Observations

Why You Should Care About the Man in the Chair

Thu, 17 May 2012 22:13:00 GMT

By Jim Rhodes

Not too long ago, I presented a B2B advertising plan we had prepared for a client’s review. The plan included print, online, direct email and social media, augmented by PR. We had put many hours into researching and putting together a plan that addressed what we knew to be the company’s sales and marketing goals for breaking into a new market segment.

At the end of my presentation, I paused in hopeful anticipation of praise for our sterling efforts. The room was silent for 30 seconds or so.

Then our client cleared his throat. "I don’t get it,” he said. “Tell me why I need to spend so much money on advertising. Wouldn’t I be better off spending the money on direct sales, putting our sales force out on the road calling on prospects?”

“Let me send you something,” I said. “Then we can talk again.”

I returned to my office and sent him a link to the Man in the Chair ad.

The next day he called me back. “I get it now,” he said.

The iconic Man in the Chair ad is a timeless classic. It first appeared in 1958 in Business Week. It was created by Fuller & Smith & Ross, a New York ad agency for McGraw-Hill, then the world’s number one publisher of business magazines. It was an immediate hit. Advertising Age named it one of the top 10 ads for the year.

The full-page ad features a man seated in an old-fashioned wooden chair on a stark white background. He is wearing a poorly fitted business suit and bow tie. He stares directly at the camera through horn-rimmed glasses. His hands are folded in his lap. His lips are tightly squeezed into an expression that is neither a frown nor a smile.

The copy is simple, direct and elegant in its clarity:

“I don’t know who you are.
I don’t know your company.
I don’t know your company’s product.
I don’t know what your company stands for.
I don’t know your company’s customers.
I don’t know your company’s record.
I don’t know your company’s reputation.
Now what was it you wanted to sell me?”
MORAL: Sales start before your salesman calls – with business publication advertising.

Legend has it the man who appeared in the ad was an account supervisor named Gil Morris.The creative director asked him to sit in the chair for Polaroids while composing the shot, as a stand-in for the paid model they had hired for the job. He looked the part so perfectly, they decided to use him for the shoot and sent the professional model packing.

The campaign has been revived and updated several times over the last 40+ years with newer chairs and newer faces, including a woman executive in one of them, but always with the identical copy. Some things are so perfect you don’t dare mess with them. According to an article in Advertising Age, the ad copy has been translated into French, Russian, German Italian and Chinese. It was named the best ad of the 20^th century by Business Marketing in 1999.

Interestingly, the Business Marketing Association produced a modernized video version of the ad for its 2009 conference, introducing a hyperactive tuned-in and thoroughly wired business executive alongside the man in the chair. You can judge for yourself, but to my mind it was less effective than the original print version’s stark and forceful presentation.

So why does the Man in the Chair ad still resonate more than four decades later? Partly it’s because of the creative genius behind it. The image and copy work perfectly together to deliver a powerful message in a spectacularly effective way. More than that, even in our time of explosive growth in online and social media, the message is just as valid as it was at a time when print magazines dominated the B2B marketplace.

The truth is that people still want to do business with brands they trust.

I rest my case.

Note: If this subject interests you, may I suggest you also read my blog post on branding?

DeLorme inReach™

Mon, 07 May 2012 19:22:00 GMT

One of our clients, DeLorme, has released a new video that highlights the features and benefits of the new inReach™ personal satellite tracking, locating, messaging and SOS alerting device.

We have a limited supply of loaner products for journalists to test and review, so please let us know if you are interested.

DeLorme inReach™ - Reliable 2-way satellite communication in remote or high-risk environments, anywhere in the world.

On Maps and Place Names

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 19:42:00 GMT

By Jim Rhodes

I love maps. Cartography is an endless source of fascination to me. You can learn so many interesting things studying maps. A case in point…

The other day I was poring over a road map of Ohio and couldn’t help taking notice of the remarkable range of place names that adorn the state’s cities, towns, counties and hamlets.

View Larger Map

Ohioans, I think, must be a happy and hopeful people, judging by places called Joy, Amity, Tranquility, Friendship, Harmony, Unity, Socialville, Felicityville, Arcadia, Utopia, Welcome, Pleasant Home, Pleasant Hill, Mt. Pleasant, Mt. Joy, Mt. Hope, New Hope, Good Hope, Hopedale and Fairhope.

On the other hand, there may be a darker side to the Ohioan psyche. There are also places named Revenge, Gore, Defiance, Brokensword, River Styx, Chagrin Falls and Rattlesnake Knob (two of them, actually, within sight of each other).

