| CHAPTER 6 |

GETTING OUT IN FRONT

Capturing Media Attention

“The history of PR is . . . a history of a battle for what is reality and how people will see and understand reality.”

—Stuart Ewen, author and historian

Everybody is a journalist now, and we’re all in public relations, as noted earlier. Everyone with a smartphone, a Facebook page, or a Twitter account can “report” from the street, the boardroom, or the PTA meeting. What does that mean? It’s complete chaos out there. Getting noticed is both easier and more difficult than it used to be. The right of entry used to be via blue chip birthright, a degree from journalism school, an internship at a newspaper, or an apprenticeship with scrappy newsmen, but no more. The barn door is open, and all the animals have cell phones with cameras. Whether you’re giving a speech in front of a tiny group or a massive one, that’s media. If you’re recorded drinking a Pepsi and you work for Coca-Cola, you could be out of a job.

From civilians on the streets of the Middle East filming a revolution, to bar-goers recording former Dior designer John Galliano’s racist comments, to reporter/prankster James O’Keefe orchestrating a cozy meeting between NPR execs and phony radical donors, to mommy bloggers deciding which juice box or diaper maker gets a time-out, broad swaths of the population are creating publicity by taking their thoughts and opinions and sharing them with the world. It’s an exciting, yet scary state of affairs at the same time. It has changed the world of “professional” organized PR for those of us who do PR for a living.

  The right of entry used to be via blue chip birthright, a degree from journalism school, an internship at a newspaper, or mentorship with scrappy newsmen, but no more. The barn door is open and all the animals have cell phones with cameras.

THE THEATER IS CROWDED—MOVE OVER

It doesn’t matter how well you listen and talk to consumers, or how well you’ve honed your message and perfected your authenticity. Trying to build a brand today is like giving a speech in a concert hall while the New York Philharmonic is playing Beethoven. A couple of people on the sidelines might notice you, but can they actually hear what you’re saying? To generate attention, you need to get noticed and reach your goals. For that to happen, you have to be an octopus with multiple arms working simultaneously on pitching both traditional and digital media, orchestrating good old-fashioned stunts, creating your own content, getting on television and in print, and finessing strategic product placement. Yes, it’s a lot of work.

Not to be discouraging, but getting favorable placement in media outlets has and will continue to be increasingly more complicated as management structures change, with journalists sometimes reporting to sales executives. Because of economic conditions and the changing state of the news industry, tinkering with how and who people report to in the corporate structure at media companies is becoming more common. Content is profit-sensitive. That’s exactly what happened at The Dallas Morning News in 2009, further blurring the lines between advertising and editorial.

In early December of that year, Editor Bob Mong and Senior Vice President of Sales Cyndy Carr sent employees of A.H. Belo, which owns the Morning News and three other daily papers, a memo announcing that some of the papers’ section editors would report directly to Carr’s team of sales managers, referred to as general managers. The memo clearly stated that Carr’s sales force would work “closely with news leadership in product and content development.” A term Mong coined, “business/news integration,” signaled a radical departure from the way traditional media has been run in the United States, with editorial and sales separate (at least in theory). This brave new world of information dissemination is unfortunate for the many great old-school journalists out there.

We’ll see more of this from major corporations. It may not be unlike what happens in Europe, Russia, Latin America, and many other countries in the world, where the wealthiest people own media to serve their purposes. Frankly, I don’t know what’s stopping Nike or Johnson & Johnson from starting eponymous media machines. For huge companies like these, the costs would be low and staffing needs minimal. Then companies could talk about the world as they see it, and frame the debate in terms of issues they care about, from their points of view. For example, Johnson & Johnson’s community site for parents, www.babycenter.com, is so well trafficked some publishing executives have said it accounts for a large part of the decline in sales of actual parenting magazines.

Many smart, forward-thinking companies have bloggers and editors on staff, writing content for websites that look much like magazines. So what if some of these companies lose money on such ventures? It may be well worth the expense to get their controlled message out to the public. Energy drink behemoth Red Bull started a newsstand magazine in May 2011 called The Red Bulletin—published in the United States and seven other countries—to portray the world as Red Bull sees it: a place where high-energy thrill seekers perform crazy feats, fueled by the company’s famous beverage. “We’re going to be doing stories that definitely present boundary-breaking approaches to life,” U.S. editor Andreas Tzortzis told AdWeek. Prediction: you’ll see more companies following Red Bull’s lead.

Even before Walmart bought social media company Kosmix, they partnered with Time Inc. on what has become a successful “controlled circulation” magazine in 2004. All You is published by the Time Inc. editorial staff and sold exclusively at Walmart. Its mission is simple: show women of all shapes and skin tones wearing regular clothes (from Walmart and others), offer inexpensive meal ideas and recipes, and provide diet and beauty information without having to wade through celebrity sightings and gossip.

A magazine industry consultant, Samir Husni, told BusinessWeek magazine that he estimated the All You launch likely cost just $25 million, half the cost for a traditional magazine’s unveiling. The huge cost reduction came from cutting out newsstand wholesalers and direct marketing needed to sign up initial subscribers. There’s no reason why more large companies can’t cut these kinds of deals with big retailers and produce great content that promotes and educates people about their brands and worldview. So what if they end up losing money—it could and will become a marketing expense.

The United States has an advantage in that the ruling class (including big business) doesn’t have as much unrestricted power as it does in other countries. As long as average people have access to publishing, printing, and broadcasting, independent voices can and will be heard. No matter how reporting and technology changes the way news is delivered, news and feature stories will continue to be written, and readers will continue to look for information—and they know how to find it. That’s an advantage to upstarts and young companies who want a place at the table. The digital world means they can bring their own utensils and dig in. Still, since we’re all members of the chattering class now, the question is—how do we use the raucous, uncontrollable public discourse to our advantage?

  Trying to build a brand today is like giving a speech in a concert hall while the New York Philharmonic is playing Beethoven. A couple of people on the sidelines might notice you, but can they actually hear what you’re saying?

