HEADS UP: Scott Baradell to Participate in Media Relations Panel at PRSA Southwest District Conference

Idea Grove President Scott Baradell is among the speakers at next month’s 2013 PRSA Southwest District Conference, where he will participate with four other PR professionals in a panel discussion called Tackling Media Relations.

The panel will explore how dramatically newsrooms are changing and how PR practitioners must adapt their strategies to better meet the needs of journalists. Scott will talk about the importance of creating publication-ready content for use by media organizations, in the form of byline articles, infographics, and more. He will also discuss how a company can use a single content idea across both its inbound marketing and media relations programs.

Appearing with Scott on the Tackling Media Relations panel will be:

Alexis Patterson Hanes, associate director of Public Information for the Austin Community College District
Lauren Butler, vice president/group manager at Ketchum
Casey Norton, vice president of Media Relations at Weber Shandwick.
Sarah Marshall, senior vice president of Phillips & Company, who will moderate.

The conference is sponsored by the Austin chapter of the Public Relations Society of America and takes place June 5-7 at the Omni Austin Hotel Downtown. The three-day event offers PR professionals everything from sessions on managing a crisis and making an impact to free yoga on the hotel’s roof.

March 28, 2013 in Brand Strategy, Branding, Media, PR and Pop Culture by Clay Zeigler
HEADS UP: What the New Pope Is Teaching Us About Marketing

I can’t get enough of the new pope, and apparently I’m not alone. Google “pope-francis” and you get 656 million results about someone who has been going by that name for just a few weeks. And whether or not Pope Francis is able to take the Catholic Church in a new direction, he’s already demonstrating how a damaged brand can be protected — even enhanced — by focusing attention on initiatives that counter objections to the brand in new ways.

The Catholic Church’s problems are well-chronicled, led by the painful clergy-sex scandal, its lingering effects, and more recently the tales of stolen records and Vatican misconduct. But these days, the Church’s problems are mentioned only in passing, as in this story from Reuters:

The 76-year-old former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina has inherited a Vatican rocked by a scandal in which documents leaked to the media spoke of alleged corruption in its administration and depicted prelates as fighting among themselves to advance their careers.

But that’s the fourth paragraph of a story that focuses instead on something new. Here’s the lead:

Beginning a busy program of Easter events, Pope Francis on Thursday urged Catholic priests to devote themselves to helping the poor and suffering instead of worrying about careers as Church “managers.”

That’s just marketing manna from heaven: The pope is busy. He’s telling priests to help the poor and suffering. (Who can be against that?) And he’s telling priests to get out there and help people instead of sitting around in “introspection,” which is a nice word for squabbling.

February 4, 2013 in Media Relations, Public Relations by Scott Baradell
HEADS UP: Why an Outplacement Service Is News Before the Super Bowl

I have this thing about challenges; I love them. And I certainly got one in early 2011, when our Dallas marketing firm was asked to find a way to use the Super Bowl to get attention for a client that is an outplacement services company. The campaign we put together is an annual reminder that media relations efforts still are extremely valuable when they convey ideas that are new, timely and interesting.

Sanjay Sathe is the CEO at RiseSmart, which helps get laid-off workers into their next jobs as quickly as possible. He gets the credit for suggesting tying the company to a Super Bowl angle. In thinking about RiseSmart’s role in combating unemployment, we wondered whether there was a correlation between jobless rates and the Super Bowl. Sure enough, we found a study by an economist from the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago that uncovered an unexpectedly strong correlation: In four out of five Super Bowls during the period studied, the victors were from the city whose metropolitan area had the lower unemployment rate.

December 7, 2012 in Media Relations, Public Relations by Clay Zeigler
ADVICE: Wal-Mart Shows Us How Not to Handle Negative Media Coverage

The mainstream media has been a punching bag for the American public since back when newspapers cost a penny. For more than 200 years, people and organizations of all kinds have found sympathetic audiences for their complaints about unfair news coverage. Still, it’s difficult to understand the thinking behind the recent move by Wal-Mart Stores not to respond to questions from the Huffington Post. The good news for the rest of us is this is a perfect test case for what not to do in the face of negative media coverage.

Mistake No. 1 – Banning a Publication

According to a Washington Post story, Wal-Mart won’t any longer respond to questions to the Huffington Post because of a pattern of problems over facts and perspectives. While there may be issues – perhaps legitimate ones – it doesn’t seem to make sense to deny access to an entire organization all the time.

September 28, 2012 in Media Relations, Public Relations by Reg Rowe
ADVICE: Mind Mapping Helps You Visualize Key Messages

Mind mapping circles Successful media interviews come with experience and the use of a few key skills; and one of my favorites is Mind Mapping. In situations where you, as a spokesperson for your organization, are expected to know everything there is to know about your firm’s history, people, products and services, Mind Mapping can make the difference between a successful interview and an opportunity lost.

Mind Mapping is a process of identifying important information about an organization and what it does, provides, produces, sells and distributes, and how it communicates with its key audiences: employees, customers, vendors, suppliers, partners, influencers, followers, media outlets and more. A Mind Map can be a general overview of your entire organization or a very focused, detailed look at a single product, service or issue.

The Process Starts with a Circle

Start your Mind Map by drawing a circle in the center of a white board, flip chart or piece of paper. In the circle, write down the subject of the Mind Map. Is this an overview of your company? A detailed look at your latest product or service? A major issue facing your company or industry? A crisis situation? Whatever the subject, write it in the center circle.

Mistake No. 1 – Banning a Publication

The Process Starts with a Circle

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