Insights for Leaders Navigating
Visibility, Credibility, and Growth.
From media strategy to reputation management, we explore the trends shaping public perception and share the approaches that drive measurable results for growing brands.
This week Communiqué PR’s client A Place for Mom (APFM) released new findings from its National Senior Living Cost Index, which looks at costs for three primary senior living categories in the U.S.: Independent Living, Assisted Living and Memory Care. The Cost Index draws on APFM’s comprehensive database of families that have moved into senior living and assisted living homes across the U.S. between 2012 and 2015. It is the largest report of its kind.
The Findings
The data revealed that senior housing and care costs are not spiraling out of control, but rather growing steadily at rates similar to rental housing. This contradicts public perception that healthcare costs are rapidly rising – in fact, APFM found that Assisted Living and Memory Care costs are growing slowly, at 2.9 and 2.3 percent per year respectively in 2016. That’s a slower growth rate than that of health insurance premiums and hospital service costs, and much slower than recent home-sale price growth.
APFM also found that senior living costs are growing steadily in regions across the U.S. except in the South, where growth slowed. Drilling deeper, the data shows that metro areas with hot rental markets (for example Seattle, San Diego and Denver) also tend to have the fastest growing senior living costs.
A New Senior Housing Planning Tool
To help families navigate senior living costs in their area, A Place for Mom developed a Zillow-like interactive map, which allows families to search for senior living costs in over 2,000 cities, metros and states across the U.S.
Valuable Data for Seniors, Their Families and the Media
APFM’s new tool is, first and foremost, a valuable resource for seniors and their families who are looking for affordable housing and care options. But it also serves as a valuable resource for media – APFM’s large, unique data repository well positions the organization to serve as an ongoing resource for journalists who are covering the senior housing and care market. APFM is the only publicly available source of data on senior housing and care costs, offering journalists useful information on industry trends and proof points to back up their stories that journalists cannot get anywhere else.
Looking Ahead
To augment its senior living cost data, APFM conducted a survey of senior-living consumers around what characteristics of neighborhoods and senior living communities would have the most influence on a decision to move. The findings will offer unique insight into senior-living consumer preferences. Look out for the report in June!
Would you believe it if you heard that 59 percent of senior executives prefer video content over text?
You better believe it. According to Forbes Insights, 80 percent of senior executives say they are watching more online videos today than they were a year ago. In addition to the uptick in views, executives are also inclined to take some sort of action after watching a work-related video: 65 percent shared that they visited a vendor’s website after watching.
It’s no question that video possesses a power to make us feel and act, but mastering this power can be a tricky task. With the explosion happening in the video industry, it seemed fitting to consult the experts to provide insight around integrating video into PR campaigns.
Last week at our Communiqué brownbag, Maren Higbee, executive producer at Mighty Media Studios, carved time out of her day to give us the rundown on all things video. As an experienced writer and producer, she is passionate about helping organizations reach their target audiences through video. It was great to have Maren in our office and learn about the trends she is seeing in the space and especially how she perceives that video should align with PR efforts.
The first step in video integration is to ask the question: “Is video the answer?” Maren shared several stipulations critical for our clients (and anyone) considering video to address in order to determine if video is the correct answer:
- Know your audience and understand what they want.
- Determine if incorporating video will improve an existing campaign. If so, how/what is the objective?
- Plan and understand how integrating video would add to the audience’s experience.
- Determine the metrics you would use to measure success. Consider if these are attainable.
- Decide if social media will be part of the campaign. If so, begin to strategize.
Once you’ve tackled the above, the next step is to determine what type of video will work best. This can be the challenging part for many businesses as video production ranges anywhere from $6K to $100M; and depending on the route you chose, will buy a variety of outcomes. Really understanding who your audience is and what they want is key throughout the entire process to ensure your money is spent with strategy and intention. The following are a few of the types of videos that Mighty Media produces and their typical purposes:
- Customer Evidence Videos provide an inside look and share the broad spectrum of your client’s product and/or services. These types of videos allow a glimpse into the real life experiences of those working on new products or real-time uses.
