A blogger has called you out on one of your company’s products, or your CEO has made a business decision that’s controversial. There is extreme pressure on you to quell the rising outrage, or perhaps even to reverse your decision.

When the heat is on from a crisis or a controversial busi-

ness move, when do you hold ‘em, and when do you fold ‘em? When do you respond or even change your decision, and when do you simply keep your mouth shut?

That’s a dilemma bourbon brand Maker’s Mark expe-rienced in February, after it announced that it was adding water to its recipe to extend supply—dropping the alcohol content from 45% to 42%. The immediate negative online reac-

tion from bourbon drinkers everywhere gave Maker’s Mark a pounding hangover and forced the company to reconsider.

It’s a scenario that Harlan Loeb, global practice chair, crisis and risk at Edelman, knows all too well.

Because of the intensity of social media, Loeb says compa-nies really struggle to hold their ground in the face of a social-media barrage. “It becomes personal. It’s their brand, their

issue,” he says. In a social-media age com-

panies have to balance their business model and operational realities of supply and demand with the satisfaction of their customers. But customers have clout. “Consumers don’t want to be told that something is being taken away from them,” Loeb says.

Ultimately, Maker’s Mark reversed its decision, but Loeb

Page 6 ▶

First Questions When a Crisis Hits: How, Whether and Where to Respond

Social MediaReputation Management Crisis Management

For Communications Pros, Mobile Apps Become Major Business-Driving Tool If you think apps are passé, they’re not. The number of apps available via Apple’s App Store has steadily increased in the last few years, and is now approaching one million, with Google Play’s number not far behind. What does this mean for communicators?

Think of apps as a content delivery vehicle. What’s inside that vehicle creates awareness, educates and (let’s hope) in some way provides value for the user.

It’s up to PR execs to trumpet this value to gain maximum effectiveness. To some communicators, however, apps are still a mystery. That’s why we decided to talk to experts about app development, creation and promotion—all of

which are areas that you’ll need to know if your organization decides to get in on the app craze.

ADD VALUEApps can engage audiences with cool games and social features, and help drive people to purchase, but there are also apps that affect well-being. Take the Sherman Health ICE (In Case of Emergency) app. In January 2012, Sherman Health, a Elgin, Ill.-based healthcare system, approached DC Interactive with the idea of creating an app.

During initial brain-storm the idea of a game was broached, says Charles Falls, president of DC Interactive. “Games get the most down-

loads, and people would download it for free,” he says. However, a game for healthcare didn’t make much sense.

Instead, the company homed in on problems with mobile phones and medical emergencies. A major problem: If a person is incapacitated and her phone is locked, EMTs or good citizens can’t get access to emergency contacts and critical medical information.

The tech fix: DC Interactive put an emergency contact banner ahead of the phone’s lock screen. “That was the seed that started it all,” Falls says. Then the company carried that idea further, adding space for medical conditions, medica-tions and maps to find the

Page 7 ▶

Mobile PRBrandingDigital PR

©2013 Access Intelligence LLC. Federal copyright law prohibits unauthorized reproduction by any means and imposes fines of up to $100,000 for violations.

Seven Things You WillLearn in This Week’s

Issue of PR News 1. Bourbon brand Maker’s Mark ruffled its fans’ feathers by deciding to reduce the recipe’s alcoholic content. (p. 1)

2. Sherman Health’s ICE app ably demonstrates the idea that if an app has value, people will download it. (p. 1)

3. In RFPs, companies shouldn’t leave budgets to be determined by agencies. (p. 2)

4. While 58% of mobile users “like” brands on Facebook, 56% did so simply for the sake of sales or deals. (p. 3)

5. TerraCycle’s business model relies solely on PR outreach to support recycling projects it executes with partners. (p. 4)

6. In the aftermath of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, rig owner Transocean maintained radio silence, refusing to take blame. (p. 6)

7. Ford’s Mustang Customizer app caused a 7% boost in pur-chase consideration. (p. 7)

(DID YOU KNOW?)

March 11, 2013 prnewsonline.com Issue 10 Vol. 69 Contents▶▶How To Create a Rip-Roaring RFP 2

▶Quick Study Workers Prefer In-Person Comms 3

▶Case Study PR Ignites Cigarette Waste Campaign 4

▶Tip Sheet PR-Marketing Bond and Brand Building 8

More premium content at PR News’ Subscriber Resource Center

As any good fisherman knows, what you catch depends a lot on the bait you are using. And so it goes with RFPs (Requests for Proposals).

