The Wax Blog

I’m a little tired of hearing about the wonders of social media and the stunning achievements of the PR 2.0 world. Anybody who’s ever done the hard work of promoting in online video knows that for every thousand views, you’ve got a ton of leg work. Those “Susan Boyle” moments just don’t come around that often.

I may get called a Luddite for this, but there simply isn’t a better public relations tactic than the good old-fashioned STUNT. Jay Conrad Levinson may have coined the term ‘guerilla marketing’ to try to make it seem like a fresh concept, but ever since the first beauty pageant to find Miss Dove soap, creative stunts and promotions have made the difference for brands. And by combining those stunts with the power of online promotion, you’ve got a wicked good strategy.  What better example than the Old Spice campaign…many would say this was a red hot viral campaign but really, it was a clever promotional idea launched with an ad campaign, but fueled by strategic use of Twitter and YouTube to make it seem current and new. That’s the beauty of integrated marketing.

Most people think big promotions have to cost quite a bit of money, but really it just takes a creative idea. London-based Taylor Herring Public Relations is arguably one of the best agencies in the world at truly creative, unusual promotions. Taylor Herring provides public relations for events like movie premiers and television shows, as well as  PR for major brands like Honda and Google. But what they, and their online division also do very well, is create unusual experiences for their audiences that might be eyebrow-raising, but still fit the image of the brand. And although they are the people that created the world’s first ‘live’ TV commercial, the campaign that got my attention was one they did for a comedy channel’s stand-up season on UK television. Instead of something huge, they thought up the idea of simply finding the world’s oldest jokes and created a “Historical Humour Study” including the oldest jokes and one liners. Complete with a resident professorial expert, the idea was contained in a simple press release. Yet it was so unique, the agency garnered millions of impressions for its client. (You can read the entire case study on the Taylor Herring site here)

Here are a few simple tips that you should follow when planning your own ’stunt’: (more…)

I got this email from a service provider claiming to be the ‘best online newswire from small business” I know what I think is wrong…let’s see how many things we can point out. Would YOU use this service? What can we learn about email marketing from this example?

(FYI, I’ve NEVER used this one)

PS – Let’s be fair too. If someone uses this service and really likes it, let us know!

Your email:

 

Recently I got one of my clients an interview on one of Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s stories on CNN. My client (check out the drumming circle in the video below) told me I had paid for myself for a year with this clip. (more…)

Once again, I started to write a blog post about pitching Good Morning America and found this great article with the basics from a guy named Mort Fleischner. (Who couldn’t trust a guy named Mort?) I’ve included the first part, but please click through to the original article as well – his ‘don’ts’ are excellent advice!

I would add also that having video “in the can” is a big plus. But sorry, your Flip won’t be enough. If you really have a good story, hire a professional and go shoot some background footage. Great visuals always give you a leg up and worst case, you can always use it for a Video News Release later.

Questions about pitching morning shows?

I once got a celeb to wear my client’s bunny slippers on the red carpet at the Academy Awards. How did I do that?

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According to Free Dictionary the definition of karma is the total effect of a person’s actions and conduct during the successive phases of the person’s existence, regarded as determining the person’s destiny. Beth Hodgson’s last post about the boomerang effect – what happens when you get even more traffic by sending it to others from your blog -  stirred up some comments about how karma works in the blogosphere. (Thanks Jorgen for kicking that discussion off and I’d love to hear YOUR stories too!) It got me thinking about my clients, and how their attitudes and actions affect the kind of PR results they get. Read on to find out how MUCH karma affects results. (more…)

Earlier this year I was horrified that brilliant public relations tactics at Toyota were able to cover up the fact they’d known about potentially deadly defects – and lied about them – for years. Now I’m horrified yet again. This time not because I’m watching people who are too good at manipulating the media – this time I’m seeing how traditional corporate communications practices are helping destroy a company’s brand rather than mitigate the damage during this awful disaster. A New York Times article yesterday discussed the satirical twitter feed @bpglobalpr and its impact on the messages being sent regarding the oil spill. So far the feed has 133, 000 plus followers. BP’s real feed has a mere 12,000, showing how clueless they are in terms of the PR 2.o and its impact.

BP is accused of many things in this disaster – lack of urgency, poor testing, circumventing the process, the list goes on.  I’m not sure we’ll ever really know what happened at BP from a corporate standpoint because their communicators seem buried in the Dark Ages of public relations. Stilted press releases, bland twitter feeds and stiff spokespeople reading messaging points are only going to drive BP further down. Come on guys, don’t hire some old fogey from the Bush administration. Go hire Chris Brogan and let him tell the world what’s really going on. It can’t get any worse than these 1950’s messages you keep sending out.

What do you think? Who would you hire to run PR strategy at BP right now? What would you do if you were in charge of their public relations right now?

For entrepreneurs, small business owners and experts, the daily query boards like HARO and ProfNet can be incredible resources for gaining media placements. From major news broadcast shows to popular niche bloggers, these sites host queries from journalists and producers looking for specific sources for current stories.  Despite how great these resources are,  reporters tell me most  folks  blow their chances completely by the time they write the first sentence in response to a query. Here are some ways to up your chances for getting the media to email you regarding a query, and hopefully get mentioned in a major story! (more…)

This gets funnier the longer it goes. See if you guess how it ends LOL

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I’ve been chewed out one too many times by a fierce, brilliant magazine editor, and yet a great feature in a national print monthly is still a plum placement. I asked an old editor of mine (in my brief freelance writing career) to spill the beans on what these folks REALLY want. And how to avoid totally pissing them off.

Sheri Wallace is the former  Editor-in-Chief of ePregnancy magazine and Associate Publisher of REAL Magazine, with respective bi-monthly national newsstand circulations of 400,000 and 250,000. She doesn’t mince words so read on… (more…)