Struggling to stop the scroll? Video is the answer, said Katrina Marger, video content advisor at video creation PlayPlay, in conversation with editor Sean Devlin at PR Daily’s 2024 Social Media Conference.

A report PlayPlay conducted last year with Hubspot showed that, compared to static content, video results in 1200% more and a 200% increase in clickthroughs.

And of course, to boost engagement rates, keep the audience watching. Keep it short and sweet for social media — many advise a maximum of 60 seconds, but the snappier the better, and link out to longer content if needed. Ensure that videos draw viewers in with a punchy headline, compelling visuals and a thumbnail that makes audiences want to know more.

Plus, captions aren’t just about accessibility; many viewers watch on silent, and the text can draw the eye more effectively than a solo talking head without it. “Subtitles are a must,” she said. “They increase views by 80%.”

Marger also suggested creating a compelling hook in the first three seconds, which is pretty standard advice — but she then suggested applying the same principle to the rest of the video. Change up the angle, the shot or the visuals every three seconds to keep viewers’ attention.

Keep watching to learn how Marger recommends approaching effective calls to action that perform, and find out what metrics can help you improve performance with every video.

The post How to get audiences to watch branded videos appeared first on PR Daily.

Social media and digital communications work can feel thankless. Behind the scenes, creators work hard to stay up to date on trends, generate innovative ideas and move quickly. PR Daily’s Social Media & Digital Awards spotlight the hidden stars and talent behind these campaigns and showcase their work, honoring professionals in a range of categories, from Best Social Media Campaign to Digital Community Engagement.

The Social Media & Digital Awards Class of 2024 also honors a Campaign, Agency and Team of the Year — those who delight their audiences and steal attention from the competition.

“Congratulations to the finalists in our 2024 Social Media & Digital Awards,” said Brendan Gannon, senior marketing manager for Ragan’s and PR Daily’s Award programs. “Your outstanding work continues to set the standard and push the boundaries in digital marketing and social media. This year, we’ve received an amazing mix of campaigns and content that exceeded expectations for their organizations and clients, leaving our judges with the delightful challenge of selecting the shortlist of finalists.”

Read on to see all the finalists across all categories that have moved onto this next step — and join us as we announce and celebrate the winners at our Social Media & Digital Awards Luncheon on August 1, 2024, at the Yale Club in New York City. Teams will celebrate with other finalists and connect with other influential professionals managing social media and digital communications.

Click these links to jump to each section.

Finalists: Grand Prize

Agency of the Year • Campaign of the Year • Team of the Year

Finalists: Campaigns and Categories

Annual Report • Blog • Brand Awareness • Cause Marketing • Collaborative Social Media Communications • Community Engagement • Content Marketing • Crisis Management • CSR/ESG Communications • Digital Community Engagement • Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Campaign • Edutainment • Employee Engagement • Employer Branding • Healthcare Marketing Campaign • Influencer Campaign • Instagram • Interactive Content • Intranet • LinkedIn • Livestream • Marketing Campaign • Media Relations Campaign • Metaverse • Micro-Influencer Campaign • Mobile App • Multichannel Campaign • Paid Social Media Campaign • Podcast • Public Relations Campaign • SEO Strategy • Short-Form Video • Social Listening and Real-Time Response • Social Media Campaign • Specialty Campaign • Thought Leadership Campaign • TikTok • Twitter/X • Use of AI • User Generated Content • Video • Visual Storytelling • Website Redesign or Relaunch • Wellness Campaign

Grand Prize

Agency of the Year

CCOMGROUP

IW Group

Campaign of the Year

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan: Blue Cross Virtual Well-Being Bohemian Rhapsody

Factory PR: Repreve’s YOY Growth on Instagram and TikTok

Fight or Flight: Accounts Deceivable

HUGO BOSS: BOSS x NFL

Hulu: Only Murders in the Building S3 Social Campaign

Nemours Children’s Health: Well Beyond Medicine Podcast

SAG-AFTRA

Team of the Year

Citizens: Citizens Enterprise Social Media and Content Strategy Team

Daversa Partners: Daversa Partners’ Marketing & Communications Team

Hulu – The Walt Disney Company: Hulu Social & Influencer Marketing

SCAD: SCAD Instagram

Torc Robotics: Torc Robotics Social Media Team

Campaigns and Categories

Annual Report

Hampton University: HU Annual Report 2022 – 2023

iQ 360: Hawaiian Electric Industries’ 2022 ESG Report

Link Logistics: 2022 ESG Report

Blog

ACTwireless: ACTwireless Blog

Cisco: WeAreCisco

Maryland Department of Commerce: Showcasing Maryland’s Business Community

Molson Coors Beverage Company: Beer & Beyond

The Hoffman Agency: Making Synopsys Discoverable in the Digital Media Era

WestEd: WestEd Communications

Brand Awareness

Fight or Flight: Accounts Deceivable

IMA Financial Group: OneIMA: Building the Broker of the Future

JBL Harman Industries: JBL Authentics Launch Campaign

Sela x Newcastle United: We’re Back

Torc Robotics: Torc Robotics Social Media Team

Cause Marketing

1Milk2Sugars: TUMS x Second Harvest

Embecta: 2023 World Diabetes Day Campaign | Celebrating 100 Years of Impact

Grant Thornton: Purple Paladin Campaign

Intention.ly: Campaign for Savvy Ladies: Breaking the Money Silence Through a Gala with a Social Mission

Collaborative Social Media Communications

Cisco: Cisco’s Social Media Campaign for Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo

Citizens: Live from the Citizens Cheer Zone

Dallas Independent School District: Dallas ISD Grad Goals

IMA Financial Group: IMA HoloLens

Penn State University: Penn State Social Media Team

Tenable: Cloud Nine Collaboration: Tenable Cloud Security on Social Media

Vanderbilt University: Welcome Week 2023

Community Engagement

Altura Credit Union: Altura Cares

Community X SEEN: COMMUNITY X SEEN – US Launch

Content Marketing

Avison Young: Data Bites

BackBay Communications for IMPACT Community Capital: IMPACT Community Capital’s 25th Anniversary Campaign

Daversa Partners: Daversa Partners’ Marketing & Communications Team

GKV: Soli Organic 2023 Social Media

VyStar Credit Union: Follow Friday

Crisis Management

Aqua & Vault Communications: Aqua – Delaware River Chemical Spill Crisis Response Plan

Conway Regional Health System: Insurance Payor Negotiations

The Explorers Club: Titan Search and Rescue

CSR/ESG Communications

Adtalem Global Education: Bridging the Gap

TEAM LEWIS Foundation: TEAM LEWIS Foundation: Making a Global Impact, One Local Cause at a Time

Digital Community Engagement

Edelman on behalf of Dove: Dove Community Management Team

PAN Communications: Unlocking Overlooked Markets: Enthought’s Integrated & Agile Approach to Webinar Engagement

Telemundo: Viva Engage Internal Awareness Campaign

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Campaign

HUNTER: Listerine Addresses Diversity in Dentistry with The Whoa Collection

Johnnie Walker: Johnnie Walker “Watch Women’s Sports” Campaign

Visit Philadelphia: Visit Philadelphia | Drag Queen Story Time

Edutainment

CCOMGROUP: Neutrogena Edu-tains During National Healthy Skin Month

Conway Regional Health System: Barbie Breast Cancer Awareness

Fight or Flight: Accounts Deceivable

Employee Engagement

Endo: Championing Engagement Excellence: Endo’s Values-Based Data-Driven Journey

IMA Financial Group: Championing Connection: Elevating Workplace Engagement at IMA

Mastercard: The Mastercard Way Carpool Sessions

MMC & Pfizer Rare Disease: Unifying Pfizer Rare During Times of Change

Telemundo: Viva Engage Internal Awareness Campaign

Tenable: Collaborative Engagement at Tenable: Unleashing Potential by Prioritizing Our People

Employer Branding

BorgWarner: BorgWarner: Charging Forward on LinkedIn

Cisco: 2023 #LoveWhereYouWork Contest

Citizens: Employee Advocacy

National Tank Truck Carriers: See Yourself in a Tank Truck

PCL Construction: I Choose PCL: A Fortune 100 Success Story

Tenable: Team Tenable Wins Together: Workplace and Culture Awards Framework

Healthcare Marketing Campaign

Adtalem Global Education: Equity, Delivered

Conway Regional Health System: Barbie Breast Cancer Awareness

MOLLI Surgical: MOLLI Surgical

Mount Carmel Health System: Mount Carmel Health System Bariatrics Marketing

Mount Carmel Health System: Mount Carmel Health System Primary Care Marketing

Northwell Health // Revmade: The Well by Northwell Health, with Revmade

Sanofi and Ruder Finn: Launching The 1 Pledge Movement

Smarty Social Media: #myOPRAjourney – Limb Loss Awareness Month Social Campaign

Influencer Campaign

Ad Council: Elena Havas-Taylor

Brandon: An Idahoan Thanksgiving

CCOMGROUP: COACHELLA by Neutrogena

HUNTER: TABASCO Brand x TINX Normalize Hot Sauce As Dressing

Ifaw: #DisasterReady

KWT Global: Rewriting the Rules with Lovesac

Red Robin: Burgertini

Sanofi and Ruder Finn: Launching The 1 Pledge Movement

Westchester County Tourism: Westchester: A Story to Tell

Instagram

Cisco: WeAreCisco

Life Inside Dropbox: People Behind the Products

Merz Aesthetics: Global Social Media at Merz Aesthetics

PepsiCo Beverages North America: What Makes Us POP (@PeopleOfPepsi)

San Manuel Band of Mission Indians: Yaamava’ Resort & Casino Social Media Team

SCAD: SCAD Instagram

Sun City Hilton Head: Sun City Hilton Head Instagram

Visit Philadelphia: Come for Philadelphia. Stay for Philly.

Interactive Content

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan: Blue Cross Virtual Well-Being Bohemian Rhapsody

Fight or Flight for Frontify: Real or Not Real

Visit Philadelphia: Visit Philadelphia Date Filtering

Intranet

Endo: Championing Engagement Excellence: Endo’s Values-Based Data-Driven Journey

Link Logistics: The Link

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals: “RON” Intranet Transformation

The New York Times: At The Times Intranet

LinkedIn

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan: Daniel J. Loepp LinkedIn Presence

BorgWarner: BorgWarner: Charging Forward on LinkedIn

Bristol Myers Squibb: Bristol Myers Squibb LinkedIn Live Event

Link Logistics: LinkedIn Brand Presence

PAN Communications: Ware2Go: Shaping the Future of Fulfillment

Trellix: Trellix Advanced Research Center Newsletter

Livestream

Citizens: Live from the Citizens Cheer Zone

Marketing Campaign

Aggreko: Demystifying New Technologies

HUNTER: Kelis Partners With LACTAID to Get You to Drink Real Dairy

Link Logistics: Link+

Manulife Group Retirement Services: Say Goodbye to Paper Campaign

Material: Material-ABM EV Answers Marketing Campaign

Peraton: Invisible War

Media Relations Campaign

KWT Global: IRONMAN World Championship

PAN Communications: Taking Jobber From Series D to Media Domination

PAN Communications: Venti Technologies: The Race Towards Self-Driving Success

Red Banyan: Philly Stands With Israel

Sanofi and Ruder Finn: Launching The 1 Pledge Movement

The Lewis Pugh Foundation: Hudson Swim 2023

The Permanente Federation: Kaiser Permanente Advanced Care at Home Media Campaign

Metaverse

Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey: Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey Art, Beats + Lyrics “The Verse”

Micro-Influencer Campaign

IPSY: Glam-O-Ween

SkipTheDishes: #SkipSquad

Visit Philadelphia: Visit Philadelphia + Philly Mom

Mobile App

Sprout Social: Sprout Social Mobile Application

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration: “Talk. They Hear You.” Mobile App

Multichannel Campaign

City of Miami Beach Marketing and Communications: “Find Your Wave”

Office of Legacy Management: Twenty Years of Legacy Management

SAG-AFTRA: SAG-AFTRA

Paid Social Media Campaign

Advocate Health: On Demand Care: Reaching the right audiences with the care they need, when they need it

Aggreko: Demystifying New Technologies

Cisco: Cisco at RSAC 2023

ClickFunnels: Funnel Hacking Live

HOW Agency: HOW x Galanz

Masonite: Masonite Performance Door System Paid Social Media Campaign

Novitas Communications: Vote No on Rent Control Digital Campaign

Smarty Social Media: Igniting Patient Demand for Innovative Bunion Surgery

Podcast

Fight or Flight: Accounts Deceivable

Nemours Children’s Health: Well Beyond Medicine Podcast

Union Station Homeless Services: Changing the Narrative About Homelessness

WestEd: WestEd Communications

Public Relations Campaign

HUGO BOSS: BOSS x NFL

Inizio Evoke Comms: Gr8 Eye Movement Campaign: Bringing Eye Health Into Focus

JBL Harman Industries: JBL Authentics Launch Campaign

Madame Tussauds Las Vegas: Madame Tussauds Las Vegas Reveals First Ever Travis Barker Wax Figure

SEO Strategy

The Hoffman Agency: Making Synopsys Discoverable in the Digital Media Era

UC Davis Health: Cultivating Health Blog SEO Strategy

Short-Form Video

Advocate Health: Connecting with our Communities with Impactful Patient Stories

Aggreko: Aggreko Named Official Temporary Power Partner of the Formula 1 Heineken Silver Las Vegas Grand Prix 2023

AHIP: AHIP Mission Video

Citizens: Small Business Community Champions Video Series

Hampton University: School of Religion Launch

HUNTER: Kelis Partners With LACTAID to Get You to Drink Real Dairy

Life Inside Dropbox: People Behind the Products

Material: Material-Chuck E. Cheese Video Submission

Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery: We Are Neurointervention

Social Listening and Real-Time Response

Advocate Health: Using Social Media to Create a Safe Harbor in Health Care

American Dental Association: ADA Surprise and Delight Program

Edelman on behalf of Dove: Dove Community Management Team

The North Face: The North Face Turns Viral Customer Video Into Community Management Win

US Postal Service: The World’s Largest Focus Group: applying social data enterprise-wide

Social Media Campaign

AZIONE: HOKA Fly Human Fly Campaign

Cisco: Cisco Live

Great Clips: Back-to-School

IW Group: They’re Just Ken: Ryan Gosling Gifts BTS’ Jimin Ken’s Guitar

Life Inside Dropbox: People Behind the Products

The Lewis Pugh Foundation: Hudson Swim 2023

WestEd: WestEd Communications

Specialty Campaign

IW Group: They’re Just Ken: Ryan Gosling Gifts BTS’ Jimin Ken’s Guitar

Lincoln Financial: Start Asking Campaign

TEAM LEWIS: TEAM LEWIS x Palo Alto Networks: “PTO with Palo Alto Networks”

