Sarah Evan’s insightful LinkedIn post on the future of PR…
Sarah Evans | /prsarahevans
The Future of PR Isn’t Paid, Earned, Shared, and Owned, Introducing: R.O.S.E.
Sarah Evans
Partner and Head of PR at Zen Media, AI in Communications Thought Leader, Professional Moderator and Tech Host
July 24, 2025
Why communications leaders need a new model for visibility in the AI era
We’ve spent the last two decades aligning PR and communications strategy around a model that was built for a very different world.
But visibility today is not determined by placement alone. It’s shaped by how discoverable you are in an AI-first ecosystem—by who cites you, how your expertise is structured, and whether machines can verify your credibility.
This shift breaks the old model. And it’s why I’m introducing a new one.
Why the Old PR Model No Longer Works
The “paid, earned, shared, owned” PESO (from Gini Dietrick) framework once helped teams organize media efforts into discrete channels. But AI doesn’t see those categories as equal—or even relevant.
NOTE: Don't discredit PESO, it has it's place and what I share here could be irrelevent tomorrow. I'm okay calling myself out later if this doesn't
Today, AI determines visibility based on:
Authority signals (like editorial vetting, third-party validation, and citations)
Content structure (FAQ formats, schema, metadata, conversational flow)
Source credibility (is this content trusted enough to be cited in an answer?)
In short:
You can’t buy your way into AI results. You have to earn your way in, and structure it properly.
Proof of the Shift
AI-generated answers (from ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Claude, etc.) overwhelmingly cite journalism, expert content, and official sources.
Paid media has zero influence on AI rankings.
Conversational interfaces now favor clear, structured responses—not branded storytelling.
This demands a new model. I have the V1 framework guide available, just message me and I'll send it to you.
Introducing ROSE: The Framework for AI-Era PR
ROSE = Responsive · Owned · Social · Engine
Unlike traditional models, ROSE reflects how modern visibility is actually earned, and how authority is processed by AI.
🟥 Responsive (Highest Impact)
Earned media evolved for an AI-first world
Includes: PR coverage, interviews, podcast appearances, bylines, speaking
Why it matters: Most cited content in AI results comes from editorially-vetted, expert-driven sources
Tactics: expert commentary, data-led stories, journalist relationships, live appearances
🟨 Owned (High Impact)
Structured content that signals authority
Includes: Websites, blogs, whitepapers, resource hubs
Why it matters: Owned content supports long-tail discovery and is the foundation for amplification
Tactics: executive POVs, FAQ hubs, long-form explainers, thought leadership series
🟩 Social (Medium Impact)
Community validation and reach
Includes: Reddit, Quora, LinkedIn comments, niche communities
Why it matters: Some social platforms feed AI training and trust models
Tactics: strategic engagement, industry commentary, post amplification, earned shares
🟪 Engine (Emerging Impact)
Technical readiness for AI discovery
Includes: All structural and backend elements
Why it matters: Search engines (and AI) rely on markup, clarity, and crawlability to understand and surface content
Tactics: schema, metadata, conversational format, AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), voice search readiness
Why This Hierarchy Matters
AI doesn’t treat all sources equally. Here’s what current AI models prioritize when surfacing content:
Editorial media (fact-checked, independent, trusted)
Government and educational sources (high authority)
Aggregator and forum content (curated, community-validated)
Owned brand content (least trusted unless structured and cited)
The takeaway?
Responsive media is more valuable than ever—but it must be discoverable, structured, and supported by technical foundations.
The SOFT Foundation: How Content Gets Discovered by AI
To make any content discoverable and AI-citable, apply SOFT principles:
Structured: Use headers, FAQs, bullet lists, clear hierarchies
Optimized: Write with natural prompts and question-answer formats
Formatted: Include schema markup, semantic HTML, alt text, meta descriptions
Technical: Ensure crawlability, fast page speed, and mobile readiness
These principles apply to every category in the ROSE model—from a media quote to a blog post.
How to Use ROSE in Your PR Strategy
Check out this reactive mapping tool to see everything that R.O.S.E. includes [bookmark it for now]
This comprehensive chart breaks down all four ROSE categories with specific tactics you can implement immediately. Here's what you'll find when you explore it:
🔴 RESPONSIVE (Red) - The largest section reflecting its priority
Traditional Media Relations
Expert Positioning
Thought Leadership
Influencer Relations (Scroll through 25+ specific tactics like "expert commentary," "research reports," "podcast appearances")
🟡 OWNED (Orange) - Your content foundation
Website & Blog
Long-form Content
Multimedia Content
Communication Channels (20+ tactics from "FAQ pages" to "white papers" to "executive communications")
🟢 SOCIAL (Green) - Community authority building
Professional Communities
Brand Social Channels
Community Building
Engagement Tactics (18+ tactics covering everything from "Reddit communities" to "employee advocacy")
🟣 ENGINE (Purple) - The emerging AI optimization category
Technical SEO
AI-First Content
Generative Search
Platform Optimization (15+ tactics including "schema markup," "GEO optimization," "ChatGPT optimization")
💡 How to use this: Scroll through each section to see all available tactics. Use it for campaign planning, team training, client presentations, and strategic audits. Each tactic is clickable and color-coded for easy reference.
Save this chart, share it with your team, and start planning campaigns that actually work in an AI-first world.
For Campaign Planning
Lead with Responsive: What expert POV are we adding to the conversation?
Support with Owned: What do we control that can reinforce this authority?
