Dangerous Ideas about PR?

By Robbin Goodman, Makovsky + Company

Last week I attended The Council of Public Relations Firms' Critical Issues Forum on “The Most Dangerous Ideas about the Future of Public Relations.” I agreed with the substance, if not the tone, of marketing blogger BL Ochman's post on this conference, concerning statements made by a couple of senior executives from large PR agencies. “Some pretty dangerous ideas came out of the mouths of people who really should know better,” she said. She and I were both surprised by a comment from a senior public relations pro that our job is about “stealing,” rather than “creating, new ideas about using new media today.

I was even more struck by obervations made by David D'Alessandro, former CEO of John Hancock Financial Services, who gave the keynote address.

D'Alessandro cited statistics from Pew Research that show that the percentage of people who reported "reading a newspaper yesterday" fell from 40 percent in 2006 to 34 percent in 2008 (for print only, those numbers fell from 32 to 27 percent, respectively for those years). He pointed out that one of the biggest casualties of the shrinking media is the exit of veteran reporters who know their beats and issues in-depth.

(For the record, Pew contends that the television news audience, by contrast, has generally remained stable since 2006, and the proportion regularly watching cable news in particular has increased, from 34% to 39% from 2006-08.)

The hard reality is that the heyday of print media - so vividly illustrated last week by the end of the daily Christian Science Monitor print edition and major cutbacks at Time Inc. and the Star-Ledger (Newark) - is rapidly fading.

News audiences are seeking their information online … a fact verified by a recent report by the Newspaper Association of America, indicating that in the fourth quarter of 2007, 39 percent of all active Web users visited newspaper Web sites, with visits averaging 44 minutes a month.

None of this should be news to PR practitioners, although many companies outside of the consumer and technology sectors remain skeptical about new media. Despite the troubles of print media, people are more interested in news than ever before. While 85 percent of the population read print newspapers back in 1986, today 83 percent are using search engines to find news rather than patronize a news brand (we couldn't find the citation and D’Alessandro didn't supply it in the talk). Even when a traditional newspaper scoops a story today, within hours the social media have grabbed it and are running with it. Thus, the role of traditional media today in PR campaigns isn't going to completely disappear, it's going to shift - in becoming a feeder of "free content" to the new media.


Technorati Tags: The Council of Public Relations Firms' Critical Issues Forum, BL Ochman, David D'Alessandro, Pew Research, Newspaper Association of America, Christian Science Monitor, Time Inc., Star-Ledger, communications, public relations

Seniors’ Online Behavior Mirroring Teens

By Robbin Goodman, Makovsky + Company

The BBC recently reported the death of the world’s oldest blogger – Australian Olive Riley, age 108. You can find photos and remembrances of Olive at http://www.allaboutolive.com.au/ as well as her blog entries. Most of her fan base was in the U.S. and reportedly she received a great deal of attention because of U.S. blogger Kim Komando.

For those who think blogging and social networks are only for the 20- and 30-somethings, a recent study from Jeff Cole’s Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School for Communication, states that “Internet users 50+ are rapidly closing the digital divide with booming online activity,” and that the community involvement of this age group even exceeds that of teenagers, at least in some categories. The study found:

• Users 50+ are online news junkies. 42% of those 50+ check the Internet for news daily or several times a day, compared to 18% of users under 20.


• They love their online communities. Those 50+ report extensive involvement in their communities: 58% log in to their online community daily or several times a day, compared to 47% of those under 20 years of age.


• A significant number have increased their social activism. Participation in online communities has increased social activism for 30% of members 50 and older, compared to 29% who are under the age of 20. (Presidential candidates take note!)


• They’re maintaining social relationships online. Among users under 50 years of age, 46% said the internet is important or very important in maintaining their social relationships – identical to those over 70. Over 70!

However, IMs and video downloads are still the territory of young users – only 9 percent of users 50+ said IM was important or very important, compared to 48% of those under 20.

However, while seniors represent a lucrative market, two-thirds of consumers aged 50-69 researched their online purchase in stores first, according to the Center for the Digital Future.



Technorati Tags: seniors, Olive Riley, world's oldest blogger, Kim Komando, Jeff Cole, Center for the Digital Future, USC Annenberg School, internet users, communications

All the News That’s Fit to Print … According to?

By Robbin Goodman, Makovsky + Company

The story didn’t make it to the mainstream media, but B.L. Ochman’s blog asks the right question: What constitutes news now that everyone is a reporter?

