WD-40 Company has trusted Nuffer, Smith, Tucker as its PR agency for more than 15 years.  When the company said it wanted to further position itself as a socially responsible business, establish WD-40® as a staple in the automotive aftermarket, and educate automotive end-users about the product’s many uses, NST went to work right away to help build the WD-40/SEMA Cares Camaro.  Partnering with leaders in the automotive world to build a custom vehicle that could travel the West Coast, turn heads and be auctioned off for a good cause, NST also utilized the build partners as credible aftermarket experts to promote the ways they use WD-40 in their shops.

Live Tweeting

Along with traditional PR outreach, which led to articles about the vehicle on AutoBlog, CarandDriver.com, the Huffington Post and the Detroit Examiner, NST also created a special tab on WD-40’s Facebook page that highlighted the program, and live tweeted from the Barrett-Jackson Classic Car Show and Auction to keep fans up to speed.  NST also worked with Cie Studios to create a virtual version of the vehicle that could be raced in Nitto 1320 Legends, an online racing game and social network.

Got results?  The WD-40/SEMA Cares Camaro sold at auction for $75,000, with all proceeds benefiting Childhelp® and The Victory Junction Gang® Camp children’s charities.  Following are some more results from the program:

Facebook Tab

Online Media Reach: 35,067,183 impressions
Broadcast Media Reach: 1,000,000 viewers
Print Media Circulation: 560,830 readers

Total Event Reach: 1,310,000 in-person visitors
Nitto 1320 Legends: 1,000,000 members
Twitter Buzz: 1,000 tweets about the vehicle

Congratulations to Matt Tachdjian, the winning bidder, and to all who made this a successful program!

Tiger Woods spent about 14 minutes doing what he should have done nearly three months ago: he took his head out of the sand trap and decided to address his crisis head-on, albeit in a tightly controlled environment.

Better late than never, and we can spend hours rehashing the premise of acting quickly to manage a crisis (hundreds did it when news broke last fall, myself included, and more will berate him for waiting too long).  What Tiger did accomplish today was take that critical first step down the longest fairway of his life.  Rather than jump on the bandwagon and dissect everything he did wrong in his “no-questions-asked press conference,” here’s a look at what did well:

• Pulling his head out of the sand.  Crisis management is pure hell loaded with fear and uncertainty for any organization, let alone one individual, unaccustomed to dealing with panic.
• Acknowledging it was his own behavior and actions that led to his tarnished image and brand.  He didn’t make excuses and took accountability.
• Pointing out he veered from his personal set of values.  Very few in a crisis situation get this, that reputations and brands are built and will fall based on values.
• Admitting the impact of his actions on others, particularly his wife and kids; additionally, his fans – children in particular, topping it off with acknowledging he failed as a role model (Charles Barkley be damned).
• Asking to believe in him, not right away, but over time.  Tiger knows he needs to regain trust, from his family, from the corporate sponsorship world, from his peers and from his fans – and he also knows that’s a feat that won’t happen simply in the days and weeks ahead.  It will be his actions over a longer period of time – off the course.

Check out this interview on KUSI News on Tiger Woods’ first public appearance http://bit.ly/dff9ei

The annual Edelman Trust Barometer shows modest gains among three-quarters of the industries monitored, and findings point to these institutions doing the right thing and a level of increased transparency amidst a perilous global economy.  What’s more interesting, however, is an expectation that governments and companies will revert back to old habits.  That only tells us these gains are fragile and there’s a likelihood for future Barometer reports to highlight declining trust and expectations.

What better time is there to further build relationships and credibility than when trust is climbing?  Smart institutions will invest emotionally and intellectually by working with their stakeholders in identifying what stakes in the ground their trust is rooted in, tap into those beliefs and build upon them.  Doing so, these institutions could emerge from this recession not only stronger, but also with a competitive advantage – stakeholders in their camps.

