As the media market dwindles, reporters are on the move, jumping jobs, changing beats and increasingly strapped for time and resources to do their due diligence when reporting. Moreover, there is stronger emphasis on speed versus accuracy. In fact, if you remember, Wall Street Journal’s managing editor issued a memo to staff in March saying that given revenue reality, all the Journal’s reporters will be judged by speed first, then everything else.

The result: sloppy journalism. – typos, misquotes, misattributes, and imbalanced reporting. With reporters focusing on being the first to report, the attitude is post now and adjust in real time as news unfolds. There is always time for getting the facts straight later, right? I’d say wrong, especially when a company’s reputation is involved.

So how do you hold journalists accountable, and how do clients who are misrepresented recover?

The Silicon Alley Insider wrote a story a couple weeks ago with a solution that caught my eye, “New PR: Beating Back Bad Press with Google AdWords.” The article talks about a PR practitioner that combats bad press from the New York Times in a non-traditional way – using Google Ad Words.

Traditionally, when a company is the subject of a critical or unfavorable news story, we recommend a more strategic approach to mitigate damage. Typically, this involves writing a letter to the editor, issuing a press release, or maybe even demanding a correction when warranted.  In some cases, using social media to address the issue head on with activists is appropriate. At the end of the day though, none of these tactics are guaranteed.

One of these instances involves a New York Times front page story about hoki, a fish best known as the primary ingredient in the Filet-O-Fish, being at risk of depletion. Needless to say New Zealand companies that farm hoki weren’t pleased by the article because it implied irresponsible overfishing.

When the Times refused to run a correction, the New Zealand Seafood Industry Council took a less diplomatic and non-traditional approach by buying Google ads for keywords like “new Zealand hoki “ and “hoki new york times” in hope of clearing the air.

According to the article, “The ads sought to target people discussing or searching for more information about the story. They each linked to a page that purports to set the record straight about hoki fishing and includes emails exchanged with Times science editor Laura Chang.” The Silicon Alley Insider calls this move “Genius”!

Also, reported is that “Because the council’s hoki page was originally a straightforward description of the fish and its uses, the Times had linked to it in the third paragraph of the article, and 78,000 people clicked though, according to Sarah Crysell, a spokeswoman for the council. Taking advantage of that incoming traffic, the group transformed its hoki page into a rebuttal of the Times story.”

The PR firm involved coins this strategy “media accountability” – which I love. He claims it is his way of “holding the media accountable for their deliberate falsehoods” and dealing with “arrogant reporters who have a one-sided agenda.”

 The Silicon Alley Insider says the firm is representing their client’s interests like any other PR agency should and would.  And, doing it with Google AdWords is just a more novel and clever way of shedding like on the editor’s reprehensible behavior.

It’s hard to argue the effectiveness of this “hoki” tactic in terms of guerilla marketing within an overall communications strategy, however I do question its legitimacy as a stand-alone PR practice given that it’s no longer “earned media” but rather a “sponsored ad”. It’s like assuming the public perception of an advertorial and an article bylined by a reporter are the same.  It’s a rapid fire and easy to execute band aid to a problem, but not a long-term solution. The New Zealand Seafood Industry Council needs a more sustainable marketing approach to help them address this and other issues with those constituents that are central to their business. Tell us what you think.

BTW I know it has been ages since I have posted to this blog! I’ve been finding it hard to keep up with these past few months, but I’ll get back into it soon.  Stay tuned…

In the meantime, humor me and please take this survey. It’s quick and painless. Only takes 10 seconds!
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By Sahana Jayaraman for Pepperdigital, Peppercom’s digital blog

Over the centuries, tea trade has shaped culture and significantly influenced power and politics in both the East and the West. Therefore, it should be no surprise that, in today’s digital world, Tata Tea, a staple household brand of ”Chai” or tea, in India, is taking its role in society seriously.

See this recent Ad Age article on their new Indian ad spot, “Jaago Re.”  In Hindi, the national language of India, Jaago Re translates to “Wake Up.”  Naturally, its expected that a key selling point for tea drinkers is its ability to wake you up in the morning!

