Archive for the 'Media' Category
By Paul Furiga
Editor’s note: Through the development of WordWrite StoryCraftyingsm we’ve learned that effective PR storytelling is driven by three things: factual authenticity, storytelling fluency and continually reading and measuring audience response. Today we continue our new monthly series of blogs that will highlight stories, storytellers and audience engagement examples that illustrate true PR storytelling. Watch this blog for posts that illustrate creative factual thinking, show fluency in sharing stories and demonstrate success in effectively engaging and responding to audiences.
Avoiding brainwashing ‘by some marketing agency that says you can’t show problems’
What does it mean to have an “authentic story?”
Most people would agree a story that’s authentic has at least some measure of that elusive thing called “truth,” and at least a dash of that ingredient called “honesty” in how it’s told.
At WordWrite, we use the power of storytelling to create marketing and public relations success for our clients, so we have some strong ideas about the definition of an authentic story.
In marketing and public relations, far too often truth and honesty are lost somewhere in fancy storytelling, which makes the whole effort more like fiction than authenticity.
To us, authentic storytelling is rooted in the facts and presents a point of view (advocacy for cause, a person or a product) in a way that the audience considers a legitimate interpretation of what they see, hear or experience. If the storytelling is well done, the facts are clear, and the viewpoint is transparent and forthright, the audience may do much more than accept the story as authentic — they may adopt it as their own.
That audience adoption is what every marketer wants — it’s what puts fans in seats, sends people to the streets and motivates consumers to buy. Yet telling this kind of story takes great courage because it requires marketers to holster the fancy weapons of fiction that guide so much of their work.
That’s why we honor Safi Airways this month for the start-up airline’s refreshingly honest approach to how it markets its home, Afghanistan. Safi’s in-flight magazine is the subject of a revealing and entertaining profile by Michael M. Phillips that appeared in the Wall Street Journal’s August 19, 2010 issue.
Mr. Phillips does such a fine job of uncovering the elements of an authentic story that I have to quote his work directly:
“KABUL—Safi Airways, a start-up Afghan airline, ventures where few air carriers dare to go: Its in-flight magazine tells the ugly truth about the place where you’re about to land.
American Airlines’ magazine lists the 10 best pizza parlors in America. United Airlines has a spread headlined “3 Perfect Days: Amsterdam,” presumably perfecting its 2007 article, “3 Perfect Days: Amsterdam.”
In the seat pocket in front of you on Safi, you will find an article on Kabul heroin addicts, photos of bullet-pocked tourist sites and ads for mine-resistant sport-utility vehicles.”
Well, now. Not the sort of fluffy fictional marketing approaches that brands such as Domino’s Pizza have recently made fun of in their own attempts to tell an authentic story.
Yes, the Safi story is extreme. But it’s the kind of extreme that makes the case for authenticity. A daily barrage of news media reports and political theater make clear that Afghanistan is a very dangerous place. Really now, what would any of us think of a marketing and public relations approach that ignored or tried to paper over that reality?
As Christian Marks, the editor of the Safi in-flight magazine told the Journal’s Mr. Phillips: “I would like it to be a magazine where you can read interesting things, not just get brainwashed by some marketing agency that says you can’t show problems.”
As Mr. Phillips points out in his article, people still need to travel to Afghanistan (most of them diplomats, relief workers, etc. rather than tourists). Because these people need to fly, the savvy owners of Safi started their airline. And because even a war zone is a market with consumers willing to buy, the owners of the airline smartly hired Mr. Marks to create a magazine that manages to tell an authentic story about the current state of affairs in a troubled country while at the same time marketing the company and the advertisers who support it.
Few marketers face the challenges that confront Safi or Mr. Marks on a daily basis. If they can manage to tell an authentic story in the face of such harsh reality, then how can the rest of us fail to demonstrate authenticity in our daily work? For this reason, we select Safi Airways and its in-flight magazine as our very first Authentic Story of the Month.
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Paul Furiga is president and CEO of WordWrite Communications.
September 03 2010 | Communications and Media and Public Relations and Storytelling and social media | No Comments »
Editor’s note: Through the development of WordWrite StoryCraftyingsm we’ve learned that effective PR storytelling is driven by three things: factual authenticity, storytelling fluency and continually reading and measuring audience response. Today we begin a new monthly series of blogs that will highlight stories, storytellers and audience engagement examples that illustrate true PR storytelling. Watch this blog for posts that illustrate creative factual thinking, show fluency in sharing stories and success in effectively engaging and responding to audiences.
Fluent in Good and Tough Times
Like many clergy before him, Father Greg Boyle excels at the storytelling craft. And also like many clergy, he commits himself to causes that many in the lay world would find hopeless. These two factors have come together in Father Greg’s aid to those affected by Los Angeles’ gangs through the creation of HOMEBOY Industries.