Amplify through Social: How are we entering the right conversations?
Optimize for Engine: Is our content actually discoverable by AI?
What Comes Next for Communications Leaders
If you lead a PR or communications team, this is the moment to evolve your playbook.
You are no longer just pitching stories—you’re building strategic discoverability.
For Agencies
Audit every client strategy through ROSE
Eliminate reliance on pay-for-placement or vanity metrics
Train teams on AI discovery principles and AEO
For In-House Teams
Map current efforts to the ROSE framework
Identify gaps in earned authority and structured content
Invest in discoverability infrastructure now
For the Industry
Paid doesn’t earn trust. Structured authority does.
Visibility isn’t about distribution. It’s about being the best source.
The AI era doesn’t change the value of PR. It changes how we deliver it.
This isn’t about trends. It’s about relevance.
The companies winning in AI-driven visibility aren’t spending more—they’re structuring better, responding faster, and building unshakeable authority.
If you’re still optimizing for the old model, you’re not just behind—you’re becoming invisible.
The future of PR is Responsive. Owned. Social. Engineered.
Copy/Paste PR is dead.Here's why European markets will destroy your American playbook
Let's be real - your US success means nothing in Europe. Zero. Nada
And I'll tell you exactly why:
European journalists aren't impressed by your Silicon Valley swagger. They want substance, not spectacle.
Here's what actually works:
→ Cultural context is everything
- Germans want precision and data
- The French expect philosophical depth
- Brits love understated wit
- Italians prioritize relationships
→ The media landscape is entirely different
- Journalists take 3x longer to build trust
- Press releases get ignored (yes, even yours)
- Social platforms? Different rules entirely
→ Your American enthusiasm is killing you
- Too promotional
- Too aggressive
- Too... American
What you need instead:
✅ Local storytelling that resonates
✅ Regional relationship building
✅ Country-specific messaging
✅ Cultural sensitivity at every step
The harsh truth?
Most US companies' PR programs fail in Europe because they:
- Copy/paste their US approach
- Ignore cultural nuances
- Rush relationships
- Miss privacy regulations
Want to succeed? Here's your new playbook:
1. Start with research, not assumptions
2. Build relationships before campaigns
3. Adapt everything (yes, everything)
4. Think long-term, not quick wins
Remember: Europeans aren't buying your American dream.
They're buying solutions that work for their readers and reality.
Which companies are winning in Europe?
They're the ones who threw out their US playbook and started fresh.
Ready to build something that actually works?
Stop copying
Start adapting.
Get the right PR 'local' pros in place - you can't phone it in from the US.
Your move.
What's your biggest challenge with European expansion? Drop it below. Would you like to discuss how to realign your PR program in Europe for maximum impact? Schedule a meeting today.
#InternationalPR #EuropeanMarketing #GlobalComms #PRStrategy
Are you sharing your vision?
A few years ago, Gary Swart, General Partner at Polaris Partners and Upwork's first CEO, told me that Founders should start with PR from day one and nail their story before going to market. He was right.
The sad truth is that most founders wait too long and spend less than 2 hours per month with their communications lead. The companies that dominate their markets do something radically different.
Let me break this down for you...
Your comms strategy isn't failing because of market conditions or budget - it's failing because you're treating communications like a black box.
Here's what market leaders do differently…
1. They spend real time with their comms lead
- Weekly strategic sessions
- Deep dives into vision
- Honest feedback loops
- No delegation of core messaging
2. They understand that positioning isn't a one-time thing
✅ It evolves with the market
✅ It needs constant refinement
✅ It requires CEO involvement
✅ It can't be outsourced
3. They focus on the real problem
→ Not features
→ Not benefits
→ Not competitor comparison
→ 𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗲
The companies crushing it spend 5-10 hours monthly with their comms lead. Why?
Because they know:
- Stories need substance
- Vision needs clarity
- Market positioning needs authority
- Trust needs authenticitu
Want to win? Here's your new playbook:
1. Schedule weekly sessions with your comms lead
2. Share everything about your vision
3. Dive deep into market dynamics
4. Build messaging together
5. Review and refine constantly
Remember: Your comms lead can't tell your story if they don't truly understand it.
Stop treating communications like an outsourced function. Start treating it like the strategic advantage it is.
The best CEOs know this secret:
Your comms lead isn't just another hire - they're your partner in market domination.
Ready to transform your approach?
The market won't wait.
Your move.
What's holding you back from spending more time with your comms lead? Drop it below 👇
#CommunicationsStrategy #Leadership #MarketDomination #StartupLife
Attraction vs Promotion and Setting the Right Expectations
Disappointment is often the result of having the wrong expectations. This doesn’t mean you should lower your expectations to avoid being disappointed. It means you must understand how something works and why, so you can effectively leverage it to set realistic expectations and derive value.
Nowhere is this more true than with the ancient art and science of public relations. I've spent years watching founders and leaders of outstanding companies burn budget because they don't understand the fundamental truth about PR. It’s about attraction, not promotion. It's about having a conversation worth having, one that engages and provokes, rather than how many times your company or product name appears.Or, as we used to say, marketing PUSHES. Public Relations PULLS. Get it wrong and your expectations will be incorrect, your PR will fail, and your report to the BOD will embarrass you.
Let’s break this down...
1. The Marketing Game
- Blast your message everywhere
- Pay to play
- Control the narrative
- Measure in clicks and conversions
- Short-term wins
But here's where it gets interesting...
2. The PR Reality
- Build genuine relationships while maintaining control of the narrative.