According to the author of the article, Sourabh Mishra , the “ad started with a campaign for the brand based on the proposition ‘Jaago Re,’… But the leap in the thinking happened when they took the ‘Wake Up’ proposition beyond the physical waking up to a larger call for social action.”

India often complains of having a large “gap” between those living in high rises and those living in the slums. This poses many challenges across the board – especially for marketing to the masses. Tata looked to advertise  to this very “gap” –masses of educated middle-class people.

In an effort to grab their attention, Tata honed in on an issue central to their role in India’s society with a problem-solution approach to this controversy. Seemingly just another ad spot, the message to “wake up” signified a far greater call to action than encouraging folks to buy and drink tea.

A problem that needs attention

This year, marks a general election year in India, the largest democracy in the world. As Mishra articulately explains:

A widely acknowledged problem in India is the large percentage of no-show voters, especially from the educated middle classes. So now you have this TV commercial from Tata Tea, wherein a group of young men is exhorting people to “Jaago Re” (wake up) and go out and vote on election day, because if they don’t vote, that means they are sleeping. They are handing out cups of Tata Tea to wake people up and send them to the ballots.

Sounds a little like MTV’s Rock the Vote, huh? Well, it gets better.

At first, one may feel this strategy has the risk of alienating the middle class by evoking a sense of guilt. However, instead, Tata empowers the younger generation and is very careful not to blame the people they target, but rather the infamous “process” of Indian politics. The underlying problem behind this issue is the hassle and corruption involved in the bureaucracy of voter registration. This is why the second part of the ad spot is simply genius!

A solution for change

The solution the ad suggests is at www.jaagore.com. The site’s look and feel is patriotic and appeals to a younger audience. The tag line, ‘Jaago Re! One Billion Votes’ screams out at you from the homepage. Once you enter the site it offers you all the information you need to become an awake and “conscious” citizen. It outlines the registration process in detail, tells you where you can go to register in your city, the benefits of registering, how to get others involved through Facebook, Orkut, and by volunteering. It’s a one stop source on voting.

Tata not only brings social awareness to a very real problem but becomes part of the solution as well. As Mishra states, “The brand team stood conventional wisdom on its head and used digital to connect with mass India. The brand message is an intrinsic part of this movement to “wake up” the slumbering Indian voter and get him to take part in electing his leaders.”

The article points out that the only reason this campaign was made possible was because someone understood the possibilities of reach using a digital medium.

The Tata Group, who owns Tata Tea, is a multinational conglomerate based in Mumbai, India. The group invests in businesses associated with steel, automobiles, information technology, communication, power, tea and hotels. In terms of market capitalization and revenues, Tata Group is the largest private corporate group in India and has been recognized as one of the most respected companies in the world over the years. Needless to say the company has been an icon of India.

Serving as a double entendre, “Wake Up” is a creative message for the Tata Tea brand. When this campaign concludes, whether Tata Tea sales are up or not, they have successfully positioned themselves as a socially responsible corporation cognizant of their power to persuade the masses. I’d say, for an multinational like Tata, that makes excellent PR sense.

My guest post for Peppercom’s  Pepperdigital blog 

According to an Associated Press article that appeared in USA Today, “Made-to-order magazine lets readers choose.” Time Inc. is pilot testing a customized magazine that combines reader-selected sections from eight publications to create a new magazine compilation called mine. In an effort to mimic the personalized news feeds that has become ever so popular online, this experiment tests the extent to which people appreciate aggregated content by applying the method to Time’s magazines.

The article states, “The five-issue, 10-week experiment also aligns readers with the branding message that its sole advertising partner, Toyota Motor Corp., has for its new Lexus 2010 RX sport-utility vehicle: It’s as customizable as the magazine carrying its ads.”

As of right now, the magazine is of free subscription. The print edition is limited to the first 31,000 respondents, while an online version is available for another 200,000. If you are interested in checking it out or signing up for a free subscription, you may do so at www.timeinc.com/mine. I’ll be looking forward to receiving mine soon. 

