360PR Blog

By Kerry Murphy

Last week’s Sandbox Summit at MIT left us thinking a lot about play. The power of play. The necessity of play. And most of all how we could incorporate play more into the way we do business here at 360.

When we talk about play, it is not just about games. It’s about the way we think and the way we interact. It is about effective communications and public relations in a multimedia, fast paced world. About flexibility, being nimble, knowing your next move, and enjoying it all along the way.

That’s play, right?

We liked how in the same day, at the same conference, play was talked about as something that can improve the future of our national education system (as Diana Rhoten from Startl told us) but also help to stimulate million dollar business ideas and strategies (Brendan Boyle and Duane Bray from Ideo).

What do you think? How do you think the power of play can best be harnessed?

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We are excited to announce that 360PR has been named “Boutique Agency of the Year” by The Holmes Report! What a great way to celebrate our 10th anniversary – we’ll be out in full force at the SABRE Award ceremony to toast to 10 more great years!

“…there’s no doubt that the past few years have seen the Boston-based firm establish itself as a formidable national player in the consumer arena, with strong capabilities in parenting and home products, entertainment and electronics, publishing and social media, and healthy living.”

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…they were all topics discussed in yesterday’s 360PR Tweets & Sweets meeting! The 360PR crew gathered around bowls of delectable spring-themed candy and salty snacks to chat about interesting social media and digital case studies from recent weeks. I took note of three trends based on the discussion:

- Late Night Social: PR people and brands aren’t the only ones integrating social media into communications efforts. TV producer’s have been getting creative with ways to keep audiences engaged via Facebook and Twitter. For example, Conan O’Brien recently live-posted on Facebook during an episode of his show, conducting hilarious video Q&As with fans during the program. The videos led to tons of engagement on the Facebook page. In addition, Jimmy Fallon has integrated social media within his show with the popular “Late Night Hastag” segment, which garners thousands of tweets surrounding each segment.

- Social Election 2012: The 2012 presidential election is right around the corner, believe it or not. And following President Obama’s heavy social media campaigning in 2008, candidates for the 2012 race are getting out in front with social media communications. For example, Mitt Romney released a video on Monday on YouTube announcing his entrance into the race. It has received over 80K views thus far. And, following Obama’s announcement on Twitter, Romney quickly tweeted back saying “@barackobama I look forward to hearing details on your jobs plan, as are 14m unemployed Americans.” This will be an interesting race to watch!

- Social Coupons: Some brands are taking advantage of the social couponing craze on Facebook, including Healthy Choice and Pretzel Crisps. Healthy Choice launched a “progressive” coupon on Facebook and the value of it increased the more people “liked” the brand’s page. The campaign was supported with a Facebook ad buy and “likes” jumped from about 6,000 to 60,000! In addition, Pretzel Crisps (a snack food favorite here at 360) has also gotten some positive attention lately, for their Facebook coupons. With a couple simple coupons, and Facebook’s viral nature, Pretzel Crisps was able to double their Facebook “likes” in about 36 hours!

Filed under: 360 Public Relations, Digital PR, FaceBook, Interactive Marketing, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Networking, YouTube by EliciaBasoli - No Comments →

By Kerry Murphy

Attention. This blog post is going to be revolutionary, cutting edge, unique and state of the art.  It will be the leading provider in blog satisfaction through its state of the art tone and delivery with its exclusive real time content.

Buzzwords. I think it’s safe to say that most of us communications professionals have been guilty of using, and overusing them, at one moment or another. Why do we do this? We know it’s wrong. We know it reflects poorly on us as communications (ironic, eh?) professionals. We know influencers hate it. We know these words end up as e-mails in spam folders and cause a glazing (or even rolling) of the eyes for those who read them.

So why do we do it? After reading PR Daily’s recent piece on the subject, we started talking and thinking about all this here at 360. What did we come up with? We don’t really know why these words are still so pervasive in the industry. Why they just won’t go away.

