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.
On Nov. 26, Big Fish Games launched Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst, the highly anticipated fifth title in the blockbuster hidden object-adventure Mystery Case Files series. The series, which started in 2005 with Mystery Case Files: Huntsville, is the number one brand in the casual games industry and has sold more than 2.5 million units to date.
With a commitment to increase the production value of each new release, Big Fish Games has added new elements to Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst that surpass industry standards. The new elements include performances from live actors as well as an original music soundtrack that was performed by the Berlin Film Orchestra. The game also empowers players to explore scenes and levels using click-through navigation game play.
As we worked to secure coverage of Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst for Big Fish Games, we recognized that these innovative additions rivaled industry standards.
In addition, we realized offering journalists demos of the game would go a long way towards building their excitement.
When possible, Big Fish Games met with journalists in-person to walk through the game and highlight its features. In addition, the team leveraged WebEx teleconference services to provide online demos to journalists when in-person meetings were not feasible.
Communiqué also worked with Big Fish Games to provide journalists with early access to a demo version of the game via the companies’ FTP site. This allowed journalists the opportunity to try out the game on their own and follow up with any questions.
Media feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Journalists appreciated the opportunity to review the game in advance, see a demo and hear why Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst was significant for the industry. By experiencing the compelling nature of the game firsthand, journalists were able to ascertain consumer demand and convey the experience for their readers. The game earned several positive placements including a review that was picked up by Gannett News Service and appeared in more than 100 newspapers across the U.S. including USA Today.
See below for a few examples of the resulting coverage or click here to read the official announcement.
Key Coverage:
USA Today, “Unravel supernatural mystery in ‘Return to Ravenhearst,'” December 12, 2008
Seattle Weekly, “Big Fish Catches Record Revenues During Recession,” December 3, 2008
USA Today, “Holiday Gift Guide -For the Casual Player,'” December 2, 2008
Link not available
GamePro, “GamePro 2008 Holiday Gift Guide,” November 24, 2008
GameInformer, “Mystery Case Files Evolving Out of the Core Spotlight,” November 26, 2008
GamingShogun, “Big Fish Games Returns to Ravenhearst,” November 26, 2008
What’s Good for PR Can Be Good for the PlanetIn 2006, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released a documentary film titled, “Who Killed the Electric Car?” The film examined the creation and demise of General Motors’ EVI electric car in the 1990s, blaming the auto and oil industries. In response, General Motors claimed a lack of demand among consumers led them to discontinue production and destroy their existing inventory of electric cars.
Fast forward to 2008 when the CEOs of Detroit’s “big three” automakers arrived in separate corporate jets to request bailout money from Congress. The media had a field day and a PR nightmare ensued. But instead of pointing fingers and attempting to justify their ironic transportation choice, the automakers took a fresh approach. This week, the CEOs will return to Washington D.C. – in hybrid vehicles.
In an attempt to stem bad publicity, the automakers are adopting a more environmentally sound PR approach that has the potential to influence the public and make a big difference. They are selling their corporate jets and showing America that if a hybrid vehicle is fit for a CEO, it’s fit for anyone.
The electric car is making a major comeback with auto manufacturers heavily investing in production and consumer marketing. Now, executives at the major auto manufacturers are engaging with press more, granting interviews, providing early looks at new models and soliciting feedback from the blogging community. The electric car is receiving national attention from publications including Business Week, Forbes, New York Times and USA Today.
So why are auto manufacturers now refocusing heavily on the electric car? Is it the green movement? Gas prices? A status symbol? The reality is all of the above. Consumer behavior and trends can help shape product direction of an industry and provide the grounds for establishing a good PR campaign. When these trends are ignored, PR disasters such as the corporate jet fiasco occur; but when they are embraced, companies can improve their image and achieve business objectives.
According to Efraim Levy, a senior automobile equity analyst at Standard & Poor’s, in April 2008 consumers purchased more cars than trucks, stating it was “an eye-opening event that led many automakers to shift to producing smaller, more fuel-efficient cars.”
The following consumer behaviors work in favor of the electric car and can provide the foundation for a PR campaign to promote it. Pitches and story angles about the electric car that highlight these trends will be relevant to journalists and the public.
Green consumers. Today, consumers and organizations are more eco-friendly than ever. Green initiatives are formed to help demonstrate how businesses are environmentally friendly, while other organizations focus on making green-friendly products for consumption. The automotive industry has a great opportunity to leverage consumer environmental concern to promote the electric car.
The recession. Given the current state of the economy, consumers are looking for ways to cut costs and avoid high payouts at the gas pump. The electric car not only provides a more fuel-efficient mode of transportation, but it also ties to our need to be green and helps consumers feel good about their purchase.
