Three Tips for Keeping it Fresh… and I’m Not Talking about Food.

  By Lori Martin, Account Director, Houston

Client relationships are like a marriage, and it’s important to always keep it fresh, real and open. This is especially true if you’re looking for new twists on a 25-year-old annual event.

We’ve worked with the Uptown Houston District on its branding and public relations for many years. It’s one of those great clients where you form a true partnership – to the point that sometimes it seems like we’re practically married! Each year Uptown Houston, recognized as one of the best urban, mixed-use development corridors in the world, produces its Uptown Holiday Lighting event on Thanksgiving night. The event is spectacular, and nearly 200,000 visitors kick off the holiday season with Houston’s largest sing-a-long, millions of twinkling lights, 80 Christmas trees, the jolly man in red and one of Houston’s most spectacular fireworks extravaganzas, all for free.

But how on earth do you present a time-honored tradition as fresh, real and fun to media and the public after 25 years? Making this and other annual events special each time they come around takes following:

Keep it Fresh. Push the limits on your media approach every year. Pretend it’s a new event and client you’ve never worked on before. Easier said than done sometimes, but if you push your team to find something new, I promise, magic can happen. Uptown understands that to stay relevant to its retailers, corporations and residents they must stay actively engaged in the social media conversation. Planning and implementation of the 25th anniversary has given their social media program some new arms and legs. You’ll have to follow us on Twitter @UptownHouston to find out how!

Keep it Real. Have an honest and open relationship with your client, and set expectations and realistic goals before you get started. Not every year will you make it on MSNBC or even the Houston Chronicle front page, but every year you should give it your all. Create story ideas and pitch angles for new media beats. For example, we asked all 150,000 attendees to wear something that sparkles silver to honor the 25th anniversary. Media love it, people think the idea is fun and it’s creating new excitement around the event.

Keep it Fun. Every year, including this year, the Uptown Holiday Lighting production crew eats dinner at a nearby cafeteria on Post Oak. Besides the good food, the team is surrounded by the memories they’ve created in the past 25 years. But if you listen to the conversation, (are you listening to your client??) the words tend to vary from year to year. That’s our job: To change the words, create new conversations and make them meaningful in a new and vibrant way every year.

If you were in Houston on Thanksgiving, we hope you joined us…and wore silver. Whether you were able to attend or not, here are the little-known 25 Facts About Uptown Holiday Lighting sure to get you in the holiday spirit…

1. The Light Wall at the 1984 World’s Fair in New Orleans inspired the tree-lit Post Oak Boulevard.

2. Four months prior to the first event in 1986, the City Post Oak Association changed its name to the Uptown Houston Association.

3. The very first Uptown Holiday Lighting, planned in only four months, was held on Tuesday, Nov. 26, 1986.

4. Eighty live Christmas trees were hand-picked and cut from a Wisconsin tree farm, for the first two years of the event.

5. The original name of the Uptown Holiday Lighting was the Grand Lighting Ceremony.

6. The first lighting included a larger-than-life tree outline in lights on Transco Tower (now Williams Tower).

7. Houston TV weatherman, Doug Johnson, city councilmember, Christin Hartung, and a Texas Children’s Hospital patient helped Santa flip the first switch on Tuesday, November 26, 1986...25 years ago!

8. About 100 people attended the first Uptown Houston Lighting event; now 150,000+ fill Boulevard each year.

9. Houston mayors Kathy Whitmire, Bob Lanier and Lee Brown have all attended the Uptown Holiday Lighting.

10. The first four Uptown Holiday Lighting events, 1986, 1987, 1988 and 1989, were held on the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving.

11. Pop! Bang! Pop! Fireworks choreographed to favorite holiday music arrived on the scene in year three, 1988.

12. In 1989, after months of design and production, 80 official Uptown Holiday Lighting trees and bases with over a half-million lights were installed and are still used today.

13. Through the years, the Uptown Holiday Lighting has benefitted a number of deserving charities, including Sheltering Arms Senior Services, The Children’s Art project, Texas Children’s hospital, and during the very first year’s event, the Houston Food Bank. This year, the event benefits Be An Angel.