She cites how Tony Katz used Twitter — a social networking site that lets its users stay connected with colleagues, friends and family in real-time — to provide an eyewitness account, that unrolled a bit like the frames of a film, about how a man who claimed he had a detonator in his pocket was taken off a US Airways flight… while he, a passenger on the plane, sat observing.

You can read the details on BL’s and Tony’s blogs. The long and short of it is that the gentleman was quickly escorted off the plane without incident and the airline received glowing praise.

This gives new meaning to “If a tree falls in a forest….” Except for a handful of bloggers who reported it, at the time of this writing no mainstream media appeared to have picked up on it.

This fascinating account complements a recent study on the State of the News Media by Pew Research, which has done landmark work on the role of the Internet and social media in people’s lives. The study suggests that the trend toward user-created content for news appears more limited, including on “citizen” blogs.

The Pew study reported that the agenda of the traditional news media continues to narrow, not broaden, based on an audit of topics of coverage, according to the study. While it would appear that online news content could provide new opportunities to aggregate more sources, online platforms are limited by what the originating sources are providing. (In other words, citizens aren’t doing original reporting in the context of mainstream media [MSM] sites which focus on a narrow band of news. Although clearly some of them ARE reporting it elsewhere.) All the news that’s fit to print is clearly a function of who’s trying to report it.

But lest we be too critical of the MSM, Pew also reports that the (traditional) newsroom has seemed to adapt very well to the new media environment. The laggard in news operations now is the business side of the organization.


Technorati Tags: B.L. Ochman, Tony Katz, Twitter, social networking site, US Airways, eyewitness account, State of the News Media, Pew Research, mainstream media sites, traditional news media, communications

Apocalypse Now? Or Survival of the Fittest?

By Robbin Goodman, Makovsky + Company

“Media Work Force Sinks to 15-Year Low,” (subscription required) screamed the Ad Age headline. Reporter Bradley Johnson went on to describe how one in four media jobs has disappeared since the peak of newspaper employment in 1990. Loss of subscribers and ad dollars, and competition for readers’ attention with a wide range of media, including digital properties, have all contributed to the slump. Over the past year alone, 16,900 newspaper staff have been cut (nearly five percent) … while, interestingly, employment in marketing consultancies is up nearly 11 percent.

I question the implicit assumption that there is an inverse relationship between the number of staff positions on newspapers and the growth of marketing services agencies. It’s more complicated than that. Ad agencies aren’t growing. They’re slimming down and consolidating. I’m certain many of those who are leaving the world of conventional advertising are, in fact, starting their own marketing services agencies or joining other, smaller independent firms. Another factor that wasn’t explored in the article is the degree to which corporations are choosing to use external experts, rather than staff up internally.

I believe that marketing consulting is growing because, increasingly, print ads aren’t working as well as they used to, and marketers are interested in trying new things. The fact that the “mix” of marketing services is increasing is because of that experimentation.

Studies conducted by Booz Allen Hamilton, a client of our firm, in partnership with the Association of National Advertisers have shown that world class marketers are increasingly dismayed by the ad agency community’s slowness to come to grips with this shift in spending.

According to “HD Marketing 2010: Sharpening the Conversation,”, more than 90 percent of marketers surveyed say they plan to increase their digital spending. However, only 24 percent of the survey respondents think their organizations are digitally savvy. Almost 60 percent of participants believe creative, creative and media capabilities should be rebundled …but not by traditional full-service agencies. In fact, media partnerships — with both media companies and media agencies — are becoming more important than traditional full-service agency partnerships to twice as many marketers.

With respect to the decline in newspaper editorial jobs, actually, a good study that needs to be done is an examination of trends in the utilization of freelance journalists by newspapers. While it’s clear newspapers are indeed eliminating headcount … it seems that newspapers such as The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are using a higher percentage of freelance journalists in recent years than ever before.

With the increased number of articles that are appearing online only (and the Wall Street Journal is a good example of this), there are many more opportunities for freelancers to byline articles. The Saturday and Sunday New York Times business sections have a significant amount of freelance-written content. Many of the Journal’s features, such as Career Journal, feature many freelance written stories.

The bottom line? I don’t see this as the decimation of the fourth estate. It’s just a matter of adaptation and the survival of the fittest.

Technorati Tags: media, Ad Age, Bradley Johnson, marketing consultancies, ad agencies, Booz Allen Hamilton, Association of National Advertisers, newspapers, freelancers, communications