Kaplow

Value. Today’s press and consumers are singularly focused on savings, deals and savvy shopping. Long gone are buzzwords like bling and indulge. So how can marketers guide their brands through this new media landscape, while remaining true to the brand identity? A recent Kaplow white paper analyzes the different ways the media are covering “value”, provides implications for coverage and maintaining brand equity, and includes specific analysis for luxury, beauty and retailers. Below are some highlights from the report.
For a full download of this whitepaper, please email Kaplow at email-liz@kaplowpr.com.

What Does Value Mean Today?

The media currently views value through the prism of immediate and significant savings. The goal is to help consumers get more bang for their buck. Great deals, coupons, low-cost alternatives and other money-saving tips lead coverage.

Additionally, the media is exploring the ramifications and shifts in consumer behavior as a result of the downturn. Coverage of people staying home, shopping less and budget hunting has led to tips for families planning “staycations” and stories of fashionistas turned “recessionistas.” Likewise, deal roundup stories and homemade gift ideas dominated holiday media.

The Implications for Coverage and Maintaining Brand Equity

1. The value story needs to be authentic.

Consumers are savvy, and more so now. Brands should only herald savings if they are real and significant. “Marketers strive for value” says a November 12 blog post on Fortune.com, calling the initiatives a “flurry of downscaling.”

There’s no need to beat around the bush when it comes to telling a value story. Americans and the media are quite aware that these are challenging times. Pitches and correspondence should reflect the realities of the situation.

2. Help for companies that don’t fall into the recession-proof category.

If your brand does not fall into the value category, look for ways to further build a connection with consumers, while staying true to the brand’s identity. Deepen the emotional connection by showcasing its uniqueness, or through loyalty programs like the new Starbucks Gold Card.

Also, use this as a moment to educate your consumers. Tiffany used this to great success in the recession of the early 1990s. The jeweler’s “How to Buy a Diamond” campaign helped them gain significant traction in flush times.

3. Take a scalpel to your brand’s story.

With the news cycle moving so fast, brands need to be flexible with their message. PR professionals have the benefit of working in real time, enabling us to carve out story elements that resonate.

Look for pre-existing facets to mine, and make “new.” Kmart put an emphasis on its layaway program with ads that position it as savvy and exciting. The payment plan has earned national press, including features in the Washington Post and a showcase in Rob Walker’s New York Times Magazine Consumed column.

4. Remember, life goes on.

People are still getting married and having babies. They are socializing with friends and family. Lockstep with the coverage of how the recession is impacting our lives, is a conversation about how to survive it in style.

• “Dream wedding needn’t cost a fortune,” writes the Tennessean.
• “Times are tough. Let’s have a party!” says the San Jose Mercury News.

For additional implications, and a full analysis of the way media are covering value, please email Kaplow at email-liz@kaplowpr.com. We’ll gladly send you the full report.

The power of our incoming talent pool.  They are plugged in, savvy and connected marketers. And they are often under 21.

On the hunt for PR innovators? At our agency, we’ve had great success finding a new crop of smart, creative marketers.

It may surprise you that these new stars are our recent band of interns.

When we first established our intern program, it was part recruiting tool, part admin support. Interns helped with mailings, stocking product closets and a host of other important, but not necessarily strategic, work. But in the past few years, our interns have become a great resource for our firm, and I suspect, other smartly run businesses.

These savvy college students offer a window into marketing 2.0, and great perspective on how to reach an astute and significant demographic—their own. Millennials are powerful consumers and brand builders, and they demand tailored outreach programs.

So two years ago, we tasked them with devising a college initiative for one of our technology clients and last summer, a back to school program for a retailer. This year, we asked for a snapshot of their fellow Millennials’ media and technology consumption. The four interns spent their first week drafting and executing an extensive survey that spanned from Facebook to texting to eBay.

Millennials have grown up sharing their impressions, persuasions and choices with one another online, and they have spent their pre-professional years building vast networks. Using only their personal contacts, our interns sent their survey to more than 2,000 people within less than an hour. That’s impressive and really, social networking at its best.

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I have been reading (as I am sure most of you have) a tremendous amount on social media and its impact on brand marketing. Recent articles in Adweek and Business Week highlight many challenges that marketers and media specialists face when trying to reach consumers where they are living—and make no mistake about it they are living online.

A recent Adweek article suggested that our industry talks a great deal about what we can do for clients in the social media space; but is unable to deliver measurable results when it comes to execution. The technology, it seems, is moving faster than our industry. Social media presents one of the greatest opportunities for us to reach consumers in a meaningful way. In traditional media—and arguably blogs too—it’s only necessary to interest a few key writers, editors or producers. With social media you have to capture the interest of key consumers and relay your message to them so that they pass it along to others. Naturally this can be challenging. A recent BusinessWeek article focused on widgets—applications that can be shared among users on various social networking sites. Successful widget programs can create significant buzz for low cost. “Resident Evil” built buzz for their movie with a zombie widget that allows consumers to “bite” their online friends – 1 million people signed up to get the application creating a tremendous groundswell for the film without an expensive television buy. This kind of success is rare—according to BusinessWeek there are 17,000 applications on Facebook – only 138 of these widgets have reached more than 1% of Facebook users, a community of 66 million.

So how can we as communicators effectively use social media to reach consumers? Well, applications such as the “Resident Evil” widget show that it’s possible—but you have to understand your consumer and what will make him/her take the time to download an application and pass it along to friends. Items that are overly branded, that don’t make people laugh or are unsurprising don’t work. It’s necessary to take risks and be a little edgy – safe and simple just won’t cut it anymore.

Social media seems like a vast uncharted territory. It’s really not. We’ve been practicing word-of-mouth programs for decades in the PR industry – social media just gives us new technology and a wider audience to reach. It’s an opportunity that brands and agencies ignore (or worse engage haphazardly) at their own peril. Social media will continue to evolve and our industry needs to evolve with it.

Kaplow held our first Algonquin 3.0 Editorial Board meeting of 2008 on Monday, February 4th. Why Algonquin 3.0? It’s worth a minute on the story. I was an English major in college. One of my classes was The Short Story and one of the writers with whom I was most dramatically taken with, was Dorothy Parker. She had all the accoutrements of a nutty, desperate, brilliant 1920s writer, but what was best about her was that she was not a recluse. She liked to talk to her writer- type friends. She liked to hear their stories and opinions on the ideas of the day and you can be sure she liked to give hers.

It happens that her famous roundtables—held from 1919 to 1929—took place at the Algonquin hotel on the very block where Kaplow is located. So, when we decided to hold the first of our series earlier this month, how appropriate that we could pay homage to Dorothy with a roundtable of our own. The topic? Fittingly, “Who makes the best story tellers for your brand?” (more…)