14. The event featured a Parade for nine years: 1988, 1989, 1990, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2004 and 2005. In 1997, Second Baptist Church introduced the Electric Light Parade to the event.

15. Cheers! In 1990 crowds eagerly awaited the arrival of Santa on the famous Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales. However, rain cancelled the Clydesdales appearance but for Santa, the show must go on and he was center stage to light up the Boulevard.

16. Celebrity athletes who have participated in the event include Houston Oiler Quarterback, Warren Moon (1999), Gold Medal Olympic figure skater, Kristi Yamaguchi (1992) and Gold Medal Olympic diver, Laura Wilkinson (2000).

17. For the past 17 years, since 1993, thousands of Houstonians have run through Uptown Houston as part of the annual Turkey Trot which takes place early morning, prior to the Uptown Holiday Lighting.

18. It’s a bird…it’s a plane…it’s Santa. The man in red has arrived seven times via helicopter: 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2002.

19. From 1999 – 2001, Disney’s own Mickey Mouse and friends helped Santa light up the night.

20. The excitement filled the air as the Grambling State University Tiger Marching Band headed down Post Oak Boulevard in 2005.

21. The charming sounds of the Salvation Army Harbor Light Choir became a tradition at the Uptown Holiday Lighting in 2005.

22. The Uptown Lighting fireworks display is choreographed and fired using four computers and GPS technology for synchronization; fired from three separate locations, the Uptown Lighting uses the most modern and cutting edge technology.

23. Santa’s sing-a-long is the biggest in town.

24. Decorating hotel balconies have long been a tradition of the event for many years; the official Hilton Houston Post Oak Balcony Decorating Contest began in 2007.

25. Luby’s cafeteria on Post Oak is the favorite pre-event spot for the Uptown Holiday Lighting production crew to celebrate Thanksgiving Day dinner together.

Talking About a REDvolution

  By Danielle Allen, Senior Vice President, Austin

The 2010 elections have come and gone, and for some, there is “election fatigue”—political exhaustion from the onslaught of the negative campaign ads, barrage of snarky interviews and clutter of candidate-promoting yard signs.

For others, there is intense fascination about what’s to come in the approaching 82nd Texas legislature, convening on January 12, 2011. A sea of red on Election Day resulting in the election of 99 Republicans in the House—an historic Republican majority in—has left many to wonder what the 140 days of session is likely to hold. The Texas Senate, for its part, maintains a Republican majority just two seats shy of securing a 2/3 majority required by law.

At the height of the intrigue is the election of the Speaker of the House. Whether current Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, will emerge victorious against conservatives Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, and Rep. Ken Paxton, R-McKinney, remains to be seen, but not without a wounding battle for the majority party. Meanwhile the Texas Senate will debate whether to overthrow its 2/3 majority rule to ensure easier passage of majority-sponsored bills.

While the politics of these issues will certainly impact the policy outcomes, two things are irrefutable: the state will take up redistricting and the budget, according to Jason Embry, the Capitol Bureau Chief of the Austin American Statesman, who dropped by our offices today to provide a legislative update. With a projected $20-$25 billion shortfall, education and health and human services most certainly have targets on their backs, and the conservative wave leaves few options besides a blood bath of budget cuts for both.

With these contentious issues at hand, many are asking whether there is room for anything else – and yet, on the opening day of legislative filings, the first pieces of legislation filed were a mixed bag of unrelated issues addressing immigration, voter ID, food safety, and oil and gas regulations, among many others. In the opening days, over 300 pieces of legislation have been filed, and if the 2009 Legislature is any indication, there could be more than 7,000 bills proposed by the time it’s all said and done.

Last session, we worked with LIVESTRONG to advocate for legislation to make Texas a smoke-free state and with the Texas Carbon Capture and Storage Association to keep the regulation of this emerging technology within the jurisdiction of the Texas Railroad Commision. This session is going to be vastly different, but one thing’s for sure: organizations with a stake in the outcome of legislation will have to be creative in getting their message across and demonstrating statewide support for their issue. Session is only 60 days away and there will be just over four months to make an impact. Otherwise, there won’t be another opportunity until 2013.