Since 1992 Father Greg has led a multi-program non-profit deep within the LA gang community that blends job-training, entrepreneurism and enterprise development. Forever sharing his belief that “nothing stops a bullet like a job,” Father Greg has honed his HOMEBOY story over nearly two decades with such effectiveness that the HOMEBOY story draws national attention. It’s also why the religious press has followed HOMBOY for decades and why his work has been the object of several books.
And what a compelling story it is! Innumerable economic and life resuscitations within one of the poorest Los Angeles neighborhoods. Surrogate fathering to countless wayward gang and community children. And the sorrow of burying more than 160 of those who were considered “his kids” — victims of the pernicious crime and hopelessness that fuels his crusade. In both the highs and lows of sharing the important work of HOMEBOY, Father Greg has been a magnificent, fluent storyteller who skillfully organizes the bleak facts of gang life to highlight the humanity that makes the story compelling.
Father Greg’s latest storytelling success is his long-awaited memoir, Tattoos of the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion (Free Press: 2010). A book that blends Father Greg’s strength of factually supporting stories while avoiding judgmental finger-pointing, Tattoos of the Heart is a story tour-de-force in its authentic clarity and communication effectiveness. It doesn’t pander or promote and simply describes in real, human terms what is the world of gangs and challenges to HOMEBOYS in 21st century LA.
And it’s a story that will take on yet another chapter. Right after the release of his memoir in the spring of 2010, HOMEBOYS furloughed most of its administrative staff, citing tough economic times that have shredded funding for an annual budget of $7 million.
In announcing the dismal news, Father Greg told yet another story that in itself was astonishing. “Dear Friends of HOMEBOY” his press release starts, “HOMEBOY Industries has laid off the bulk of its staff. OUR CORE BUSINESSES (which include a bakery, café, merchandising and silk screen printing operations) REMAIN OPEN.” With a “we may be temporarily broke but still committed attitude,” Father Greg deftly tells the next authentic passage such content and clarity that any listener or reader would clearly understand and feel HOMEBOY’s situation.
For this reason WordWrite recognizes Father Greg Boyle, S.J. as our first example of what it means to be a fluent storyteller.
John Durante is senior marketing associate for WordWrite Communications.
August 18 2010 | Communications and Media and Public Relations and Storytelling and crisis communications and social media | No Comments »
By Paul Furiga
As we share StoryCrafting, our model of storytelling in public relations, with clients, colleagues and the marketplace, we’re getting great response. We’re also getting two questions that are very important:
- How do you define good PR storytelling?
- Can you provide examples of good PR storytelling?
The answers are yes and yes.
Beginning this month, we will add three regular features here on the WordWrite StoryCrafting blog that will explore our key tenets of excellent storytelling in public relations: having an authentic story, employing fluent storytellers to share the authentic story, and the important process of “reading the audience” to make sure the story and storyteller resonates with the audience and engages them proactively.
Each month, we’ll be highlighting these principles of StoryCrafting by celebrating the authentic stories, fluent storytellers and great examples of audience engagement that define excellent public relations storytelling.
One week, we’ll select the Authentic Story of the Month and explain why that particular public relations story is the best example of our principle.
During a second week, we’ll select the Fluent Storyteller of the Month and explain what that person or organization did to demonstrate their storytelling fluency.
In a third blog each month, we’ll share the best example of reading an audience to assure that the authentic story and the fluent storyteller sharing the story are painting a picture, setting a tone and creating an experience that really resonates with the audience.
Initially, we’ll be selecting the stories, storytellers and audience examples to illustrate the thinking that led us to spend more than two years developing StoryCrafting. We want your feedback and thoughts, so our comments will be wide open for your contributions to the discussion.
After we have the new blog categories launched, we hope to expand the discussion so that you can make your own recommendations for authentic stories, fluent storytellers and audience engagement. Perhaps we’ll even turn it into a regular poll so we can all vote on the best examples.
Speaking of polls, one common thread of comments we get as we share StoryCrafting centers on poor examples of stories, storytellers and audience engagement. After all, we live in a real and sometimes surprising world, and whether it’s Tiger Woods or BP or Goldman Sachs, or any other example that comes to mind, it seems there are plenty of examples of poor storytelling in public relations.
We’ll have some fun with that, I’m sure. But first, let’s define the guidelines for storytelling success. We look forward to sharing our thoughts with you — and we look forward to your participation!
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Paul Furiga is president and CEO of WordWrite Communications.
August 12 2010 | Communications and Media and Public Relations and Storytelling and Writing and social media | No Comments »
By Paul Furiga
The sad truth about the agency business is not that most clients consider it a liar’s world. It’s that most clients expect it.
With the debut recently of the fourth season of the AMC series Mad Men, those of us who love the agency business are once again catapulted into a time when the glamour of agency life was still rising. For clients, the series is more than the best period piece on TV (and the best series period, in my view). It’s a winking, boozing, skirt-pinching confirmation of the liar’s roots of the agency business. Even the double meaning of tag line for the series tells the story: “Where the truth lies.”
