The Big Hit: Bloomberg for Texas Tourism

By Reid Schwartz, Senior Account Executive, Austin

Texas Tourism, the Office of the Governor, Economic Development and Tourism, has been an Edelman client for 10 years. Through its relationship with the Four Season’s Hotel properties in Austin, Dallas and Houston, Texas Tourism partnered with the hotel chain for a summer press trip opportunity to bring quality media to Texas to experience the best of the Lone Star State. One of the journalists secured was John Mariani, prolific food and wine freelancer for Esquire Magazine and Bloomberg, among others.

The Edelman team promotes travel to Texas year-round, and while it may currently seem a bit chilly for a Texas wine tour, now is the perfect time to start planning your own trip for the coming spring or summer.

The Edelman team worked closely with the Four Seasons properties in Austin, Houston and Dallas as well as partner Convention and Visitors Bureaus in each city to arrange accommodations and activities for Mariani’s Texas trip, particularly focusing his itinerary surrounding the Texas wine industry: notable restaurants serving Texas wines, interviews with hotel sommeliers, etc.

Resulting from Mariani’s Texas trip was a Bloomberg News feature on the Texas wine industry: “Texas Wines Take the Heat in $1.8 Billion Business,” highlighting Texas’ ranking as fifth largest wine producing state in the U.S. The article took a comprehensive look at the wine market in Texas, and included quotes from several local wine experts such as Austin-based wine writer for Texas Monthly Magazine Jessica Dupuy, Houston Chronicle wine columnist Dale Robertson and Four Season’s sommelier James Tidwell.

The coverage detailed Texas’s 275 bonded wineries which produce three billion gallons of wine annually, and included some of Mariani’s favorite vineyards such as Llano Estacado, the Duchman Family Vineyards, Becker Vineyards and Inwood Estates Vineyards.

Mariani gave a glowing recommendation of a 2010 Duchman Family Vineyards Vermentino, and “tasted as many [wines] as [he] could, as recommended by the restaurant sommeliers and found many to be very fine wines indeed.”

Mariani threw in a bit of Texas history to boot, noting “I very much enjoyed a 2008 Llano Estacado 1836 Blend. (“1836” refers to The Battle of San Jacinto when Sam Houston beat the Mexican Army in a 30-minute battle.)”

Seven New Year’s Resolutions for Internal Communicators

By Edelman Employee Engagement

The start of a new year is a great time to make (and hopefully keep) resolutions for improvement, whether personal or professional. While we can’t necessarily help you with a diet or other personal goals, we can offer some professional resolutions to help you make sure your company’s internal communications program is the best it can be in 2014.

Resolution 1:  When considering a social media program, first ask, “To what end?”
We often see communicators who immediately jump to picking a social media platform before they’ve really asked the harder questions about what they want to achieve and what audiences they want to engage. There are seemingly countless platform options available to you and to pick the best one, you first need to know what your objective is in adopting a social media platform. Are you looking to connect virtual employees in an engaging, interactive way? Is it for a discrete purpose, such as providing a resource to collect and build on best practices to support an upcoming product launch, or a more broad-based need? This resolution sounds simple, but is often overlooked. Asking yourself “to what end” will help ensure you go down the right social media path on your first try.

Resolution 2: Measure impact, not activity
All high-performing communications program (internal or external) should be grounded in research and have measurement incorporated throughout. When building your measurement baseline or assessment activities, make sure you’re not looking only at activity, but also the desired impact that activity’s having. For example, while it’s helpful to know how many people attended a webinar or opened an email, it’s better to know if a webinar or email helped people understand something and take action. And make sure you develop and embed meaningful measurement strategies early in the planning stages so they aren’t overlooked come crunch time.

Resolution 3: Make a concerted effort to reach remote, manufacturing and sales employees
For far too long, many internal communicators have neglected harder-to-reach segments of employees, including those in manufacturing, on the road in sales roles, or remote/virtual workers. Make 2014 the year you change that. Start by understanding more about these audiences and the existing communications mechanisms and rhythms that already work for them; then take advantage of those existing methods. Also, work at understanding what messages these unique audiences want and need to hear – particularly manufacturing and sales employees who tend to desire a much more straightforward, “what’s in it for me?” approach.

