During down economic times, many companies face tough decisions. Sales are down, price-cutting is prevalent, staff is being reduced and lack of revenue is killing them. These are extremely difficult realities to deal with and even harder for companies to figure out the best way to navigate these stormy waters.

Unfortunately, marketing (and in turn advertising) is usually one of the first places that companies look to help save the bottom line. Seems to makes sense. It is an expense that they can save now. If the company goes dark for a while they should be okay, customers will still be there later. Then when times get better they’ll reinstate the marketing budget.

I am not insensitive to the challenges facing companies today. I understand the hard financial decisions that need to happen during down markets. I’ve lived through a few. And each company is different, their business model is different and their objectives are different, so my thoughts may not apply to all. But in my most simplistic viewpoint – if revenues are down, wouldn’t you want to support the area that should help generate business for your company?

Here’s some food for thought from an article on MacTech.com:

“In a study of U.S. recessions, McGraw-Hill Research analyzed 600 companies covering 16 different SIC industries from 1980 through 1985. The results showed that business-to-business firms that maintained or increased their advertising expenditures during the 1981-1982 recession averaged significantly higher sales growth, both during the recession and for the following three years, than those that eliminated or decreased advertising. By 1985, sales of companies that were aggressive recession advertisers had risen 256% over those that didn’t keep up their advertising. Sales for the companies studied were relatively even before the recession, but varied sharply during and after it. Companies that cut advertising during both of the recessionary years maintained flat sales during the period and only modest sales growth in the following two years. In contrast, the companies that maintained their advertising experienced significant sales growth throughout the four-year period.

“A series of six studies conducted by the research firm of Meldrum & Fewsmith showed conclusively that advertising aggressively during recessions not only increases sales but increases profits. This fact has held true for all post-World War II recessions studied by American Business Press starting in 1949.”

You can read the entire article here.

Based on the research, there are tangible reasons for turning it up in a down market. And yes, tough times call for tough decisions, so there are no easy answers. And marketing isn’t necessarily the silver bullet that will make everything all right for every company. But marketing can be an integral investment (not an expense) that can help sustain the organization through tough times now and reap greater rewards in the future.

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So how good is HBO’s marketing campaign for its upcoming vampire drama “True Blood?”  So good that my father called me this week wondering if I had heard the news that vampires were living among us. 

Seriously. He really did. The conversation went something like this: Dad: “Hey.”  Me: “Hey.”  Dad: “They just had on the news that vampires came out of hiding because a Chinese manufacturer developed a synthetic blood they can drink instead of human blood.”  Me:  “Wow.”  Dad: “I know!”  Me: “No I mean I seriously think I need to call the institution immediately.”  Dad:  “It was on the news!”  Me:  “What channel?”  Dad:  “HBO.”  Me: “HBO. Are you sure it wasn’t a marketing campaign?”  Dad: “They do documentaries all the time.”

Now, I admit to having prior knowledge of this campaign before my father’s panicked call. The Internet has been abuzz with various secrets, web sites and videos related to “True Blood” so I wasn’t worried about the vampire infestation as much as I was worried about my father’s health. I don’t know if I’m going to watch the show or not, but one thing I do know is that the cleverness of the campaign surpasses even “The Dark Knight” standards.

The reason?  Because instead of just focusing on a single audience or demographic, the marketing materials and messages reached across demographic boundaries, interesting everyone from nutcases who consider themselves vampires to nutcases who are convinced vampires live among us.

It’s a key component we often forget as marketers and one of the main elements of word of mouth marketing.  If you have a good or interesting product you likely already have a core group of supporters.  The key to sustained success is identifying additional groups and figuring out clever and strategic ways to reach them too.  It’s something Emanuel Rosen refers to as “The Busy Network Paradox” in his book The Anatomy of Buzz.  Too often we become obsessed with those close to us, consumed with “supporting our supporters” as Rosen puts it.  We neglect outside networks and their influence on our product or service and we eventually take our supporters for granted, letting information become stale.

