Ukraine crisis affects everything Russian

The crisis in Ukraine seems to be getting bloodier as each day goes by. The invasion of Russian military into southeastern Ukrainian territory has left the whole world in a tizzy. This is no longer only a problem between Russia and Ukraine, but has become a global problem. The United States jumped in by imposing sanctions over Russia. The European Union seems to be silent but only gives testimony to what the United States think about the situation. The United Kingdom seems to be silent. The United Nations carries out meetings and discusses the situation in Ukraine. While people like you are me who don't want war or a war-like-situation, are expressing our thoughts on Twitter and other social media sites. It feels horrible when you can’t do anything to be able to combat a situation. But at least writing what you think on social media eases out that tense nerve a little, with a hope that someone out there who can make a difference is reading what we have to say.

In the midst of all the hullabaloo, one of Russia's public relations firm in the United States is facing the heat. The PR firm Ketchum Inc. is said to be lobbying for the Russian government to promote Russia in the United States. Reportedly the Russian government is said to spend millions in building the image of Russia in the west. To achieve this goal the Russian government and state-owned companies have even partnered with Western public relation firms.  (Kupchinsky, R. 2009).

Although the PR firm is dragged into the Ukraine controversy, the company seems to have distanced itself from anything that can tarnish its image. Responding to scrutiny, official from the PR firm said in a statement: "We are not advising the Russian Federation on foreign policy, including the current situation in Ukraine" (Sullivan, A. 2014).

Ketchum Inc. continues to stress its objective to support economic development and investments in the country and to facilitate relationship between representatives of the Russian federation and western media. But will the PR firm be able to survive after the Ukraine crisis. The US-Russia relationship has always been a shaky boat and using PR firms like these, Russia is trying really hard to make this relationship steady. Post Ukraine, will Russia’s PR machinery in the U.S. still be able to do their job and rebuild trust. That’s something we’ll have to wait to see.

Reference list

Kupchinsky, R. (2009). Russia's Hired Lobbies in the West. The Jamestown Foundation. Retrieved from website

Sullivan, A. (2014). Russia's U.S. PR firm distances itself from Ukraine dispute. Reuters. Retrieved from website

Brand promise can make you or break you

A corporation's brand promise is the commitment to deliver made between the brand and its audience. A brand promise motivates the audience to buy. So ultimately what is important is to live by the brand promise. If the brand doesn't deliver the promise, it will die. In a Gallup survey involving four-million customers, it was found that one in five unhappy customers feel that the brands they patronized were not keeping up with promises (Timmerman, J. 2013).

The brand message, the customer expectation, and execution have to be aligned with one another. The minute there is disengagement, people will begin to be disinterested in the brand. It's like making a promise to your friend and then not keeping it. But a friend might give you a second chance, a customer will never give a second chance.

I believe that as a brand it is important to be able to touch the heart of customers and prospective customers. Doing that will help us emotionally connect to our audience. For instance, I am not brand conscious at all. But when it comes to my shoes, it has to be "Adidas." Over and above, if anyone asks me to recommend some good pair of shoes, I recommend Adidas. So without actually paying me, I have become a brand ambassador. If a customer is emotionally engaged with a brand, they become fully engaged brand ambassadors. Gallup finds that an effective brand promise is compelling, connecting and credible.

A lot of thinking goes into setting up a brand promise. And more efforts go into keeping the brand promise. A brand promise must be able to convey a compelling benefit, it must be authentic and credible, and it must be kept every time (Hinge Marketing). A few examples of brands that have kept their promise are FedEx's "Your package will get there overnight. Guaranteed," Apple's "You can own the coolest, easiest-to-use cutting-edge computers and electronics," McKinsey & Company's "You can hire the best minds in management consulting," and The Nature Conservancy's "Empowering you to save the wilderness."

Before developing a brand promise, the company should ask itself a few questions, What is the value of the company and its brand?; How is the brand different from competition?; What are the attributes of the company’s brand?; Then, what is the company’s brand promise? Companies that manage to answer these questions honestly, create a livable brand promise.

Reference list

Elements of a Successful Brand 4: Brand Promise. Hinge Marketing. Retrieved March 7, 2014 from website

Timmerman, J. (2013). Your Brand Is Your Company's Engine. Gallup Business Journal. Retrieved March 7, 2014 from website

Content is King, but distribution is queen

I've been a big fan of Gerry McGovern who is a leading international content expert and consultant for knowledge management on the web. He has written many books and in one of his book titled 'Content Critical,' McGovern stresses on the importance of content. McGovern states that readers come to the website to gather or review content, rather than specifically to search or find content (McGovern, G 2001). In an interview to Dr. Ing. Artur P. Schmidt of Wissens Navigator, Gerry McGovern says that the web is a giant container for content and that it is a place where we go and get our content. He says that information flows like milk on the web today and that it has to be distributed before it becomes worthless.

