So, No. We Won't Be Paying For Your Content.

Newspaper publishers seem to have a near limitless capacity for misunderstanding their own business model. The latest scheme by the Gray Lady to monetize online news on the backs of its audience will doubtless bear that out, though probably not without unfortunate results.

What made the New York Times and other publishers successful were their audiences. They built those audiences by do committing journalism better than their competitors and attracting more and more of the readers who were desirable advertisers.

One of the most important questions marketers have to ask themselves is this: What business am I in? It’s amazing how many don’t really know.

Are you in the business of selling gourmet food at retail? Or are you selling a romantic evening out?

Are you selling outdoor grills? Or are you selling bragging rights to the shiniest hunk of stainless in the neighborhood?

Are you selling information? Or do market a large audience of qualified consumers to a universe of marketers willing to pay for access to that audience?

Choose carefully.

We’ve discussed previously how the newspaper publishing business was never about journalism. Events of the day and commentary – what we call news – were used to attract an audience for first printed paper, and later for advertiser. In its modern history, the advertising model is what brings you the morning traffic report, the Ten O’Clock News, The Huffington Post, and … yes … your daily New York Times.

Within all living memory news has been free. Basically. Sure, there’s been a charge of a quarter or a buck or whatever for the actual newspaper itself. This made it a prosecutable offense to take all the papers in the stack. It also allowed a little something for the guy who sells the paper outside the train station or the kid who throws it into your rose bushes.

It never came close to covering the expense of gathering, researching, reporting or editing the news. Barely dented printing. The price consumers were willing to pay for the news merely subsidized distribution.

New content is free to the consumer. That’s a dominant narrative with deep roots.

And now the Times, and some others, want that back. What’s missing form the model this time, however, is the actual cost of distribution. The reason digital has produced so much new competition is because what publishers invested in distribution channels, capital equipment and the like – what economists call barriers to entry don’t matter anymore.

And rather than pressing their existing advantages in actual news, the plan is to charge readers for an incremental transaction that’s approaching Free.



Good luck with that.

Image Cred

Making a Federal Case of the David vs. Goliath Narrative

Long-time friend of Cincinnati Social Media’s old friend Jack Greiner has been all over the saga of the South Butt. If you haven’t been following along, this titanic legal battle pits The North Face, a division of VF Corporation, (NYSE: VFC) a $7 billion maker and importer of branded apparel, and Jimmy Winkelmann, a teenager from Missouri with a Web site.

Goliath v. Winkelmann

I am not making that name up. If you were writing this story you’d kick yourself if you forgot to name the kid Jimmy Winkelmann.



What it boils down to that Jimmy fired up this Web site where he sells hoodies and hats and such with a logo that is an obvious parody of the North Face’s familiar trademark. While I don’t have the benefit of a J.D. (from an accredited institution) I have been around the block enough times to know that trademarks are not like copyrights, that is the owner MUST enforce it or risk losing it. Special permissions need not apply.

So maybe it’s less about the gigantic maker of Wranglers and Lee Jeans and JanSport backpacks wanting to step on a teenager’s entrepreneurial spirit than it’s about preventing an avalanche of parodies of those brands as well.

Maybe the company had no choice but to take some sort of action.

Maybe.

But is a lawsuit all they had in the quiver?

Really?

Parody is, in many senses, praise. North Face has managed to sell technical gear to people who never get any closer to Denali than the bunny hill at a state park. North Face knows that. The people who buy the stuff know that. Jimmy Winkelmann obviously knows it, too.

He just figured out how to make it fun.

Granted, many patent and trademark suits end in some sort of settlement anyway, and this one may very well go that route as well. But the geometry of this conflict makes it seem there could have been some interim step before the first public knowledge of the conflict was the VERY-BIG-CORPORATION-OF-AMERICA making, well, a Federal case out of it.

And before the Dominant Narrative in play became David and Goliath.

The Second Easiest Way to Get Press

... or: Of Latvian Craters and Aqua Teen Brite Lites

When people reported a bright light falling from the sky and the sound of an explosion led authorities to a large (and apparently geometrically perfect) crater near Mazsalaca, Latvia last week, skeptics were quick to point out the unlikelihood of it being a meteor strike. Still, the lure of the unknown and the desire to report the news first – whether in traditional journalism or new! media took precedence and we were off on yet nother brand new multi-news-cycle whodunit for a couple of days.

Like the Aqua Teen Hunger Force fiasco in Boston, Tele2’s Latvian meteor adventure turned for the worse on its organizers’ overzealousness. There are lots of ways to get your name or your brand in print or to start people chattering about on the intertoobs. That’s the easy part. A cute rodent or an ugly dog gets two days of fame almost every week.

