Congratulations on a life well lived. Happy birthday and many more!

Here is a clip of Dan from the Today Show discussing PR and the Toni Twins.

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June 23, 2010

The Third Way--Public Engagement

I am speaking this morning at Edelman’s fourth New Media Academic Summit, jointly hosted by New York University and Syracuse University, attended by more than 100 professors from 10 countries. My bold assertion is that there is a Third Way for companies to communicate, beyond paid and earned media, by embracing Public Engagement.

Today, there is a dispersion of authority, away from the mainstream media and classic sources of influence toward open platforms and new voices driven by passion and personal experience. Smart companies are changing their games, moving from strict message control to a more open discussion with stakeholders. Mike Slaby, who just joined our firm as chairman of Edelman Digital, said, “We are moving from speaking at audiences to participating with them by drawing them into organizations with authentic communications.”

The Third Way asserts that companies need to complement their usual paid and earned media strategies by embracing new, social and owned media. The Third Way envisages:

    • Utilizing the evolved mainstream media, with its numerous opportunities for participation, such as video, commentary from mid-level employees and shared experiences of customers.
    • Reaching out to new media with the convening credibility of expert voices. Recognize that Polito or Tech Crunch may be the best starting point for media outreach.
    • Utilizing social networks as essential spaces for company embassies. Be an aggregator for discussion. Connect members to related stories. Provide multiple entry points for relating to personal experiences.
    • Helping every company become a media company (thanks again, Andrew Heyward, for this quote) via an owned channel. This offers a faithful representation of the present situation while providing context that enables viewers to understand the full story.

The change from impression-based interactions to long-term relationships with clients’ stakeholders requires nothing short of a major reevaluation of our role as PR counsel. We need to provide strategic advice, not simply communications tactics. Our profession must now embrace research to distinguish among idea starters, amplifiers and viewers. We should create the central idea and enable the full exploitation across four screens (TV, PC, Slate and smart phone). Since online platforms and spaces are at the root of the current evolution of media, digital strategy can no longer be seen as a specialty area; it must become a core competence for all PR people.

The new principles adopted by Edelman practitioners in order to maintain our clients’ license to operate, are termed the rules of Public Engagement. These include:

    • Open advocacy (why you are here),
    • Listening with new intelligence,
    • Participating real time in conversations,
    • Create and co-create content,
    • Socialize media relations,
    • Build partnerships for the common good, and
    • Embrace and navigate complexity.

We should aim for measurable outcomes beyond media impressions and advertising equivalencies, including Building Trust, Changing Behaviors, Deeper Communities and Delivering Commercial Benefit. At the same time we must draw a clear line between journalism and public relations, as we rely on a discerning media sector as a cornerstone of our work.

We will proceed along two dimensions—to encompass a broader set of media options, from Mainstream to New to Social to Owned; and engage stakeholders in deeper, long-term social relationships, as all communications become public. In this way, PR can assume its proper role as the organizing principle for strategy and communications. Herein ends the lecture: please click through my slide show and as always, I welcome your views.

Posted by Edelman at 9:30 AM |

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June 17, 2010

Pam

Thirty-eight years ago, an energetic young Vassar graduate, fresh from a stint as a reporter, came into the Edelman Chicago office for the first time. She was an account executive in consumer marketing working for Judith Rich, a legendary creative force and long-time associate of my father, Dan Edelman. Her first account was 9-Lives cat food; her challenge was to make Morris the Cat more than an advertising icon. It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship with our firm that comes to an end two weeks from today when Pam Talbot hangs up her spikes, the longest-tenured employee in the history of the firm and the one who has surely made the greatest contribution to our success.

Let’s start with Morris. Pam understood the power of cause-related marketing, initiating Adopt-a-Cat Month with the ASPCA, sponsored by 9 Lives. The rationale for the program was that Morris had been adopted from a shelter. The tawny tabby then went on to run for President, with Eleanor Mondale, daughter of the former vice president, acting as campaign spokesman and cheerleader at rallies where the crowd chanted, “We Want Morris, We Want Morris.” When Morris finally succumbed to old age, Pam persuaded the client to be transparent about his death, leading to an outpouring of sympathy including a famous cartoon in the Chicago Sun Times showing the cat ascending to heaven.

