Qorvis Knows Social Media
Friday, June 26th, 2009Following an event for our pro bono client, the Creative Coalition, which launched the new NBC show The Philanthropist, Pamela Sorenson had some nice things to say about Qorvis. Thanks!
Following an event for our pro bono client, the Creative Coalition, which launched the new NBC show The Philanthropist, Pamela Sorenson had some nice things to say about Qorvis. Thanks!
It seems in doing what we do best here at Qorvis (that is, win public affairs battles), we’ve struck a nerve launching our latest endeavor: the No Choke Points Coalition. From Kenneth Corbin’s blog at internetnews.com:
“You’ve got to tip your hat to Qorvis — they really know how to pick a fight. The Washington-based PR and advertising firm, which spearheaded the tech industry’s campaign last year to open access to TV white spaces over the objection of the broadcasters, is now taking on another lobbying goliath: the incumbent telecom providers….”
Yes, we’re at it again. Beyond the hard work put in by all parties involved, however, this is perhaps more reflective of having great clients with worthy causes. That’s what made us Holmes Report’s Public Affairs Agency of the Year this year.
This Thursday, Qorvis and National Journal will be hosting Political Pursuit, a light but engaging event ahead of the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner weekend. This is a part of our ongoing series “The Road to 2010.” Be sure to check it out.
Qorvis Partner Stan Collender made some interesting comments in a PR Week article today, “Public affairs pros discover new areas of opportunity.” Stan discusses the blurring of the line between lobbying and public affairs communications support, and the resulting benefit:
“Public affairs communications, where you raise visibility of an issue in a way that policymakers can’t ignore, has become increasingly popular,” Collender says, adding that Op-Eds and news stories produce the best results. “This cuts across all issues that are on the front burner—taxes, spending, financial services—and others that proponents would like to move to the front burner…. Washington is now the center of the business and financial universe,” Collender says. “Public affairs communications needs will be substantial for quite some time.”
According to TechCrunch, Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis has offered $250,000 to get a slot on one of Twitters’ feature of suggested Users. This feature pops up when someone signs up for the first time and recommends people and originations whose followers have skyrocketed by being on the list.
By getting on to this list, Calacanis wants to gain more followers and potential customers. Twitter hasn’t responded to the offer, and even if they do there is no telling whether more followers would translate to anything other then a lot of annoying tweets but the offer does make you think twice about a site that many (myself included) mocked at the onset. The site built on the simple idea of short 140 characters has more applications than anyone would have imagined.
The question of which brands are the best at “socializing” with their audiences is often asked, and seldom answered. It is for that reason we applaud Vitrue for developing a Social Media Index (SMI) and publishing the top 100 social brands of 2008. There are some obvious names on the list, such as Apple, but also some less obvious ones, such as McDonalds. While names on this list span almost all industries, the one thing each has in common is that they are seeing robust financial and branding benefits from their social marketing efforts. The moral of the story is no matter what type of business you have or who your audience is, it has become clear that social media should be a significant component of your marketing mix. To see the whole list, check out The Vitrue Blog.
The Washington Post published an article today about President Obama’s staff walking in to their new workplace and finding themselves in a “technological dark age.” The article is getting a lot of attention due to the level of technology deployed throughout the Obama campaign.
I’m of two minds here - On one hand I can COMPLETELY understand why the Secret Service and those responsible for securing the White House’s communications would be extremely wary of lifting security regulations on outside email accounts, instant messaging, social networking applications - all communications vehicles that make the Executive Branch more vulnerable to an e-attack (and yes, I just made that word up).
On the other hand the American people have been subjected to our government operating in an inefficient manner for much too long, and its about time the White House was introduced to the 21st Century. These communication channels help the administration immensely by allowing them to communicate with each other, their supporters and the general electorate - something the public yearns for. After decrying the lack of transparency during the Bush years, the administration is supposed to retreat in to the turtle shell that is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, just like their predecessors? As a wise man once said - that’s not change, that’s more of the same.
What’s needed is a bridge between secure and open communications on the Internet. The brilliant folks in the Secret Service and the Obama administration can surely work together to figure out a way to allow Executive Branch staff to creatively and constructively communicate with the outside world while ensuring a secure system. Yes, they can!
As millions descend upon Washington to witness a truly historic event, and what is sure to be equally historic confusion, we wanted to give visitors a way to navigate Washington while they are here. So Qorvis, in partnership with Patton Boggs, PointAbout, and FortiusOne, is offering a free application for the iPhone and Blackberry that allows users to quickly get information on pretty much any and all of the information vistors will be looking for - Inaugural events, restaurants, directions, Metro and Bus schedules, Wi-Fi Locations, Local Weather and Traffic, etc. We released the application’s second version today, which includes a polling component called Speak Your Mind that gauges real-time user sentiment about inaugural events.
We are really proud of this application and hope all iPhone and Blackberry users who will be in and around Washington for the Inauguration will find it useful! You can download the application at http://navigatingwashington.com and find videos showing how to use the application here and here.
Lastly, be sure to check out the piece CNN aired featuring the application last night.