And what a cosmopolitan place Ohio must be with towns like Geneva, Vienna, Berlin, Paris, Calais, Marseilles, Versailles, Lisbon, Canton, Calcutta, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Ghent, Warsaw, Bremen, Hamburg, Dresden, Florence, Rome, Genoa, Cadiz, Malaga, London, Plymouth, Brighton, Cambridge, Greenwich, Yorkshire, Dublin, Limerick, Sparta, Athens, Moscow, Antioch, Cairo, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Mecca and Londonderry (two of them).

In many of Ohio’s towns, you wouldn’t have much trouble figuring out the chief occupation of the early inhabitants. What do you suppose the people did for a living in Miner, Minerton, Minersville, Farmer, Farmerstown, Farmers, Farmingtown, Farmersville, Mechanicstown and Mechanicsville (two of them)?

Interestingly, Rattlesnake Knob, Mechanicsville and Londonderry aren’t the only duplications. There are several other places in Ohio bearing the same name. It must be very confusing to be a mail sorter when you have two Unionvilles, two Limas, two Buena Vistas, two Lebanons and two Springfields.

Closer inspection of the map shows that Ohio has a town named Alpha and another named Omega.

My own personal favorites, though, are the “Bottoms”:

Long Bottom,

Big Bottom,

and...

Round Bottom.

Whew, I’m worn out. Can somebody bring me a cold beer?

On Ships, Shipping and the Media

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:23:00 GMT

By Jim Rhodes

As you may know, our company has been deeply involved in the world maritime industry for more than 25 years. I first went to sea as a ship navigator in 1970, so I take a personal interest in the subject. The recent media feeding frenzy over the Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia has given me cause for reflection.

It’s sad but true that the news media are just not interested in the world of ships and shipping. The exceptions seem to be (1) when there is a whiff of scandal, as when the master recklessly drives a massive cruise ship with 4,000+ passengers onto a charted reef and is later found bobbing in a lifeboat with his senior deck officers while the passengers struggle desperately to find their way to safety in the dark, (2) when oil is spilt on the waters, polluting public beaches and fouling populations of sea birds, or (3) when a team of U.S. Navy SEALS mount a dramatic rescue of hostages held by pirates.

Costa Concordia. Photo Credit: CruiseLaw News.

The media are rapidly losing their enthusiasm for the Costa Concordia story. The journalists are packing up their satellite dishes and heading back to chase tomorrow’s news. The passengers have been repatriated, their pockets stuffed with business cards from members of the ambulance-chasing profession, and now the dreary work is left to be done by the teams of investigators searching for clues and salvagers who will pump out the ship’s bunker tanks and refloat the wreck to be towed to a drydock for repairs.

I hasten to say that the trade media are an exception, and the leading maritime trade journals have done a good job of presenting the story in a thorough, fair and balanced way. One of the best sources is the excellent website www.gCaptain.com, where you will find expert commentary by people who know what they’re talking about, unlike the talking heads trotted out for 15-second sound bites by the news broadcasters as fillers between the latest unsubstantiated rumors.

Returning to my original premise, while the news media were falling over each other to cover the Costa Concordia, other ship casualties were going virtually unnoticed. Last Thursday, February 2, 2012, the passenger ferry Rabaul Queen sank in heavy weather with 350 people on board off Papua New Guinea. Rescue operations were underway the following day but more than 100 are still listed as missing. Also that Thursday, a cargo ship carrying scrap metal from Russia sank off the coast of Turkey in stormy seas. So far only three of the crew have been rescued. Turkish authorities are searching for the remaining 10 with little hope of success.

And where were the media when the bulk carrier Vinalines Queen plunged to the bottom of the sea off Luzon in the Philippines with 22 Vietnamese seafarers on Christmas Day?

You would have a hard time finding these stories in any western newspaper or news broadcast.

And while the media were breathlessly reporting the exciting story of the rescue of two hostages in Somalia by a U.S. special warfare team, how many of them took advantage of the opportunity to cover the bigger story – that according to the International Maritime Bureau Piracy Reporting Centre, 13 ships were attacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia during the month of January? At this writing, pirate gangs are holding 10 ships and 159 seafarers hostage in Somalia pending ransom negotiations. There are reports of escalating violence and even torture of hostages by their captors. It’s a scandal, and the indifference of the western media to their plight is appalling.