Resolution 4: Pay attention to your company’s new promoter score
We’re always surprised when we talk to internal communicators who have never looked at their company’s net promoter scores on jobs sites like glassdoor.com. These sites are a great way to get a snapshot of what employees think of senior leadership performance and if they’d recommend their company as a great place to work. Potential employees also reference these sites for unfiltered information about your company, so it’s important they are encouraged by what they read rather than put off. The effectiveness of internal communications can play an out-sized role in influencing both of these data points, and communicators should understand what’s being said, why and what they can possibly do to influence it.


Resolution 5: Foster closer collaboration with media relations and investor relations colleagues
We have no doubt that 2014 will bring with it the increasing elimination of barriers between internal and external communications, meaning that the need to get information to employees as fast as they can get it from external sources will likely be greater than ever. To ensure that employees hear company news from you first, it’s critical that you know what external releases and activities are planned by media relations and, for publically traded companies, investor relations. Resolve to develop regular coordinating mechanisms with these colleagues, and continue educating them about the importance of employees hearing things first (or, when that’s not feasible, at least at the same time as external audiences).

Resolution 6: Look for ways to make internal content go external
We know from the Edelman Trust Barometer that employees are highly credible sources of information about a company and highly trusted. Especially when trying to change external perceptions of your company, look at ways to encourage internal-facing content to go public. Are you creating a video about a team of employees who worked behind the scenes to launch a new product? Put it on YouTube and encourage employees to share it with family and friends. Are you organizing a “family day” or similar employee volunteer activity? Find ways to make it easy for employees to tweet and share fun pictures and results from the day to their own social networks. While companies are sometimes reluctant to share internal content externally for confidentiality reasons, be realistic in your assessment of the damage such content could do if released externally. In many cases, releasing it will actually help burnish external reputation and employer brand.

Resolution 7: No videos longer than two minutes

We’ll end with an easy one: Create a rule that videos to employees may not be longer than two minutes. Our experience has shown that employee viewership of even well-made and engaging videos stops after two minutes, so embrace this reality and focus on how you make those two minutes count. If your video topic is too complex for two minutes of well-structured content, this may be a warning sign that you’re not using the right medium to communicate – written or something interactive may instead be the better way to go.  

Digital Insight: Top Trends + Social Campaigns from 2013

By Spike Jones and Mary Beth King, Senior Vice President, Managing Director – Southwest Digital, Account Supervisor, Digital West

The biggest constant in the agency world is change. There’s what’s next and there’s what’s now. By the time the mainstream picks up on the trends, those trends have become table stakes. 

Content. Storytelling. Injecting emotion into your brand. The interesting thing about these subjects is they’re the exact things that have been laying the foundation of great communications for decades. In other words, what is old is new again. For example, Vine, IDEO’s Spark app, makes anyone with an iPhone into a cinematographer able to tell mini stories, set them to music, etc. 

While this surge, er, return, to compelling content is exciting, it’s important to keep in mind that with it will also come a surge in intrusive advertising. Mobile advertising is projected to increase 64 percent this year alone (via LinkedIn Marketing Solutions), so as we craft those emotionally rich pieces of content it’s important to keep in mind two things: 

First, people share content for three reasons: a) it feeds their ego and makes them look good to their social networks, b) it’s a piece of new or complicated information or c) it either infuriates or delights them. Make sure your content fits in at least one of these content buckets and remember, it’s not about you, it’s about how you make your customer’s life better. Second, make content bite-sized and easily shareable. People are busy and multitask more than ever these days. The easier you make a piece of content to consume, the more likely that someone will share it. 

In 2013, the digital landscape saw an incredible amount of creative branded content on social media. 2014 promises to be an even more exciting time for branded social content with more money than ever being spent on social advertising and content creation. The following trends emerged in 2013 and the brand examples that follow exemplify each trend as some of the strongest cases of digital marketing in their respective industries and verticals.

