Fordham Magazine Highlights Richard Lukis • Spring 2009

Richard Lukis was appointed vice president of the Public Relations Society of America’s New Jersey Chapter. He was also recently promoted to president of Coyne Public Relations. He has been with the Parsippany, N.J.-based public relations firm for more than a decade, most recently as the executive vice president.

O'DWYER'S PR REPORT • Getting the Measurements Right with Social Media • April 2009

Companies implementing social media strategies face a dilemma. How do you measure the brand impact of social media activity when multiple business units - many with their own sub-brand identity - promote overlapping products and solutions?

Right now, there are few measurement tools readily available to measure social media impact on the primary brand. At Coyne PR, many large clients with multiple BUs are collaborating with us to find ways to measure the social media impact to their core brand. The results have been encouraging.

Accurate return-on-investment calculations are possible in marketing activities where it’s feasible to isolate variables to identify incremental revenue. And today, the only internet-based marketing programs that can consistently generate bona fide results are pay-per-click, email direct marketing, search engine optimization, banner ad click-through and similar marketing programs. And even these initiatives can only generate reasonable ROI results for lead-generation or e-commerce-based transactions.

Social media tends to be vague and anecdotal, and because it’s a dialogue rather than a one-sided message, consumers control the passion and frequency of the conversation. From a traditional marketing perspective, it’s a difficult concept for senior management to comprehend -- much less measure with any accuracy.

With traditional customer relationship management programs, initiatives are focused on linking consumers to the company to create brand stickiness. CRM programs are measured using well-established CRM metrics, but we also know that social media activity increases corporate reputation, brand stickiness, and social engagement. Metrics for these measures are not so well defined. At Coyne PR, we have found that the best way to know how social media impacts a single brand is to directly connect social media initiatives to core brand measurement activity. So, it’s not just about jumping in on any particular social media discussion; it’s about how to direct social media activity in a way that achieves the objectives of the corporation.

From a social media perspective, several variables of brand equity can be measured including Brand Loyalty, Brand Awareness, Perceived Quality, Brand Associations and “other” proprietary brand assets which provide a competitive advantage, like brand extensions, channel member interest. These brand equity variables can be organized into three categories and correlated with social media measures.

Core Outputs
We can measure the effectiveness of social media initiatives such as whether a campaign creates positive/negative complimentary links (brand associations), or if the number of positive/negative reviews produced by community influencers increases (perceived quality), or whether the total number of people engaged in a blog discussion reflects an increase in the frequency of positive/negative company references (brand awareness and channel member interest).

Measurable Behavioral Outcomes
More difficult to capture is the measure of real behavioral change resulting from a social media program. This variable might represent the quantifiable change in the growth of key on-line influencers or an increase in traffic reflected in blog aggregators for the firm’s recently launched product or solution (brand loyalty).

Achievable Business Results
This is a measure of how the social media program, campaign, or activity helped the organization achieve a specific business objective and helps to quantify the business result. For example, we can measure the adoption rate for a new product/solution—that is, the incremental boost in sales resulting from influential social media activity, or the adoption/penetration of an integrated cross-BU solution within a pre-defined market segment based on social media initiatives.

Correlating brand equity elements with specific social media measures allows businesses to optimize social media-generated brand equity. The more companies can quantitatively measure the social impact on their brand equity, the better. The closer those measurements come to aligning specific BU business initiatives with corporate business outcomes, the better.

How rapidly people respond to a social media call-to-action, write a review, participate in a discussion or forum, or forward a recommendation to a colleague can all be actively measured. What we want to know is whether BU-generated social media efforts are having any incremental impact on the corporate brand equity, and if so, how much. So, even if a BU-initiated social media activity is producing a good return in terms of its single specific metric, if it isn't accelerating the corporate business outcome and contributing to the company’s core brand equity, then it’s time to revisit the effort.

Dr. Norman Booth, D.Litt is an Assistant Vice President at Coyne PR.