Qorvis is honored to be able to cap off another great year with today’s news that PRWeek has named us a finalist for the category of Midsize PR Agency of the Year 2009! We’re all clearly thrilled about this recognition.
What helped driving our nomination were several achievements, including the launch of Clarus Research Group, a full-service, in-house polling and research firm; a number of new clients, including an advertising campaign for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM); the hiring of some top-tier talent, such as Karen Hanretty, former Communications Director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, and Lisa Bushey, a public relations veteran; and the expansion of the company’s headquarters in Washington, DC.
Qorvis is starting the year with the launch of the 2009 Presidential Inauguration Mobile App. The new, free mobile application, named “Phone App of the Week” by the New York Times, will provide visitors to Washington in January the ability to easily navigate the city with a glance at their iPhone or BlackBerry.
The PRWeek awards are among the industry’s highest accolades. Qorvis was nominated for the category for agencies whose annual revenues range from $15 million-$65 million.
By my age, habits have become pretty well etched into the pattern of my life. However, I have to admit that I am joining that crush of people who are getting more of their news online. I have grabbed The Washington Post at my front door every day for the past five decades or so. For years, my day hasn’t really begun until I have a cup of coffee and The Post. But more frequently these days, I find myself early in the morning moving seamlessly from emails to news on my own schedule without worrying about whether The Post has been delivered yet. Now, I get my news most frequently by watching one or more cable TV news networks while balancing a laptop on my lap. Usually, on my computer screen is an email from Seeking Alpha, which suits my needs for news and opinion better than anything else I’ve discovered. They assemble articles from people with very high credentials who publish on the web, often on their own blogs or news services. The people from Seeking Alpha bring their own substantial and credible editing to the process. They allow their reader to specify the topics that interest them and send them a daily morning email with links to articles grouped by each area of interest specified. One of the areas I monitor is Housing. This morning (12/23/08), I was especially impressed by an article entitled “The Housing Blame Game, Redux.” It was written by Paul Jackson, who is the publisher of “Housing Wire,” which is a respected source of news and interpretation of the residential real estate market. In his article,
The Crash Of Home Prices, Like The Crash Of The Stock Market, Was Not An Isolated Episodic Event. It Happened In A Much Broader Context.
Although I think Paul Jackson’s article was enlightening, I also think his discussion misses the major point: new and ill-conceived financial instruments and political policies certainly exerted major influence on the housing bubble, but they existed within the context of a cultural phenomenon.
From mid-1986 until the very end of 1990, I was VP at NVR, which grew from a small IPO of a Greater Washington regional homebuilding company called NVHomes to become the nation’s largest homebuilder when, in a classic minnow-swallowing-the-whale case history, NVHomes acquired Ryan Homes. I worked closely with founder and then Chairman/CEO Dwight Schar, a brilliant businessperson who (at least from what I could observe) had an intuitive genius for real estate, how to market new homes, and how to operate a homebuilding business. (As an aside, he also has become a close friend of George W. Bush, and he has been one of the major fund raisers for the Republican Party for a number of years.) While working with (and learning much from) him, I attended four years worth of conferences where we and other public homebuilders made presentations to analysts and institutional investors. In fact, I sometimes took his place making the company presentations at those conferences.
In the process, I got to see all the other publicly owned builders make their presentations over a very dynamic four year period of boom-to-bust for the real estate business. This combination of having a close-up view of the homebuilding industry as a part of the senior management team of the nation’s largest homebuilder and as an observer in the audience listening on a regular basis to CEOs of other homebuilders gave me the opportunity to see a fundamental change happening in the residential real estate market.
Product Product Product.
Consistent and concurrent with this trend, the market began to be segmented so that there was no longer just a “move-up” market but there was a “first time move-up,” a “second move-up,” and then the McMansion market. In other words, there was always a reason to sell your existing house and buy the next level up. By creating a “next step up,” homebuilders increased the size of their market. The consumer was lured to another sale. Each segment of the market was defined not so much by location but by the features and look of the house itself. Product became king. So what if the house was located in the far suburbs requiring an awful commute? Look what you could live in once you got home! How great you would feel! How impressed your friends will be when they see the house! Worth the commute.
The real estate crash of the early to mid-1990s popped the market bubble for about seven years or so until people who bought at the market high saw their homes’ value recover to the price they originally paid. When the market came back, it came back with a vengence, fueled by homebuilders who built and fed into the consumer’s appetite for more-and-better as defined by product. The marketing that was used to turn-on the market could not have succeeded unless the market itself was susceptible to that pitch. And that is my point: the market itself (our culture) also must assume a major burden for what has happened to home values. And, because the crash in home values is a major reason for the crash of the equity and debt markets, you could say by a simple extension of logic that it was our culture that gave rise to our current financial condition.
The evidence of wealth became a priority to Americans, and the house became the most important evidence of wealth. Even if you didn’t actually have wealth, you could still look like you had it. Remember the TV commercial that showed the guy with all the props of wealth who admitted that he was “in debt up to my eyeballs”? That was a perfect summary of the American Culture: The appearance of wealth not only became more important than actual wealth, it became so important that debt would be assumed to the degree that it actually undermined the reality of (or prospect of building) wealth just for the sake of giving the appearance of wealth. How perverse was that logic? So perverse that it could be attributed to only one thing: a bandwagon mentality gone horribly off-track.