THE ART OF THROWING MUD AT THE WALL

I absolutely love pitching the media. It’s the main reason I originally got into this business and is something I continue to enjoy to this day. Pitching for me is the bread and butter of the public relations business. There’s no rush like running to the computer at 12:01 a.m., frantically hitting the “refresh” button, while checking a news site to see a story that you pitched or planted has run. It’s incredibly satisfying when you find the story and realize that millions are reading your creation. It never gets old.

One of the reasons my agency has experienced such success is because every single member of our staff actively engages the media. I do it, as does our entry-level staff. Anyone who has an interesting idea can try it out. At most of our competitors, once an employee has a few years of experience, they move strictly to counseling and strategy and stop pitching media. What good is strategy if it isn’t implemented? As fun and energizing as pitching is, it can also be frustrating and humbling. We can get hung up on, insulted, or yelled at by media. I say: get over it and get a thick skin. That’s one “old-school” tradition that won’t change.

There are two primary types of pitching for placement. Proactive media relations is creating a feature story angle and convincing a reporter to run with it. These pitches are not dependent on breaking news but are related to products, trends, and seasonal stories. You create the angle, pitch it, and help create the story.

Reactive, rapid response means inserting an angle into the news cycle as an expert, competitor, or commentator with something to add to an already existing and time-sensitive story. This kind of pitching has to move quickly, with success dependent on the news cycle. You may get there too late because something else might happen in the meantime, and reporters have moved on to another more pressing story.

Creativity Wins: Make Your Own News

Anytime you do a study, make unnoticed connections between trends, or come to fresh conclusions about your industry or region, you’ve made news—but only if you tell people about it. In the summer of 2009, Juju.com, a career search engine that finds and links people to millions of jobs found on thousands of employer career portals, recruiter websites, and Internet job boards, wanted to expand its brand awareness among both job seekers and employers in a market that is crowded with numerous well-known larger players. So the company hired my firm. Our media efforts weren’t about Juju.com per se, as the online job-seeking space is already crowded with well-established brands like Monster, Hotjobs, and others. However, the media is interested in unique research findings, relevant information, and innovative insights, which Juju.com could provide.

Mid-2009 was the worst of the unemployment crisis, with the job market rapidly plummeting. When the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced the monthly figures on Friday mornings, the rising percentages were often the top headline on cable news programs, network broadcasts, and news sites. With more people out of work, and the economic outlook growing bleaker by the day, competition for every job opening was fierce. That idea led us to create a branded monthly report called the Juju.com Job Search Difficulty Index. As soon as the unemployment numbers were publicly announced, Juju.com released figures that ranked the top 50 metropolitan cities and states nationwide by their residents’ difficulty in finding work.

The rankings were determined by comparing the number of unemployed people reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to the millions of jobs aggregated online by Juju.com, which also showed off the company’s search engine and data collection capabilities. It established the brand as an expert in employment issues in a relatively easy and inexpensive manner, enough to garner national media coverage.

It allowed local reporters throughout the United States to write about their local job markets, with statistical background and facts to back up their stories. The Oregonian and The Tampa Tribune, for example, are much more interested in telling their readers and community about local job-related news than they are about “national” stats from Washington, D.C., or somewhere else.

The headline: “[Your State]: Most Difficult to Find a Job, New Employment Index Finds.” Whether or not the media went with that exact headline didn’t matter; the pitch got the point across to reporters by putting job seeking and the unemployment rate in a new light: there were certain places in the country where it was harder to find a job than others. Maybe people intuitively knew it, but Juju.com had quantified and identified the information specifically. Depending on the city, the findings allowed regional reporters to write compelling headlines about their cities. The Denver Business Journal: “Colorado is Eighth Best Job Market in the Country: Juju.com”—fantastic, the name of the company made it into the headline. The Washington Business Journal’s headline read: “Juju.com: D.C. is Best City for Job Seekers.” Bingo!

And on and on it went, from Seattle Business Magazine to The Huffington Post, Juju.com has gotten incredible national coverage with these monthly reports. More than 75 national outlets featured Juju.com in their business and unemployment coverage, including CNNMoney.com, CNBC, MSN Money, About.com, NPR affiliates, Fox News, CBS, NBC, and ABC. No other job engine had taken on the media-friendly task of compiling city-by-city data and used it to create news, which people can use to find a job.

Give Them a NICE Look Behind the Scenes

Another pitch that is seductive to reporters is a sneak peek behind the scenes—offer them a chance to watch the sausage being made and they’ll show up. For approximately five years we served as agency of record for NICE Systems, a quality-assurance company. What does that mean? Quite simply, when you call a financial company or a retailer and hear an automated voice tell you, “Your call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes,” NICE Systems is likely providing the recording technology. Call 9-1-1? More often than not, NICE is responsible for getting your plea for help recorded, categorized, and indexed as backup, in case it needs to be played back for any reason.

Our pitch offered reporters a chance to monitor the NICE technology, and promised to reveal the “tricks” to bypassing those annoying automated phone directory trees quickly and get to an actual human being. (After all, who hasn’t been frustrated with a machine and would prefer to talk to an actual person?) That invitation resulted in, among other coverage, a New York Times profile. That important national coverage generated immediate sales leads for NICE.

Next, The Associated Press spent a day at NICE U.S. headquarters in New Jersey, under our supervision. The AP story ran in newspapers in hundreds of U.S. cities and towns across the United States, again generating volumes of sales leads for NICE. This momentum led to securing NICE a feature in Fast Company magazine and a corporate profile of the company in the business section front page of The Bergen Record, the company’s local newspaper.