To a large extent, the maritime industry has no one to blame but itself. People who own and operate ships inhabit a murky and shadowy world, and they seem to like it that way. Take the ship that just sank off Turkey, for example. The ship was likely owned by Russian interests (who knows?), flew the Cambodian flag and carried a crew of mostly Ukrainians. In years gone by, many major newspapers had an expert writer or two covering the maritime beat. Nowadays, if you try to explain a concept like flags of convenience to journalists, you’re likely to get nothing but blank stares of incomprehension with the implied message, “Our readers don’t care about this stuff, and neither do we.”

Ten Rules for Good Advertising

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 21:29:00 GMT

By Jim Rhodes

I have written on this question before, but it keeps coming up in meetings with clients, so I hope you won’t mind if I revisit the subject. The department store magnate John Wannamaker (1838-1922) is reported to have said: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.”

So what makes an effective ad campaign? There are two components: (a) the media in which the ad appears, and (b) the ad itself. In this post, I’ll focus on the latter. Why is one particular ad better or worse than another?

For a good many years, the late lamented trade magazine Business Marketing (in recent years reincarnated as BtoB Marketing) ran a popular column called “Copy Chasers,” in which an anonymous team of experienced creative types critiqued ads submitted by readers. I still have a yellowed clipping from the magazine listing the Copy Chaser’s 10 criteria, and I refer to it often when we are creating ads for our clients. While these rules come from an earlier time when print magazines were the primary media for business-to-business (B2B) advertising, I believe that they mostly translate to other online media as well.

Photo Credit: Echo-Factory.

Here are the rules:

1. Use high visual magnetism. On average, only a small number of ads in an issue of a magazine will capture the attention of any one reader. Some ads will be passed by because the subject matter is of no concern. But others, even though they may have something to offer, fail the very first test of stopping the reader scanning the pages. Ads perish right at the start because, at one extreme they just lie there on the page, flat and gray, and at the other extreme, they are cluttered, noisy and hard to read. An ad should be constructed so a single component dominates the area – a picture, the headline or the text – but not the company name or the logo. Obviously, the more pertinent the picture, the more arresting the headline, the more informative the copy appears to be, the better.

2. Select the right audience. Often, an ad is the first meeting place of two parties looking for each other. So there should be something in the ad that at first glance will enable readers to identify it as a source of information relating to their job interests – a problem they have or an opportunity they will welcome. This is done with either a picture or a headline – preferably both. The ad should say immediately to the reader, “Hey, this is for you.”

3. Invite the reader into the scene. Within the framework of the layout, the graphic designer’s job is to visualize, illuminate and dramatize the selling proposition. The graphic designer must consider that the type of job a reader has dictates the selection of the illustrative material. Design engineers work with drawings. Construction engineers like to see products at work. Chemical engineers are comfortable with flow charts. Managers relate to pictures of people, and so on.

4. Promise a reward. An ad will survive the qualifying round only if readers are given reason to expect they will learn something of value. A brag-and-boast headline, a generalization, or advertising platitude will turn readers off before they get to the message. The reward can be explicit or implicit and can even be stated negatively, in the form of a warning of a possible loss. The promise should be specific.

5. Back up the promise. To make the promise believable, the ad must provide hard evidence that the claim is valid. Sometimes, a description of the product’s design or operating characteristics will be enough to support the claim. Comparison with competition can be convincing. Case histories make the reward appear attainable. Best of all are testimonials. “They-say” advertising carries more weight than “We-say” advertising.

6. Present sequence logically. The job of the graphic designer is to organize the parts of an ad so that there is an unmistakable entry point (the single dominant component referred to earlier) and the reader is guided through the material in a sequence consistent with the logical development of the selling proposition.

7. Talk person-to-person. Copy is more persuasive when it speaks to the reader as an individual – as if it were one friend telling another friend about a good thing. Terms should be the terms of the reader’s business, not the advertiser’s business. But more than that, the writing style should be simple: short words, short sentences, short paragraph, active rather than passive voice, no clichés, frequent use of the personal pronoun “you.”

8. Be easy to read. Font should be no smaller than 9points. It should appear black on white. It should stand clear of interference from any other part of the ad. Column width should not be more than half of the width of the ad.

9. Emphasize the service. Many B2B advertisers insist that the company name or logo be the biggest thing in the ad, that the company name appear in the headline, that it be set in boldface wherever it appears in the copy. That’s too much. An ad should make readers want to buy – or at least consider buying – before telling them where to buy.

10. Reflect company character. A company’s advertising represents its best opportunity (better than the sales force) to portray the company’s personality – the things that will make the company liked, respected, admired. Messy ads tend to indicate a messy company. Brag-and-boast ads suggest the company is maker-oriented, not user-oriented. Whatever it is, personality should be consistent over time and across the spectrum of corporate structure and product lines.