Although the consumer’s ability to get themselves into that fix was helped by new financial instruments and government policies, as Paul Jackson’s article suggests, the consumer’s decisions and priorities were fueled less by financial instruments and more by the culture that dominated our society and nation at the time.
To dismiss the cultural issue when trying to identify the causes of the current financial crisis is a major mistake because if we are not sensitive to it as a cause, we will not observe cultural shifts as they occur as a necessary component of the solution. I think those cultural changes will exert at least as much influence in how and when the residential real estate market is reshaped as any new mortgage instruments that may be appear on the scene.
What Cultural Changes Might We Expect?
If my premise is correct, then the question becomes: What sort of cultural changes might we expect? I think that will be very difficult to predict correctly, but here’s my current guess as to attitudinal shifts in the American Public’s view of their homes:
If …
If those cultural changes are made as part of the revitalization of the residential real estate market, there will probably be similar and related cultural changes in society as a whole. As that occurs, the current American Dream of “Buy more … Buy bigger … Buy more expensive … Buy on credit even if you can’t afford it” will be transformed. Perhaps the transformation will include a reversal, at least in part, to the traditional American values of liberty, freedom, and individual responsibility and opportunism. We’d also be likely to see increased savings rates and decreased levels of debt. But I think the cultural change on the horizon will be much more than an updated restatement of former ideals. I believe new standards, priorities, ways of doing things and the basic definition of what makes for a “good life” will emerge.
I do not think this will happen overnight, and I think many of the changes will begin to emerge in very small and maybe unnoticeable increments (which would increase the need for being sensitive to the issue so that we can observe changes as they evolve). In the meantime, given the destroyed wealth that formerly existed in peoples’ homes, the ongoing southward direction of the equities and debt markets globally, increasing unemployment, and more dramatic stories of the Madoff ilk, it’s going to be very easy in 2009 for people to count their blessings. But the blessings they count will be less of the materialistic variety – less tied to money (or even the lack of it). And if “blessings” morph FROM things like the latest flat screen television in the media room with theater chairs TO things like reveling in family and non-capital-related assets, then the cultural change will be significant indeed. After all, there won’t be another catastrophe in sub-prime mortgages if there is no market for sub-prime mortgages in the first place.
To cap off a great week, Gadgetwise, the New York Times tech blog, has named the Qorvis / Patton Boggs 2009 Presidential Inauguration App the App of the Week.
Qorvis, Patton Boggs and PointAbout are really excited about the potential this app has to help people navigate Washington (which is the elegant metaphor for what we as companies do for our clients). The next iteration for BlackBerry should be out in the middle of next week, and new functionality for iPhone will be up soon too.
To experience the app, check out this video. Or to download it, go here. Enjoy!
Some articles from the week:
So everyone in Washington is planning on throwing a party to celebrate Mr. Obama’s Inauguration. We decided to do it differently. As two companies that help people and organizations navigate the complexities of our nation’s capital (public affairs, legal services, issue advocacy, media and public relations, etc.), we thought we’d office this service on a different level: actually help you navigate the city. And the 2009 Presidential Inauguration App was born.
Qorvis designed the app and worked with our partner PointAbout to develop it. (As a fully-integrated communications firm, Qorvis has in-house capabilities to do this efficiently and effectively…) The application has evolving content—which will include RSS feeds on inauguration events and services and other related information, closer to the event date. Plans also include a polling component to gauge real-time user sentiment about the Inauguration. FortiusOne will be analyzing and visualizing the results through their GeoCommons platform.
Current services include:
The Washingtonian blog covered the news first, and you can read our press release here.
The first iteration of the app is now available in the iTunes App Store. A Blackberry version will soon follow. Development of a version for the Google phone “Android” is slated for early January 2009. More news to follow, please check here for updates.
At the December 2, 2008, “New Washington” conference held at The National Press Club , I gave a brief presentation on how I believe the convergence of the economic downturn and the new political environment will give rise to a decline in “buy this” messages and a surge in “support this” messages. This is a video of that presentation. For videos of each of the other speakers, including David Rubenstein of Carlyle, Gov. Tom Ridge, and Joe Robert (real estate investor), plus Steven Fuller’s presentation of his most recent projections for the region,
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Although I will primarily be covering news and events at Qorvis, occasionally I’ll comment on governmental activities—a tempting topic for someone at a public affairs firm in Washington, DC. This will mostly be done with history in mind.
What caught my eye this morning is that, in addition to Valerie Jarrett being tapped to serve as “senior adviser and assistant to the president for intergovernmental relations and public liaison”, Mr. Biden is also going to have an adviser for Intergovernmental Relations.
Following the meeting yesterday of Mr. Obama, Mr. Biden and the state governors, there was much to-do over the attention given to maintaining relations on this level. So perhaps they are aiming to have the next Vice President do some additional liaison work—which would be an interesting concept.
The current Vice President did not have such a position on his staff. Clearly, however, the Biden folks are thinking of something somewhat different. Obviously, each and every Vice President is completely different from every other Vice President. And what we’ve become used to with Mr. Cheney will certainly not continue.
