Eric Yaverbaum, Robert Bly, Ilise Benun. Public Relations for Dummies, 2nd Edition

Подождите немного. Документ загружается.

The creative process works in two stages: The first is the idea-producing

stage, when ideas flow freely. The second is the critical or “editing” stage,

where you hold each idea up to the cold light of day and see whether it’s

practical. Many people make the mistake of mixing these stages. During the

idea-producing stage, they’re too eager to criticize an idea as soon as it’s pre-

sented. As a result, they shoot down ideas and make snap judgments when

they should be encouraging the production of those ideas. Many good ideas

are killed this way.

A common idea killer is, “We did that already and it didn’t work.” Yes, but

with the rapid pace of change, it’s a different marketplace than when you last

tried the idea. Maybe the idea can be dusted off and altered a bit to make it

work now.

Even more dangerous (and perhaps absurd) is the often-voiced objection,

“We don’t do things like that around here.” My answer: Perhaps it’s time to

try something new. In over two decades of working as a PR professional, I

have discovered one indisputable fact about public relations: When you do

the same old thing, you are likely to get the same old results. The only way to

get new results is with a new idea.

Creating Profitable PR Programs

Just as public schools are remiss in not teaching how to study, degree pro-

grams in marketing and business are remiss in not teaching how to think cre-

atively. If I were to create such a course, I would include idea generation as a

series of simple and repeatable steps.

Step 1: Clearly establish the

goals of a PR program

Many people forge ahead without knowing what it is they’re trying to accom-

plish. You can use PR to accomplish many different goals, but if you don’t

establish your goals at the outset, you’re unlikely to achieve them.

Goals will vary from industry to industry. For example, when we worked with

Domino’s Pizza, the goal was simple: Sell more pizza. That’s why all the PR

was focused on the customer. When we worked with Subway, the goal was to

grow the company swiftly, so the PR program was more business-to-business

and focused on trade press.

Part II: Brainstorming and Thinking Creatively

11_772720 ch05.qxp 4/25/06 6:17 PM Page 66

You should be able to state the marketing objective in a single sentence — for

example, “Convince people that they should read books on e-book readers

and download them off the Internet instead of reading paper books bought in

bookstores.”

Step 2: Assemble pertinent facts

In crime stories, detectives spend most of their time looking for clues. They

can’t solve a case with clever thinking alone; they must have the facts. You,

too, must have the facts before you can solve a problem or make an informed

decision.

Professionals in every field know the importance of gathering specific facts.

A scientist planning an experiment checks the abstracts to see what similar

experiments have been performed. An author writing a book collects every-

thing she can on the subject: newspaper clippings, photos, official records,

transcripts of interviews, diaries, magazine articles, and so on. A consultant

may spend weeks or months digging around a company before coming up

with a solution to a major problem. When I took on a cigar club as a client, I

began smoking expensive cigars and socializing in the cigar culture to get a

deeper understanding of that world.

Keep an organized file of the background material you collect on a project.

Review the file before you begin to formulate your solution. If you’re a com-

petent typist, use word processing software to rewrite your research notes

and materials. This step increases your familiarity with the background infor-

mation and can give you a fresh perspective on the problem. Also, when you

type notes, you condense a mound of material into a few neat pages that

show all the facts at a glance.

Step 3: Gather general knowledge

In business, specific facts have to do with the project at hand. They include

the budget, the schedule, the resources available, and the customer’s specifi-

cations, plus knowledge of the products, components, and techniques to be

used in completing the project. General knowledge has to do with the exper-

tise you’ve developed in your life and includes your storehouse of informa-

tion concerning events, people, media, culture, science, technology,

management, and the world at large.

You can accelerate your own education by becoming a student in the many

areas that relate to your job. Subscribe to the journals that relate to your

Chapter 5: Formulating Ideas

11_772720 ch05.qxp 4/25/06 6:17 PM Page 67

field. Scan them all, and clip and save articles that contain information that

may be useful to you. Organize your clipping files for easy access to articles

by subject.

Read books in your field and start a reference library. Take some night school

courses. Attend seminars, conferences, and trade shows. Make friends with

people in your field and exchange information, stories, ideas, case histories,

and technical tips. Most of the successful professionals I know are compul-

sive information collectors. You should be, too.

