New Millennium PR

Spin Thicket has a Bit of Spin for Everyone

After what has got to be one of the shortest betas around (Scott Baradell's weekend e-mail invite to test his new baby), Spin Thicket was introduced today. As Scott explains it:

"Spin Thicket has no agenda. It's as much for people who read PR Watch as PR Week. It's as much for fans (or haters) of Michelle Malkin as Kos. It's as much for people who see bias in the NY Times as Fox News. Throw it all in the wash and turn on the spin cycle; that's the idea behind Spin Thicket."

Judging from the links already submitted, there'll be some serious material as well as some just-for-fun stuff (what else would you expect from the man who admits to enjoying politics as much as women in bikinis?). And, as promised, there'll be contributing blogs that you'll like, and others that you'll wish you could blast to smithereens. All part of the mix.

Go check it out.

 

Crayon... In Real Life and Second Life

The big news of the day? Crayon.

With world headquarters at Crayonville Island in Second Life and a SL launch party scheduled for Thursday, October 26, Crayon's founder Joseph Jaffe and the well-respected Shel Holtz, Neville Hobson and C.C. Chapman have created a new company that is, in the words of Shel,

"...something of a mashup. We’re not an agency or a consulting firm, but we do bring the best of what those types of companies have to offer. We’ll approach our assignments with fresh eyes that see the new environment in which traditional marketing and advertising is failing so dismally.... Engagement, conversation, co-creation, involvement—these are the approaches that we are anxious to bring to our assignments. Not as an afterthought or add-on, mind you, but as the cornerstone of our work."

Or as Neville puts well,

"We think we have something compelling to offer that will enable every client to do what every business really wants - get to the future. First."

Very exciting stuff. Congratulations to all!

STAND UP in Second Life and Help Set a Guinness World Record Show Against Poverty

Ok all you Second Life lovers, here's your chance to show what you're made of.

This Sunday and Monday, October 15-16, residents of SL (and people around the world in RL) will get the chance to help set the first Guinness World Record for the greatest number of individuals to stand up in support of the eight Millennium Development Goals of the United Nation's Millennium Campaign to help fight extreme poverty worldwide.

Aimee Weber of Aimee Weber Studios is the brains behind the SL effort and explains more here (you can also listen to a SecondCast interview with Aimee here):

"To be counted in this historic endeavor, all you have to do is locate a 'Stand Up' kiosk and obtain a free wrist band. There are nearly a hundred Kiosks around the grid already, including in the central plaza of Midnight City. On October 15-16, click on the wrist band to assume the 'stand up' pose and register yourself as a supporter of the Millennium Development Goals. Your participation will be recorded and included in the final count for the Guinness World Record. Our contribution will make a thunderous statement to policymakers everywhere."

It'll take just a few minutes of your time to make history. Wow.

Dancing Around Landmines: Blogs and Other Communication Tools Aren't Risk-Free

While there is a good reason we have a democratic legal system with corresponding laws that help guide societal behavior (the always debatable issue being, of course, to what degree the legal system impacts individual and societal rights), it's bothersome when the law gets in the way and isn't as progressive as perhaps it should be. 

Case in point is an ABA eReport article that discusses a New York State proposal that would designate legal blogs as advertising, thus subjecting them to state scrutiny and regulation:

"The storm was set off by a proposal that 'computer-accessed communications' such as blogs be included in New York’s definition of legal advertising, and therefore require state scrutiny. The proposal, by a committee created by the state’s Administrative Board of Courts, also suggests the state code of professional responsibility extend court jurisdiction to out-of-state legal advertising that appears in New York....

And if blog posts must be approved, what’s the point? 'This seems to be another in a series of recent regulatory efforts by state bar regulators that seem woefully out of touch with the Internet era,' wrote Dennis Kennedy, a St. Louis lawyer who posts at Between Lawyers." [Read Kennedy's post If Lawyers Can Advertise in New York, They Can Advertise Anywhere...But They Probably Can't.]

Equally bothersome, however, is when individuals expose themselves to legal liability by doing something that appears to be intentionally stupid. I'm referring to examples provided in the USA Today article Courts are asked to crack down on bloggers, websites (via Chris Heuer), such as posting false STD information about someone on Don'tDateHimGirl.com or setting up a fake MySpace.com page that contains obscene content. Not very smart -- and that's an understatement.