For example:
However, the bottom line on the whole issue: if you were the Governor of New York or California or Florida, would you prefer a meeting with Vice President Biden, or with President Obama? Would you want to talk to the number two man, or would you want to go straight to the Oval Office? I am afraid that human nature being what it is, no Governor is going to want to stop and see the Vice President on anything. They’re going to want to be able to say to their constituents, “I went straight to the President.”
As proof, we can look to At the President’s Side, edited by Timothy Walch, 1997:
“As the first man since Calvin Coolidge to step directly into the vice presidency from a statehouse, it was logical that Agnew be put in charge of relations with other state executives. The Office of Intergovernmental Relations was thus created as part of the Office of the Vice President in 1969. However, Agnew was far from diplomatic in his dealings with his former colleagues. Rockefeller, for example, simply refused to talk to him, sending his messages to Nixon through National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger.”
The following are my remarks prepared (and slightly edited) for the conference on “The New Washington” held at The National Press Club in Washington, D.C., the morning of December 2, 2008. Qorvis Communications was a sponsor of that conference and helped initiate it. The conference, for which almost 600 people reserved seats, was hosted by Bisnow, and other sponsors included Patton Boggs and Deloitte.
In the first quarter of this year, Chrysler and Ford cut U.S. advertising budgets by 42 percent and 31 percent, respectively. In April and May, Proctor & Gamble, the largest advertiser in the world, cut its ad spend by twenty percent. In the second quarter, Netflix, one of the largest advertisers on the Internet, cut its marketing expenses by 27 percent. All of that was before the financial meltdown of October – before the consumer went comatose.
It is simply restating the obvious to say that the economy is bringing with it a dramatic decrease in messages that basically say “buy this.”
At the same time, the changing political environment is leading to an accelerating increase in messages that say: “support this.” We have already begun to see these messages and it’s only spring training — the real season hasn’t even begun. Support the importance of chemistry. Support this way of conducting union elections. Support reforming the nation’s healthcare system this way and certainly not that way. These are part of the tip of an iceberg. We’re going to live in an environment of a permanent political campaign that does not end with an election but goes up and down in intensity as issues move onto the front stage, get resolved or deferred, and new ones come up to take their place.
The reason for the current and emerging growth in “support this” messages is obvious: The new White House and executive branch, led by an enormously charismatic President with dramatic persuasive abilities to articulate the messages for his own agenda, is giving every indication that he will be unafraid to address very fundamental issues. He will be supported by a new Congress that will take office feeling a mandate for change from a highly engaged and interactive constituency.
Together, the new White House and new Congress will propose game-changing rules for a broad range of industries including healthcare, energy, defense, the nation’s transportation infrastructure, financial services … the list goes on. As a result, special interest groups of all sizes, ideologies and motivations will have mission critical needs to defend those existing policies – and/or promote those new policies – that serve their vested interests.
There are some important inherent differences between campaigns to get an audience to buy something versus campaigns to get an audience to support something. The very metrics for success are different: seeking votes in the Senate for proposed legislation is a vastly different process than seeking to get a consumer to buy an SUV. For example, asking someone to make a phone call or send an email to a Senator is a major goal of campaigns for supporters, but inane in campaigns for consumers.
Supporter-driven campaigns are combinations of public affairs, grass roots, crisis communications, media relations, guerilla marketing, political strategy, special events, interactive and social media, and traditional advertising, all working in tandem with lobbying and legal efforts. This is the type of expertise that has grown up in DC, and that has become a separate and distinct communications industry segment.
What does this mean to the future of Greater Washington?
Or, to paraphrase Willy Sutton, who robbed banks because that was where the money was, taking messages to Washington will grow because that is where the money is now — as well as the power to enact new game-changing rules.
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As I am watching the coverage today on CNN of the terrorist attack on Mumbai, the coverage goes to the anchorperson who says “We just want to talk about the other major news story that is happening now ….” And he gave a brief report on a commercial airplane that has gone down in the Atlantic. As unfortunate as the event was, at least at first report, it had less than ten passengers on board. It merited national - for all practical purposes, international - coverage.
It reminded me of the “plane crash” that the news media misses everyday. Consider the lead from an April 8, 2008 article from Science magazine entitled “Medical Errors Cost US $8.8 Billion”: “Patient safety incidents cost the federal Medicare program $8.8 billion and resulted in 238,337 potentially preventable deaths during 2004 through 2006, according to HealthGrades’ fifth annual Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study.” Let’s do some math. 238,337 deaths over three years averages 79,445 annually. And that equals about 217 deaths a day. In the United States. From medical mistakes. And that counts only Medicare patients.
A search for other articles about the same subject actually is more depressing. An August 9, 2004, article in Medical News Today, pegged the number of in-hospital deaths in the US at 195,000 daily (based on a study conducted in 2000 - 2002. That equates to 534 deaths daily due to medical mistakes in hospitals in our nation.