In fact, by allowing reporters behind-the-scenes access, our efforts secured features in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Time Magazine, CNN, and elsewhere—all within the first six months of being hired by NICE. This after the company had informed us it had been disappointed by four other PR firms in the previous three years—they all pitched concepts focusing on difficult technology algorithms rather than simple business or consumer stories. When those efforts with huge, traditional agencies failed, the NICE marketing team took a chance on 5WPR.We also launched the company’s new product, NICE Perform, which provided users with a window into the souls of their customers. This very cool technology—voice-based emotion detection—makes you believe that computers will be prescient, cutting-edge artificial intelligence. The company’s powerful speech analytics technology, which can break down speech into phonemes, the smallest units of language, creates an indexed voice database and attributes emotional states of the caller based on intonation, volume, and keywords and phrases. It not only helps companies understand why customers are calling, but helps assign proper responses to the screens of the phone representatives. It is the kind of technology that makes for great pitches to various media as it combines hard and behavioral science, which is very compelling to science, tech, business, consumer, and pop psychology writers alike, depending on how we angled the story.

The pitch resulted in a Forbes magazine feature, and coverage in Fortune, Chicago Tribune, Newark Star-Ledger, San Francisco Chronicle, Fox News, CNN, NPR, CBS News, NBC Nightly News, CNBC, and numerous trade publications. One of my favorite headlines from The Virginian-Pilot: “Hey Jerk, You Best Read This Before I Get Really Steamed.” NICE Systems’ stock price rose from $17 per share to $56, and then split two for one during the period we represented them. So, don’t be afraid to give reporters a peek at how you work on your own turf—just make sure you’re there to supervise and oversee the process.

SPINNING THE SOCIAL CIRCLE

Recently an employee told me that she was planning to spend time “unfriending” over the weekend. “I’m going through my Twitter and Facebook accounts, Ronn, and getting rid of all the people and companies I can’t stand hearing from anymore. X, X, X—you’re all gone,” she said with a laugh. “It feels really good.” This should send chills through every brand trying to build loyalty and customers via social media because cavalier “unfriending” happens thousands of times a day. Don’t tell me a brand can tweet its way to success.

Social media started out as a public relations boon—it was an easy, cheap way to connect with customers and garner new fans. In many ways, small businesses had an advantage in the social media world. They could quickly engage customers and form a personal connection with them while corporate dinosaurs played catch-up. Now that many are up to speed and inundating the social media world with brand marketing, it’s tough for brands to make serious PR headway using social media alone.

According to a 2011 study done by social media and e-mail marketing services company ExactTarget, more than 90 percent of consumers opt out, unsubscribe, unfriend, or stop following brands because of too frequent, annoying, irrelevant, or uninteresting communication. Hard sales pitches appearing on personal pages are seen as predatory, invasive, or, even worse, dishonest. You have to say something 15 times before someone hears it, but if you say it 16 times, you could cross the line over to annoying. It’s a challenging dichotomy.

We’re also distracted when online. Nielsen, the ratings service, found that American Facebook users spend about 14 minutes per day on the site. If you expect someone to actually go from his or her Facebook home page over to yours during those 14 minutes, you’re kidding yourself. That person gets lost in Farmville or Mafia Wars or their friend’s barbecue photos or commenting on postings from people they actually know.

Despite the difficulties of making social media work, you have to do it. How do you cut through it and make a meaningful connection with your audience without driving them nuts? It’s not enough just to vomit all your feelings onto a blog, or tweet and Facebook them, and expect anyone to care. Niche businesses (or niche brands within big businesses) still have an advantage with social media—they can find an audience and, if they put the time in, can share information and have a conversation with their fans on issues about which they care.

  It’s not enough just to vomit all your feelings onto a blog, or tweet and Facebook them, and expect anyone to care.

Community Relations

To me it’s the ability to organize your public into a community through ongoing conversations that’s key. Think about the success of Chabad.org, which I discussed in Chapter 3. Perfect example. Likewise, Whole Foods Market does social media quite well—“like” them on Facebook and you’ll see what I mean. The company shares information about sales, promotions, and its nonprofit arm; it asks questions and provides a forum for its nearly half million fans to talk about food, cooking, health, and the environment. Two hundred fifty Whole Foods markets also have their own Facebook pages where locals can stay up-to-date on specials, events, and other community news. It’s robust, conversational, fun, and good for SEO, which I discuss in Chapter 9. Social media is at its most exciting when it’s participatory, catching people up “in the moment.” What can you do to make someone stop what she’s doing and interact with you in a highly specific space like Twitter?

Take a Hint

Pitchmen have been holding contests and sweepstakes since at least the 1900s and probably before that. Great ideas adapt. Digital media allows for old-fashioned contests, giveaways, and prizes to bring traffic to online sites. Hint Water, a family-owned business I talked about earlier, offers a line of all-natural essence water with no calories. A primary group Hint targets is moms who care about how much juice their children drink and who want a healthier alternative that’s more interesting to young taste buds than plain water.

We created an online and social media campaign targeting mommy bloggers, including a “Moms Against Sugar Water Campaign,” which encouraged mothers to become fans of Hint on Facebook and tell their stories of how they avoid sugary beverages. To further entice moms to participate, we offered a full-year’s supply of Hint to the mom with the best story. This not only increased brand awareness but also increased Hint’s Facebook fan count from 750 to almost 9,100 as of this writing. We secured placements on dozens of popular health and parenting blogs promoting the contest, and linking back to Hint’s Facebook page.

With more consumers looking to online outlets for alternative entertainment, we also created a YouTube channel called “Hint TV.” The channel includes interviews with celebrities such as Lauren Conrad and Eva Mendes to highlight Hint-sponsored events and celebrity fans. Hint TV established a celebrity following with stars to whom brand fans could relate. Hint’s Twitter account is constantly updated with information about retailers who carry the drink, new flavor or product launches, and press placements. We also engage mom-influencers, as well as celebrity trainers, nutritionists, stylists, and socialites, resulting in the exchange of tweets that are fun, informational, and conversational.

To cut through the clutter online, these campaigns have shown us that effective social media creates places where people want to go for unique information and “access” to people, places, and stuff they want. The social media campaigns are successful because they give stuff away for free (from insider info to swag), get people to compete and socialize with each other (contests, exchange of knowledge and hot tips), and make them laugh. Humor is memorable.