The report also lays out a suggested path in building trust – a mosaic.  In short, it’s actively involving and engaging a network of stakeholders, including NGOs, to affect change within your organization and industry.  The concept isn’t so new.  Conceptually, it’s much like the coalition building model many of us toy with, yet primarily in issue and crisis management situations.  What the report is suggesting, and it makes perfect sense, is deploying this model as an everyday, long-term business principal, not for short-term objectives and means.

The report also seems to paint a picture of traditional media being left out of the loop in this mosaic.  Traditional media, unsurprisingly, continues to witness declines in trust, giving organizations more reason to question traditional media’s necessity.  Smart traditional media companies, however, would be wise to heed to the report’s call to get closer to stakeholders.  Even smarter ones will make drastic changes in their business model – and that’s not figuring whether a paywall for online content makes sense.  It’s about delivering upon expectations.  Right now, according to the report, that isn’t much.

Next up in the Tiger Woods pandemonium is the privacy debate.  Did a man in the public eye get stripped of his privacy by being forced to reveal his “transgressions?”

Let others take chip shots at that.  Instead, Tiger Woods the brand lost any privacy when he carved an image that personified high family and moral values.  Since his junior golf days, he, his family and his handlers meticulously crafted a brand of integrity, dignity, determination, competitive fire and loyalty.  His charitable endeavors and commercial endorsements further exemplified the Tiger Woods brand.

Successful brands reflect character – who you are and what you stand for, and clarifying that character is paramount.  It’s the centerpiece of an authentic and transparent brand proposition.  The Tiger Woods brand consistently delivered on its expectations on and off the golf course.  The brand experience was highly attractive to be repeated by fans, endorsers, news media and even his competitive foes, all telling of great stories and experiences with anything Tiger Woods.  Like any great brand, it’s more about what people say after you’ve left the room than what you say about yourself, and the Tiger Woods brand was molded perfectly to suit that.

But then the mold began to crack around Thanksgiving. It happens.  No brand will last without error, especially one that is human.  The smart brands, or at least those with smart handlers, realize that and are equipped to address any fissure in the brand – quickly. That’s where the crack in the Tiger Woods brand began to widen.  Rather than address any issues head on – the late, great golf teacher Harvey Penick always extolled “take dead aim” – the Tiger Woods brand went into bunker mode.  Control of the brand was lost – others filled the void while the brand was mum – and it was exacerbated by a refusal to talk with cops on three different occasions and apparent denials about extra-marital affairs.

And then the skeletons started coming out of the closet.  Instead of a New York City nightclub promoter, and we may hear more on that down the road, we’re hearing about hook-ups with a reality TV star and a Las Vegas nightclub marketing manager.

A brand is also your every action and deed, including inaction in a crisis situation.  The Tiger Woods brand ceded control; it can be regained, but it will be the longest tee shot in the man’s career.

The social media fervor is pushing people, brands, government and hosts of others on a frenetic pace to build cult-like followings.  The risk here is witnessing the failure of these purported stakeholder relationships when these followers look behind the curtain and find Oz is a crusty old man spewing nothing but false promises.

History is littered with companies failing to adapt quick enough as consumers and markets change, and not engaging with stakeholders in social media is the next black hole.  Social media, however, is but one means – albeit increasingly powerful and important – of building relationships with your audiences.  It’s another tool in your communication arsenal, and long before you even think of dipping your toe into the pool, re-examining your brand and how it plays out both offline and online is the second most crucial step.

The first is accepting that consumers are in charge and they’re expectations are on the rise.  They demand more choices – in products and services, where they shop and eat, and where they get their information. They engage in conversations about products and issues – hardly paying any attention to the old school, one-way message marketing tactics – and more often than not, those discussions don’t directly include you, me or any other brand.

Couple the power of consumer control with the realization of the dynamics of a changing marketplace with intense global competition, and brand strategies should become a more frequent priority for any company.  But, please, for the love of whomever you pray to, a brand is so much more than a logo or tagline.  A brand is your competitive advantage that differentiates you from your competition.  News flash: It’s how others perceive you, and you can leave it to them to shape your brand or proactively do it yourself.

