iPhone 4

In recent months it seems like Apple is becoming the company that everybody loves to hate. Scratch that, Apple is becoming the company that the media love to hate.  As the old adage goes, the media can build you up, but they can just as quickly knock you down. Media attention is indeed a double-edged sword and the backlash can cut deep and do irreparable harm to a brand. So, can the swarm of Apple-hating media knock Apple off of its pedestal once and for all?

The mounting iPhone 4 controversy is reaching a crescendo. Christ, you’d think Apple blew an oil line in the Gulf of Mexico with the way the media has reacted to this week’s Consumer Reports review on the iPhone 4, suggesting that it was recall worthy. But what effect, if any, is all of the negative press having on Apple’s sales of the new device?

Consider this: In today’s widely anticipated press conference, Jobs said Apple has sold more than 3 million iPhone 4s since they launched in mid-June, making it one of the most successful releases in the company’s history. Only 1.7 percent of those devices have been returned, compared with a 6 percent return rate for the iPhone 3GS during the same time period. And if people are so unhappy with their “lemon” iPhones, wouldn’t there be hoards of unhappy customers lined up outside of Apple stores, demanding refunds?

According to CNN’s coverage of the press conference, users who are unhappy with the iPhone 4 will get a free bumper case to prevent the so-called “death grip” that interferes with reception. They’ll also be able to return the phone for a full refund up to 30 days after the purchase date, and AT&T will let customers out of their two-year contracts penalty-free. This seems pretty reasonable and fair to me.

As an iPhone user for the past two years (my iPhone 4 arrives next week!), I can empathize with fellow iPhone users who think the network coverage sucks, as it certainly does in San Francisco. But for some reason, I keep coming back. Why? If you’re an iPhone user, you know the answer.

So…is all PR good PR? I personally think for Apple, this statement holds true. As a shareholder, I’m bummed that the stock price is down due to the media feeding frenzy, but I know it’s just a temporary setback. Only time will tell what longer term impact all of this “bad” press will have on Apple’s sales. My prediction is that the company will emerge from this unscathed.

We’re back with the next installment of our series, the New J-School, where we examine the evolving nature of journalism in today’s digital age.

There is certainly no shortage of blog posts talking about the emergence of social media as a priority communication channel for news. Print magazines are dropping like flies due to declining ad revenue, and newspapers are investing heavily in their online properties as chatter of page views and re-tweets fill the newsrooms. We’ve recently dedicated a lot of virtual ink to the topic at Bateman Banter, because it is a crucial part of our daily activity. After you read this, you should check out this great post on the traditional vs. digital media battle that my wise colleague Amy penned after her trip to SXSW this year.

Most everyone agrees that social and digital media must be an integrated part of any communications strategy today. This is why rather than give that topic more air time; I’m going to take a different angle. I would like to celebrate print publications.

Perhaps this is going to make me sound like a fossil, but I ENJOY reading the paper, and I LOVE curling up with a good magazine. The content that I find in magazines, and my ability to truly consume and digest the information contained in them, is dramatically different than my online experience. When I am reading news online, I am quickly scanning headlines, clicking to see comments, and forwarding the good stuff along to colleagues or clients. Just as journalists need to break a story, I want to be the first to read the news and send around the most insightful stories with a dash of my own color commentary. Consuming print media, however, is an entirely different experience.

When I am reading the paper, I am lounging back with a cup of Stumptown, discussing an interesting article with my husband, or just reading in luxurious silence (ok so that is a bit of a lie, but only because the past 8 months my mornings start at 6 am with a silly little critter who isn’t old enough to care about the New York Times yet).

And magazines… Ahh they hold a piece of my heart. I save them for trips on the subway, stolen moments sitting in the sun with a refreshing glass of mint iced tea. Anyone with a baby knows that reading books sadly goes the way of the dodo, at least until your brain returns to a fully functioning entity, but diving into a well-researched, thoughtful article can mimic that transformative feeling that a good book can elicit. Reading a piece that a writer spent days or weeks developing– considering every word carefully, incorporating references and evidence to support a thesis, throwing in some drama and twists that make you turn the page to see what happens next– that is something to be savored, and not something that I can experience in 140 characters. These are not hastily crafted, grammatically disappointing news briefs, but rather well-written, thoughtful analyses of events, people, companies, services, or whatever.