You can pick your five favorites from eight different Time Warner/Amex publications listed for your personalized magazine. Titles include, Time, Sports Illustrated, Food & Wine, Real Simple, Money, In Style, Golf, and Travel + Leisure.  Editors will pre-select the stories that make it into each biweekly issue, and readers won’t have the option of switching their “top five” list of publications from one issue to the next.

The entire experience will have Toyota written all over it.  Even when you subscribe, you are asked a few simple and generic questions such as, “Do you crave sushi or pizza?” This sort of survey strategy allows Toyota to direct hyper-targeted messages geared towards a user’s persona. Having come up with the idea for mine, Toyota will be the single and only advertiser nabbing four full-page ads per issue.  Apparently, the cost of this program is comparable to that of one of their standard advertising campaigns. In fact,the company’s VP of marketing suggests that this campaign is more targeted and that the message of “driver inspired” and “customization” will resonate far greater with this medium.

Time Inc.’s president of advertising sales and marketing, Stephanie George, says in the article, “The mine experiment represents the latest effort by traditional media organizations to appeal to readers increasingly accustomed to picking and choosing what they read on the Internet. Online advertising, through growing, hasn’t generated enough revenue to offset declines in print; personalized print products could help fill some of the gap.”

Here is another eye-catching excerpt from the article:

“This summer, MediaNews Group, publisher of The Denver Post, the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News and other newspapers, plans to experiment with its own reader-created publication, likely at its Daily News in Los Angeles. Readers will be allowed to choose specific stories, or those by author, keyword or subject. Details on that venture are expected next month.”

Now, reading all this probably has you questioning a few things. First, will these media ventures succeed? Lately, our lives have been tough enough, with newspapers shutting down and media laying-off staff.  Now what?  How will this impact our world in PR? Will we be forced to compete with the cash flow advertisers are using to sustain these publications? Gasp. 

The good news is that we’ll find out fast.  The promotion of mine kicks off this Friday and both Toyota and Time will be conducting extensive research on consumer reaction.

We’ve been hearing this for awhile now. In fact, if you read our previous post, “Silicon Valley Tech Gurus Claim What’s Hot When It’s Not So Hot,” Elisa Ackerman from The San Jose Mercury News cited non-profit and privately sponsored journalism as a growing trend over the next five years.

I also recall in the book Groundswell that authors Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff claimed, “RSS is the grease that lubricates the groundswell.”  They talk about how RSS feeds or, customizable content such as mine, accelerate mechanisms that drive groundswell and can very quickly signify whether the masses’ are for or against a product, company, etc.  We no longer rely on the institutions to tell us.

At the end of the day, the groundswell will decide, and it’s all just survival of the fittest. What happens if Travel & Leisure magazine doesn’t get “chosen” as much as the others? With initiatives like mine, the process of natural selection will work itself out much faster –with the assessment of publications, content, editors–and even the advertisers.

Tell me what you think.

This is a post I’ve been wanting to write about for several weeks, but I just have not had time to get it up. At this point it’s just a brain dump so take it for what its worth.

After all the buzz about Slumdog Millionaire, both in the U.S. and among the Indian community, I was compelled to watch the movie. Having lived in India in a high-rise Flat across the water from a slum where many of our child servants lived, the movie was hard to swallow for several reasons that you can imagine (don’t want to give away scenes if you haven’t seen it). Anyway, I left the theater feeling down, instead of up. I felt it very hard for me to handle some scenes and I actually considered walking out. I ended up watching the whole thing. After leaving the theater and entering a discussion about it, I gained a new perspective – wasn’t completely sold on why others loved it so much, but began to understand their point of view.

It wasn’t the scenes of poverty that affected me, but it was the manipulation of innocent children that upset me the most. The whole time I was watching, I knew all the bad stuff was bona fide and true, and that the message of hope (the game show) was so far far from reality.