Think of this about your brand well in advance of spending 30 seconds to create your Twitter account (what’s more, long before executing any marketing tactic, including the news release):

•    A brand must consistently deliver on expectations
•    At the core of a meaningful brand relationship is a compelling story and a memorable product experience that is attractive enough to repeat
•    A brand is more about what people say after you’ve left the room than what you say about yourself

Successful brands reflect character – who you are and what you stand for, and clarifying that character is paramount.  It’s the centerpiece of an authentic and transparent brand proposition.  Following that, look at your vision for success, scrutinize your markets and competitors; then identify your points of differentiation and build your brand proposition that is strategic and salient, authentic, transparent, and credible.

Ready?  Not quite.  Have you taken the time to listen to how your stakeholders perceive your brand now and how, or if, they’ll engage with you in the future?  When you’re ready to get this far, listen to them and, here’s the catch, fix your vulnerabilities – from operations to marketing – dip your toe into the pool and deliver value.

Related posts:

San Diego Social Media Symposium: It’s About Genuine Consumer Experiences

Social Media is About Staying Relevant

Message to Brands: Be Quiet and Listen

Jumping Into Social Media Without Strategy is Preparing for Doom

Social Media 101: Customer Satisfaction is Key

Take Action: 5 Reasons to Provide Customer Service Via Social Media

Considering a Blog? Some Favorite Quotes and an NST White Paper

Why Public Relations Should Drive Social Media

The changing media landscape.  We’re all grappling with it these days, from consumers looking for trusted sources of information to content producers (old school outlets to the bright shiny object outlets) to brands, marketers and the PR gang alike looking to engage consumers.

There isn’t a magic pill or bullet, other than the realization the game has changed and staying on the sidelines won’t just make benchwarmers of us, hoping for a call from the coach to rush the field and show our mettle – it will just make us obsolete.

“If you want to stay relevant, you need to be there,” said Rob Hopwood, Internet content producer and social media specialist at SignOnSanDiego, at our inaugural San Diego Social Media Symposium when talking about how The San Diego Union-Tribune is delving deeper into social media. (Full disclosure, The U-T and SignOn are a client.)

Being there, Hopwood points out, involves exploring the full gamut of social media tools at our disposal, not just throwing up a Facebook or Twitter page.  He, and just about every panelist, drove home the clear message that social media is more than the creation and execution of a couple hip, in-the-now shiny objects and more about investing the time in identifying where your consumers are in the social media spectrum and listening to what they’re saying and want from your brand.

And that’s precisely where most fail – not just in social media, but also in communicating and marketing to consumers, period.  Consumers have too powerful of a voice to be ignored, and the days of only spewing pre-fab messages to them are not waning, they’re dead.

Even old-school journalists are starting to do the same.  In frequent sidebars and small talk with consumer and industry reporters, we’re finding journalists are getting more deeply involved in social media.  They’re spending the time learning what their readers, viewers and listeners want from them, and taking that knowledge back to their editors and producers with compelling arguments on what stories to tell.  They’re using Web analytics to measure their traction, and they’re building their own individual brands while serving the over-arching brand of their employer.  They’re not waiting for their execs to figure out how to monetize the use of Web and social media content, but instead proving the value of these tools (and creating personal job security).  They’re being relevant by being there – listening, experimenting, learning.

The more often old-school journalists strap up in this new playing field, the more balance we’ll see in news reported in social media outlets, and that will only protect their relevancy.  SDSU Professor Tim Wulfemeyer, another panelist, quips that while bloggers and citizen journalists spout off with little verified information, the “legacy media” – as he calls it – will continue to have the wherewithal to vet and verify, even in the age of using social media to reach people.  He also notes that the new FTC guidelines on disclosure will even the playing field – “Like legacy media, social media is all about credibility,” he said.

And that credibility comes with listening to your audience and building a relevant experience that is meaningful to them.