We at 360 pledge to make a conscientious effort to ban the buzzwords, get out a thesaurus, dig deep into those word and language sharp brains of ours, and come up with words that simply say what we want them to say and speak to the people we are trying to reach in a way that makes sense and delivers value for our clients.

What do you say? We’re in…

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By Caitlin Melnick

SXSW is known to many as the conference of all conferences. And as a first timer, I would have to say, it was pretty amazing. The Interactive portion of SXSW (SXSWi) wrapped up earlier this week, and what I heard from veteran attendees is that this year’s conference was bigger and better than ever. More attendees, more panels sessions, more brands, more parties, more technology, more brain power – all in one Southern city.

You can’t get away from the new technology at SXSW. Group texting services emerged during the event, with GroupMe, Fast Society, and Beluga all vying for the number one spot. The social influence measurement site, Klout, was also all the rage, with people asking “What’s your Klout score?” several times a day. The site has created a system to measure influence in the social media arena. It uses over 35 variables on Facebook and Twitter to provide a score based on True Reach, Amplification Probability, and Network. Klout Founder Joe Fernandez just may be the next Mark Zuckerberg!

SXSW has evolved to be one of the best forums for social media insights for brands, with sessions like The Council of PR Firms’ “Marketing Budgets Have Gone Social – Is It Working?” At a session entitled, “Brand Mascots in the Digital Age,” panelists discussed how to get classic brand mascots, such as Tony the Tiger and Cap’n Crunch, into the digital world without losing their classic persona.

How was your SXSW experience?

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The 2^nd annual Penny Arcade Expo East (PAX East) wrapped up yesterday. And, boy was it epic – with huge over-the-top booths from the big game companies, to a bevy of costumed characters roaming the city. Over 60,000 gamers descended upon 360’s hometown of Boston for an unforgettable weekend. We were out in full force with multiple 360 staff working the show floor. Check out some photos from the event on our Facebook page.

Massachusetts continues to shine as a “hub” for the worldwide video game industry. In fact, Massachusetts is home to numerous game development education programs from the MIT GAMBIT Game Lab to Becker College and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. We also have hundreds of developers in the area – from Turbine to Harmonix and Blue Fang Games.  In addition, dedicated organizations like New England Games SIG and Boston Post Mortem keep the local games community strong in Massachusetts. PAX East has emerged as the icing on the cake and something we’ll be looking forward to each year for years to come.

The local media was all over PAX this weekend. If you missed the show, but want to find out more, check out the  Boston Globe, Boston Herald and Mass High Tech!

Filed under: 360 Public Relations, Events and Conferences, Video Games by EliciaBasoli - 2 Comments →

You may remember 360 Social’s round-up of 2009 social media moments from last year. Well, in 2010, we turned the proverbial mic over to Lindsay Durr and Skye McIntyre. In this video, Lindsay and Skye recap some of the top moments from this year including everything from the Old Spice campaign and the surge in group deal sites, to the trend of “underage and online” and TIME’s “Person of the Year,” Mark Zuckerberg. Check it out!

Did we miss anything? Share in the comments…

Filed under: 360 Public Relations, FaceBook, Internet, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Networking, YouTube by EliciaBasoli - 2 Comments →

We’ve told you about our 360 “Tweet and Eat” lunches before. But, this month we put a different spin on it – instead of the middle of the day, we gathered in the conference room at the end of the day, so we could all enjoy a cocktail or two while sharing some interesting case studies around the use of social media. Here are just a few highlights:

Ford Explorer Facebook Reveal – Earlier this year, Ford took a risk by revealing the new Explorer with an online and Facebook-central campaign, something that other auto-makers have never done. They revealed the new Explorer for the first time on Facebook, instead of at a big auto show. In the first day it surpassed its goal of 30K fans and, as a result, gave a free Explorer to one random fan. In addition all of the components of the campaign on Facebook, Ford heavily invested in ad buys as well to drive people to Facebook and to encourage engagement. This is a great example of a fully integrated online campaign. Check out the full case study on Mashable.