My dad couldn’t care less about searching an online dating site for vampires, but a hard-hitting news piece and he’s over-the-moon nuts.  This campaign combined offline scavenger hunts, buzzworthy mailers to targeted individuals, synthetic blood drink displays and much more to interest large audience segments across the board. Kudos to HBO for engaging varied audiences and further confusing my father.  They’ve added to my daily frustration, but gotten themselves new viewers in the process.

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There used to be a negative connotation with the word “viral” because it meant something that causes a sickness. Now everyone loves viral, at least in marketing. Viral is everywhere. It’s one of those buzzwords that you’re not sure you’re sick of yet, but you think you might be sick of it pretty soon.

So, what does viral really mean? When something is viral, it spreads quickly. In the case of marketing and advertising, that something is information. There have been countless “viral videos” in recent months, as advertisers have recognized their low cost and high ROI. Viral videos are sometimes actual commercials, and other times are specifically targeted for publishing on the web. There are also videos that aren’t intended for glaring success, yet become almost iconic due to their quirkiness, shock value, or sometimes, simple hilarity. Can you think of a viral video you’ve seen lately? I thought I’d bring along a couple of examples.

Now, the truth of the matter. What is it about videos like these that makes them so popular? I’ve already mentioned a couple of reasons above, but let’s look at them in more detail.

1. They’re original – So much of what we see nowadays is rehashed and rerun and redone. It’s all old news. These videos aren’t. You pass them on, and so does the next person, and the next person . . .
2. They’re short – Good viral videos are often commercials that fit perfectly into the “clip culture” of video websites like Vimeo and YouTube. Besides, who has time during their workday to watch 7 minutes of video that ends up taking too long to pay off anyway?
3. They’re funny/shocking/awesome/funny/hilarious – You must be picking up on my theme by now. Funny always does the trick. You laugh. You remember. You pass it along. Now it’s viral.
4. They’re just good – This may seem obvious, but really, it’s the stuff that counts. If the video isn’t good, it’s not going to be viral. Conversely, if the video is viral, it’s probably good.

Viral videos are coming from everywhere. People are making videos in their basements and they’re becoming viral. The essence of some of these videos is in their low budgets and creativity. Ad agencies are making them too, just on a grander scale. It’s more difficult for agencies to pull off timely content, but with videos like this one of a ball girl jumping to catch a foul ball during a baseball game, agencies are attracting attention to brands on the cheap. No media budget? Try making a video and post it on YouTube. You’ll have exposures out the wazoo if you do it right, and follow it up by getting your personal network of friends and coworkers involved. The bottom line is that anyone can make a video that turns viral, because the video will do most of the work for you, so long as it’s good.

By now you must be asking yourself why I chose that headline. Here’s the main message. A video, or any other information, isn’t viral just because we say it is. It’s viral because the public makes it viral. Tay Zonday recorded himself singing and put it on YouTube. Now the guy’s a superstar, because everyone else says he is. Check out the number of views under that video. Yup, that’s 26 million. Even Dr. Pepper thinks Tay is on to something.

Excuse me, but I think I might’ve just written the word viral one too many times. I’m going to go drink some Diet Coke and eat a couple of Mentos.

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What is the magic behind advertising? Like when you walk into a store and a certain product seems familiar and welcoming. Are we so influenced by what we have seen and exposed to that we change our behaviors and buying habits? How much of this barrage of information actually affects us?

Review this advertising agency’s concept meeting and you be the judge. Entering the meeting blind with no previously researched ideas and you were faced with the task of concepting a poster campaign in a half-an-hour, could you pull it off? I think you can.

Not the best client subject matter, but hey it might be a new client. And a big one.

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A lot of us have done street marketing, and its effectiveness can often be debated.  Recently however, a Phoenix resident took to the streets, and found it was the perfect method for selling his product – himself. 

Corey Gibisch, 36 years-old and six weeks removed from being laid off from his comfortable management-level aerospace industry position, explained that he needed to take his job search to “extreme measures.”  The extreme measures he was referring to included triple digit heat and cars racing by just feet away.  That’s the price the Phoenix man thought he had to pay for finding a new job in today’s economy as he took himself and a hand-written sign to a busy Phoenix intersection early last week.   