A 747 super jet, in its configuration for the most number of passengers in a two-class flight holds about 525 people. Now consider the news coverage that you will see next time there a 747 goes down. It will probably be a multi-day story that will be either the lead story or near that status in news coverage globally. But if everyone of that plane dies, it still will not total the number of people who die from medical mistakes in hospitals in the U.S. every day of the year. That’s a “plane crash” that happens every day that gets no news coverage at all. Perhaps if it did get appropriate coverage, it would be easier to get true health care reform in this nation.
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In my post “The Organic Message,” I discussed my view that messages can attain a life of their own and that the more they achieve that status, the more powerful they become. Those messages that achieve a state of “existence” can be considered to have become an “organic message.” I concluded that post by defining what I believe to be the four factors that are essential for a message to become organic: it must have frequency, relevancy, credibility, and exist within a context. In this post, I take a closer look at each of these factors. In an upcoming post, I will analyze the Obama and McCain campaigns from the perspective of these four factors and draw conclusions that can be applied in the forthcoming fight for control of messages in the new economic and political environment.
FIRST OF ALL, THE MESSAGE HAS TO BE COMMUNICATED FREQUENTLY.
BUT THE DEFINITION OF “FREQUENTLY” HAS TO BE RETHOUGHT.
“Reach and frequency” have been standard concerns for communications campaigns for decades. The logic is simple: the more a message is communicated the more effective it will be. Unfortunately, that logic is over-simplistic and wrong.
There are many ways to measure the number of times a message is communicated to its targets. But whatever measurement system is used, the total numbers are deceiving because they judge how many times a message is delivered – but that becomes less relevant in a world where people are hit by messages constantly from all directions. The true number of “frequency” to measure is the number of times a message has actually been received.
Gross frequency numbers are not unlike gross sales on a P&L – they are misleading because something (pass-through expenses in the case of the P&L, for example) has to be deducted. Both objective research and subjective opinions can (and should) be used to determine what and how much should be discounted from whether a message has the frequency needed to become “organic.” In doing so, the following questions must be considered:
However, there is a risk of losing control of the message when different distribution channels are used because in most instances different teams are created for each distribution channel (e.g., an ad team, a grass roots team, a web team, etc.). Different teams equal different silos, and different silos mean lack of collegiality and coordination. That isn’t always the case, but the exceptions are aberrations. The way to combat that risk is by starting with a seamlessly integrated campaign approach from the start. That way, when measuring how frequently a message reaches an audience, there would be no need to discount for lack of consistency due to the fact that the message is being communicated differently (even if only modestly) from channel to channel.
Starting with a totally integrated approach also allows for another benefit: there is no need to avoid any distribution channel out of fear of losing coordination. In the world of information overload, for a message to become organic it needs to surround the audience, and that means using all relevant distribution channels. It would be a mistake to avoid using any distribution channel for fear of losing control of the message. It makes more sense to develop or acquire the ability to use the channel.
JUST AS “FREQUENCY” NEEDS TO BE REDEFINED, SO DOES “RELEVANCY.”
There has been an explosion in the number of messages hitting people in all their environments at all times. For example, unless you got a printed version of this article for some strange reason, you got to this point by being on the Internet. The chances are that you were hit with several messages on the way here. Maybe a banner ad. Maybe some ads at a search engine you used. If you used a search engine, you also got hit by messages from the listings themselves (some of which were on the first page of results due to deliberate search engine maximization efforts). Chances are pretty good you also have gotten some alerts about news or stocks or sporting events that interest you. And maybe some IMs from friends, business contacts or spammers. Is the TV on while you are reading this? Maybe the radio. Somebody may even be speaking to you or trying to get your attention right now. Whether for a nanosecond when you looked for a way to close or delete a banner ad or other alert or for longer if it actually grabbed your attention, numerous messages have been attacking you.
The only way for someone to cope with so many messages competing for their attention is to go through a prioritization process – very quickly and usually without thinking about it. Certainly a great presentation helps elevate the priority, as does the clarity of the message, as I mentioned in my first point above. But people also prioritize by virtue of relevancy. Imagine that you are a collector of baseball cards. Here comes a message about a sale on baseball cards. Here’s a better message because it’s about cards for the old Brooklyn Dodgers – that‘s my team. This one is even better – it’s about a sale on cards of players on the 1955 World Series team. Four messages hit you, one of which was more relevant that the other three. That’s the message that actually got through to you. That’s the message that has the chance of becoming “organic” with you.
Admittedly, the example about baseball cards is pretty mundane. But people go through the same process when hit by messages about which car they should buy, which new healthcare plan they should support, or which candidate should get their vote.
Thus, although relevancy has always been important, it is even more important today (and even increasingly so in the future) for two reasons: 1) more messages are fighting for attention so the message doesn’t have a good chance of getting through to the target unless it appears to be relevant; and 2) the ability actually exists to target audiences and personalize messages for a very high degree of relevancy – so that ability should be exploited.
THERE IS CREDIBILITY. AND THEN THERE IS “HYPER-CREDIBILITY.”
Regardless of how well a message is packaged and how frequently and clearly it is presented to a highly relevant audience, if the message isn’t credible it’s meaningless.
That statement is so obvious that it is very rare for an enterprise or a person to put their credibility at risk. And even when they do, the risk is considered so great that the effort is hidden or covered-up if discovered.