Consumer adoption of hybrid cars. Hybrid cars provide consumers with a gas-electric option. According to the American International Automobile Dealers Association, hybrid cars are increasingly popular because consumers can now have an affordable car that is fuel efficient and practical enough for everyday use.
Attention for the electric car is likely to increase as new models are unveiled and the debate over the best car battery continues. From a PR perspective, auto manufacturers will want to pay close attention to these trends to drive public interest in new, innovative and profitable electric cars.
PRWeek recently published an article about the importance of measuring the return on investment (ROI) of PR initiatives. According to Seth Duncan, a research manager at Context Analytics, “in a challenging economy, it is likely many PR pros will see increasing pressure to show their value to their organizations’ bottom line.”Measuring the financial value of our PR efforts is a crucial element in providing Communiqué PR clients with a clear picture of how we are adding value to their company. It also helps illustrate why they should continue to invest in our services.
In the past, PR professionals relied heavily on the measurement of media impressions and public sentiment to calculate the ROI of PR investments. According to PRWeek, today clients are seeking more in-depth reviews of the effects of PR on sales, revenue, stock valuation, Web site traffic, and insight on how a company’s messaging is affecting consumers and target audiences.
There is no all-encompassing technique to measure and evaluate PR effectiveness or show how PR campaigns are improving a company’s bottom line. Some companies want to count impressions, and this can be helpful, but we also believe it is important to identify and examine what constitutes value for our clients.
What one company values may be completely unimportant to another, depending on business objectives, the preferences of executives and the philosophy of the management team. Therefore, when working to determine the ROI of a campaign, it is first necessary to identify a value system.
Given this, to fully demonstrate the impact and value of PR programs we follow these best practices:
- Set specific measurable PR goals and objectives – Specify the target audience and key messages that need to be communicated before beginning any PR program. Set attainable expectations around outreach with clients and outline measurable goals around coverage results.
- Measure PR impressions – Measure the amount of media coverage garnered by an event or an announcement. We also recognize the importance of monitoring online conversations and blogger reactions to the news. Setting up Google Alerts is a great way to easily and cost-effectively monitor online coverage. We find that our clients appreciate it when we provide them with coverage recaps because this allows them to see the results of our hard work.
- Measure the impact on target audiences – Analyze changes in public opinion and public sentiment toward our clients and their company values by distributing a survey to target audiences. This survey asks a portion of the target audience how or if their decisions about buying a particular product were linked to specific PR efforts.
- Measure business and/or organizational outcomes – This involves measuring the return on media impact by tracking the change in sales, revenue and stock value after a PR campaign.
It is important to consider your budget expectations before analyzing PR’s ROI. Completing a full analysis of the effectiveness of a PR program can be time consuming task and require organizational commitment. Depending on an organization’s goals and budget, a full analysis might only be required monthly or quarterly.
Setting expectations with our clients and providing clear, measurable data to demonstrate the effectiveness of a campaign is a great way to prove what we’ve known all along – PR is a key part of any successful business.
According to Dan Gillmor, former columnist with the San Jose Mercury News, the four pillars of journalism include thoroughness, accuracy, fairness and transparency. Understanding a journalist’s creed can help us identify best practices for working with them.
Accuracy is a shared goal between journalists and PR professionals. As we think about how we can help journalists develop accurate articles, it is important to recognize the increased pressure they face today. With newsrooms cutting back on resources, there are fewer journalists to do the same amount of work. In addition, journalists face fierce competition to break stories first in both online and print mediums. Sometimes, journalists do not have time to fact check an executive quote or data point that was discussed during an interview, which can result in an inaccurate article.
Inaccurate articles can leave some executives reluctant to work with the journalist again on future articles, missing a great opportunity to increase awareness for the organization and its products and services. The journalist may also get frustrated and turn to another source -meaning your competitors get ink.
To help ensure an accurate story, we recommend taking the following steps when working with journalists:
1. Seek to understand the journalist’s interview questions and story angle. Whenever possible, request interview questions in advance. This provides the spokesperson with the opportunity to prepare, organize facts and identify supporting data. Furthermore, by asking the journalists for questions it helps him or her focus on the direction of the story and be better prepared for the interview.
Some journalists will not want to share questions in advance. If this happens, it is important to explain your rationale for needing this information. For example, the questions might help you identify the correct spokesperson for the opportunity.
If you don’t feel comfortable asking for the questions, paraphrase back your understanding of the journalist’s angle and interest in talking with your client. This helps ensure you have captured their objectives and can accurately convey them to the spokesperson.