Check out the full story by Dennis Wagner in the Arizona Republic

Gibisch explains that in the six weeks since he had been laid off, he had done all the traditional job search methods but to no avail.  So his instinct told him to “do something crazy.”  As Gibisch stood on the street corner with a sign that read, “Will Work Hard for Good Company” and a fistful of resumes, his biggest fear was embarrassing his wife and kids.  Turns out his real fear should have been what job opportunity to choose from.  Hours later upon his return home, Gibisch already had multiple voice mails and even more emails regarding new opportunities.  Even more importantly, in the two hours Gibisch spent on the busy freeway overpass, he managed to hand out 100 resumes and collect 30 business cards.  Try doing that in two hours online. 

Here’s a guy who seems to have little to no marketing experience yet he perfectly executed something many of us are still trying to master: a great word of mouth marketing campaign.  The truth is that it doesn’t take much experience or high-level marketing education to be successful in word of mouth.  Those things help but what you really need is exactly what Mr. Gibisch perfectly displayed, the foresight and fortitude to understand that the status quo only achieves status quo results. 

He took a buzzworthy idea, supplemented it with quality materials to keep the conversation going (in his case, resumes), engaged people directly, and the next thing you know he’s the talk of the town.  Without knowing it, he put the tenets of a successful word of mouth campaign into practice as though they were written in a schoolbook case study, or more likely a title penned by WOM guru Andy Sernovitz.  People love a great story.  People love a success story even more and I can imagine companies clamoring to be recognized as the company that hired Mr. Gibisch. 

Let’s hope that one of these companies recognizes the importance of word of mouth in today’s marketing landscape and gives Mr. Gibisch the chance to put more of his “extreme measure” tactics into action. 

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Hey, there. I’m Ryan La Rosa, the new Convergent Media Public Relations Specialist at Park&Co, and I hate PR.

Wait, I know what you’re thinking. But yeah, I hate PR. Maybe not as deeply as I hate a certain East Coast baseball team that “proudly” — arrogantly — refer to themselves as “The Nation,” but it’s still pretty deep.

What bothers me the most about PR is its practitioners’ inherent fallback on old practices and a lack of creativity. Somewhere along the line we lost sight of the title. Public Relations means that we try to find the most effective means of reaching the public. If that’s the case, then why do we as an industry continue to rely on outdated practices that in our gut we know aren’t working? Simply put, it’s easy.

The ultimate crime is that the majority of our clients don’t know the true nature and capabilities of PR. They walk in the door asking for press releases and major headlines, and instead of educating them as to why that’s not the only or even the most effective means, we just nod our heads like mindless drones. As a PR professional I’m guilty of it, and I think if we took some time to do a little soul searching we’d all admit we’ve done the same.

That’s not to say there isn’t some amazing work being done out there. I’m also not saying media relations aren’t important. They’re very important. But media relations are simply cogs in the overall PR wheel. Newspaper readership is dwindling, the Internet has become an advertising landfill, and consumers have lost trust in “editorial” messaging. For all of these reasons, consumers are relying on each other for information, now more than ever. As audiences around us get smarter, they filter out expensive “strategic marketing messages.” It’s PR’s job to start making the messages more organic.

Let’s start conversations! Isn’t it obvious? A newspaper article about your new restaurant won’t likely be seen by a majority of your audience, and if they do see it, the endorsement doesn’t carry nearly the same weight as it might have in the past. Now, what if a trusted friend came up to you and suggested you try the same restaurant. Maybe they blogged about it, texted you about it, or better yet, forwarded you the article that ran in the paper. Now you’re talking! Literally, you’re talking. That’s a trusted source. That’s a sincere endorsement. That’s public relations.

Well that’s all well and good, but you’re probably asking yourself “How we do it?” That’s where the “convergent media” part of my title comes in. It means that I’m going to do my best to connect clients with their audiences directly. I’ll use tactics like word-of-mouth marketing, viral marketing, and social networking, in conjunction with tried and true methods. The bottom line is it’s time to stop being safe. It is my pledge to start doing justice to the title of our beloved practice — public relations. Who’s with me?