In this warp speed, micro-content consumption world in which we live and work, we are so focused on knowing what is happening next, that we oftentimes neglect applying critical thought to what happened the day before, let alone what is currently happening.

So while I was reading one of my delicious magazines as my yummy son was taking a long nap, I saw this ad from the Magazine Publishers of America. As cheesy as it sounds, I became teary-eyed. The “Magazines, the Power of Print” campaign ad is below. Take a read. Granted, this is designed to reinvigorate magazine advertising, but I like to think it also serves as a reminder that there is room in this increasingly crowded, noisy media world for both mediums. I also hope it serves as a reminder to journalists that we still WANT that type of content; breaking news certainly serves its purpose, but a thoroughly researched, well-written story cannot be replaced.

You might think the connection between popular reality TV shows like American Idol and business strategy is fuzzy at best, and on many levels you’re right. But there’s actually a lot that businesses can learn from these programs – not from Randy Jackson or Paula Abdul, but from the social media data.

Bateman Group’s client Kapow Technologies just completed a really cool project, dubbed Reality Buzz, which was created to see if real-time analysis of social media conversations could predict the outcome of two popular reality television shows: American Idol and Dancing with the Stars. After collecting tens of thousands of tweets, comments and discussions about contestants each week (down with Kate Gosselin!) and applying a dash of sentiment analysis, Kapow batted well above .500 on its predictions. In fact, Reality Buzz predicted 80 percent of the elimination rounds for Dancing with the Stars correctly!

In a great guest blog post to ZDNet, Kapow’s Rick Kawamura offers five lessons learned from Reality Buzz that businesses should apply in order to extract real value from social media data. Here are a few choice excerpts:

Rule #1: Data trumps conventional wisdom

While Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, would say otherwise, data-driven business decisions definitely outperform guesswork.

Rule #2: Timing is critical

Any data more than 24 hours old is pretty much worthless for predicting who will be eliminated from a reality TV show. The same holds true in the business world, where it’s imperative for the data to be as close to an event as possible, as this data has the strongest effect on sentiment.

Rule #3: Don’t be blind to the noise factor

It’s easy to understand trends, changes in momentum, volume of traffic, and ratio of positive to negative sentiment. However there is a lot of noise that can easily skew the data, especially with large, very public shows like American Idol. The bigger the show, product, etc., the more noise.

Rule #4: Not all social media sentiment created equal

There are differing degrees of sentiment, and not all translate equally well. Companies also need to consider how to weigh one tweet versus a Facebook comment versus a blog post. Each is just one piece of data, but does each one count equally?

Rule #5: Don’t look at data in a vacuum

Having knowledge of the events and circumstances surrounding the data sets is critical to understanding and extracting intelligence from social media. In the case of Reality Buzz, it was helpful to watch the performance shows for added context.

BP is damned if they do, and doubly damned if they don’t.

According to Reuters, the company has apparently purchased “oil spill” and related search terms from Google and other search engine providers in an effort to drive traffic to its Gulf of Mexico response website. This SEO strategy is a clear attempt by the company to control communications around the worst oil spill in U.S. history and improve sentiment about its brand within the media.

While BP hasn’t disclosed how much it has paid for these search terms, President Obama has criticized the company for spending $50 million on TV ads in an attempt to turn around consumer perception about the company during the crisis. I agree with Obama that TV ads, an old school tactic used by tobacco and oil companies for years, are in really poor taste. Purchasing the search terms; however, is a very new crisis communications tactic worth a closer look.

A spokesman for BP explained to Reuters: “We know people are looking for those terms on our website and we’re just trying to make it easier for them to get directly to those terms.”

This case represents an interesting dilemma for crisis communication strategists. On the one hand, search term strategies like this will certainly help BP to drive traffic to their site, giving the company more control what’s being communicated. On the other, consumers of online news media today are much more sophisticated and many see right through excessive social media marketing. Moreover, they understand the power of broadcasting their distaste about a company virally across their networks when so inclined.

In a press release issued by BP on June 4th, the company’s Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said:

“The Board of BP has been clear from the outset that all resources available to the company should be applied to meeting BP’s responsibilities in addressing these events.”