Step 4: Look for combinations

Someone once complained to me, “There’s nothing new in the world. It’s all

been done before.” Maybe. But an idea doesn’t have to be something com-

pletely new. Many ideas are simply new combinations of existing elements.

By looking for combinations, for new relationships between old ideas, you

can come up with a fresh approach.

The clock radio, for example, was invented by someone who combined two

existing technologies: the clock and the radio. The Earl of Sandwich, who

invented the sandwich, did so because he wanted to hold his meat in his

hands and eat while gambling.

Look for synergistic combinations when you examine the facts. What clever

promotion can you think of that ties in with your marketing objective and

demonstrates your message in a creative way? For Empire Kosher Chickens,

we wanted to dramatize how carefully each chicken is inspected. Our promo-

tion was to offer a free chicken to anyone whose income tax form was being

“inspected” (audited) by the IRS. The press ate it up (excuse the pun).

Step 5: Sleep on it

Putting the problem aside for a time can help you renew your idea-producing

powers just when you think that your creative well has run dry. But don’t

resort to this method after only five minutes of puzzled thought. First, you

have to gather all the information you can. Next, you need to go over the

information again and again as you try to come up with that one big idea.

You’ll come to a point where you get bleary, punch-drunk, hashing the same

ideas over and over. This is the time to take a break, put the problem aside,

sleep on it, and let your unconscious mind take over.

A solution may strike you as you sleep, shower, shave, or walk in the park.

Even if that doesn’t happen, when you return to the problem, you will find

that you can attack it with renewed vigor and a fresh perspective. I use this

technique in writing: I put aside what I’ve written and read it fresh the next

Part II: Brainstorming and Thinking Creatively

11_772720 ch05.qxp 4/25/06 6:17 PM Page 68

day. Many times, the things I thought were brilliant when I wrote them can be

much improved at second glance.

Step 6: Use a checklist

You can use checklists to stimulate creative thinking and as a starting point

for new ideas. Many manufacturers, consultants, technical magazines, and

trade associations publish checklists that you can use in your own work.

But the best checklists are those you create yourself, because they’re tai-

lored to the problems that come up in your daily routine.

For example, Jill is a technical salesperson who is well versed in the technical

features of her product, but she has trouble when it comes to closing a sale.

She could overcome this weakness by making a checklist of typical customer

objections and how to answer them. (She can cull the list of objections from

sales calls made over the course of several weeks. She can garner possible

tactics for overcoming these objections from fellow salespeople, from books

on selling, and from her own trial-and-error efforts.) Then when faced with a

tough customer, she doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel but is prepared for all

the standard objections because of her familiarity with the checklist.

Keep in mind that no checklist can contain an idea for every situation that

arises. Remember: You use a checklist as a tool for creative thinking, not as a

crutch.

Step 7: Get feedback

Sherlock Holmes was a brilliant detective. But even he needed to bounce

ideas off Dr. Watson at times. As a professional publicist, I think I know how

to plan an effective PR campaign. But when I show a draft to my partner, he

can always spot at least half a dozen ways to make it better.

Some people — maybe you — prefer to work alone. But if you don’t work as

part of a team, getting someone else’s opinion of your work can help you

focus your thinking and produce ideas you hadn’t thought of.

Take the feedback for what it’s worth. If you feel that you’re right and that the

criticisms are off base, ignore them. But more often than not, the feedback

provides useful information that can help you come up with the best, most

profitable ideas.

Of course, if you ask others to take a look at a piece, you should be willing to

do the same for them when they solicit your opinion. You’ll find that reviewing

the work of others is fun; critiquing someone else’s work is easier than creating

your own. And you’ll be gratified by the improvements you think of — things

that are obvious to you but would never have occurred to the other person.

Chapter 5: Formulating Ideas

11_772720 ch05.qxp 4/25/06 6:17 PM Page 69

Step 8: Team up

Some people think more creatively when they work in groups. But how large

should the group be? My opinion is that two is the ideal team. Any more and

you’re in danger of ending up with a committee that spins its wheels and

accomplishes nothing. The person you team up with should have skills and

thought processes that balance and complement your own. For example, in

advertising, copywriters (the word people) team up with art directors (the

picture people).