EXPERTIZE YOURSELF

Experts and “thought leaders” are the new sex symbols of the digital age. Being “publicly smart” about what you do is something important large and small brands can do for their value, growth, and reputation. Being an informed source is also one of the cheapest and most effective ways to build credibility, drive sales, and engage the press in a positive way. People come to you for advice, seek out your opinion and insights, and look to you for inspiration and information. Not to mention being an informed source can inspire, engage charm, and motivate customers to take beneficial action for you or your product. The doctor with the dental practice, the woman with the vintage clothing store, the financial research firm, small technology company, or family-owned pizza place can expand their customer bases and their reputations by talking and writing about what they do and know best, and giving away some of that information for free.

We do, in fact, have more control over our own narratives than ever before. The traditional press is no longer the only gatekeeper of which stories get told and which get ignored. You can and must tell your own story and put it out into the universe. If you create your own content consistently well and target it strategically, people eventually sit up and take notice. Self-generated media—blogs, white papers, videos, articles, tweets—from you, the “expert,” is a fantastic opportunity for brands to earn exposure that is so powerful.

When you share information without expecting anything in return you are more prone to be seen as trustworthy and as an authority because you are not “selling something.” Giving away something of value—knowledge you possess—gives people a reason to return to you when they need more advice, and eventually they will return to you to buy whatever it is you’re selling. One, a reporter looking for a source will find you and reach out, and two, a customer looking for information about a service or product from a trusted source will find your information, engage, and eventually buy. That’s what PR is all about, isn’t it?

Go for the Gut

Pritikin Longevity Center & Spa, founded 50 years ago by Nathan Pritikin, has been a longtime client of my agency. Pritikin emphasizes a healthy diet rich in fruits, whole grains, vegetables, seafood, and a small amount of nonfat dairy and lean meat. It’s a diet that continues to earn high marks; the more research done on the topic of nutrition, the more Pritikin’s program is proven right. Pritikin, its creator, often described the Pritikin Program as “mankind’s original meal plan” because it focuses on unprocessed or minimally processed, straight-from-nature foods. In an American culture replete with diet after diet, this is a center through which 100,000 Americans have spent a week and learned long-term lifestyle solutions.

Our goals for the company—to increase awareness of the diet, boost traffic at the Florida center, garner national press, create brand awareness, and position key staffers as credible weight-loss and nutrition experts—are accomplished by continuously pitching staff research and client success stories, along with seasonally sensitive diet stories (pre-summer, New Year’s resolutions, etc.). Even though Pritikin has been around for decades and is a recognizable brand name, we were facing a marketplace jammed with a variety of weight-loss and nutrition brands.

We produced b-roll, which is background footage that can be cut into a report or news story to establish atmosphere, location, detail, and so on. We also put together regular press trips for editors so they could experience the center and meet the experts firsthand. All the major network lifestyle and health producers received the b-roll package, which included footage from the Pritikin Center, and a report on findings from a weight-loss study performed by the American Heart Association. From Newsweek to USA Today, this initiative garnered many positive feature stories. In less than six months, we secured experts to talk about studies on health on the Today show and PBS, and in AARP, and The New York Times.

We followed up with stories like “The Labels on Your Can Are Misleading,” and “Low-Fat Doesn’t Really Mean Low-Fat,” and had Pritikin’s experts appear on-air in a slew of media outlets discussing how consumers can read food labels or packaging, what tricks to look for, and how to establish what food is truly contained in the cans consumers are buying. Stories like this ran on NBC, ABC, and countless other outlets nationwide, and still provide the center increased traffic, recognition, and buzz—all without national advertising.

Smart Bottle

We launched a PR campaign for baby products company BornFree to educate consumers, with the help of medical experts, about the potential harm to babies from a chemical called bisphenol A (BPA). BPA is in polycarbonate plastic, commonly used to make all sorts of plastic bottles, including those for babies. The chemical could be dangerous if it leaked into milk or other liquid. In fact, BornFree was founded on the principle of eliminating BPA from baby bottles.

In 2006 Gil Lemel, the president of Kyozou.com, a company that helps small businesses build e-commerce websites, had a friend come to him with the idea of starting a Web-based BPA-free baby bottle business. Lemel had just days before noticed his wife tossing out all the plastic containers in their house after seeing a news report about the dangers of BPA. It was one of those “convergence” moments when the same idea starts popping up in unusual places, but at around the same time (FYI, it pays to notice when this happens).

Seeing his wife clearing out the cabinets of plastic containers struck a chord with Lemel. He ended up buying the rights to manufacture and sell his friend’s BPA-free bottles in the United States and Canada. He figured it was just a matter of time before the news reports about the dangers of BPA “got legs” and started spreading around North America, especially since there is a great deal of interest among the press about green issues and health dangers. This fit right in; the more people knew about it, the more they would be eager to buy bottles that were safe—who’s going to take a chance with a baby?

Along with two business partners, Lemel invested in BornFree Holdings and started manufacturing bottles made of BPA-free polyethersulfone. The nine-ounce bottles featuring a cap with a slotted air vent, to help reduce colic and gas, cost the trio about $5 each to make. Lemel created a two-pack of BornFree bottles to market online and priced at $20.

Interest was slow at first—few American moms and dads were concerned about BPA when Lemel and his partners first launched BornFree. Plus, the bottles were pricey. Despite the fact that there isn’t as much price resistance when it comes to baby products as there is to other products in the marketplace, $10 a bottle seemed excessive when regular baby bottles could be had for just a few dollars each.

So the company capitalized on the very notion that formed the basis of the idea—information about the health of baby bottles. The company “expertized” itself. One of the partners, Ron Vigdor, took on the role of BPA educator-in-chief. He started writing and speaking to interested groups, including the People for Children’s Health & Environmental Justice, to promote concerns about BPA. Simply by getting out there with information to targeted groups, Vigdor attracted interest from Whole Foods, which had already removed baby bottles and sippy cups containing BPA from its shelves in early 2006. Whole Foods customers were perfect for BornFree because they are what is known as “early adopters”—people who participate right on the cusp of movements. Babies“R”Us climbed on board shortly after.