BRANDWEEK • General Mills Recruits Bloggers • April 28, 2009

Bloggers, particularly moms, are an audience of such growing importance to General Mills that the consumer-goods company has built a formal network to feed them free products and enable them to run giveaways for their audiences.

MyBlogSpark has recruited more than 900 bloggers -- over 80 percent are moms -- to register to be eligible for everything from sampling campaigns to product coupons to news of a new ad campaign. General Mills plans to use the network to promote its wide portfolio of products in the food and beverage, beauty, home, electronics, health and automotive categories.

General Mills can be confident the program will fill blogs with positive reviews. One of the requirements for participation reads: "If you feel you cannot write a positive post regarding the product or service, please contact the MyBlogSpark team before posting any content."

Stacy Becker, an account supervisor at Coyne Public Relations, which worked with General Mills to construct the program, said the clause does not constitute a requirement to write good things. "We want to know if someone does not have a good experience with one of our products so we can share [that feedback] with the brand," she wrote in an e-mail. "They are free to write anything they'd like, though."

Becker could not point to any reviews that weren't positive, but she assessed some as "not so great," adding: "We don't tell them not to write, but most want to only write positive things."

The company suggests bloggers inform readers they receive products for review, although that is not a requirement for participation in the program. It does not compensate the bloggers in any other way, according to David Witt, brand public relations manager for the company.

"We want them to disclose they're a member," he said. "We want to be really upfront."

The Federal Trade Commission has suggested it might put in place regulations requiring clearer disclosure from bloggers who review products. A half-dozen product review posts from MyBlogSpark members sampled did not include mention of General Mills. The typical disclosure was more discrete.

"If bloggers want to maintain editorial integrity, they need to disclose their variables for reviews," said Sarah Hofstetter, vp of emerging media and client strategy at 360i, which has run blog-influencer programs but is not affiliated with MyBlogSpark. "If they're only going to review things they like, they need to disclose this is part of their deal: they're receiving a lot of products from a lot of vendors and they only review what they like."

The General Mills program highlights the growing importance of bloggers to marketers, particularly packaged-goods companies. So-called "mommy bloggers" are an influential group, increasingly courted by big brands because moms control up to $2 trillion in annual spending. That's led companies like Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson and Wal-Mart to up their efforts to reach them. Walmart, for example, began the much-lauded Elevenmoms program that invited a select group of mom bloggers to give product feedback on the retailer's site.

Thanks to the popularity of blogs, particularly among moms, brands can get reach that rivals or tops traditional media. The 910 blogs in MyBlogSpark draw an audience of 8 million visitors, according to General Mills.

"Some of these bloggers have bigger distribution than newspapers," said Witt. "They're pretty important."

General Mills has already put the network into use for a couple of its brands. It contacted 100 mom and food bloggers in conjunction with the launch of a new blueberry acai flavor of its Yoplait Yo-Plus yogurt. It provided coupons to try the product as well as tote bags and other scwag to give to readers. General Mills also sent out key product messages touting the yogurt's health benefits.

The effort resulted in several blog posts, nearly all of them positive containing similar product messages. Most posts did not disclose they were written as part of the General Mills program. "I had the opportunity to be one of the first to try the new Yoplait Yo-Plus Blueberry Acai Yogurt!" wrote Abby at Me and My Boys! blog. "I loved it!"

Other reviews picked up on product talking points. "I have a new midnight snack," wrote Christy at the blog Shake the Salt. "A healthy midnight snack. (Next step is not eating at midnight, lol.) Not only is it very tasty, but they come in 4 oz cups, which I love. In addition to tasting yummy and coming in a perfect size cup, they have many other wonderful benefits."

Overall, the program resulted in 5 million total impressions and over 8,000 comments with no media costs. (General Mills does not buy ads on blogs, Witt said.)

The network will make such programs easy to run quickly, he added, rather than the ad-hoc approach it had relied on with its blogger relations. An upcoming program would include 500 bloggers, he said.