- Event Media / Keynote / Launch Videos inspire awareness. Exciting announcements spread quickly by word of mouth often inspiring people to search for information. Share the story, the energy and bring clarity to everyone interested in your business.
- Creative Concept Videos spread the idea. Connect to your audience through a concept video, futuristic vision or global story. Get the messaging into the hands of the influencers.
- Commercials and Marketing: Show don’t tell. Why try to explain in text alone? Let people across the country see what you have to offer in one quick direct message.
- Motion Design, Graphics and Animation visualize the unseen. Sometimes the message we want to convey is complex and hard to envision. Let a graphic video simplify the material density and allow the message to strike at home with anyone, anywhere. These videos are great for bringing brand awareness to the masses.”
Being unsure of what type of video to roll with, many businesses have even started conducting “rapid testing” with their video content. In these types of experiments, they will whip out a campaign and quickly conduct a read on its metrics. If the target audience does not respond favorably to the video, the company will pull it. This helps companies quickly and accurately test if they are providing content their audience enjoys. Because the driving purpose of sharing video and creating content is to connect with your audience on a deeper level, it’s important to not force video or content if it’s not resonating with them. Doing this will not only waste money, it can also force a wrench between your key messages and customers.
Luckily, there are baby steps businesses can take when integrating video into their marketing suite. If budget and/or equipment is the issue, companies can try using webcasting and iPhone stabilizers for filming. As long as the lighting is right, these methods of filming can be just as effective if in alignment with the audience. The short clips or “how-to” segments commonly seen on Facebook have become a popular type of video. These videos have subtext at the bottom of the screen, allowing the reader to watch and understand the video without having to use volume or listen along. This strategy can expand the number of viewers simply by including individuals who would have closed your video because they didn’t have headphones, or were in an inappropriate setting to listen aloud.
Once you have the footage you can then select your publishing platform. Popular options include YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, twitch, Dailymotion, JWPlayer, INXPO and Skype Meeting Broadcast. Each of these platforms cater to a different audience with different features, and like every step of the production process, the platform should be selected with your audience in mind. From there, PR pros can determine and experiment with the videos that resonate with different types of media.
One of the critical factors of being successful in public relations is maintaining a strong media-relations practice, which is why Cision’s State of the Media Report is such a useful resource. This year the annual report surveyed more than 1,550 North American journalists and influencers to get their feedback on topics such as what issues are impacting them most, ways PR professionals can improve and tips on pitching.
Here are four highlights for PR practitioners to keep in mind:
1. Reporters Really, Really Want You to Trust Them.
Accustomed to the public’s trust and general acceptance that news stories are reported in a factual and unbiased manner, journalists now face skepticism and suspicion. Survey results show reporters are keenly aware of this shift.
- 91 percent of survey respondents believe the media is somewhat or much less trusted than they were three years ago
- 92 percent said that being right is more important than being first, up 4 percent from 2016
- 60 percent of reporters believe the public values facts over opinions or feelings
As a result, media is relying heavily on PR professionals to present them with accurate, reliable resources such as press releases and expert sources for interviews.
2. Pitching by Phone? Dial “D” for Don’t Bother.
According to the survey, the first step in building a positive relationship with media is to cut the telephone cord:
- 90 percent cited email as the best way to directly pitch a story idea
- Calling journalists via phone or pitching through social media ranked below 3 percent
- Journalists and influencers particularly dislike being contacted via telephone, with an 8 percent increase in respondents who said telephone pitches are never welcome
3. Here’s How to Get on Media’s Good Side.
The best way to win over 83 percent of reporters is researching their media outlets before pitching.
- 51 percent agree they’re more likely to pursue a story when communications professionals demonstrate they’re familiar with the reporter’s past work, interests and beats
- 73 percent appreciate when pitches are tailored to suit their beat/coverage
- 49 percent want information and expert sources provided
Additional advice from journalists for PR reps includes:
- PR professionals should write angles that are less commercial and more usable for general audiences.