Thought Leadership Campaign

Daversa Partners: Daversa Partners’ Marketing & Communications Team

Ivanti: Ivanti CSAM

PAN Communications: Qualtrics: The Making of a Category Leader

TikTok

Cherokee Nation: Cherokee Nation Social Media Team

Factory PR: Repreve’s YOY Growth on Instagram and TikTok

HUNTER: TABASCO Brand x TINX Normalize Hot Sauce As Dressing

KWT Global: How Illumina Created #GenomicsTok

National Pest Management Association & Vault Communications: National Pest Management Association’s

@PestWorld Channel: Taking Over Bug TikTok by Swarm

Twitter/X

BorgWarner: The Borg-Warner Trophy Speaks to Racing Fans

Use of AI

Northwell Health // Revmade: The Well by Northwell Health, with Revmade

PCL Construction: PCL Construction’s AI-Mazing April Fools Day Prank

User Generated Content

Jive PR + Digital: DSW UGC Campaign

Penn State University: Penn State Social Media Team

Tenable: Unleashing the Power of People: Tenable’s Trailblazing Journey with Employee-Generated Content

Video

Aggreko: Aggreko Named Official Temporary Power Partner of the Formula 1 Heineken Silver Las Vegas Grand Prix 2023

Caption Design: Supermajority’s Advocacy 101 Video Series

City of Miami Beach Marketing and Communications: “Find Your Wave”

Jefferson Health: Jefferson Health Multimedia Team

Roman Catholic Diocese of Austin: 75th Anniversary

TEAM LEWIS: TEAM LEWIS x Palo Alto Networks: Cybersecurity Tools to Fortify Your Digital Life

Tulane University: Parade of Possibilities

Utah Valley University: Wolverine Stories

Visual Storytelling

Hancock Whitney: “NO” is a Beautiful Thing

Lesser, Lesser, Landy & Smith: Nearly a Century of Service

St. Ann’s Community: Celebrating 150 Years of Caring for the Most Important People on Earth

TEAM LEWIS: TEAM LEWIS x Palo Alto Networks: Cybersecurity Tools to Fortify Your Digital Life

The Lewis Pugh Foundation: Hudson Swim 2023

Website Redesign or Relaunch

AHIP: Modern Medicaid Alliance Website Redesign

American Association for Debt Resolution: AADR Rebrand

CARF International: CARF International Website Redesign

Material: Material-The Presidio Website Redesign

Saint Ignatius College Prep: Saint Ignatius College Prep

Wellness Campaign

Be the Change Group: The Proof (BC Cancer Alcohol Awareness Campaign)

BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee: BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee WellTuned Blog – Quick “tune-ups” for your health

Thorne: Thorne – Build to Last

The post PR Daily’s Social Media & Digital Awards Class of 2024 finalists announced appeared first on PR Daily.

What’s more empowering than reading your own story? Sharing it to connect with others.

For Sidney Alvarez, director of marketing and communications at Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine, video storytelling is core to what he does every day. “I use my broadcast journalism background to create content that helps us take control of our narrative and humanize our brand,” he said.

Alvarez employed his video storytelling strategy to enhance the college’s narrative through a weekly series on KTSM-TV that features student doctors and faculty discussing various medical issues. Collaborating with Nexstar Media extends the series’ outreach, guaranteeing that its insights reach a wider audience, beyond the traditional TV spot.

“This was an opportunity to introduce our students and faculty to the concept of working with media,” said Alvarez.

The weekly series also led to the creation of “The D.O. Pulse”, a 30-minute video podcast that offers insights into osteopathy, health tips, education and more. Each episode is divided into three 10-minute segments and shared across the college’s social media platforms.

Alvarez spoke with Ragan about how owning and controlling the narrative through strategic storytelling strengthens brand identity and lays the foundation for future partnerships.

Responses were lightly edited for clarity.

How did “Expert Tips From Your Student D.O.c,” come about and what role did the media partner play?

Though we are a local med school in New Mexico and Florida, most of our students are from out of state. Like most marketing budgets, ours is limited and it is challenging to spend dollars locally, regionally and nationally. I wanted to create a marketing strategy that allowed me to spend regionally while still utilizing traditional public relations strategies locally.

The college’s “Expert Tips From Your Student D.O.c” is my local public relations initiative. Partnering with a local news media outlet for our regional initiatives opened the door for a local public relations opportunity.

What did you envision as the result of this partnership?

I wanted to create an initiative that would help educate our local region about our med school and offer community health tips while allowing our student doctors to learn about working with the media.

Can you elaborate on the strategies to monetize “The D.O. Pulse” show, including details on securing sponsors?

“The D.O. Pulse” is the fourth show I’ve created in my career. I’ve learned that each organization has a specific set of demographics they reach, and some other organizations/partners can benefit by reaching this same population. I’ve created a product that promotes our brand while making it attractive for other brands to want to partner with.

While searching for sponsors/advertisers, I always turn to the low-hanging fruit first. In this case, any vendors that we already work with as an organization. After all, if we are already spending money with a vendor, negotiate with them so they in turn spend money on you as a sponsor or advertiser.

How do you use social media platforms to maximize the reach and engagement of “The D.O. Pulse” content?

Our full 30-minute show gets released, however each segment is about a different topic, garnering its own opportunity for social media release. This allows me to use different strategies and continue promoting our brand with three different topics. It is also an additional opportunity to tag or collaborate with different doctors, hospitals or community organizations – all within the same show.

What is the big takeaway from this strategy that led to success with giving student doctors opportunities and educating the public?

Media training and health communications have never been more prevalent. COVID-19 had our medical communities utilizing traditional media interviews, outreach, and social media strategies to communicate to the public. In many instances, our doctors and medical leaders were the expert voices during this global pandemic within our rural and urban communities.

The big takeaway is teaching our future doctors to be media savvy and to help them understand how to take control of their narratives and share their knowledge with the communities they serve.  “Expert Tips From Your Future D.O.c” and the D.O. Pulse are platforms to help our doctors navigate the world of media.

What tips would you share with someone if they wanted to do something similar?

Just do it, there is nothing holding you back. Our show is a two-person crew, our videographer and myself. The topics are never-ending, and production is as elaborate or simple as you desire. Getting executive buy-in is easier than you may think. These shows are about taking control of your narrative and humanizing your brand.

Learn more about this topic and other relevant topics by joining us at Ragan and PR Daily’s Media Relations Conference on June 5-6 in Washington, D.C.

Isis Simpson-Mersha is a conference producer/ reporter for Ragan. Follow her on LinkedIn.

The post How Burrell College harnessed a video storytelling strategy to humanize the brand and strengthen its media partnerships appeared first on PR Daily.

Video is an increasingly important part of any communications toolbox. 

From vertical video for social media to slickly produced corporate narratives, these visuals can translate an organization’s objectives through a human lens or clarify complex concepts. But as ubiquitous as they are, creating great videos that engage and convert can be tricky. Finding ways to interest and engage audiences in sometimes dry or non-visual topics takes a deft hand, and there are many pitfalls along this creative path. 

Todd Plotkin, CEO of Green Buzz Agency, a video content company, recently walked PR Daily through some of the common mistakes companies tend to make when creating videos. 

1. Choosing the wrong visual storytelling method 

Video often offers more flexibility than other storytelling media. From playful cartoons to serious talking heads, from emotional interviews to informative graphics, the options are nearly endless when it comes to selecting the look of your video. 

But which one to choose is highly dependent on what you want to achieve. 

Navy Credit Union works with Green Buzz on motion-graphic videos to help explain complex financial concepts to an audience who may be introduced to them for the first time. 

“It’s not easy for them to understand if a talking head tells them (something),” Plotkin said. “There’s just too much there. But a motion graphic is perfect because a motion graphic has a voiceover. It has statistics that you can put on the screen. It has an actual visual story that you can tell. So you can basically tell three stories at the same time.” 

But that doesn’t mean that a motion graphic is perfect for all scenarios. Plotkin posed the hypothetical of working with a non-profit on a video describing how donations help kids. That may not be the best time to bust out the animation. That’s when you’d want interviews and footage of children who have been helped. 

“It doesn’t make any sense because a motion graphic takes away the whole human element of it,” he said. “It takes away the human space, it takes away how that human feels in that moment.” 

2. Making your video too short. 

Just as you’ve got to choose the right visual storytelling method for a video, you’ve got to ensure it’s the right length to tell your story without boring your audience. 

So that must mean you need to keep it short, right? 

Not so fast, Plotkin said. 

“The reason why a lot of corporate videos need to be short is they’re just not that compelling,” he explained. “They’re not that good. But if you have a great story, if you have a dynamic central person, if you have a really impactful organization that you’re talking about, then then you should let that breathe.” 

Like any piece of messaging, videos should be the length they need to be to tell your story while also holding a viewer’s attention. That might be 5 minutes or 37 seconds. The right length is whatever the right length is. Because long doesn’t have to mean boring if a video is produced properly. 

“You don’t want to have a static image where just a talking head on screen, that’s not very interesting. That’s not going to keep people engaged,” Plotkin said. “You want to make sure that the editing pace is faster, people’s attention spans are really short. So you want to make sure that there are lots of different visuals that they can tap into.” 

3. Not planning video shoots carefully 

A video needs careful choreography to get its points across, and this hurdle often arises during the shooting process. . 

Plotkin recommends working to identify umbrella topics or themes that you want to highlight in the video. Then work backwards to figure out which interview subjects can hit one or more of those themes. 

“At that point, it’s about writing the interview questions and making sure that you’re looking for certain sound bites,” Plotkin said. “You’re looking for certain things that they’re saying, and they’re answers that will help you construct that story that you want to tell about that organization under those themes.” 

Then, once you’ve conducted the interview, look for visuals to help support what the subject has described. 

“While someone is doing an interview, you want to kind of key in on other visuals that go along with what they’ve said in the interview,” Plotkin said. “And then you want to go and find those things. So it talks about playing frisbee outside. You want to make sure hey, can I go outside with you? Can you guys toss a Frisbee back and forth because you mentioned this in your interview?” 

Wherever your visual storytelling journey takes you, avoid these video traps to create beautiful, thoughtful pieces that resonate with your audience. 

Sherri Kolade contributed to this report.

Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.

The post 3 mistakes you’re making with your corporate video appeared first on PR Daily.

How often do you find yourself watching videos? According to G2, the average person watches videos for about 16 hours weekly. This stat proves that people regularly consume video content, whether on their mobile devices, desktop, tablets, or smart TVs. G2 also states that 99% of people enjoy branded content.

Since almost everyone who watches videos enjoys branded content, businesses and organizations should put time, effort and thought into the videos they’re producing to ensure they’re shareable.

But what makes a video shareable? There are several strategies you can apply during your video creation process, giving it a better shot of being shared by the viewer.

Tips for creating shareable video content

• Put the hook at the start of your video. Many successful videos are brief and straight to the point. The more quickly you hook the audience in, the more likely they are to watch your video in its entirety. Starting your video with a bang ensures the viewer is locked into the content. You’ll also want to end the video with a clear call to action.
• Tell a story that creates a connection with the viewer. One of the quickest ways a video will get shared is if it tells a story that relates to the viewer. How can you form this connection? Inject emotion and make sure the viewer exits your video feeling something, whether happiness, surprise or warmth. Funny videos are some of the most shared videos, but you want to be smart about the humor you use.
• Use subtitles or closed captioning. People watch a lot of their videos while they’re on the go. If they don’t have headphones on them, they’re typically watching videos on silent. Including subtitles or closed captioning makes it easier for viewers to watch in these situations. It also makes your video more accessible for those with hearing loss.
• Consider what your audience wants to see or needs to hear. When creating a video, especially one you want to be shared, you want to ensure it resonates with your audience. If you’re making a video to sell a product or meet your bottom line, you will most likely not capture the intended audience’s attention. You want to break down what you’re offering and make the most of the video while it’s hot.
• Avoid using recycled content. Social media and streaming platforms are full of video content. To make a difference with your audience — and hope they share your video — you’ll want to stand out with original content. According to Sprout Social, 62% of TikTok users say platform-specific branded content is the best way to connect with customers. If TikTok is one of the platforms you want to use to promote your video, you now know that unique videos will go much further than something repurposed.
• Optimize for mobile. Most of your customers are probably watching videos on their phones. In fact, YouTube reaches more adults ages 18-24 on mobile devices alone compared to any TV network. Since so many of your customers and potential customers are using their phones for video consumption, not optimizing for mobile can turn the entire video into a failure.
• Keep videos short. According to Statusbrew, 85% of marketers rate short-form videos as the most effective type of social media content. For the most sharing potential, keep your video under five minutes. Remember to use your time wisely. Short, punchy videos that get to the point quickly are often the most successful.

Where are people watching videos?

Many people are consuming video in non-linear ways. Though they mainly use social media to watch their video content, they will go to different platforms for different reasons. You should keep this in mind, especially now that Instagram is rolling back some of its recent changes after complaints that the platform was becoming more like TikTok.

While cross-platform sharing is becoming more manageable, you’ll still want to ensure you know what platforms you will use to share your video. You’ll also want to think about how your audience uses each platform so that you can make the most effective video.

YouTube is not only a video-sharing platform but the second largest search engine in the world. Users watch over 1 billion hours of video content daily on the site. Aside from YouTube, video ads typically perform better than other ad formats on Facebook. However, the engagement rates on Instagram are significantly higher than on Facebook, according to Statusbrew. And if you’re looking to reach an audience of adults ages 18-24, they account for almost 45% of TikTok’s global reach.

Use a video production company for high-quality, shareable video content

With so much video content available to consumers today, viewers can be more selective about what they choose to watch. Making a positively received and shareable video depends on its originality, quality, length, and accessibility. To achieve this, you want to ensure you work with a professional video production company to get the most out of your video marketing strategy. When your video has high-quality appeal, it’s more likely to educate your audience and capture their attention. And that’s something worth sharing.

Patrick Rafferty is the owner of RaffertyWeiss Media with over 20 years of experience as a producer and director of TV spots, corporate image films, and marketing videos.

The post How to make more shareable videos appeared first on PR Daily.

As the great Neil Young once asked, “Who will tell your story?” The answer to that question is different for every brand.

Ensuring your brand’s leadership and subject matter experts are prepared to tell the story of your company at both in-person and virtual events is key.

During an April 2022 session of Ragan’s Brand Storytelling Conference, industry experts Cheril Clarke, founder of Phenomenal Writing, and Ashley Brown, clinical communications senior strategist with Atrium Health, shared their best practices for communicators looking to coach their C-suites to brand storytelling success.

Here are three tips:

1. Choose the right leader to tell your brand story.

The best person to tell the story is whoever can bring the most authenticity to the job, says Clarke. That could mean being someone who is the most knowledgeable or enthusiastic, among other traits.

