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Graceless Under Pressure
Video & Commentary…By Steve Cody, Managing Partner & Co-Founder, Peppercomm, Inc.
An approaching hurricane is to a TV meteorologist as a meth lab is to a speed junkie. Each salivates like Pavlov’s dog in anticipation of what’s to come. It seems to me every TV meteorologist tries to out-hype and out-dramatize her competitor. Each likens an approaching snowstorm, Nor’easter or severe thunderstorm to an apocalyptic event of biblical proportions. The so-called Frankenstorm, which is inching its way up the Eastern Seaboard as we speak, is just the latest example of completely irresponsible journalism on the part of so-called journalists. It’s also the perfect time for those of us in the corporate arena to demonstrate a cool, calm and measured response.
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Severance Pay: 5 Need-to-Know Tips
The Hiring Hub…By Marie Raperto, President, CIM Search
On Friday, October 26th, Laura Saunders in the “Tax Report” for the “Wall Street Journal”, wrote about a very important subject–severance pay. Two federal appeals courts have disagreed about the answer. According to Saunders, typically, employees and employers each owe a flat Social Security tax of 6.2% up to a cap (currently $110,100), plus Medicare tax of 1.45% (unlimited) on wages, for a combined rate as high as 15.3%.
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CommPRO Wants Your Point of View
Share Your Expertise With the CommPRO Community
Join the hundreds of integrated marketing communications professionals who benefit from editorial exposure on CommPRO.biz. Got something to say? A best practice to share? Build your brand. Share your expertise. Publish on CommPRO.biz and reach 75,000+ integrated marketing communications professionals. It’s easy: Just email your area of expertise and topic (op-eds and how-tos are the best formats). Our guidelines are simple: …
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Agency Two-Minute Survey–Enter Drawing for $100 AMEX Gift Card
Agency Management
Like never before, agencies and in-house departments need to expand their capabilities to make effective use of today’s communications and marketing approaches. Many have added experts in social, digital and creative services. These additions are creating new personality dynamics and reporting relationships. How is this new structure working? We’d like to know. Please join us by taking this short survey on what is working, and what is still a work in progress. We’ll report back on what you told us.
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Frankenstorm Claims First U.S. Victim: Donald Trump
By Dave Armon, President, Critical Mention, for the Critical Now Channel
Who knew government meteorologists were so good at branding? When the science nerds over at NOAA realized the tropical weather system churning in the Caribbean was strengthening and could impact the U.S. mainland around Halloween, Sally was asked to step aside in favor of the more frightening pseudonym, “Frankenstorm”.
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Video: “Best Practices in Online Video Advertising” Panel–Featuring Razorfish, The Weather Channel, Conviva & Videology
By Larry Thomas, President, Latergy, for the Social Video Channel
A few months ago, at the VideoNuze Online Video Advertising Summit, I moderated a panel on best practices in online video advertising. It included panelists Darren Feher, President and CEO of Conviva, Beth Lawrence, EVP, Ad Sales, The Weather Channel, Ravi Pahilajani, Associate Media Director, Razorfish, Aleck Schleider, VP Product Vertical, Videology.
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Email Marketing Tip #23: Auto Response Campaigns
By WhatCounts for the Effective Email Marketing Channel
Take advantage of the auto response feature in your email marketing application. The auto response tool allows you to set up an ongoing email campaign based on time or behavior-specific intervals. By automating your email campaigns, you can easily stay in constant communication with your subscribers. Also, you can ensure that your emails are sent to specific subscribers based on their behavior …
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Call For EARNIES 2012 Entries: Celebrating Earned Media
By PR Newswire for the Agile Engagement Channel
The Earnies awards recognize individuals and organizations for outstanding efforts in the area of earned media executed across social media. For our second year of the Earnies, we’ve added more categories to give you even more opportunities to show off your successful campaigns, including awards for best visual campaigns using Pinterest or Instagram, best global communications campaign and best infographic. Here’s a full list of the Earnies award categories.
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PR Pros Want Standard Measurement for Social Media, Survey Reveals
The Holmes Report
The vast majority (82 percent) of public relations professionals believe a standard measurement tool is needed to evaluate social media success, according to a recent benchmark survey of conducted by Public Relations Global Network, an international network of 44 independent public relations firms. According to David Landis, owner of San Francisco’s Landis Communications and president-elect of PRGN, “We wanted to survey the field about social media, a discipline that is generating significant growth internationally. It is obvious from the survey that return on investment will be the yardstick for social media.” The survey found that PR professionals believe social media can help support professional global relationships (73 percent) and have a role to play in doing international business (68 percent).
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Hurricane Sandy: Apps and Tech Tips to Track The Storm
ABC
There are a lot of things you can do to prepare for Hurricane Sandy. You can stock up on the essentials (food, water, etc.), flashlights and plenty of batteries. But you can also stock up on some digital necessities, including some apps for your smartphone or tablet. The following apps will help you keep track of the storm…Weather Channel (Free; Apple App Store and Google Play Android) This is one of the best free options. The Weather Channel has full customizable weather maps, animated radar maps, detailed forecasts, alerts, and a notification bar with the current temperature and severe water alert indicators.
