Pardon Me, Sir, How Do I Get to Carnegie Hall?

Vollmer's Houston receptionist Maria Cristina Yanez will be singing with the Houston Symphony Chorus when the Symphony performs The Planets on January 21, 23, and 24 in Jones Hall in Houston and at Carnegie Hall in New York on January 28.  The tour moves on to Boca Raton, Florida on January 30th and Miami on January 31st.  We are very proud of Maria and excited for her.  We asked her to give us a few more details....

by Maria Yanez, Vollmer Public Relations Houston

My chance to sing at Carnegie Hall began with an email I received from Dr. Charles Hausmann, director of the Houston Symphony Chorus. I sing with the chorus, and Dr. Hausmann was inviting me to be one of 24 women to sing in a recording session for a high- definition DVD.

 We would be performing The Planets,  Gustav Holst’s best-known orchestral suite. The women have an important and very difficult part in the final movement of The Planets.  For me, it would mean sustaining a high ”g” pianissimo (very softly) for 11 measures.  It requires outstanding musicianship and vocal skill, which apparently Dr. Hausmann thought I possessed, as indicated in his email.  My thoughts were, “Well, he is going to think he made a mistake when he hears me reading Twentieth Century music! “  I despise Twentieth Century music for one reason – it’s hard!  The key signature written is never what you end up singing. There are flats and sharps and naturals and intervals all over the place. Ugh! Nevertheless, I made it through rehearsals -- my eyeballs nearly jumping out of my head because of all the sharps and flats and naturals. I depended on my musicianship and skill to keep that “g” in tune and to count down to when I could stop! It seemed never ending!

Recently, in addition to taking part in the recording, I was chosen as one of  20 women from the chorus  to travel with the orchestra on tour.

This special world premiere event will debut in Houston’s Jones Hall in January.  The audience will experience a collaboration between the Houston Symphony and celebrated producer/director Duncan Copp, who assembled  state-of-the-art, high-definition images from NASA’s exploration of the solar system to accompany the work.  There will also be commentary in the HD film by the world’s leading planetary scientists.

The week after the Houston premiere,  the tour starts at New York City’s Carnegie Hall.  This venue has been host to the world’s greatest, including Luciano Pavarotti, Vladimir Horowitz, Benny Goodman, the Beatles and even Winston Churchill.  What a thrill that I will get the chance to sing there! The tour finishes up in Boca Raton and Miami, Florida.

There will be many rehearsals before the tour, but that’s a very good thing, of course.  Because how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice!

Fifty Nifty United States: Destination Marketing Meets Social Media

by Kim Tillinghast Vollmer Public Relations Austin

As the media sphere shifts increasingly toward online content, so do marketers nationwide – 50 of them in particular.  State tourism boards are increasingly present on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, developing tangible resources and encouraging two-way dialogue with consumers.  Granted, as governmental entities, state agencies must take caution when considering content and inviting a public conversation.  Despite these boundaries, however, states have tremendous opportunities at hand (or fingertips) to creatively reach new audiences.

The State of Michigan (@puremichigan) offers a solid example of viral destination marketing done thoroughly and effectively.  Michigan’s Twitter page visually represents the state, links back to the Web site, and consistently posts content multiple times a day to 2,700+ followers.  It also transparently indicates that “Michigan has hands, but @mwygnal [a travel marketing specialist] is tweeting.”  The state also has a Flickr page for mutual photo sharing and a dedicated YouTube channel featuring statewide landscapes and attractions. The state’s Facebook fan page consistently shares images, videos and trivia with more than 22,000 loyal, vocal fans.  To top it all off, Michigan’s official travel and tourism blog features special events, recipes, photo tours, interviews, guest bloggers, and media coverage.

Arizona Tourism has reached similar success with its presence on several social media sites, garnering upwards of 10,000 fans on Facebook and more than 6,000 Twitter followers (@ArizonaTourism).  Arizona also has a dedicated Flickr site featuring monthly photo contests,  and tourism officials  pay attention.  A New Jersey nature lover recently tweeted, “Any recommendations of what to do, where to stay and best way to get to the Grand Canyon? Planning a possible trip in December.”  Less than two hours later, Arizona Tourism responded, “Be prepared for cold weather and snow in Dec. See http://bit.ly/41vpEt for lots of info. @GrandCanyonRail is fun and they make planning easy!”  The user likely spotted the recommendation in her “Replies” section and was surprised and impressed by the prompt attention and resources.

Vollmer client Texas Tourism has recently joined the land of Twitter (@texastourism), sharing helpful tidbits, trivia and travel news from around the state.  The site gained followers in triple digits in its first two days and continues to build followers on a daily basis, from loyal Texans and ex-pats, to national convention and visitors bureaus and travel media.  Additional social media platforms are being considered for future roll-out.