Oftentimes, that person is the CEO — but sometimes it isn’t.

“I think a little bit to consider it the medium,” Clarke says. “If it’s video, then it could be several people telling [the story], especially if it’s the origin story of your firm or company.”

It’s all about finding the person who can educate and motivate audiences to act, she says.

2. Help leaders appear confident and comfortable on camera.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, many events and speaking opportunities moved to virtual forums. Yet, Brown explains that many public speaking best practices have remained the same.

Brown shares her tips for prepping leaders and subject matter experts for on-camera interviews and speaking engagements:

• Avoid loud clothing prints or flashy jewelry.
• Make sure your camera background is nice — good lighting, no virtual backgrounds.
• Work on using your hands less.
• Educate leaders about the technical nuances of video.

Clarke suggests advising your leaders to stand in front of the camera when presenting or speaking at an event.

“It just gives an extra air of authoritativeness,” she says.

3. Find great sound bites to repurpose across comms channels.

If your speaker is reading from prepared remarks, it’s easy to pre-write social media nuggets to publish during the event, Clarke says.

Once you push those pre-written sound bites, you have an opportunity to link out to a summary or even the full video of the event.

“Also, keep in mind where your audience is — perhaps they’re on LinkedIn, perhaps they’re on Twitter,” Clarke says. “Depending on the company, you may have more people on Instagram, if you have a more visual audience.”

PR pros, what are your best practices for brand storytelling? Let us know on Twitter @PRDaily.

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For the team behind Discover Puerto Rico, it’s always been a challenge to educate consumers about the island’s unique travel offerings.

“As a territory of the U.S., there is an inherent challenge that I think has been in place for a long time, which is just educating people on the U.S. mainland that Puerto Rico is part of the U.S.,” explains Leah Chandler, CMO for Discover Puerto Rico.

And that’s a missed opportunity in the luxury travel market, where visitors can avoid the hassle of getting a passport and exchanging currency to simply sit on a beach.

“They think there’s a lot of barriers to entry when in fact traveling to Puerto Rico is super accessible and easy with over 200 direct flights a day,” Chandler says. That’s the challenge that faces the comms team, even more so than the need to rebuild trust and identity for an island that has come to be known by its devastating losses during recent hurricanes.

The keys to audience education are continuity and innovation, says Chandler.

Chandler says continuity is shown by stressing the message about Puerto Rico’s accessibility in every piece of communication the team creates, from press releases to TV ads. For instance, every TV spot has a stamp that reminds viewers “no passport required.”

Rebranding an island

Puerto Rico has always been a bit of an underdog in the destination marketing game, Chandler says. Apart from confusion over its American status, Puerto Rico has also had more than its fair share of crises.

Whether you look at the effects of Hurricane Maria, where island residents were without power for months, or devastating earthquakes— not to mention a global pandemic — the travel destination needed a fresh start.

While working to bring Puerto Rico to new audiences, the team was simultaneously looking to update the crisis playbook — a familiar endeavor for communicators in 2022.

Discover Puerto Rico is a fairly new marketing office, opened in 2018. The good news when the office launched was that most consumers didn’t have a negative view of the island. They mostly just didn’t have much knowledge of the island and its offerings at all.

“Puerto Rico was sort of a shoulder shrug for the consumers that we were testing,” says Chandler.

But the island was also unprepared should a new crisis hit. There wasn’t an official crisis comms playbook for the tourism industry in Puerto Rico before Discover Puerto Rico’s launch in 2018. Creating that playbook was the second big undertaking for Chandler and her team after doing market research about consumers and their knowledge of the island.

“It really is a Bible for us,” Chandler says. “I think we have 25 scenarios, from natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes to shark bites and bomb threats. It is something that we take very seriously.”

And Chandler maintains a good crisis playbook should never live on the shelf for too long, even if you don’t have a reason to use it.

“It’s something we kind of live and breathe,” she says. And because the team was constantly working on their playbook, they were more prepared for COVID-19 than some.

“Because of the impact of Zika in 2015 and 2016, we actually had an air pathogen play in our playbook,” says Chandler. “We had a plan for airborne illness and contagion that we were able to immediately pull.”

The pandemic was still unprecedented, she agrees, but having that chapter in the playbook allowed her team to get a head start and move faster when the crisis first started to disrupt travel in 2020.

Getting creative

And as an underdog, Chandler says her team was forced to work smarter than other destination travel operations.

“We’ve really have to push on innovation and make sure that we’re bringing concepts to the table to reach people in unique ways and really disrupt the regular tourism advertising sea of sameness,” she says.

One example of innovation is the activation around its campaign “Sunshine to Spare.” Working with PR agency Ketchum, the team looked to leverage the sunshine and warmth of Puerto Rico into a recognizable brand.

“We partnered with a climatologist at the University of Puerto Rico, who actually helped measure the sunlight in Puerto Rico and assign a value to it that we were able to derive into our own unique color,” explains Chandler. That color was then branded by Pantone.

Now with its signature color, Puerto Rico can enter conversations that aren’t specifically about travel to the Caribbean. Perhaps a consumer wants to choose the color of the Puerto Rican sunset for a special room. The color also appeared at New York Fashion Week through a partnership with designer Christian Cowan.

Live Boricua

In its latest campaign, Discover Puerto Rico is hoping to set itself apart form other travel destinations by highlighting what it sees as its best competitive advantage: its culture.

The campaign, which it calls “Live Boricua,” hopes to highlight the special mix of African, Native American and Spanish heritage that defines Puerto Rico. (Boricua is a word for someone of Puerto Rocan birth or descent.)

The campaign also marks a return to normal operations for Discover Puerto Rico after years of pandemic crisis response.

“We are kind of getting back to basics,” says Chandler.

“The essence of Live Boricua means to ‘live like us,’ and promises a deeper and more meaningful experience for travelers,” says Jean Paul Polo, Emmy-award-winning director of creative strategy for Discover Puerto Rico. “It was incredible to work with fellow Boricuas, from renowned director Mariem Pérez Riera and award-winning still photographer Steph Segarra to my colleagues at Discover Puerto Rico and the local talent we cast as this is our moment to define what it means to experience our way of life and have it become part of the everyday vernacular outside of the Island.”

And the tag line “Live Boricua” offers yet another opportunity for educating a target audience. The term “Boricua” is familiar to Puerto Ricans and the diaspora that still have strong ties to the island. “They know what Boricua means and, and their hearts are filled with pride when they hear it,” says Chandler.

For those who aren’t familiar with the term, it’s an opportunity to be introduced to something new, while still holding onto some of the expected parts of the pitch: the white sand beaches and the colorful iced beverages.

To reach these two audiences, the team is executing a two-pronged strategy. For markets that need less of an introduction to Puerto Rico — New York, Orlando or Miami — the Puerto Rican culture will be proudly on display. And for audiences that are still learning that the island exists, the campaign will have more of a traditional destination marketing feel with images of beaches and the expected Caribbean vacation panorama.

But soon, those markets too will be introduced to the Boricua lifestyle. For Chandler and her team, the hope is one day that everyone will know exactly where Puerto Rico is and can’t resist the urge to “Live Boricua.”

The post How Discover Puerto Rico is educating audiences about island heritage appeared first on PR Daily.

As brand storytellers, it is essential to think about inclusion and diversity in your content.

What are the stories and identities being highlighted? Does your organization speak to the full diversity of its consumer base or is a subset of consumers overrepresented? Who is being ignored?

Celebrity Cruises, a luxury cruise operation under the umbrella of Royal Caribbean Group, found that its content wasn’t nearly diverse enough. Specifically, it was having a hard time sourcing images of all kinds of skin tones and body types.

To solve what the team describes as industry-wide issue around representation in marketing and brand story images for the luxury travel sector, Celebrity Cruises decided to create its own open-source image database. It’s calling the effort “The All-Inclusive Photo Project” and features an array of images taken by world-class photographers, including Annie Leibovitz.

“During the pandemic, we were reflecting on Celebrity Cruises’ own marketing efforts, brand positioning and how we wanted to come out of the pandemic as a much stronger brand,” explains Susan Lomax, head of communications for Celebrity Cruises. “We identified a need, and with it, an opportunity to do more in this regard, and, as we looked around at the travel landscape, we were inspired to encourage and support others in our industry to join this important journey with us.”

(Images courtesy of the All-Inclusive Photo Project)

“For far too long, ‘all-inclusive’ in the travel industry has meant everything on your vacation is included in one price. We set out to challenge this conventional thinking by imagining the phrase through the lens of others,” Celebrity Cruises President and CEO Lisa Lutoff-Perlo shared in a press release. “What Annie and all of the talented artists involved in this project have captured so beautifully, is that for vacations to really live up to the marketing moniker ‘all-inclusive,’ then they should start by using images that are inclusive of all, not just a few.”

Celebrity Cruises has been working hard to improve diverse representation, including an intentional effort to bring more women into the maritime industry in 2015, which has led to its recent announcement that 32% of the brand’s bridge officers are women. (Less than 2% of mariners are women across the industry.)

Now with the photo project, the hope is to increase representation across marketing materials for the luxury travel sector.

“One of our female captains, Captain Kate McCue, always reminds me, ‘If you can SEA it, you can BE it,’ Lomax says. “Spending time with a group of people who rarely or never see anyone who looks like them and hearing their stories was a powerful reminder of why representation is so important.”

And Celebrity Cruises recognizes the importance of diversity for a brand that, at its center, values connecting people with different cultures.

“At the end of the day, experiencing different cultures and meeting different people is what travel is all about and travel industry marketing should reflect this,” Lomax says.

To measure the effectiveness of the campaign, the team will look to see if representation in travel industry marketing improves. Tracking downloads from the photo library will also provide a clear signal of success.

“We want our marketing images to represent how the world looks,” Lomax says. “We really don’t have to look much further than to reflect what we see on our ships every day, where we have international floating cities with guests and crew from all walks of life interacting and connecting with each other. That’s the real beauty in travel.”

The post Celebrity Cruises shares strategy behind ‘All-Inclusive Photo Project’ appeared first on PR Daily.

“Will people still listen to podcasts?”

I vividly remember that question from a client in early March 2020—and that I didn’t know the answer.

Podcasts were, of course, already wildly popular by the time the COVID-19 pandemic struck the world. But the way we listened to podcasts seemed to be irreparably harmed. For most, podcasts were what we listened to as we traveled, whether that was to or from work, or to and from a friend’s or family’s house. It didn’t appear anyone would be doing much traveling anytime soon in March 2020.

To say the rumors of the podcast’s demise were greatly exaggerated would be a gross understatement. Podcasts have not only survived through they pandemic; they have thrived. Podcasts don’t need to just be a part or parcel of your company’s or organization’s media outreach strategy; they need to be a focal point.

This isn’t about creating your own podcast from scratch, which is not what the podcast market wants from brands today. It’s about leveraging the networks of existing podcasts, using relationships with reporters and editors who have started their own, and finding new audiences for your message.

The reason for their proliferation is easy to understand when you think about the impact of remote work and social distancing on our lives in 2020. The in-person interview essentially vanished. The recorded Zoom interview, while also here to stay, is far less inviting to viewers and struggled to reach the same level of acceptance as the podcast.

Similarly, podcasts are incredibly easy for anyone, particularly reporters, to record, edit and publish. It’s basically the same thing as recording a phone interview, except you publish the whole thing instead of cutting it down to soundbites or transcribing key quotes.

While it’s easy to see why podcasts have proliferated and become a favorite of reporters, influencers and just about anyone with access to a microphone, it’s equally important to understand why it’s so important for companies and organizations to take advantage of podcasts in their PR strategy.

First, there is the content of a podcast. It’s a conversation. It’s not a hit or miss TV interview where you are at the mercy of a producer’s editing skills. For most podcasts, the entire conversation is recorded. That allows your spokesperson an opportunity to not only share key messaging and talking points but explain them in detail and provide context. It’s a completely different format than most media interviews, yet one that is most similar to how we interact in our daily lives.  It becomes an easier venue for most spokespeople.

Secondly, there is the opportunity to reveal your personality, which can lead to more podcasts and more media interviews. It’s very tough for a spokesperson to display their personality with a few quotes in an AP story or a quick interview on the Evening News. It’s not impossible, but it’s not easy.

With a podcast, your spokesperson gets to shine and embrace who they are. They get to reveal the depth of their expertise, particularly when matched up with a strong podcast host who can lead the conversation into exciting, uncharted waters. There’s an added bonus of amplification, because one good podcast interview begets another. Using a previous interview is an easy media pitch to other podcasters looking for unique and interesting guests. It’s the gift that can keep giving, if done right.

The final reason podcasts are so valuable is arguably the most important—they can have a much longer shelf life. Unless you are doing a podcast interview about a specific point in time event, podcasts are the definition of evergreen content. They are about big ideas and trends, about thoughts and opinions, and about the future and what’s next. The general nature of podcasts mean they have a stickiness to them that most forms of media content in 2022 do not.

Especially during the last two years of the pandemic, news has moved at the speed of light. News articles and TV stories can make a bigger impact in the short term but may not stand the test of time as news cycles refresh every day, if not every hour. Podcasts, on the other hand, can linger, in a good way.

Podcasts shouldn’t be the entirety of your media strategy, but it should be front and center. It’s a way for any company or organization to deliver more messaging through more spokespeople to more people.

Four years ago, I urged my clients to merely include podcasts into their PR strategy to be effective. Today, I am telling you it should be a focal part.

Sean O’Leary is a vice president with Susan Davis International.

The post What the pandemic success of podcasts means for PR pros appeared first on PR Daily.

Twenty-one percent of all U.S. home buyers and sellers are veterans or military service members. This gave the National Association of Realtors (NAR) the opportunity to demonstrate the value realtors provide consumers.

In partnership with Great Big Story, a cinematic storytelling platform created by CNN, NAR produced “Coming Home,” a three-part video series featuring the stories of military staff and their families as they relocate, showing how realtors work with their clients throughout their real estate journey and often beyond.

Episode one highlights NAR Good Neighbor Award winner Mark Solomon, showcasing how the nonprofit organization he co-founded, Veterans Community Project, combats veteran homelessness. Episode two features Gail Doxie and her nonprofit, Miles of Smiles, a horse ranch in Fort Myers, Florida, which treats soldiers with PTSD through equine therapy. And episode three highlights Linda Batten as she helps a family relocate from a camper in California to their first home in Virginia.

The videos delivered more than 2 million views and 5.36 million impressions across Facebook and YouTube, over-delivering on the campaign guarantee of 1.85 million views. With some 773,000 organic views, the campaign generated more than $123K,000 in added value for NAR.

Seventy-six percent of the campaign’s emotional reactions and comments were positive. Viewers expressed a deep respect for the realtors helping individuals and reacted positively to content about helping veterans.