- Agencies and brands should produce in-house B-Roll and sound clips relating to timely issues, especially visuals or videos of a work site or a specific product’s use.
- If you are willing to write and distribute a press release, be prepared to reply to a few questions from journalists.
- Write in AP Style, or at least spell things properly.
- Stop spamming journalists and stop calling to follow up after spamming them.
4. The Most Valuable Assets for Journalists.
Cision asked journalists to rank which PR resources they found most valuable. For the second year in a row, press releases and story leads ranked first, followed by expert interviews and images. Video rose one spot from fourth to third most valuable, while products to review dropped in importance. Among bloggers, products ranked as the second most valuable resource, while assistance in story writing ranked last across the board.
The Top Six PR Assets Journalists Value Most:
- Press Releases/Story Leads
- Expert Interviews/Story Sources
- Sourcing Images and Video
- Propriety Data
- Products to Review
- Assistance in Story Writing
As the media landscape continues to shift, shrink and surprise, building meaningful relationships with reporters will become increasingly necessary to impact audiences, influence public perception and drive brand awareness. To reach reporters, PR professionals must understand their interests and needs and ensure story angles are pertinent and newsworthy before pitching.
As a student of the University of Washington’s business school and as an intern here at Communiqué PR, I have spent a lot of time over my college career learning about brand image and messaging and the importance of consistency. As I’ve come to understand it, brand image is a crucial part of any team’s marketing or PR strategy, no matter what business or product is being sold.
Over the last few weeks in particular, there have been a number of impressively bad branding strategies (yes, I am talking about Pepsi) so it feels like the right time for a crash course on how to avoid a branding disaster.
Let’s start by looking at what happened to Pepsi. If I have spent a lot of class time talking about brand image (and I have), I have spent an equal amount of time discussing Pepsi and Coke and their infamous “cola wars.” The reason that Pepsi and Coke are often cited as prime examples about the importance of brand image is because of how unique the soda industry is. Since Pepsi and Coke are the two biggest global brands today, and their prices and company structures are so similar, the war between the two rivals has been waged almost exclusively through advertising and marketing based on their brand image.
Collectively, the two companies spend around $5 billion on advertising each year – for them, brand image really is everything. This is why Pepsi’s recent commercial featuring Kendall Jenner was such a PR and branding catastrophe: in an industry where the only competitive differentiator is how consumers view your company, the kind of blow dealt by the Pepsi/Kendall Jenner ad could be devastating. There has been a trend of companies moving toward progressive branding to appeal to younger consumers, and since the Pepsi image has always strived to appeal to a young and fun audience, it makes sense that executives attempted to create an ad that addressed social and political issues.
However, Pepsi failed to understand the implications of its actions, and it backfired. While Pepsi was attempting to support the protest movement sweeping the nation, instead of empowering the activists and protesters that are fighting for social justice, they made light of it by putting a soft drink as a cure-all solution to very complex socio-policies issues going on worldwide . The ad trivialized a very serious issue to the point that the ad’s ‘protest’ looked more like fun dance party. Due to its size and decades of good branding, Pepsi will likely be emerge unscathed in the big picture, but a smaller company may find it very difficult to make a comeback from this sort of impact to a brand.
Luckily, companies can learn from Pepsi’s mistake. If you are going to take a stand and join the many companies that are moving toward more progressive and socially conscious branding, do your research, pick an issue and be thoughtful about how it aligns with your brand and the messages you want convey.
The thing about brands, especially global ones like Pepsi, is that they genuinely have the potential to do a lot of good. In fact, 84 percent of people in a recent study believed that brands have the power to make the world a better place, and they do. However, ads like the one Pepsi put out show little to no sensitivity to the struggles of the issue they are trying to highlight.