THE HOLMES REPORT • Coyne PR Named Consumer Agency of the Year • April 20, 2009

The Holmes Report, a leading public relations publication, named Coyne Public Relations, one of the fastest growing public relations agencies in America, as its Consumer Agency of the Year. This is the second national victory for the agency in just two months. On March 5, 2009 at the Tavern on the Green in New York City, Coyne Public Relations was named Midsize Agency of the Year at the PRWeek Awards. For both victories, Coyne Public Relations beat out numerous blue-chip/global agencies. “Our mission is not to be the best agency in America but the best one to work for,” said Tom Coyne, CEO, Coyne Public Relations. “We have proven that when you hire the best employees the best work will be created. I am proud of the way we have nurtured our partnerships with our clients. To me, this is a total team win… and a win for our clients.” In 2008, Coyne Public Relations continued its award-winning work for global brands such as The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, Hard Rock Café, Kraft Foods, and Shell Lubricants. Major new wins for Coyne include work with Humana, Crayola, Hasbro, and Cornell University’s Johnson School of Business. In all Coyne billed $11.654 million in 2008 (up 35 percent) and held an outstanding 97 percent employee retention rate. Coyne Public Relations will be officially recognized as The Holmes Report’s Consumer Agency of the Year at the Sabre Awards dinner on May 12 at Cipriani in New York City.

DAILY RECORD • Coyne Earns Secong Industry Award • April 8, 2009

The Holmes Report, a public relations trade publication, named Coyne Public Relations as its Consumer Agency of the Year. Coyne's honor will be officially recognized at the Sabre Awards dinner on May 12 in New York City. This is the second national honor for the Parsippany-based agency in the last two months. On March 5, Coyne was named Midsize Agency of the Year at the PRWeek Awards at Tavern on the Green, also in New York City.

Coyne, which also has offices in New York City, serves a variety of national clients including The Walt Disney Company, Goodyear, Life Savers, Shell Lubricants, Campbell Soup Company, Kraft Foods, General Mills and Hard Rock Cafe.

PRWEEK • Creating a Healthy Home • March 30, 2009

March 30, 2009 - Seventh Generation, maker of environmentally friendly cleaning products, hosted a panel on March 18 about how parents can remove toxins from their home while also introducing its new Health eHome page on WebMD. Gossip Girl actress Kelly Rutherford, pregnant with her second child, discussed the topic with Seventh Generation CEO Jeffrey Hollender. Coyne Public Relations handled PR and media for the Health eHome launch, inviting parenting, entertainment, health, and green outlets to the panel.

THE FIRM VOICE • Six Ways to Market PR in Tough Times • March 25, 2009

It's scary out there for your current and potential clients. There's a lot of "fear and trepidation" as they struggle to hold on to their jobs and their budgets, warns Steve Cody, managing partner and co-founder of Peppercom.

One thing is certain: You can't take anything for granted these days. "New business development—whether it's networking, chasing down RFPs, developing proposals or looking for ways to grow existing client business—is literally a full-time job in this challenging economy," says Rick Leonard, managing director, Stanton Communications. "The competition for every new business opportunity is vigorous."

The question, Cody says, is "How do we wrap ourselves closer to clients?" The answer is not cutting fees or hourly rates. "Discounting isn't marketing, it's sales,'" he says. It's shortsighted: When the economy rebounds, you'll have trouble raising your rates back to pre-recession levels.

So what is the answer? You have to be even more vigorous in looking for ways to drive business development. But what constitutes truly innovative—even guerilla—marketing? Perhaps ironically, one of the most innovative things you can do is to get back to basics. This doesn't mean rolling out the same old marketing schemes. It does mean going back to the fundamentals, identifying what works, and moving—forward!

