If you’re in marketing or public relations and are still not convinced there’s anything to this social media thing, I urge you to view this 67-slide show entitled I AM THE MEDIA by Alain Thys. It will change your mind; it may change the course of your career.  

Basically, I believe great PR started out on some level as great storytelling. I think it evolved into corporate one-way broadcasted jive. Now I think social media is bringing the storytelling quality back to life for our profession’s best practitioners… if they have what it takes.

Moreover, this slide show should prove to you that the old ways don’t work. Consider for example this one stat on slide 16 that comes from the global marketing officer of P&G:

In 1965, 80% of 18 - 49 year olds in the U.S. could be reached with three 60-second TV spots. In 2002, it required 117 prime time commercials to do the same.

Alain Thys, by his own account, is a founding partner of Futurelab, a management innovation boutique helping companies identify new profit opportunities in an ever more complex world. More on him is available here and here.

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The headline here, "Midwives Help People Out" was on a bumper sticker I saw today.

Alternatively, examine the woes of Subaru in trying to say something new… anything… about their cars that resonates with real people, on a bumper sticker or advertising tagline. And never mind how many millions of dollars, and marketing people, they’ve thrown at the problem.

It’s about time the brand took a good look at itself. In the seven years since Mr. Mahoney left Subaru of America, it has had five advertising taglines and three marketing VPs.

The Mr. Mahoney referenced in that excerpt in this Advertising Age article is Senior VP-Marketing and Chief Marketing Officer Tim Mahoney. Mr. Mahoney was at Subaru, then left, and now is back.

I have a tagline suggesting for Subaru: "Save Marketing Jobs, Buy This Car?" or "End Tagline Abuse, Drive a Subaru."

Anywho, Subaru marketing is now is talking about "active driving" and  something they call "a new brand architecture" and targeting for some models "the man-child thrill seeker." The later sounds as though it ought to be illegal in all fifty states?

Got a tagline suggestion for Subaru?

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Cliff Edwards at BusinessWeek’s online Tech Beat blog grants us a glimpse at the dark, smelly underbelly of traditional, establishment, high-stakes public relations.

Mr. Edwards’ post is about a call he received from PR people representing the interests of a company that, in my opinion, would like to see Research in Motion float way-far out to sea atop a fast-melting Canadian iceberg… all never to be seen or heard from again. His opening:

Kick ‘em while they’re down!
As if Crackberry addicts and corporations that subscribe to Research in Motion’s Blackberry service weren’t complaining enough, Microsoft’s PR team is in high gear.
A spokeswoman just called to helpfully point out that such widespread outages as what’s occurred with Blackberry overnight in North America wouldn’t happen with Microsoft’s push email solution.

I like that Cliff Edwards gets to the main point quick. Of course, the negative positioners won another round. BusinessWeek online after all, publicized their point. I’m sure there were high fives all around the the caller’s cube.

Is this sort of thing bad? It is what it is. It’s been going on forever. It’s done to companies of all types, all sizes and at all levels. It’s done in business, politics, and even to a degree among average people to one another. One way to intensify the light on you is to pour a coat of darkness on a rival. It’s a short cut. Sometimes it’s a last resort.

But it never feels good. Why? Because if a product is truly superior, then staying on the positive script ought to be enough. When the product isn’t superior, or isn’t recognized as such, or it came too late, or it comes from an unlikely source or from someone otherwise held in lower esteem… the old script won’t work, or won’t work as fast as it needs to.

Lastly, what about the timing? Look, the competitors didn’t cause the outage. RIM isn’t a person; it’s a corporate entity. Every PR person worth the retainer would advise the client in this case to strike while the opportunity to be heard is hot. [The NOC issue has been talked about before, but this week people were obviously listening a little harder and hearing more relevance.] And don’t think for a minute that the next time RIM gets to score a three-pointer against this competitor they won’t jump at the chance to take their shot.

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