BlogOrlando Video Recap

For those of you who wish you'd had a chance to attend BlogOrlando last week, as well as those who actually were there, John Rife posted two videos highlighting parts of the conference.

The first is of the pre-conference dinner at Kobe Steakhouse. The second one is of the actual conference and includes an interview with Josh Hallett, snippets from each session, and some of the post-conference dinner fun at Dexter's.

Great job John.

Starbucks Misses... But Still Has Diehard Loyalists

By now most everyone has heard about Starbucks' withdrawal of its free iced coffee offer. Competitor Caribou Coffee jumped at the opportunity to turn Starbucks decision to its own gain, offering to accept the e-mail coupon on September 8th in exchange for a free medium Cold Press iced coffee, iced Americano or iced tea.

Legally, Starbucks' withdrawal is probably on solid footing. For example, Jan Margosian, spokeswoman for Oregon's Department of Justice consumer protection unit, stated that "there's not a statute that covers a mistake... The fact that they tried to honor it [the coupon] and it was too much isn't a violation of consumer-protection laws."

Still, Starbucks may have caused a raised eyebrow or two, at a minimum regarding the question of why an internationally successful and marketing-savvy company didn't anticipate that the e-mail, even with instructions regarding to whom it could be forwarded, wouldn't immediately take on a viral life of its own and be shared beyond the originally intended sphere of distribution.

And, as do many large companies, Starbucks has its share of critics (represented in part by the oh-so-subtle I Hate Starbucks blog) and its labor issues (see the IWW Starbucks Workers Union).

Nevertheless, diehard loyalists won't let the coupon snafu prevent them from flocking to Starbucks to get their fix.

With the company's new Coffee Conversations podcast debuting today, blogs such as Jim Romenesko's Starbucks Gossip and Starbucks Everywhere (chronicling Winter's -- yep, that's his real name -- attempt to visit every licensed Starbucks in the world) going strong, and new entries such as the unique Sketchnap (created by a "caffeine-fueled Starbucks’ doodler committed to coffee, napkins and sketching" -- check out the pictures, doodles and other stuff) joining in, there's no reason to believe that the Starbucks brand will take a serious hit.

Avoiding Compassion Fatigue... Making Sure Your Approach Isn't Overkill

Oliver Stone's World Trade Center opened on August 9th. The question that's been posed with this movie, as with other works such as United 93, is whether five years is still too early for even the most moving of tributes.

Newsweek's David Ansen writes:

"How much would an audience endure? [Director Oliver Stone] had to figure out when, and how often, his narrative needed to return aboveground... and follow the rescue workers searching for the rubble for survivors. At what point would the viewer shut down? Stone's calibrations reveal his superb storytelling instincts. He's not interested in punishing us. But his worry could stand as a metaphor for the questions that surround the representation of 9/11 in the arts. How much can we bear?" 

How much can the audience bear -- that's the ultimate question. And it's one that comes up again and again with cause-related PR and marketing. When the goal is simply to raise awareness, should you go hard core and shock people into paying attention? When the goal is to get people to donate time and money, or buy the product, will this approach turn them off?

When I was young and still naive, I used to think that if you simply present people with a problem -- preferably with some hard-hitting images -- that'd be enough to get an influx of support. After all, who could turn their back on images like this?

(Free Burma Rangers photo of amputation obtained here)

(Photo of dead dog in Vietnam obtained here)

But exposing audiences to too many disturbing images or to too many appeals for help can bring on compassion fatigue (compassion fatigue, sometimes called secondary traumatic stress disorder, also refers to the stress experienced by persons who work in crisis situations or are exposed to the pain and suffering of others -- see a good article about this here).

As Susan Moeller illustrates in her 1999 book Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sell Disease, Famine, War and Death (p.10-12):

"When problems in the news or media can't be quickly solved... attention wanders off to the next news fashion.

The causes of compassion fatigue are multiple. Sometimes there are just too many catastrophes happening at once.... So compassion fatigue may simply work to pre-empt attention of 'competing' events. Americans seem to have an appetite for only one crises at a time.

