Greetings.

Advertising as a brand-building tactic is dead. PR now rules as a brand-builder. We'll address that this month, and there's a whole lot more to think about.

Let's get started.

Cordially,

Harry Hoover
harry@hoover-ink.com

P.S. Do I have your correct information? Am I sending this to the correct email address? Want to upgrade to html from text? Go here to update your profile.
Ink Briefs
What's the buzz, cuz? Quickly and cheaply find out if people are talking about your company with NetNewsTracker. This search engine automatically sorts through Google Group's Usenet newsgroup postings twice a day to search on phrases you select. Monitor the buzz on companies, people or subjects. Up to three search phrases are free. I love technology.




Are you blogging? Are you trying to harness the power of blogging for your PR effort? I have a few blog-related resources for you. Blogger.com and MoveableType are a couple of the primary programs used to run blogs, and as such they start with the same template. So, there tends to be a sameness about them.

See how the designers at Coudal Partners have nicely handled the integration at a client's site.

Here are a couple of directories to help you find blogs of interest:Yahoo! and DMOZ.



Whiny butt of the month: a Colorado PR firm that sued the state because the state's wine board gave the PR contract to an Arizona firm. Pardon me while I rant for a moment. It's just another symptom of the culture of victims we have in this country. Get a life. Stop wasting your money on lawyers and use it to drum up new business. Here's the story.



At some point in time, each of us - myself included - has invoked the phrase "integrated marketing". I hope you, at least, used it correctly. It's not just slapping the latest tagline on all of your marketing material and in-store P-O-P. But that doesn't stop many marketers from calling this kind of campaign "integrated."

Here's a case study of two retailers - Kmart and Staples - with very different ideas about IM. Guess which one has it right?




About Hoover ink PR

Hoover ink PR helps position businesses that are serious about their success. Then, we craft and deliver bottom line messages that ensure it.

Who are we? We're a marketing communications firm with more than 25 years experience in providing services to financial, high tech, real estate, tourism and consumer products companies.

From employee relations and media relations to collateral material and e-newsletters, we develop the programs and communication tools that will differentiate you from your competitors. And that's the bottom line.
 
  Advertising Is Dead. Long Live PR.

 Although I still believe there is a place for advertising as a brand maintenance or brand affirmation tool, I am convinced that to build a brand today, you need PR. At one time advertising did build brands. But this was in a simpler America. That America, sadly, is no more.

I've been re-reading The Fall Of Advertising & The Rise Of PR, by Al and Laura Ries, and it is their book that has moved me from suspicion of advertising's demise as a brand-builder to conviction.

As the Ries' say, "Publicity is the nail, advertising is the hammer." What does this mean? It means that your PR effort helps make your message believable so that your advertising will have credibility when it hits.

Typically, companies want to hit the market hard and make a lot of noise. Advertising allows you to launch quickly, control the message, and have your message in as many media as you have the money for. However, that does not mean your message will be believed. Particularly if your message is "creative" but not necessarily strategically tied to the brand. The louder advertisers yell, the less likely I am to believe them. How about you?

PR takes time and does not necessarily work on your schedule. Planting new ideas or changing minds is a slow process. When your PR program rolls out over a longer period of time, prospects have time to adjust their attitudes. Brands that take this approach are longer lasting, too.

Chevrolet, for years the number one auto brand, was still number one in ad spending in 2001. It spent $819 million dollars - 39 percent more than Ford spent. Ford outsells Chevrolet by 33 percent. Since 1997, Chevrolet has outspent and undersold Ford. Chevrolet spends $314 per vehicle and Ford spends $170 per vehicle. Do you think advertising is working for Chevrolet?

Kmart, embroiled in financial difficulty for years, had revenues of $37 billion and spent $542 million on US advertising in 2001. Wal-Mart spent $498 million and garnered four times the revenue: $159 billion split between its Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores. The average Wal-Mart store does $46 million in sales each year while its Sam's Club average store sells $56 million. Sam's Club does almost no advertising.

Those are old brands, you're saying. What about some newer brands, Harry?

OK, let's look at Pets.com. Remember the dog sock puppet that starred in their commercials? It won awards, but not sales. In six months Pets.com had $22 million in revenues and spent four times that much on advertising. Off-base advertising creativity at work.

The Body Shop was built totally by publicity. No advertising at all. Starbucks, until recently, did virtually no advertising. It has built a brand through good PR efforts. Starbucks' annual sales are around $1.3 billion, while advertising expenditures over 10 years, have totaled less than $10 million.

Finally, what advertising agency do you know that has built its brand with ads? Things that make you go "hmm."

Any thoughts? Send them to me, harry@hoover-ink.com, and I'll run the best.

  Top 7 Tips For Submitting Online Articles

Online PR in the form of website and ezine article placement can be a great way to build your personal brand. You showcase your expertise in the article and raise your status. You get an author's box at the end of the article containing a bio, as well as email and website contact information. Readers may click-through on your URL to learn more about you. More links improve your search engine rankings. The benefits go on.

Here are my top 7 tips for online articles:

  • develop an enticing title
  • make the article informative and useful, and without hype or jargon
  • keep it focused on a relatively narrow topic
  • keep the length between 750 - 1,250 words
  • proofread to ensure there are no typos, punctuation or grammar errors
  • end with an author's box of less than six lines, complete with short bio, email address, web URL and telephone number
  • develop a list of article archives and ezines that publish features on your area of expertise.

Some archives you'll want to review are Articles 911 and Ezine Articles. A number of online directories provide lists of ezines in your topic. Check out EzineLocater and Ezine Search.