In March 2007, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) complained to the national advertising division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus about BornFree’s claim that its bottles were a “safer alternative.” The corporate headquarters of BornFree received piles of letters from various competitors asking it to stop its efforts promoting the dangers of BPA. The complaints had no effect; the company had no intention of stopping its PR educational efforts. Yet this amazing response from the ACC and competitors is a testament to the power PR has to shake up an industry. The company enjoyed the attention the product was getting and it ramped up its education efforts by talking more about BPA and the logic of not taking any chances with it, especially in terms of newborns and infants.

It’s no secret that several baby bottle manufacturers had to change their products completely, not to mention spend millions on crisis communications campaigns to ensure a feeling of confidence and safety among their customers. This was and still is a headache for many companies, and some couldn’t act fast enough. (One firm, Sigg, lied about its bottles not containing BPA when, in fact, they did, and the company suffered a decline in sales and customer trust.)

In April 2008, BPA made headlines after the Canadian government called it a “toxic” chemical and banned its use in plastics for baby bottles and beverage and food containers. That same week the National Toxicology Program, an office of the National Institutes of Health, said there was a potential link between BPA and breast cancer, prostate cancer, and early puberty in females. Second, along with the exponential increase in the use of BPA in products during the last 30 years has come a dramatic increase in the incidence of obesity and Type 2 diabetes in North American children. In 2010, British scientists called for a ban on the chemical, and Denmark became the first European Union country to ban the chemical in food and drink containers for children under three years old.

BornFree received a lot of free, continuous recognition from these news stories. Vigdor and the doctor experts the brand hired stepped up to the plate as experts on BPA and BPA-free products and, as a result, were often quoted in newspapers and other media, including “mommy” blogs and health-oriented websites. When concern grew and chains like Walmart and Target started pulling bottles containing BPA from shelves, BornFree was able to very quickly fill in the vacuum with its bottles—it was one of the few companies producing a safe alternative.

The BPA debate today no longer really exists; it is universally accepted that baby products should not have BPA. BornFree, by being first to raise the issue of BPA toxins for babies, and putting its expertise on the subject out front, has won the fight. BornFree’s experts continue to educate the public about infant and baby care in general; journalists, bloggers, and parents alike seek out the company, and their medical experts’ expertise in the media.

As of March 28, 2011, BornFree Holdings Ltd. was acquired by Summer Infant Inc., and we continue to work with BornFree to go to the next level.

Find Your Niche

I gave a speech to a young leadership organization in 2008 and met an attorney there, Edward Mermelstein. We hit it off, and as he told me about his clients, I knew we could help build his brand. He was successful, young (at the time he was in his late 30s), good looking, and well connected in the Russian market. American media is interested in better understanding these mysterious Russians. Mermelstein, a Russian émigré, who came here in his preteen years and later served in the U.S. Army, is the perfect face for the media to understand Russian oligarchs and Russian business, which have received a ton of media attention in the United States.

The media campaign since 2008 has focused on his multilingual law firm, which has offices in Moscow and New York City, and while we can’t discuss most of his specific clients for privacy reasons, we gauged the interest of top-tier media by presenting Mermelstein as an expert resource with insider knowledge about international investment opportunities, economic incentives, and regular commentary on breaking news. In the first year of the campaign, Mermelstein was featured in profile stories on Fox Business, Newsweek, Bloomberg, and CNBC.

Today, Mermelstein is probably the most featured media expert on Russian real estate and business, and was named one of The New York Observer’s “Lawyers You Call.” All that and he’s about 20 years younger than any of the others on the list and when he hired us just a few years ago, he had had little media coverage. Of course, he’s brilliant, hardworking, and well connected. We just helped the world know what his clients already did.

We have worked with countless professionals in a similar way, helping build their specialized expertise publicly as a way of building their client and patient bases. Doctors (and other professionals such as lawyers and investment advisors) are in a field that affords them built-in expertise. While many of the doctors we work with don’t have anywhere close to the budget for mass-market advertising, they can and have built their practices by becoming sought-after experts in their fields, particularly if they have developed a unique technique and can speak with authority on a niche area of medicine about which few other doctors know.

Dr. Yan Trokel, for example, is a successful plastic surgeon and a specialist in a niche cosmetic procedure. He came to us after moving from Texas to Manhattan and wanted to build his practice. We secured media using his expertise with the Y-Lift, a unique plastic surgery procedure that can be done in a few hours and at a fraction of the cost and recovery time of conventional plastic surgery. He quickly became a media darling because we were able to strategically capitalize on his knowledge of this procedure. The news angles were numerous—he was able to talk not only about his own procedure but about cosmetic surgery in general, antiaging techniques, skin care, the importance of looking young in a competitive employment market, and so on. He had a lot of information about more general topics at his fingertips—after all, Trokel is a well-regarded and experienced surgeon (he’s charming, smart, and attractive, too) and has become a sought-after expert for the media.

Trokel spent a fraction of what a typical advertising budget of a similar scope would be. We pitched story ideas to beauty editors and journalists that revolved around how the technique can help men and women look younger when competing with more youthful-looking rivals for plum jobs. At the same time, we invited a group of reporters to a demonstration by Trokel. Both initiatives were extremely effective in getting the word out. Trokel also earned a permanent place on beauty reporters’ source lists. As a result, he quickly earned a strong return on investment with the growth of his practice.

Another example of medical specialty PR is the Holtorf Medical Group Inc. Center for Hormone Imbalance, Hypothyroidism and Fatigue, which has locations in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas. Dr. Kent Holtorf, a foremost expert on and a leading practitioner in the field of endocrinology, founded the center. Holtorf is a respected expert in chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, adrenal insufficiency, thyroid dysfunction, and complex endocrine dysfunction. 5WPR has developed a multifaceted strategic public relations effort to increase patient traffic and establish Holtorf as a pioneer and expert in medicine, as well as the leading physician within the area of hormone imbalance (a niche area of medicine).