- Earn attention and build influence
- Let others tell your story
- Measure in trust and credibility
- Long-term impact
The problem? Most marketers attempt to utilize PR channels for disseminating marketing messages. It's like bringing a megaphone to a dinner party.
𝘗𝘳𝘰 𝘛𝘪𝘱: 𝘈 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘗𝘙 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘢 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱 𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘴𝘶𝘣𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘳.
Here's how to begin to frame your expectations appropriately so you can invest and plan correctly:
Focus on Thought Leadership first. Determine what you want to engage readers in a conversation about. What problem does your product or service solve? What is your position on issues affecting your market? What do your customers and prospects need to know that you have learned?' You can't PUSH this in a promotional context. But PR can position you as a credible expert with thoughtful answers to problems affecting your audience, which ATTRACTS engagement.
People buy solutions from those they trust, not from the number of marketing emails they receive, ads they see, or events they attend. Awareness helps, but trust comes from credibility, and good PR fosters credibility, which in turn leads to stronger, more lasting relationships.
Sure, marketing generates sales campaigns. Reaches a broad audience with advertising. Creates engaging promotions. All of which happen without any context, credibility, and trust in you, without PR.
The secret sauce? Understanding when to use and blend each discipline for success.
𝘗𝘳𝘰 𝘛𝘪𝘱: 𝘜𝘴𝘦 𝘗𝘙 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘮 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘩ing it 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘢 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭-𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘶𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘭𝘦. 𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘢 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘤 '𝘴𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘶𝘱, 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯' 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘨𝘺.
Think about it:
→ Marketing is about control
→ PR is about influence
→ Marketing demands
→ PR attracts
The trick is to create an 'attraction' that frames the control to achieve your desired outcome.
Here's how to start building a PR program that integrates and supports your Marketing efforts instead of trying to imitate them:
1. Audit your current approach
2. Separate promotional content from thought leadership
3. Build relationships before you need them
4. Measure what matters (not just clicks)
Remember: The best PR doesn't feel like PR at all....It feels like a conversation worth having.
What's your experience with this? Let’s meet to discuss how to convert your PUSH to PULL.
#Founders, #PublicRelations, #Marketing, #Strategy #BusinessGrowth
When too much is too much…
We’re living online more than ever these days. I won’t bore you with statistics, but keeping your inbox and text threads under control is a bigger hassle today than it was 3 months ago.
We don’t need any more hassles, do we? Seriously, if a clown asked me to go into the woods with him right now, I’d just nod my head and follow.
Many companies who use email and texts to connect with us are not helping. They are hurting their brand.
Please, for the love of God, stop and think to yourself, “Is my system helping my customers or creating hassles for folks that are already dealing with enough frustration to launch a rocket?”
Here are some rules to rework your digital comms strategy to reduce frustration.
Less is more.
Switching from email to messaging channels to complete one transaction is a big hassle.
One thing at a time. Don’t send marketing emails until after a transaction is complete. No one wants a bunch of happy-ass marketing lingo when they’re trying to schedule an appointment, make a payment, or arranged delivery.
Don’t assume that I want to join your club, community, or group because I sent you an email or text requesting information.
Why would you automatically create an account on your platform if I used Facebook or Google to log in and send me emails about it? That’s just annoying.
Be consistent, no one wants 6 emails about the same issue from 6 different people.
Focus on personalization from both a content and a technology content perspective.
Follow-up with queries in a timely manner, solve the problem, and stop sending emails. Solving an issue is not an invitation to start marketing to folks, it’s just not.
If a customer requests you to take an account down, don’t send an email with instructions on how to remove the account from your platform. We don’t work for you, take the account down yourself if the customer has requested you to.
If I didn’t take the survey the first time, don’t send me another email asking me to take the survey.
Pick up the phone and call them.
Think about what you’re doing.
Comfort Food Marketing
These days we’re all concerned with two things; the state of our health and finances. Well, maybe three things, when are the kids going back to school? All jokes aside its a challenging time to market. Budgets are frozen, supply chains disrupted and consumer consumption patterns are shifting. Essential items are relegating luxury items to wish lists as we continue to hoard toilet paper. A baffling practice born of fear.
But fear not, we can still market, and now is the time to sow the seeds for long term relationships. After all, are we all not craving a little assurance that everything will be all right and we’ll get through this together? Relationship marketing has never had a better stage to work from than the COVID-19 pandemic. So here a few ideas to keep you in front of your audience.
Write once, share often: Marketing teams that relied on quarterly webinars to inform and learn from target buyers are finding attendance numbers down. It’s no surprise when folks who are juggling work, schooling kids, and managing the home will find it hard to fit you into a defined date and time to attend. But they have time to read. So send them articles and stories about your shared market and industry. Lay off the hard sell and focus on entertaining and educating them. Create stories they want to read rather than something they feel have to read. You want them to look forward to your next email and content. For example, brands such as Sports Basement share customer’s stories of joy and inspiration via email to members. The stories are not price and product-focused, they’re aspirational.
Engage rather than sell: Silca, a high-end road bike equipment manufacturer is leveraging gamification via social media and email to engage with consumers. The more often your audience engages with you the longer the relationship will last. Silca has run and re-run this promotion because it is working. That’s right, bingo works.
