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The real thing

• Posted by Linda Forrest
• April 28, 2010
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By Linda Forrest

Last night, I happened upon a special on CNBC about Coca-Cola called The Real Story Behind the Real Thing. It was a fascinating look at the soft-drink company whose grasp and usage of marketing is legendary. Legendary also is the grave misstep it made in the 1980s when it launched New Coke.

Pepsi came on the scene and was holding blind taste tests called the Pepsi Challenge. When asked, the majority of participants noted that they liked the taste of Pepsi better than Coke. This caused Coca-Cola to conduct its own tests, the results of which mirrored the Pepsi Challenge. Despite the fact that the recipe for Coke hadn’t changed considerably in the previous hundred years (the initial recipe contained cocaine, but just for the first few years on the market), the powers that be at the company panicked and ordered the recipe to change so that the flavour more closely mirrored that of Pepsi. Big mistake.

New Coke failed spectacularly and within months, the original Coke was brought back to market, branded as Coca-Cola Classic. Funnily enough, Coke gained significant market share when all was said and done, though the company’s mistake had the potential to sink the entire operation.

When one executive was asked whether it was all a stunt, whether Coke had planned it, he said that they weren’t that smart, and they weren’t that dumb.

While it all worked out in the company’s favour in the end, it could have easily gone the other way. Many lessons can be learned from this and I’m sure many an MBA student has written their thesis on the New Coke experiment.

Here, I’ll try to distill a few lessons that we as marketers can take from it:

1. Don’t panic. What Coke did was react hastily to competition that was offering a similar product at a lower price and that was using an innovative marketing message. Rather than assess its own branding and marketing issues, it immediately destroyed whatever brand loyalty existed for its products. Consumer products such as soft drinks have a more personal meaning than what the companies often give them credit for. Know your product, know your market, know your customers and act based on what’s best for those three, rather than solely based on what your competitors are doing.

2.  Be willing to admit mistakes and correct course. The fact that Coke recognized the error of its ways and quickly corrected itself saved the company and the brand. If you make a misstep, it just proves that a) you’re human and b) you’ve got work to do.

3. Competition can drive innovation. Cola is cola, when it comes down to it. Pepsi and Coke don’t actually compete so much on taste or price as they do on marketing. The curvy Coca-Cola bottle is so iconic and distinct that in 1993, when the company changed its plastic bottles to mirror the shape of its glass bottles, sales were boosted by more than 40%.

4. Be authentic. When Coke tried to be something it wasn’t, as is so often the case, it didn’t work. Know who your company is, what your brand is and stick to your knitting. Especially in challenging economic times, companies tend to deviate from their branding. So often it seems as though diversification is the solution and so often the offering becomes too watered down or too off message and fails. If you don’t know who you are and what you have to offer the market, neither will your customers or prospects.

Linda Forrest

Posted in:

• Marketing strategy

Return on investment served two ways

• Posted by Linda Forrest
• April 13, 2010
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By Linda Forrest

I had a long and interesting chat with the publisher of a specialized trade publication this morning, the results of which turned my thoughts to the importance of getting a return on investment in PR. I mean this in two ways: first, getting the most value for your dollars spent with a PR practitioner or agency and second, getting the most eyeballs on your coverage.

With regards to the first, this was the particular scenario that I was discussing with the aforementioned publisher. Having pitched a series of contributed articles by email, I was calling to follow up and discuss the level of interest in my proposition. The publisher, a 30-plus-year veteran of the Canadian publishing world, talked about shrinking editorial space and how he’s unable to commit to publishing an article, however appropriate for his readership. With shrinking ad budgets, increasing competition from exclusively online publications and other factors, it’s not feasible for him to accept and commit, based on an abstract, to publishing something that would take up precious room on his pages. Rather, he’s suggested that we develop an article purely on spec, and that once submitted, he’ll review it and if he’s got the room and inclination, he’ll publish it.

This is an eminently reasonable proposition and he’s not alone in this position. However, look at it from my standpoint as a content developer for hire, and that of my client. It’s no easy feat writing a 1,000-plus-word article and the creation of said article would cost not inconsiderable time and money. Is this the best use of my limited time, given that each hour spent on the account has a dollar figure attached? Would my time be better spent creating content that I am certain will be published? This is calculus that has to be figured out on each and every opportunity that comes along: Is this the best use of my time and my client’s dollars?

Then there is the other half of the equation: the potential value of the coverage in terms of prospective customers, partners, channels and others who will see the article and pick up the phone. Trade publications can be highly focused propositions; they come as niche as you like. So, if you’re trying to reach a small specialized group and this opportunity, if it comes to fruition, will get your message out to them effectively, perhaps it’s worth your time and effort to develop a piece on spec.