A few years ago, we created a targeted media campaign featuring the latest medical news concerning chronic pain, hormone replacement therapy, infectious disease, and family care. We continue to successfully position Holtorf as the “go-to” medical expert for Los Angeles and San Francisco media, and prime national outlets. Through our media outreach, we earned feature placements in Robb Report, Elle, Contra Costa Times, Los Angeles Daily News, New York Daily News, and several network television interviews. We have arranged several keynote speaking opportunities at universities and hospitals throughout the United States, as well as secured contributor deals for Holtorf with AOL and The Huffington Post.

THE PLEASURES AND PERILS OF TELEVISION

Pitching producers at TV shows is different from pitching print media. They may need visuals, particularly “sizzle clips” or a reel to show your brand and your spokespeople in action. That said, television is still an important venue for an expert who wants to push forward his or her ideas because television still maintains a large audience draw. According to Pew Research, 46 percent of people get their news and lifestyle information from television, 24 percent get it from newspapers, and 14 percent get it from blogs and the Internet. Pitching segment ideas to producers is an art in itself—you have to understand the shows that use talking heads and expert guests so you understand the kind of segments they do. “Best way to figure out what shows book which kinds of guests is to watch the shows. TiVo them and do your homework,” says Terence Noonan, Emmy award–winning television producer, supervising producer for The Dr. Oz Show, executive producer of the reality show DC Cupcakes, and co-author of the book Starring You!

To find out which producer handles what kinds of segments (news, lifestyle, health, law, etc.), Noonan says, “Simple. Call the show and ask or check the show’s website; many times programs will post tips on submitting segment ideas. It’s amazing how many people don’t do this.” If you’re a banking or finance expert, your PR person can pitch ideas to business shows; if you’re a baker, send birthday cake ideas to morning shows with cooking segments, and so on.

Consistency is key, as in all pitching. Send ideas to producers often, keep subject lines to the point, and limit the body of the e-mail to a few paragraphs. Capitalize on any booking you get by placing the resulting segment on your website and on YouTube. “Be easy,” says Noonan, which means don’t make a lot of demands on producers, who are always on deadline. “If you make our lives difficult, we’ll find someone else next time; if you make life easy, you’ll be booked again,” he says.

Beware Reality TV, Unless You Enjoy Drunken Brawlsand Mug Shot Drama

Now, what would a book on PR be without at least mentioning reality TV shows? Everyone wants their “15 minutes of fame” and many think if Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino of Jersey Shore can become a “star,” they can, too. That’s all well and good, except that I can think of few clients I would advise to make, or even to participate in, a reality TV show. So few people ever appear in a positive light on reality shows, and many more have been damaged by them. Here’s another secret: it’s tough to make any real money from being featured on reality programs, even though they are a lot of work and intrude on the personal aspects of your life.

For people who are successful in their professions, getting in front of a reality show camera is not usually a good career move. Don’t put yourself in the position of being followed around and made to look like an ass, because that’s what a lot of reality TV boils down to. Don’t think you will succeed like the Kardashians, who have managed to do reality TV right and have become a great brand in the process. They are the exception. Don’t believe the hype.

Getting an offer for a reality TV gig may be a boost to your ego, but if you are running a business, it has to fit your mission and brand. It’s still a high-risk proposition because show producers will always be pushing you to reveal more, to act a little crazier, and so on. Think of what you’d be giving up in terms of your privacy. I was walking down the street on a gorgeous fall evening recently with a client, one of the richest people in the world, when he mentioned that a reality production company had approached him about a reality show based on his life. He was tempted to say yes and wanted to know what I thought.

“Stop and look around,” I said. “Here you are walking down a midtown Manhattan street, your privacy intact, enjoying a lovely evening. Do you want all of that to go away?” I reminded him he traveled without security and wasn’t asked for his autograph; however, once he began such a show, evening walks would be a thing of the past. Not to mention how the producers would portray him. Why would someone with that many assets to protect want to put himself in such a vulnerable position?

I told my client about an actor I knew who had found fame and some financial success as a character in a major hit series. Interestingly, he told me agreeing to be on the show was one of the biggest mistakes he’d ever made. He wished he could go back in time and change the decision. I couldn’t believe it and asked him why. After all, it had helped make him relatively successful, something that’s rare for most working stage actors. It was because he couldn’t go anywhere without being recognized and accosted by fans. He couldn’t take the subway, eat in a restaurant, or walk down the street. However, he wasn’t wealthy enough to afford a full-time driver and car so he was stuck, and he had made a decent living before in an unrelated field—which he now had trouble doing as a “celebrity.”

A former client, who also happens to be a nasty person, manufactures a great product that got amazing media. He was tremendously successful but is just not a good guy. He, too, was approached to do a guest spot on a reality show, and my whole team cautioned strongly against it again and again. Sure enough, he didn’t listen and had an awful appearance on the program, which had a serious and quick negative impact on his business. His appearance resulted in his company being blasted, and wherever he went, people asked him about the program but not his product. In fact, as this book went to print, three of the first ten items on a Google search of his name and product reference this program. I’d venture his ego cost him millions.

There are times when a reality show can work. It depends on many factors: the script (unscripted television is actually quite scripted, by the way), your personality, the producers of the show, and your business. Anyone with a special expertise that can be used in the right way probably has the best chance of reality success. Under these circumstances, a show can be a PR machine for a small business. Antique dealers and bounty hunters, for example, could benefit from shows that follow their comings and goings. DC Cupcakes on TLC has been a great show for its stars, Sophie and Katherine, who left high-powered careers behind to start Georgetown Cupcake. In its second season, the show has raised awareness for the cupcake brand and has created numerous revenue streams for the pair.

Although the show depicts dramatic situations (the usual bickering, tension between business partners, nutty customers), it’s all done in a lighthearted and humorous way that fits with the original cupcake brand. In this case, the show has raised the profile of the women’s bakery. When the show goes off the air, the two women will likely still have a successful bakery to run and maybe even other business opportunities. As the show’s executive producer, Terence Noonan, points out, “The girls still ice cupcakes, and at the end of the day, that’s their most important job.” When you stop doing what got you attention in the first place, you can run into trouble.

