Atkinson Advisor - October 2003 - Atkinson Public Relations

October 2003 - Atkinson Public Relations

	#1	Top Of Mind: Pasta public relations vs. Atkins Diet
	#2	The Idea Of That Thing: When PowerPoints Attack!
	#3	Next Time Try This: Bite, snack, meal for web writing
	#4	For The CEO: The psychology of crises
	#5	Hits & Bytes: Iowa Electronic Markets
	#6	What We're Reading: The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR

The pasta industry is planning a public relations blitz next year to counter the effects of the no-pasta Atkins Diet, which has swept the nation. We love pasta and support the idea as long as the pasta industry does not get too carb crazy.

Initial reports say the industry plans to promote the "good carb" pasta made with a different kind of wheat. Sounds like a good marketing idea. We will start to worry, however, if someone tries to introduce Carb-Free Pasta Clear…it may feel like licorice but it tastes like pasta.

It seems for every person who successfully follows the Atkins Diet, we know three who jump off the bandwagon before the utopia of ketosis. To the pasta industry, we say you have been a staple of many successful diets and of athletes' nutritional plans for decades. Now is not the time to panic.

PowerPoint is a wonderful business tool for conveying ideas. It is light years ahead of flip charts and overhead projectors with grease pencils.

At the same time, we are consumed by how much information we can cram on to a single slide. You ask, "What about the adage a picture is worth a thousand words?" It's true, but that doesn't mean the picture has to contain a thousand words.

The greatest PowerPoint graphic in the world does little to impress an audience. Conversely, a poorly created PowerPoint graphic will immediately turn off an audience.

Here are some warning signs that the PowerPoint could attack. If you encounter them, leave the room quickly.

Small text you have to squint to read. This is a dead giveaway the presenter cannot condense information into salient thoughts that the audience will value. Which leads us to...
Full sentences as bullets. By definition, they are not bullets...they're sentences.

PowerPoint Axiom #1: If a PowerPoint slide contains a full sentence, the presenter will read that sentence word for word.
PowerPoint Corollary #1: The audience will be both bored and insulted if the presenter reads a sentence word for word.
Charts and graphs designed to impress the presenter more than the audience. "Hey, look what I can do with graphics and this cool animation." Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
Too many acronyms. "The ROI from our CRM will have a direct impact on 4Q03 EBIDTA." Ouch. When you use too many acronyms, you must "accept clear responsibility for negating your message."

Next time you are writing for your website, try using the "bite, snack, meal" formula. People often scan when reading online. The "BSM" formula will help you make sure visitors find what they want easily. Many online news organizations use this format, including washingtonpost.com and cnnfn.com.

The "bite" is the headline, which should be 10 words or fewer. The "snack" is a one sentence-summary that encapsulates the main point of the story. The "meal" is the entire story for those who want more information or your opinion on an issue

Check out this example from allaboutbranding.com. (http://www.allaboutbranding.com/index.lasso?article=312)

If you are in business, you are going to have crises. And when those crises happen, most eyes in the organization (and those outside it) turn to one person: the CEO.

More than anything, crises have a psychological effect on the organization as employees, customers, investors, and/or others try to understand what happened. Psychologists have identified a very specific pattern people follow in a crisis. The first four steps are reactionary; the last three steps are when the crisis gets solved.

Knowing this pattern of behavior is a significant advantage for anyone involved in crisis management and can help shape communications that moves the organization past the reactive stages into the proactive stages.

Let's look at the seven steps and some statements from the recent scandal involving former University of Tennessee President John Shumaker.

1. Denial "My view is that we have not used the state plane (for anything) that was not clear university business."
- Shumaker

2. Wishful Thinking "Maybe it was something that had fallen through the cracks and just didn't get reported."
- Randy McNally, Chairman of the Senate Education Committee, on an undisclosed $300,000 contract with Shumaker's friend

3. Anger "A $5,000 barbecue grill could pay tuition for a student."
- Sarah Keeton, the UT Student Government Association president

4. Spin "I can say with confidence that I used the plane consistent with university policies . . . I have never used that plane for personal business."
- Shumaker

5. Damage Control "It's about not crucifying somebody who made a mistake. It's about finding these things and correcting them before they get to the level that happened at UT."
- Governor Phil Bredesen, after Shumaker's resignation

6. Recovery "(The governor) is not focused on heads rolling and resignations. The governor is focusing on moving this process forward, righting wrongs where they need to be righted and making the needs of the university a priority."
- Lydia Lenker, spokeswoman for Gov. Bredesen

7. Reconstruction "I think the board is seriously taking the challenge to work aggressively to put in place the additional controls needed for appropriate governance and oversight."
- A university lobbyist

Organizations suffer most when they get bogged down in steps one and two. The CEO's job is to move the organization as quickly as possible to step five. Gov. Phil Bredesen, as CEO of the state, is to be commended for deciding to take immediate action as the evidence mounted rather than waiting for the board committee to report and then later for giving the Board of Trustees clear direction on how to conduct a new search.

Iowa Electronic Markets

We love free markets. And we love the Internet. Thus, we love the Iowa Electronic Markets (IEM). Created by the University of Iowa for educational and research purposes, IEM offers small-scale, real-money futures markets where contract payoffs depend on economic and political events. IEM is currently running markets for the 2004 Presidential election vote-share, the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and the Federal Reserve Monetary policy. IEM is open to people willing to plunk down $5 - $500 and take their shot. Is this a great country or what?

The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR
by Al Ries and Laura Ries

Attempting to convince your target audience of your brand's claims through paid space or time lacks a key ingredient vital to success -- credibility.

As customers we're cynical, suspicious, and cautious. We see the majority of advertising as biased, self-serving, and company-oriented rather than consumer-oriented. So we turn to independent, authoritative, third-party sources for recommendations and advice -- friends, relatives, neighbors, and the media. When we've made up our minds, advertising serves as a reminder.

That's the main conclusion and key piece of advice in The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR, a book just published by US-based marketing guru Al Ries and his daughter, Laura Ries.

The book highlights how companies like Dell, Starbucks, and Krispy Kreme used PR to create their brand.