Since the release of the movie, I find random people, from the nurse in the dentist’s office to the cable car driver, asking me for my opinion about the movie. The conversation typically includes them telling me that they read somewhere that Indians were upset by the movie because it brought India bad PR, and they ask me my take. For the record, I agree it isn’t the best portrayal of India, but I am fine with it because it was real, it was nicely directed, and because ultimately it had good intentions and brought the country accolades. And how does it matter if its bringing light to an important and real issue. It is what it is.

I recently watched a 20/20 special on the Children of the Mountain. The special by Diane Sawyer reports on rural children living in Appalachia. I encourage anyone reading this to watch the videos if they haven’t seen the show. It is eye-opening and in many ways reminds me of SlumDog. Even in America, a country known (or that was known) for its riches, slums and poverty exist. This series left me feeling the same way SlumDog did, depressed and hopeless. Just like in India, we choose to turn a blind eye, or even worse are ignorant to it and there are systems so far imbedded in our infrastructure that feed the cycle generation after generation — just like in India. Its movies and shows like these that serve a purpose to jolt us into reality before we go back to our own worlds again.

The videos show how corporate America plays a role in these unfortunate circumstances and how the government doesn’t react until its too late.

• Overview 
• Irreversible damage done by pharmaceutical company
•  Toothless because of Mountain Dew

My point in sharing this isn’t to dampen moods, or bring shame to America, or to strike debate on whether SlumDog was bad PR. Its simply to show yet another example that such things exist everywhere. I think the truth is powerful no matter who it is about. And, I don’t think India is a victim when shows like 20/20, or other American documentaries showcase the tragedies within our society all the time. The stories that are different and foreign just stand out and inherently become more sensationalized. Especially when they are nominated for an Oscar Award.

Guest post by Sahana Jayaraman for Peppercom’s Digital blog, PepperDigital

If you are a girl (or have a girl in your life) that loves chick flicks you might have heard excitement over Confessions of a Shopaholic., Walt Disney Co.’s upcoming comedy about a young woman who is a compulsive shopper. Being one of those girls myself, the trailers for the movie caught my attention. It wasn’t just the upbeat soundtrack, reference to fabulous couture and shopping that captivated me. It was also the constant advertisement of Bluefly.com, the publicly traded company who sponsored Project Runway and has recently been in the news for its plummeting stock prices. The official movie site redirects to Bluefly.com

Last May, when the Sex and the City movie came out, I remember the distinct urge to go shopping after watching it. I wanted to leave the Cineplex and walk the halls of the mall with my gal pal. The trailers for Confessions of a Shopaholic played into those same emotions. At first, I thought, what a brilliant idea for them to bring in an online retail partner, and how smart of Bluefly.com to leverage such a unique partnership especially when retail is hurting so badly.

Then, one afternoon, when I went to Bluefly .com, I realized the “bargains” I was expecting weren’t all that affordable for the average shopper. That’s when I began thinking — gosh, from a PR standpoint, what bad timing.

Here we are, as a society, devastated by a credit crisis and worried about keeping jobs and paying mortgages, while this movie makes merry of a young woman whose shopping habit plunges her into debt and financial woe.

Yesterday, I came across an article in the Los Angeles Times that addressed my question, the gist of the which was:

Although it may seem like the worst possible moment to release a movie — even a comedy — about overspending, Disney marketers and “Shopaholic’s” producer believe that the bleak economic climate could work to the PG-rated film’s advantage.

“The timing for this movie couldn’t be better,” producer Jerry Bruckheimer said. “This is the journey of a young girl who has a problem and she turns her life around. It’s a tale the whole world can learn a lesson from,” added Bruckheimer, who had the project in development for eight years before it was made.

Could this be an advantage? Will they be able to turn this unfortunate circumstance on its head?

To read more click here.

This brings me to the purpose of my post. In my last post on AMEX I gave kudos to the exec(s) that made the decision to continue certain customer service gestures that humanized the brand, such as sending flowers. I mentioned how in this economy companies should cut back carefully and closely review the ROI with each of their spends.