Pam cares deeply about nutrition, especially about childhood obesity. She helped to forge a partnership between Tufts University and Kraft Foods that enabled consumers to distinguish between fact and fiction on food claims on the Internet. She worked with the Dairy Management Inc. on three a day dairy products in school. She promoted a competition between Jackson, Michigan and Jackson, Mississippi on weight loss and wellness for client Kellogg.

She recognized the potential of applying Edelman’s consumer marketing skills to the burgeoning technology business, on behalf of Microsoft. The Explorasaurus bus toured America, introducing consumers to Microsoft’s Encarta CD-ROM. She organized the first event in Times Square after the 9/11 tragedy, working with ToysRUs to do a midnight launch of the new XBOX. Microsoft is now represented in 25 Edelman offices around the world.

Pam’s mantra of Creativity and Excellence is her legacy to Edelman. She is fanatical about putting the “wow” -- the “big idea” – into every program, delivering quality and results to clients. Pam created the Starkist Dolphin Safe Tuna program, partnering Starkist with Earth Island Institute, earning endorsements from celebrities such as Ted Danson, and securing a resolution in the US Senate. This was brilliant, groundbreaking thinking that set the standard for environmental PR.

Pam put employee satisfaction alongside client service in terms of importance. That is why she led the Vision Mission Values task force for the firm in 2001-2. She described the Type E person: “Intellect… a questioning intellect that demands to know more, learn more, experiment more. Openness to life and to experiences and to others. Respect for the individual and individualism while working as a team. Commitment to excellence in the most urgent sense. Courage… to go for the big idea, to make yourself heard, to tell an uncomfortable truth, to stretch beyond our grasp.”

She created our Quality program that involved regular client evaluation of our work and substantially reduced client turnover. With the development of more complex client relationships involving multiple practices and offices. Pam established our Global Client Relationship Management (GCRM) program to serve major clients such as HP, Microsoft, Starbucks, Unilever and J&J.

Pam’s outstanding stewardship of our US business enabled us to afford our global expansion and the development of capabilities in broader areas such as research, issues advertising, and digital. By the time she moved to her present of counsel status in June, 2008, the US business was almost $300 million and we were the third-largest PR firm in the world. She created a very smooth transition to the present leadership of the US business, Matt Harrington and Nancy Ruschienski, both of whom she mentored for years.

Here are just a few personal anecdotes that will no doubt amuse you. Pam and I went up to Minneapolis in the early 90s to do a series of new business calls. On a day when the high temperature was 4 degrees Farenheit, we chose to economize by taking taxis to our various appointments. Our final call of the day was at General Mills. As we pulled up to the Wayzata headquarters, we both pulled out our wallets and realized that we had exhausted our cash. After making our pitch, I had to ask the PR director for the money needed to return to the airport. It became our standing joke on every subsequent trip. Pam was a white-knuckle flyer while I fell asleep as soon as the engines went on; I would wake up from my Pavlovian snooze to see her intently consuming the NY Times or first class fiction, really relaxing only when the wheels hit the tarmac again. Going into her office, the work piled high on her desk, family photos (my favorite was her two young kids in Morris the Cat t-shirts down to their knees), the Roy Lichtenstein poster of a woman hugging a man with a tear coming from her eye, was to appreciate the dimension of this superstar, who brought all aspects of her life experience to bear in counseling clients and her peers.

I close with a quote from Shakespeare’s Henry VI, a tribute to Sir John Talbot, hero of the wars against the French:

“Welcome, brave captain and victorious lord! When I was young, as yet I am not old, I do remember how my father said a stouter champion never handled sword. Long since we were resolved of your truth, your faithful service and your toll in war; yet never have you tasted our reward or been reguerdoned with so much as thanks.” Enjoy this next phase of your life; Edelman will never again see the likes of you, our perpetual Most Valuable Player.