Be empathetic: Find ways to communicate with your audience that lets them know you understand what they are going through. I have a small group of friends that I call every day or so at the same time. It’s not a scheduled activity on a calendar, no Zoom required, and not every day do we talk. But there is comfort in knowing that in the late afternoon some or all of us will begin to touch base with each other. This loosely structured gab-fest is an opportunity to listen to others, share feelings, and find some comfort from the constraints of our daily lives. But it also sends a strong message, you matter and I called to see how you are. Is this not the essence of any long term relationship?
Eventually, and despite our elected leader’s worst efforts, the economy will come back, businesses will re-open. Life will be different and somehow the same. Marketing will still be a challenge, but it will be easier to re-enter this brave new world with strong relationships in place.
Out of the Trenches
After years of slogging away in the PR trenches, I came to a startling conclusion. All the press in the world simply won’t reach enough of the target audience to push the needle forward for brands. Today the media platform is so vast, with so much content appearing hourly, that breaking through to enough readers to create awareness and elicit the proper response is beyond the call of duty for a well-crafted news article.
That is not to say that well-crafted news articles do not have their purpose and place in creating brand awareness. Earned media still creates unparalleled credibility with readers. It means the expectations of brand marketers won’t be met with PR alone. Today brand marketers have one key measuring stick- how much traffic did this story drive to my website. Yes, the number of articles in appropriate publications and the quality of message coherence across these publications are still important, but irrelevant to the brand marketer if it doesn’t spike website traffic.
So, PR practitioners are charged with getting a hyperlink established in each article we place to allow for ‘backlinking’ from the article to the brand’s website. Still, it’s not enough, simply because not everyone in the target audience is reading that publication. You cannot assume any different. So how do you leverage PR to drive traffic to a brand’s website without losing the credibility of earned media
The answer is to integrate with digital marketing. This approach broadens to the scope of how and where the story can be told, reaches the target audience on social media and other channels when they are not necessarily seeking news. Digital and social marketing can carry the credibility of your earned media article beyond the readership of the original publication.
Driving your message across social media while pitching and placing media stories extends the articles to a new group of target audiences, allows you to judge the effectiveness of an article while carrying key messages. It also creates brand awareness among the journalists you are trying to reach. Of course, not all brands and situations are right for this approach, but overall linking the two disciplines will provide better results and move PR out of the trenches and in front of more of the target audience.
What Story Can Do for Your Brand
Whether your brand is a B2B or B2C business, your customers have choices. So how do you begin the process of convincing them to choose your brand over your competitors? The answer is simple. You tell your story, and you tell it effectively, generously and consistently to the right audience (customer set) at the right time.
Here in the Silicon Valley I’ve run into many engineering focused companies who think because their product is currently superior to others on the market, and they have spent 10 years and millions of dollars developing it, they don’t need to tell their story to their customer set. After all, their sales force has been interacting with their customer base for years. This thinking takes you out of the competition. No matter how superior your product is, your customers still have choices, and they have to trust your brand in order to trust your now superior product. So, again we go back to the original question, how do you convince them to choose your product? (See the last sentence of the first paragraph.)
Your customers and the new ones you wish to attract will make an emotional connection to your brand through story. All the data, spec sheets, feature sets and power point presentations your sales team can generate will not do this unless it is part of a well-crafted story told in different ways across various media.
Here is what story will do for your brand, product and sales team:
Increase engagement with your target audience, key customers and new targets. You will gain deeper insights into their business, buying cycles, needs and goals.
Build affinity, community and loyalty. Is it not easier to sell to those who already trust your brand and talk about it? Show me a sales person who doesn’t want this environment to sell in and I will buy you lunch.
Create competitive advantage. If your customers have a choice, story gives you an edge on the competition by engaging with them before your salesperson calls. Your target customer will have a positive perception of your brand and most likely questions that can lead to a meaningful sales dialogue.
Differentiate your company from others. Story allows you to position yourself before others do. It allows for unique and defensible positioning that you control. How long do you think you will last if you let your competitors control your story?
According to the Content Marketing Institute, half of B2C and B2B marketers planned to increase spending on content in 2017, with blogs and videos as the most popular format. So we can assume that your competitors are ramping up their brand storytelling engine, shouldn’t you be as well?
To read more about the technology that will enable you to share your brand story, visit https://brandcomgroup.tradepub.com and download Tech That Enables Storytelling from Brightspot.
After the gold rush....
Where does Public Relations fit into the gold rush of our data-driven, customer experience marketing universe?
Not so long ago the Silicon Valley discovered that data, when stored, managed and crunched in real-time provides a wealth of information that can transform markets, scale businesses and solve complex problems that often improve our lives. The gold rush was on. But many companies have lost track of the need for a brand story to build relationships with users. Today we all have heard the stories about the California gold rush, those who left the east to chase the riches, the Jewish immigrant who built a clothing empire, and the intrigue of the Barbary Coast, but who actually knows how much gold was mined?
At its very best, data reveals truths and provides insights to create a wealth of knowledge. What data doesn't do is connect with humans on an emotional level to create relationships based on positive experiences. It's the sharing of those experiences via a story that allows a brand to grow. After all, if all that was required was more data, we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs.
If you are an automotive buff who likes to drive fast at some point you heard about the ultimate driving machine from a story. You learned that BMW’s can reach 130 miles an hour on the race track. The 130 mph is the data, the experience of driving with confidence, trust and thrill like a race car driver is what binds you to the BMW brand. Let's say the data changes and the car can now speed to 150 mph, or worse, drops to a mere 120 mph, the BMW brand story will keep the user engaged with new models and attract new customers.
