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RFPs, Retainers and Ripoffs: The Paradox of Thrift in Agency-Client Relationships
Public Relations… By Rodger Roeser, National Chairman, The Public Relations Agency Owners Association, Owner, The Eisen Agency
I suppose we as consumers are trained to get “the lowest possible price.” We get a high from it. We do it when we’re buying a car or a house, even when we have someone help with home improvement and you’re getting bids for work, that low price can feel enticing. Think about RFPs –as every PR, marketing, advertising, investor relations or even social media agency owner out there cringes, and every client tries to get the “best possible price” for work (if there really is any work behind the RFP).
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Hiring Is Up! Six Predictions from Careerbuilder’s New Job Forecast
The Hiring Hub…By Marie Raperto
Careerbuilder just issued the second quarter US job forecast. According to this survey, hiring plans in the US are getting back to pre-recession levels. One-third of employers added full-time permanent employees in the first quarter on this year, on par with 2007. Here’s what else they said: 1. Thirty-one percent of responding employers said they currently have jobs for which they can’t find qualified employees. This is up from 24 percent last year.
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What Zuckerberg Won’t Tell You: 10 Lessons Learned in Creating a Social Network
Marketing…By Elaine Werffeli Founder of GemsOfInsight.com
In putting together a website where users come to discover, share and contribute Gems of Insight, I learned a number of lessons and wanted to pass on my Top 10 for PR, marketing, social media pros and businesses in general. These insights go beyond creating a social network and apply to all of your work, in general: 10. Think Big: When starting something new, think out of the box. Don’t listen to the voice inside your head that tells you why you can’t do things.
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Hair is #1 Critical Media Factor According to Findings Released at the Annual Blowfish Media Summit
By Steve Lundin for the Marketing Nightmares Channel
Blowfish: A Private Life in Public Relations
(A business noir serial launching June 4th) Get ready to meet Jack Vance this summer. He’s not your typical marketing pro; he’s part rock star, part guru, part self-destructive demon and all business. Jack’s got a wall full of awards, a portfolio of world class business and more attitude than a bottle of 100 year old single malt corked with a .357 magnum.
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Showcase Your Social Media Expertise: We’re Publishing an eBook–And We Want YOU to Write the Content
By Sarah Skerik, PR Newswire’s VP of Social Media, for the Agile Engagement Channel
There’s lots of talk around influentials, but in reality, there’s little understanding about all the different spheres of influence out there, how they interact and what the opportunities are for communicators. So we decided to develop an e-book on the subject, and we’re taking the extra step of crowdsourcing it, in order to curate the best and most diverse perspectives and ideas. It’s not as cool as crowdsourcing a burger, but we’re pretty excited about it nonetheless!So, do you have expertise in the area of influencer targeting and engagement? If the answer is yes, develop some content and showcase your expertise by contributing to the eBook, “The Definitive Guide to Social Influencer.”
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Dan Rather Says PR and the Press Share Service to Public Interest
PRSA
Dan Rather urged PR pros to recommit to working on behalf of the public’s best interest. When PR operates at its best, it is helping more than a client or corporation – it is helping the general public, said Rather, the keynote speaker during the PRSA New York Chapter’s 25th annual Big Apple Awards before the Memorial Day Weekend. Some PR practitioners and journalists persist in believing that there is a natural and everlasting adversarial relationship between their two professions, said Rather, former anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News from 1981-2005, and current host of HDNet’s “Dan Rather Reports.”
“Not true,” said Rather, author of his new memoir, “Rather Outspoken.” Both professions – at their best – serve the public, he said …
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PR Job Trends: Hyundai Using Twitter Exclusively to Recruit PR Interns
AutoTalk
As reported by AutoTalk this weekend, it seems that automaker Hyundai is tapping social media to hire social media and public relations interns. In particular, the company is using Twitter to attract new talent well-versed in on the platform. Two positions are open in the PR and marketing teams that are only available to those applying on Twitter with a video resume and the hashtag #HireMeHyundai. “There’s no better way to find the best socially and digitally skilled interns than by using social media,” said Jim Trainor, senior group manager, Public Relations, Hyundai Motor America. Target applicants are, of course, new graduates steeped in social media looking to work with the company out of its California headquarters …
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DMA: Digital, Direct Marketers Report Modest Growth
BtoB Magazine
Digital and direct marketing performance grew modestly during the first quarter, with improvements in revenue and campaign profitability, according to a report from the Direct Marketing Association.
According to DMA’s “Quarterly Business Review,” 77.9% of respondents reported that their budgets remained unchanged or grew compared to the last quarter of 2011, with the strongest growth coming in social, mobile and email. Also, 80.7% reported unchanged or increasing revenue.
While only 37.0% said profitability increased in the first quarter, 45.4% said profitability will increase in the second quarter.
