Recap – August Event

Missed creative director of Warschawski Thomas Neuberger‘s presentation on Social Media & the Integrated Marketing Campaign? Here’s just a quick sampling of what he had to say…

• Traditional and digital communications are all tools in your toolbox.  Social media is just one of these important tools. Be sure to keep this in perspective when planning your campaign.
• The secret to using all your tools (traditional & digital) is brand clarity.
• Brand, marketing and public relations opportunities all focus on your primary, secondary, and tertiary target audiences. As the cycle repeats itself, you continue to strengthen the power of your brand. This is integration in action!
•  The text book definition of a brand is the “expectation of someone or something that delivers a certain feeling.” This expectation is created through communication and reinforced (or weakened) by the experience.  What Thomas wanted us to understand is that ultimately “Brand is about making a fundamental emotional connection with your audience.”
• Seventy percent of all brand-based decisions are made at the emotional or subconscious level. Great branding inspires loyalty beyond reason. Examples: Dunkin Donuts coffee, McDonald’s coffee and Starbucks.
• Brand is not about the logo, collateral material, packaging, tagline, advertising – these support the brand.
• Main questions to ask: What does your company want to make people feel or think about themselves? How do you want to stand out? How do you want to be remembered?
• Companies who have gotten it right – TOMS Shoes, Southwest and Levis. We also talked about one big “Uh-Oh” involving social media: the 2009 Skittles Twitter campaign. For a time, Skittles lost control of its brand when it turned its home page into a Twitter page resulting in tweets having nothing to do with the colorful candy  (If you’re unaware of the case, Google it.).
• Some statistics: 43% of peer to news sharing comes from social media. 27% of frequent sharers generate 87% of all news shared online. It’s this 27% that can become your brand champions/ambassadors.
• Most of all, social media isn’t a one-sided conversation. It is about developing a connection with your target audience.  Don’t use social media as just another platform. Use it to start a conversation.

The program ended with a great Q&A where we discussed other campaigns successes, as well as a few failures. Thanks again to Thomas Neuberger of Warschawski’s for sharing the morning with us.

Want to hear more about this and other relevant PR topics? Mark your calendars for the 2011 Mid-Atlantic Chesapeake Conference scheduled for November 3, 2011. This year’s event titled The New Face of PR will be co-hosted by the Maryland, National Capital, and Central Chesapeake Chapters. Registration & details coming soon at www.prsamd.org.

Invitation to Join Google+

I was recently invited by Melanie Trudeau at Jaffe PR to join Google+. Since it is still in beta and you need an invitation to join, I gladly accepted. Although I haven’t spent a lot of time on the site, the profile was very easy to set up. If you are interested in creating a profile, email me at khughes@milesstockbridge.com and I will send you an invitation to join.

KiaraHughes is a Communications Specialist at Miles & Stockbridge P.C. She is also a member of the Communications Committee, Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), Maryland
Chapter.

Opinions and conclusions in this post are solely those of the author unless otherwise indicated. The author has provided the links referenced above for information purposes only and by doing so, does not adopt or incorporate the contents.