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Our Film, Video and TV department is on track to deliver two impactful pieces for Metro Light Rail this summer. A thirty second public service announcement (PSA) featuring illustrations by local artist Jason Hill and animation by local graphics gurus Studio 522 Productions hit screens in mid-May. A longer safety video will come later and will focus on the new lights, road markings, and regulations that drivers will need to mind when driving in Phoenix, Tempe, Mesa, and Glendale in the future. The second video builds on the same theme, using the animated graphics, and will incorporate live footage being shot in Tempe. At Park&Co, we pride ourselves on maximizing our local Arizona production talent pool, and these pieces are no exception. Just to name a few, Carol Mauriello, Larry Niemi, Giselle Fox, Mark Trengrove, Leighton Agency, and Avnet studios are all working with us to bring Metro Light Rail to the masses.

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So, unless you’ve been sleeping in a cave, you’ve noticed that the internet is ablaze with social networking. All the kids are doing it, and even grown-ups have found a way to use sites like Facebook, Flickr, and others for targeted advertising. The opportunity that social networking websites provide for targeting specific customers is astounding. Those who use these sites freely surrender sensitive information that enables companies to identify their specific tastes for everything from shoes to clothing to music. Marketers and advertisers can tailor their messages specifically to the person that’s actually viewing the ad. They must make their messages subtle, though, as the users of many of these sites have noticed that they’ve become a SPAM advertising dumping ground. The more subdued and friendly the ad is, the better the response will be. Should the ad not even seem like an ad, even better.

The trend of social networking is beginning to reach into the mobile realm as well. Mobile phone manufacturers are featuring social networking sites like Facebook in their ads with hopes of landing that site’s users. The word-of-mouth aspect of social networking websites also plays a vital role in using the base of customers for advertising and other promotions. When these users share their likes and dislikes of a product, brand, TV show, or concert, those with whom they share are in turn sharing with others. The effect is like a virus, hence the term “viral marketing.” Social networking sites make viral marketing a reality. As these opinions are passed on, customer bases strengthen and quality products and brands attract more customers.

As a medium, the internet is still in its infancy. With the rapid growth of how we communicate, there are only going to be more ways to expand our reach through this relatively new technology. What better way to use a worldwide network of computers than to network?

At Park&Co, we’ve gotten into the fun ourselves. Check out our accounts at Facebook and Flickr, and subscribe to our Twitter feed to see what we’ve been up to.

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Here’s a news-worthy construction job. Valley of the Sun Habitat for Humanity, long esteemed for its humanitarian efforts in building houses for low-income familes, was sagging in donations and volunteers because of a run-down website and confusing donation form. Habitat wanted a site that could promote its message of hope to everyone in a striking and inviting way, attracting new donors with a simple, attractive design Our interactive team provided Habitat with a new place to call home.

We effectively produced an extreme makeover, with a new homepage and easily-navigable “mini-sites” for volunteers, donators, and homeowners. Visitors can access the Habitat donation page from anywhere on the site thanks to the bright orange “Donate Online” button on each page, and the three-part donation process means no more confusion for would-be contributors.

We also built interactive components into the site, including a Google map of both of Habitat’s Valley ReStore locations and a calendar of events and home dedications. The newly streamlined enewsletter is a way for Habitat to keep the community informed, and a new photo gallery documents the hard work of Habitat’s volunteers during a home build. The Habitat for Humanity website was a real fixer-upper, but in the hands of the Park&Co team, it’s turned into a place to be proud of.

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When Park&Co goes to Washington, we win awards. At last month’s Utility Communicators International competition honoring national, change-affecting communications campaigns from water, gas and electric utilities, our campaign for Global Water collected four awards, including a Best of Show. Print ads were given first place in two categories and our Water Crisis video took home a second in another. For utilities serving less than 500,000 people (Category B), our The Writing’s On the Wall print ad was awarded the prestigious Best of Show in the Newspaper/Magazine category.

The print ads, winners in both the Single Ad and Series categories, use striking visuals to contrast a sustainable future in the desert using Global’s water recycling process with the arid alternative. The Best of Show ad, The Writing’s On the Wall, uses the example of Lake Powell to illustrate the damaging effects of prolonged drought. Visit the portfolio section of our website to see this award-winning Global Water campaign.

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