In his article Great Content is Not Enough, Jonathan Perelman of BuzzFeed says, "Content is king, but distribution is queen and she wears the pants." How true, there is no point having great content, if you do not know whether this content is reaching the desired audience. Today there is so much of content online and there is a possibility that your content will get lost in the web. In Jun 2000, there were less than eight million websites. By Dec 2013 that number is more than 750-million and that number only seems to be increasing (Pollitt, C. 2013). This only goes to show how difficult it is for marketers to get their content read. There is so much of good content that goes unread on the internet.

Rather than producing more and more content, marketers should focus on content distribution plans. On his blog Ryan Skinner writes that today marketers invest large sums to create quality content. But he says although quality content is good, the content is not being discovered (Skinner, R. 2013). In his report on distribution of branded content, Skinner suggests the following,

• 1.      Brands can actually step down content production and step up distribution to get better results.
• 2.      An ecosystem of vendors have cropped up to help marketers drive distribution of branded content.
• 3.      The most effective promotions often come from doubling-down on past successes.
• 4.      Better distribution improves content’s quality, as the feedback cycle accelerates.

 So the bottom-line is its better to have a balance between content and content distribution. It’s like having a great resume but if you don't send that power-packed resume to potential employers, no one really will know what you are capable of doing.

Handling Crisis

Managing company crisis is like managing threats. And hence before plotting the communication plan, it is very important to do the SWOT - Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats - analysis. The threats are things that we fear could happen or may resurface. And hence we need to have an infrastructure in place to be able to handle it.

Dallas Lawrence, Chief Global Digital Strategist for Burson-Marsteller suggested 13-lessons for crisis preparation and management (Miltenberg, B. 2013). The steps that Lawrence suggests are:

• 1.      Know and engage key conversations drivers early and often.
• 2.      Actively monitor not just your reputation, but also the activities of your protagonists.
• 3.      Develop clear, effective and platform appropriate messaging.
• 4.      Own your brand in social before someone else does.
• 5.      Leverage the power of Twitter.
• 6.      People want to hear from people, not logos.
• 7.      Integration is key
• 8.      Be sure you know what you're talking about during a crisis.
• 9.      When you blow it, own up to it.
• 10.  Consider humor.
• 11.  Integrate paid and earned.
• 12.  Have clear employee rules and train for social engagement.
• 13.  Don't forget your secret weapon.

And then there are those old crisis that resurface. For example recently the 20-year-old allegations against Woody Allen resurfaced. The Monica Lewinsky scandals have resurfaced and even Paula Deen's racist remarks made years back, brought down her brand value.  Tony Silber from PR News Blog says that we should stop being defensive about old crisis. As corporate we need to take responsibility and inform the public about how we are trying to resolve the issue and promise never to repeat it again (Silber, T. 2014).

BP faced a lot of criticism from the world. The task of BP was to communicate the crisis with the people in America and the world over. An organization's reputation is the most important asset and the oil spill cost BP its reputation.

The oil spill happened in 2010 but BP till today stresses on the efforts of recovery in the Gulf of Mexico. It's advertisement stressed on its commitment to Gulf of Mexico, its commitment to America and about still being America's largest energy investor. It stresses on safety, providing employment to Americans and generating revenue for America.

The main purpose of BP's communication is on crisis management. Its theme is commitment and safety. Expressions such as "BP has two goals, help the Gulf recover and learn from what happened," "Safety is a part of everything we do," "produce energy safely," "We invest more in the US than anywhere else in the world," "America's largest energy investor," "Commitment to America," is continuously played out in its advertisements and marketing efforts. This only reiterates how BP is honestly trying to rebuild trust.

These many real examples only go to show that it is not bad to make a mistake, but not learning from it and not informing the public and your stakeholders about the mistake made and about actions taken to recover from it can do you more harm. 

Why media relations is important in public relations

A non-profit or profit organization may have the best strategies, goals, ideas in place, but if these ambitions and goals are not conveyed to the public, it serves half-the purpose. Hence as PR professionals, it is very important to build a rapport with media to communicate the organization's goals and ambitions (Epperly, J). As the name suggests, public relations is about building relationship with the public, but it is equally important to build relationships with the media to be able to reach out to the public.

Dennis Rutzou from PR Blog says that just building media contacts and relation is not enough. It is more important to churn out newsworthy and convincing stories that your media contacts will be ready to publish (Rutzou, D. 2011). According to Rutzou, media is always on the lookout of news content that is competitive with their competition and there is no way that they will publish your story because they have a good relation with you.

Media relations have many benefits. It can help with raising funds for research, help get offers of consultancy and helps promote brand name (E.S.R.C.). Media attention can also raise the public profile of the organizations discipline and in turn increase public discussions.

A study Examining Modern Media Relations: An Exploratory Study of the Effect of Twitter on the Public Relations – Journalist Relationship, author Drew Wilson says that Twitter has changed the traditional relationship between PR and media professionals. It has changed the way practitioners and journalists interact. The traditional forms of writing a press release and sending it to journalists is becoming outdated. Social media has opened public platforms for public relations professionally to reach out to the public. And the need to the media is slowly dying. Public Relations don’t really need the media anymore to reach out to the public (Wilson, D. 2013).