For more insight from the symposium, read “It’s About Genuine Consumer Experiences,” check out the panelist videos and peruse the tweets.

In trying to describe word-of-mouth marketing and social media as a tool to achieve that means to clients, friends and family alike, I often use the 1970s Faberge shampoo commercial as an example – “they tell two friends, and so on . . .”

Besides giving away my age, people seem to understand the word-of-mouth concept of consumers delivering advice on products, brands or issues on to other consumers.  Back in the day, those peer-to-peer endorsements were shared over dinner, at the office water cooler or coffee pot, the front porch or Little League. When the Smiths down the corner thought the Italian bakery on Center Street was a slice of Italy, they told their two friends, and so on, and word spread gradually – days, weeks, maybe even months.  The same thing would happen when the Fitzgeralds felt they got the sham on their oil change at the local gas station.

What the Smiths and Fitzgeralds (I grew up in an old Irish neighborhood) shared was an experience, something they felt compelled to share with others – no other motivation than to give someone close to them some great advice and to forewarn.

Today, with the Internet and all its social media outlets, we’re talking a matter of hours and even minutes, and not just with the families in the row houses on your block.  An elated Mrs. Smith and PO’d Mr. Fitzgerald can reach entire communities locally and globally.  The bakery can sell out of cannolis overnight; the gas station can become vacant.

It’s precisely what John Moore, WOMMA’s chief evangelist, implored upon the audience at our inaugural San Diego Social Media Symposium: Give consumers a great experience, and they’ll share it with others.  Seems like a no-brainer, doesn’t it?  But how many brands or organizations realize that? And how many others make the effort to look deep inside at the experience they’re giving consumers?  Moreover, how many are willing to change when they discover the experience they thought they were providing wasn’t what consumers were receiving?

By experience, Moore points out, look at how Howard Schultz at Starbucks views it: It’s an emotional connection built on human connections, connecting with consumers who will drive future growth.  Moore also talks about Southwest Airlines and all its quirky behaviors from flight attendants to the pilots – and the no-fee baggage message is off the charts.  Consumers identify with it and share the experience with others.

Don’t buy the experience platform?  Here’s some valuable data from Moore:

•    76 percent of US consumers don’t believe companies are truthful in advertising.
•    78 percent (globally) trust recommendations from other consumers.

That notion alone should freak out every CEO and board chairman and force them into what Moore calls “Becoming a Talkable Brand” – the inside-out approach from which consumers talk about your brands, products, services in a genuine manner.  But don’t expect consumers to quickly and easily become your champion.  Spend time listening to them.  You may find you have to reinvent yourself on their terms.  When you do, you might discover you have evangelists creating the buzz you crave so much.

More to come this week on the symposium.  Meanwhile, download the tweets transcript (pdf) at http://bit.ly/SDSMStweets.

Update, Oct. 29, 2009: Check out the panelist videos and read “Social Media is About Staying Relevant” for more insight from the symposium.

Observations from the world’s largest fresh produce stand – PMA Fresh Summit:

Packed Floor
Reports from the floor indicate this year’s trade show was the association’s largest in its 60-year history with more than 20,000 attendees.  Some think it’s an indicator of an economy on the rebound, considering the expense for scores of marketers and sales folks to set up shop on the trade show floor.  Add to that the costs of the customer dinners, lunches and receptions, and from the looks of the morning hangovers (I’m fighting a combo sinus infection and allergy attack, so my consumption was a two-beer max), there were plenty of good times and cash flowing.

The prevailing theory, however, is consumers are turning to fresh produce more often in this economy – choosing to dine at home and forego family dinners out on the town.  Couple that with the national dialogue on health and swine flu scares, it’s more likely consumers are taking the bounty of fresh produce health benefits to their own kitchens and dinner tables.