But, some RFPs can reflect a poor understanding of what PR agencies do. And now, with an increasing number of searches going through procurement, you can see the difference between an RFP that a commu-nicator prepared and one that procurement prepared alone. PR pros who work with their procurement teams can provide valuable guidance and yield a list of better-qualified agencies.

Below are some examples of RFPs that present “red flags” to agencies. Knowing about these red flags can help PR exes and/or their procurement teams hone a better RFP.

▶ The ‘Cattle Call’ RFP: Companies and organizations that send out RFPs to dozens of agencies signal that they have not done their home-work. Agencies perceive their chance of winning the business may not be worth the time and energy to answer the RFP because the odds are too big. In most cases, RFPs should be sent to a dozen agencies or less. If you can’t achieve that through your own research, your first step should be to issue an RFI (Request for Information) to see what agencies offer for capabilities and their past expe-rience. This can help to filter out agencies based on client conflicts, geography, capabili-ties or other parameters.

▶ The ‘Wild Card’ RFP: This is when an agency gets an RFP for something it can do, but really is on the outer orbit of its sweet spot. You should make sure that the RFP is delivered only to agencies that regularly do what you are looking for, otherwise the time invested in reviewing “outliers” is usually

not well spent. You may be comparing apples and oranges when it comes to budgets and activities. And if you did end up choosing the “outlier” for some reason you are likely to invest time and money in the agency’s learning curve.

▶ ‘We’re Not Sure What We Are Looking For’ RFP: RFPs should have clear descriptions of an organization’s reasons for the search. When reviewing an RFP, responding agencies are focused on what the RFP is looking for—or “the ask.” Many RFPs are not clear, or include numerous “asks”—the “everything but the kitchen sink” approach. These are often RFPs that are developed by committee or prepared by someone who may not have an understanding of what a public relations agency offers. In the RFP, the organization should describe its “issue”—the problem it’s looking to solve by hiring an agency. You will find the agencies’ responses will be more focused.

▶ The ‘Quick Turnaround’ RFP: Often procurement will assume that PR RFPs are like those of other vendors, and apply an unreasonable time-frame. When timelines are condensed, the RFP response is less likely to be thorough or well thought out. For companies and orga-nizations that issue RFPs, offering a clear timeline for the responding agencies— including due dates and deci-sion dates—demonstrates a serious and respectful approach to a potential agency relation-ship. Providing a framework to deliver a creative and thoughtful response ensures you will get results you are looking for.

For a responding agency, RFPs that call for unrealistic timelines are warning signs that

a client may not treat its agency teams respect-fully or understand how agen-cies work.

▶ The ‘Budget TBD’ RFP: Agencies receive RFPs all the time in which companies leave the budget for a project or AOR work “up to agency to propose.” This won’t work. Be forthright and up front about what you can realistically put against a budget and you will get a better response from responding agencies. Or at least consider providing a range of what you expect to spend on an agency relationship or project. Agencies that are not given a budget will typically require it to provide a realistic approach.

▶ The ‘Formula’ RFP: Procurement’s involvement in public relations RFPs is a good thing. But sometimes RFPs can become too procurement-focused. For instance, procure-ment execs may ask for infor-mation not relevant to PR (e.g. information related to supply chain vendors) or they may ask for an extraordinary amount of financial background and very little on an agency’s approach. Or worse, they ask for an agen-cy’s input into a formula that they have created to evaluate the services of an agency. While admirable, ultimately a formulaic RFP process yields poor results because PR is full of subjective and variable ele-ments. RFPs that also include approach, ideas, recommen-dations and case studies, are better representative of an agency’s capabilities. PRN

CONTACT:Tim Munroe is VP, business development at Cone Communications. He can be reached at tmunroe@conecomm.com.

2 prnewsonline.com | 3.11.13

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PR News ADVISORY BOARD Paul A. Argenti - Tuck School of BusinessNed Barnett - Barnett Marketing CommunicationsNeal Cohen - APCO Carol Cone - Edelman Peter Debreceny - Gagen MacDonaldMike Herman - Communication SciencesLaura Kane - AflacMichael McDougall - McDougall Travers CollinsLarry Parnell - George Washington University Mike Paul - MGP & Associates PR Deborah Radman - Senior PR ConsultantBrenda C. Siler - Best Communication StrategiesHelene Solomon - Solomon McCown & Co.Mark Weiner - PRIME Research