Sometimes to American audiences, international problems just seem too permanent to yield to resolution. Sometimes when problems flare out into crisis -- by which point it is too late for the patch-'em-up response -- the public is justified in believing that outside intervention will do little good...so what's the use in caring?"

If people feel that their actions don't make a positive difference, many won't even try to help. But give them hope, give them a reason for caring -- show them, through case studies or reports or pictures --that they're making a difference, and they'll be much more likely to come through.   

And that's what I see as the real challenge for PR practitioners -- pushing our audiences as far as they'll go, but not letting them tumble over that very fine line into either feeling violated or not giving a darn because it's just too painful. 

The "Association of Trial Lawyers of America" becomes "American Association for Justice" as Part of a PR Overhaul

Perhaps the legal profession is not the most loved of all (although it enjoys a surprisingly high degree of prestige), but even among lawyers, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America is a particularly strong lightning rod for hate. Certainly in politically conservative and pro-business circles the mere mention of trial lawyers and ATLA helps open wallets.

Given the seemingly insurmountable negative association that the term trial lawyers has among various constituents, ATLA recently announced that it is changing its name to American Association for Justice.

Notes Ross Fishman, an attorney who works as a legal marketing consultant, "the tort reform movement has done a much better job of marketing this [negative connotation] to the masses. This is a very high-level strategy focusing on multibillion-dollar issues."

Fishman suggests that trial attorneys should "focus on the word ‘justice,’ because people want justice, and they want others to get justice. They’ve let the opposition frame the discussion, and now the trial lawyers are fighting a defensive battle on tort reform’s home ground."

Certainly ATLA's rebranding effort hasn't gone unnoticed by critics. American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) General Counsel Victor Schwartz quipped, "will not a trial lawyer by any other name still find irresistible the sweet smell of self-interested litigation?"

Lisa A. Rickard, president of the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform, described ATLA's decision as "an astounding admission of the unpopularity of trial lawyers in America....Obscuring who they are by removing the words ‘trial’ and ‘lawyer’ from their name is only cosmetic surgery unless it is followed by abandoning the high-dollar business model of industry-targeted lawsuits, followed by a real commitment to comprehensive reform of our civil justice system.”

And attorney Robert J. Ambrogi argued that "ATLA's opponents will remain its opponents. It is not a name change ATLA needs, but better PR and marketing to show the public that it is not a circling shark." 

Although this should not be mistaken as an endorsement for ATLA, from a PR perspective I agree with Ambrogi that the organization needs to improve its image by highlighting its successes to the public and by taking a more aggressive stance in fighting its critics.

Something along the lines of what Bill Staub, ATLA's deputy director of communications, describes this way:

"Trial lawyers must stop playing defense and go on offense, something that’s more difficult than it sounds, given the amount of money and the cast of powerful characters on the other side. But it can be done.

Attempting to refute every charge or lie tort “reformers” level at the civil justice system is a no-win game. Trial lawyers can talk to the point of exhaustion, refuting whatever claim is devised, and still end up on the short end, forced to explain the next line of deceit.

Any time a question about trial lawyers’ integrity is raised, they must question the ulterior motive of those issuing the challenge."

It'll be interesting to see whether the name change from ATLA to AAJ helps in this endeavor.

What do you think?

(Picture of U.S. Courthouse from tomcamption)

Hipsters, Check Out These T-shirts

Yeah, this is a PR Light post, but it's Friday, we've all got to wear something and these are for good causes (so no grumbling, Jeremy).

AirSide Shop's MAG T helps raise funds for the Mines Advisory Group.

A portion of Polo's Pink Pony shirt proceeds go to the Pink Pony Fund for Cancer Care and Prevention.

Get Unite Against Fascism's shirt here.

This Got Pills? Millions Don't shirt helps support Doctor's Without Borders.

And if you're interested in non-profit advertising and social campaigns, check out Houtlust, "the meetingplace about communication for all you folks of the advertising industry, good samaritans, grassroots, activists and social entrepreneurs." Full of brilliant, hard-hitting, unapologetic campaigns that are definitely worth a look.

Street PR

Here's an example of the simplest kind of street PR, courtesy of the Richmond franchise of 1-800-Got-Junk that sent two of its guys out during this morning's rush hour. The truck got quite a bit of attention (although me standing on the side of the highway taking pictures didn't hurt either).