Marketers and PR pros alike need to put themselves in the shoes of the people closest to an issue and consider how their campaign or ad will bring awareness to a problem. Hiring a celebrity spokesperson is not always going to be the best way to do that. A better approach might to connect with real people on the front lines and use their insight and perspective to create a meaningful message that reflects the values and vision of the community it is serving.
Companies also need to start considering the power that consumers have, especially in the age of social media. Everyone has a voice, so it is particularly important to be sensitive to a variety of different audiences. At this time in history, there are certain topics that should not be exploited for consumerization and this takes a degree of common sense to realize. However, if you are truly set on taking a stand, consider showing the campaign to a variety of test audiences to gauge reactions.
There is one thing that Pepsi did correctly, and that is taking ownership of its mistake. While the commercial itself might be considered by many to be a disaster, the company was quick to apologize and realize they had made a serious faux pas. While there was some damage done, it was certainly not irreversible, but this may not always be true. If you want to go the route of Pepsi and put out a campaign around a social issue, make sure you consider each and every angle.
Many of our clients use agile software development practices as they design and bring new products to market, but recently we’ve heard more and more about marketing teams that are also embracing agile principles. It got us thinking about how we work together and inspired us to look to other marketing teams for inspiration around best practices. Before we jump into our findings, let’s review the definition and principles of agile.
Wikipedia defines agile software development as “a set of principles for software development under which requirements and solutions evolve through the collaborative effort of self-organizing cross-functional teams.” Whew. That’s a mouthful.
Let’s break this definition down. “Software development under which requirements and solutions evolve …” is pretty straightforward. This simply means the vision for the software and written code is going to progress or advance, and this is going to happen through the joint efforts of people.
Then there is the part about people being part of self-organizing, cross-functional teams. Self-organizing means the team decides how to achieve the goals or solve problems. They still have to meet deadlines and complete work within a budget, but how they accomplish the goals is up to them.
A cross-functional team means that you’re likely to have representatives from a variety of groups within the organization participating on your team. For instance, you might have someone from marketing, finance, engineering, human resources, operations, etc. The idea is that representatives from different departments will bring valuable perspective to the team as it strives to meet its common goals.
On Wikipedia there is a section devoted to the Agile Manifesto, which is based on 12 principles. I’ve reviewed and modified it for PR and marketing professionals. Here’s my version:
- Maintain customer satisfaction by early and continuous delivery of valuable results. For PR professionals, these might mean developing content, securing placement of articles, or acquiring new followers on social media platforms. Customers may be internal or external. For someone working in an agency, their customer is external. If you’re working in-house, you’re likely to have internal stakeholders. For instance, sales managers, business development or C-level executives may be your internal customers.
- Welcome changing requirements, even late in the project. As new information becomes available, accept it and make it actionable. A talented PR or marketing professional will know that market dynamics and competitive actions can change quickly, and they’ll be able to respond accordingly and shift gears comfortably.
- Identify incremental milestones to deliver against over weeks versus months. Make sure team members are aligned on the tactical milestones that need to be achieved. Identify clear measures when possible. Taking this step is a good way to ensure you’re marshalling the right resources and avoiding fire drills.
- Ensure close, daily cooperation between business people and marketers or PR. Consider short daily meetings to review the progress toward your desired outcome and discuss challenges. These meetings can be vital in helping the team adjust to problems or roadblocks.
- Build projects around motivated individuals who can be trusted. You need to depend and rely on your teammates if you’re going to work in an Agile manner. Empower each person to make a meaningful contribution.
- Communicate face-to-face. In-person conversations are the best form of communication. When you connect face-to-face you have the benefit of observing body language, and assuming you’re in the same building, it is often much faster than writing an email.
- Results are the principal measure of progress. The team should be delivering incremental results and communicating regularly with stakeholders about their progress. Customers should not be wondering how things are going or where activity stands.
- Work at a sustainable, constant pace. You don’t want your team to burn out, so work at a reasonable pace. Remember to take breaks and celebrate milestones.
