Mutually Inclusive PR

Testing a Zooomr Photo Account

I finally dropped by Zooomr.com and set up an account.  Let's see if the html code works right...

20DollarBill Hosted on Zooomr

Update:  I figured out why I was having trouble displaying the photo.  In Typepad, you have to select "Edit HTML", or you need to click on "Customize the display of this page" and select Plain Text.  Then you can drop in HTML code to your heart's content. Can't believe I've been posting to this blog since the beginning of 2005, and I've only figured that out today...

Hmmm.  The 500-pixels-wide image doesn't display right, so I'll try 240 pixels instead.

Should I Go for the Stephen King Look?

I'm working on changes to the blog.  In preparing a new blogger photo, I took some self-portraits.

The first photo gives me that Stephen King pseudo-serial-killer look.  I'm leaning toward one of the other ones.

Choose Eric's New Look!

1)  Stephen King / Serial Killer

2)  Mysterious Stranger

3)  Blue-eyed Civil Servant

I still have time to reshoot, but I'm definitely not going to keep using the cheery photo in the top right corner of this blog.

4)  Don't even think about it

Tags: photos, selfportrait, bloggers, mugshot, vanity

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It's True - Saskatchewan Is Better than B.C.

I'm not a big football fan, but we got free tickets to the Regina Rams game, and watched part of the domination by Saskatchewan of three B.C. teams this weekend.  Thanks for the tickets, Jill (my investment adviser at Scotia McLeod, who were game sponsors).

Saskatchewan Roughriders 23,  B.C. Lions 20

Regina Rams - 53,   Simon Fraser Clansmen 16

UofS Huskies 35,   UBC Thunderbirds 33 

(We'll just gloss over the fact the Huskies won a squeaker, and the Roughriders won in overtime.  Three wins out of three games is still domination.)

I think the Rams QB in the photo is Campbell Antonini, but let me know if I'm wrong..

Tags: football, cfl, regina rams, roughriders, saskatchewan, huskies, bc, bclions

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PR Briefs - News Items September 24, 2006

• Changing Clients into Better Ones - Julie Rusciolelli - The head of a Toronto PR agency has advice on how clients can play their role better. Link via David Jones.
• PRSA to Members: Please Be Ethical, Hypothetically Speaking - Steven Silvers - The PRSA urges its members to expose unethical practices, while it bends over backwards to avoid mentioning any particular examples.
• Resources And Wrap-Up! - Leo Bottary - Hill and Knowlton's Leo Bottary offers tips for people getting started in public relations on how to provide good service to customers.
• Wanna See What "The Media Pitch 2.0" Looks Like? - Todd Defren - PR Squared blog points to a new beta version of a service that could be used to help reporters with story suggestions.
• Phildelphia Launches Soundabout Tours - Shel Holtz - Audio tours of Philadelphia neighbourhoods that can be taken virtually, through Google Maps API, or with a portable MP3 player while wandering the actual neighbourhood.
• Screaming Users Considered Good - Dan Russell - On the Creating Passionate Users blog, a discussion about how negative feedback can be much more useful than bland reassurances, if your goal is to design something that's truly useful. Link via McToonish.
• Defining Success Metrics for Corporate Blogs - Bill Sweetman - On the One Degree blog, Bill Sweetman lists the metrics of success for a corporate blog.
• What Kind of Genius Are You? - Daniel Pink in Wired - A researcher identifies two kinds of creative genius.
• Red Cross Guerrilla - Miel Van Opstal - The Canadian Red Cross tries a geurilla marketing campaign for learning first aid.
• On Crisis Communications and “What if We Didn’t Own the Company?”  and Up and Running - Freshbooks on crisis communications, following a major service disruption.
• Canadian Council of Public Relations Firms to represent interests of PR consulting firms - Joseph Thornley - PR firms in Canada have created an association to help them share common concerns, share knowledge, and identify issues for joint action. The group is looking for firms with billings of $1 million a year and up.
• Finally, Somebody Ranks Brand Monitoring Services - Mike Manuel - A comparison of brand monitoring services.
• Suing for Product Placements, May Be the new PR - Pierce Mattie PR - A lawsuit against US Weekly seems to suggest that publications owe coverage to brands, and can be held liable if they stop providing the brand profile in their publications, etc.
• Are all PR People Clueless Telemarketing/spamming Drones? - Dan York - A blogger/podcaster's frustration with clueless PR spam and pitches sent to him, regardless of the narrow focus in the VOIP industry that he covers.
  