Kudos to Cammy Keiler, Ashley Vanasse, Stephanie DiCicco, Kristen Ziaks, Amy Merchant, Scott Bartosiewicz, Anna Bosacker, Casey Carpenter and Karen Bebart.

Learn more about Ragan’s and PR Daily’s current and upcoming awards programs here.

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Good morning, communicators:

CVS hopes to corner the digital market as it trademarks its brand to open a digital pharmacy in the metaverse. The drugstore chain joins retailers like Nike and Walmart to offer a virtual shopping experience.

Its trademark filing also suggests the company hopes to offer telehealth and virtual visits in the metaverse store.

CNBC reports:

“We’re… regularly looking at new and innovative ways to engage consumers through a digital-first, technology-forward approach,” said a CVS spokesman in a statement to CNBC, adding “we will continue to explore these and other options to improve the consumer experience and launch new consumer-centric services.”

It’s an example of how many companies are testing capabilities and opportunities in new digital platforms, despite plenty of uncertainty about how popular the metaverse will actually be. To tie into its offering, CVS has also released research on how many Americans are underserved by their current health care options.

If you are getting into the metaverse, think about how you can make a compelling case that your offering improves the lives of consumers. By increasing accessibility for routine wellness appointments, CVS might have a better reason to enter the metaverse than most.

Here are today’s top stories:

Uniqlo defends keeping Russian stores open

The clothing chain has 50 stores in Russia, which it says will remain open despite its parent company’s stance against the Ukraine invasion. Competitors like H&M and Zara have temporarily closed their stores in Russia—though those decisions might have been forced due to supply chain issues.

Business Insider reports:

The CEO of Uniqlo parent company Fast Retailing, who is against the war in Ukraine, confirmed the brand’s decision to stay open in Russia in a statement to Asian business news site Nikkei, Bloomberg reported. Earlier this week, Fast Retailing donated $10 million to UN Refugee Agency UNHCR.

“Clothing is a necessity of life,” CEO Tadashi Yanai said, according to Bloomberg. “The people of Russia have the same right to live as we do.” A spokesperson for Fast Retailing was not immediately available for comment when contacted by Insider.

What you should know: While plenty of noise is being made by corporations about closing their operations in Russia in response to the tragedy in Ukraine, the actions are often business decisions forced by the raft of sanctions imposed by NATO countries and their allies around the world.

Uniqlo hopes to be able to separate its efforts to serve the Russian people—many of whom are bravely protesting the war—from its leaders which have sent troops into a sovereign nation unprovoked. By donating to refugee organizations, the brand hopes to demonstrate its values and offset criticism of its ongoing Russian connection.

MEASURED THOUGHTS

The Institute for Public Relations has released a new report on the top 17 research discoveries for PR pros in 2021. The list includes analyses of a range of topics from behavioral science to diversity and inclusion.

One common thread is the importance of employees and their value to your organization. Employees became the No. 1 stakeholder for businesses in 2021 and the data represents just how important employee relations is for your efforts in the year ahead.

(Image via)

You can see all 17 of the insights identified by IPR as the top pieces of research for last year by downloading the full report.

Stoli vodka rebrands to distance itself from Russia

The Stolichnaya vodka brand is hoping that a name change will be enough to keep its products on shelves in Europe and the U.S. Shortening the name to just “Stoli” is an effort to show solidarity with the Ukrainian people and educate consumers about the company’s own strained relations with Russia. Founder Yuri Shefler was born in Russia but was exiled in 2000 for anti-Putin views.

The company’s alcoholic beverage is now produced in Latvia.

The New York Daily News reports:

“Today, we have made the decision to rebrand entirely as the name no longer represents our organization,” Shefler said in a press release. “More than anything, I wish for ‘Stoli’ to represent peace in Europe and solidarity with Ukraine.”

Why it matters: The name change is a bit of PR stunt—but it’s crucial for Stoli to find a way to explain its frayed Russia connection to consumers who are weighing their purchasing options. Stores have been removing Russian brands from shelves—and Stoli risks guilt by association, even if its founder has no love for Putin and his regime.

INVESTOR RELATIONS

More and more companies are facing pressure from their investors to make changes to product portfolios. Unilever is just the latest as an investor group has demanded more transparency around nutrition in its products, including Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. The company already published nutrition standards in 2020, including targets around plant-based food products and lowering salt and fat content in Unilever’s food portfolio. Investors, however, want more.

Unilever, which is the world’s largest producer of ice cream, will set out new nutrition goals by October, according to the company.

Financial Times reports:

Catherine Howarth, chief executive of ShareAction, a shareholder group that pushed Unilever to make the changes, said: “The transparency promised sets a new standard for the industry. We hope and expect that others will follow.”

In the U.S., investors are pushing e-commerce giant Amazon to adopt new practices and transparency around its corporate taxes. The company has rebuffed similar requests from shareholders in the past—but the investors claim the aggressive tax practices of the retailer create risk.

Reuters reports:

[The investors] want to bring a shareholders’ resolution demanding the new standard at the company’s annual meeting this year, it said, citing a letter to be sent this week to the U.S. regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“Aggressive tax practices can expose a company and its investors to increased scrutiny from tax authorities, adjustment risks, and increase their vulnerability to changes in tax rules,” the investors said.

For communicators, these stories are a reminder of the growing importance of environmental, social and governance issues. Investors are looking for companies that demonstrate ongoing stakeholder engagement—and that’s where communicators can both facilitate the conversation and make sure a company’s efforts are visible to right audiences.

Tech companies address anxiety amid return to office push

Big tech companies like Google, Apple, Twitter and more are making the push to bring employees back to their offices. For Apple, employees will have to work in the office one day a week starting April 11 and ramp up to three days per week by April 23. Google will require at least three days in the office, effective April 4.

Twitter will be more flexible, allowing workers to set their own schedule and priorities when its offices reopen Mach 15.

Deadline reports:

“For many of you, I know that returning to the office represents a long-awaited milestone and a positive sign that we can engage more fully with the colleagues who play such an important role in our lives,” [Apple CEO Tim Cook] said in a memo. “For others, it may also be an unsettling change.”

… “Wherever you feel most productive and creative is where you will work, and that includes working from home full-time forever,” Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said in a letter to employees. “Office every day? That works too. Some days in office, some days from home? Of course.”

What you should know: Workers want to hear about the strategy for a return to the office directly from the CEO, and those internal messages are likely to find their way into the hands of external audiences. Even as the pandemic abates, demonstrating empathy for employees and their needs will be paramount for communicators.

Acknowledging the wide range of experiences and priorities for workers coming out of the pandemic is starting point. And if you do have hard and fast rules about when workers must be in an office, make sure to have a solid reason behind your decision.

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Everyone wants to market to Gen Z.

They are the next generation of customers, after all. Not only do they account for 40 percent of all consumers, they have over $44 billion in buying power.

The problem, though, is that they are a challenging group for marketers to win over—probably more so than any other generation before them. Even tech giants have a hard time appealing to their younger customers. Facebook has a Gen Z problem. Instagram has a Gen Z problem. Even Netflix has a Gen Z problem.

At Spotify, we have noticed that Gen Zers also listen to fewer podcasts than our other users, and also have different musical preferences, often not listening to the artists that are ranked the highest on our platforms. They were raised differently than other generations; therefore they consume content differently. As a result, traditional marketing tactics are not as effective. Marketers must keep up with this fast-growing generation that is pushing the boundaries of everything we thought we knew about advertising.

The good news: You do not have to be from Gen Z to understand how to reach your Gen Z audience. Here are some strategies for marketing to this younger demographic.

1. Celebrities are out. Influencers are in.

Maybe you use influencer marketing, maybe you do not—but if you are targeting Gen Z, you better be.

Brands in the past used more celebrities to market their products or services. While costly, celebrities have a significant influence over their equally significant fan bases. But this is not fooling Gen Z. They sometimes view certain celebrities as being out of touch, while they perceive influencers as being far more relatable, as if it was a friend giving them advice rather than someone being paid to give them the hard sell.

This is a powerful marketing tool. Gen Z is twice as likely to make a purchase from an influencer than millennials.

This is why we have collaborated with social media influencers like Alex Cooper from the ‘Call Her Daddy’ podcast and Addison Rae, a famous TikTok creator. And as you consider who to reach out for, look for influencers that have a highly engaged following. Additionally, you want to reach out to influencers that would have a natural affinity towards your product or service. These influencers may have less of a following than celebrities, but they often have more authentic relationships with their followers, which is more beneficial for sales and conversations.

2. Keep it visually engaging—but keep it short.

Do you think your content could capture someone’s attention in as little as eight seconds? This just so happens to be the attention span of the average Gen Z consumer.

This is a group that prefers bite-sized content. They have grown up surrounded by technology and a massive amount of information. Filtering through endless content to find what they want is an innate part of them.

Your content must be short, captivating and engaging. Videos are the best way to do this, which is perhaps why TikTok is the only platform that has readily grabbed the Gen Z audience. At Spotify, we have started working on new tools to help appeal to our Gen Z listeners, like testing a new destination on our main app that offers snippets of songs alongside a video.

In a world oversaturated with content, you need to make sure yours stands out. There is always a way to incorporate new, fun videos into your marketing efforts.

3. Embrace personalization.

A lot of older generations believe that brands using their data to personalize their outreach is creepy, but not Gen Z. This group trains their algorithm on purpose by clicking, watching, liking and sharing the content they want to see more of. If they are going to actively use their accounts, they want to actually like what they are seeing.

Think of how you can engage your Gen Z consumers so you can target your ads where they will be best suited, like encouraging interactions with your customers. On platforms like Twitter and Instagram, for example, brands can create polls that help them learn more about what their younger customers want. The more targeted you can make your ads, the better your sales and conversions will be.

Gen Z has set a new standard for marketers. This is not a problem, but an opportunity to transform and refresh your marketing efforts to appeal to this next generation of consumers. It’s a change for the better.

Brian Berner is an advertising media and technology executive with over a decade and a half of experience. He is the Head of North American Advertising Sales for Spotify, the popular streaming service, and he leads nearly 200 employees across various departments in all matters related to advertising sales and revenue within the United States and Canada.

The post How to fix your Gen Z marketing problem appeared first on PR Daily.

As winter ebbs and the northern hemisphere begins to look hopefully toward spring, many brands will seek to refresh their aesthetic presence.

When revamping your organization’s design strategy, don’t leave your social media management team behind; eye-catching social media design can mean the difference between grabbing your audience’s attention and becoming yet another skipped post.

Social media marketing company Later compiled a rundown of the social media graphic design trends every visual communicator should be watching—and implementing—this year. A hint about the overarching themes: Things are looking big, bold and colorful.

Here are Later’s top 10 social media graphic design trends for 2022:

1. Fluorescent Color Palettes
2. 60s and 70s Iconography
3. Contrasting Fonts
4. Maximalism
5. Cloud Motifs
6. Risograph Effects
7. Bubble Fonts
8. Modern Gradients
9. 3D Shapes
10. Grit and Grain

For the full report, visit the Later site here.

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Distracted driving is dangerous—and too often fatal. The National Safety Council found that the death rate from distracted driving in the U.S. jumped 20% between January and June 2020 compared to the same six-month period in 2019.

Travelers Insurance wanted to draw attention to the dangers of driving while texting, updating social media, shopping and other activities. With agency partners Peppercomm and TBWA\Chiat\Day New York, it used its “Unfinished Stories” series to tell the unfinished story of Zaadii Tso, a three-year-old boy whose life was senselessly cut short by a distracted driver, through a comic book starring Zaadii as superhero Z-Hawk.

Travelers commissioned comic writers and artists Gail Simone, Jim Calafiore and Jeffrey Veregge, and worked closely with Zaadii’s family, to design a story honoring the young boy as one of the first Navajo superheroes—“Zaadii: The Legend of Z-Hawk.”

Advance outreach was targeted to top-tier national business and consumer lifestyle outlets and local media in Arizona, as well as insurance, ad/marketing and comic book trade media to secure interest in advance of the comic’s debut.

The comic launched on Oct. 8, 2020 at New York Comic Con. Simone, Calafiore and Veregge, along with John Morris, senior VP of enterprise integrated marketing at Travelers, took part in a virtual panel session to talk about the inspiration for the project, the making of the comic and the larger goal of calling attention to the risks of distracted driving.

The campaign generated 23 earned media placements in top-tier national and reginal publications including CNBC, SheKnows, Ad Age, the Arizona Daily Sun, the Hartford Courant and more. On social media, the campaign garnered 132 million impressions, 188,000 site visits and 9.5 million video views.

Learn more about Ragan’s and PR Daily’s current and upcoming awards programs here.

The post Travelers Insurance births a new superhero to illustrate the dangers of distracted driving appeared first on PR Daily.

Much has been made in recent years of PR pros needing to adopt the skill set of their marketing colleagues. The ability to tie PR work to revenue and bottom-line success has been accelerated by marketing pros’ sophistication with digital tracking tools.

Even such concepts as the marketing funnel have been adopted by PR pros and the PESO model shows how traditional earned media must work in concert with paid placements and social media strategy to drive results. Yet, integration of marketing and PR has also changed how marketers must compete for attention and new business.

In an attention-starved marketplace, the PR skill to earn attention inherent in “earned media” has never been more valuable.

“Where the marketing industry is right now is an earned environment,” says Samantha Stark, executive vice president with 160over90 and a member of the PR Daily Leadership Network.

“And to me, that is what comms people are trained in. PR people are trained in earning attention because we have had to earn the attention of some of the most difficult stakeholders in the world, which are media.”

When PR should lead

So, how can a PR lens bring value to the full integrated comms strategy? If you start by thinking about earning attention, Stark explains, you have to change how you approach everything from the creative brief to key performance indicators (KPIs). 

As an example, she references how her agency has changed its approach to experiential marketing efforts by starting with a PR pro’s outlook.

“Most people do an event because they want to not just have that on-the-ground engagement, they want to have a story about that event,” Stark says. “They want that event to be so interesting that it’s going to be shared on social media.” Those PR KPIs are in the brief for a new campaign 90% of the time, Stark estimates.

PR pros must be involved early in the creative process to be able to offer counsel on what might generate a headline. A clever marketing idea might not feature the spokesperson a reporter needs to write the story, or you could be replicating something your competitors have already done—making your big idea old news.

In Stark’s view, PR pros are uniquely suited to the agile, real-time engagement that is necessary to generate news coverage and online conversation. But it’s a give and take with creative and marketing pros on any integrated team.

“Creatives constantly push us,” says Stark. And to decide if a project should be led by PR or marketing, 160over90 analyzes the specific needs of the project.

“The way that we approach solving problems is that it is channel agnostic,” says Stark, always with an eye on what will be the best use of available assets to create something “compelling.”