PR News BOARD OF CONTRIBUTORSDave Armon - Critical MentionAndy Gilman - CommCore Consulting Bruce Jeffries-Fox - Jeffries-Fox Associates Angela Jeffrey - Member, IPR CommissionRichard Laermer - RLM Public RelationsRichard Levick - Levick Strategic Comms Ian Lipner - Lewis PR/YoungPRpros Katie Paine - KDPaine & Partners Rodger Roeser - The Eisen Agency Lou Thompson - Kalorama Partners Reid Walker - T-Mobile Tom Martin - College of Charleston

BY TIM MunRoE

▶Quick Study

Yahoo’s new Policy: Workers Favor In-Person Interaction; Brand Affinity, not Discounts, Drives Social Media ‘Likes’ ▶ Is Marissa Mayer On the Right Track? Despite a marked increase in the number of communication and collabora-tion technologies available to workers, a recent survey by TrackVia reveals that most workers still regularly commu-nicate the old fashioned way, in person and face-to-face. The survey comes on the heels of Mayer’s edict that starting in June all Yahoo employees work from the company’s offices. Survey highlights include:

• Whenacolleagueaskstomeet in person, it’s only slightly more likely to be good news; 69% of respon-dents preferred sharing “pos-itive” feedback face-to-face versus 63% who preferred sharing “negative” feedback.

• FastFriends:43%ofrespon-dents said electronic commu-nication improved workplace relationships. Only 8% said it negatively impacted business relationships.

• Fortypercentofworkerssaid they had worked with someone for an extended period, yet never met them in person—or even talked to the person on the phone.

• Fourteenpercentofrespon-dents reported flirting with a co-worker via email, texting or instant messaging; 10% admitted to initiating a work-

place romance via electronic communications.

• Gendermatterswhenitcomes to face-to-face versus electronic communica-tions: 50% of women said electronic communication increased productivity, whereas 62% of men said it increased productivity.Source: TrackVia

▶ Brand Loyalty Seals Mobile Deal: Discounts, coupons and exclusives are attractive, but not nearly as important to social-media consumers as the loyalty they feel for certain brands. According to a Rhythm NewMedia study in Q4 2012, 61% of mobile users said they fol-lowed brands on Twitter in a show of natural sup-port, compared with 52% who did so simply to receive sales or deals. Conversely, 51% of mobile users said they

followed brands on Twitter just to receive exclusive content and updates. Other findings include:• While58%ofmobilecon-

sumers reported to “like” brands on Facebook, in a sign of allegiance, 56% did so simply for the sake of sales or deals, and just 40% reported doing so for exclusive con-tent.

• Mobileengagementissoaring. In the fourth quarter of last year, 74% of users

accessed Facebook—and 63% accessed Twitter—several times per day via smart-phones and tablets.

• 68%ofmobilesocialusers“like” brands—be it a show, product, store or service—on Facebook, while 56% follow brands on Twitter.

• Twenty-fourpercentofmar-keters are activating social media via mobile campaigns, which represents a 430% increase year-over-year. PRN

Source: Rhythm NewMedia

prnewsonline.com | 3.11.13 3

Source: University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research

F500 Telecoms Lead Corporate Blog Charge

Within Fortune 500 telecoms, 40% have corporate blogs, according to University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research’s annual social media adoption study. To contrast, just one company in the aerospace field has a blog.

Corporate Blogs by Industry number of Companies w/blogs

%

Aerospace and Defense 1/14 7%

Chemicals 3/17 18%

Commercial Banks 6/20 30%

Food Consumer Products 3/14 21%

Insurance: Property and Casualty (Stock) 3/16 19%

Motor Vehicles and Parts 3/16 19%

Specialty Retailers 7/28 25%

Telecommunications 6/15 40%

Utilities: Gas and Electric 6/22 27%

PR News’ CSR & Green PR GuidebookLearn how to link CSR and sustainability to brand messaging, manage CSR programs during and after a crisis, and more!

Act now to embrace CSR, increase your organization’s green appeal, and build your brand’s community-friendly reputation.Order your copy at www.prnewsonline.com/prpress or call Client Services at 888-707-5814.

Chapters include:Cause Marketing & Community RelationsDigital CommunicationsMedia RelationsSustainability ReportingCrisis CommunicationsGreen Messaging

20634

20634 PR CSR Guidebook ad_strip.indd 1 7/2/12 2:26 PM

It’s unusual for a company with revenue of $18 million to bypass media buys to help spread the word about its products and ser-vices, instead depending almost solely on non-paid, public rela-tions efforts.