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Microsoft Counting on Windows Phone 8 to Restore Mobile Market Fortunes
eWeek
As Microsoft releases Windows Phone 8 Oct. 29 the mobile industry will be watching to see if this will finally spur sales of Windows Phone devices, particularly for beleaguered handset partner Nokia. The expectations game is going to be restarted Oct. 29 when Microsoft unveils the Windows Phone 8 mobile operating system and handset makers begin sales of devices preinstalled with the mobile operating system. Windows Phone sales have been weak and they didn’t get much of a bounce when Microsoft partnered with Nokia to make WP its new OS. The thinking is that WP8 will give both companies the sales growth they’ve been waiting for.
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6 Ways Digital Marketers Can Use Facebook’s Custom Audiences Feature
Venture Beat
Facebook recently released its “Custom Audiences” feature, which allows digital markets to run advertising campaigns targeted specifically to certain customers and prospects. With nearly 83 percent of marketers using Facebook, what can marketers actually do with this new tool? This is a huge development, transforming Facebook advertising and enabling marketers to now target customers based on the behavioral actions they take outside of Facebook.
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Penguin Authors and Agents ‘Terrified’ at Prospect of News Corp Takeover
The Guardian UK
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, described by Labour MP Tom Watson as a “toxic institution”, could soon be publishing his book on the phone-hacking scandal as the publisher considers a bid for Penguin. The reported £1bn offer could leave Penguin’s reputation in tatters, according to the co-author of Watson’s Dial M for Murdoch, which chronicles the downfall of the News of the World, while other authors and literary agents have said they are “terrified” by a possible takeover. News Corp’s publishing arm, HarperCollins, is considering a £1bn bid for Penguin, which could be put the board of parent company Pearson as early as Wednesday, according to the Sunday Times.
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Halftime Report: Is Fear of a Weak Q3 Overblown?
The Street
It’s halftime for the season of corporate earnings reports, and investors are in desperate need of a locker-room pep talk. Before Alcoa reported its third-quarter results Oct. 9, marking the unofficial start of earnings season, financial analysts were predicting that profit and revenue for companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 would be lower than the year before. That would have been the first decline by either measure since the third quarter of 2009, just after the Great Recession ended. But a funny thing happened on the way to the pity party: Some of the biggest and most important U.S. companies started reporting revenue growth and raising their guidance.
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Stocks Open for Electronic Trading Monday
CNN Money
U.S. stocks will open for electronic trading on Monday, as Hurricane Sandy is expected to hit New York. The New York Stock Exchange is temporarily closing its trading floor on Wall Street because of its proximity to evacuation areas in New York City. New York has declared a state of emergency and the city suspended subway service starting at 7 p.m. on Sunday. All NYSE-listed securities will trade on NYSE Arca, the company’s fully electronic exchange until further notice, the NYSE said in a statement.
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Crisis Communications and the Global War on Terrorism
Business 2 Community
Currently serving as a military advisor in Afghanistan, Col. Barry Johnson is a U.S. Army public relations practitioner and advisor with 26 years of military experience. It is an honor and privilege to invite Col. Johnson to share his unique perspective on crisis communications with our Online Reputation Management blog. During the last decade, he spent over 5 years deployed in support of combat operations, with direct involvement in many of the military’s most challenging stories: Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Saddam’s first hearing, Haditha allegations, civil war in Iraq, WikiLeaks, military withdrawal from Iraq, and the host of issues faced by military spokespeople each day in combat zones. What are the biggest mistakes you see people and organizations make when dealing with the media? There is a temptation to lie. Not necessarily to lie in a direct way, but rather organizations tend to lie to themselves. They sometimes do this blatantly by misinforming their own people, and sometimes through omission by keeping important details from the people speaking on their behalf. This is a huge mistake.
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The Importance of Integrated Employee Engagement
Bizcommunity
Effective integrated employee engagement (IEE) is about understanding your audience, targeting the message and maximising the media. In other words, with every brief you take, you need to understand exactly who you are talking to. Always communicate a single-minded message, broken down where appropriate, to the different audiences within an organisation. Look at the company’s media channels and use as many as possible to ensure the message reaches as many people as possible, as effectively as possible. To successfully run a campaign or programme we continually refer back to the Blue Moon “Why?” statement: “To creatively engage the minds and imaginations of people… to believe, to commit and to participate.” If you succeed in doing this with every client, then you are doing a good job.
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Why Brad Pitt’s Chanel No. 5 Commercials Are Crazy Genius
E-Online
At first, the ads, with their nonsensical ravings about journeys and life, look like a parody of themselves. But I can tell you without hesitation that they work, for one reason…or maybe two or three. First of all, the two ads clearly have their failings. For one, it makes one of the sexiest, most confident-looking A-list actors on Earth look almost awkward, like he’s working with a monologue he doesn’t actually understand. “It’s really hard to make Brad Pitt not hot,” notes Ann Diaz of Creativity Online, which covers advertising, marketing and design. “Yet they managed to do so.” And speaking of monologues, Pitt’s script doesn’t make much sense either: “It’s not a journey, …
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Meet the 20 Women Most Likely to be Poached by Rival Ad Agencies
Business Insider
When “Business Insider” published our list of the 30 most powerful women in advertising, we also asked agencies and people in the marketing biz to tell us which women at competing shops they most admire or would love to hire, given a chance. From those confidential nominations, we’ve compiled this poach list of the most-wanted women in creative, management and account management. Some of the names on our list are big-hitters who control major agencies, like Susan Gianinno, chairman and CEO of Publicis. How likely is it that she could be tempted to leave for another agency? Well, consider that a select few big shops are looking to bolster their top talent.
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