The social media component

A big part of earning attention and driving the conversation these days is social media—and 160over90 is in the midst of updating its social content studio to try and meet the ever-changing needs of online audiences. By combining the video expertise of its advertising side with social producers who are fluent in the specific formats of platforms and the latest trends, 160over90 hopes to give social media clients an edge.

“We’re merging it all together,” shares Stark.

And that has much to do with how social media has risen to the top of the media hierarchy. So, how does social media play its unique role in overall comms strategy?

“To me, social media is identifying things that are bubbling up first,” says Stark, with a nod to the importance of social listening. “It’s how you’re getting a good sense of audience sentiment, what people are feeling and how you should be communicating.”

It’s also where personalization is at its best, particularly with the rise of influencer marketing, which 160over90 now just calls “influence” or “creator marketing.” But to be a meaningful part of the communications strategy, social media must have purpose.

“What are you laddering up and what are you trying to solve?” Stark says.

And social media can be a crucial proving ground, where you can establish the importance and audience for your stories which can then help get other media coverage. You can show a TV news producer your relevance by getting a bunch of shares online. In a 24-hour cycle that moves at lightning speed, only the brands that are using social media to drive news are going to break through.

“If you’re not using social in that manner, then you’re not going to be a part of the cycle in time for it to be meaningful and to benefit your brand,” Stark says.

This article is part of our PR Daily Leadership Network membership. Members can read the full article by joining this exclusive group of comms leaders.

The PESO Model© was created by Spin Sucks

The post What PR has to offer marketing strategy and tactics appeared first on PR Daily.

Again and again, I see PR pros boasting about the “reach” of their campaigns. And again and again, I see our industry’s awards reinforcing this metric.

Yet, when is the last time your board asked you about the reach of a campaign? (And while I’m on my soapbox, social media marketers are just as guilty of using this inflated metric.)

Impressions, or the potential reach of your article/post/message, are meaningless if those people don’t actually see your brand–or even better–take action based on your message. So as PR professionals, what can we, and should we, measure? How do we find a balance between valueless impressions and the holy grail of closed sales or customer lifetime value?

While your actual measurement mix should depend on your company’s specific goals, here are a few ideas to get you started.

PR measurement in an integrated world

The average buyer’s journey includes upwards of 20 touchpoints—and sometimes hundreds. PR alone is not enough to win over today’s discerning buyers. Nor is advertising. Nor social media. Nor email marketing. These channels all influence each other—and buyers—to ultimately propel action from your prospects.

So, instead of looking solely at the outputs of PR (number of placements, impressions or even share of voice), it’s important to look at the influence of PR on your company’s entire marketing program.

Here are three ways to measure PR’s influence vs. output:

1. SEO impact. Organic search is typically one of the top drivers of website traffic and conversions. In fact, 53% of trackable website traffic tends to come from organic search. And smart PR pros know how to tailor their efforts to maximize the SEO value of media coverage with keywords and backlinks.

That’s why SEO metrics like website traffic/conversions from organic search, number of backlinks and domain authority are important to watch and can be a key indicator of PR’s impact.

2. Email marketing performance. If your company isn’t leveraging media coverage in newsletters, sales emails and nurture programs, then you’re missing an opportunity to get this key third-party validation in front of your hottest prospects. Once you are taking advantage of this PR amplification channel, be sure you’re measuring it by looking at the click-through rate of media coverage vs. other links and the conversion rate of nurture and sales messages that link to coverage.

3. Website traffic. In an ideal PR world, every piece of media coverage secured would have a backlink so that we could directly attribute website traffic and conversions to specific articles. But we don’t work in this ideal world.

For various reasons, publications often choose not to include backlinks, especially to vendor websites. And even if they all did, it wouldn’t help us track people that look for brands days, or even weeks, later. So, while we certainly should be looking at traffic and conversions from media links, we should also look at overall traffic trends following media campaigns to identify upticks and changes in traffic sources. Also, consider adding a “where did you hear about us” question to webforms with media as an option to better quantify these indirect conversions.

PR is not a magic bullet that works in a silo to fill your pipeline with leads. Even a top-tier feature article is rarely going to equate to hundreds of prospects requesting a demo. That’s why it’s critical to view PR’s impact not through a single lens, but from a panoramic view that incorporates the multiple marketing channels that PR influences.

Renee Spurlin is executive vice president with ARPR.

The post The most meaningful PR measurements in 2022 appeared first on PR Daily.

Hello, communicators:

Did you know that red pandas are often referred to as “fire foxes”?

Mozilla’s Firefox team is partnering with Disney ahead of the premiere of its new animated film, “Turning Red,” which tells the story of a young teen who transforms into a giant red panda whenever she feels a strong emotion. The movie is set in 2002, an important year in the history of the Firefox web browser.

Mozilla has created new Firefox desktop colorways and mobile phone wallpapers inspired by the movie, along with a landing page for “all things 2002 nostalgia.”

From the Mozilla blog:

In 2002, we were coming together for the first time to create what would become Firefox. We were looking at the internet and imagining what we wanted it to be, how we wanted to show up and how we could invite everyone to join us.

Back when Firefox was starting out, the internet felt just as unknown, exciting and scary as middle school feels for most people. Honestly, the online world still often feels unknown, exciting and scary. And that is a good thing. This has allowed Firefox to continually reinvent itself over the years, and we will continue to evolve Firefox as we grow with the world. But how we want to show up has not changed.

via GIPHY

The campaign is an example of how your brand can use an upcoming pop culture moment to connect with wider audiences. As the competition for attention spans gets more and more fierce, partnership with others to drive awareness is a better and better investment.

Here are today’s other top stories:

Study: Oil companies are all talk, no substance on climate

New research out of Japan shows that despite an increase in environment-related messaging, neither BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil nor Shell are actually on their way to a clean energy transition.

The study authors, from Tohoku University and Kyoto University, examined the four major oil companies to “comprehensively investigate the actual state of actions by oil majors to decarbonize and transition to clean energy.” They say 12 years of quantitative and qualitative data from the companies shows a “mismatch” between the organizations’ words, actions and investments.

NPR reports:

The researchers said they found no evidence that the companies were investing in clean energy at a scale that would allow them to shift away from fossil fuels.

In fact, the study noted: “Glaringly, ExxonMobil generated no clean energy during the decade.” BP’s global renewables capacity—the largest among the four majors—amounts to only 2,000 MW, or the equivalent of about two large gas-fired power plants.

This is despite an increase in all four companies’ use of terms like “transition,” “emission” and “low-carbon energy,” as depicted in the graph below:

European oil companies BP and Shell were found to have taken significantly larger steps toward meeting climate goals than their American counterparts ExxonMobile and Chevron.

The researchers write:

Over the study period, the European majors have more consistently acknowledged climate science, participated earlier in industry climate-change frameworks, adopted internal carbon pricing, spent and pledged more on clean energy, and recently set net-zero transition and energy product decarbonization goals. Trailing far behind, the American majors continuously exhibit defensive attitudes to renewables investment and the need to shift from fossil fuels, explicitly stating ambitions to grow rather than reduce hydrocarbon production.

Why it matters: PR pros know measurement is key to proving the effectiveness of your messaging strategy. But data can also reveal glaring shortfalls when comparing promises of progress to actual action, as shown in the study.

This data also comes as PR firms are facing criticism over their work for fossil fuel companies, work that critics say has helped slow the transition to a green, sustainable future and sown doubt about climate science. For organizations that want to build trust in 2022, it will be essential to have data to support claims on climate and sustainability, among other issues.

MEASURED THOUGHTS

A new report from Pew Research Center shows Americans are divided nearly exactly in half along partisan political lines about whether or not employers should require COVID-19 vaccines for workers. Twenty-two percent of American workers say their employer has required a COVID-19 vaccine.

(Image via)

Forty-seven percent of survey respondents who identify as Democrats or leaning Democrat said employers should require employees to get the shot, while 53% of those who identify as Republicans or leaning Republican said employers should neither require nor encourage workers to get vaccinated.

This data speaks to the continued polarization of Americans about vaccine mandates in the workplace—and serves as a good reminder to PR pros that the work of explaining or defending your organization’s vaccine policy isn’t done yet.

Check out more from Pew Research here.

TAKE OUR SURVEY

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How big is your team? Are you valued at your organization?

If you’re interested in helping benchmark the career path potential of social media professionals and shedding light on how social media is internally managed, viewed and evaluated, take our survey. The Social Media Career Survey is a follow-up to a 2020 report by the Institute for Public Relations, Ragan Communications and the University of Florida.

Whether you’re in charge of company social media or involved in social media for a client, we welcome your participation.

Respondents will receive a full report on the findings, which will also be shared on PR Daily.   Responses will remain confidential.

Levi brand president Jennifer Sey speaks out after resigning post

After more than 20 years with American denim company Levi’s, Jennifer Sey announced her resignation earlier this week with a lengthy blog post. She claims she was forced out over her public statements about public school closings during COVID-19.

“I wrote op-eds, appeared on local news shows, attended meetings with the mayor’s office, organized rallies and pleaded on social media to get the schools open,” Sey writes. “I was condemned for speaking out. This time, I was called a racist—a strange accusation given that I have two black sons—a eugenicist, and a QAnon conspiracy theorist.”

After she appeared on Fox News with Laura Ingraham, Sey says she was asked to do an “apology tour”: “I was told that the main complaint against me was that ‘I was not a friend of the Black community at Levi’s.’ I was told to say that ‘I am an imperfect ally.’ (I refused.)”

Sey writes that her time with Levi’s came to an end when CEO Chip Bergh told her it was “untenable” to stay.

What it means: Companies have the right to pick and choose their values and what they stand for, and it’s not a new phenomenon for organizations to part ways with employees who don’t embody those values. In this case, Levi’s made a choice to stand by its commitment to COVID-19 safety in exchange for losing some top talent. There’s no moral takeaway here, just a practical one: Companies often distance themselves from employees who are outspoken about issues that don’t align with their public values.

Announcing the PR Daily Leadership Network

PR Daily has launched the PR Daily Leadership Network, a unique membership group from Ragan Communications offering peer-to-peer advisory and team training along with a unique slate of resources and events to help public relations professionals break through the noise, increase their visibility and forge meaningful connections.

The Network provides daily insights and coverage on a range of topics including media relations, social media, measurement, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, branding, thought leadership and crisis communications.

“The fast pace of change coupled with the demand on public relations professionals to protect and sometimes defend their company’s reputation make it imperative for leaders to tap into the wisdom of other communicators and continue to learn and grow,” says Diane Schwartz, CEO of Ragan Communications. “The PR Daily Leadership Network provides the answers but also encourages members to question the status quo and push for positive change.”

Visit leadership.prdaily.com to learn more.

The post Oil industry falls short on climate pledges, vaccine mandates split US workers and Levi’s exec says she was forced out over COVID-19 views appeared first on PR Daily.

Budweiser’s Clydesdales were back in the big game on Sunday as the NFL and its brand partners looked to turn the page.

Fans were back in the stands for Super Bowl LVI. And brands were ready to get back to a more normal viewer experience with their advertising campaigns. The cost for getting your brand into the broadcast soared to record numbers this year. A 30-second ad cost $6.5 million, up from $ 5.5 million last year.

Here’s a look at the top performing ads as tracked by social media measurement platform Sprinklr:

(Image via)

Avocados from Mexico also got top marks for brand sentiment—a measure of positive brand mentions on Twitter:

(Image via)

However, the brand’s big moment was marred by news that the U.S. was halting the transport of avocados from the region Michoacan over security worries.

Ad Age reported:

The U.S. paused avocado shipments from one of Mexico’s major producing regions on security worries, in an announcement that came Saturday, just a day before the Super Bowl—when guacamole consumption typically soars.

The Mexican agriculture ministry said the temporary suspension involves avocados from Michoacán—the world’s biggest producing region of the billion-dollar avocado trade. The U.S. had informed Mexico’s agriculture ministry of the decision after one of its officers, who was carrying out inspection work in the city of Uruapan, received a threatening call to his cell phone, according to the statement.

For its part, Twitter crowned Pepsi as the big winner of the evening with its engagements around the halftime show that starred hip-hop royalty Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, 50 Cent, Mary J. Blige and Eminem.

It wrote:

Let’s hear it for our back-to-back MVP winner, @pepsi. The brand’s halftime show put hip-hop royalty front and center and got dubbed an instant classic on the Timeline. But Pepsi had way more in the playbook, making moves beyond the show with NFT giveaways and exclusive behind-the-scenes access. On advertising’s biggest night, Pepsi showed up, and balled out.

Searching for engagement

One of the biggest stories of the night was the advertisement from Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange platform which spent big on an ad that was just a QR code bouncing around the screen:

The gambit worked as the company was the most mentioned brand in many states:

(Image via)

However, some noted that the ad did nothing to try and convince crypto skeptics to get in on the action:

The Coinbase commercial with just the QR code, and no dialogue or context, was kinda bold. They basically said “we only trynna sell to people who actually know what this is.”

— Carmen Rodgers (@CarmenRodgers) February 14, 2022

And marring a bold ploy to drive traffic to a website—the site crashed.

Coinbase just spent $14 million for a color-changing QR code to bounce around on the screen for 30-seconds during the Super Bowl…

And the website crashed.

— Joe Pompliano (@JoePompliano) February 14, 2022

Coinbase wasn’t the only brand that built its campaigns for engagement. Twitter shared how another crypto company, FTX, was able to drive engagement on its platform with a giveaway to coincide with its big ad spot featuring comedian Larry David:

https://twitter.com/FTX_Official/status/1493028625825869828

Even brands that didn’t spend millions on Super Bowl airtime were able to get a little juice by running campaigns that offered activities for the game’s watchers to participate in:

Who's ready for some 𝘽𝙄𝙉𝙂𝙊 tonight?

Follow this thread for #FanDuelBingo updates, from Meg Thee Stallion sightings to forced fumbles pic.twitter.com/i8KJZj9iEE

— FanDuel (@FanDuel) February 13, 2022

Missing the social justice

The big game was missing the social justice messages that were ubiquitous in Super Bowl LV.

Ad Age reported that many of the brands sharing messages for the big game failed to make meaningful progress on diversity, equity and inclusion with their ad spot.

It wrote:

Ahead of this year’s Big Game, Ad Age asked every advertiser with plans to air in-game commercials about how they prioritized diversity and inclusion in the creation and production of their ads. This included how they approached casting, diversity within the agencies they worked with and the makeup of those working on the production. While some brands had very clear action steps and outlined ways they implemented these practices in the conceptual and production phases of their ads, many could not provide specific details on the makeup of who worked on their ads. Others continued to provide ​​cookie-cutter DEI mission statements that simply said they support the cause without disclosing much detail.

One of the brands that did lean into a message of inclusion and racial equality was Google, which touted the camera on its latest Pixel phone as a solution for capturing better photos of people with darker skin tones.

Some appreciated Google’s message:

I personally appreciate the Google Pixel ad.