But TerraCycle isn’t your usual company. Founded in 2001 by Tom Szaky, then a 20-year-old Princeton University freshman, the recycling company began by producing organic fertilizer, packaging liquid-worm poop in used soda bottles. From that, one might suspect that

TerraCycle would have a busi-ness model that’s different from the mainstream.

Here’s the model: The com-pany creates recycling systems for previously non-recyclable or hard-to-recycle waste. Anyone can sign up for these programs, called the Brigades, and start sending TerraCycle the waste. TerraCycle then converts the collected waste into a wide variety of products and mate-rials. With more than 20 million people collecting waste in more than 20 countries, TerraCycle has diverted billions of units of waste and used them to create moe than 1,500 different prod-ucts available at major retailers, ranging from Wal-Mart to Whole Foods Market.

Many of the Brigade pro-grams are executed through

partnerships with some big brands such as Frito-Lay, Kraft Foods, Kimberly Clark, Logitech, and L’Oreal. And they’re all promoted largely via TerraCycle’s PR team.

BUTT BRIGADEIn November 2012, TerraCycle started a program with Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co.(SFNTC), a subsidiary of Reynolds American.

Sensitive to public opinion about smoking and limited by the FTC on how it can market and advertise, SFNTC has focused on sustainability, according to Seth Moskowitz, director of communications.

“All of our facilities are green powered, and since the 1990s we’ve been working with farmers to reduce pesticide use in growing tobacco,” he says.

One green problem that won’t go away: cigarette litter, mainly used butts that people toss on the ground. In 2009 an America the Beautiful study deemed cigarette butts as the most littered item in the country.

Three years later, SFNTC heard that TerraCycle had developed a process to recycle cigarette butts, as well as the inner foil in cigarette packs and a pack’s outer plastic wrapping. “They found a way to turn all of them into recycled compo-nents that could be made into new items,” Moskowitz says. “It’s a great solution.”

SFNTC saw in TerraCycle an opportunity to tackle this problem and add another component to its sustainability program.

So, in June 2012 the com-pany signed on with TerraCycle for what would be called the Cigarette Waste Recycling Program. The program is driven by organizations and individuals who sign-up for free on TerraCycle’s website to become members of the “Cigarette Waste Brigade.” These members collect and ship the waste to TerraCycle.

In turn, TerraCycle would pay for shipping and donate $1 for every pound collected to Keep America Beautiful’s anti-cigarette litter program

Companies: TerraCycle and Santa

Fe Natural Tobacco Company

Timeframe: Nov. 2012 - Present

Budget: $14,493 (as of March 1)

▶Case Study

4 prnewsonline.com | 3.11.13

4 Tips to Executing the Perfect PR for PartnersBy Lauren Taylor, Director of U.S. PR, TerraCycle

TerraCycle’s partners are some of the largest con-sumer products companies in the world. In return for sponsoring our recycling programs, they expect world-class ROI, including PR. Working in partnership adds variety and dimension to your outreach. Here are some tips on how to conduct media relations for any partner.

• Treat a partner like a client: Provide all assets and strategy documents in advance; create in-depth PR reports with ROI sum-marries at the end of any campaign.

• Provide partners with the necessary assets: This way they’ll understand the partnership, stay on message and create their own PR opportunities. We provide Q&A documents to make sure our contacts fully understand how TerraCycle works and the ben-efits of the recycling program.

• Look for new media categories and focus areas to target: Your outreach opportunities can be expanded through a partner-ship. For instance, we wouldn’t be able to tell the TerraCycle story to tobacco media if we didn’t have a cigarette manufacturer as a recycling partner.

• Continuetoshowvalue: Your partnership may not be a focus for your main contact, so that means you should regularly suggest ideas that will show consumers and media why the program is important.

TerraCycle’s very first Cigarette Waste Brigade participant was a beach clean-up effort in San Diego, called RippleLife.org. Ripple Life Founder Curtis Baffico prepares his first shipment to TerraCycle.

TerraCycle Teams with Tobacco Company for Cigarette Waste Collection Effort—no Ifs, Ands or Butts About It

Photo courtesy of TerraC

ycle

PR PartnershipsMedia Relations CSR

Lauren Taylor

prnewsonline.com | 3.11.13 5

PR PUSHEach of the Brigade programs require comprehensive PR planning, says Albe Zakes, global VP of media relations at TerraCycle. For the ciga-rette litter program, it took six months to create all of the PR assets needed—press releases, media Q&As and Web pages.

