Pure Thinking

Smoking Smarties or Mentos Performance Enhancement?

Pick Your Poison

Consumer fascination with candy experimentation continues from the Mentos Geyser Tube to Smoking Smarties. This is the kind of stuff that can even get Willy Wonka excited. Childhood and adult antics have not changed, but the size of their audience has. Gone are the days of getting all revved up on Jolt Cola in the privacy of your neighborhood. These games aren’t new, but the rules of social media are causing brand managers tough choices to embrace, challenge or ignore.  The candy conundrum continues....

 

Before you hit send...

We've all picked up on the most common of PR email blunders  - bombarding reporters with impersonal mass messages, sending releases on topics irrelevant to what they cover - but after reading Josh Bernoff's blog, I realized that our industry still has a lot to learn. According to Josh, a Forrester research analyst, a study of his inbox over a two week period revealed that three-fourths of the PR emails he receives are irrelevant, and that's not even counting the emails trapped in his spam filter. Click here for more on his findings.

--Kate

Yosi & MHGallery

Yosi Sergant is one of the most amazingly talented PR/Pub-types I know. Aside from being one of my most valued contacts for the arty work I do outside of Pure, Yosi is a wonderful person, a crazy-intelligent guy, and was behind the DNC's madly successful Manifest Hope Gallery-- and it shocks me not one bit to know that LA Weekly thought to interview him about the whole thing.

Regardless of your political affiliations, this this is an incredible read and case study on the current climate of campaign event planning and PR; find it here.

It's official...

Well, they've finally done it.  The people behind Facebook received news that the social networking site has just been crowned the number one site of its kind, globally.  Does that mean we officially have to trade all forms of face-to-face interpersonal communication for wall posts, friend requests and SuperPokes?

Trendy or not?

Whether it's the latest  gossip in Hollywood or the biggest headline to hit CNN, these days it seems like the secret to success is being inline, hooked up and in touch with the world around you.  Luckily, Google can help that happen with a little tool called Google Trends. 

Unbeknownst to me, Google Trends has been keeping people up-to-date for the past two years, so if you've heard of it or if you use it, you're way ahead of me. 

For those of you who don't know, though, Google Trends lets you type any word you want into a search box and then it charts how frequently that word is searched around the world, giving you an international perspective of what's "in" and what's "out."  Hot Trends, a one-year-old addition to the Google tool, will keep you even more informed with its hourly-updated list of the 100 most searched queries of the moment.

So, if you've got a social engagement to attend, if you're looking for new small-talk material or if you're just trying to reconnect with the generation beneath you, try logging on to Google Trends to see what everyone's buzzing about.

Helping shed light on CO's roads & bridges

Occasionally we like to use these postings to let our readers know about the work we do.

And we are especially proud of what we pulled together this past weekend. We were given the interesting challenge of quickly putting together a news conference to help a state senator discuss his upcoming transportation bill. Larry explains what happened:

"If you’ve been watching local television news or reading local newspapers at all since Friday, you’ve almost certainly seen, heard or read about an effort in the Colorado legislature to increase funding to repair the worst-of-the-worst bridges and roads in Colorado.   Big kudos go out to Erika and Lara (and Les) for giving up most of their weekends to ensure this story gets told. In mere hours (without much sleep along the way), we pulled together a news conference under the bridge at I-25 and Santa Fe (click to expand photos of this bridge needing some serious TLC)

Attendance included all five network television affiliates in town, as well as the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News. You know what they say... You haven’t lived until you’ve spent some quality time under a structurally deficient bridge. Well, now Lara, Erika and I have officially lived."

Has Green become routine?

With Earth Day just a day away, companies are seeking to highlight their green ways in hopes of staying in the minds of environmentally conscious consumers. From lowering their carbon footprint to printing only on recycled paper, more companies are claiming to go green.

But are consumers really listening to all these companies as they tout their green ways?

According to an article in PR Week entitled "Authenticity will shine in a sea of green buzz", being green is no longer cool and hip, it’s routine. And consumers are growing weary of green claims.

In order for a company’s green message to truly resonate and go beyond the routine, it must be authentic and substantive. Before you go out and claim you’re green, make sure you can prove that you’re doing more than jumping on the green bandwagon.     --Shannon

Starbucks new site provides even more good PR

Following up on its recent store closing & training event--for which it received glowing press coverage (see our posting "Was Starbuck's 3.5 hour closing worth it?")--Starbucks has gone and created even more positive PR with its latest move to engage its customers online.

Lara alerted us to the article "Starbucks' new site draws thousands of suggestions" which details the new consumer-facing website called My Starbucks Idea. The site asks customers to "shape the future of Starbucks" in four ways: Share, Vote, Discuss, See.

Pay particular attention to the "See" section where you can see the customer-submitted ideas that were actually adopted.

What Lara found most PR-worthy is how they’ve taken the “let’s talk and maybe it will impact action” concept and made the action a measurable component.  It makes the consumer feel like they're actually impacting change. Power to the people.

The site also requires you to create an account to participate--which builds the company's database of loyal customers to mobilize for future promotions. Brilliant!!

Just another way to go Green

These days there’s a big push in the national and local media to go Green.  Making the switch to compact florescent light bulbs, shrinking our carbon footprint and now recycling cell phones.

Cell Phones for Soldiers is one campaign that I’ve donated to. Sibling founders, Robbie and Brittany Bergquist, have received national media attention as of late for their efforts. Watch an interview with them on The View describing their program here (be impressed, they're only 16, and have raised over $1.4 million for our troops!).

The Bergquists merged two great ideas--helping the environment and our troops at the same time--and are now making an impact at home and abroad. I encourage you to check out the rest of their site.

Last week, I also came upon an article from PR Week describing how the EPA is starting a campaign motivating cell phone users to recycle their outdated phones.

What do you think?  Is the campaign to go Green going to fizzle out in 2008, or be here to stay?   —Adam

Does it pay to be green?

According to new research conducted by the PR firm Edelman in nine countries, consumers will pay a premium to companies that support socially responsible causes. 55% even say they would help promote such a brand.

The phenomenon has been coined 'Mutual Social Responsibility' where "consumers and the brands they interact with every day take a mutual interest in and a mutual responsibility for being good citizens."

Sounds great.  But there’s only one problem:  Consumers lie.

At the Target Green conference, a Procter & Gamble executive told me that, despite survey results like these, they’re not seeing results where it really matters — people’s spending behaviors.

My theory is that people feel too guilty answering honestly. Who’s going to actually say they DON’T care about eliminating poverty or protecting the environment?  The only way to truly measure this sort of thing is at the cash register.    --Larry