While the cigarettes, noon martinis and overt sexism of 1960s agency life may be over; the liar’s reputation has only grown for the agency business in the last four decades.
What else to make of a 21st-century world in which the cynicism and rejection that meets most agency work has thrown so much of the industry into turmoil? Ad agencies in particular struggle for relevance against the crumble of the traditional media environment and the still evolving Internet/online/social media world that doesn’t seem to conform to the old way of doing things.
Meanwhile, in the agency business and beyond, there’s never been a greater need for the kind of transparency and clarity that only real public relations can deliver. Instead we continue to see lies, half-truths and misstatements from too many who should know better.
Unlike most who work in agencies, I came in through a side door. I spent two decades in journalism before I crossed to other side of the notebook. I had a chance to experience life from a very different perspective. In other words, I have seen lies from all sides. And, I have seen truth from more than one perspective as well.
What I have learned is that certain human truths, like certain human failings, stand the test of time.
Perhaps the greatest of these in the agency business is authenticity. Whether it’s the smoke-filled rooms of a Mad Men agency or the hip-hop sounds of a 21st century ad team in full pitch mode to a prospective client, the sell is the same. In advertising, PR, or any flavor of marketing, agencies sell. They sell ideas, they sell brands, they sell (to) clients. Clients and the world at large know this. And yet, over the course of time, clients and world in general buy. Why? Do they just love liars?
In my view they see something else. And that is authenticity.
Even in a friendly neighborhood bar (or styling salon), we expect that two people involved in an adventure will share a slightly different story. Even when they are strapped to a polygraph, these versions of the same story will seem different.
My point is that these stories will be equally accurate and equally valid if they are authentic. That is, if they are true to what facts the audience considers relevant, and to the timeless truths about human society that most of us understand implicitly. That means that the story not only seems authentic, but the person (or brand) sharing the story seems trustworthy. And last but not least, the story is one that resonates with the audience, that incorporates what they know of life.
Why is it so easy for so many of us in the agency business to forget that it’s OK for us to market a product, service or idea with a particular viewpoint and remain authentic? Instead, too many avoid the opportunity to share a picture, a sound or an experience by tapping an authentic view, tone or moment. Too many are willing to joke or lie at the expense of the consumer, or worse, the client.
Like Don Draper, the brooding ad man at the center of Mad Men, some agency types seem to have lost their compass in the smoke-filed haze.
It’s time to reclaim reality. Stand up for what’s real and authentic in your agency and your work, and your clients (and the audiences they reach) will deliver the response you (and they) really want: true engagement.
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Paul Furiga is president and CEO of WordWrite Communications.
August 02 2010 | Communications and Media and Public Relations and Storytelling | No Comments »
By Jason Snyder
The most basic tenet I learned as an undergraduate studying journalism was to get the facts, right down to spelling names correctly, as in S-h-e-r-r-o-d.
In the last several days as we’ve watched the Shirley Sherrod case unfold, we’ve seen the mainstream media, in a rush not to be the last reporting the story, miss some of the facts. In making a speech to the NAACP, Sherrod, a USDA employee, recounted a time in her past that seemed to implicate her as racist. But as the speech went on to reveal, her complete story was one of self-revelation when she realized that the important thing was to help the poor. Some media outlets based their story only on an edited video they saw.
Though Andrew Breitbart, who originally posted the video of Sherrod’s speech, is a well-known conservative blogger, should his word have been taken as Gospel? No. Like some news organizations did, the full context of the speech should have first been reviewed before running with the story.
We look to the media for credibility, and most of the time we get it. But in this day of citizen journalism and an exploding online world with split-second deadlines, fact checking and credibility are more important than ever. As we’ve just seen, video can be edited to support a particular position, and anybody with a computer and WordPress can write a blog.
In helping our clients tell their stories, we often work with the mainstream media. We take that strategy because of the credibility that comes along with having an independent third-party (a journalist) validate our client’s story as news. We also look to new media — bloggers, LinkedIn and Facebook, to name a few — to help tell stories as well. This new world of new media offers many great opportunities, as long as they’re leveraged strategically and appropriately. A lesson in the Sherrod case is that the new media is not always synonymous with the mainstream media.
It’s our responsibility as PR professionals to help journalists get all the facts, whether in a run-away online crisis similar to the Sherrod case or in proactively helping our clients tell their great, untold stories. Part of that responsibility includes monitoring both the traditional and online media to ensure that the full context is being provided and the facts are straight.
In the spirit of living what I preach, I’d appreciate a fact-check here. If you see anything questionable or any context missing from this blog post, please let me know. Just as important, what do you think? Do you disagree or have more to add?
Jason Snyder is vice president of WordWrite Communications.
July 23 2010 | Communications and Media and Public Relations and social media | No Comments »
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