These and other state tourism boards (such as New York State’s award-winning @i_love_ny), are smart to capitalize on this quickly expanding method–particularly with domestic travel on the rise in this economic climate.  By inserting themselves into an ongoing online conversation, they become transparent, tangible sources of information, lending a personality and a face (er., icon) to a destination.  And we think that’s pretty nifty!

What’s with the Facebook Changes??

by Mary Kate Smither Vollmer Dallas

I’m a big fan of the motto: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”  

So, when I first logged onto Facebook late last month and noticed the changes to my homepage, I’ll admit I was momentarily thrown. However, in the fast-moving world of agency public relations -- where my brain is constantly changing gears to help deliver effective counsel to our clients across multiple industries – and, as Vollmer’s social media practice leader, I’m also a fan of evolving with the times. That very often means finding the good in change and moving forward with it.

According to recent ComScore data, Facebook memberships continue to grow, as the site added 3.3. million unique users in September alone. If you’ve joined the world of status updates, sharing, commenting and “liking,” you, too, may have felt a momentary jolt when you logged in. You might be wondering what’s behind all of the changes when Facebook seemed to be working just fine.

For one thing, by creating a new News Feed view, Facebook says it is helping weed through the clutter and provide its members with recent content posted by friends, fan pages and groups that Facebook selects as most interesting and relevant to them. Facebook says it makes changes based on members’ questions and feedback, although there have already been questions about how Facebook filters the content and selects which friends’ updates and information to show a member.

For those interested in getting up-to-the-minute updates on all current content and activities posted about a member’s friends, fan pages and groups, Facebook also offers a Live News Feed tab, which users may select as their permanent home page feed. On both the News Feed and Live News Feed views, users can add (or deselect) whose activities they would like to view by selecting the Edit Options button located at the bottom of the News Feed homepage. You may select the number of friends to view in your news feed and show who it has designated as your “recommended” News Feed friends and fan pages, while allowing you to make changes to this list.

In many ways, Facebook has simply centralized content that was already available to users. News Feed content that had previously appeared in the Highlights right hand section of the page has now been moved to the main column, or central focus, of a user’s view. For those of us who don’t necessarily adapt instantly to change, it’s comforting to know that we’re not really losing any content, but instead simply viewing a different presentation of it -- while still ultimately staying in control of what we see.

How long the current version of the homepage will be around remains to be seen. We can only be certain that, at some point, it will change. In the meantime, it’s important to figure out how to best use these changes as a way of further promoting your brand. For answers to questions you may have about these changes or for more information on how to leverage Facebook to promote your brand, contact me at marykate@vollmerpr.com or 972.488.4790. Also, you can become a fan of Vollmer on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/vollmerpr.

Mad Men and Great Pumpkins

by Allen Caudle, Vollmer COO

This week another great season of Mad Men will come to an end. Having started my career with a major international ad agency, Ogilvy and Mather, in 1976, I watch this program from a different viewpoint than most. I experienced David Ogilvy coming for a visit to his Houston office. The experience was exactly, and I mean exactly, as was told earlier this season when the owners from London came for an inspection, er visit. I recognize all the Mad Men characters as people I worked with. I heard the stories told on this program not of legend but of what happened last weekend! I pulled the all nighters to get out a proposal that had to be rewritten because of a new great idea from the creative department. And yes, we imbibed in various creative stimulants. The writers have truly captured the heyday of advertising. Those days are long gone.

I heard a story last week that confirms advertising as we knew it is gone forever.

A friend of mine sat down last week with his wife and two year old son to watch the annual airing of Charlie Brown’s Great Pumpkin. They gathered on the couch in front of the TV as the program began. They viewed the first segment of the program and the parents were pleased to see it not only held the attention of their two year old but he was fully engaged in the program. The first commercial break came and Mom got up and went to the kitchen to make a snack, Dad and son remained on the couch. After about 30 seconds the two year old started to squirm and whine, stood up on the couch looking around. Dad assumed he just missed Mom. As she returned, the program came back on and the two year old settled back into enjoying the program. When the second commercial break came on the two year old began to scream and squirm reaching for the television remote control. This went on for more than three minutes while all the commercials aired. Charlie Brown returned and the child calmed down. The third commercial break brought a repeat of the clear displeasure. Soon the parents understood the problem. Their son had never watched commercial television before; he had always watched public television, DVDs or recorded television with his parent’s fast forwarding through the commercials. He believed that when the commercials came on they had changed the program on him and he wanted to see more of the show. This next generation of television viewers will not tolerate the commercial break.

Our household has come to a point that we rarely watch commercial television at the time of the program. If something we want to watch is about to come on, we’ll find something else to do for 20 minutes to give the program a head start so we can FF through the commercials and not lose continuity of the program. This next generation will never view commercial television the way it was originally designed.