BRANDED: PRODUCT PLACEMENT

To some degree, products have always been used or mentioned in movies, novels, and television, for as long as these mediums have existed. It wasn’t until E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial that product placement became an intentional and lucrative PR strategy for brands. One of the first movies I remember seeing was E.T. in 1982, when I was eight. Naturally, I also recall the clever way Reese’s Pieces were used in the film. Mars Inc. passed on the chance for its M&M’s to be the treat that lured the shy alien from his hiding place in the Spielberg classic. In those days, film studios asked permission to use products; now companies pay for their products to be featured in movies. M&M’s competitor Hershey jumped at the chance. Hershey didn’t pay to have Reese’s Pieces used in E.T., but it did agree to promote E.T. with $1 million in advertising. In exchange, Hershey could use E.T. in its ads. Within two weeks of the movie’s premiere, Reese’s Pieces sales increased by more than 50 percent (some reports say sales climbed 85 percent).

Product placement became so effective, in fact, that it wasn’t long before entertainment companies, actors, and musical artists began to charge brands to include products in their shows and videos. It’s become so important that product placement is integral to many forms of PR today—we do it for clients because in a crowded, distracted market, celebrities (and their movies and TV shows) often allow us to break through the clutter. Naturally, the right influencers create buzz around your product.

There are different ways brands can place products. (PR companies, including 5WPR, and some specialty product placement companies do it for a fee.) The first is physical, interactive placement. That’s actually paying to place a product into an entertainment vehicle so that a star uses it. Think Sarah Jessica Parker’s character Carrie working on a Mac in Sex and the City, or a character in a crime drama drinking a Coke, or Will Smith wearing Converse Hi-Tops in I, Robot. Note how these examples demonstrate how an actual product says something about the character, too. Carrie was a creative type, and Mac fits that persona. (One can only wonder how many thousands of Mac laptops were sold to women who idolized SJP.) TV cops are jacked up on caffeine; Coke is the perfect beverage for them. Smith was “old school”—a traditionalist—in I, Robot, the old-fashioned but cool sneakers fit the bill. When paying for this kind of placement it’s important to keep in mind what character or story line fits your brand best, and vice versa. And of course, oftentimes the consumer won’t and shouldn’t know because the placement appears so organically.

The second kind of product placement is often visual—the placement of products, stores, or billboards in scenes. That’s when you see a McDonald’s ad as a backdrop in a scene or a billboard for Verizon in an exterior shot in a film. This kind of placement is less dependent on actual story lines and character development and more on the specific placement.

The third is spoken placement, when a character in an entertainment program says the name of a product in a sentence, or talks about it, as in, “Hi, this is Ricky Bobby. If you don’t chew Big Red, then f--k you!”—a line from the comedy film Talladega Nights, starring Will Ferrell. Digital product placement is also gaining in popularity. This is where a celebrity or brand has a “live” Twitter or Facebook event and talks about a variety of products they have “selected” when, in reality, brands have paid them to be mentioned. For example, fashion stylist Robert Verdi offered a “Tweet This Ultimate Mother’s Day Gift Guide” live Twitter party and video gift guide event. Event organizers sought “partners”—brands with Mother’s Day–appropriate products—to join in. This kind of thing can work well when it feels seamless and natural, and if properly executed.

Finally, there is live product placement, where a musician is seen drinking a certain beer brand, an actress is snapped while carrying a high-end handbag, a great institution like Harvard is using a certain microscope in its research labs, and so on. The key to all product placement is to make it appear “organic,” like it really happened and was not set up. Sometimes this kind of placement is, in fact, free and actually organic, like when the paparazzi actually do snap a celebrity carrying an identifiable product of Brand X. Victoria Beckham, for instance, helped propel the vegan diet book Skinny Bitch onto bestseller lists when she was caught strolling around Los Angeles carrying a copy.

Sometimes these moments are planned and paid for by the brand, and snapped by a photographer who has been hired to catch the moment and distribute it to gossip magazines and websites. The resulting photographs just appear to be natural outgrowths of a celebrity’s lifestyle when, in fact, companies like mine work with celebrities to stage them very carefully and strategically. Celebrities can be paid anywhere from $1,000 to six figures to “buy” a certain brand at a local drugstore or shopping center and be photographed with it (it scores points with retailers to have celebrities come to their stores; the brand wins, and the consumer runs to buy the product en masse—if everything is done right).

It takes creativity to pull it off well. One time, a large and well-known beverage manufacturer we worked with had trouble getting mentioned in the entertainment and celebrity press. We paid a well-known actor to buy a case of our client’s product at a supermarket and we tipped off paparazzi that this person would be shopping in a certain area (we had our own paparazzi snap pictures for us as well). The entire scene worked—the photo made it into all of the gossip weeklies and resulted the next week in celebrities—and the general public, of course—buying the product on their own. On another occasion, we had a Top 40 song written about a brand because a celebrity lost a bet in a video game dare. The song ended up on his album and changed the brand’s trajectory.

Sometimes the celebrities themselves aren’t even aware of the “setup.” Mistresses, security, friends, groupies, or members of the entourage are paid to place a product with the celebrity. Other times they have simply done it for free . . . it all depends on the situation, the product, our relationship, and the personality. Whatever the case, it’s all relationship-driven. Happily, it’s one of the many instances where digital media plays such an amazing viral and organic role, as these photos are e-mailed, posted, and reposted around the Web, often in a matter of minutes.

The Secret Language of Luxury

Established in 1875, the upscale watch brand Audemars Piguet (nickname: AP) has been around for quite some time. Throughout its first hundred years, the company traditionally marketed its wares primarily to European aristocrats. In 1972 it introduced the Royal Oak, its first high-end sports watch, which was daring at the time. Timepieces now start in the low- to mid-five figures and go into the six figures for limited-edition styles. This brand’s success requires downplaying overt marketing and instead strategically placing products or services within specific communities and subcultures that make for an organic fit. Audemars Piguet has perfected this strategy. In the HBO series Entourage, character Ari Gold receives an Audemars Piguet watch as a gift from John Ellis, the fictional chairman of his company’s parent company. Ellis describes it as “perhaps the finest timepiece in the world.”