Customer experience is also dominating the marketing conversation, and so it should. Knowing and understanding your customer is tantamount to successful growth. Feedback from customer experience forms the product roadmap, which in the case of most Silicon Valley companies helps shape their growth, investor return, and ultimate success. But so often valuable customer experience story elements are left on the cutting room floor. Savvy PR pros will take these elements and create stories that support the brand narrative and amplify them across the media ecosystem.
Conversely, when negative stories occur, (and they do, just ask Oscar Munoz or Pepsi) PR works to mitigate the negative elements with positive counters strategically placed to support the brand narrative that mitigates unpleasant experiences and memories. Proactive use of this technique should be the keystone of any crisis communications plan.
Public Relations can and must use data and customer experience to amplify and mitigate story to enhance the brand narrative. The intersection of defining, supporting and telling brand stories with insights from data and customer experience is where public relations fits into today’s marketing communications universe. After all, the stories will remain after the gold rush.
Walk Backs, Escort Bars and Re-accomodating...Oh My!
Contrary to popular belief, public relations is alive and well. This is apparent to anyone watching cable news, as the lack disciplined and proper public relations is feeding the news folks enough content to sink the Titanic, or at least the reputations and fortunes of Uber, United Airlines and most likely the Trump presidency.
Indeed, we have a president who is short on policy but long on trying to win the 24/7 news cycle with publicity. The result, much to his ire, is not what he wants. Sean Spicer, his press secretary, spends more time walking back statements than he does introducing well-planned, coherent policy. So much that his, and the administration’s credibility is shrinking along with their popularity in the polls. Seriously, Google ‘Sean Spicer walks back….’ and see what pops up, it's astounding.
As Recode’s Kara Swisher points out in a recent article, Uber’s image problems cannot be fixed by better PR folks who will bring magic bullets to the gunfight, but rather if the CEO refrains from dragging employees, especially female employees, to South Korean escort bars. It’s really hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube after that one. Though, many of the young Turks at Uber think it can be done. Ah, no. The question for them to ponder is, will people invest in a company with a CEO who has a problem with good judgment? Again, no.
Then we have United Airline CEO Oscar Munoz, who was just announced as “Communicator of the Year” by PR Week when he shot himself and the airline in the foot with an ill-conceived and defensive tweet in response to the social media outcry over the brutal removal of a passenger from a UA flight. We’ve all the seen the video, what was he thinking? There are better ways to stand up for your employees and brand than trivializing barbarism with statements about ‘re-accommodating’ passengers. I’m not even sure that is a word, if it is, it's an airline industry term that has worked its way into the lexicon. Those of us outside the airline industry, the ones who pay for tickets, don’t re-accommodate. Further, if that is their definition of removing passengers from a flight it’s now forever linked to the image of a bloody, screaming man being drug down an aisle way.
Here is what he should have said, "United Airlines regrets this isolated event and we are working diligently with authorities to ensure the continued safety of our passengers. We will further address this issue once a complete audit of the situation has been conducted.” This approach positions the incident as a one-off and buys UA time to discover what went on and plan their next move. Further, a crisis PR plan should have been in place and invoked from the moment this happened last Sunday evening.
Good public relations is the result of well-crafted planning, solid policy, and discipline. Why? Because is really hard, if not impossible to fix ‘walk backs’, visits to escort bars and re-accommodating bloody, battered, screaming passengers. Oh, my.
DNA and Environment - A Brand Story
Recently a group of woodcutters working in India’s Katarniya Ghat forest range spotted a naked 12-year-old girl playing with a troop if monkeys as if she was one of them. The workers alerted the police who fought with the monkeys to capture the girl. After they successfully got her in their car the screaming, screeching monkeys chased them down the road.
Doctors examined the girl who often dropped to all fours, moved around like an animal and ate food directly off the ground as her troop friends would. The doctor's observation was that she had been raised by the troop from an early age and spent many formative years learning their behavior and customs. The age old argument of whether we are shaped by our DNA or our environment was on display, and environment won.
Brands too are shaped by their DNA and changed by the environment. Last week Pepsi was forced to pull their much-touted ad depicting a model (Kendall Jenner) leaving a shoot to join a protest march. The ad very much reflected Pepsi’s brand DNA of living in the moment and the new generation. But no sooner was the ad launched when howls of protest screamed across social media. Many felt the ad trivialized social activism, that Pepsi was demeaning the importance of BlackLives Matter and the resistance that has quickly evolved since Trump was elected. So large was the outcry that Pepsi pulled the ad; another win for the environment.
Technology brands are also shaped by environmental shifts. Years ago I was leading public relations for CacheFlow (now Blue Coat Systems) and promoting its unique caching technology to business and technology influencers The brand promise was that CacheFlow sped the internet by allowing web objects to be stored closer to the end use than the host server. Today a fast internet is as common and as easily found as a beer in a brewery. But in those days It could take minutes for AOL to download, rather than seconds. There was a need for speed if the promise of the internet was to come to fruition
CacheFlow met that need, yet after just two years the demands of the internet had evolved. In response, CacheFlow rebranded as Blue Coat with a focus on security and speeding applications across the internet. Same technological DNA, but reengineered to meet environmental needs that evolved fairly quickly. The first was a greater need for security, followed by the explosion of apps flowing across public and private networks.
This was a remarkable realization of the company’s DNA, their brand story and how they could control their narrative by reading the tea leaves of environmental change.
#marketing, #branding, #communications
The $64.00 Question and Why
One of the most valuable lessons I ever learned about brand storytelling, public relations, and content creation came from the theater.