If this statement is true, then why not invest $50 million to support the response?

Okay, as a communications professional, I admit this question isn’t entirely fair. There are three crucial communication elements to addressing a crisis:

1) Be a resource to media as well to the public

2) Be transparent about the situation; and

3) Be responsive.

All of these things require an investment, although $50 million seems a bit excessive. The company has issued literally dozens of press releases and videos since news about the spill first broke last month: http://www.bp.com/extendedsectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=40&contentId=7061813.

I’ve not done a thorough audit of these communiqués, but upon a brief review, I can tell you they overwhelmingly focus on how much oil BP has collected, not how much has been lost, and how much money the company is donating to environmental project XYZ. Not surprisingly, this canned crisis communications statement is a thru-line among most of these announcements:

As part of its commitment to restore the environment and habitats in the Gulf Coast region…

My take: Try as they may, BP’s high volume of outbound communication and savvy social media marketing tactics aren’t the right band aid – nothing is. BP may be committed to fixing the problem now, but they were never 100 percent committed or prepared to prevent it from happening in the first place. If they can definitively prove that the problem could not have been prevented, that could be their silver bullet, but they can’t. As a result, the losses from brand damages alone, which I’d argue are far greater than the billions of dollars they are investing in environmental damages, will take years to recover.

So the question remains…in light of a disaster, when the conversation on the web reaches a fever pitch, should PR pros jump right in or sit back and wait? Personally, I don’t think we can sit back, but I also think that brands are still trying to navigate how to best handle mishaps and disasters in the social world. The one factor that has emerged as a constant, however, is authenticity. Social media allows brands to speak directly to all their various constituents. If they don’t do so honestly and authentically, they are doomed before they hit tweet.

Let us know what you think of the situation and how BP has handled it thus far?

Today’s post is the third in our series introduced in January on Bateman Banter called The New J-School in which we examine the evolving nature of journalism in today’s digital age.

Tom Foremski, publisher of Silicon Valley Watcher, recently posted this interesting piece entitled MediaWatch: Journalists Won’t Report News Unless It Can Drive Page Views, which was based on a recent panel moderated by well-known media watcher Sam Whitmore. Tom pulls out this excerpt from the conversation:

“It’s now a luxury for a reporter to write a story about an obscure, but important topic. That used to be a job requirement. Now it’s a career risk. Example: let’s say an interesting startup has a new and different idea. Many reporters now won’t touch it because (a) the story won’t generate page views, and (b) few people search on terms germane to that startup. Potential SEO performance is now a key factor in what gets assigned.

Two reporters from two different publications this month both told us the same thing: if you want to write a story on an interesting but obscure topic, you had better feed the beast by writing a second story about the iPad or Facebook or something else that delivers page views and good SEO.”

Tom summarizes:
“Page view journalism also means that smaller companies will be crowded out by their larger competitors. And with the current media tsunami out there, if you aren’t seen by your potential customers, you don’t exist.”

As we have several start-ups on our client roster, we have experienced first-hand the impact of the changing landscape of the media and page view-driven journalism. Getting coverage for an unknown brand has always been challenging, even with existing media relationships, but the economics of online journalism has changed the game a bit. And I get it ─ we are a generation of headline and excerpt readers, and news outlets are fighting for our eyeballs. Literally, fighting. The frenzy created around announcements from various news outlets that they would be breaking embargoes is an indication that the gloves are off.

If any of you follow journalists on Twitter, you will see them vigorously promoting their own content. Personally, this feels a bit sad to me, like companies begging people to come into their booth at a tradeshow, luring them in with sticky Jolly Ranchers or USB drives shaped like hands. I understand it has to be done. Tom points out that journalists are just following their management’s direction: “It’s not the journalists who are at fault, it is their management, and their management is merely following the actual economics of online journalism.”

We certainly try and help out, employing various tactics to promote our client’s coverage, but I agree with Tom in thinking that this model is not sustainable for media properties. And frankly, it’s also boring. Combing through various online publications, I’m hard pressed to find an article not written about the iPad, Facebook or Twitter. Interesting topics, sure, but not interesting enough to read about their every move, every day.  I look to the media to give me a new perspective on current events, or help me discover a company/service/product that can somehow enhance my experience.  If we make a comparison to the consumer world, I don’t want to read about Nobu or Shake Weights every day. Sure, they are cool, but everyone goes there/uses them (or wants to!), and I would rather discover hidden treasures like the new brick oven pizza place that opened in my neighborhood, or a magical tool that can help me get more sleep while raising a newborn.