Sprechen Sie Texan?

By Kim Tillinghast, Account Director, Austin

A few weeks ago, I attended the annual Society of American Travel Writers convention in Germany, representing our client and convention sponsor Texas Tourism (http://www.traveltex.com/). It was an invaluable opportunity to promote Texas’ diverse sights, sounds, tastes and experiences to a captive audience, and for me, it offered face time with many writers with whom I’ve exchanged countless e-mails over the years, as well as PR representatives from convention and visitors bureaus and airlines. We spent five days exploring Dresden and Leipzig, in the southeastern state of Saxony, with a combination of tours – quarters, castles and zoos, oh my! – professional development sessions, round-table discussions and media appointments.

The variety of professional development sessions included a panel focusing on destination press trips. Tips included requesting a list of recent press trips taken from each journalist; being mindful of photographer needs, including adequate time to shoot and best available daylight (30 minutes pre-sunrise to 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. to 30 minutes post-sunset); and most importantly, checking participant blogs/social media channels throughout the trip.

A round-table discussion with other PR firms yielded insight about shared challenges and solutions. A discussion of social media strategy and measurement led to an interesting debate about whether Facebook or LinkedIn is the more appropriate medium to build media relationships, and where the line between personal and professional communication is (perhaps strategically) blurred.

Our keynote speaker, John Chow (http://www.johnchow.com/), lent insight about professional blogging and his road to success. He identified the important distinction between bloggers and Internet marketers, and the fact that the low barrier of entry (e.g., free sites such as Blogspot) can cause bloggers to not treat their work as a business. The key to success lies in a strong business model that focuses on monetization of traffic as a goal, versus simply gaining traffic. According to Chow, those who blog consistently, surround themselves with success, actively pursue their brand and – most importantly – enjoy the journey, are far more likely to find success.

The entire experience was a vibrant meeting of the minds. It reminded me how much I enjoy the relationship-building side of public relations, and what valuable conversations and ideas can spawn from a change of scenery and a room full of creative brains. I plan to keep that same inspiration with me back in “reality”, knowing that whether I’m brainstorming in the picturesque German landscape or downtown Austin, amazing ideas and partnerships can bloom and take life.

Taking Calculated Risks in Digital Health

By Emily Downward, Sr. Vice President Digital, Austin

The intersection of social media and health is a tricky one. Social media allows everyone to have a voice. Patients can share their personal stories and challenges, learn from each other and find support. But is the information always accurate? Companies involved in healthcare, from hospitals to pharmaceutical companies, are regulated by the government on what and how they share information causing many companies to limit or avoid joining the online conversation.

People are flocking to the Internet for health information. The Health Engagement Barometer showed that globally, four out of five people turn to digital media to help inform their health decisions (Edelman, 2010). In the United States, three out of four consult digital sources for health information. The Internet has become—and will continue to be—a major source of health information for the general public. It’s also potentially a breeding ground for misinformation, which is why we strongly believe we need regulated players to be engaged. Conversations about health are taking place online already—and without the appropriately regulated voice of the manufacturer, consumers and health care professionals are missing valuable, accurate information.

As a communications agency with thriving digital and health practices, Edelman counsels many of the nation’s leading health companies. Edelman has long advised companies that health is a business imperative and that they must engage proactively, transparently, and in real time with all stakeholders about health and wellness. Health companies must play by the regulations, such as providing balanced information (claims and safety) and maintaining patient confidentiality, but there are ways to use social media and abide by the existing regulations and guidelines.

The risks to health companies of engaging in social media are well-known, such as FDA warning letters. What is not as frequently mentioned are the risks of NOT engaging, which include the risk of your brand being defined by others and the lack of balanced information. We are counseling our clients on how to get involved in social media, following the existing guidelines and applying them to this medium in a responsible way.

Tagging: The Next Generation of Mobile Technology

By Mauren Kunz, Sr. Account Executive, Houston

“Excuse me,” shouted a random man who ran up to me as I was leaving the exhibit hall at a recent conference in Washington, D.C. “Can I scan you?”