The campaign’s main mes-sage: The environmental impact of cigarette litter. Here are some stats used in the PR material:

• Ofthe4.5trillioncigarettesconsumed annually, 65% of them are improperly discarded (Keep America Beautiful).

• Nearly40%ofallroadsidelitter is tobacco related (Keep America Beautiful).

• CigarettelitteristheNo. 1 collected item in coastal clean-ups (Ocean Conservancy).

The audience for the message was a change for TerraCycle. Most of its Brigade campaigns attract parents and kids. Those demos were out for this campaign. Instead, media outreach focused on general-interest publications, environ-mental outlets, blogs, college media and tobacco, hospitality and office facilities trades (think workers congregating outside office front doors to smoke).

Office managers were nat-ural targets, says Stacey Krauss, U.S. public relations manager, TerraCycle. “They’re halfway there already,” she says. “Instead of putting butts into garbage cans, they can put them in a box to us to be recycled.

The team would also target tobacco-centric areas like the Carolinas and Virginia.

CAMPAIGN FIRES UPThe campaign got underway Nov. 14, jumpstarted by an AP exclusive.

The campaign includes several social elements: weekly posts on TerraCycle’s Facebook and Twitter pages highlight the

program and earned coverage, linking to a dedicated Cigarette Waste Brigade web page that features up-to-date program stats and instructions on joining. Keep America Beautiful also promotes the program on its social-media channels.

For direct communi-cations, TerraCycle uses existing lists of targets such as anti-litter and beach clean-up groups. Meanwhile, SFNTC’s Moskowitz informs cus-tomers via direct mail, while the group’s web-site (sfntc.com) provides program information.

OVERCOMING OBSTACLESFor most PR, Moskowitz defers to TerraCycle. “They’ve been doing a great job, with good media pickup,” he says. However, with good work comes challenges. One of the biggest: Telling the TerraCycle story multiple times with new partners, Krause says.

Another challenge is local outreach. TerraCycle wants to get the word out locally to attract Brigade members, but local pubs need local tie-ins. “It’s like the chicken and the egg,” Zakes says. So sometimes the team will joke with local media—“You be the tie-in.” Often that works.

One media relations lesson learned for Zakes: After the pilot campaign was launched in Canada, USA Today got wind of it and wanted to run a story. At the time, Zakes was shopping the U.S. exclusive to AP.

“I did everything I could to delay USA Today, but we ended up commenting in a story that ran on its front page,” Zakes says. That ruffled AP’s feat-thers. The moral of the story: Even when the best press comes along, sometimes you need to take a pass, Zakes says.

Despite the obstacles, so far

there have been solid results:

• Morethan1millionbuttscollected

• Morethan2,300collectionlocations established

• 510mediaplacements(nearly 628 million impres-sions), including Agency France Presse, Grist.com, The Washington Post, Tobacco China and Treehugger.com.

In addition, the program has attracted attention over-seas with other cigarette manufacturers. Initiatives in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland launched in April, and in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, in May, says Zakes.

The cigarette waste recycling program is just one of many campaigns TerraCycle is working on. These initiatives are truly powered by PR, says Michael Waas, global VP, client services and business development at TerraCycle. “Once we get recog-nition of a program through the media, we draw in new partners and new interest,” Waas says.

The Brigades and PR represent the front end of TerraCycle’s business, Waas says, with the back end being the manufacturing of collected

waste into new products. It’s a unique model that, to this day, no other company has been able to duplicate, Waas says.

Why? Scaling these pro-grams to realize significant revenue is a challenge, he says. Right now his team of 10 man-ages some 50 partnerships, meaning there’s plenty of PR to be done for Zakes, Krauss and Lauren Taylor, director of U.S. public relations.

To keep a handle on mul-tiple projects, PR is deployed using lots of processes based on prior PR campaigns. “We always joke that we could have a finished press release just by naming the brand and the name of program,” says Zakes. “Our initiatives are built around a system that is always being refined.”

And so far, that system appears to be working well. PRN

CONTACT:Seth Moskowitz, moskows@rjrt.com; Albe Zakes, albe@terracycle.net; Stacey Krauss, stacey@terracycle.com; Lauren Taylor, lauren@terracycle.com; Michael Waas, michael@terracycle.com.

Source: TerraCycle

Cigarette Waste Initiative Goes Global

This global chart shows all media placements covering the Cigarette Waste Brigade during the week of Dec. 17, 2012. The darker shades sig-nify heavier media coverage in that particular country.

6 prnewsonline.com | 3.11.13

Crisis Response▶ Page 1

suspects it wasn’t an easy one to make.