Posted by Edelman at 5:16 PM |

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June 11, 2010

Reshaping the Media

We had a Media Future panel at the Edelman Global Leadership meeting this week. Two of the participants, Jonathan Miller of Newscorp and Chrystia Freeland of Thomson Reuters, had particularly acute observations about the way forward for their industry. So did Matthew Bishop, who addressed our team on Wednesday evening.

1) Evolution of Three Segments—Miller and Freeland agree that mainstream media must have a dual revenue stream from advertising and subscription in order to thrive. As the MSM segment begins to charge for content, there will be an even faster rise of the insurgent niche, featuring media such as The Huffington Post. They have tiny distribution costs and small infrastructure of reporters. The third segment is professional service entities such as Bloomberg or Thomson Reuters, who charge high prices to their clients. “The question becomes how much ankle to show in the consumer space in return for ability to attract better reporters and better sources,” said Freeland. Note that Bloomberg makes available its content to the public on Bloomberg.com fifteen minutes after it is posted on the terminal and that only 8% of stories written by Bloomberg reporters make it to the public site.

2) Rise of New Digital Brands That Integrate Backward into Print—Miller spoke about Politico, which “has a print vehicle where they make most of their money via advertising. They are really superb, with true authority. They could start to charge for their digital content.”

3) Commentary More Valuable than News—In an informal poll of Edelman executives at our leadership meeting, the most frequently cited names of “must read” journalists were columnists Thomas Friedman and Maureen Dowd. “Commentary is more valuable than commodity news,” Miller said. “But there is an ever shrinking time frame for readers between news and expectation of views.” Freeland said that there is growing tension in the newsroom between beat reporters and their more celebrated editorialist colleagues. “Tom Friedman wants his content to be free so he can sell more books and deliver more speeches. Meanwhile the business side of the media is installing pay walls.”

4) Power of the Tablet—This is rapidly becoming the fourth screen for media, along with the TV, PC and cell phone. “There will be 40-60 million units in use in the USA within two years,” Miller asserted. “This will change behavior. It is a terrific opportunity for print, both newspaper and magazine, to reinvent itself with a dual paid and free content model.” Freeland sees that video is the key accelerator for mobile devices. “Youth want visual content; video with text.”

5) Three Paradigms—Miller discussed the Mark Zuckerberg web media structure, with the first being linking web sites to each other (Google), the second being applications – especially games (Zynga), the third being the people centric web (Facebook). He is trying to reposition MySpace in the “what you are actually interested in” niche.

6) The Power of Consumer Voice—Fox just held auditions for Glee, my teen daughter’s favorite TV show. Candidates had to create videos to enter; 37,000 were posted in three weeks. Then over 100 million votes were tallied to find the winners.

7) Downward Pressure on Pricing—In prior periods, the media companies were content creators and distribution owners. Now the two competencies are separating. “Apple is really a seller of mobile devices,” said Miller. “They want songs to sell for 99 cents. In fact, iTunes is a break-even business.” The continued squeeze on content producer revenue by distributors is best exemplified by Google, “who think that media is free.”

8) Ultra Premium Brands--The Economist Magazine, according to its US editor Matthew Bishop, expects its readers to devote two hours to each issue. “Our bargain is that you will be truly informed for that investment of time. We don’t see other media as competition. We are competing against other options for your Sunday afternoon leisure time.”

We will have to move ever more quickly to adapt to a world where the extended universe of media is more segmented.