But over the course of my career in communications I’ve discovered that credibility can be extended from the past and present into the future and thereby help create a self-fulfilling prophecy. In making this point in the past, I’ve referred to 1968, at the Mexico Olympics, when Dick Fosbury made history not only by winning the gold medal for the high jump, but for creating a whole new way of doing the jump, which has become known as “The Fosbury Flop.” You can see a clip (little more than one minute) by clicking this link. What interests me is not so much the radical change in jumping style that Fosbury created (which has become the standard among elite high jumpers), but what he did before he jumped. What the video to which I linked above shows only a hint of was his preparation at the starting line (see the clenched fist and the way Fosbury is seen rocking back and forth slowly on his feet). In fact, he stood there for a full four minutes before starting his run. He did not start to run until he completely rehearsed every nuance of the jump in his own mind.
Of course, the visualization of the jump by itself would not be enough for Fosbury to win a gold medal. But the combination of his skills and practice plus his visualization of the jump before the actual event of the jump could make the visualization become reality. In this instance, the credibility that has been projected into the future translated into the future reality. I believe the same thing can happen with ideas.
In my first post about The Organic Message, in the section titled “AN INVESTOR RELATIONS PITCH THAT FAILED TAUGHT ME ABOUT HOW TO CREATE IDEAS THAT CAN REALLY EXIST,” I described how a meeting with an investment analyst led me to understand how Genentech used credibility to present themselves to him and other investors as a smart investment. They painted a picture of their future (not unlike Fosbury visualized his jump), and then they described that picture with such credibility that it gained “existence” — and then the viability of the existence of that idea “pulled” the current reality in the direction of the idea/vision, just as the visualization of clearing the high jump bar helped Fosbury win the gold medal.
When credibility is so strong that it can be leveraged to the degree that it enables and accelerates the realization of a vision, I consider that to be more than credible. I consider it “hyper-credible.” And “hyper-credibility” – as difficult as it may be to acquire – is absolutely necessary for a message to become “organic.” This begs for a more complete explanation, and I will provide that in an upcoming post.
TO BECOME “ORGANIC,” A MESSAGE MUST EXIST WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF A STORY.
Consider the properties of a story. There are some characters and events with which you are already somewhat familiar (a past). Something is happening now (the present). But what intrigues you and keeps you from walking away from the story is the prospect of what is going to happen in the future. The TV show “American Idol” is the perfect example. Each season thus far, the show has established a life of its own. It isn’t a single event. It has a beginning, middle and most of all it has an end that is so compelling that once you get into the story you’re going to stay in the story to see how it unfolds.
I really came to understand the importance of “the story” when I was focused on investor relations (a period of about 20 years). In fact, investors very often sum up a company in terms of its “story.” The earnings and releases that have been issued constitute the past. This quarter’s earnings and the achievement of events that are expected to happen at the current time (for example, a new product release) constitute the present. The vision is the future. That’s the story. That’s what investors buy.
Once I gained that understanding, I learned that I could add life to the story in direct relation to how much I related episodic events to the story. Consider, for example, the crafting of a fairly mundane release for the announcement of a new VP for HR for a software company. Here’s the episodic version:
ABC Software Inc. announced that John Smith has been named its new VP for Human Resources. Prior to joining ABC, Smith was Director of HR at XYZ Corp. He graduated from this school etc. etc.
Here’s the story crafted in the context of a story:
ABC Chairman Tom Jones said today that the company was advancing its goal to attract the best database software engineers by naming John Smith VP for Human Resources. Jones said that database engineers are highly recruited and that ABC wants to maintain its reputation for being a great place to work. He said Smith was recruited from XYZ Corp. because of his success there in increasing employee morale that translated into a significant increase in efficiency etc. etc.
That’s a pretty simplistic example and rather obvious. However, when it comes to announcing or discussing events that are more complex than the announcement of a new VP for HR, what should be obvious often becomes overlooked. Consider earnings releases and the conference calls associated with them. There is no question that the numbers are important – but their importance is not simply in terms of the actual numbers, but how those numbers relate to the prospects for when and to what degree the future that is anticipated will be realized. That’s why earnings are discounted when inflated by a one-time non-operating beneficial event that has no relationship to future results. What is true with earnings news is true of all events – they do not exist and cannot be readily understood in episodic terms, as isolated events. They should be communicated in the context of how they relate to the realization of the future vision. How they move the story forward.
The more episodes that are communicated in the context of the story, the more intriguing the story becomes. The more intriguing the story, the more the person who is exposed to it becomes concerned about it and follows it. As that happens the story becomes more palpable – it becomes real. It acquires its own existence. It becomes organic.
In an upcoming post, I will relate these four components to the success of the Obama campaign for President. Obama won the election, but I do not believe the campaign is over. I believe he has an intrinsic understanding of the organic message and will continue his campaign throughout his Presidency – unlike anything we have ever seen before. Remember: the rally on election night in Grant Park was far from impromptu. It was a part of the ongoing campaign. If you want an alert about when that is posted, send an email to dporetz@qorvis.com, or use the email link above.