2. Ensure a PR person is present during the interview to make introductions, capture notes, clarify facts, keep the discussion on point and recap action items. Having a third party present helps to hold everyone accountable and can go a long way toward ensuring accuracy.
3. Record the interview. During interview introductions, disclose to the journalist that you are recording the discussion and then give them a written transcript following the meeting. Having a written transcript provides an opportunity for the PR person to double-check facts while also providing journalists with a helpful reference for their article.
4. Ask to confirm quotes and stats. Affirm the journalist’s commitment to accuracy and ask if he’d be willing to let you review quotes or stats before publishing the story. By proactively checking quotes and stats, you also will save the journalist the hassle and embarrassment of making any corrections after the article is published.
While an accurate story can have a tremendous impact, inaccurate information can damage perceptions of your company and its products and services. Being creative and looking for win-win solutions can go a long way to fostering solid relationships with journalists and clients alike.
As newspapers and magazines continue to cut jobs, it is becoming increasingly difficult for small-to-mid sized companies to compete with larger organizations to garner media attention. So how can a company position itself as a valuable asset and tool for journalists while building trust, credibility and brand awareness with its customers? By becoming an industry thought leader.
Thought leadership can help generate coverage and position a company as an important influencer in the industry. Establishing a thought leadership program requires significant time commitment and dedication. There are several key elements to successfully implementing a thought leadership program. In order to become a well-respected thought leader, consider the following:
- Build Credibility – Building credibility requires that you establish yourself as an expert in your field. How do you do that? Educate yourself on what’s going on in your particular field and industry. Once you’ve established a clear point of view, you can communicate your ideas to the media and key audiences in a number of ways including interviews, byline articles, whitepapers, blogging and speaking at industry events. When expressing your perspective offer credible data points and resources.
- Express your opinions – A thought leader is someone with a clear point of view. In order to be “newsworthy” you must provide a compelling perspective on a particular issue and offer insight and predictions about the future of the industry. Think about your audience and make sure the opinions and perspectives that you offer are applicable to the issues they are facing.
- Foster your relationship – Persistence is key. Journalists are often very busy and receive hundreds of e-mails on a daily basis. In order to stay top of mind, follow up with your contacts regularly and look for innovative ideas to share with them. Comment on stories and blog posts. Securing the initial conversation may be difficult but once you have proven that you are a valuable resource, journalists will reach out to you and they will seek your opinion for future opportunities.
As indicated in previous blog posts, some of the ways companies can generate thought leadership include writing byline articles, leveraging newsworthy trends for feature stories and maintaining an informative and engaging corporate blog. In addition, here are other tools such as white papers, case studies and speaking opportunities that can be used to build thought leadership:
Thought leadership can be an effective tool to communicate a company’s passion and commitment to providing its customers and the broader marketplace with valuable perspective and information. We encourage you to generate an ongoing effort towards thought leadership by making it a strategic initiative within your company.
A recent article in PRWeek reports that several of the industry’s top publishing houses have recently reduced their budgets and workforce. One prominent company that is scaling down is Rodale, publisher of Men’s Health, Prevention, and Runner’s World, Time Inc. owner of Time, Sports Illustrated, and Fortune and Condé Nast whose titles include Vogue and Men’s Vogue.
For decades, the magazine industry has struggled to maintain and increase advertising revenue to support circulation costs. But much like the tech bubble that popped in the Silicon Valley in the early 2000s and forced companies to lay off workers or go out of business altogether, the recent economic crunch is pushing magazines to cut budgets and staff. This in turn is forcing these publications to move their content online and find other creative ways to remain a ëmust-read’ for audiences.
As budgets and staffs shrink, so do the opportunities to garner coverage. Several publications are relying on wire services and material contributed by contract writers and vendors to help round out the content. This growing trend highlights the importance of strategic media relations.
PR professionals and organizations need to tailor their strategies and tactics to fit in with the current media landscape. In order to build relationships with reporters and ensure coverage, consider the following:
Do your homework – This seems like a no-brainer but remains true even in today’s media climate. With limited staff, reporters are often juggling several unrelated beats. Make sure you are pitching information that is relevant to the reporter.
Make the reporter’s job as easy as possible – Package up all of the story elements such as the pitch, key data points, links to additional background such as industry or analyst reports, surveys, etc. so a reporter can easily digest it. Taking this approach is almost always appreciated by journalists who are crunched for time and don’t have bandwidth to do background research.
Consider alternative mediums – As noted above, most publications are moving to an online format that includes features such as webcasts, podcasts and blogs, which offer other opportunities to secure coverage and interact with reporters.