let alone countless celebs and others have embraced Twitter. Some PR agencies have even factored the size of one's Twitter following in their hiring decisions. (We'll save that post for another day.)

Yet the stalwart two-page press release has a rightful place in the PR toolbox...just not the one it has enjoyed since Ivy Lee's day. I mean does anyone reasonably expect a press release to catalyze and drive news coverage anymore?

The press release, unlike its 140-character cousin, offers communicators a simple-to-follow format for framing and providing context to a piece of news. Add some multimedia assets, and the recipient has all that's required to wrap his/her arms around a story. The same can be said for a blog post or drop.io presslift page. I'm not so sure about a tweet, even if it's TwitPic, bit.ly or video-infused.

The second post that stirred PR peeps' passions came from a friend and someone for whom I have great admiration -- a PR pro who ironically built his personal and firm's reputation on the premise that the traditional press release was dead. Todd Defren's edgy, all-capped title "THE CREATIVE DESTRUCTION OF PUBLIC RELATIONS" pretty much summed it up:

"The distinct discipline of Public Relations no longer exists. With extraordinarily rare exceptions, the definition of PR was conflated with “Media Relations.” And while Media Relations will ALWAYS be a critical component, its standing as a standalone practice is driving towards extinction."

Both Todd's and Simon's posts missed the point about public relations. The discipline is not about press releases or Twitter feeds, or even media relations. These are just tools and tactics.

The audacious Glenn Beck in DC (for better or worse)

Public relations is more about the resonance of the message (and hence the quality of the engagement), than the channel in which that message appears. Sure, we cannot ignore how the public increasingly lives its collective lives through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, smart phones and iPads.

Yet, the real PR talent has always resided with those who could create cogent, concise, and compelling content that is accurate, authentic and ultimately action-producing. What is said always trumped where it's said or how it's delivered.

So let's forget about the press release versus Twitter or media relations versus a Facebook of YouTube page. Whether it's paid, owned, earned or shared communications, one will fail to build a positive branded "media" presence for his or her clients without words, images, graphics and/or video that resonate and connect.