Food Safety
Food safety was the dominant discussion on the floor and even outside the Anaheim Convention Center.  The fresh produce industry is well known for its very high self-regulation of an unregulated industry.  The challenge is our political administration is under the gun from various interest groups to establish standards and policies on an industry the administration has very little knowledge of.  What’s more, those on the floor say, it’s highly likely the administration will push down standards and policies with little regard for what the industry, grocery retailers and foodservice operators have done together to affect change.  Fortunately, leaders of the three channels have spent ample time in D.C. trying to bring our elected officials up to speed.

Social Media
Given all the talk and lightening-speed momentum in social media over the past year, it was astonishing to see what little (emphasis on minuscule) has taken hold in the fresh produce industry.  There were exorbitant amounts of discussions and displays about engaging with consumers, but you have to wonder if the industry is still grappling with what social media is and how it can bring consumer engagement to the next level – well beyond the product giveaways and numbers of friends/followers and the like.  The industry is missing a phenomenal opportunity in building true relationships and loyalty with consumers and in creating ROI for their customers.  It all hinges on strategy.

NST Cited in State of the Industry
Nuffer, Smith, Tucker’s Food Foresight trends anticipation collaboration with California Institute of Food and Agricultural Research at University of California, Davis was cited by PMA CEO Bryan Silbermann in his state-of-the-industry address Saturday morning. PMA is a long-time partner and client with NST. Earlier this year, the firm helped PMA design and facilitate a foodservice think tank with the National Restaurant Association and International Foodservice Distributors Association. The event, sponsored by Markon Cooperative, another NST client, brought together leaders from foodservice chains, distributor companies and produce suppliers together to identify collaborative opportunities for increasing produce usage at foodservice. The group put forth a plan to double usage of fresh produce in foodservice by 2020.

Great Food
I’m woefully inept when it comes to cooking with fresh produce.  The sights and smells of the fresh produce, and the amazing cooking demonstrations, kept me starving for hours on end.  Each year, I make a pledge to eat more produce, and today for lunch I had two burgers from the fast food joint down the street.  But I do have my sights set on making a mean stir fry this weekend.

TechCrunch, in its soap opera about the PR profession, finally made a valuable and worthwhile point: Our writing, collective as an industry, stinks.  I hate to admit it, but author Robin Wauters got it right in a rant about 10 Words I Would Love To See Banned From Press Releases.

Robin is dead-on accurate. Seeing those words in news releases is better at inducing vomiting than ipecac.  Are we lazy and leech onto the lowest hanging fruit when banging away at our keyboards?  Are we choosing sizzle over substance?  I know I’ve heard time and again until my ears bleed about what “sounds good.”  It might be fancy and sound or look good, but realistically we look like foolish grade-school writers and, worse yet, we embarrass our clients.  Every organization wants to talk about “quality” products or services, or “leadership” in a category or on an issue.  But are we clearly differentiating them from the competition?  If we can’t clearly define and back up what we’re writing, thus demonstrating a competitive advantage, then it’s just puffery falling on deaf ears.

Most of all, I suspect, is speed.  The 24/7 information cycle forces many of us to crank out material with little forethought on what we’re trying to accomplish.  Time is of the essence, but at the risk of clear, compelling and informative writing.

Here are the other culprits:

Colleges and universities: Classic liberal arts training, where writing well matters, is disappearing, and we’re getting a young workforce that literally struggles writing something as simple as a new product announcement or new hire release.  Not only are they challenged with how to write the release, but, moreover, with basic sentence structure, grammar and punctuation.  Yes, all you new grads out there will be peeved at me, but it’s true.  Many of us old folks in the profession lament about the quality of writing new grads have, but if you’re dedicated to writing well and are lucky enough to land a job at a place that has the same view, you’ll do just fine – just be prepared for some mentoring.

Social media:  Yes, I said it, social media is destroying the very essence of communication – human interaction, clear and skillful communication and, for *#&(@ sakes, good writing!  It seems to be more about getting information out fast and sacrificing proper grammar and excellence in writing.