On the next post, I'll touch on the first component of an effective ad campaign, the media which the ad appears in.

When Times Are Tough, Build Up Market Share

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 21:17:00 GMT

By Jim Rhodes

There is a considerable body of research documenting the startling conclusion that a down economy is the best time to capture market share. Don’t believe me? Take it from the chief executive of Procter & Gamble, who was quoted in the Wall Street Journal a few years ago as saying, “We have a philosophy and a strategy. When times are tough, you build share.”

At first glance, this seems counter-intuitive. After all, the prime directive in an economic downturn is to survive, and cash flow is king. And the marketing and advertising budget is an attractive and seemingly easy target when expenses have to be curtailed to match the falloff in revenue. So it’s logical to pull back on marketing costs and wait for the turnaround.

That could be a strategic blunder. Harvard Business School professor John Quelch writes, “It is well-documented that brands that increase advertising during a recession, when competitors are cutting back, can improve market share and return on investment at lower cost than during good economic times.”

A Cahners Advertising Research report found companies that increased their media advertising during the recession of the 1980s gained an average of 1.5 points of market share. I’ll concede that as a major publishing house Cahners may have a vested interest in persuading its advertisers not to cut back on their media budgets, but there are plenty of other sources corroborating these findings.

In 1980, the Harvard Business Review reported, “The company courageous enough to stay in the fight when everyone else is playing safe can bring about a dramatic change in market position.” In a study of the 1990-92 recession, Management Review polled American Management Association member firms and concluded, “Firms that increased their budgets and took on new people were twice as likely to pick up market share.”

Seeing Beyond the Recession
The Profit Impact of Market Strategy Program conducted a detailed analysis of data from more than 3,500 strategic business units that are divisions, product lines or other profit centers of some 200 companies. The data revealed that companies that trimmed marketing spending during recessions enjoyed a superior return on capital employed during the recession, but performed more poorly during the recovery than companies maintaining or increasing their spending. The “spenders,” it was reported, had significantly higher return on capital employed (ROCE) and gained an average of 1.3 percentage points in market share. Because recessions typically last 6 to 15 months, the short-term gain in ROCE was temporary.

In other words, increasing your market share during the downturn will produce a much higher return when the economic curve turns upward. You will be riding the crest of the wave of recovery rather than struggling to catch up with a wave that has passed you by.

In researching this column, I came across an interesting case study from Mercedes-Benz in Taiwan. The recession hit the Taiwanese luxury car segment hard, with sales dropping 30 percent from 2007 to 2008. Some luxury car manufacturers responded with aggressive price promotions, creating market confusion.

Instead of joining the price war, Mercedes-Benz decided to hold its brand value with a surge of television ads that contained a creative strategy emphasizing the emotional connection with a luxury brand. The results were astounding. During the campaign, calls to the Mercedes sales hotline were up sevenfold and website visits tripled.

The Taiwanese luxury car segment declined by 28 percent, but Mercedes increased its market share from 26 percent to 28 percent without cutting prices. In fact, Mercedes had the highest selling price among its luxury car competitors. The marketing director was reported as saying, “The campaign cleverly removed us from a blood competition, allowing us to stand out and win both in terms of business and branding. Moreover, it proved again that branding is a crucial and worthy investment, especially in a recession.”

Can’t Spend More? Spend Wisely
Of course, not every company has Procter & Gamble’s or Mercedes-Benz’s deep pockets. For many, especially thinly capitalized small businesses, surviving the recession means cutting everything to the bone, hunkering down and hoping they can claw their way back when the economy turns upward. Increasing the advertising budget is just not an option. But I would suggest that lean times provide unique opportunities for entrepreneurial marketing departments to promote their brands and win market share from their competitors.

In other words, even if you can’t spend more money, you can spend it more wisely. Let me give you a few examples from my own experience. I knew a company that during the 1980's recession closed its communications department and sent everyone out on the road, calling on customers as direct salesmen. It kept them on the payroll and beefed up customer service. They also learned a lot about how to sell and market their products by listening to what their customers told them. When they returned to their jobs in the communications department, you can bet they brought a new point of view to the company’s advertising, PR and marketing programs.

During the downturn of the early 1990's one of our clients — an OEM supplier to the boatbuilding industry — discerned a major opportunity. Its largest competitor was visibly cutting back on customer service to save money. Our client assigned one of its best salesmen to the competitor’s biggest account. He practically took up residence in a motel near the boatbuilder’s plant and gave the company his undivided attention. When the economy recovered, guess who ended up with the account — and a substantial increase in market share?