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The following article is long by current blog standards. I try to tie together a few thoughts that are of concern to anyone with an interest in how policy changes may impact their industry, interests or personal lives. I try to make a case that the current global economic and political environment will lead to a fight for message control and how issues are defined. This activity, combined with a dramatic change in the capabilities of (and access to) a new communications infrastructure, requires a new way of thinking about communications campaigns.
CONSIDER JUST HOW FUNDAMENTALLY THE WORLD IS CHANGING:
A new global financial environment that is highly volatile and still too risky to predict. A new White House, all new cabinet, and new Congress about to be swept into office by a highly energized and engaged electorate, including four million new voters. A populist mandate, not necessarily for any specific action, but for long-lasting, fundamental and as yet undefined change itself. A new regulatory environment with new laws, new regulations and new standards about to become new realities. A new role for governments as bankers and investors in a truly global economy. Constant communications. Constant news. Constant action and reaction. Never-ending political campaigns - not appeals for votes but for support for (or opposition to) proposed changes.
NOW CONSIDER THE FIGHT THAT IS ABOUT TO EMERGE
AS THE POLITICAL MOOD AND GLOBAL EVENTS GIVE WAY TO THE NEXT STAGE:
SPECIFIC PROPOSALS FOR CHANGE.
The nation’s anxieties are so intense that serious consideration is being given to holding a lame duck session of Congress even before the Inauguration and the new Congress convenes in January. The economy, the war in Iraq, the global war on terrorism, education and healthcare will be at the top of Congress’ agenda, but the agenda will not end there. And, even if there is a lame duck session, the momentum for action will be far from vented by the time of the Inauguration. By then the flurry of proposals for change that exists now will become a tsunami of proposals, not limited to any particular issue.
Although partisanship-as-usual was ultimately overwhelmed to the degree necessary to address the debt crisis and enact a “bailout” bill, it happened neither quickly nor well and it took a panic to force it. It would be naïve to believe that a new era of bipartisanship has been born. As theories start being translated into action, both honest ideological differences and parochial political interests will become much more in evidence.
A debate will emerge over each aspect of each call for change. The intensity of the debate will be unprecedented because of what will be at risk: fundamental rules of the game in matters as wide ranging as how the global financial markets are structured, how industries are regulated, who pays how much for healthcare, and how entitlement programs continue to be funded. In this environment, every enterprise in the nation, along with many throughout the world, will have vested interests they will want (need) to protect and promote.
This will not be a quiet process. Enterprises from the left and right, for profit and not-for-profit, public and private, local, regional, national and international will focus on the issues that concern them. They will come to an understanding of what the potential impact may be, and they will come to the brutal realization that they have a mission critical need to communicate to their members, customers, investors, vendors and the public at large to build support as powerful as possible for their agenda. They will want to take control of the critical messages that define their issues. They will need to develop ways to mobilize their supporters. They will fight to expand their base.
And it will all happen in a new era of digital communications. In real time. Largely uncontrolled. A platform for every message. Non-stop. Global.
THE NOISE LEVEL WILL GROW AND THE VERY NATURE OF THE NOISE WILL CHANGE.
Although global banking action may have put the brakes to what looked like an inevitable crash of the debt and equity markets, it seems clear that a worldwide recession is emerging and that it will be significant both in terms of length and depth. The strong economy we enjoyed for so long was largely fueled (and enjoyed) by consumers – and consumers will be hit very hard as the crisis in the capital markets moves to “the real economy.” Billions of dollars of equity the consumer had in their homes has evaporated, and with it so has the buying power they had when they were able to tap that equity to buy another flat screen TV, fund a vacation, or send a kid to college. They now find themselves with debt obligations higher than they thought they’d face just at the same time as crucial expenses such as gas and food have increased in price. Without the ability to draw on their home equity or credit cards, they have less ability to meet their expenses. This is about to be exacerbated as headlines about esoteric debt instruments convert into headlines about layoffs and higher unemployment.
The consumer market won’t die, but it is likely to be in a coma of some degree for a substantial period of time. What will that mean for all those advertising dollars that have traditionally been spent to get at the consumer’s wallet? Why would that money be spent now when the wallet is depleted or the consumer is not ready to open it out of fear from uncertainty?
So here is a certainty: advertising budgets of those who market to the consumer will be slashed. This doesn’t mean advertising will stop, but much higher efficiency will be sought. We will see traditional appeals for the wallet move to the web and other new media, where buying decisions can be made quickly, impulsively and at lower overhead to the seller.
This will leave TV and radio stations with major inventories of unsold time and it will leave newspapers and other print media with unsold space. The print media will reduce their unsold inventory of space by reducing the number of pages they print and we will continue to see print media shrink in size (and continue to devolve as a business). But TV and radio stations cannot expand or contract time. They’ve got it for sale and they’ll keep dropping the price until it becomes so compelling that buyers will step forward. And that will lead to a change in the “noise” that hits people in their everyday life: the lower priced advertising will attract those who have the critical vested interest to appeal to hearts and brains for support, supplanting those who have historically appealed to wallets for sales.