Google Zeitgeist Video - Google has compiled a video, with the help of Whirled Creative, showing how the world searched online in 2010. Over 1.5 million views on YouTube thus far! The most brilliant part of this video is that it subtly shows off some new Google features that launched this year, such as Google Instant. We highly suggest checking out the video – well done, Google!

“Rent is Too Damn UP” Spoof Video – By coincidence, another examples highlighted by staff also came from Whirled Creative. If you haven’t heard of Jimmy McMillan he ran for office in NY earlier this fall and named his political party the “Rent is too damn high” party. Really, that was the name of his party. The eccentric McMillan appeared during a televised debate and the video garnered millions of views on YouTube. Whirled Creative created a spoof mash-up, overlaying the voices from the debate onto a scene from the Pixar movie “UP” which has received over 300,000 views. Perfect example of a “viral” video leveraging current events to garner views.

Happy Holidays!

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And I don’t mean the chocolate candy (although a Snickers sounds pretty good right about now)! The other SNCR (aka The Society of New Communications Research) held its 5^th Annual Research Symposium & Awards Gala recently in Palo Alto. John and I both were thrilled to attend and honored to accept two  “2010 Excellence in New Communications Awards” for 360PR!

Each year SNCR honors various individuals and organizations who are pioneering the use of social media. 360 was recognized for our work with Dorel Juvenile Group USA and their Safety 1^st brand (Multiple Platforms/Integrated initiatives category), as well as our work on behalf of You CAN Do the Rubik’s Cube (Online Publishing/ Facebook category). We are pumped to be among this group of 2010 winners, which included Old Spice, the 2010 SNCR Brand of the Year.

Actually, in addition to the awards ceremony, the highlight of the symposium was when Old Spice brand manager James Moorhead, presented the “Smell Like a Man, Man” campaign case study. The campaign, which Cindy blogged about this summer, has led to almost 2 billion impressions to date! A truly unbelievable viral success!

Filed under: 360 Public Relations, Digital PR, Events and Conferences, Industry Organizations, Social Marketing, Social Media by EliciaBasoli - 3 Comments →

As the saying goes, sometimes the best conversations take place around the dinner table. This was certainly true at the M2Moms conference . Colleague Caroline Pierce and I crossed paths with incredible mom marketers at the conference and enjoyed amazing ideation conversations over dinner with eleven amazing women. Didn’t hurt that dinner was at Table Fifty-Two on Elm Street. Beyond the food (some of us are still talking about the Three Cheese Mac and Art’s Hummingbird Cake), and the chance to meet Chef Art, there was terrific connection and conversation. Our dinner guests shared their top 11 takeaways from M2Moms. Here’s what they had to say:

1. One key influencer is more important to your brand than numbers.
2. A social media campaign is greater than sum of its CPM parts. With brand ambassadors – loyalty is priceless.
3. It’s the Me + You era and marketing is about fostering sustainable relationships.
4. There are 6 Universal Tugs that influence 75% of moms’ decision marking – savings, health, environment, feel good, convenience and family. Brands need to highlight how their product solves for them in their marketing. They also need to be aware of “drag” tugs that may pull them down and compensate for them. So, if your product is not good for the environment, it better be really convenient, and save you money.
5. I liked learning what brands and agencies need to know (the gaps they are currently facing) to tap into the mom demographic and their attempts to fill that gap.
6. Mobile is quickly becoming Mom’s “first screen” (used to be TV and then laptop but now moms are turning to their phones more and more frequently to accomplish their online tasks). When creating a mobile app for mom- don’t try to create the Taj Mahal. Create an app that does one thing really, really well and then push updates based on the real time feedback you’ll get. (Oh, and free apps are downloaded more frequently, stay on phones longer, and get used 6X more than paid apps).
7. Mom’s primary goal now is spending quality time with her kids and family. She’s looking for products and services that help her do that.
8. Moms are optimistic! They’ve had a tough year (with lost jobs, reduced hours, and often extra family members moving into the household) yet remain confident that things will get better. (They have plans to make major purchases, believe the job situation will improve, and think things will be more positive next year).
9. Moms are proud of what they’re doing as family caregivers and have a big desire to share and broadcast their lives as moms online.
10. Moms in nontraditional families, minority moms (including those with disabilities), and stay at home/ highly involved dads increasingly expect marketers to recognize (and celebrate) them. Marketers who continue to focus only on white Mom+Dad+2.5 kid families will alienate a lot of spending power!
11. I have spent my life under applying mascara. Thanks to the Dior team I now know I need to really lather it on!!! (you had to be there to get this one)