— Mayor Q (@QuintonLucasKC) February 14, 2022

Love Google for that kinda advertisement we need come in all shades colors and depths your camera should see you in all lights we are black gold

— Go A-Wei (@SingleLetterD) February 14, 2022

Others were more inclined to roll their eyes:

Google Pixel 6 said other camera phones are racist. #SuperBowl

— Franklin Leonard (@franklinleonard) February 14, 2022

Ok, @Google, you’ve figured out how to show accurate Black representation in your cameras. Now do your workforce.

— Arlan (@ArlanWasHere) February 14, 2022

Responsive marketing

Brands have also become adept at responding in real time to the conversation around the Super Bowl ads online.

For Twitter, the top performer on responsive tweeting was Planter’s which jumped on the bandwagon to talk about Coinbase’s unique ad:

What did the QR code say? I was busy getting snacks #PlantersAllorOne pic.twitter.com/PWMzKFdY1q

— Mr. Peanut (@MrPeanut) February 14, 2022

Expedia also extended the footprint of its ad campaign by dropping custom postcards to highlight the destinations featured in other brands ads—a clever move by the travel-oriented brand.

Get a nose-full of this: You’ve got a shot at smelling those Irish waterfalls for real. Quote RT with #TravelTheAds. #Sweepstakes pic.twitter.com/hOhM6732DJ

— Expedia (@Expedia) February 14, 2022

With so many advertisers previewing their creations ahead of the game, brands can craft plenty of material to respond with content throughout the game. A flexible response plan and a couple of pre-approved messages can go along way in keeping your brand in the mix during a live event on social media.

What were your favorite ad spots from Super Bowl LVI, PR Daily readers?

The post Brand messages that scored during Super Bowl LVI appeared first on PR Daily.

Hello, communicators:

Restaurant reservation booking website OpenTable has unveiled its annual list of the 100 most romantic restaurants in America, analyzing over 12.4 million U.S. diner reviews and listing the winners in alphabetical order. The company revealed its methodology, explaining that the scores were tabulated using several data points including overall diner rating, user clout, total number of reviews and regional overall rating. Broken down by type of restaurant, steakhouses accounted for 37% of the list compared to 13% Italian restaurants, 12% seafood eateries and 11% contemporary American establishments.

OpenTable said in a press release that the list was a tool to help diners get away for a night of romance again and “fall back in love with restaurants, too” while also promoting its Valentine’s Day experience hub.

“Our data suggests that Valentine’s Day dining is rebounding this year, with reservations up 30% nationwide compared to last year,” added Susan Lee, OpenTable’s chief growth officer. “We’re excited to see this momentum leading up to what has traditionally been one of the biggest dining days of the year for restaurants.”

OpenTable’s list demonstrates how a brand can tell a story using its accumulated user data, tying into the upcoming holiday to get headlines.

Here are today’s other top stories:

Tesla responds to California discrimination suit

The state of California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) said that it will sue Tesla for discrimination after receiving hundreds of complaints from workers about racism at the automaker’s factory in Fremont, California. The complaints allege that the factory is a racially segregated workplace where Black workers face pay disparities and a lack of promotions, are assigned more laborious job assignments and are bombarded with racial slurs.

Tesla responded with a blog post says DFEH’s lawsuit is “misguided” and restates its commitment to workers, and links to a DE&I impact report from 2020.

According to its blog post:

Tesla strongly opposes all forms of discrimination and harassment and has a dedicated Employee Relations team that responds to and investigates all complaints. We also have a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion team whose work is shown in this public report. Tesla has always disciplined and terminated employees who engage in misconduct, including those who use racial slurs or harass others in different ways. We recently rolled out an additional training program that reinforces Tesla’s requirement that all employees must treat each other with respect and reminds employees about the numerous ways they can report concerns, including anonymously. Above all, Tesla continues to seek to provide a workplace that is safe, respectful, fair, and inclusive­—all of which are vital to achieving our mission.

Over the past five years, the DFEH has been asked on almost 50 occasions by individuals who believe they were discriminated against or harassed to investigate Tesla. On every single occasion, when the DFEH closed an investigation, it did not find misconduct against Tesla. It therefore strains credibility for the agency to now allege, after a three-year investigation, that systematic racial discrimination and harassment somehow existed at Tesla. A narrative spun by the DFEH and a handful of plaintiff firms to generate publicity is not factual proof.

Why it matters:

Tesla began engaging with employees about workplace racism this past October after a federal jury in San Francisco ruled that the electric car manufacturer had to pay nearly $137 million to a Black elevator operator who experienced racially-motivated abuse while working at a Tesla factory.

In this new post, the company’s attempt to undermine the DFEH’s credibility clashes with its other message of care and responsibility for Black employees facing racism in the workplace. While it can be tough to craft vulnerable messaging about pending litigation, PR teams whould partner with legal counsel to compose a statement that corrects the record while still acknowledging the validity of stakeholder concerns.

Tesla’s tie in to its DE&I report from 2020 features several employees from diverse backgrounds sharing their experiences at the company, and includes metrics about the demographics of its workforce at the time. The report acknowledges work to be done to create an equal and fair work environment for all, and the report later shares some initiatives for making progress—but but nowhere are the numbers or the initiatives connected to tangible benchmark goals. This emphasizes how the data in DE&I reports is only as effective as the outcomes and action plans they underpin.

MEASURED THOUGHTS

A new poll from Morning Consult found that Black travelers have increased distrust of travel brands, with independent boutique hotels earning the trust of 60% Black travelers surveyed compared to 70% of all travelers. Chain hotels underperform boutique hotels by 9 percentage points. The report cites multiple examples when travel brands have failed to earn the trust of Black travelers in their messaging, calling to mind recent widespread criticism after Metro Houston installed a “commemorative seat” in honor of Rosa Parks.

Courtesy of Morning Consult

“While many travel brands share messages of solidarity and make sweeping promises during Black History Month, Black travelers are skeptical of underlying intentions and doubtful that brands are actually committed to change,” Morning Consult writes. “To better serve Black travelers, the industry must focus on the larger, systemic issues at play—and do so year-round. To build universal trust, travel brands must prove their commitment to inclusivity.”

Check out more from the report here.

TAKE OUR SURVEY

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How big is your team? Are you valued at your organization?

If you’re interested in helping benchmark the career path potential of social media professionals and shedding light on how social media is internally managed, viewed and evaluated, take our survey. The 2022 Social Media Career survey is a follow-up to a 2020 report by the Institute for Public Relations, Ragan Communications and the University of Florida.

Whether you’re in charge of company social media or involved in social media for a client, we welcome your participation.

Respondents will receive a full report on the findings, which will also be shared on PR Daily.   Responses will remain confidential.

TACTICALLY SPEAKING

Meredith Corp. media group announced in a staff memo that it will stop publishing print editions for Entertainment Weekly, InStyle, EatingWell, Health, Parents and People en Español, with April issues of each magazine serving as their final print editions. The decision will result in about 200 eliminated roles, which the company said represents less than 5% of its total staff.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

“We have said from the beginning, buying Meredith was about buying brands, not magazines or websites,” [Dotdash Meredith CEO Neil] Vogel said in his note. “It is not news to anyone that there has been a pronounced shift in readership and advertising from print to digital, and as a result, for a few important brands, print is no longer serving the brand’s core purpose.”

“Naysayers will interpret this as another nail in print’s coffin,” Mr. Vogel said in his memo Wednesday. “They couldn’t be more wrong.”

By sharing this information in a staff note, Vogel informed those most affected by the restructure first.

Announcing the PR Daily Leadership Network

PR Daily is launching the PR Daily Leadership Network, a unique membership group from Ragan Communications offering peer-to-peer advisory and team training along with a unique slate of resources and events to help public relations professionals break through the noise, increase their visibility and forge meaningful connections.

The Network provides daily insights and coverage on a range of topics including media relations, social media, measurement, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, branding, thought leadership and crisis communications.

“The fast pace of change coupled with the demand on public relations professionals to protect and sometimes defend their company’s reputation make it imperative for leaders to tap into the wisdom of other communicators and continue to learn and grow,” says Diane Schwartz, CEO of Ragan Communications. “The PR Daily Leadership Network provides the answers but also encourages members to question the status quo and push for positive change.”

Visit leadership.prdaily.com to learn more.

Unilever teases new strategy for Ben & Jerry’s in Israel

Unilever CEO Alan Jope explained the company’s strategy for navigating the tenuous situation with its Ben & Jerry’s brand after its founders decided to stop selling the ice cream in Israel-occupied West Bank. The decision caused an uproar, with many Israeli businesses vowing to never sell the brand’s products again and some U.S. pension funds divesting from the company. Jope said that he expects a new arrangement for Ben & Jerry’s in Israel by the end of the year.

The Jerusalem Post reports:

“Our absolute focus right now is to figure out what the new arrangement will be for Ben & Jerry’s,” CEO Alan Jope said on a conference call with journalists after the company announced earnings. “On subjects where Unilever brands don’t have the expertise or credibility, we think its best that they stay out of the debate.”

“Ben & Jerry’s is a great brand – most of the time they get it right – they have a great track record of campaigning on important issues that are relevant to their consumers,” Jope added.

What it means:

While Jope’s words are the most verbose he has been on the Ben & Jerry’s debacle yet, he deliberately avoids criticizing Ben & Jerry’s decision to stop West Bank sales and instead focuses on how much the brand’s identity is embraced by its core consumers. This reminds investors and other stakeholders that Unilever’s portfolio includes brands with diverse consumer segments and demonstrates that the company understands where their behaviors deviate.

Jope’s statement about staying out of the political debate is wisdom to follow for communicators still struggling to figure out when their organization should and shouldn’t take a stand on an issue. If your employees and leaders don’t have the expertise to contribute meaningfully to a sensitive cultural conversation, acknowledging that fact can be more diplomatic and tactful than taking an uninformed position.

The post Tesla denies discrimination allegations, travel brands fail to win over Black travelers and Unilever hints at Ben & Jerry’s return to Israel appeared first on PR Daily.

Hello, communicators:

Feeling prickly leading up to this month’s romance-centered holiday? Topo Chico Hard Seltzer has your back.

The drink company’s Valentine’s Day campaign invites consumers to purchase and ship a potted cactus to the former object of their affection.

To “Send Your Ex A Cactus,” simply purchase the spiky plant (a cheap thrill at $2.14) on Topo Chico’s website and write a note to the recipient.

(Image via)

Purchasers can then redeem a 50%-off coupon for a 12-pack of Topo Chico Hard Seltzer in certain states.

Here are today’s other top stories:

Canadian truckers’ vaccine protest causes headaches for automakers

The Associated Press reports that the blockade of a major bridge between Canada and Michigan is beginning to impact the U.S. auto industry.

Ambassador Bridge, which spans the Detroit River between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, carries a quarter of all trade between the United States and Canada. The blockade, which is preventing drivers from entering Canada, is a protest of Canada’s COVID-19 restrictions, according to participants.

The AP reports:

Ford said late Wednesday that parts shortages forced it to shut down its engine plant in Windsor and to run an assembly plant in Oakville, Ontario, on a reduced schedule.

“This interruption on the Detroit-Windsor bridge hurts customers, auto workers, suppliers, communities and companies on both sides of the border,” Ford said in a statement. “We hope this situation is resolved quickly because it could have widespread impact on all automakers in the U.S. and Canada.”

Shortages due to the blockade also forced General Motors to cancel the second shift of the day at its midsize-SUV factory near Lansing, Michigan. Spokesman Dan Flores said it was expected to restart Thursday and no additional impact was expected for the time being.

Why it matters: Ford and GM are careful with their words, even as a multifaceted political clash threatens their bottom line. In a time where auto manufacturers are facing pressure to enter the electric vehicle market and simultaneously dealing with an historic chip shortage, it’s important for companies to avoid alienating consumers.

By focusing on the business issue—supply chain disruption—and calling for the situation to be “resolved” automakers like Ford hope to apply pressure without taking sides in the conflict.

MEASURED THOUGHTS

New research from the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) shows more than one million fewer women are part of the American workforce now, as compared to pre-pandemic levels.

(Image via)

Women gained just 40.3% of the 467,000 new jobs in January 2022. As Jasmine Tucker with NWLC writes:

Despite these gains, it would take six months of growth at January’s level to gain back the nearly 2.9 million jobs the economy has lost since February 2020 and it would take women nearly 10 months of growth at January’s level to gain back the over 1.8 million jobs they have lost since February 2020.

While the unemployment rate for women remains steady at 3.6%, the number masks much higher rates—5.8% and 4.9%—Black and Latina women, respectively.

Parents across the country—especially mothers—were hit hard by childcare complications created by the Omicron surge earlier this year. And many moms who left the workforce at the outset of the pandemic have yet to return.

Check out more from the National Women’s Law Center’s February 2022 fact sheet here.

TAKE OUR SURVEY

We want to know about your career as a social media professional.

How big is your team? Are you valued at your organization?

If you’re interested in helping benchmark the career path potential of social media professionals and shedding light on how social media is internally managed, viewed and evaluated, take our survey. The Social Media Career Survey is a follow-up to a 2020 report by the Institute for Public Relations, Ragan Communications and the University of Florida.

Whether you’re in charge of company social media or involved in social media for a client, we welcome your participation.

Respondents will receive a full report on the findings, which will also be shared on PR Daily.   Responses will remain confidential.

SOCIAL BUZZ

If you scrolled through Twitter at all yesterday, you may have been met with some content that, at first blush, appeared NSFW.

Adidas’ campaign for its new collection of sports bras includes a promotional image of 25 different topless women, showing breasts of all shapes and sizes.

As former tech reporter and current WaPo columnist Taylor Lorenz noted, the unedited image ran only on Twitter, while a censored version of the ad was reported to be published and then taken down several times throughout the day on Instagram and Facebook. The Meta-owned social media platforms don’t allow users to post images of female nipples.

The Adidas brand account directly responded to some users’ criticism of the image:

It’s important to normalize the human body and help inspire future generations to feel confident and unashamed.

— adidas (@adidas) February 9, 2022

ALL bodies should be celebrated, loved and supported. No exception

— adidas (@adidas) February 9, 2022

We want future generations to feel body confident, which is why this gallery is so important to share.

— adidas (@adidas) February 9, 2022

What do you think? Is Adidas’ campaign unnecessarily provocative, or a step towards inclusion and empowerment? Share your thoughts with us on Twitter using the hashtag #DailyScoop.

Announcing the PR Daily Leadership Network

PR Daily has launched the PR Daily Leadership Network, a unique membership group from Ragan Communications offering peer-to-peer advisory and team training along with a unique slate of resources and events to help public relations professionals break through the noise, increase their visibility and forge meaningful connections.

The Network provides daily insights and coverage on a range of topics including media relations, social media, measurement, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, branding, thought leadership and crisis communications.