Just a few weeks ago, another of my clients flat out turned down the opportunity to submit an article for an exclusively online publication. Having reviewed the circulation numbers for the print edition and the number of site visitors, it just didn’t make sense to them for me to spend my time writing an article that would be seen by limited readers, especially in an industry where hard copies get read far more frequently than virtual ones. For this client, it simply didn’t provide the return on investment that they were looking for, and that’s just fine. There are plenty of other opportunities to pursue on their behalf where the ROI is higher.

Each opportunity needs to be assessed and then harsh decisions made. There’s no right or wrong answer here; each circumstance requires each client and each PR practitioner to weigh the pros and cons of the situation and make an informed decision about how best to invest time and effort for the most return.

Linda Forrest

Posted in:

• Public and media relations

Think like the fish

• Posted by Francis Moran
• April 07, 2010
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By Francis Moran

I can’t remember when or from whom I first heard the line, “Marketers should think like the fish, not like the fisher.” But I have always enjoyed it as a pithy summary of our marketing credo that says you must put yourself in your customers’ shoes when plotting your marketing strategy. It doesn’t matter how fancy your new spinning rod might be, or how pretty the fly is that you just put on the end of your fly rod, if the fish aren’t hungry for what you’re offering, they’re not going to bite. You need to know what the fish are looking for and then craft your marketing message accordingly.

Driving along the other day, I saw the truck in this picture and I drove around a couple of city blocks so I could come back and take the picture. I tweeted this the other day but I thought I’d also share it here because it is such a simple-yet-brilliant example of this precept. Enjoy.

Francis Moran

Posted in:

• Marketing strategy
• Random thoughts

The foolingest day of the year

• Posted by Linda Forrest
• April 01, 2010
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By Linda Forrest

I’ll admit it. I fell for a couple of doozies this morning when reading my morning email.

The first one really had me. I subscribe to HARO, Help a Reporter Out, which is a free service where PR professionals are sent pitching opportunities from reporters. I scan these email reports several times daily to see if there’s anything suitable for my clients. This one caught my eye and infuriated me no end:

Summary: Why don’t PR people listen?

Name: April Phules (Business Magazine)

Category: General

Email: query-7cc@helpareporter.com

Media Outlet: Business Magazine

Deadline: 07:00 PM EST – 1 April

Query: I’m doing a story about PR people, and why they have a much lower ability to listen or follow directions than regular people. Is this something they’re born with, or something they learn once getting into PR? All answers welcome.

Okay, so the reporter’s name should have tipped me off, but I haven’t had my coffee yet so I’m a little slow.

Still fuming from reading that outrageous query, I clicked over to another newsletter from parenting site Babble, which suggested 10 ways to raise a genius. Putting little stock in such things, but curious nonetheless, I clicked through. Needless to say by the time I got to #4 I knew that something was up.

PRNewser tipped its hat to some of the best corporate April Fool’s jokes here.

Happy April Fool’s Day!

Linda Forrest

Posted in:

• Public and media relations
• Random thoughts

PR blogosphere round-up

• Posted by Linda Forrest
• March 25, 2010
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By Linda Forrest

It’s been a while since we pointed to other blogs that address public relations issues, so here’s a round-up of some recent posts of note:

Next Communications, in honour of the blogger’s 34th birthday, recently posted 34 Unforgettable Posts for PR People

Journalistics writes about building a better online newsroom whether you’re a big player or a small business.

While it seems that most of the marketplace easily forgets, PR Pros are People, Too, reminds Todd Defren in his post about clients thanking PR pros for doing exceptional work. I was lucky enough to work for a classy outfit called Six Degrees Records, a widely respected world music label for whom I did Canadian publicity  many moons ago. After a very successful album launch and a ton of press, the label sent me, quite unexpectedly, a big flower arrangement and a card of thanks. To this day, just the thought of that small gesture makes me smile.

Here’s an article on how the publicity machine keeps on chugging for those who seemingly will say anything to keep their name in the media. Apparently being a blowhard can be a quite lucrative profession. As I Tweeted yesterday, if we stop giving Ann Coulter an audience, she’ll just go away. There is such a thing as bad publicity – the kind that continues to give a forum to people who don’t deserve our attention (see also: Kate Gosselin).

Tip of the hat to Media Monitoring News for directing me to some of these posts (even though the links in its newsletter weren’t working properly…)

Linda Forrest

Posted in:

• Public and media relations