Well recently I read this article on MSN, Recession? What recession? Let’s Party!, about hard economic times and companies’ decisions on whether or not to host holiday parties. To this point, AMEX, amidst layoffs earlier this year, made the executive call not to throw a holiday bash. Some other companies who have also experienced massive layoffs on the other hand plan to continue with their annual tradition. One company featured in the article claim they must go on with party plans simply because event venues had been booked months prior to any layoff announcements, and canceling would mean throwing away all that money already spent.

As I thought about it myself I could understand both sides of the issue– management not wanting to throw a holiday celebration when a company has had to let go of hundreds of people right before the holiday (sort of bad PR), but also the necessity for them to keep spirits up and thank those hard working individuals who have shown commitment to the company (a good corporate message).

So I pose the question. If a company is forced to lay off in masses, is it appropriate to have a holiday party?

To: Sahana

From: Holly Green

Last night my buzzer rang and from the lobby I heard a voice, “Sahana, you have a floral delivery.” I paused for a minute, thought about the date… “No, it isn’t a special occasion, isn’t my birthday…”

I ran downstairs to see what this was all about. The delivery man handed me a beautiful pot with a vibrant green plant assortment.

I opened the card and it read …. [click here to read the rest]

Last week, we represented PepperDigital at Silicon Valley’s PRSA 2009 Media Predicts event held at the Computer History Museum. The annual dinner event hosts a panel of Valley tech media insiders who highlight the tech happenings of the current year and offer projections for the following – what’s hot and what’s not.

It has been awhile since i’ve blogged, but I was compelled to today as I was surprised by Google’s new SearchWiki tools [I say "new" lightly - it launched in Nov.] At any rate, you might have noticed that if you are signed into your Google account and browsing the Web next to each of your search results is an option to “remove” “promote” or add a “comment” to your search.

I quickly did a Google search to learn more…below is an article from BetaNews. Through the “See all notes for this SearchWiki” link, a user can cross-reference his query results with another user’s. Each user’s comments remain his own, and do not affect others’ searches. And, the “2.0″ nature of SearchWiki allows the efficacy of search results to be tested against other users’ satisfaction and preferences – sort of similar to Digg, but for search results.

So this poses the question – will this fundamentally change the way we conduct SEO?

A post on Lead Maverick argues the following points…

First, the Google SearchWiki is only available to those who are logged in to a Google account. While this is a tremendous amount of users, it is not the whole universe of those who use Google.

Second, it does require the user to interact with the search results page. For some, this may be more than they want to do if they are researching a topic and quickly want to view the information from the source.

Third, the default view that is presented to users is still based on Google’s personalized search options – which have always been specific to the expected needs of the user.

And finally, although an obvious point, it is worth remembering that Google does not own 100% of the searches out there; this will not affect searches on Yahoo!, Live Search, Ask and the other search engines.

If anything this presents an opportunity to get additional organic rankings for those Google users who start looking at the SearchWiki notes for keywords.

Ultimately, it is agreed that it is still too early to determine if this new Google SearchWiki will alter the field. But it certainly forces us to reassess the role SEO plays.

The article did, however also suggest how marketers may take advantage of Google SearchWiki

1.     If you do not have a Google account, get one! You will need to be logged in to Google in order to see this new feature.

2.     Start researching your keyword list in Google and do the following – move your listings up! Although you will be the only user who sees your listing up at the top of your page, your listing will get added to the “all notes” public page for that particular search term. In a sense, this notes page will become a secondary SERP page based on user behavior. Although Google says that the user behavior will not influence the search algorithm for other users, they very well could change that in the future.

3.     Add comments to your listings in the SERP SearchWiki. This is THE MOST important thing you can do RIGHT NOW. Comments are available to other users and form an extra layer of content for your listing. You MUST be aggressive in this as others will comment as well.

A lot of commentary on Google SearchWiki has appeared online including an excellent article in Search Engine Land on how it works (Google SearchWiki 101: An Illustrated Guide article); and on eWeek.com on how businesses can use this SearchWiki (Google SearchWiki a Genius Stroke to Keep Us in Google, Seeing Ads article). Also you may read about the launch of the Google SearchWiki on Google’s blog.