As a young man, I was enthralled with the theater; the collaboration between the actor, director, playwright and technical team captured me. The idea that this disparate group of artists could come together to create something that moved the audience to feel and think differently struck me as a powerful and necessary.
Alas, the theater is a poor place to make a living and with a child on the way, I entered the world of communications, advertising and media as a copywriter with some trepidation. After all, I did not have an award winning portfolio or plaques hanging on my wall. I had a cheap suit and lots of chutzpah which some how landed me an interview for the role of a copywriter with Australia’s leading radio network. Sitting in the conference room, trying not to sweat through my suit, I dutifully answered questions from the station program director and sales manager. Then they asked the $64.00 question, “What is the most important aspect of writing ad copy for our audience?”
Of course, I had not anticipated this question, truth be told I had anticipated very little but the discomfort of the entire interview process. I paused for what seemed like an eternity while I thought of a cogent reply when a memory from a rehearsal of the musical HAIR came back to me.
We had paused the rehearsal to discuss the direction we wanted a scene to take when my old mentor Bob Schweitzer remarked, “Let’s think about what we want the audience to think and feelat this moment in the story.”
With more assurance than I had, I looked at the interviewers and replied, “The most important thing when writing for your, or any audience is to ask what it is we want them to think and feel when they experience our communications.” They stared at me for a moment, looked at each other and shook their heads in approval. I started the next week and have not stopped working since.
I still ask that question before starting every PR campaign, blog post, brand story narrative or press release. It’s the $64.00 question that leads to awareness and engagement.
Why? Because until you move them to think and feel differently, they won’t take action.
David and Goliath: How to Own Your Story
I’ve always thought of my career in public relations as an adventure that continues to unfold before me. In 2008 I found myself in Sydney, Australia running the technology practice for Fleishman-Hillard where we had just signed a Canadian manufacturer of network and telecom components. The company, then unknown in Australia had successfully sold a module to Telstra, the large public utility that provides Australians with telephone and telecommunications products and services.
The module was embedded in a new, powerful router Telstra was going to announce at a major news conference within a few days. Telstra was to position their router as the powerful WIFI solution for the SOHO. During the initial onboarding telephone call with our new client, we were tasked with launching them at the media event.
After the call ended the account team sat around the conference table letting the enormity of the challenge sink in. No one in AU knew who they were, and why would anyone care about a module the size of a postage stamp? We put on our thinking caps and dug in. The first order of business was to understand exactly what the module meant to the Telstra router.
The team called the client’s Australian General Manager of Sierra Wireless and asked him. After running through the technical specs of the module he stated, “It powers the whole bloody router. The thing won’t deliver the speed and bandwidth Telstra claims without it.”
Eureka! We had a story. This little module, the size of a postage stamp, provided the juice for Telstra’s most powerful router to date. It was a variation of the David vs Goliath story, and we used t construct to create our brand story and strategy for the Telstra media event.
We knew two things about the media and audience we were talking to. First, Australian’s don’t like Telstra all that much. It’s the big, hairy utility that raises rates while customers wait for service. Further, Australian’s love to support the little guy making his way in a harsh environment. It's part of their cultural DNA.
With this in mind, we crafted a ‘guerilla’ launch campaign that involved creating the ‘way’ we wanted the media to receive our news within the context of the Telstra announcement in. Setting the stage so the media discovered our story in a certain manner was crucial to our success. With time against us, we rolled up our sleeves and went to work.
The team arrived at the media event prior to the announcement, identified our target reporters as they arrived, approached them and introduced the General Manager with a “Here’s the real story about Telstra’s router” pitch. While we spoke with them the press release and materials arrived in their inbox so they could easily create their stories. (We noted many were reading our press release while Telstra executives were speaking about their router.)
The result was our client received placement in the top third of every story published about Telstra’s router, with the positioning we wanted. By the late afternoon, we had successful placements in all online tech pubs and in the mainstream business news that evening and the next morning. David now owned the story like a boss which set the stage for his next act.
#marketing, #public relations, #commuications
Trump's Folly and the Art of Branding
Trump at a rally in Hershey, PA Dec. 16, 2106
Branding, like any art, requires discipline. It is best created with the consistency of thought, word, and deed. Without this discipline, confusion sews the seeds of doubt and soon the brand you have is not the one you want.
Nowhere is this more apparent than with our president, his administration, and current political party leadership. Here are few examples; in his inaugural address, Trump promised disenfranchised Americans that they would never again be forgotten. Yet we now know from the CBO analysis of the newly minted American Healthcare Act that 24 million average Americans will lose their healthcare coverage by 2026 while the wealthy will receive a 400 million dollar tax break.
Further, after seven years of bickering and moaning about the Affordable Healthcare Act, the Republican party cannot agree on a viable alternative. The party is deeply skewed in their response to Speaker Paul Ryan’s proposed American Health Care Act with conservatives hating it, Trump disagreeing with it and Ryan and followers spinning TV ads on the public to gain support for the hastily crafted legislation.
Trump himself is the walking, talking contradiction of presidential character, sitting alone in the White House at 3 am spewing libelous tweets accusing the former president of wiretapping Trump Tower while offering no evidence to support the accusations. Perhaps this is appeasing his base who believe there is a conspiracy behind every nook and cranny of life. But they are in the minority, and his brand is becoming further sullied and tarnished with every tweet. Especially when he sends Spicer and Conway out to put a new spin on what he actually meant when he said “wiretap”.