Thus looking at all the studies and expert opinion on the relationship between PR and journalist practitioners, it can be seen that public relations is slowly weaning off from being dependent on journalists to get their stories out to the public. Thanks to the internet and new technology like Twitter and Facebook, public relations practitioners can reach out to the public themselves.  

2014 Super Bowl grabbed the most eyeballs

Thanks to digital media the Super Bowl XLVIII broke all records of viewership. This year the Super Bowl set a record of a whopping 111.5 million viewers. Digital media has changed the rule of the game today. New York Times Author David Carr says the mass has gone out of media in modern life. He says that each one is building our own little campfire on our phone, tablet and big screen at a time and place of our choosing (Carr, D. 2014). Carr is so right. You really don’t need to reach your apartment or bar to watch the NFL game live. Digital media has made life so easy today that you can watch it anywhere you wish. All you need is your basic communication gadget with internet connection.

I don't have a television set in my apartment, but that didn't deter me from watching the N.F.L. final. I watched it with my roommate on my laptop. We streamed the game live on Fox Sports Live and enjoyed every bit of it. It’s another thing that the game was one-sided with the Seahawks dominating the game till the end. Many viewers called the game a ‘puppy bowl’ or a ‘zombie bowl.’ I liked the halftime of the Super Bowl the best. Bruno Mars delivered a red-hot performance at the game. I was also thrilled to watch Red Hot Chili Pepper gyrate on their 1991 hit ‘Give it away.’

At the Super Bowl even the advertisements made a lot of noise.  Each and every commercial on the game night had a human element in it. There was a feel-good feeling in each of the advertisements. Take for example the Heinz ketchup commercial by Cramer-Krasselt. The commercial encouraged consumers to hum "If you're happy and you know it." (Elliott, S. 2014).

And then there is the Coca Cola America Is Beautiful commercial that has angered many people. Coca Cola used different foreign languages in the little-more-than one-minute commercial. And many critics cribbed about the advertisement saying that America is a country that speaks English and hence everything should be in English and not be in a foreign language. How stupid is that. There were some people on Twitter who used the hashtag #speakamerican to express their anger to the Coke commercial. Wonder what was going on in their minds to make such foolish comments. 

Super Bowl XLVIII generated a lot of interest not in the game in itself, but rather the commercials and the halftime performances. A tweet from Ogilvy said that 58% of national advertisements have a hashtag and the 2014 Super Bowl generated 24.9 million tweets. And these facts certainly are a boon to public relations which can use this as a great tactic to make big bucks.  

Facebook turns 10

My journey with Facebook began five-years back. That makes me a part of half of Facebook’s journey since it began in 2004.   That makes me thing, how old was the creator Mark Zuckerberg when he gave birth to Facebook. Not even 30 yet, Mark Zuckerberg was only 19-years old when he started off the company on February 4, 2004. He called the company The Facebook then. He designed the www.facebook.com website to help people share information about themselves with their friends. And what is more shocking is that this website was originally created for people in Harvard University to connect with each other (McCracken, H. 2014). But this idea became so popular that Zuckerberg built a fortune with the company that simply allowed people to connect with each other.

Facebook brought the world closer to each other. News became easier to follow. Sitting in front of our PC or Mac enabled gadgets anywhere in the world we connected with the rest f world by sharing photos, anniversaries, life events, achievements with friends, family and also acquaintances. We liked our friend’s wall writings and things they shared on Facebook and in turn hope that they too will like the things we do post. 

All this is good, real good. But critics argue that the very same juggernaut that enabled people to connect with each other is responsible for eradicating the face-to-face connection between people. Critics cite various research studies to prove their point. In a new study from the University of Michigan psychologist Ethan Kross shows how online media contributes to loneliness and reduces overall life satisfaction (Greig, A, 2013). Eighty-two people participated in this study. These participants were text messaged five times a day over a two-week period with a link to an online survey about their Facebook use, their feelings of well-being and the amount of face-to-face social interaction they had engaged in. The research team discovered that the more time participant had spent on Facebook, the less happy they felt over time.

In an interview to IB Times UK, Daria Kuss of Birmingham City University said "Depressive symptoms of excessive Facebook use are likely to relate to the overemphasis on weak ties between individuals which are propagated online and the substitution of real life friendships by online friendships." In his interview Kuss concludes that the relationships today are more superficial made by a click of a button. He justifies his claim saying in the bargain many social media users then make these online friendships more importance at the expense of deeper and stronger ties with friends in real life.  (Charlton, Al. 2014).

Well while we analyze whether Facebook is good or bad for mankind, many say that it is soon going to be the end of the Facebook generation. Or maybe Facebook will evolve. Just got to wait and watch.