At Edelman, there’s a pro-cess to determine the level of response, involving the analysis of influencers a brand knows and a second set of influencers who have nothing to do with the company. “Then you cali-brate your response to the level of risk,” Loeb says.

Knowing your audience and influencers ahead of a crisis can take much of the sting out of public scrutiny, says Sarah Tyre, managing director in the issues & crisis group at Burson-Marsteller. When under the

gun, Tyre recommends com-municators ask where the con-versation is coming from and who is doing the talking. Then evaluate and decide on the level of response.

Of course, Tyre says there are situations in which orga-nizations should hold off on giving a response: When there’s an active law enforcement investigation; when an entire industry is being criticized, individual companies often elect to remain silent and when criticism is being leveled by fringe elements.

“Responding to them may

be giving them what they want,” Tyre says.

ANTICIPATE OUTCOMESAnd while social media has lifted crises to higher levels of intensity, Tyre counsels clients just as she would before social media existed. The bottom line: Are the people that are in an uproar going to buy your products? “If they’re not going to buy, your business won’t be impacted at the end of the day,” Tyre says. “There’s nothing to be gained by a response.”

AGAINST THE GRAINOne crisis expert who feels strongly about crisis response is Eric Dezenhall, head of Dezenhall Resources.

“Nowadays, every crisis management meeting fea-tures somebody who suggests ‘engaging stakeholders on social media,’” Dezenhall says. “This is always greeted with applause, as if it’s a generically brilliant comment. It’s not.”

The fact is, says Dezenhall, when it comes to crisis man-agement, social media is the problem, not the solution. “I’ve seen very savvy companies get themselves into trouble because they over-responded to a cata-lyst,” he says.

He adds: “Agencies make money selling tactics and in-house PR people are under-pressure to demonstrate value, so there is an inherent bias in favor of taking action.”

Dezenhall puts this phe-

nomenon in the context of marital survival.

“In the 1970s, everybody preached ‘communication’ as the solution to everything. This, of course, led to a divorce rate higher than 50%,” he says. “The more realistic advice is recognizing that there are times when the solution is to just go in the other room for a while and stop thinking that communicating is the cure-all.”

Yahoo did go to the other room after CEO Marissa Mayer said that Yahoo employees would no longer be able to tele-commute.

The announcement sparked a blitz of articles and com-mentary by the media. Yet Yahoo’s silence afterwards sig-naled that the decision would stand. Eventually the company issued a brief statement: “This isn’t a broad industry view on working from home. This is about what’s right for Yahoo.”

Edelman’s Loeb says there’s a trend toward communicators seriously considering whether a response is really necessary. “Ninety-five percent of the chatter out there is not relevant to the success or failure of a business,” he says.

It’s that 5%, however, that can hurt you. PRN

CONTACT:Harlan Loeb, harlan.loeb@edelman.com; Sarah Tyre, sarah.tyre@bm.com; Eric Dezenhall, edezenhall@dezenhall.com.

Pressure Cooker: 3 Companies That Refused To Cave InIt’s human nature to want to respond to a crisis and make things right again. Here are three companies that chose not to respond—and the subsequent results:

Company: Netflix

Situation: In July 2011 the company decided to increase the price of its DVD/streaming plan by 60%, to $16. The move was hugely unpopular, causing a massive uproar among their customers and investors. After losing 800,000 cus-tomers and seeing its stock dive CEO Reed Hastings apologized for the way the increase was handled, but kept the increase.

Outcome: After its stock plummeted to $53 in 2012 from more than $300 in 2011 Netflix is now trading at roughly $182.94.

Company: Transocean

Situation: From the start, the company that owned and ran the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April, 2010, killing 11 people and setting off the largest oil spill is U.S. history, tried to deflect blame to BP. During the government’s investigation Transocean maintained radio silence, not admitting to mistakes, offering no apologies and declining to pay for clean-up, reported Bloomberg Businessweek.

Outcome: In January, Transocean agreed to pay $1 billion in fines for violations of the Clean Water Act. In contrast, BP’s fine was $4 billion. The company says its ready to fight an upcoming civil suit.

Company: Chick-fil-A

Situation: The company’s CEO, Dan Cathy, created one of 2012’s greatest PR crises when, in an interview with the Baptist Press, he addressed what the publication described as Chick-fil-A’s “support of traditional family” with, “Well, guilty as charged.” This raised the ire of a number of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocates and bloggers. But Cathy did not back down from his statement.