The list of brand offenses goes on and on, but one thing is sure, he is doing more irreparable damage every time he opens his mouth because his rhetoric is inconsistent. The confusion has arrived, the doubt is growing.
Is Your Brandstory Increasing Sales?
Story is an important element of all marketing but can be a strong driver of revenue growth when linked to a pricing strategy. In 2005, Michael J. Hiscox, a Harvard professor of social sciences and his student, Nicholas F.B. Smyth conducted research to see of consumers were motivated to purchase products they knew to be created by workers in good working conditions as opposed to products created in sweatshops.
With an upscale retail store in New York City as their stage, they began by selling two brands of towels, both labeled as being made from organic cotton. They measured sales of both brands to establish a baseline. Then they labeled one brand of towels as created in working conditions that adhered to, and met, certified Fair Trade practices. The label stated, “These towels have been made under fair labor conditions in a safe healthy working environment which is free of discrimination, and where management is committed to respecting the rights and dignity of works.”
Over the next 30 days, sales of the brand of towels with this label increased by 11 percent while sales of the towels not labeled remained stagnant. Next, they increased the price of the labeled towels by 10 percent and witnessed a 20 percent increase sales. It seems consumers related strongly to the towels with a positive story. This has been proven time and again by cause-marketing brands such as Tom’s Shoes who donate a pair of shoes to the poor with every pair sold.
While an increase in sales is always desirable, the real power of Hiscox and Smyth’s experiment the discovery of a brand's story. For here a brand can create a powerful story that engages customer interest and loyalty to support new products over the life of the brand.
What cause do you support? How can you weave it into your marketing to make a positive impact on your target audience, your brand, and the world? #marketing, #brandstory, #sales,
The Birds and Bees of Branding
In his 2010 book, Connected, Nicholas Christakis discusses his 30 years of research into social networks. One startling discovery was that social networks have memory.
Think about that, social networks have memory. Think about how you shared a memory with someone. You created a character, you or others, (hero) doing something (taking action) to discover or learn something and arrive at a resolution, good or bad. You told a story when you shared your memory.
The very elements of story are entrenched in networks of people, they flow and reverberate in the networks consciousness. Christakis also found they have an internal intelligence and often operate like a beehive or a flock of birds; collaboratively to achieve an objective necessary to survival.
Humans share story this way as it is necessary to survival. Brands who tap into this will become part of the internal intelligence, part of the collective memory and remain resilient with the network.
What 2 Billion Social Media Users Mean for Brand Storytelling
Social media allows us to connect with 1000s of people with the click of a mouse. Experts predict by 2020 there will be 2.95 billion social media users, that is approximately half of the human population. Certainly, social media and the digital age is reawakening our innate human sense that we are all connected.
One hundred million years ago early-man would venture into the wilderness to explore, hunt for food and return to the village to share their adventures with those who stayed behind. At night, sitting around the fire, they would share their tales through dance (often imitating animals) drawings in the dirt and the first attempts at language.
The deeply ingrained instinct to listen and retell stories which allow us to share and thrive.
What links today’s social user with early man’s tales around the fire is 'story.' We have a deeply ingrained instinct to listen and retell stories which allow us to share and thrive. In his revelatory work, Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari makes the case that Homo Sapiens evolved to dominance while Neanderthals and other groups of early man faded away for two reasons: one Homo Sapiens learned to control fire and two, they learned to communicate and created communities to raise their young, feed and protect themselves. Story was certainly an important element in both of these developments.
Numerous surveys show that a large part of the time we spend on the Internet is with social networking. In 2010, according to a Nielsen study, Americans spent 36% of their time online communicating and networking on social media, blogs, email and texting. It is easy to understand that ‘social’ is fulfilling a deep-seated need to communicate, network and create a community that has slipped away since the early days of sitting around a fire sharing stories.
Brand storytellers are challenged to harness that time spent online to create awareness, shape perception and drive results for their brand. However, we are also challenged to find non-traditional advertising and marketing ways to do so. Why? Because the culture of communicating via social is built on authenticity and trust. The very same attributes you may want to be associated with your brand. Running TV commercials, click bait and other forms of traditional online marketing can erode authenticity and trust.
Story is a very human endeavor. In creating stories that engage with social media users we must look at the elements of story that allow it to engage on a human level.
Story Elements
- Make sure you have a beginning, middle and an end (Act 1, Act 2, Act 3)
- Tell an engaging story to the audience: character and action working together
- Speak truthfully
- Infused personalities into the story
- Create characters the audience roots for
- Never give it all way
- The end should relate back to the beginning
- Passion and Trust – story requires this, as does a brand
- Conflict
There are many ways to use story online to promote your brand in an engaging way. Here is one example.
5 PR Strategies Start-ups Must Leverage
Over the years the role of public relations as changed. No longer do we have to know each and every journalist, (there is 150,000 journalists, editors and freelance writers in the US alone), crank out press releases on IBM Selectric typewriters and drink scotch with hard-boiled newspaper men.
Today the role of Public Relations is that of a storyteller. In our digital age, it is imperative that companies act like publishing houses, producing purpose-driven stories (content) designed to create and own its narrative. Too often, especially in the Silicon Valley, we see young tech entrepreneurs so solely focused on developing and shipping a great product they forget their brand story is just as crucial to their success.