The Easiest Way to Get Your Name in the Paper

Or at least simplest? Shoot somebody. That’s probably too blunt, but generally if all you want is your name spelled right, you’ve got a whole menu of options to cause outrage. You will get noticed and people likely will remember who you are. Unfortunately for these tacticians, notoriety does not always translate efficiently into success. (see: Kaelin, Brian)

Translating that attention into something constructive … that is something that’s in alignment with your brand or message is the hard part.

Both events point out what happens when publicists get greedy. When your promotion, however clever, starts generating concern or even fear; when public or third-party resources start being expended … that’s not the time to think maybe you should have had a fail-safe plan.

In both cases, people were angered, embarrassed or financially harmed, rightly or wrongly. Rarely is that constructive.

Which brings us to …

The Second Easiest Way to Get Your Name in the Paper

Demand an apology.

#pepsifail, Conditional Apologies & Chick3nsh!t

We’ve talked about conditional apologies before. Y’know, that stuff you say when you’ve made somebody really angry even though you said (or did) what you meant in the first place.

Politicians do it all the time. “I’m deeply sorry if my comments, out of context, offended the good and hard-working Tralfalmadorians among us, but …”

So, are you sorry that you said it or that you got called out on it?

Choose.

My favorite, still, is the ubiquitous, “I’m sorry if this sounds racist, but …” or the equally as common, “Excuse me if this seems sexist, but …”

See?! I said it wasn’t supposed to be offensive so I am immunized from all anger. It’s as if the preamble said something like, “I am hereby immunized to attacks on my own sexism, but …”

And so we come to the whole AMP/#pepsifail hysteria on the Twitter machine.

Personally, don’t care. But this is not about me.

As a social media approach, our friend Kevin Dugan covered that here. Oh, and here.

But as a PR question?

Here’s AMP’s response, also repeated on Twitter feeds representing some of its sister brands:

"Our app tried 2 show the humorous lengths guys go 2 pick up women. We apologize if it’s in bad taste & appreciate your feedback. #pepsifail"

Well … that’s clear. Or at least succinct.

Is it or isn’t it? (in bad taste, I mean).

‘Cause what we do know is … it’s chick3nsh!t.

Friday Freakin' - I'm Working on It

Words Matter ... If you actually want to, y'know ... WIN

We covered this with the Clean Coal debate: What you call things the first time you ask your audience to think about something realyreally matters.

In the early 90s, and -- in case you missed it -- again now, the entire Beltway community seems obsessed with something called "Health Care Reform." Statistics, and indeed insults, fly. Some more trustworthy or sane than others, as the case may be.

Threats and rumors of violence abound.

Over ... What were we talking about?

Oh, yeah. Socialism.

No?

Okay, sick children then.

No?

Oh, yeah: How do we pay for it when we have to go to the doctor more than we thought we would or can afford?

Here's the deal: That's not health care. [or healthcare depending on your stylebook of choice]

That's Health Insurance, or at least Health Care Financing.

People generally like their Health Care. It's the paying for it that gets complicated. If you have a pre-existing condition, you still can get an appointment with a specialist, as long as you can ... wait for it ... PAY for the doctor's/clinic's/practitioner's time.

Even Doc Graham has to eat.

I, too, hope President Obama is the last president to tackle health care reform. If he's not, I truly hope he's the last one to call it that.



Further reading:

See the late XX/early XXI Century poet L. Lovett:

Was that a beer joint
Or was that the country club
Were we fooling around
Or was it truly love
Was that a foreign film
Or just a show
Why i don't know
I just had to go
Image Cred

We Obviously Live in Very Dangerous Times

I mean, you can’t even leave your house anymore without fear of being assaulted, robbed, or worse.

If you don’t believe me, just turn on the teevee news. I dare you. Chances are there’s a pretty girl missing … somewhere. There’s likely also an unexplained (at least to us) home invasion of some sort that just happened (BREAKING NOW!) in a town we heard of once. Maybe we drove past the exit on that trip to the national park.



And the murders. No matter what city broadcasts your news, I am betting murders are way up. If they’re not, it’s only because somebody forgot to count the killings in the outlying counties, which only goes to prove that we live in very dangerous times.


I have told this story before, but several years ago, when I was new parent, a very kind and well meaning woman urgently offered me a newspaper clipping that listed the 10 Things In Your House That Are Most Likely To Choke Your Child.

It’s important to note that this was in a room filled with other relatively new parents and that I, as the recent arrival, had missed a good deal of the preliminary discussion. Several already had sworn to themselves and their peers that all grapes would be halved, all hot dogs would be sliced on the vertical axis, and – it goes without saying – all jellybeans shall be kept out of the reach of small children.

Happy Easter.

The article was written by a GA reporter for one of the top 100s and had been picked up by a wire service. It included all the relevant quotes: a mom, a pediatrician, an emergency medicine nurse. [Clearly some PR person hit the mother lode of the FEAR!1! narrative.]