1. Branded Storytelling - Storytelling isn’t a new phenomenon, but the interesting thing about storytelling in 2013 is the way marketers branded and sold it in the digital space. AdWeek's Jon Hamm wrote, “We are in a world where a brand’s values and the emotions they evoke are narrative material.” To stay relevant, brands have to figure out how to connect on an emotional level with their fans, and humanize themselves in compelling ways. Microsoft has doubled down on its storytelling efforts this year with its Stories platform. Its first installment on the site was 88 Acres: How Microsoft Quietly Built the City of the Future, a story about the man behind Microsoft’s intricate and unique facilities-management system. Sharing this tale of uniqueness, personality and innovation by such a large brand built emotional connectivity among its audience. Finding and sharing great stories is a great way to inject personality into your brand and engage audiences.
2. Real-time Content - What you say is just as important as when you say it, particularly when it comes to relevance and reach. Brands injected themselves into trending topics at an unprecedented rate in 2013, so marketers have taken to what Edelman calls the Creative Newsroom approach: “planned real-time” content, anticipate trending events and creating appropriate, brand-relevant content. A great example of this approach is PayPal’s content strategy, including posts referring to events like #SFbatkid or Royal Baby. This is a great workaround for brands that want to hop on trending content, but don’t want to take the risk or costs of a war room approach. 
3. Micro-videos - Instagram Video and Vine presented micro-videos as the new frontier on social media in 2013, forcing marketers to create relevant, meaningful, branded videos in 15 or six seconds, respectively. Lowe’s Fix in Six Vine campaign offered stop-motion how-to fixes around the house, giving the brand a useful, concise, and playful way to engage their audience. Lululemon has made a splash on Instagram Video by using the platform to showcase the brand’s personality and passion. The notable thing about both examples is that they ideated and created content based on the platforms, rather than creating content and trying to force it to fit within the platform. Distinct content strategies are important for every channel, but perhaps none is as important as these micro-video platforms. 
4. Converged Media + Breaking Through - With 1 billion Facebook posts and 400 million tweets being published every day, breaking through the noise on social is a major challenge for marketers. And now with things like Facebook's changes to the News Feed algorithm, marketers are also faced with the challenge of breaking through social platforms’ limitations to get their content seen. Integrated strategies that include paid, earned and owned media are crucial to amplifying messages effectively. Strand Books in New York City engages strong partners like celebrities and other social brands to amplify messaging and drive awareness, compels loyal consumers and media alike to promote their events and promotions organically, and utilizes various custom content strategies for their social channels in smart ways based on their unique audiences. As marketers, it’s critical to approach content from all angles to ensure it’s seen by the right audiences.
5. The Rise of Mobile - In Q3 of this year, Facebook reported that 48 percent of its daily users are accessing the site via mobile only. This means that we, as marketers, have to be smarter with our content and ads for mobile. In Mashable’s How to Improve Your Mobile Marketing Strategy, Michael Blumenfeld said, “The big lesson here is to not try to stuff 10 pounds of information into a two-pound bag.” Many brands, like Poshmark, have found a sweet spot using mobile by keeping content tight and targeted, maximizing efforts and ad dollars. Knowing that mobile will continue dominating as a platform on which people consume content, all content in 2014 should be created with mobile in mind.

2014 is going to be another great year in the communications industry. Here’s to the road ahead.  

TRENDSPOTTING

By Helen Vollmer, President, Edelman Southwest

The beginning of the New Year, with soothsayers and data analysts predicting what’s about to rock our world, is a great time for savvy marketers whose lifeblood is to leverage perception and to create innovative scenarios where we can bond with others who have like interests. If you’re like me, you take pride in deciphering a trend early on, adapting it and elevating it to new levels. Here are a few 2014 tidbits that I’m watching in two of my favorite categories, food and travel:

Food:

• Carbs are back. Living in rice country (and in full disclosure, working for technology based RiceTec), nothing makes me happier to look at the grocery store shelves and see the exploding choices. Jasmine, basmati or arborio? Why not buy all three and add in a bag of brown to go with it? Technomic, a food industry consulting firm, swears starches, including noodles, are making a comeback.
• Grow your own. Locavore is going to the next level. The National Gardening Association says the number of households that grow at least some of their own food are up 24 percent since 2007. Will bees and chickens be the next urban pets? 
• Eating dangerously. According to Epicurious.com the exotic is becoming main stream. From rattlesnake to fried insects, tongue to feet, exotic foods are making their way onto restaurant menus. Menudo anyone?

Travel:

• Lighter, faster . . . Sir Richard Branson, president of Virgin Atlantic Airways, was quoted by AP saying, “I have no doubt that during my lifetime we will be able to fly from London to Sydney in under two hours, with minimal environmental impact.” 
• DIY Flying. The next five years will be all about increasing automation and decreasing labor cost. The industry is already implementing mobile boarding passes, bag drops, even self-boarding.  Have you been asked to close your window and pick up after yourself before de-planeing?
• Conspicuous leisure. Travelmarket Report states the consumption of experiences rather than consumer goods now signals social status like never before. Unique experiences are, in short, social currency. 