Thank you to: Jyl Johnson Pattee, Kat Eden, Erica Mallett, Caroline Knorr, Ashley O’Brien, Shelley Delfino, Carolin Pierce, Donna Mirus Bates, Jennifer Burkitt, Rachael Herrscher, Jill Rourke. Lady Gaga might have been there in spirit. She sat at our same table one month prior.

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By Caroline Pierce

360PR’s very own Cindy Gordon moderated a panel last week at M2Moms: The Marketing-to-Moms Conference on how brands can attract the Cool Mom.  The session was called “Moms Gone Wild: Winning Over The Cool Mom.” Joining Cindy on her panel was Molly O’Donnell from Xbox, who is in the midst of launching one of the coolest new products Xbox Kinect; Donna Mirus Bates from Universal Orlando, who just opened the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and Jyl Johnson Patee, Founder of Mom It Forward/Girls Night Out, who has mastered the technique of motivating moms to advocate on behalf of brands.

Marketers may think that it can’t be hard to win over the cool mom with cool brands like Xbox and Universal, but the insider tips shared even won “cool” praise for a baked beans company.  If these girls can make baked beans cool, anything can be cool!  Some of the top takeaways from the session were:

• Cool goes beyond aesthetics, style and packaging to include brand ethos. What a brand does outside of selling their product is important to mom – especially as it relates to helping families and the community
• Cool is naturally about packaging, branding and style, but also for mom it’s sometimes about a cool find, and something can be cool to mom if it is pragmatic and affordable
• Mom thinks brands that have a dialogue with her are cool – she’s looking for a relationship that shows the brand is listening and responding to what she has to say
• Cool used to be reserved for fringe brands discovered by NYC kids; now mom also discovers and decides what’s cool, i.e. Cynthia Rowley band aids anyone?
• Mom needs to be comfortable with making decisions, and information is key to her comfort.  She also likes to involve her friends, family in the decision process, so shareable videos, tips are important for a brand to be cool.

Also, the cool brand results from 360PR’s “Cool Brand Panel” are in! Check out which brands moms think are cool in 2010 and nominate your favorite cool brand for next year’s picks.

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360 recently hosted members of the new Boston Parent Bloggers Network for a discussion on what’s next for bloggers and brands and what’s working now.  The meeting was spurred by a rigorous schedule of blogger events we have underway this fall for an array of brands.

We’ve had great turnout at our first few events.  But if you’re a blogger, how many events for how many brands can you get to in a given week, especially if blogging is a part-time gig as it is for many?  And how can agencies and brands take it the next level?

All of the bloggers we met with are active on Twitter – some to promote their blogs and give-aways and others for purely social reasons.  The group agreed that on the whole Twitter is a platform for influencers, not the average consumer.  Facebook is also part of bloggers’ daily routines and bloggers “like” brands that fit their lifestyle.  If you’re not interacting with bloggers on Facebook, consider how you can.

Bloggers stressed that once they have become invested in a brand by participating in events, writing posts, etc., they expect to be kept in contact with.  The best programs, like relationships, are ongoing.  For example, a food council sent a different “recipe in a box” to bloggers every month for a year.

Bloggers said they’ll continue to take the time to go to events, but certain times work better than others – for mom bloggers it’s Monday-Thursday mid-morning, after school, or after 7PM.

Virtual events are catching on with busy bloggers.  Some factors for success include special access to a celebrity or other high-profile speaker, a charitable tie-in, and limiting the event to no more than one hour.