- Pay attention to technical excellence and good design. In public relations, this might mean following AP style rules or looking for ways to infuse creativity or originality as you’re working on a project.
- Focus on the art of maximizing the amount of work not done. Look for the most efficient way to deliver results. Consider the probability of success. If an idea is going to take significant time with a low chance of success, look for an alternate approach. The team should zero in on strategies that have a high likelihood for success with a high return on investment.
- Encourage teams to be self-organizing. The team can determine how to approach and adapt to meet the goal or new challenges in the environment.
- Reflect regularly on how to become more effective, and adjust accordingly. Conduct postmortems with your team to discuss successes and failures.
Marketing Leaders’ Perspectives on Agile
I had the opportunity to hear from several leaders about how they’re implementing agile practices. Below is some of their advice.
Katie Lioy, director, marketing technology for SHIFT Communications, encourages people not to try “to implement every single agile method at once.” She suggests letting the team to get used to the ideas of agile first before moving into implementation.
Christina Gunn, Chief Marketing Officer with Brandmetta, says that her team “meets multiple times weekly in short planning or sprint meetings. It’s where we communicate priorities, issues and accomplishments. Everyone functions at the same level and we don’t have hierarchy when it comes to problem solving.”
Gunn’s team also leverages a number of software solutions to improve collaboration. “Slack, Basecamp, Harvest, Join Me, Skype, and GoToMeeting enable us to easily reach our team when needed,” she says. “We rarely use email, other than to formally document key agreements or decisions. Otherwise, project- and client-related communication and documents are placed in workspaces in Basecamp and Slack.
I know I’m looking forward to applying these principles to our work here at Communique PR!
Recently several notable brands – United Airlines, Pepsi, Wells Fargo and Uber, among them – have experienced significant backlash from consumers after major crises, followed by a wave of negative press coverage.
As a PR professional, how these disparate situations have been handled thus far has, to say the least, been interesting to watch. With many of these companies, addressing the immediate communication crisis is critical; however, PR and crisis communication alone will not solve the underlying business issues that have led to the public brand strife. Strategic public relations can indeed be powerful – but it cannot solve fundamental business issues such as a lack of leadership or poor corporate-wide communication, a toxic culture, a failing business model, a flawed product or unethical behavior.
Brands that provide strong leadership based on shared values are much better able to empower employees across all levels in the organization to make decisions that reinforce and support the business objectives. When employees understand the vision for the company and its business objectives, they are better equipped to make decisions in the moment that reflect that vision and reinforce the values of their organization.
Consider, for example, how a Zappos customer service representative reinforced their company’s values by sending flowers and a sympathy card to my family when we returned shoes after my mother’s death that she had purchased but not worn. This employee made an in-the-moment decision that did not rely solely on policy and that reflected the company’s values.
Kara Swisher, in her article “Dear Tech Bros: It’s not a PR problem at Uber (or Yahoo or any of it),” counters the widely-shared opinion that “it’s a PR problem,” and “PR can fix it.” She writes, “Thus, those who keep insisting to me that PR is the problem for Uber have to catch a clue: The company is having troubles because it neglected to put key human resources and management systems in place that would counter its rich-frat-boy-meets-Vegas tendencies. It needs to do that now and quickly; it needs to complete a thorough and independent investigation that names names and exacts some form of justice.”
Recently, I was asked how I would respond if United Airlines were to call our firm for PR counsel during its unfolding crisis. My first point would be to emphasize that the apparent issues at United are not isolated to PR and communication. Therefore, the solution shouldn’t be siloed to just public relations but rather be implemented across cross-functional teams. In this example, United’s leadership needs to adapt, evaluate both the company’s and the brand’s values, and make its employees empowered to make decisions in the moment that align with those values and reinforce the aspirations of the brand.
When it comes to navigating through a crisis and then working to re-establishing customer and stakeholder trust in an organization, PR should have a seat at the table, no question; however, the table needs to include leaders across the company in order to be effective and authentic. It’s not a just PR problem.