Outcome: Ultimately, the media circus surrounding the CEO’s com-ments may have helped more than it hurt. By late 2012, Chick-fil-A was enjoying record profits and increased brand recognition.

Netflix CEOReed Hastings

The bottom line: Are the people that are in an uproar going to buy your products? If they’re not going to buy, your business won’t be impacted at the end of the day. There’s nothing to be gained by a response.”

Sarah Tyre, Burson-Marsteller

nearest Sherman hospital.From ideation to testing to

the launch date in May 2012, the process took about five months, Falls says.

Sherman arranged the PR around the launch, getting the word out that it was offering a valuable—possibly life saving—mobile tool. A secondary story involved paramedics. The hos-pital met with Sherman Health to explain the app and how it could be used. That resulted in more media hits.

Meanwhile, DC Interactive produced a landing page on the Sherman website that featured a full explanation of the site, a video and a link to the Apple Store to download. It was a big hit.

To date, the app has more than 8,000 downloads, not bad for a small-hospital network. To keep up the momentum, Sherman and DC are now using geotargeted mobile ads that are seen only by people within Sherman’s footprint. “At the moment that’s a relatively inexpensive outreach option,” Falls says.

APP 3.0While you could say the Sherman Health ICE app is utilitarian in nature, the Mustang Customizer, a three-year-old app that was devel-oped by Ford Motor Co. app, is a supercharged engagement tool.

Using the app Mustang aficionados can choose a Mustang V6, GT, Boss 302 or a 662-horsepower Shelby GT500 and apply an array of colors, graphics, body kits and wheels in order to customize their digital vehicle.

The big difference in the app from its launch in Sept. 2011: it’s more socially sticky, says Brian McClary, digital marketing manager at Ford. “People can log in with

Facebook and see other friends’ cars, challenge them to a battle, and talk some smack,” McClary says. “The Mustang fans are our most vocal community online, and we get a lot of great feed-back that way.”

If half the PR battle is engagement, the Mustang Customizer fits the bill. There’s been more than five million different digital Mustang ver-sions made, with more than one million downloads of the mobile app.

To increase those num-bers, Ford gets the word out about the app in several ways, including media buys, via its five-million fans on Facebook and a page on the Ford website.

McClary works with Craig Daitch, Ford’s manager of car communications, on the media relations side of the equation. Targeted media include car enthusiast publications and tech sites like Mashable.

In addition, Ford teamed up with Glamour for an Oscar after-party that featured a big outdoor screen on which celeb-rities could project their own Mustang designs. A partnership with Sporting News had sports stars battling each other for customization supremacy.

Yet one of the most effective awareness tools is a Facebook feature that publishes a news story on a fan’s Facebook wall about a new customization—spreading the word to friends.

How does Ford measure the effectiveness of the Mustang Customizer? Download num-bers count, but the Holy Grail is shifting purchase favorability, McClary says. Overall, the Ford team has seen a 7% boost in purchase consideration among those using the app.

B2B BECKONSMeanwhile, at B2B giant Cisco Systems Inc., the company features productivity, educa-

tional and marketing apps—more than 50 apps total. Some are created by Cisco and others by third-par-ties. Steve Lau, senior manager of external mobility, Cisco, over-sees it all through the marketing lens, oper-ating within Cisco’s marketing discipline.

Lau says that with the sheer number of apps Cisco offers—and the variety of audi-ences he’s trying to reach— promoting apps is hard. PR outreach runs the gamut—from webpages to QR codes at events to text messages.

Knowing that not everyone at Cisco is a software devel-oper, the company launched the internal Mobile Center of Excellence, which primes newbie app producers and leads them through the process of developing an app. “It helps people understand the time-line,” Lau says.

The establishment of the Center, Lau says, is important because there’s a huge opportu-

nity for companies to capitalize on apps, particularly in the B2B space.

“There are big gains to be made with apps in terms of productivity and efficiency,” Lau says. “I believe we’re leaders in this, but we still have a lot of growth ahead of us.” PRN

CONTACT:Charles Falls; cfalls@dcinteractivegroup.com; Brian McClary, bmcclary@ford.com; Steve Lau, stlau@cisco.com.

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Apps de Rigueur ▶ Page 1

Four App Facts for Communicators In wrangling more than 50 apps at Cisco, Steve Lau, the company’s senior manager of external mobility, says building awareness about them is a difficult yet critical task of marketing and communications pros. For the uninitiated, here are some app facts that com-municators should be aware of:

• Thereareastaggeringamountofappsoutthere.Make sure your app is highly useful and part of a daily routine.