The ripple effect of this phenomenon is massive. If viewers don’t watch the commercials the advertisers will stop buying the commercial time. If the advertiser dollars aren’t there commercial television can’t afford to produce programming. Without programming or revenues the networks are dead. And then there are the advertising agencies who I’m sure are scrambling to justify every advertising dollar spent with volumes of research that show people still watch good commercials. Maybe so, but the Great Pumpkin has appeared and the next generation of viewers will not be reached via traditional television.

What’s the answer?

Advertisers know they must communicate with their audience in new ways. The ad agencies will tell you traditional media can do what social media cannot: aggressively interject messages into people's lives in a socially acceptable way. Research conducted by the Advertising Research Foundation indicates that messages delivered by TV may, in fact, be the fastest and most cost-efficient means to jump-start productive conversations in the digital and real worlds.

Experts at the World Advertising Research Center have also studied what it takes to optimize engagement in a conversation economy. They recommend this media priority:

• Mainstream media.
• Open networks such as blogs and websites.
• Closed networks such as Facebook and MySpace.

The only fallacy in this theory is we don’t watch the commercials any longer.

Public relations firms will tell you the consumer no longer wants to be told what to buy as with advertisements of the Mad Men era. Now they want to learn more on their own, talk to others, listen to what actual users have to say.

We must engage with the consumer and involve them with the product or service as well as the company if we want them to buy from us.

I’m happy to say public relations counselors are firmly entrenched in the social media space developing strategies and tactics that meet the consumers need to feel engaged and involved in the purchase decision.

Both advertising and public relations are games best played on the edge. We are on exciting new frontiers with social media on the rise and mainstream media suffering a slow and painful death.

You’ll find me out on the edge looking for the next great opportunity. Right now that means crafting meaningful messages that are candid and personal. Because not since the door-to-door salesmen have consumers been more engaged in the conversation that makes the purchase decision.

Do I miss the good ole days of advertising? Let’s just say I’ll never forget the three martini lunch when we got approval to freeze a car in a block of ice and melt it in Death Valley to demonstrate the protection of Shell’s new motor oil Fire and Ice. And I will always think fondly of my round of golf with Arnold Palmer after a Pennzoil commercial shoot. There are more good times to come, what a great business I’m in.

Wii Did It! Bowled Over by Striking Success

The TexanPlus Wii Bowling Championships
by The Vollmer Public Relations Wii Bowling Team

Harris County senior citizens put their game faces on and trekked out to Reliant Center on October 1 for the world’s largest Wii Bowling Sports Tournament.

With “Wiimotes” in hand and an eye for friendly competition, more than 600 competitors bowled toward a Guinness World Record and captured the essence of healthy living.

In all, about 1200 attendees joined TexanPlus, Nifty after Fifty and more than 20 sponsors and exhibitors for the first citywide TexanPlus Wii Bowling Championship. Seniors received elite access to free health screenings, flu shots, healthy living lectures and door prizes, all of which focused their attention on the importance of living and aging well. A second tournament, in the Golden Triangle, attracted nearly 100 senior competitors and 400 other attendees, who bowled and Bingo’ed at Ford Park in Beaumont on October 8.

The record-setting events emphasized the importance of activity and aging and provided access to exciting and innovative ways to get and keep seniors moving, from swinging a Wiimote to testing out Nifty after Fifty equipment specially modified for seniors’ use.

With the help of exceptional clients and vendors, Vollmer staff kick-started the flow of some creative juices to develop this ground-breaking concept, generate awareness of current healthcare issues, and invest in relationship-building in order to garner support from local and national media. The group absolutely raised the bar on event-planning protocol to produce the two tournament successes in the span of just 45 days.

The reviews are in, and an annual affair is in high demand! Universal American anticipates doing this again next year and potentially expanding the program.

Some of the most exciting event coverage came from Headline News and Fit Nation on CNN with Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Additional coverage included the front page of Yahoo! News, NPR, USA Today, and live shots and reports from a number of local broadcast stations and newspapers. The stories reached an estimated 13 million people and generated more than one million dollars worth of publicity.

Wherever You Roam, Take the Keys to Great Client Relationships

Joel Frey, Public Relations Manager, Travelocity
Vollmer Public Relations Client and Guest Blogger

Dallas. Houston. El Paso. San Francisco. Indianapolis. New York. No, this isn’t the latest wayward itinerary of our beloved Roaming Gnome. Rather, this is a list of cities where any given member of the Travelocity/Vollmer PR team will be working on a typical business day.

“So how does that work?” you might be thinking. “Surely, they can’t get much accomplished with their team so spread out.”