“The fast pace of change coupled with the demand on public relations professionals to protect and sometimes defend their company’s reputation make it imperative for leaders to tap into the wisdom of other communicators and continue to learn and grow,” says Diane Schwartz, CEO of Ragan Communications. “The PR Daily Leadership Network provides the answers but also encourages members to question the status quo and push for positive change.”

Visit leadership.prdaily.com to learn more.

Many corporations aren’t on track to meet climate pledge goals, study finds

A new report from the NewClimate Institute concludes that multiple major multinational companies aren’t following through on their promises to change business practices in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The institute conducted a study of 25 corporations and placed Nestle, Unilever and CVS Health among 11 organizations it determined to have “very low integrity” when it came to follow-through on their climate pledges. Amazon, Google and Walmart were among 10 companies deemed “low integrity,” while Apple, Sony and Vodafone were the only three companies to achieve the rank of “moderate integrity.” Shipping company Maersk ranked highest, with its climate pledge deemed to have “reasonable integrity.”

(Image via)

Not one of the companies in the survey were selected as having “high integrity” about their promises to cut emissions.

NPR reports:

NewClimate Institute concluded that even though many companies have pledged to reach net-zero emissions, the 25 companies they studied have collectively committed to reduce emissions by about 40%—not the 100% that people might be led to believe from the companies’ net-zero or carbon-neutral pledges.

“We were frankly surprised and disappointed at the overall integrity of the companies’ claims” said Thomas Day of NewClimate Institute, one of the study’s lead authors. “Their ambitious-sounding headline claims all-too-often lack real substance, which can mislead both consumers and the regulators that are core to guiding their strategic direction. Even companies that are doing relatively well exaggerate their actions.”

Why it matters: Climate pledges and promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have been one of the more popular ways for companies to show their commitment to fighting climate change. But if those promises are empty, as this report claims, it can badly mar an organization’s values communications strategy.

Beyond specific climate issues, failure to meet your climate pledge undermines trust. Why should consumers believe that a company is doing the right thing when it comes to paying its workers, etc. if it fudges the numbers on environmental goals?

The post Ford, GM blame supply chain woes on Canadian trucker protest, women slower to return to the workforce, and companies fail to meet climate pledges appeared first on PR Daily.

Social media is a crucial channel for brands to reach audiences—but traditional marketing and advertising messages are falling increasingly flat.

For Alejandra Lee, a media strategist and social media expert with The Richards Group, the advice often boils down to a simple directive: Don’t make ads; make TikToks. Lee emphasizes that the algorithms of platforms like TikTok have become so intelligent, they know if your video content doesn’t follow the right format.

Alejandra Lee

“Probably their algorithm deprioritizes [a video] whenever it doesn’t feel like a proper piece of content,” she says. “If it just feels like a video ad, that is less likely to bring value to the experience from a user standpoint.” For TikTok—and other social media platforms—their business model is to compete for users’ attention and keep people coming back for more.

If your ad isn’t helping retain those users—the algorithm won’t be boosting its visibility. That’s why influencer marketing has seen a sustained rise.

“We will be seeing a lot of niche and micro influencers making more an impact because they do have more of that true engagement,” Lee predicts. Brands are increasingly looking to create something relatable, and users want to connect with “a person like me.”

As a result, partnerships will be the way to go for many brand managers rather than creating their own channels.

TikTok on center stage

It has been a meteoric rise for TikTok—the short-form video platform owned by ByteDance that has reportedly now outstripped YouTube in time spent watching the platform’s content each month.

The Verge reports:

TikTok’s users now spend more time each month watching content than YouTube users, according to a report from app analytics firm App Annie. In the US, ByteDance’s app first overtook YouTube in August last year, and as of June 2021 its users watched over 24 hours of content per month, compared with 22 hours and 40 minutes on Google’s video platform. In the UK the difference is even more stark: TikTok overtook YouTube in May last year and users there now reportedly watch almost 26 hours of content a month, compared to less than 16 on YouTube.

But that doesn’t mean your efforts to connect with a community should be focused on just one platform. Lee sees brands and the influencers they work with creating a broader community that connects across platforms—and creating opportunities to engagement in private groups.

So, Lee explains, a content creator can start introducing videos and building an audience on TikTok or another platform, but then create other touchpoints on something like social chat app Discord.

“There’s a lot of jumping between spaces from just exposure to engagement,” she explains. It’s a reminder to PR pros and brand managers to think about measuring their campaigns beyond the specific metrics of a single platform. Instead, consider the broader ecosystem and create unique opportunities to connect to drive engagement.

From these Discord communities or other private groups, communities can transition to in-person meetings, or find other opportunities for connection as the pandemic continues to limit in-person contact.

“That’s where I feel like these niche communities are starting to grow,” says Lee, adding that Reddit is another great place where communities can create a bespoke forum for discussion. “There are ways to continue that engagement outside of just the regular scrolling, but actually talking, asking questions.”

Focus on content

Rather than focusing on what platform is the right fit for your target audience, Lee recommends thinking about what content will resonate. If the message is focused and flawless, the audience will respond.

“Consumers will respond to what resonates with them,” she says. If they like the content and the relationship they have built on one platform, they will follow you to another platform when directed. And Lee recommends that brand managers and creators take advantage of what opportunities different platforms might provide.

“The platforms themselves need users and advertisers to be creative,” she says, “not just from the content, but be creative the way they use [the platform], because that’s how those platforms continue to be competitive as they evolve their features.”

The quirks of the platform

However, just because your message resonated on one platform doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be tweaked for another. Each platform comes with its own audience expectations. “That same target audience might behave and be completely different on these digital spaces,” explains Lee.

So, while you might have identified the message that will move the customer, how you send that message might need to be drastically reconsidered. To get it right, Lee recommends extensive platform-specific research.

“Brands need to do more research as far as like who their audience is in this space and create content that is actually native to the platform,” she says.

That’s where the influencer partnerships often can come into play. They already know the platform and its rules of engagement. When it comes to identifying what belongs on a platform like TikTok and what might feel out of place, Lee’s guidance is much like a Supreme Court Justice identifying obscenity: “I know it when I see it.”

“If it feels like you just lifted something from broadcast, that’s an immediate no,” she says. And she argues that PR pros and marketing agencies need to be a part of the conversation to ensure content hits the mark.

“We might not have control over the creative, but we can help guide that conversation,” she says.

Looking to the future

As new platforms arrive, Lee says those should also be approached with influencer partnerships in mind. For example, the metaverse which has been a hot topic at the beginning of 2022 is where interested brands should partner up.

“It started already with the more high-tech enthusiastic gamers,” she says. “I think they are the low hanging fruit there.”

On platforms new and old, brands don’t have to go it alone. Partnerships make a lot of sense if you don’t have the internal expertise to show up the right way at the right time.

The post For TikTok success, it’s all about the partnerships appeared first on PR Daily.

Hello, communicators:

Automaker Kia America has debuted its Super Bowl ahead of the big game, promoting the brand’s first dedicated battery electric vehicle using a Robo Dog doing a dance to the song “Total Eclipse of The Heart.” The dog is a visual nod to the campaign’s partnership with the Petfinder Foundation, which helps shelter animals find loving homes as part of Kia’s “Accelerate the Good” program.

Kia is extending the footprint of this campaign by using the Robo Dog’s “Turn Around Dance” to create a series on TikTok with five content creators and creating a QR Code-based “Robo Dogmented Reality” experience that allows users to search for adoptable animals in their local areas through the partnership with the Petfinder Foundation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoNMz_OV_dI

“To introduce over 100 million viewers to the Kia EV6, we wanted to juxtapose the future with the emotions we all know and understand today – the love that can be shared between a human and an animal,” Kia America VP Russel Wagner said in the press release.

Kia’s latest cause marketing campaign demonstrates how a brand can effectively weave one purpose (promoting a new electric vehicle) to another (animal welfare). Offering innovative resources that encourage your audiences to engage with the work your partners are doing demonstrates an investment that goes beyond making a donation.

Here are today’s other top stories:

Spirit Airlines and Frontier Airlines announce merger

Budget airline Frontier is buying competitor Spirit Airlines. In its announcement of the deal, the companies stressed the complimentary networks they serve while emphasizing the needs of the workforce and commitments to sustainability.

The brands said that this merger will promote competition in the industry and allow the combined fleet to expand service to underserved and mid-sized cities across the US with the youngest, most fuel-efficient and greenest fleet in the country while adding 10,000 jobs by 2026.

According to a joint press release:

“We are thrilled to join forces with Frontier to further democratize air travel,” said Ted Christie, President and CEO of Spirit. “This transaction is centered around creating an aggressive ultra-low fare competitor to serve our Guests even better, expand career opportunities for our Team Members and increase competitive pressure, resulting in more consumer-friendly fares for the flying public. We look forward to uniting our talented teams to shake up the airline industry while also continuing our commitment to excellent Guest service.”

“Together, Frontier and Spirit will be America’s Greenest Airline and deliver more ultra-low fares to more people in more places,” said Barry Biffle, President and CEO of Frontier. “I couldn’t be more excited for our team members, customers, partners, the communities we serve and our shareholders.”

In a classic example of bad timing, Frontier airlines cancelled 22% of Monday flights on the same day its purchase of Spirit was announced.

USA Today reports:

Frontier spokesperson Jennifer DeLaCruz blamed a technology issue, which grounded flights. In its request for a ground stop, the airline cited “automation issues,” according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

“Unfortunately, we woke up to a system outage this morning,” Frontier CEO Barry Biffle told USA TODAY.

Why it matters:

The large number of Frontier flight cancelations may not have overshadowed the big news, but it highlights how the merger announcement makes no mention of how this move will impact the reliability of flights and service. Frontier’s cancelations also call to mind Spirit’s PR debacle from the summer of 2021 when the airline canceled hundreds of flights and left many passengers camping out in airports.

Remember that a merger or acquisition can be a prime opportunity to position how your organization will solve for operational challenges and mitigate future crises with its new resources.

MEASURED THOUGHTS

New research from Cornell found that Twitter’s on-screen prompt for users to review potentially harmful or offensive tweets before publishing them prompted users to change or delete their replies 30% of the time.

“This decrease in the creation of offensive content can be attributed not just to the deletion and revision of prompted Tweets—we also observed a decrease in both the number of offensive Tweets that prompted users create in the future and the number of offensive replies to prompted Tweets,” the study’s authors wrote. “We conclude that interventions allowing users to reconsider their comments can be an effective mechanism for reducing offensive content online.”

This study highlights how communicators with platforms can act as ethical, values-based conduits for discussion and moderators of conversation to promote healthier public interactions and discourse.

Check out more from the study here.

TAKE OUR SURVEY

We want to know about your career as a social media professional.

How big is your team? Are you valued at your organization?

If you’re interested in helping benchmark the career path potential of social media professionals and shedding light on how social media is internally managed, viewed and evaluated, take our survey. The 2022 Social Media Career survey is a follow-up to a 2020 report by the Institute for Public Relations, Ragan Communications and the University of Florida.

Whether you’re in charge of company social media or involved in social media for a client, we welcome your participation.

Respondents will receive a full report on the findings, which will also be shared on PR Daily.   Responses will remain confidential.

CRISIS COMMS

The governor for the Bank of England is in hot water after asking Britons not to ask for higher wages even as the country faces a crisis over cost-of-living increases. The gaffe came in an interview with the BBC following moves to raise interest rates.

CNBC reported:

Speaking to the BBC hours after the central bank imposed back-to-back interest rate hikes, the governor said businesses should assert “restraint” in pay negotiations to help battle 30-year high inflation.

When asked by the BBC whether the Bank was asking workers not to demand big pay rises, Bailey said: “Broadly, yes.”

He said that while it would be “painful” for workers, some “moderation of wage rises” is needed to prevent inflation from becoming entrenched.

It’s a reminder for PR pros and media trainers that direct answers to questions can offer clarity—but won’t paper over an unpopular decision.

The news comes as financial authorities are struggling to deal with rising inflation, leading to more expensive prices on goods from cars to grocery staples. Yet, even as rising wages are contributing to rising inflation, the message that workers should sacrifice their purchasing power is falling flat.

CNBC continued:

“Telling the hard-working people who carried this country through the pandemic they don’t deserve a pay rise is outrageous,” said Gary Smith, general secretary of the pan-industry GMB trade union.

“According to Mr Bailey, carers, NHS workers, refuse collectors, shop workers and more should just swallow a massive real-terms pay cut at the same time as many are having to choose between heating and eating.”

The story is a cautionary tale for business leaders looking to drive down wage costs by telling employees they are asking for too much.

Announcing the PR Daily Leadership Network

PR Daily is launching the PR Daily Leadership Network, a unique membership group from Ragan Communications offering peer-to-peer advisory and team training along with a unique slate of resources and events to help public relations professionals break through the noise, increase their visibility and forge meaningful connections.

The Network provides daily insights and coverage on a range of topics including media relations, social media, measurement, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, branding, thought leadership and crisis communications.

“The fast pace of change coupled with the demand on public relations professionals to protect and sometimes defend their company’s reputation make it imperative for leaders to tap into the wisdom of other communicators and continue to learn and grow,” says Diane Schwartz, CEO of Ragan Communications. “The PR Daily Leadership Network provides the answers but also encourages members to question the status quo and push for positive change.”

Visit leadership.prdaily.com to learn more.

Amazon announces plans to more than double employee base salary max

Amazon told employees it will raise the base maximum salary for corporate and tech workers from $160,000 to $350,000. The company said it plans to eventually increase overall compensation ranges for most jobs globally, but stressed the changes and compensation ranges will affect each employee differently.

Geekwire reports:

“This past year has seen a particularly competitive labor market and in doing a thorough analysis of various options, weighing the economics of our business and the need to remain competitive for attracting and retaining top talent, we decided to make meaningfully bigger increases to our compensation levels than we do in a typical year,” the company said in the internal post.

In addition to increasing base pay and compensation range, Amazon announced changes in the timing of compensation for employees when they are promoted. Managers will review compensation at the time of a promotion, and issue additional stock awards mid-year as warranted, rather than waiting until the next annual compensation cycle, “to better align newly promoted employees with the compensation range of their new level.”

What it means:

Amazon’s drastic increase in its salary guidance arrives at a time when companies seeking to beat “the big quit” must look at how compensation packages stack up against other competitors in their industry. The company’s post sends a message to employees that it knows where it stands in the market and, more importantly, values the work they do.

Considering that the memo was provided to a prominent tech publication (and not leaked), it serves as an external message about how Amazon cares for and invests in employees. Pulling back the curtain on how they work is no longer just about practicing transparency as an ethical principle, but helps increase the chances that prospective employees who choose to spend their talent are likely to be satisfied.