We talked about the value of tapping into existing events instead of, or to supplement, your own.  Conferences like Type A Mom, Blissdom and Blogalicious are drawing hundreds of bloggers and offer a captive audience for quality interactions.  But you have to have a strategy to stand out.

Bloggers are also interested in ambassadorships, which might entail producing content for a brand – a video series, for example.

When asked how they measure their influence and success, bloggers cited their loyal readers and the quality of their writing as most important.  It’s that personal relationship with their readers that continues to differentiate blogs from traditional media.  Brands that are succeeding in the blogosphere have a similar respect for bloggers, and an ongoing, integrated approach.

Many thanks to Christy Matte, Jodi Grundig, Erin Furey, Melanie Feehan and Kate Hayes for contributing their time and insights for this post.

Filed under: 360 Public Relations, Blogger Relations, Boston, Digital PR, Marketing to Moms, Social Media by LauraTomasetti - No Comments →

By Lindsay Durr

Last Friday 360PR stepped out of the office for the afternoon to participate in its annual summer outing. The office was abuzz the day before with speculation about the mystery outing. Guesses ranged from F1 Racing and Trapezing to umm… “dance lessons” (suggested by Mike Rush, of course!). We assembled in the conference room early Friday afternoon and learned that we would become the chefs du jour at Taranta restaurant in Boston’s North End. Yum!

In true 360 team fashion, we scoured the streets of the North End for fresh, local and organic ingredients and then set up shop at Taranta where executive chef and owner Jose Duarte and team helped us cook a delicious four-course lunch including Caprese salad, homemade ravioli, chicken and pork, and tiramisu. We made fresh mozzarella, rolled out handmade pasta, stuffed pork loin, and whipped fresh mascarpone for the delicious dessert!

All in all, the outing left us full of great food and even better memories! I’m already wondering what’s in store for 2011!

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A few of us from 360PR attended the BlogHer 2010 session entitled, “The FTC Guidelines: After A Year, Has Anything Changed?” The panel included BlogHer’s co-founder and CEO, Lisa Stone, marketer Susan Getgood, blogger Kimberly Coleman and Stacey Ferguson from the FTC who discussed whether the Guidelines have had any significant impact on how marketers and bloggers do business.
 
The FTC endorsement guidelines became final in December 2009, and Stacey Ferguson said, “The point of the guidelines is to ensure that there is no deception in advertising, and to provide transparency to consumers.” The FTC Guidelines are just that – they are guidelines, not laws. There are no fines for violating the FTC guidelines, but transparency is always best practice. The guidelines are intended to help consumers, endorsers and brands.
 
The main takeaway from the session for bloggers was to be absolutely sure they are always being transparent – their readers should understand their connection to the brand.

The panel encouraged bloggers to think about it more as valuing their relationship with their readers.  If a blogger is endorsing a brand, the endorsement should be natural, clear and organic.

The FTC guidelines intentionally don’t tell bloggers how to make their disclosure because they want it to be in the blogger’s voice. Some suggestions:

• The best disclosure is always within context of the post or Tweet rather than at the end of a post or using a hashtag on Twitter that might not be clear, for example #sp (I didn’t know what that stood for and most consumers probably don’t either! #sp = sponsored post).
• There are three rules of thumb: make the endorsement clear, make it prominent and make it unavoidable.

The main takeaway for the brands was that at the end of the day it’s the brand’s responsibility to be sure endorsers are properly disclosing. Brands need to make it clear what they expect from their endorsers, but the disclosure should be in the blogger’s voice so it feels natural.
 
There seems to be some confusion regarding guidelines for traditional media versus bloggers, however, traditional media has always had to follow the same guidelines! The difference is that it’s about audience understanding. It is generally understood by the audience that traditional media is receiving products to review for free.