As someone who has worked on both sides of this equation – three years as a VPR account exec and six as PR manager at Travelocity – I can say, confidently, that it has worked and continues to work well. In fact, the Travelocity/VPR relationship has been going strong now for 14 years, dating back to a time when our brand was little more than a half-baked idea being thrown around the marketing department of our parent company, Sabre Holdings.

So how has our relationship with VPR weathered all of the peaks and valleys of the last 14 years? Undoubtedly, executing award-winning campaigns revolving solely around a lawn ornament and having the flexibility to schedule conference calls with team members spread across all four time zones are major factors. But, from my perspective, there are four bigger reasons why we have kept our relationship intact with VPR since 1995.

Candor -- Several years ago at one of our annual “eyeball” meetings, it was late in the day and we were all getting tired of each other. The conversation was lacking direction, the ideas were falling flat and after a while Helen made her feelings known. “This is bull****, guys!” she blurted out. We were stunned and not sure what to make of her outburst, but looking back on it today, I realize that there probably aren’t too many agency heads who would have the guts to say this to their largest client.

Patience -- This one works both ways. There are times when VPR has had to explain to us that a pitch might not quite be ready for primetime or that it wasn’t that good to begin with and we need to go back to the drawing board. Conversely, we’ve required patience from VPR when a hot product launch that has been in the works for months gets delayed or an executive we had lined up for a series of interviews had to back out at the last minute.

Fun -- As our team has become more spread out, the eyeball meetings have become part business meeting/part family reunion. We recently converged upon Dallas for a day of planning, brainstorming and, well, drinking. The dress code was Hawaiian. I was timekeeper and scheduled the meeting to end promptly at 4:00 to give everyone enough time to visit and catch up over a couple of cocktails before parting ways.

Trust -- I’ll close with what, in my humble opinion, is the most important element of building a long term relationship. For us it means that every day, regardless of the circumstances, when any one of us needs an extra hand, we all know that someone will be there to back us up.

It’s hard to place a value on such peace of mind.

Visit www.joelfrey.com for more information on Joel and his book "Two Sides of a Cypress Wall: The True Story of a Reluctant College Graduate."

Everybody Tweetup!

by Mary Kate Smither
Vollmer Public Relations Dallas

So you’ve built your following, and find yourself tweeting and retweeting more than you ever believed possible. Now you’re wondering: What’s next? How do I take the great following I’ve built and leverage it to create even more brand awareness?

The answer’s simple: a Tweetup. It can offer the same benefits as a more traditional event, yet it specifically targets audiences who participate in and follow you on Twitter. It allows you to create an event around a product, brand launch, non-profit cause, public awareness campaign or virtually any other piece of your business you’d like to promote by gathering people together and allowing them to interact with each other, both in person and virtually.

Recently, Vollmer helped develop the first-ever, progressive Tweetup for leading Scotch whisky, The Macallan, with our partners M. Booth & Associates. The event, held during a designated time at three different venues in Dallas, allowed invited Twitter influencers to tweet their experiences throughout the evening about the brand and each venue’s specialty, The Macallan cocktail. In addition, it allowed followers both nationally and internationally to participate virtually via Twitter. A select group of traditional media, as well as social media influencers, all of whom are active in participating on Twitter, were invited to attend, along with their guests.

Whether you want to invite a select number of Twitter users, such as key media you’re trying to engage, or want to open the event to all of your Twitter followers and their followers, too, creating a successful Tweetup can be easy. Just build the right buzz and make sure everyone is coordinated in the Twitter efforts. Following are a few tips and tricks for pulling off a winning Tweetup:

• Select the Venue(s) – Be sure to choose a venue that fits with the theme of your Tweetup. You may want to have your event at a public park, college campus, local restaurant or shopping area. Make sure to check on any necessary permits for holding the Tweetup in your chosen location.
• Choose Your Attendees – When selecting your attendees, think about the kinds of people you’d like to invite. Are they particularly interested in what you’re trying to promote? Are they traditional media or just considered great influencers on Twitter? Do they have a great following locally? These are just some of the things to consider; you may actually want a combination of various types of people.
• Prepping Your Tweeters – As part of the Tweetup experience, be sure to develop information cards about whatever you’re promoting. The goal of the event is to get participants tweeting about their experience as it relates to your brand, so you want to make sure they can easily access key facts about your brand, product, cause or whatever else you’d like them to tweet about. Additionally, it’s a good idea to provide some basic guidelines on how you’d like them to tweet (no profanity, tweet throughout the event, etc.) The goal is not to stifle people in their tweeting but instead to help give a little direction.

These are just some starting points. For more information on how to choose your attendees, get virtual participants or leverage your Tweetup for traditional media exposure, email me at mailto:marykate@vollmerpr.com,call, call me at 972.488.4790 or follow me on Twitter @mksmither. Let me know your thoughts and what you’d like to read more about in an upcoming Vollocity!