So how does a start-up begin to leverage a winning Public Relations strategy? Here are five things that are an absolute must:
- Start early. Waiting a week before your product ships and then trying to find a PR pro on Upwork, or a similar platform, to write a press release is not going to work out the way you want. When Ad Tech entrepreneur Chris Gonzales founded Gnack, he and his team built a foundation for their public relations programs in a deliberate step-by-step approach. First, they got their messaging together, then created media lists of the targets they needed to work with and pre-pitched them. They then developed a case study based on the results from a beta user to build credibility with the media and then they drafted a press release. The process took over a month and paid off handsomely.
- Develop a story the media want to tell their audience. As Nigel Hawthorne, EMEA marketing manager for Sky Networks says, “Just because it's interesting to you doesn’t mean it's interesting to anyone else.” Focus on creating stories that position your product or service as the hero as this construct follows the natural laws of 'story' which is more engaging.
- Stop talking about how your product works. The audience for how your product works is small compared to the audience who wants to know how your product benefits them in some unique way.
- Employ consistency of message across media channels. Imagine if you went to a movie and the first 30-40 minutes of the film was about zebras on the African plains, the second part of the movie was about veterinarians, while the end of the movie was about flying animals into space? Despite the fact the movie was all about animals, you would be pretty confused. The same thing happens when you tell your story with inconsistent messaging. Your audience becomes confused.
- Think in PowerPoint, not in Excel. Polaris venture capitalist Gary Swart thinks too many Silicon Valley start-ups want to be very tactical and data-driven and think like an Excel spreadsheet when it comes to Public Relations, and not about how they can tell their story or think like a PowerPoint presentation. He also reminds us that the GAP does not put everything in the storefront window, just enough to get the customer to come inside.
Successful Public Relations is like investing in the stock market, it requires patience, a plan and a consistent approach that allows for flexibility to change course when the markets do.
#Technology, #Entrepreneurs, #Start-ups, #Marketing, #Public Relations
Only 20% of TV commercials are fully viewed...
If you view television like me, when a commercials interrupt the program I’m watching I grab my mobile device and start checking social feeds, the news, email…anything with more compelling content than the advertisement. The issue is the interruption of the story I was engrossed in. And since the interruption is not replaced with something of similar interest, I reach for my other screen and dial-up something I am interested in.
According to a 2014 study by the Harvard Business Review, “the percentage of ads considered fully viewed and getting high attention has decreased dramatically, from 97 percent in the early 1990s to less than 20 percent today. This is a dramatic decline spurred by the proliferation of social media and a decrease in the use of story-craft in advertising.
In December, Comedy Central addressed this issue with the release of branded content ‘shorts’ designed to hold viewers attention while branding a sponsor. Instead of airing a series of 30 or 60-second commercials they are airing what has been given the name ‘linear commercial pods’. They really are well constructed stories with a fancy name.
By reconstructing the media buy advertisers now have more freedom to create meaningful stories that position the brand in a more engaging manner. Rather than pitch product benefits we can now launch a character on a journey, allow him/her to overcome obstacles, reach a satisfactory resolution - all while positioning the product as a facilitator of the journey. The first of these linear commercial pods aired on Comedy Central in December. Titled Erik Gets Crabs, its the first in a series called Handy and will feature a ‘ commercial short’ for Zales.
When we break down the elements of this ‘short-story’ we discover an engaging character, (most likely he represents the target audience demographic) who is faced with a series of challenges (cracking the crab- representing the product) who solves the challenge in a humorous (human) manner. All this takes place on the set of a commercial being filmed for Joe’s Crab Shack which may actually be a Joe’s Crab Shack.
Certainly, this is more engaging content than most 30-second spots for anything. It uses story-craft in its best form to brand the sponsor in a human manner that viewers can relate too. Its message is you will have fun at Joe’s Crab Shack. And, since we live in the era of social, viewers can share the fun as well. Something television advertisers didn’t have just a short time ago.
Is Your Brand Living Up To Its Purpose?
Recently while leading a discussion with a group of writers about marcom writing I was asked what is a brand? While we can all easily recognize brands when we see them, but we sometimes struggle with an encompassing definition.
A brand, I replied, is a promise.
The question that followed was tougher; what is a brand’s purpose? After a few minutes of deliberation, we concurred that a brand’s purpose is to empower users to experience something positive and associate that feeling with the brand. In the 70s Coca Cola’s advertising campaign associated drinking Coca Cola with the altruistic joy of teaching the world to sing.
Brand guru, Simon Mainwaring points out in a recent post, “The most successful advertising campaigns of 2017 will look beyond self-interest and offer solutions for social change by embodying the principle that prosperity is the well-being of many, rather than the wealth of a privileged few.”
The Budweiser ad that ran in Super Bowl LI told the story of their co-founder, young Adolphus Busch who came to our country and overcame the intolerance many immigrants continue to experience. By leading with a commentary on current social concerns, in this case, the immigration debate, Budweiser is positioning themselves as more than a beer. They are saying, “we get it, it matters and we have lived this…we are you.” They have defined a purpose for you to engage with their brand on a higher level.
With purpose-driven storytelling, brands have the opportunity to connect with customers on a human level. When you consider the many choices they have, engaging with them this way creates awareness, shapes perception and drives results. In this case, the Budweiser commercial was the most watched commercial during the Super Bowl and has been view 21.5 million times on You Tube. Now, those are metrics any marketer would like to own.
You can view more recent purpose-driven commercials: Airbnb’s #WeAccept, Coca Cola’s #TogetherisBeautiful, 84 Lumber’s Journey 84, Audi’s #DriveProgress,