PR Industry: Every firm or in-house communications department should ensure they at least have one resident word nerd on the team.  In our shop, all new hires – regardless of their level of experience – go through a lengthy writing program, and every product we produce goes through an arduous QC protocol.  What’s more, we all should follow the basic tenets of communication writing:
•    Identify a need, concern or interest
•    Present a desired behavior as a solution
•    Show the benefits of action and the consequences of inaction
•    Give your reader some rehearsal steps

Spell check: Just ban it, write and edit slowly, and pick up a dictionary.

Millenials: How can we xpct dem 2 care abt ritin good in 140 chrctrs or <?

Consider this:

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. – Rudyard Kipling

Most writers enjoy two periods of happiness – when a glorious idea comes to mind and, secondly, when a last page has been written and you haven’t had time to know how much better it ought to be. – J.B. Priestley

In many ways writing is the act of saying I, of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying listen to me, see it my way, change your mind. – Joan Didion

Dan Schawbel‘s post “6 Reasons You Shouldn’t Brand Yourself as a Social Media Expert” is the most poignant read I’ve come across on social media in months.  Everyone from PR, marketing to advertising is bottlenecking at the turnstile to hitch a ride on the social media expertise train.  What we end up seeing is rhetoric and puffery about Twitter and Facebook, and who knows what we’ll hear about Bing down the road. It frequently makes me wonder about the charlatans and snake oil salesman coming into the saloons of the Wild West.

I’ve been in this business nearly 20 years, and every five years or so there’s a new toy for industry to fawn over like hatchlings chirping for the next worm. Sooner or later, the toy just becomes part of the arsenal, and it’s the strategists – not the purported toy experts – who figure out the best means by which to utilize it to meet objectives.  About 15 years ago, it was Web sites. The necessary evil, every company, brand or product had to have one.  No one really knew why, but it was cool and everyone else, including the competition, was doing it – even if they were carbon copies of sales kits.  Web experts were as common back then as pollen in New England.  Years later, strategists figured out how Web sites served as an effective communication, marketing and sales tool.  The same is becoming true with social media.

That doesn’t mean we sit back and wait, but instead have a clear understanding of strategy.  Regardless of the wide range of communication and marketing tools at our disposal, strategy must still drive everything we do.

Everything hinges on strategy – from planning to execution.

1. If it’s a new-age tactic (Let’s get on Facebook because it’s the cool, new thing!) or an old-school approach (Let’s just write a news release and send it to the trade journal because they run your content), include it in your outreach arsenal only if it helps you support strategy.
2. Eliminate any tactic that doesn’t support strategy.
3. Traditional and new media aren’t mutually exclusive.  Traditional media are becoming savvier in new media and are  more engaged in the new media landscape, and they can help drive stakeholders to your new media tactics.
4. Randomly cherry-picking tactics for implementation (We’re on Twitter!) is preparing for doom.  Plan on a fully integrated approach with a mix of traditional and new media.
5. Building a Web site or social media platform is an accomplishment; getting people to visit your site, come back and motivate others to visit is a monumental achievement.  Is it built on strategy?  Have you talked with key audiences before planning your program?  Are you capturing data and using it?  Are you building loyalty and enthusiasts?  Is your site static or two-way?
6. Social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace are a terrific means by which to engage with audiences, but like all other tactics, it must support strategy and not be created because it makes you look hip.  It’s an investment not just in dollars but more in time and resources; you can’t build it and expect people to flock to your page.  How open are you to criticism?  If you’re not, you’re social networking efforts will fall flat because you have to go with the good and the bad, and turn negative comments into opportunities.  What are you doing to motivate people to come and tell others?
7. Internet video sites like YouTube attract a tidal wave of visitors  How can they find your video?  What are you doing to drive people to watch your news?  What are you asking them to do once they view it?
8. E-communities can help you capture vital data about your most loyal consumers and brand enthusiasts.  Engage them; don’t just talk at them.  Allow them to help shape your brand and products.  Motivate them to share your news and tell others.