There was also discussion about celebrities and folks from the audience were wondering if celebrities get a free pass. Kim Kardashian has tweeted that she is craving a Carl’s Jr. salad. Even though she does receive a hefty $10,000 per sponsored tweet, the FTC called Kim Kardashian after she tweeted about the Carl’s Jr. salad to ask if she was contracted to do those tweets. The answer was no. Celebrities are not getting a free pass.

Do you think anything has changed after one year?

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Bloggers felt the embrace of brands who planned out involving and playful interactions for them at BlogHer10. There was every manner of entertainment at the show, from happy mascots and hi-energy dance floors, to coloring stations and full-on hair salons!

At this year’s event in particular, I was struck by how many bloggers were turned into brand “spokespeople” right in front of my very eyes through highly creative and video-worthy stunts and campaigns.

In a nutshell, putting bloggers on camera talking passionately about a particular topic led to a whole lot of third-party endorsements for brands. On the flip side, bloggers didn’t seem to mind their starring role in the brand videos; in fact they seemed to welcome the opportunity to be on camera, bringing to mind the possibility of a future BlogHer Reality TV series?

Please read my short letters to the brands to learn why they were the video stand-outs, extending their brand through video in the most distinctive ways.

Dear Walmart,

You are very bright.

I applaud your focus on selling products that sustain people and the environment, and I admire that you knew it would be the perfect theme for BlogHer. I like how you took a page from the Grammy’s playbook by inviting bloggers who are passionate about the quality of life on our planet to tweet their “bright” ideas for creating a sustainable future, and then feeding their tweets in real time on the giant video screen at your booth for everyone to see.

You were also genius to offer a professional video booth for bloggers to record their ideas and share them on your YouTube page and sustainability site. Having dozens of female bloggers raving about sustainability on your website is an endorsement that means way more than any paid advertising. But you already knew that. It also didn’t hurt that you had super knowledgeable folks staffing your exhibit – they were all brilliant.

Sincerely,

Cindy

Hello Jimmy Dean,

You brought a lot of sunshine to BlogHer.

Apart from the fact that I love sausage breakfast sandwiches, who wouldn’t love meeting the “hot” celebrity from your famous Jimmy Dean commercials? As if that weren’t enough, having the chance to star in a video with the “Sun” was a marketing move that really made me melt.

In the other part of your booth galaxy, I enjoyed talking to the friendly Hillshire Farms Chef who happily took the time to make me a custom, savory sandwich. She also gave me the 411 on the “Fresh Taste Challenge Sandwich Showdown” hosted by Padma Lakshmi that had 16 bloggers competing Top Chef-style to become the champion. The really great twist in my opinion was inviting three elementary school kids to judge the goods and decide the winners (they loved the sandwich ka-bob!). Talk about great content for the Hillshire Farms YouTube site, not to mention that the 16 bloggers have most likely already streamed the video on their own blogs.

All the best,

Cindy

Dearest Yahoo! Shine,

You inspire me.

It’s really good news that you are dedicated to offering online advice and information to women, and you were very clever to extend your “You. Reinvented” brand campaign to BlogHer10. After all, what’s more inspiring than stories of women who are reinventing their lives?

I was spell-bound by your fashion news-room set-up where you invited bloggers to share their “reinvention” stories on camera. I was so enamored with the idea, that I decided that I must reinvent myself in time to participate in your video show at BlogHer11.

Good for you for not only curating the blogger videos on Yahoo!, you also smartly gave embeddable videos to each of the participating bloggers so they could easily share on their blogs too. The idea that one woman’s voice on one lone blog may not change the world–but together, they wield quite a bit of power with other women is very classy.

As ever,

Cindy

P.S. I would be remiss to not offer a shout-out to the Tempur-Pedic folks for being cheeky and dressing up in pajamas, and also for jumping on the video content bandwagon with their “Ask Me” professional photography booth.

That’s a wrap.

Filed under: 360 Public Relations, Blogger Relations, Consumer Marketing, Digital PR, Events and Conferences, Green Marketing, Internet, Marketing to Moms, Social Marketing, Social Media, YouTube by Admin - 2 Comments →