So when I casually thanked by volunteer benefactor, I was met with a certain amount of disdain.

“Look,” I said as nicely as I am able when confronted while not seeking confrontation. “If we all agree to eliminate all 10 from our homes, there still will be a Top Ten. Eventually we’ll be sitting in empty rooms with rounded corners and padded floors.”

Generally your state of last residence picks up the tab for that kind of accommodation.

Fear is a dominant narrative.

So I was encouraged last year when Lenore Skenazy, a syndicated columnist writing in New York, described how she had challenged her 9-year-old son to find his way through the wilds of Manhattan using public transportation. Still, I saw it coming.

She was pilloried in LTEs and by commenters on the newspaper sites where her column appeared. It was clear to one and all that she was a very bad, bad mother who had put her child at risk to advance her own agenda, lifestyle, whatever. The recurring theme in many of these responses was that no matter the author’s experience as a child a generation ago, things are much different now.

We do, of course, live in very dangerous times.

Thankfully, Ms. Skenazy, whom I do not know, has refused to yield. In her new book Free Range Kids she breaks down not only the philosophy of raising children who become adults capable of taking care of themselves, but she uses real numbers to do it.

Do we really have to worry about the bogey man 24/7? Or, can we accept that when more of us go to that park because we’re not afraid, there is by definition less to be afraid of?

What Does "Clean" Really Mean Anyway?

I keep revisiting this because there are so many lessons to be learned from some very smart people on both sides.

When I started talking about it back in March of 08, I criticized this group for using the language of their opponents and thereby letting them frame the argument. In recent efforts, however, they're employing the time-honored art of verbal jujitsu -- and some cool images -- to take it back.

Oh, hell, just watch:

Clean Coal Air Freshener! - watch more funny videos

Gates Arguments and Good Cop/Bad Cop

Tonight the long-awaited Beer Summit on American Race Relations is being held at the White House. Where you stand on the arrest of Henry Louis Gates kinda depends on where you sit.

Because after all the discussions, arguments, jokes, whatever ... most already have made up their minds about what happened last week when the Cambridge Police were called to the home of the famous Harvard professor.


There are a couple of dominant narratives at work here:

The Police are Racist!

This is the easy one. Yes, law enforcement professionals tend to struggle with race. Anybody who wants to call me anti-police on that point should duck when they do. Google it if you must. Either way, the experience of African Americans -- and a good many others -- with law enforcement is not the same as mine. I accept that.

Many of those people heard the news of Gates' arrest and immediately understood it ... they knew it ... to be a simple case of racial profiling.

911 Call.
Black man.
Arrest.

Tinker to Evers to Chance.

But there's a counter narrative at work, too.

Just Say "Yes, Sir; No, Sir"

Those are the rules, right? This is what we still tell our kids and our irresponsible friends.

Generally it works for me, too.

No kidding.

No matter what your standing in society, it's easy to imagine yourself being popped for speeding or walking a line after three beers at happy hour. Yeah, bloody cops just trying to make quota, right?

But how many of us has ever been accused or even questioned about a brurglary? Or a robbery? Or a missing bike?

Yeah, I imagine it changes things.

The public relations point here is just this: You are not changing anybody's mind on l'affaire Gates.

Just not gonna hap'n.

But you might help them make up their mind.

Let's say 40 percent of Americans already think, nay, KNOW that this was a case of racial profiling or an overzealous cop.

Let's say that another 40 or so percent are positive this was case of a guy copping an attitude and thinking he's above the rules.

Still leaves 20 percent who just. don't. know.

That's where dominant narratives ... and elections ... are won and lost.

Just Kill a Guy

Early (well, earlier) in my public relations career I was confronted with the client or boss we all know.

In this case he was the CEO of his organization. He leaned across the conference table and, with his eyeglasses in one hand and the other hand clenched in ball pounding the table said, “Your job, young man [I was] is to get my name in the paper.”

I was just young enough that I couldn’t control the impulse to say: “Just kill a guy.”

After an eternal pause I explained that if all you want is your name in the paper, killing a guy … preferably in public … is the best way to ensure success.

Too many organizations mistake awareness for success in public relations. Too many professionals do too. They’re the agencies or consultants who promise to “tell your story” or to “make you famous.”

The power of your story should not be discounted, but it’s only part of the deal. What is your objective? What do you want to accomplish by having your story told, your name in the paper, by being ‘famous’?

Getting that client’s name in the paper was a means to an end. Unfortunately, it was an end he couldn’t articulate.

There was a time when just getting your name – or your preferred narrative – in print or on the air was enough. That’s where the audience was and news coverage was the most efficient way to reach decision makers, whether they were homemakers or CEOs.

The higher objective of public relations always should be just that: RELATIONS, or rather relationships. Name awareness counts, but does that work in other relationships in your life?

Or do you need a little engagement, too?

Awareness is a means …