Category Archives: public relations

it’s all about the buzz

brammo badging blows up with bogusky…ooopsy

unique styling and top notch engineering set Enertia apartStartup electric motorcycle manufacturer Brammo’s hit a bit of a rough patch as they roll out their instore marketing effort. The Ashland, OR bike builder set out to travel the road less traveled, yet the uproar over the latest wrinkle from the South Florida ad shop charged with making their market is not what’s needed in a struggling channel.

Background: Swoopy machine with state-of-the-art content; aluminum frame, lithium ion fuel, quirky – quirky? – naming strategy. Nicely interactive work-in-progress web site. Looks like a well constructed, well thought out machine that, if not ready for the masses, is certainly intriguing, albeit pricey, for some of us who already ride. So far, so good. Continue reading →

vespa event markets

AdAge gives a sorta shoutout to Piaggio's pr strategyIn this Ad Age 3 Minute Video Piaggio US is highlited for their recent NYC pr effort to shore up brand and message by pitching fuel economy and immediately took a whack to the head by owners/viewers who can’t find the connection.

The entire industry having enjoyed immensely last year’s four-buck-a-gallon price spike for gas that serendipitously coincided with the worst recession since the depression perhaps missed the point hidden within record sales. Looks to some like mistaking lifestyle love for economy class lust is a monster golden opportunity missed to connect at the emotional level instead of grabbing for the wallet.

An interesting piece by Lee Klancher in MPN’s August issue casts fresh light on the relevance- and role – of mpg claims as a marketing ploy. Taken together, these two articles (and the surrounding comments) lead to only one conclusion: playing the price of gas card for creative inspiration is picking the lowest of the low hanging fruit.

learn to set silos aside

silos are great for storing grain - and that's about allLast month I was in Baton Rouge for, among other things, the Public Relations Association of Louisiana’s (PRAL) June meeting. The featured speaker was SSA Consultants partner Christel Slaughter, whose emotional plea was for everyone in the audience to “Stop The Silos!” as the first step in improving internal and external employee engagement.

Silos are a popular marketing metaphor for the formal compartmentalization of personnel, departments and functions. Silos not in the agricultural sense, but in the org chart ability to keep contents separate; corn from wheat, rice from peanuts, sales from marketing, pr from advertising, progression from regression – a.k.a., bureaucracy run amok. Continue reading →

pr, pr, pr – now more than ever

pr-prosAs a member of PRSA (Public Relations Society of America) I was able to take in two chapter meetings in the past two weeks; the first in Tampa, hosted by the Florida Public Relations Association, and the second in Baton Rouge, hosted by Public Relations Association of Louisiana. The luncheon gatherings featured web-based communication solutions as their main focus. Continue reading →

deja vu redux

blast from the pastFast Company blogs the return of the Cub. Supercub that is, aka Honda C100, as seen at Indy in the Carter-Sym booth. Rebranded as Symba – oh, we get it – and as a knockoff over in the stadium at flyscooters display as a proto version to gauge reaction.

Available next month with out the door pricing of $2,600, the ’60s icon that last sold in the US back in the early ’80s joins a very crowded field in a price sensative market, all jockeying for position in a shell shocked economy shaped by gas prices and recession woes.

social media strategy…juggling twitter

comm trends - tweeting for effectManaging your online marketing assets didn’t get any easier when Twitter stampeded onto the scene a couple of months ago. The newest, and in some ways the most intriguing, social media limits messages (tweets) to 140 characters. So, like, where’s the value? Lets see if we can break it down.

Online communication – and really, that’s how the bulk of business is conducted these days – revolves around e-mail, web pages, blogs, RSS and social media sites like Facebook. Twitter, for not so obvious reasons, may be the missing link in connectivity. Continue reading →

lead and you…part two

no, not recess - peanut butter!The media circus has come and left town since we last considered the impact on youth powersports as a result of the Consumer Products Safety Commission’s interpretation of how much lead should kids be allowed to eat. (Hint: none.)

Malcolm Smith’s protest drew the attention of SoCal’s news outlets and a nice mention in USA Today, along with links on bike blogs throughout the land. Which got me to thinking, how much lead is too much? For instance, working my way through the University of Florida included a stint at the Gainesville Sun. This was at the dawn of what would briefly be known as cold type, or the sunset of hot type. Continue reading →

green – the new gold standard

More obvious than omnipresent at the 2008 Performance Racing Industry’s show, the greening of the motorsports industry is definitely underway. The Go Green pitch was in the house and awareness of the implications was impossible to ignore.

A new series – Green Prix, no less – debuted. Battery powered laptimes? Not just for RC anymore. The two biggest influences both started with ‘E’ – economy and environment.

This is an easy call – public opinion negatives regarding fossil fuel along with financial realities affecting everyone are going to have an enormous impact on the future of every sanctioning body and every series’ support, starting right now.

vespa from oz

New Orleans alternative radio station WWOZ – one of my top five internet faves for the hippest in blues and jazz and the only consistent source for cajun, zydeco and swamp rock – is raffling off this icon of scooterdom, complete with autographs, to one lucky ticket buyer come May 9, 2009

Donated by The Transportation Revolution, New Orleans franchise dealer for Ducati, Triumph, Piaggio and Vespa, this kind of promotional tie-in is perfect for dealerships in need of a marketing shot in the arm. Go here to see how the station’s doing their part in making sure this Vespa is seen around town.

Signers (so far) include Terence Blanchard, Randy Newman, Irma Thomas, Marcia Ball and Dr. John, along with assorted Nevilles and a bevy of other notables.

we want homer! now!

I’m sometimes asked, “What, exactly, is PR?” Much more than the latest product release, public relations at its core is called on to put a public face on corporate behavior.

The latest, and best, example to date of seat-of-the-pants we don’t need no stinkin’ pr came when The Not So Big Three ambled their way to DC for some help from the public.

Forget the ordinary workers and businesses across the country who were depending on them. Ford, GM and Chrysler ceos landed clueless, cozy and comfortable just in time to be ridiculed from the cheap seats for their chutzpah.

For comparison, imagine if the airline chief execs showed up begging for help in Bentleys and Rolls Royces. Jeez, a blind man on a galloping horse could’ve seen this coming.

But no, Detroit’s elite decided to ignore what we surely can imagine were impassioned pleas from corporate public relations folk begging them to brown bag it to Washington.

So what happened? No money, honey, and probably less than they would have gotten when they finally do get their paws in the public coffers.

Perception counts, in any industry.