I have seen reports from companies that withdrew all of their media ads and spent the money on direct mail and direct sales instead. It brought them closer to their customers and gave them an edge on their competitors, resulting in a higher market share in the end.

Happily, there are now many options for promoting your brand beyond traditional print and broadcast media. Innovative companies are leveraging the power of the Internet, social media and smart phones to connect with their customers. I know of one company that has developed a clever suite of iPad apps for boat dealers to engage on a personal level with prospects and customers. (Full disclosure: I will not name the company because it is a client of ours, but I’ll be happy to tell you about it if you give me a call.)

Although some positive indicators are starting to appear in the boating business, the economy is still sputtering. There is nearly no job growth. Family debt levels remain high. Credit is tight for businesses and consumers. The stock market has a case of the jitters. The baby-boomer generation, which should be driving a healthy boating business, is hoarding for retirement in anticipation of a collapse in the value of their investments and pension funds. High entry-level pricing shuts out many first-time boat buyers.

Sooner or later, the recession will ease and the economy will improve. There will be winners and losers, and the companies that emerge as winners will be the ones that used the downturn to their advantage by building their brand and customer loyalty.

Editor's Note:
This article has also appeared in Soundings Trade Only Today magazine.

Undisputed World Centre of Maritime Publishing

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 17:03:00 GMT

Editor's Note:

Below is the November 24^th issue of Fairplay, where our company president, Jim Rhodes was featured:

More Fun With Numbers

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 22:22:00 GMT

By Jim Rhodes

This is for people who, like me, get their kicks playing with numbers.

As I write this, the date is 11/1/11 (American style). Of course, if you subscribe to the convention of placing the day before the month, it’s 1/11/11. Either way, it’s a rare event – five identical digits in a row.

So here are your questions for the day:

When is the next time there will be a date with five of the same digits in a row?
When is the last time it occurred?
How many times will it happen in this century?
In this millennium?

Hint, there are surprisingly few.
Ten days from now, the date will be 11/11/11, either way you write it.

So how often does that happen – all six digits the same?

Can A Writer Serve Two Masters?

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 20:11:00 GMT

By Jim Rhodes

Last week, I was invited to be a panelist at a joint meeting of Marine Marketers of America and Boating Writers International (BWI) at the Ft. Lauderdale International Boat Show. The question for debate was, “Can A Writer Serve Two Masters?” The subject is timely. Many freelancers are being driven to seek PR and advertising work to supplement the dwindling income from journalistic assignments. Here are excerpts from my comments:

There are actually two questions here. First, can a writer serve two masters as a journalist-for-hire and a PR writer? And second, how do you do it?

The answer to the first question, to my mind, is a guarded “Yes,” but the devil’s in the details.

A number of years ago, I was one of the Gang of Three (or maybe it was Four – it’s hard to remember these days – I’m finding that the gray cells seem to decay in direct proportion to the increase of hairs of the same color). Anyway, we formed a small committee to draft a set of ethical guidelines for BWI members.

The subject of writers crossing over between journalism and PR did not figure prominently in our deliberations. Back then, the major boating magazines had staff editors and staff writers, plus a chain of contributors who got regular substantial assignments from the publications – enough to make a decent living without having to supplement their income from PR work. So, while we didn’t address this issue specifically, we did include certain broad-brushed provisions concerning conflict of interest.

“Writers and editors should avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived, whenever possible. To that end, any potential conflict of interest, which might affect editorial content, must be disclosed prior to publication. Writers must notify editors, and the editor in turn must disclose this information to the readers. Editors and writers should not accept substantial gifts, services or merchandise from organizations or individuals that may be affected by editorial content.”

I would suggest that the last sentence could be construed to include accepting payments from PR clients for articles you are also selling to a publisher.

A lot has changed in our industry since then. Some boating magazines have disappeared entirely while others have converted into online journals. Editorial staffs have been savaged, and staff writers are – if not extinct – at least an endangered species. Freelancers are being squeezed by lower fees and late payments. I don’t need to tell you that it’s pretty damn hard to making a living as a boating writer these days. It’s only natural that you should look to PR work.

For this discussion, I will take the position that working as a PR writer and a journalist is not inherently unethical, but as I said, the devil’s in the details.

To be sure, some things are clear violations. On these we can probably agree. For instance, suppose I, as a PR guy, sell a story to a magazine that affects one of my clients and I don’t disclose that information to the editor. That’s double dipping, and it’s unethical.