Imagine a pie chart of advertising messages that reach people. The chart has two slices: one represents advertisers going for their target’s wallet and brand loyalty for their product or service, and the other represents those going for the target’s emotional and intellectual buy-in for their support in one form or another. Although the latter has grown in size over the past few years, for decades the former has been the bigger slice of that pie by far. We have lived in - and been shaped by - an environment that has been inundated with messages that in most basic terms have said: “Buy Me.” That is about to change to an inundation of messages that say: “Support This Position.”
Just as the constant barrage of “Buy Me” messages created a consumer-driven culture, the “Support Me” messages will also create a culture. That new culture, which will emerge and evolve over time, will be different than the culture that grew with the Post World War II period of expansion and the Baby Boom. It is probably too soon in the process to predict exactly what that culture might look like as it becomes real.
However, it’s not too early to come to a conclusion about what’s at risk. Just look at how the global capital system has changed in the past few weeks: a change in ownership and control of the world’s most important financial institutions, a substantial negative change in the value of virtually every publicly traded enterprise in the world, and a change in the geographic centers of power in our nation’s financial industry, with the equity market still in New York, but the center of gravity for the debt market now in Washington. Those are pretty momentous and game changing events. But the list of such significant change has already grown longer since the debt crisis, and it would be a mistake to think it won’t grow even longer.
And in every instance of proposed change - each carrying its own dramatic, fundamental and debatable set of possible consequences - proponents and opponents will arise and vie to control the message and frame the debate.
A chorus of diverse voices will emerge, each arguing for their point of view: employers and unions; those who want to focus on the critical issues associated with whether and how we exploit resources and conserve our environment; those with more “family room” issues such as whether money goes to fund school lunch programs or school music programs; and those who just want to use a time of turbulence as an opportunity to advance their own political or social agendas.
As more enterprises realize the risks inherent in how proposed changes could touch them, they will join the public debate. Then, as the time for debate ends and the time for voting or adoption of administrative action nears, they will raise the volume of their messages even more. This will create a cacophony of messages that will become increasingly louder - and more difficult to break through. And to achieve that will require a radically different view of how to think about communications campaigns.
“ADVERTISING” WILL BECOME OBSOLETE.
SO WILL “P.R.”
The communications industry and communications campaigns have distinct sub-segments that are often defined by virtue of the distribution channel used to communicate a message. For example, ”advertising” is defined by virtue of the fact that the message is communicated using distribution channels that are bought. “P.R.” refers to using ”free” space or time that is “earned” on a distribution channel. “Interactive” refers to using a digital distribution channel. Because distribution channels have defined the communications industry, they have also defined the borders and scopes of communications campaigns. As a consequence, communications efforts are too often approached with thinking that is neither robust nor bold enough. It would be a serious mistake to continue that type of thinking under any circumstances. In the current and emerging environment, the mistake could be fatal.
After all, what advertising has in common with P.R. or social media or event marketing or any other communications specialty is one thing: the effort is undertaken to get specific messages to specific audiences to achieve specific results. So why define a communications effort by virtue of the distribution channel? Why not define the communications effort by virtue of its goal rather than its process?
Enterprises that reject a distribution-centric definition of communications in favor of a goal-driven approach are achieving a new level of effectiveness and efficiency through truly integrated campaigns. The successes of these campaigns will be emulated. Over time, the silos of communications “practice groups” will fall. Eventually, neither the communications industry itself nor communications efforts will be defined by virtue of a distribution channel. The message will become paramount.
THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE.
I was graduated from George Washington University in 1967. I majored in philosophy. I thought then (and still believe now) that I and my friends were studying philosophy at the same time that a major new idea was emerging. I confess that I cannot summarize it better than this Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message):
“The medium is the message” is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived, creating subtle change over time. The phrase was introduced in his most widely known book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, published in 1964.[1] McLuhan proposes that media themselves, not the content they carry, should be the focus of study; he said that a medium affects the society in which it plays a role not only by the content delivered over the medium, but by the characteristics of the medium itself.
McLuhan made a legitimate point that is still relevant. But today, there is a collateral statement that may be even more important:
THE MESSAGE IS THE MEDIUM.
When engaged in truly integrated communications campaigns (as opposed to “an ad campaign” or “an interactive campaign,” etc.) the message is launched to targeted audiences through any distribution channel that makes sense for the effort, limited neither by geography, deadline, nor language. The message reaches its desired audiences when they watch TV, when they work at their desks, and wherever they go, with unprecedented power, specificity and immediacy. For example, iPhone and its forthcoming clones will deliver messages with compelling impact tailored to the individual’s interests at the spot they are standing at the moment they are standing there. The fully executed integrated campaign results in messages becoming virtually ubiquitous with their intended audience, based on the person’s individual’s interests and their prospects for taking an action such as supporting a bill or buying a product.
McLuhan was right in that the medium can deliver a message with an impact that influences or even becomes more potent than the message itself. But, today (and increasingly so in the future) messages can be so relevant to the target’s interests, so constant, so powerfully presented, and coming at them in so many ways that the specific distribution channels employed to take the message to the target will become irrelevant and largely unidentifiable. In that case, the message becomes ubiquitous and more powerful than ever because, for all practical purposes, the message itself becomes the medium.