In entrepreneurial firms, the idea person who started the company often

hires a professional manager from a Fortune 500 company as the new venture

grows. The entrepreneur knows how to make things happen, but the manager

knows how to run a profitable, efficient corporation.

As an engineer, you may invent a better microchip. But if you want to make a

fortune selling it, you should team up with someone who has a strong sales

and marketing background.

Finding Other Ways to

Turn on the Light Bulb

Thomas Edison said that genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent per-

spiration. But sometimes you need more inspiration to get your creative

Part II: Brainstorming and Thinking Creatively

Identify a gem

A gem is a great idea that makes you look like a

star. The problem with gems is that they’re only

obvious after the fact. Coming up with them and

identifying them in your plan is where the talent

lies in PR.

Actually, a gem is only a gem if the timing is

right. A good idea too late doesn’t qualify as a

gem. Speed — acting quickly when you have a

good idea — is crucial. That’s why you must be

always on the lookout for stories in the news

that your company or your client can become a

part of. Then you must move on it right away

(and don’t let the press release get caught in the

editing process) or the issue will disappear and

it will be too late.

11_772720 ch05.qxp 4/25/06 6:17 PM Page 70

juices flowing. Here are a few ideas that have worked for me and people I

know:

! Go to a toy store and look around. Can you create a game to publicize

your message?

! Keep a swipe file — a file of promotions that you especially like or that

at least caught your eye. Use them for inspiration when planning your

own PR.

! Ask employees for suggestions. Reward the winning idea with a $100 gift

certificate.

! Browse the library or bookstore. Or hang out at a museum. Inspiration

often strikes in places where you’re surrounded by ideas.

! Look outside your industry. What is a common, successful promotion in

one industry may be creatively copied and applied to your industry, in

which it is unheard of and, therefore, novel.

! Read literature on creative thinking. I recommend A Whack on the Side of

the Head by Roger von Oech and anything on creativity by Michael

LeBouf.

! Keep a pad and pen with you at all times to record thoughts as they

occur to you. People have ideas all the time, but they lose them when

they don’t write them down.

! Whenever you write down a creative idea, drop it into a paper file or

enter it into your computer. Keep a central idea file that you can dip into

when you need a new creative promotion.

Chapter 5: Formulating Ideas

Thoughts on creative thinking

Here are a few of my favorite quotations about

creative thinking:

! “The best way to have a good idea is to

have lots of ideas.” — Linus Pauling

! “The best ideas come from jokes. Make

your thinking as funny as possible.” — David

Ogilvy

! “When in doubt, make a fool of yourself.

There is a microscopically thin line between

being brilliantly creative and acting like the

most gigantic idiot on earth.” — Cynthia

Heimel

! “If you want to make something happen,

you have to be outrageous. You have to go

beyond what is acceptable. Unwillingness

to do that is the biggest risk of all.” — Mike

Vance

11_772720 ch05.qxp 4/25/06 6:17 PM Page 71

Part II: Brainstorming and Thinking Creatively

11_772720 ch05.qxp 4/25/06 6:17 PM Page 72

Chapter 6

Using PR Tactics

In This Chapter

! Using tie-ins to news, TV shows, and holidays

! Capitalizing on contests and worthy causes

! Counting on surveys, events, or humor to get attention

! Staging a trade-in campaign

n the old cartoon Felix the Cat, Felix was able to win the day by reaching

into his “bag of tricks.” All PR practitioners have a similar bag of tricks —

favorite PR tactics that they have used with success and often resort to when

creating campaigns. This chapter presents a miscellany of some of the best

tricks in my own bag.

A well-rounded PR campaign will not target only TV or only print. It will go

after all types of media (as you can see in our sample PR plan in Chapter 2).

Use multiple “tricks” or tactics simultaneously. Take the same subject matter

and make it visual for TV, make it “how-to” for radio, and so on. For print,

come up with ways to pitch the same story to different sections of the news-

paper. I like to tell my staff, “If they close the doors, go in through the win-

dows.” And the only way is if we have multiple ways to get into the house.

Going Where the Cameras Are

Look for creative ways to tie in your product with current news or trends. If

you use a news tie-in, you don’t need to create a news story from scratch and

then attempt to get the media to cover it. Piggybacking on an existing news

story with a relevant promotional tie-in — one that is both credible and favor-

able to your product — is much more cost-effective. As the event is already

happening, it won’t be on your dime to create it.