That’s easy enough, but let’s consider a more complicated scenario. Let’s say you are listed as a “contributing editor” on the masthead of a boating magazine. You take a second job writing press materials, brochures and web copy for a manufacturer of VHF radios. The reason they hired you to do this job was because of your well-known expertise in the field. So far, you’re in the clear. You write the stuff, and they do whatever they want with it. But now suppose your editor assigns you to write a review of the latest VHF radios on the market. Now where is your loyalty? Your client certainly has the expectation that his product will get a favorable review, maybe even preferential treatment over the others. Your editor expects an objective and balanced article. Now you’re definitely skating onto thin ice. Now let’s say you’re invited to a press conference by one of your client’s competitors to unveil their brand-new VHF radio technology. When you see their new product you can see it’s clearly superior to your own client’s radios. Now what do you do?

I personally don’t see how you can escape from these sorts of ethical dilemmas when you try to serve both masters in a narrow vertical market like the boating industry.

The best you can do, I believe, is follow the “full disclosure” rule, and try your best to create a wall of separation between the two. It won’t be easy.

Let me just say that I wrestled with this early in my career. I was a young writer trying to produce income for a growing family. I took whatever writing jobs I could get. And at the same time I was growing my PR client base. I have to confess I was guilty of crossing over the line between the two more than once. Eventually my conscience kicked in, and I realized I couldn’t keep doing it. So I did the arithmetic, worked the sums, and realized that if I wanted a steady paycheck I’d better stick to the PR business.

Seventeen Syllables

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 22:02:00 GMT

By Jim Rhodes

Every now and then I put my hand to writing Haikus. It’s a useful discipline for a writer to condense big thoughts into a very short and structured composition.

The Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry dating back some 300 years. A Haiku poem consists of 17 syllables written in three lines – the first consisting of 5 syllables, the second 7 and the third 5. Together, they give expression to a vivid impression, thought, theme or image. Often Haikus express human responses to nature in a strongly sensual way, capturing the essence of a moment in time.

The Haiku is in many ways an interactive art form. The nature of the Haiku is such that much meaning is hidden, to be filled in by the reader. Each word must pull a lot of weight, and the impact of the whole is greater than just the sum of its parts. An effective Haiku, engages all the human senses – sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. Mind you, working in an appeal to all five senses in 17 syllables is a challenge, so as a writer you just do the best you can.

The Haiku has become a popular art form in English, as well as other languages. Note, however, that Haikus composed in English differ greatly from the traditional Japanese, largely because Japanese words are more polysyllabic, so that a given line may contain only one or two words. Actually, the English language is more pliable and flexible with many more very short words, offering a lot more options for filling the 5-7-5 syllable format. Here are a few famous Japanese Haikus by the poet Basho, as translated into English:

Lightning -
Heron’s cry
Stabs the darkness

Waterjar cracks
I lie awake
This icy night

Ancient pond
Frog leaps
Splash!

So, for what it’s worth, here is my own little seasonal Haiku composed as a tribute to the beginning of Autumn:

           The wind backs northwest
           Shadows sharpen suddenly
           Sweet September comes.

Pass It On

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 20:37:00 GMT

By Cheryl Chase

I am sure you’ve all seen them once or twice – you know, the emails that state certain events need to be brought to your immediate attention and urgently forwarded to all your friends and acquaintances – to warn them of some impending, dangerous or uncivilized occurrence that is going to shatter their worlds forever. Some people react in an outrageous, indignant manner and quickly forward this on to all their BFFs on their contact list (first rule – fact check). The news spreads like wildfire. Don’t you wish good news traveled that quickly?

I recently received such an email forwarded to me from my mother, a novice to the Internet/computer world. She had forwarded this message to everyone on her list – forward, add an address, forward, add an address, forward, and add an address… I must be near the bottom of the BFF list because by the time I received the message, it had about 20 other email addresses at the top and I had to scroll down for pages to get to the message that was so important for me to read.

That already had me laughing by the time I got to this: Sources close to the President stated, “President Obama had directed the issuance of a U.S. postage stamp commemorating Islamic holidays...” To make matters worse, the post office was “forcing” this stamp on all of us and something needed to be done immediately – a boycott on the use of the stamp was suggested so the profits would not go the Muslim community. Wow! That’s pretty outrageous! I quickly composed myself and sought out the Internet to do some fact-checking before forwarding on to all my BFFs.

My first choice was snopes.com, "The definitive Internet reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation.” There, I discovered the truth and fiction within the email message from my mother.