The post Frontier and Spirit Airlines announce merger, advisory warnings to users reduce negative Twitter posts, and Amazon spends big on salaries appeared first on PR Daily.

You might be thinking, “What are you talking about? My employees read and engage with the emails I send them plenty!” But chances are, that’s not the case—and if you think it is, you might want to double-check your engagement analytics.

Most workers get dozens of emails per day, and everyone who’s sending those emails is vying for the time and attention of your employees.

Firstup’s guide to better internal email, “Goodbye unread email, hello engaged employees,” contains seven easy tips to make your messaging stand out among Chipotle promotions and utility bill updates in your employees’ inboxes.

The 11-page e-book includes examples of how to create more engaging and relevant emails. For example, if you’re sending an update about a power outage at a distribution center, there’s no need to include remote employees on the email list, according to the guide.

Other tips include:

• Creating punchy subject lines to encourage email opens.
• How to send follow-up emails without letting the information become stale.
• Why visual highlights can help keep readers engaged through the end of an email.

For the complete guide to better employee email, download “Goodbye unread email, hello engaged employees” from Firstup today.

The post 7 ways to encourage employees to actually read your emails appeared first on PR Daily.

Hello, communicators:

The American Heart Association is celebrating Black History Month and American Heart Month simultaneously with the launch of its “Reclaim Your Rhythm” campaign, an initiative focused on health equity that urges Black women to take control of their mental and physical well-being. The campaign offers several tips for using music to promote well-being  and amplifies research finding that Black people who spend their early adult years in racially segregated neighborhoods were twice as likely to develop coronary artery calcium—a predictor of heart disease—as those who lived in less segregated neighborhoods.

The campaign kicked off on Friday, Feb. 4 with radio host Sybil Wilkes hosting an event called “Check In & Check Up for your Health”:

“In recognition of the physical and emotional toll the global pandemic and structural racism has taken on Black women, AHA will help empower Black women to bring to light their overall mental and physical well-being by using and uplifting their voices and sounds,” the campaign’s description reads. “Reclaim Your Rhythm will also use music to get their hearts pumping, or to rest or relax.”

This campaign demonstrates how an organization can stay true to its mission and core focus while leaning into a timely cultural conversation. Hear more about how this campaign came to be when American Heart Association director of communications Tresa Chambers and Ragan director of strategic programming Justin Joffe chat about AHA’s internal and external DE&I work during Ragan’s DE&I Summit for Communicators on Feb. 9.

Here are today’s other top stories:

NBC Sports shares strategy for navigating winter Olympics challenges

NBC executives, producers and past anchors spoke to The New York Times about its strategy for broadcasting the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, China. The network faces mounting challenges including broadcasting a spectator-free event, working with anchors broadcasting remotely from the US, dealing with athletes testing positive for COVID-19 and pressure to address rising tensions around China’s record of human rights abuses.

This past December, President Biden announced a diplomatic boycott and said that no government officials from the U.S. would attend the games.

The New York Times reports:

“The good news, if there is good news, in dealing with live sports in a pandemic, is we have a ton of experience at this point,” said Pete Bevacqua, the chairman of NBC Sports. “Think about the last two years across our portfolio. We have become skilled out of necessity. Certainly there are challenges, and certainly there are harsh realities. But I think the beauty of sports and the beauty of Olympic sports is really needed right now more than ever, and that’s the story we want to tell.”

“My friends and colleagues at NBC have been dealt the worst hand imaginable,” said Bob Costas, who served as the network’s Olympics prime-time host for more than two decades. “The circumstances put an inevitable damper on the whole thing,” Mr. Costas said. “The average person now fully understands the nature of the Chinese regime. It’s not something that just news nerds are aware of. This is broadly understood.”

Why it matters:

As NBC’s Winter Games broadcast follows the challenges that came from airing the Summer Games in Tokyo last year, Bevacqua’s words about acclimating to pandemic-era challenges illuminate the connection between the resilience of his team and the resilience of athletes.

Costas’ words share the same sentiment more bluntly, emphasizing how past partners can be deployed as brand advocates and speak to your challenges with an unfiltered directness that might be considered inappropriate for your brand to use in the present moment.

MEASURED THOUGHTS

A new survey from HAVEN and Harris Poll found that nearly 61% of people planning to watch the Super Bowl are as interested in the ads as they are in the game itself.

While nearly half of all surveyed plan to use social media to interact during the big game, 62% of younger viewers (aged 18-44) said that social media will be their primary mode of interaction during the game, surpassing in-person conversation.

(Image courtesy of Haven/Harris Poll)

In the week leading up to the big game, these numbers emphasize how social media conversations can be more frequent than in-person conversations around the same topic—a trend that increased in the era of the pandemic when in-person gatherings are often scaled down. The numbers also suggest that younger people are more likely to be candid with their thoughts online, making a case for investing more in social listening efforts when your audiences fall in a younger age range.

Check out more from the survey here.

TAKE OUR SURVEY

We want to know about your career as a social media professional.

How big is your team? Are you valued at your organization?

If you’re interested in helping benchmark the career path potential of social media professionals and shedding light on how social media is internally managed, viewed and evaluated, take our survey. The 2022 Social Media Career survey is a follow-up to a 2020 report by the Institute for Public Relations, Ragan Communications and the University of Florida.

Whether you’re in charge of company social media or involved in social media for a client, we welcome your participation.

Respondents will receive a full report on the findings, which will also be shared on PR Daily.   Responses will remain confidential.

 CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS

Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian sent a letter the Justice Department asking the government to prosecute disruptive passengers and place them on a federal “no-fly” list. The new list would be a departure from the current no-fly list, which the government uses to keep terrorist threats from boarding airplanes.

CNN reports:

“In addition to the welcome increase in enforcement and prosecutions, we are requesting you support our efforts with respect to the much-needed step of putting any person convicted of an on-board disruption on a national, comprehensive, unruly passenger ‘no-fly’ list that would bar that person from traveling on any commercial air carrier,” Bastian wrote to [Attorney General Merrick] Garland, according to a copy of the letter reviewed by CNN.

“This action will help prevent future incidents and serve as a strong symbol of the consequences of not complying with crew member instructions on commercial aircraft,” Bastian said in the letter.

Bastian’s statement about how a “no-fly” list would serve as a symbol to unruly passengers is also a message for hostile travelers—one shared and amplified by several digital news outlets. By communicating an escalation to the federal government, Delta also positions its brand as an industry leader by setting a public example for other airlines to join.

Announcing the PR Daily Leadership Network

PR Daily is launching the PR Daily Leadership Network, a unique membership group from Ragan Communications offering peer-to-peer advisory and team training along with a unique slate of resources and events to help public relations professionals break through the noise, increase their visibility and forge meaningful connections.

The Network provides daily insights and coverage on a range of topics including media relations, social media, measurement, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, branding, thought leadership and crisis communications.

“The fast pace of change coupled with the demand on public relations professionals to protect and sometimes defend their company’s reputation make it imperative for leaders to tap into the wisdom of other communicators and continue to learn and grow,” says Diane Schwartz, CEO of Ragan Communications. “The PR Daily Leadership Network provides the answers but also encourages members to question the status quo and push for positive change.”

Visit leadership.prdaily.com to learn more.

Spotify CEO apologizes to employees over Joe Rogan’s use of racial slurs

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek apologized to employees after several past episodes of Joe Rogan’s podcast surfaced wherein Rogan uses the N-word. The clips were shared by singer India Arie, who removed her music from the streaming service because she said she finds Joe Rogan problematic for the language he uses around race.

Ek said Rogan decided to remove the offensive episodes but emphasized the company has no plans to remove Rogan from its platform. Ek also said Spotify is committed to spending $100 million on music and audio content from “historically-minded groups.”

The Wall Street Journal reports:

“There are no words I can say to adequately convey how deeply sorry I am for the way ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ controversy continues to impact each of you,” Mr. Ek said to Spotify staffers on Sunday, referring to Mr. Rogan’s podcast. “Not only are some of Joe Rogan’s comments incredibly hurtful, I want to make clear that they do not represent the values of this company. I know this situation leaves many of you feeling drained, frustrated and unheard.”

“While I strongly condemn what Joe has said and I agree with his decision to remove past episodes from our platform, I realize some will want more. And I want to make one point very clear—I do not believe that silencing Joe is the answer,” Mr. Ek said. “We should have clear lines around content and take action when they are crossed, but canceling voices is a slippery slope. Looking at the issue more broadly, it’s critical thinking and open debate that powers real and necessary progress.”

Rogan issued his second Instagram apology in under a week to address the clips, claiming that “I know that to most people there’s no context where a white person is ever allowed to say that word, never mind publicly on a podcast, and I agree with that now.”

What it means:

Spotify released its platform rules to the public last week after several musicians, led by Neil Young, removed their music from the service to protest Rogan’s podcast which they said spread misinformation about COVID-19. A review of those platform rules specifically forbids “content that incites violence or hatred towards a person or group of people based on race, religion, gender identity or expression, sex, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, veteran status, age, disability or other characteristics associated with systemic discrimination or marginalization.”

While the policy does not reference racial epithets specifically, it does include “dehumanizing statements about a person or group” among the criteria that merits content removal. In one of Rogan’s episodes, he compares walking through a Black neighborhood to walking through a scene from “The Planet of the Apes”—an example of a clear violation of Spotify’s stated rules.

Ek’s insistence that Rogan took down the offending episodes on his own, rather than Spotify remove them itself, allows Rogan to appear as the final arbiter rather than showing Spotify as a steward of its platform enforcing its guidelines.

The post NBC pulls back the curtain on Olympics headaches, Super Bowl ads draw intense interest, and Spotify’s CEO apologizes for Joe Rogan controversy appeared first on PR Daily.

Hello, communicators:

Country music legend and America’s sweetheart Dolly Parton announced she is partnering with Duncan Hines on a line of specialty cake mixes and frostings.

The company offered a limited-edition preview of the line for $40 on its website, which has already sold out. Parton’s products, including coconut cake and banana pudding cake mix, won’t hit store shelves until spring.

(Image via)

“I have always loved to cook and, growing up in the South, I especially love that authentic Mom and Pop kind of cooking,” Parton says in the press release. “I am excited to launch my own line of cake mixes and frostings with Duncan Hines, bringing that sweet, Southern-style baking experience I enjoy to others.”

Here are today’s other top stories:

Google increases parental leave, PTO in benefits expansion

Google announced yesterday that it will expand its employee benefits, increasing parental leave and additional vacation time for workers.

Here are some notable changes:

• Parental leave is now 18 weeks instead of 12.
• Parental leave for employees who give birth increases to 24 weeks.
• Caregiver leave now eight weeks, up from four.
• PTO is now 20 days a year instead of 15.

Business Insider reports:

“’More than 40% of our employees are in the ‘sandwich generation,’ where they might find themselves both bringing up their children and caring for aging family members,’ Fiona Cicconi, Google’s chief people officer, wrote in an emailed statement on Thursday.

“’We want to support our employees at every stage of their lives and that means providing extraordinary benefits, so they can spend more time with their new baby, look after a sick loved one or take care of their own wellbeing,’ Cicconi said. ‘Today we’re announcing increases to our global leave benefits to ensure that parents and caregivers have more time to spend with their families and loved ones, and to encourage all Googlers to take more time for themselves, too.’”

Why it matters: If your organization’s benefits are lacking, it’s time to get with the program: Companies are offering more comprehensive and attractive perks—on top of health care and PTO—to hook new employees and keep existing workers from jumping ship.

A new study from LinkedIn found that Gen Z workers want meaningful benefits like schedule flexibility and mental health support. Already offer a full slate of benefits? Great! Now’s the time to publicize your investment. Don’t be shy. Maybe even use the #showusyourleave hashtag?

MEASURED THOUGHTS

A new report from ListenFirst shows that many brands just haven’t figured out the “metaverse” yet. Relatable, right?

(Image via)

The study surveyed brand marketing and analytics professionals about the future of social media marketing.

More than 20% of respondents answered “no” when asked if they understood the metaverse and how it might impact their brands. Just 18% answered “yes,” while the majority of respondents answered “somewhat” or “unsure.”

In short: If you haven’t figured out the metaverse yet, you’re not alone. Try taking a gander at these tips on how to see through the hype and know when to get on board with the new trend.

Check out more from the ListenFirst 2022 Social Media Marketing Trends Study here.

TAKE OUR SURVEY

We want to know about your career as a social media professional.

How big is your team? Are you valued at your organization?

If you’re interested in helping benchmark the career path potential of social media professionals and shedding light on how social media is internally managed, viewed and evaluated, take our survey. The 2022 Social Media Career survey is a follow-up to a 2020 report by the Institute for Public Relations, Ragan Communications and the University of Florida.

Whether you’re in charge of company social media or involved in social media for a client, we welcome your participation.

Respondents will receive a full report on the findings, which will also be shared on PR Daily.   Responses will remain confidential.

Glossier announces layoffs amid concerns it expanded too fast

Makeup and skincare company Glossier laid off more than 80 of its employees this week, a move that CEO Emily Weiss chalked up to the fact that the organization “got ahead of ourselves on hiring.”

In an email obtained by Modern Retail, Weiss announced the layoffs and admitted to “some mistakes,” writing: “We prioritized certain strategic projects that distracted us from the laser-focus we needed to have on our core business: scaling our beauty brand.”

Weiss wrote that many of the eliminated positions were from the brand’s technology team, representing labor that will be outsourced moving forward.

Business Insider reports:

“During the pandemic, it permanently closed its LA and New York stores, leading to staff layoffs. Toward the end of 2021, however, the company started to refocus on brick-and-mortar retail. It opened new locations in LA, Seattle, and most recently, London. The company raised $80 million in funding to do so.”

Why it matters: When sharing unpleasant news with stakeholders, honesty is the best policy. CEO Emily Weiss’ ability to acknowledge the mistakes that led to Glossier’s restructuring is a clear example of transparent leadership communications.

By explaining how the brand was invested in the wrong ventures, Weiss is able to position the layoffs as a step towards a more profitable future—essential messaging for an investor marketplace that is increasingly concerned about bad debt on company’s books.

Announcing the PR Daily Leadership Network

PR Daily is launching the PR Daily Leadership Network, a unique membership group from Ragan Communications offering peer-to-peer advisory and team training along with a unique slate of resources and events to help public relations professionals break through the noise, increase their visibility and forge meaningful connections.

The Network provides daily insights and coverage on a range of topics including media relations, social media, measurement, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, branding, thought leadership and crisis communications.

“The fast pace of change coupled with the demand on public relations professionals to protect and sometimes defend their company’s reputation make it imperative for leaders to tap into the wisdom of other communicators and continue to learn and grow,” says Diane Schwartz, CEO of Ragan Communications. “The PR Daily Leadership Network provides the answers but also encourages members to question the status quo and push for positive change.”

Visit leadership.prdaily.com to learn more.

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