How Are the Mighty Fallen!

There have been massive changes in the practice of public relations since I first joined the PR firm of Makovsky + Company more than ten years ago. Back then, most major cities had two or three local newspapers. Today, many are down to just one, as Ken Makovsky has described in his recent “My Three Cents” blog… and it’s at risk of folding.

On March 16, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published its last print edition, leaving the biggest city in the state of Washington, with just one daily newspaper, The Seattle Times. The 146-year-old Seattle P-I will live on in a digital version as a “news and information portal.”

The struggling U.S. newspaper industry must be waiting with bated breath. Who’s next?

Just a week, content provider 24/7 Wall St. released a list of the 10 most endangered major daily newspapers. Based on an analysis of the financial strength of their parent companies, the amount of direct competition they face in their markets and their financial losses, these are the newspapers likeliest to fold or begin publishing an online edition only … many within the next 18 months!

1. Philadelphia Daily News
2. Star Tribune
3. The Miami Herald
4. The Detroit News
5. The Boston Globe
6. San Francisco Chronicle
7. Chicago Sun-Times
8. New York Daily News
9. Fort Worth Star-Telegram
10. The Plain Dealer

I’m a big believer in consumer-generated media and the importance of citizen journalists as investigators and whistleblowers — but as a public relations consultant and a citizen, I certainly would hate to lose the professionals of the Fourth Estate.



Technorati Tags: media crisis, newspapers, journalism, 24/7 Wall St., Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle Times, Philadelphia Daily News, Star Tribune, Miami Herald, Detroit News, Boston Globe,San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Sun-Times, New York Daily News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Makovsky + Company, PR firm, Ken Makovsky, My Three Cents

A Question to Bankers: What’s Up with Your PR?

I recently read an interesting article in Advertising Age about the marketing challenges facing financial services industry in the post-TARP world and how banks are responding.

Some customers are asking whether Citibank is a safe place for their savings,” writes reporter Beth Snyder Bulik. “So what is Citibank doing? Running ads in the Wall Street Journal about its microfinance capabilities in Texas and India.”

It’s just one example of the tone-deaf marketing messages coming from some banks that don’t answer worried customers’ real concerns … Is my money safe? Can I trust you? Will you be here tomorrow?

According to Ad Age, the top 10 banks and credit-card companies cut their ad budgets by a more than 25% in the fourth quarter of 2008 and nearly 40% December compared with those same periods in 2007. This represents a tremendous opportunity for banks and other financial services institutions to step into the void and claim it for their brand.

As our CEO, Ken Makovsky, wrote recently, public relations “is significantly less expensive than advertising and much more credible. We’re talking about a modest investment in time and money that delivers a major return on investment.”

DST: A Sinister Plot to Toy with Our Biorhythms?

It’s almost here. The time of the year I hate most. The day on which I am robbed of a precious, precious hour of sleep … Daylight Saving Time. This year in the U.S., DST begins on Sunday, March 8, at 2:00 am, when clocks are adjusted forward one hour. Time doesn’t revert to normal again until November, when clocks are set back (and I get my hour of lost sleep back again.)

I’m a public relations consultant. I work for a leading business-to-business (B2B) PR firm based in New York City. Our unique positioning is the “power of specialized thinking” — so I have to be able to think. How can I think when, every spring, my bio-clock is being messed with by some Time Lord with a nonsensical agenda?

Here are the three top reasons I think we should do away with DST. (I’ve got more if you want them.)

1. It makes for less efficient workers. Studies estimate that that sleep deprivation costs U.S. businesses an estimated $150 billion a year in absenteeism and reduced productivity.
2. It’s not green. A 2008 study that examined billing data in Indiana before and after it adopted DST three years ago found that DST increased residential electricity consumption by 1% to 4%.

3. It takes time to change clocks. And as more high-tech devices contain clocks, more time is spent changing them. (I avoid this problem by leaving my watch on standard time all year-round. For the six months of DST, I simply add an hour in my head.)

In his My Three Cents blog, Ken Makovsky has written that “outstanding productivity in business depends on executives who are awake.” He suggests power napping as a solution. I say, put an end to Daylight Saving Time.

There Is Nothing like a Nap

Ken Makovsky, the CEO of our public relations firm, has written about the benefits of “power napping” on his blog, My Three Cents. He passionately believes that naps enhance information processing and learning, reverse information overload and increase productivity. He’s definitely not alone in his views.

If you too want to deploy a napping strategy to become “smarter, healthier and safer,” it’s worth checking out the Boston Globe feature, “How to Nap.” It’s not just a great in-depth look at the myriad health benefits of naps and how to attain them, it’s also a great example of how to use a well-designed visual to effectively communicate complex information quickly and easily.

Private Equity: A Failure to Communicate?

It appears that private equity firms — in both Europe and the U.S. — are suffering from an insufficiency of public relations.

“Private equity has reached a ‘critical point’ in Europe and needs to act fast before Brussels imposes legislation on the industry,” says Jonathan Russell, managing partner and global head of buyouts at 3i Group PLC and the new head of the European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (EVCA), in a recent interview in the Financial Times.

Private equity firms are facing sharp criticism in Europe, where at least one leading politician has branded them “locusts.” In the U.S., they are loath to publicize returns and fiercely guard the specifics of the companies they own, despite demands from media and political groups for more transparency.

Russell admits that private equity’s own failure to communicate is partly to blame for the political backlash. “We have a fundamental gap here,” he says. “There is an impression of private equity born out of partial knowledge and some prejudice around that, some of which has roots in reality, but a lot doesn’t.”

Several of my clients in New York City are private equity firms. Through strategic PR, we have found a way to bridge the gap between secrecy and transparency to find a happy medium that works for all parties.

Environmental Claims Meet with Consumer Doubts

It seems that everybody these days is leaping on the “green” (or clean technology) bandwagon. I’ve seen press releases and ads taking the moral — i.e., green — high ground from companies in virtually every industry, from financial services and professional services to pharmaceutical and technology.

It’s no surprise to find that the blogosphere is exploding with talk about environmental issues. According to Nielsen Online, sustainability buzz more than doubled between September 2006, when blogger messages on the topic totaled 83,000, and December 2007, when they had skyrocketed to 172,000.

Unfortunately, one of the most popular blog topics is corporate hypocrisy — also known as “greenwashing” — where companies misrepresent their commitment to sustainability with aggressive PR campaigns. Greenwashing was the topic in 25% of all sustainability discussions on the web in 2007, according to Nielsen.

Confirming consumer skepticism, a recent web survey by Burst Media, an online media and technology company, found that while 70% of respondents recalled seeing green ads at least occasionally, more than 20% said they never believe the claims. Two-thirds say they only believe the claims sometimes.

Before you risk overstating your company’s use of clean technology, check out the Federal Trade Commission’s Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims. Issued by the FTC in cooperation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), they can help ensure that your company’s green claims don't run afoul of the law.