  Tags: communications, consulting, product placement, crisis, feedback, guerilla marketing, ethics, branding

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Life without A&B Sound

The two Saskatchewan outlets for A&B Sound closed in August, with nary a whimper.

In my teens, I used to catch the bus to downtown Vancouver with my friends, so we could check out A&B, A&A and Kelly's, to see who had the best deals.  It was rare that the competition could beat A&B.  I got Dark Side of the Moon for $2.99, and came back later to buy my stereo.

So when I drove past the store and saw the Closed sign, it felt just like the day the Bluebird grocery on Marine Drive got supplanted by a Mac's Milk store.  Something basic and good had passed from this world.

The fact A&B chose to open in the Warehouse District instead of on the east end of Regina, where the shopping nexus has shifted, probably explains why they have shut the doors. It's possible to do well in the Warehouse District, but the traffic doesn't even come close to what's happening in the east, or on Rochdale Boulevard in the north of town. Music and electronics is a volume business.  You can't depend on those people who seek you out on a side street.  You have to be where people are shopping, unless you're an institution.

And in Saskatchewan, A&B was never the institution it is in Vancouver.

A&B is consolidating in B.C. and Alberta, where they can hold their own against the big box stores.

Pardon me while I nip down to the basement and thumb through some of my old vinyl, in a fit of nostalgia...

(Speaking of nostalgia, check out the A&B Sound website, where they haven't updated things since closing several stores.)

Tags: vancouver, a&bsound, retail, music, stores, closed, saskatchewan, regina

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Terry O'Reilly Back with More Advertising Analysis

Terry O'Reilly is back on the air, exploring the advertising business.  Last year's excellent O'Reilly on Advertising is being followed up by O'Reilly and the Age of Persuasion.

(Actually, don't bother clicking on the above link.  CBC's web page for  the show has almost no information about the theme or the host; it doesn't tell you about the Thursday morning rebroadcasts; it doesn't indicate what channel on Sirius Satellite Radio to listen to, or when.)

According to O'Reilly's agency Pirate Radio and Television (Flash-only), O'Reilly and Mike Tennant produce a new show about "the ways Advertising and Marketing permeate every aspect of 21st Century life, from its effect on the way we act, dress and speak, to its influence on our children, to the unstoppable explosion of Ad Clutter."

I've only caught part of one episode so far, but the quality sounds every bit as good as last year's show.

(Update: I've caught several shows, and O'Reilly continues to present a good historical view of the world advertising business, showing the impact on society, and how societal trends affect the ad business.)

How to listen:

CBC Radio One Saturday 4 p.m., or Thursday mornings at 11:30 (for live streaming, go to CBC.ca, and choose the time zone that will match up with the broadcast time).

Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 137: Thursdays 10:30 a.m. ET/7:30 PT; Saturdays 2:05 p.m. ET/11:05 a.m. PT; Saturday night at midnight/9:05 PT. 

Background info about last year's show on Wikipedia.  Photo via I Have an Idea ad creative archive.

Sirius schedule online at DogStar Radio (link via Inside the CBC.com).

Update II: The show has been extended into 2007, reports Inside the CBC.

Previous posts:

O'Reilly on Ads - Straight Goods; CBC Shows Looks at Advertising

More posts about CBC
 

Tags: terry o'reilly, mike tennant, advertising, creative, radio, tv, trends

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I'm an Angry Customer. Deal with Me

Note to every employee of every company I deal with:

My anger is not personal.  If I am pissed off, there's usually a good reason, and often that reason relates to a product or service you've sold me.