The brand makes only 26,000 pieces per year, and each one is made by hand. The brand, like many other luxury brands, uses ambassadors to spread the word about the product. These are normally high-profile people who are already established fans and customers. In 1993 the company introduced the Royal Oak Offshore line, stretching the boundaries of how large a watch could be—some versions are 48 millimeters, or nearly two inches across. The brand took off and the company continues to innovate in terms of size and design.

Some saw it as risky when Audemars Piguet partnered with celebrities to make limited-edition watches, such as the 20-piece Offshore Chronograph Jay-Z Special Edition Platinum watch (which costs around $70,000, if you can find one) and the Royal Oak Offshore Shaquille O’Neal Chronograph (which costs about $30,000), or hire them as ambassadors for the line, such as motor racing pro Michael Schumacher. Celebrity involvement in branding does present challenges because people are people, and human nature means anyone can screw up and cause embarrassment for a brand. In this case, however, it’s been a brilliant move. Among a sophisticated, watch-wealthy audience, making a celebrity association with these fashion-forward but luxurious timepieces was right on point. A watch is the only jewelry many men wear, so seeing certain handpicked celebrities wearing the watches resonates with many core consumers.

The company doesn’t have to sell a lot of watches to make a lasting impression on a certain group of ultrawealthy consumers. In fact, nearly all of its watches increase in value. John Mayer, the musician, wanted to buy a specific limited-edition Royal Oak I own. He approached me one night in a nightclub (we didn’t know each other at the time) and offered me $10,000 more than its original price. I declined, but we ended up having a lengthy discussion about the Audemars Piguet brand and watches. Each time he sees me now, he asks about the watch.

That’s what I would call a well-honed secret language—one spoken and understood by the few people who love, appreciate, and can afford these watches. Audemars Piguet speaks this language brilliantly and it’s been great PR. Its watches don’t look that expensive. If you don’t know the brand you wouldn’t necessarily see or understand the cost or value of one of its timepieces immediately. All part of a strategic secret language the company uses for the brand. It’s a very clever way to market to a select group of people. Many people know, for example, that Rolex is a luxury brand and recognize it as such, even though Rolex watches cost, in most cases, a fraction of an AP timepiece. AP doesn’t need a huge audience or broad public awareness—just to talk to the consumer who can afford one. In the process, the company has managed to reinvent itself as a brand that not only appeals to old Europe but to the young, wealthy, and hip as well (or the young at heart, yet wealthy). It has also maintained and expanded its original authenticity with great dexterity.

Million-Dollar Baby

My firm and our client Belly Maternity received tremendous national attention in 2006 when we sent one of its cute baby T-shirts to Angelina Jolie, who was in Africa after giving birth to daughter Shiloh. When Jolie, Brad Pitt, and Shiloh appeared on the cover of People magazine, the baby was wearing the shirt (the magazine paid $5 million to Jolie’s charities to secure the photo shoot). It was “celebrity product placement at its finest” and one of the most important product placement opportunities at the time. And it was free (but no, I won’t go into details of how we secured it). The shirts flew out of stock faster than they could be replaced, which is remarkable for a boutique brand of baby clothes.

When Britney Spears’ first son was born, it was at a time when brands wanted their products associated with the singer. She walked out of her home holding a stuffed toy we had sent her and was snapped by a photographer. The picture went viral and sales of the toy went off the charts shortly after the image was seen by millions of moms. Like it or not, people want to be like celebrities or have lifestyles that have at least a veneer of glamour or celebrity. Maybe you can’t afford to buy a $100,000 car but you can buy a $60 shirt or a $20 stuffed toy. You may not be able to dress like the star of the moment, but you can have your kid dress like their kid.

Getting the Frequency Right

My friend Daymond John-Aurum, CEO and founder of the legendary clothing company FUBU (For Us By Us—now called FB Legacy), is a legend within the urban fashion and youth designer arena. “It’s part of our hands-on, grassroots marketing efforts that happens to be very effective,” says Aurum. “We do a lot of product placement on American Idol, The Apprentice, and we also work with specific celebrities who wear items from the brand while they are performing.”

FUBU clothing came out of a tradition of urban culture and youth style. It was originally created by and for African Americans, but reaches a much larger audience today. It’s a brand that people wear from Detroit to Duluth, from Boston to Hollywood. Aurum says that to be really successful with product placement requires consistency and frequency. “If you have only one person wearing or using an item once, then no one sees it,” he says. If an item is integrated into many music videos and is being worn by many artists, there’s a collective power to that.

“We end up getting a huge bang for our buck from that because young people view video as a modern-day CNN—that’s where they get a lot of information about what to wear, what to say, or how to walk,” he says. When more than one artist is seen wearing something in a video or in a film, even though there is an awareness by some that they might be getting paid, there’s still an impression in the consumer’s mind that he or she is wearing the item out of choice and preference.

Trading the cost of one commercial for placement in a video makes incredible economic sense to Aurum. “On average, one video airs on one major station for about three and a half minutes 10 times a day. This hits 1 to 2 million viewers per showing. If the song makes it to the Top 10, it will run for two and a half months,” he explains. If you had to pay to make a commercial and run it for the same amount of time a music video runs, it would be much more expensive. And that’s without the built-in celebrity endorsement. Taking it further, those celebrities and artists are also depicted in entertainment and fan magazines and newspapers worldwide; they’re tweeted about, “liked” on Facebook, and talked about in fan chat rooms and discussion boards. That kind of product placement reaches so far into the universe it is mind-boggling. Very few advertisements can make such a claim.

Pitching the media, producing material for publication, placing products, getting mentioned in the press, blogging, tweeting, pulling publicity stunts, placing products in the right shows or putting them in the right celebrity hands is a ton of work. It’s a full-time job, in fact. You might be thinking, “How am I going to pull PR off when I’ve got a job to do every day?” You’re not. For people who are busy running brands and businesses, you need help. You wouldn’t do accounting on your own, nor would you represent yourself in the legal system. What makes you think you can do PR by yourself?