Now in any other situation, such a comment might be cause to grab the mace and sprint towards the nearest cop, especially in a city formerly referred to as the murder capital of the United States. But instead of running for my life, I turned around and with an inner chuckle, asked if I could do the same.

It was part of PR Newswire’s mobile tagging game at the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA)’s International Conference in October, and the way people talked about it, you’d think they were playing to win millions.

What’s the buzz about?

The PRN Game was based on a combination of mobile tagging and social media apps used to boost PR Newswire’s visibility at the event and emphasize the company’s new focus on engagement.

While tagging has been around since 2003 and is highly prominent in Asia, it’s just starting to gain widespread popularity here in the U.S. The technology behind tagging allows an individual to create a 2D barcode for mobile scanning through an app, which then directs a user to a designated website for instant access to information, videos, reviews and more.

When first introduced, tagging was available in the format of a QR (Quick Response) code or data matrix, but in 2009 Microsoft announced its High Capacity Color Barcode (HCCB) in hopes of establishing the company’s unique format as the standard in the west. HCCB codes are a series of colorful triangles, whereas QR and data matrix codes look similar to the black and white scanner image you might see on a shipping package.

How it works:

For the PRN Game, the company created more than 70 different tags that were placed in various areas of the conference, including at exhibit booths, on lobby signs, in conference presentations, and even on staff name badges. Additionally, 30 of those tags were available in small stickers that conference goers could add to their own name badges, which encouraged people to interact with each other.

The back end of the program was setup so that the 70 target sites were part of a value system (worth anywhere from 2-150 points) that tracked and added points with qualifying scans. Additionally, tweets using the #prngame hashtag were worth an additional point. In order to engage attendees’ interest in the company’s product offering, PR Newswire also provided in-booth demonstrations for 4 new services, valued at 100 points per presentation.

While only 62 attendees competed in the game, PR Newswire estimates it generated over 1,000 tweets in 3 days. Pretty impressive considering the number of people participating. On top of that, more than 23 percent of tweets that used the official conference hashtag (#prsa_ic) also included the PRN Game hashtag, which doesn’t even account for the large percentage of people who instead used #prsa2010 or #pra10 as their conference hashtag.

In the end, PR Newswire took advantage of an innovative technology to increase the company’s visibility beyond the 6 x 12 foot booth space purchased for the event. The service provider did an extensive job of spreading content such that even those that participated in the game couldn’t help but be aware of it.

What does it mean for you?

With a generation constantly seeking the electronic version of information, tagging is another way to reduce the load of paper hauling and tree chopping to provide audiences with quick and directed materials in the palm of their hands. Vollmer often avoids the paper build up by offering tagging for quick and easy downloads at client conferences where it sponsors social media tutorial booths and needs to provide handouts.

Companies may soon find ways to integrate tagging codes on displays, in press releases and on other materials. Airline companies such as Continental, are already using mobile tagging for electronic boarding passes, allowing travelers to access codes on their phones for paperless flight check-ins. 

As technology improves and smart phones continue to flood the market, tagging will continue to play a role in the evolution of how we consume information. Who knows, now that we're even exchanging business cards via mobile tags the phrase “Can I scan you?” won’t be so strange after all.

Find the app that’s right for you:

QR Code Reader – http://www.mobile-barcodes.com/qr-code-software/

Sounds Like a Plan: Yes, it’s that’s time of year. Let the 2011 programming and budgeting begin!

By Teresa Henderson, Executive Vice President, GM Dallas & Co-Manager Austin

Wikipedia gallantly defines planning as “… the organizational process of creating and maintaining a plan; and the psychological process of thinking about the activities required to create a desired goal on some scale.”

Most companies approach the planning and budgeting season with a less philosophical point of view and a more pragmatic frame of mind: what does our budget look like, what do we want to accomplish and how do we align dollars and goals to achieve success? And the managers inside those companies often grapple with a smaller question that looms large: where do we start?

Wikipedia also states that “(planning) is a fundamental property of intelligent behavior,” so this year why not activate the process in a smart way by analyzing the results of current programs versus the budget allotted to them? Which ones paid off in the form of leads, sales or increased brand awareness? Are there sacred cows in your marketing pasture such as legacy trade shows, sales meetings or other events that could free up budgets?