So how can we change this? We’ve talked about the corporate blog as a platform for thought leadership. More and more companies are investing in their own blogs as a place to share their perspective on the industry. Also, as Tom mentions, media outlets will need to get more creative with their revenue-generating activities: “Multi-revenues means incorporating lead generation, affiliate marketing, custom advertising packages, virtual currencies, and more.”

Call me old school, but I still believe that if your client is solving a problem in the market in a unique, differentiated way, you should be able to secure your client press. Not in a gimmicky, “we shot our CEO out of a cannon” type of way, but in the thoughtful approach that PR practitioners have used since Edward Bernays opened the first PR shop in 1919 and pioneered the use of “third party authorities” to plead his clients’ causes.

To do this, you need to think like a journalist and make sure you have pulled together a compelling and supported story. This underscores the importance of having all of your “tools” in place: legitimately tying your story to a current trend or news event; having customer references that can speak to how a certain technology has impacted their business; hard data to support your angle; accessible spokespeople able to speak freely about the topic; third party references that can comment on the industry as a whole; etc.

Today’s post is the second in our series introduced in January on Bateman Banter called The New J-School in which we examine the evolving nature of journalism in today’s digital age.

If you at all pay attention to decreasing ad revenue trends, you’ll find yourself in good company in assuming that traditional media are becoming more or less irrelevant, or at least not very profitable. After all, this sentiment is often coming straight from the horse’s mouth itself. Case in point: The Economist’s recent story on Newsweek going up for bid, calling it “bad news in a business that is supposed to be more resistant to technological shock and structural declines in advertising than the newspaper industry.”

You don’t say.

Another prime example? A month or two ago at the SXSW Interactive Conference in Austin, I attended a panel on “How to Save Journalism.” One of the panelists, the publisher of USATODAY.com, was bold enough to suggest the media need to consider breaking down the sacred Berlin Wall between editorial and advertising to keep traditional media relevant. This elicited a number of gasps from the media-heavy audience, who hold that Berlin Wall near, dear and absolutely sacred (and, in my opinion, rightly so).

If the publisher’s words didn’t represent a fundamental shift in traditional media and their growing pains, I don’t know what will.

Still, I understand why a publisher might think this way. With the explosion of online content, media today have endless Web analytic tools to measure value for advertisers right along with reader engagement to ensure that content stays fresh and everyone can keep their jobs. Yet, media simply writing for the almighty click wouldn’t be a good thing for anyone.

Traditional media’s struggles to stay relevant hit home after returning from Austin. I found myself in a meeting with a client who turned to us, the PR team, and asked, “Does traditional media coverage even matter anymore?”

Damn right it does.

Just look at the recent study by Pew Research on the state of news media. If you’re at all interested in media trends, the study is required reading and apt to shift some of your common misconceptions about traditional media.

A few choice nuggets:

• 80 percent of the links on blogs and social media sites lead back to U.S. legacy media
• The vast majority of the top news sites (67 percent) are still tied to legacy media
• While new media are growing, their ranks among the most trafficked sites are still small

A huge part of our job here at Bateman Group is to keep our finger on the pulse of media trends like these and try to stay one or two steps ahead of change. What’s happening is that extremely targeted, thoughtful coverage in the business or trade publications still has the power to move mountains… and then some. We see it happening to our clients every time they receive coverage in their most coveted publications. The calls start coming and the leads pile up. Coverage like this may just be harder to come by these days, which is where a good PR firm that knows the ins and outs of working with traditional media comes in handy.

Of course, the hopeful statistics about traditional media in the Pew study run in parallel with equally gloomy ones, as well as signs pointing to the continued growth of new media voices on the Web. Social media certainly cannot be ignored either.

This leads me to a key question: Given the changing media landscape, how much focus do you think should be given to traditional media vs. social media in PR programs? I certainly have my own opinion (hint: it depends), but eager to hear yours.