• Usesocialmediachannelstopromoteyourapp,andmaketheapp as simple as you can and easy to find.

• Thinkaboutamaintenancestrategyfortheapp.“Alotoffolksdevelop and build an app, and forget that it needs to be main-tained,” Lau says. For example, if Apple issues a new OS update, it may break your app. “You must be aware of system updates and have your app constantly checked for bugs,” he adds.

• Anappwon’tbeperfectthefirsttimeout.Whilebeingagileandgetting it right the first time are B2B mainstays, just getting an app out now to cover the mobile space is often enough. “It’s OK to experiment and try new features as time goes on,” Lau says.

Part game, part social interaction tool, Ford’s Mustang Customizer app has helped boost purchase consideration among its users.

Ford’s ‘Muscle’ App

Steve Lau

8 prnewsonline.com | 3.11.13

I’m amazed at the amount of focus today’s marketers put on social media, when in reality few if any companies ever built their brand on Twitter. I would argue that social media has its place within the communica-tions mix, but the lion’s share of resources should be devoted to PR. And here’s why:

Throughout the last 15 years at my company, Avnet, a global distributor of technology products and services with $26 billion in sales, we established and positioned our global brand through building strong editorial relationships in the electronics and IT industries’ business press and, eventually, with national magazines, news-papers and TV producers.

Since 2000 our PR agency, Brodeur Partners, and Kathy Kerchner, a media training consultant and former award-winning TV journalist, have teamed with Avnet to media train more than 500 of our company leaders (plus our mar-keting pros) around the world.

We then turn them loose to speak to the press and earn their stripes as subject matter experts and thought leaders. In most cases, those folks joined Avnet from other companies and had not been permitted to talk to the press before.

We help them understand it is their job to engage with media. We first started with our C-level execs that they are

all responsible for brand. Their engagement and the positive coverage will impact our brand in many ways, touching cus-tomers, suppliers, shareholders and employees. They also had to be examples to others if we were going to succeed.

One phrase always worked: “Would they prefer to read about trends in the industry from competitors or set the tone themselves?” Once they were on board their staffs knew it was important to support and cultivate our PR strategy. The results speak for themselves.

All told, the effort has helped our team to cultivate important relationships: We garner 50% of the coverage among the competitors in our industry, and consider PR our lead branding activity.

My philosophy is that anyone can buy ad space, but your target customers will believe what they read in an article or online compared with what they see in an ad.

Our marketing executives know this, and are on board with a partnership with PR. When they have a story to tell, they use all the tools at their disposal, including advertising, e-newsletters, social media, blogs, SEO, advertising, direct mail and video.

But they work with PR to get the story out to editorial channels because it augments their efforts, and because they

get more bang for the buck. For instance, our marketing

people engage with business partners to create and produce events and education seminars to attract target customers, and our PR people blitz the media to ensure publicity before, during and after those events.

In a digital age PR is the content gift that keeps on giving.

For example, the story can appear originally in a print article, then the editor or reporter repurposes it online, in a blog or a tweet with a link. Then, readers also share articles electronically, and so do our PR teams.

What’s really important for companies is to show their human side, their personalities. Do your employees volunteer in the community? If yes, tell that story in words, photos and video. Does your company sponsor special events? Tell those stories, tying your com-pany’s involvement to larger social or business initiatives.

Wouldn’t you prefer to do business with a company that is active in—and gives back—to the community? To build your brand reputation through sto-rytelling, the messaging is key.

Marketers have to sell products and services; PR professionals have to sell the bigger story. As long as both disciplines understand one another’s goals, everybody can

work together and win in the marketplace.

So, to sum it up, here’s what I would advise in order to build and maintain a strong mar-keting/PR relationship:

• Mediatrainyourmarketingexecutives and educate them about the advantages of PR in supporting and publicizing their campaigns.

• Establishregularmeetingsbetween PR and marketing to share ideas and make sure PR is included in the overall marketing strategy.

• Encouragemarketerstousemore video featuring your company’s thought leaders and engaged customers endorsing your products or services. Nothing beats a third-party testimonial.

• Encourageyourcompanyemployees to use social media to enhance and repur-pose your company’s mar-keting and PR efforts.

• Establishstrongguidelinesfor business use and monitor social sites. PRN

CONTACT:Al Maag is chief communications officer of Avnet Inc. and former chairman of the Business Marketing Association [2011-2012]. He can be reached at al.maag@Avnet.com.

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