Apparently, this story has been circulating the Internet since 2009. The stamp that was featured prominently in the scary email is indeed an authentic stamp – the Eid stamp which is in celebration of two important Eids or festivals on the Islamic calendar. The stamp was revealed to the world in 2001, well before Barack Obama was elected President of the United States. The stamp was considered a specialty item and only sold if someone specifically requested it. Only the USPS profited from the sale of the stamps.

I responded to my mother with the link to snopes.com so she could personally check it out. I avoided embarrassing her further by choosing not to send it on to the 20 some-odd BFFs included in the email. I’m sure the message is well on its way a second or third time around the Internet within the past few minutes, but I’ve done my small part.

I say all that to ask this: What compels people to forward these messages? Don’t you wish your message to the world was just as easily forwarded with such urgency? I’m searching for the formula now…

You Can Quote Me on That

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 23:27:00 GMT

By Valerie Myers

In our daily quest to create attention-grabbing, newsworthy and relevant content to garner positive media attention for our clients, we as PR professionals are faced with the sometimes daunting task of disseminating words straight from the mouths of the CEOs and VPs of the companies we represent. Daunting because often, if we’re not careful, quotes used in press releases can come across sounding wooden and contrived or manufactured to suit a particular audience. For some smart tips on how not to make your spokespeople sound like soul-less, impersonal, dry-as-a-low-fat-rice-cake humanoids, check out this quick read from corporate communicator website Ragan on 4 ways to improve quotes in press releases. You can thank me later.

Hair Warrior

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 22:20:00 GMT

By Jim Rhodes

So there I was in the crowded airport cocktail lounge. I plopped down in one of the few empty chairs, glanced at emails in Mr. BlackBerry and settled down to nurse a glass of beer.

That was when I noticed the man sitting next to me. He was wearing khaki shorts, a rumpled khaki shirt, white socks and jungle boots. A pith helmet sat on the table next to him. He was watching me.

“You in marketing?” he asked suddenly. I nodded in a way that I hoped would discourage conversation. He was not deterred.

“I thought so,” he said.

“You?”

He leaned back, took a deep draught from his beer, and said, “I am an S.H.I.T. specialist.”

My first instinct was to observe that we were in the same line of work, since I am in the PR business, but I thought better of it. “A what?”

He slid a business card across the table. “Dr. Alfredo J. Pompadour, Shampoo Herbal Ingredients Technologist.” The address was “Shampoo Herbal Ingredients Technology Testing, Investigation and Evaluation (S.H.I.T.T.I.E.) Laboratory with the name of a well-known company which I will not reveal.

“Call me Fred. My job is to seek out and study ingredients for hair products,” he said.

He was just returning from Tahiti, he said, and was flying on to Stockholm then to Paris, Istanbul and Tokyo.

“You’ve noticed all the exotic ingredients on the labels of shampoo bottles, I presume?”

I nodded.

“Well I’m the guy that goes out and gets them.”

We both took a swig of beer.

“I’ve just finished up a little R&D program with oil extracts from Tahitian vanilla beans – excellent potential there. And I’m looking to create a mixture with extracts of Juniper from a forest near the Arctic Circle, sea kelp from the Black Sea and French lavender fresh from the fields of Provence. And for extra measure, a dollop of silk amino proteins from a plantation on one of the out islands of Japan.”

“So let me guess, you’re looking for something that’s silky, smooth, gentle and will make one’s hair more interesting to the opposite sex. Right?”

“I knew you were in marketing,” he said. “I work closely with the marketing department, of course. They tell me they want a new product with a little more silkiness, more smoothness, softer, less splitting, fewer tangles, gentler waves and a scent of orange blossoms, so I hit the road to gather samples and bring them back to the lab.”

“For testing?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Not to worry. We do our testing in environmentally acceptable ways without using any live animals.” He sighed and sipped at his beer. “In the good old days, we could just round up some stray cats and lather them up with this stuff, measure hair growth, splitting, curliness and other factors, then run metrics for the marketing department before moving into production.”

“So what do you use now?”

“Human hair wigs.”

“Isn’t that expensive?”

“No, we buy them in bulk. And I get a special discount, since I’m a member of the club.”

“The hair club? You mean that’s a wig on the top of your head? Looks natural.”

“Yes, my own hair all fell out years ago when I came down with Denge Fever in the rainforests of Malaya searching for a rare bamboo oil extract.”

We paused to finish our beers.

I broke the silence. “So, Fred, I have a question. I’ve always wanted to know just exactly what is shea butter? I see it on the labels of all my wife’s shampoo containers in the shower.”