The idea: If you get involved in a story the press is already covering, you’ll

find getting yourself covered is that much easier. When one of our clients,

Earth’s Best, introduced a new line of organic baby food, the safety of eating

genetically engineered foods was making headlines. We grabbed our share of

12_772720 ch06.qxp 4/25/06 6:15 PM Page 73

these headlines for our client when we sent out a press release (reprinted in

Chapter 15) announcing that Earth’s Best baby foods would not contain any

genetically engineered ingredients.

Although organic foods had been around for a long time and were of interest

in themselves, promoting the new baby foods as “100 percent pure” and

“made without GMOs” (genetically modified organisms) was a new twist that

allowed us to grab some of the media attention already focused on the con-

troversial issue of genetic engineering.

We also sent free pizza from Domino’s Pizza to last-minute taxpayers. By

sending free pizza to the post office on April 15 at midnight, we didn’t have to

call the TV camera crews and try to convince them to film the event — they

were already there filming last-minute taxpayers standing in line trying to

make the filing deadline. When our pizza-delivery team showed up, how

could the TV crews do anything but turn the cameras on our client’s product,

which was right in front of them?

Creating a Tie-in to a TV Show or Movie

You know that the hot motion picture — usually the one that was number

one at the box office over the weekend — gets an incredible amount of public

attention for a short period, usually a few weeks. The highest-rated new TV

show of the season gets a similarly disproportionate share of buzz for a

somewhat longer period — up to several months. By creating a campaign

that ties your product to these popular big- and little-screen attractions, you

can siphon off some of their buzz and apply it to your own story for greatly

expanded media coverage.

For example, when the movie Coneheads was hot, we created a promotion for

a chain of sandwich shops in which any customer coming in to a store and

claiming to have seen an alien would get a free sandwich.

When Regis Philbin’s Who Wants to Be a Millionaire became a hit, we did a

promotion for a client that linked Millionaire to fitness — by offering to make

you fit enough and strong enough to beat up a millionaire.

Spotlighting the Product

You can use many products as props or devices to add visual and tactile

interest to PR and promotional campaigns. This is both a better way to

Part II: Brainstorming and Thinking Creatively

12_772720 ch06.qxp 4/25/06 6:15 PM Page 74

connect with your target audience and leave a lasting impression on viewers.

In addition, you’ll increase the number of placements that you get.

One publisher who advertised his magazine as the “hot” publication in its

field sent a handsome tin containing a pound of chili powder to potential

advertisers.

Once, my agency staff scotch-taped press releases for a client — a pizza

chain — to pizza boxes containing hot pies and delivered them to local

broadcast media 20 minutes before the evening news. The broadcast person-

alities not only talked about the promotion on the news but also actually ate

the pizza on camera!

What made this strategy effective was the combination of timing and humor.

Delivering deep-dish pizza right as they were going on the air is not so unique.

But the fact that it was hot food meant it was delivered directly into the news-

room. (A salad probably would have sat on a desk somewhere.) What we

added to that was humor. The entire campaign was a preposterous theory,

which we elaborated on in the press release. It was all tongue in cheek.

Every local affiliate used it on the same night, which is unheard of. They

didn’t use it simply because of the timing but also because it was so funny.

Staging a Contest

Contests can generate an enormous amount of media coverage. Public rela-

tions history clearly shows that making your contest new and different from

any others can yield great results. Of course, the contest should also relate to

the product.

For example, thanks to the First in Line Contest, IKEA store openings have

people camping out nights before as if it were a rock concert. This is not your

run-of-the-mill contest. It generates tremendous excitement, not to mention

local media coverage (plus a cover story in a national business magazine).

And the prize for the contest not only relates to the product, the prize is the

product. The winner gets $3,000 of home furnishings.

Figure 6-1 is the release we did as a promotion for Jose Cuervo. It’s a takeoff

on the old message-in-a-bottle theme. The contest was that if you found the

bottle, you won a lifetime supply of tequila. The tongue-in-cheek style was

appropriate both to the nature of the promotion and to the fun-oriented

image of the product.

Chapter 6: Using PR Tactics

12_772720 ch06.qxp 4/25/06 6:15 PM Page 75