I may be lying to you, for one reason or another.  I may misrepresent your company's promises to me.  I may let other factors get the better of me and behave badly.

For these things, I apologize.

Now, let's talk about how you behave...

I don't care what your company policy is, unless you indicate you've heard what my problem is.

I don't care whose fault it is, but I'm willing to listen if you show you're listening to me.

I don't care why you can't help me.  I want to know who can help me.

I'm assuming you're working from a script and will try to thwart me.  I hope you prove me wrong.

I do care about your company, or I wouldn't be bringing this problem to your attention.

Seth Godin has some good tips for employees. It's not rocket science. It's manners and being human.

Update:  John Andrews has a great response on his blog, suggesting I haven't even begun to act like an angry customer.  He says I'm just a miffed customer...

Tags: service, retail, behavior, anger, rage, sethgodin, business, communications, manners

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PR Briefs - News Items September 15, 2006

Found this week:

• News Junkie: Become One. In PR, It Is Required Behaviour - Robert French
• Facebook's "Privacy Trainwreck": Exposure, Invasion, and Drama - Dana Boyd
• Political & Government Blog Cases wanted - Shel Israel
• Searchmob - John Battelle
• Should Fair Use Apply to Your Family Portraits? - Thomas Hawk
• About Gen-P (or "Jimbo lays the smacks down on Dale Hoiberg") - Jason Calacanis
• Forget about Web 2.0 Cool. What's Useful - Mark Evans
• Important discussion about depression in IT. - Tris Hussey
• About dot com — not a bad idea - John Andrews
• Endemol's get-rich-quick scheme - Chris Edwards

Tags: copyright, fair use, search, facebook, privacy, blogs, depression, wikipedia, media, news

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So, Deceptive and Slimy Tactics Are Bad?

Digital freedom advocate Cory Doctorow on Google's choice of a lobby firm:

". . . DCI, the lobbyists on Google's payroll, have a long history of using deceptive and slimy tactics to achieve the ends commissioned by their clients, who've used DCI's dirty tricks to fight Social Security, and DCI even hired the guy behind the notorious lying scumbag group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth."

But Cory, tell us how you really feel about DCI!

There's more about DCI on SourceWatch and on Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo.

Tags: lobbying, google, reputation, dirty tricks, cory doctorow, dci

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Does CAA YouTube Campaign Go Beyond LonelyGirl15?!?

Faked photos of war! Viral campaigns that dupe thousands of YouTube fans!  Where will it end?

I've been sitting on this scandal for a while, but since the story surfaced that Lonelygirl15 is a fake and is somehow involved with Creative Artists Agency, I'll reveal another possible case of CAA trying to go viral on YouTube.

On the right is a picture of CAA president Richard Lovett (click on the photo to see the original in context).

Below is a still from one of the autoerotic danceworks on YouTube by "samuelalieno", supposedly a 26-year-old Italian with a penchant for dancing in his underwear while fondling various plants and household appliances. Is this the same person? The hairstyle is almost identical.  And the boyish good looks are very similar...

Coincidence?  We think not. What if "samuelalieno" isn't the unknown terpsichorian he pretends to be, but a Hollywood exec trying to make the big time as a performer?

There's obviously a widespread conspiracy to create viral buzz around the careers of several aspiring artists linked to CAA. LonelyGirl15 was just the thin edge of the wedge.

I have a crack team of photo analysts just back from Lebanon ready to pore through YouTube videos and the CAA archives to find more compelling proof.  I'll publish the details as soon as I have them.

Disclosure:  One of my crack team of photo analysts blurred the crotch a bit, and masked the face, in case it turns out this erotic dancer isn't in fact a Hollywood exec, and turns out to be a minor.  There may also have been some alteration to Mr. Lovett's hair while Photoshop was used to convert the file for the web. ;-)

Tags: satire, lonelygirl15, youtube, scandal, photoshop, caa, entertainment, viral, unmasked

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