“Shea butter. Ah yes, you mean Butyrspermum Parkil. Wonderful stuff. It’s a chemical we mixed up in the lab. We called it B.P. for short, but the marketing guys objected. Said it would remind consumers of leaking oil wells. I was the one who came up with the name. Sounds like an Irish condiment. Butter connotes smoothness. You think I might have a career in marketing?”

“Could be.”

I was on the verge of asking another question that I’ve wondered about for years, but at that moment his flight to Stockholm was called, and he shuffled off with his duffle bag and pith helmet, leaving my curiosity unhappily unfulfilled. I suppose I’ll never know what a volumizing shampoo is.

I had another beer.

Disclaimer: The author wishes to state that this is a work of fiction, which came to him in a dream, induced no doubt by an overindulgence in a medicinal substance bearing an uncommon resemblance to a single malt whiskey. To the author’s knowledge, Dr. Pompadour does not exist, and any resemblance to a real person, however improbable, is totally accidental. One thing is true. The names of the ingredients actually came from shampoo bottles collected in hotel bathrooms. Nobody could make that up.

Plus Ça Change…

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 19:04:00 GMT

By Jim Rhodes

The British weekly The Economist published a 16-page special report on the news industry in the July 9, 2011 issue. The series of articles examined the impact of the Internet, social media and Wikileaks on the traditional publishing industry as colored by the hacking scandals that recently rocked Britain’s news industry.

The article made what on the surface might seem a startling claim, but one that rings true when you think about it. “The Internet has turned the news industry upside down, making it more participatory, social, diverse and partisan – as it used to be before the arrival of the mass media.”

What we are seeing, The Economist maintains, is a return to the old freewheeling days of opinionated, polarized, often libelous news propagation before the creation of the modern mass media.

Some of us today tend to look back fondly on what we perceive to be a golden age of publishing before the advent of screaming heads on radio and cable TV or highly politicized blogs and social media sites. Some might remember a time when the press was restrained by a tradition of editorial objectivity and devotion to the truth.

Actually, truth and objectivity in journalism were qualities sadly lacking in earlier times.

I have recently been reading a lot about politics in the period immediately following the American Revolution. This was before the advent of anything resembling a national press. Newspapers, as we know them today, did not exist. In the early 19^th century, news was mostly disseminated through ballads, pamphlets and gossip-filled broadsheets, which were printed locally and traveled at the speed of a horse or sailing ship. It was the advent of the telegraph and railroads that enabled rapid mass distribution, and the modern newspaper era was born, fueled by advertisers who were inevitably attracted to these new mass-circulation media.

The pamphleteers of the early years of our Republic felt no restraint and threw themselves cheerfully into the political fray, oftentimes publishing the most slanderous claims about people they didn’t like. Even the Founding Fathers were not protected. Thomas Jefferson was frequently painted by his opponents as a libertine and dangerous radical who intended to introduce a French-style revolution into America, guillotine and all. And Jefferson’s proponents didn’t mind taking equal public pot shots at Hamilton and his friends, who were portrayed as closet monarchists conspiring with George III to reconquer and bring to heel the upstart American democracy with gallows awaiting the patriots, who had taken up arms against His Britannic Majesty.

The Economist's Special Report on the news industry illustrated.

If this sounds a lot like social media today, that’s exactly what The Economist’s writers conclude. “The biggest shift is that journalism is no longer the exclusive preserve of journalists,” says The Economist. “Successful media organizations will be the ones that accept this new reality. They need to reorient themselves towards serving readers rather than advertisers, embrace social features and collaboration, get off political and moral high horses and stop trying to erect barriers around journalism to protect their position. The digital future of news has much in common with its chaotic, ink-stained past.”

I am a great admirer of The Economist, and I devote a considerable portion of every week trying to read as much as I can before the next issue appears. To my mind, it is one of the finest magazines in the world, and convincing proof that a high-quality print newsweekly can hold its own against the dark forces of the Internet and social media. If The Economists writers disagree, so be it.

Another Word on Words...

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 14:36:00 GMT

By Valerie Myers

In PR, words are everything. Be it talking points, a press release, blog post or Tweet, we make our living crafting words to position, influence, sell, educate and inspire – all day, every day. And like with most things, some words go in and out of fashion, almost as regularly as the change in seasons. And now apparently, according to one contributor at PR Daily, here are 9 words that don’t belong in PR. Mind you, this is only one professional’s opinion, and this list refers more to words used when conducting the business of public relations. Still, who knew?