If you’re looking to spot your own new trends in 2014, a few tips:

• Carpool. There’s nothing like chauffeuring a pack of 7 to 13 year olds around to let you know what’s happening in the real world. Rent some kids if you need to listen in on what the next big thing is going to be.
• Take field trips. Go ahead and buy a ticket to that spring home and garden show. Chances are you will be amazed that a certain kind of new flower species will be everywhere at your local nursery within a few months. 
• Watch movie trailers. If you get to the movies early, you’ll see my favorite part of the experience—the previews of what’s coming. Last year, we were treated to some great films about the African American experience, everything from Django Unchained to Lee Daniels’ The Butler to 12 Years a Slave.  If you pay attention, you’ll see a couple of new trends developing for 2014.

Happy trend spotting!

The Big Hit: The Houston Chronicle for Samsung

By Robyn Kratzer, Vice President, Houston

Edelman client Samsung had been embroiled in U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) litigation with Apple in two cases. In the first case ITC issued Samsung an exclusion order, noting that Apple had infringed on one of Samsung’s FRAND-encumbered SEPs that enables devices to operate on 3G mobile networks. In the second case, which was set to be determined Thursday, August 1, Apple was arguing that Samsung was infringing on patents covering unique functional aspects of its mobile devices or their physical designs (essentially rounded rectangular devices). Additionally, the Obama administration had the option to veto either ruling on Friday, August 2.

Confronted by the imminent decision from the ITC on August 1, Samsung lobbyists asked Edelman to provide strategic political “air cover” in Texas and New Jersey where several members of Congress supported Samsung. The Edelman D.C. team decided it would reach out to the Network for assistance in placing third party op-eds in key regional papers in these states, one of which was Houston. An op-ed highlighting the potential negative impact the case might have on the Texas economy was drafted and bylined by signatory, Carroll G. Robinson, a Houston area attorney and trustee of the Houston Community College System. 

Key messages for client included that: 

• Samsung had announced plans to invest $4 billion in the expansion of the company’s manufacturing plants in Austin, marking the largest foreign investment ever made in the State of Texas. Additionally, the prospect of court-ordered injunctions on high-tech products could potentially disrupt the free flow of commerce and negatively impact the Texas economy and job creation.
• Injunctions, if allowed, could have a chilling effect on companies’ decisions to invest in the U.S. and local state economies.
• An import ban could remove products that are essential to market competition.

Challenges

Due to the imminent ruling on August 1 and the potential Obama administration veto on either ruling on Friday, August 2, the placement of a third-party op-ed became critical and time sensitive. Edelman D.C. contacted the Houston office on July 26. The bylined op-ed was pitched to Houston Chronicle editorial page editor, Jeff Cohen, and the pitch, coordination and placement of the op-ed occurred within three business days. Coverage was posted online at Chron.com on July 30 and in the hard copy of the paper the next morning, July 31. Coverage can be found here. 

Digital Insight: Embracing the Change in User Behavior

By Amanda Nguyen, Account Executive, Digital West

Last week, the Seattle Interactive Conference brought in an array of technology experts, brands and creative types to share their thoughts on the evolving digital landscape. “Change” was the resounding theme that echoed throughout the conference, emphasizing the shift in user behavior, as well as the importance of brand flexibility and transparency. Below are five key trends from the sessions:

1. Evolving Platforms

As technology evolves, brands must be flexible and willing to adapt. Tim Keck, cofounder of The Onion, spoke about platform shifts and how it relates to traditional print newspapers. The Onion, widely known for its satirical and confrontational content, may need to consider adjusting its approach since becoming digital. The new generation of online readers is less familiar with The Onion’s play on AP-style writing, and as a result, jokes are losing their relevance. Digital opens up a very public dialogue with readers who expect a two-way conversation.   

2. The Cluttered Landscape

We are constantly bombarded with information from multiple touch points. This is impacting how news is gathered and delivered. In the “Technology, Journalism and Business” panel, journalists asked PR professionals to consider the clutter they deal with when pitching stories. Kelly Clay, who blogs at Forbes, mentioned she preferred pitches via Twitter over email. Through social, she feels the story is more directed and tailored for her, due to the character limit and timeliness of the platform. 