Can you identify smarter, more economical ways to maintain the nuts-and-bolts supporting programs that have to remain? Recently, we advised a client that her company could save – and redeploy – thousands of dollars each month by revising the use of wire service categories for press release distribution.

Are you in line with your online thinking? According to the 2010 Marketing Trends Survey, 47 percent of industrial marketers reported spending at least one-third of their marketing budget online in 2010. Three of the top four sources for leads for industrial companies were online channels, including the company website, email marketing and search engine optimization. Consider increasing your online programming if you want to connect with your audience in 2011.

Again from Wikipedia: “An important, albeit often ignored aspect of planning, (sic) is the relationship it holds with forecasting. Forecasting can be described as predicting what the future will look like, whereas planning predicts what the future should look like.” As you enter the planning and budgeting process for the upcoming year, keep in mind the milestones that are forecast for 2011. These could include product launches or product updates, new partnerships or mergers, expansion into new markets or entrée into new customer segments. Be sure to factor the support – logistic as well as budgetary – necessary to deliver success.

At the end of the day, smart planning and budgeting comes down to evaluating past initiatives, focusing on new objectives and choosing the right programs to achieve your goals. The process can be straightforward and less taxing if you stay organized, intelligently evaluate and plan against what’s forecast for the future.

So get to it, get it behind you and get ready to blow out the coming year!

Write What You Mean: The ABCs of Grammar and Spelling for Social Media

 By Mary Kate Smither, Social Media Practice Leader

In our business, clients rely on us every day to help reach their business objectives by communicating messages correctly and effectively. While I love social media, and all of the opportunities it offers us to engage with each other about those messages, I also believe that in some ways it has allowed us to compromise our skills for accurate grammar and spelling.

I admit that I’ve always been somewhat of a spelling and grammar snob, and I also acknowledge that we are all moving faster than ever to generate quality content and keep up with each other. But how many times have you read a tweet with so many letters missing you need a code to decipher it, or a blog post about a brand that includes grammatical errors, such as your instead of you’re, its instead of it’s or there instead of their? My guess is that if you’ve noticed some of these errors, your attention was diverted from the true message of the post.

Despite my acknowledged neuroses and the crazy speed of life, I still firmly believe that we all owe it to our clients and to ourselves to slow down long enough to ensure that we’re actually communicating what we mean to communicate. Twitter and Facebook posts, mobile messaging and blog entries are all an extension of ourselves and our brands, and isn’t the goal always to create a great first impression by putting your best foot forward?

As a public relations professional, not only do I want to make sure that my current clients are happy with my work and fans of our agency, but I also want to use my work as way to earn new business. How can I expect a potential client to have confidence in my ability to produce great work if I don’t know the proper usage of a word or its correct spelling?

While we live in a world where social media allows for a more informal conversation tone, and -- as humans mistakes certainly happen -- avoiding spelling and grammatical mistakes can be easy enough. The point is not to stop writing or tweeting, but to do it well. Following are a few resources to help make sure you put your best foot forward.

• Spell Check – While it doesn’t catch words that are spelled correctly but are grammatically incorrect, spell check is always a good first step in proofing a post, text or tweet. Most social media sites and many smartphones offer some form of spell check application.

• Find a Friend – Sometimes we’re so close to our own work, that we miss what’s right in front of our faces. Enlist a colleague or friend to help proof your blog posts, especially if you’re writing them from a professional standpoint or on behalf of someone else.

• Dictionary – Not sure how to spell a word? No problem. It's true that the dictionary is an obvious go-to resource, but now both the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster have made it easier than ever to check the spelling and meaning of a word with their online versions (Oxford English is a paid subscription, Merriam-Webster is free) at http://www.oed.com/ and http://www.merriam-webster.com/.

• AP Stylebook – Vital to those of us in the public relations profession, the AP Stylebook offers a guide to proper writing style, including grammar, punctuation , capitalization and is used by many media outlets as a standard. While many of us still use the print version of the book, AP now offers online subscriptions beginning at $25 (http://www.apstylebook.com/).