Posted by Edelman at 4:56 PM |

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June 3, 2010

Role of Business in Solving Social Problems

I moderated a CEO panel yesterday morning in New York City at the summer conference of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP). Just as in Davos when I was the panel chair on how business can regain trust, I was a bit nervous about asking the participants the tough questions. Journalists are expected to be prickly, PR people to be smooth and subtle, but good panels require a bit of friction. So steeled with the assurance that I knew the subject matter given years of examining the Edelman Trust Barometer data, I plunged straight into the discussion with former Xerox CEO Ann Mulcahy (now Chair of the Board of Save the Children, an NGO) and Douglas Conant, CEO of Campbell Soup Company (disclosure; a client). Here are the highlights of the conversation (which included impromptu remarks from one other CEO, Jay Fishman of Travelers):

1. CEOs Must Lead Their Philanthropy Efforts and Require Alignment with Business and Stakeholder Objectives…Employees Will Joyously Follow—Both Conant and Mulcahy said that companies can no longer be satisfied with writing a check to worthy causes. “The CEO should be out there physically, creating touch points in the organization,” Mulcahy noted. “It is up to the CEO to communicate consistently, to create alignment.” Incentives should be put in place to stimulate initial employee acceptance. Campbell donates $500 to a designated charity for every 25 hours of time contributed by one of its employees. Once a company culture begins to value such acts of philanthropy, the idea of giving back gains its own momentum.

2. Philanthropic Funding Should Be Made Available in All Company Markets, Not Just Home Market—By a two to one margin, the conference attendees preferred a strategy of investing social capital in all relevant markets, not just in the headquarters market. This may well mean a winnowing of donations by US-based companies to traditional charities focused solely on domestic issues.

3. Charitable Programs Need Not Be Tied to Core Competence—There was a wide range of opinion on this subject. The CEO of Travelers, Jay Fishman, made the case for “the best programs coming from the heart, to make opportunities available in underserved communities.” By contrast, Campbell’s employees are most excited about a challenge to reduce the Body Mass Index for residents of headquarters’ town, Camden, New Jersey. Lenny Mendonca, Director of Firm Knowledge for McKinsey, presented the new CECP McKinsey Report on as "Shaping the Future: Solving Social Problems through Business Strategy“ which discusses the Wal-Mart (disclosure: a client) sustainability initiative as a use of core competence in leveraging its supply chain to make change.

4. Be a Constructive Partner with Government—Mulcahy advised company leaders to “be vocal about what is a productive way forward. Don’t go underground. Don’t wait until public frustration boils over and government over-reacts.” Should a government official be using the media unfairly, Conant advised, “Tell the truth. That’s what my mother always told me. That is the only way.”

5. Stakeholder versus Shareholder—Responding to my question about the true mission of business (Milton Friedman admonition that the only social responsibility of business is to make profit), Conant firmly stated, “I reject the tyranny of OR and embrace the potential of AND.” He went on to suggest “you must integrate how you do good into what you do every day at the company. A success model for a modern company must involve stakeholders, not just shareholders.” Mulcahy said that the real challenge is “the time frame; short-term versus long-term performance. It takes courage as a CEO to be long-term oriented. Analysts following Xerox never asked me about my long-term R&D pipeline. That was frustrating.”

6. Role of NGOs with Business—Mulcahy said that she observes much better cooperation between civil society, business and government, particularly in a crisis such as the Haitian earthquake. Given the relative high trust placed by stakeholders in NGOs, it is wise to forge partnerships whether for disaster relief or ongoing initiatives.

The CECP McKinsey report identifies two major uncertainties that will “dictate the climate for business and society in 2020… the level and consistency of society’s expectations of business and the extent to which corporations take a leadership role in addressing societal problems.” McKinsey goes on to predict four possible outcomes, ranging from the optimal Sustainable Value Creation in which business develops voluntary standards with NGOs and Government leading to improved social conditions to the disaster scenario of Vicious Circle where trust in business bottoms out and government is forced to act unilaterally in the face of a worsening social scenario.

The smart manager of a communications function at a company will recognize the opportunity to help his or her executive team to select one or two social issues on which to engage and lead. It will require robust discussions with the operating units because communications can only work well in the context of a changed reality. Employees should be invited into the effort to build the initiative into the company’s culture and operations. Employee engagement creates rich stories of a company’s values in action that can be documented in social media. Companies will need to partner with NGOs and governments, ceding some control in favor of faster acceptance and credibility. Business will only regain trust and operating leeway if it rejects the notion of zero sum game propounded by free market theorists.

Posted by Edelman at 6:13 AM |

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