3. Revenue Models

Both publications and artists spoke to the challenges of traditional ad revenue models. Jack Conte of the band Pamplemoose brought up crowd-funding platforms like Patreon as a fresh way for musicians to approach monetizing their craft. It is not just artists who are thinking outside of the box—GeekWire journalist John Cook spoke about sponsorships as an additional means of bringing in revenue. We will need to continue to put forward creative and diverse solutions for our clients. 

4. Transparency

In a “share all” era, transparency is becoming more of a hot topic for brands. In the “Shopping Inside a Mashup” panel, Susan Livingston, executive coordinator of Whole Foods emphasized the importance of clear messaging in customer loyalty programs. It is imperative that brands communicate how they are using and storing the consumer data they collect. Consumers are become savvier and want more control over privacy. 

5. First Impressions

In a morning keynote, Sanaz Ahari of Google explained the shift in user viewability complicates advertising penetration. For example, 77 percent of TV viewers use another device while they watch their television program. Ahari suggests using data-driven insights to find where the audience is spending most of its time, what interests are pushing the attention there, and how the brand can connect with its audience on that level. Then, create a two-way dialogue within the advertising so that the audience feels a part of the conversation and not simply bombarded with information.

New Formats, New Stories, But Journalism Remains Crucial in Digital Era

By, Marcus Kabel, Vice President, Atlanta

This article originally appeared on Edelman.com.

It’s natural to look across the media industry and wonder if the digital upheaval of legacy formats will leave anything standing. The core mission of storytelling itself is morphing, whether by requiring new elements like video and interactives, integrating the audience through social media or using analytics to get a better understanding on impact. As a former journalist who spent 20+ years in newsrooms at Reuters and the AP, I wonder sometimes if journalism itself is headed for retirement in a new era of something more direct, crowd-sourced and visceral.

But then I look at the people and skillsets that are populating this digital and mobile landscape and realize that journalism remains highly relevant. Many of the high-profile leaders of purely digital enterprises come from old-school newsrooms. Even before Katie Couric swapped broadcast TV for Yahoo!, Buzzfeed recently hired Pulitzer Prize winner Mark Schoofs, who had been at The Wall Street Journal and then ProPublica, to head a new investigative unit. Others who came up through the new media world took on legacy titles and positions at long-established media institutions in order to better transmit their messages to the world. I’m thinking here of Glenn Greenwald, and I’ll come back to him in a moment. So while the shape and feel of digital stories may be different, the ability to draft and present a compelling tale based on reportable facts is more necessary – and gets more attention – than ever. In other words, the jobs are changing, but the journalism remains.

Last month alone saw Jim Roberts, who spent 26 years at the New York Times before a stint at Reuters Digital, move to Mashable as executive editor and chief content officer with a brief to help it expand coverage. Twitter also got the urge for a stronger journalism side and hired NBC News chief digital officer Vivian Schiller as its head of news. More recently came word that the new, as-yet unnamed digital media venture of billionaire Pierre Omidyar has hired Eric Bates, the former executive editor of Rolling Stone, to bolster ranks that already include political journalist Dan Froomkin, who spent 12 years at The Washington Post before leading The Huffington Posts’s D.C. coverage.

Omidyar’s venture, of course, first made headlines last month by hiring NSA reporter Glenn Greenwald away from The Guardian. Greenwald’s saga is an interesting illustration of the relevance of journalism from another angle. He started as a blogger with no formal journalism training, back when “citizen-journalist” was the nicest thing that professional media would say about this new breed of digital correspondent. His national security coverage won him a spot at Salon.com as a contributing writer and then an appointment The Guardian as columnist – an old-world title if there ever was one. The Guardian’s global reach and credibility as a news source helped Greenwald spread the word of the NSA material provided by contractor Edward Snowden. Greenwald’s story harkens back to the days before graduate degrees became the norm in journalism, when people came to the craft from all backgrounds (Greenwald was previously a lawyer) and learned it by doing.

In the digital era, Greewald’s professional success across platforms from paper to smart phones underscores my contention: The journalist’s core storytelling toolkit is still in demand. The growing movement of experienced journalists from traditional newsrooms to digital ventures just adds more proof that even if the media are changing, the journalism remains.