"During these trying economic times, it is important that agencies focus on their strengths and remain true to their mission statements and core values. It has become essential that leaders in the industry continue to communicate results and show both existing and prospective clients how PR can impact business and contribute to bottom line results," explains David Carter, senior vice president of business development at Coyne Public Relations. Here's how these sources and your agency peers are doing this:

1. Think ahead, think young. Agencies are so caught up in the immediate situation that they sometimes fail to think ahead, warns Cody. Peppercom is trying to avoid that trap by actively reaching out to college students. By doing so, it's connecting with future clients and employees; the agency is building equity, Cody says. At the same time, it's helping educate the next generation of job seekers about the market during an exceptionally brutal time. "It's smart marketing for us, and it's throwing a lifeline to students."

2. Select your targets carefully. Focus your marketing efforts on what you do best. "We continue to be disciplined in our marketing targets – ambitious East Coast organizations in healthcare, technology, professional services, and energy," says Capstrat CEO Ken Eudy. "When you're struggling to achieve goals for revenue growth, it's easy to waste time chasing business your agency isn't qualified to do. Be realistic about your agency's sweet spot and market to that sweet spot."

3. Be a problem solver and thought leader. "Now more than ever, clients need our help solving their problems," says Eudy. "Now is the time to show clients how you can help them achieve daunting business objectives."

Peppercom did this recently with a series of webinars, says Cody. Rather than pay to have them done, Peppercom negotiated with an Internet company to give the agency unlimited access for a year (for $1500). The agency collaborated with KRW International, The Reputation Institute and Johnson & Johnson to provide insights on reputation, leadership development and other issues of critical interest to clients. More than 300 people participated in the free event—each one a potential business lead for the four organizations involved.

The collaboration aspect is critical, Cody says. "The combined expertise is a real draw." Clients—and potential clients—want to get the advice and counsel they need to shine.

It's about positioning yourself as a problem solver, as well as an industry thought leader.

Stanton, too, came up with an innovative way to do this: a breakfast roundtable with about a dozen of the firm's clients, friends and prospects. "We specifically designed this event as a way to bring together an interesting speaker [BusinessWeek's Jim Cooper] with attendees from different industry backgrounds, who had a chance to ask Jim questions and engage in a lively discussion," Leonard explains. The participants appreciated the opportunity, and his hope is they'll "think of Stanton Communications as being able to offer an added level of value and dimension."

The marketing impact goes beyond the prospects at the breakfast, he adds. Even the invitees who were not able to make it now know that Stanton "put together an information-rich session," he says.

4. Don't overlook networking and word of mouth. In this era of tin-and-lead budgets, word of mouth of the sort Stanton Communications enjoyed via its roundtable is gold. "It may sound corny or even predictable, but good old-fashioned networking still seems to be one of the more effective routes for learning about potential opportunities. It's time consuming, so there's an opportunity cost involved. But you really need to get out there, talk to people, follow up on leads, brainstorm ideas with your contacts. We're finding that all of these outreach mechanisms are leading to some healthy dialogues," Leonard says.

Word of mouth is paying off for Capstrat, as well. "Referrals from our clients continue to be a great source of new business prospects for us," says Eudy. Among the ways Capstrat generates word of mouth is entering contests and speaking at conferences. The firm also develops single-subject booklets called "Darticles," covering everything from employee branding to online reputation management.

5. Supplement contact with social media. Social media comes up in almost any discussion of low-cost marketing tactics for PR firms. "Our team believes that the social media space represents an incredible opportunity to help our agency and our clients connect and re-connect with target audiences in a meaningful way," says Carter. But, warns Cody, don't let social media undermine face-to-face communication. That personal contact—with the clients, with the client's customers—is even more critical in these times.

6. Start with current clients. "Existing client relationships are our best source of new work in tough times and good times—so our core marketing strategies don't change. It sounds trite, but it starts with consistently doing great work and providing a high level of service," says Capstrat President Karen Albritton. "In this economy, we see clients consolidating agency relationships. We find that we are well-positioned to earn more work if we have built a good relationship through great service and smart insights."

Eudy agrees. "It's a blinding glimpse of the obvious, but first, do great work for existing clients."