DMA’s report, conducted with Winterberry Group, is based on an online survey conducted in April that drew 234 responses …
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Research: Marketers Are Getting Worse at Directing Their Budgets Wisely
Ad Age Digital Next
When Rex Briggs compiled studies from dozens of brands for the 2006 book “What Sticks,” he found that the old saw about half of budgets being wasted was wrong. It really was only 37%.
Six years later, amid an industrywide obsession with procurement, measurement and return on investment, he’s come back with another, more sophisticated analysis of hundreds of campaigns representing billions of dollars. The finding this time: 40% of the budgets are being wasted. One surprising factor in the three-point drop in efficiency? Marketers aren’t spending enough on social media, he said. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean marketers will dramatically increase spending on social-media advertising. And the worse news for digital display advertising, based on his research, is that its ROI is flat to declining …
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Economy: May Consumer Sentiment Highest in More Than Four Years
Reuters
Consumer sentiment rose to its highest level in more than four years in May as Americans stayed optimistic about the job market, while higher income households expected to see bigger wage increases, a survey released on Friday showed.
The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan’s final reading on the overall index on consumer sentiment rose to 79.3 from 76.4 in April, topping forecasts for 77.8 and an initial May reading of the same.
It was the highest level since October 2007.
“Unfortunately, consumer confidence is still extremely vulnerable to a reversal, as occurred in the past two years,” survey director Richard Curtin said in a statement …
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What Investors Are Thinking: Social Media Is Not a Tech Bubble Redux
Washington Times
The lackluster stock market debut for Facebook suggests investors are not ready to jump in and create another tech bubble despite big expectations for social media, analysts say.
Facebook closed out its first full week of trade with a loss of 16 percent from its offering price of $38, in a huge disappointment after a much-hyped initial public offering worth $16 billion, the biggest for a tech firm.
The stock failed to live up to the anticipation of some who thought investors would be stampeding to get a piece of the network which has 900 million users.
“When you see Facebook share prices tank, it does get people back on to a more foundational basis, in terms of real revenues, real profits,” said Nick Landell-Mills at Indigo Equity Research.
Mark Heesen, president of the National Venture Capital Association, said investors are being more cautious than during the tech bubble of the late 1990s …
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Typical CEO Made $9.6m Last Year, AP Study Finds
Seattle Post Intelligencer
Profits at big U.S. companies broke records last year, and so did pay for CEOs.
The head of a typical public company made $9.6 million in 2011, according to an analysis by The Associated Press using data from Equilar, an executive pay research firm.
That was up more than 6 percent from the previous year, and is the second year in a row of increases. The figure is also the highest since the AP began tracking executive compensation in 2006.
Companies trimmed cash bonuses but handed out more in stock awards. For shareholder activists who have long decried CEO pay as exorbitant, that was a victory of sorts …
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Romney Hires Tara Wall as Senior Comms Advisor amid Push for Black Votes
Washington Post
Tara Wall, a former newscaster, Republican National Committee senior adviser, George W. Bush appointee, conservative columnist and deputy editorial page editor for the Washington Times, was hired recently as a senior communications adviser to the Mitt Romney campaign to handle outreach to African Americans, Nia-Malika Henderson and Philip Rucker reported Thursday for the Washington Post …
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Apple’s Biggest Threat in Mobile Ad Space: Amazon Hiring for Multiple Ad Sales Marketing Position
Ad Age Digital Next
Apple’s biggest competitor in the mobile-ad space is turning out to be Amazon, with its fast-growing Kindle device and a burgeoning mobile-ad offering. The Seattle-based e-commerce giant is already selling ads on its apps and websites, but recent moves point to much bigger mobile plans. It has hired Jamie Wells from Microsoft, where he led global product marketing for mobile display and apps. And he, in turn, is building his team — his LinkedIn page proclaims: “Hiring for Mult[iple] Ad Sales Marketing Positions.”
Meanwhile, Amazon has kicked the tires on a few mobile-ad companies, including mobile-ad network Jumptap, according to two people familiar with the talks. Amazon and Jumptap declined to comment.
That kind of move would mimic how Apple entered the mobile-ad space — by acquisition …
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Hopes for Olympic Ad Bonanza Dashed: Prime UK Ad Spots Unbooked
The Guardian UK
One upbeat forecast cast the London Olympics as a 275m pounds ($431m) marketing bonanza that promised a golden summer of advertising to fill the coffers of UK media owners. Yet the hope that Olympic fever would mean queues of advertisers writing out large cheques on demand has proved over-optimistic.
The London Evening Standard used an online auction to try to provoke a bidding war for its Olympic ad inventory, which included cover wraps starting at 120,000 pounds ($188,000) but there was almost no interest.
“They thought the Olympics was too premium to fail,” says one media buying industry source who refused to take part. “Everything on the auction represented poor value, any perceived profiteering has been widely dismissed by brands and agencies.” …
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