Uppers & Downers - a valuable lesson

Today I had my first taste of success in PR.

It all started yesterday afternoon...

I stumbled across an interesting group on facebook about a local grad from Guelph in a contest for the "best job in the world". I went online, saw his video, voted for him then realized he needed at least 100,000 more votes in 14 days...talk about an objective. Looking at his facebook enrollment of about 5,000 I decided he could use a little help and took it upon myself to write a few e-mails.

This morning, as usual, I was watching Breakfast Television. My heart skipped a beat as they featured my story in their newscast...despite a 1/2 hour GO delay, a woman killed by a car, a stray bullet in North York and a murderous rampage in Germany dominating other headlines. Adrenaline rushed through my veins. What a coup for me.

Or so I thought...

Later, as I was sitting in class listening to the difference between measuring output and outcome I realized that my coverage, while satisfying exhilarating meant nothing if I couldn't measure it.

PR measures of AVE and MRP's don't really mean anything because they are just impressions, they don't tell you about any behavioural change in your audience You can actually measure real PR and communications outcomes according to Scott Langdon. Communication is behavior, not words on a page, realize this and you are ahead of the game.

Perfect example: my brilliant coup for Mitch Moffit, sure he was on a popular newscast, but voter ship didn't grow that day...or at least you couldn't prove the correlation to the coverage...that is the importance of measurement and what I promise to try and change throughout my career.


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Attention Fellow PR Students

I don't even know if anyone actually reads this blog.

For those of you who have stumbled across it please check out this article in the Globe. It contains useful tips on getting the attention of journalists...must have been a slow news day.

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found the article on twitter...btw.
Thanks to Trevor Campbell of Porter Novelli

Check it out!

So, my good buddies in Lifestory Monologue have just posted a few new tunes online. Please check them out.

Thanks

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Book Review: Smile when you're lying

Let me preface this by saying: I am not a critic, nor am I an author so I probably have no place criticizing this book...but I am going to anyway.


Smile when you're lying is meant to be an expose of the travel industry's darkest secrets by a so-called "rogue" travel writer. What you really get (and I am cutting to the chase here) is 300 pages of self indulgent bull-corn, worn out cliches and exaggerated stories strung together with an unnecessary amount of lame similes.

The irony is, the book is meant to call out how bad travel writing has become, how it is a cookie cutter industry, and how anyone could do it. He thinks travel writers are garbage? He must have been sitting in the same dumpster while writing this book.

He is cynical and tired of life on the road, he hates the travel industry, he hates the commercialized world...cheer up man, you're depressing.

One thing I do appreciate is his view on the Lonely Planet. This hippy garbage is as contrived and commercialized as it gets. But the people who read them don't even realize that Lonely Planet is its own antithesis. Good on ya for noticing that one.

Chuck Thompson: Sorry buddy but if I want to hear about glorified coke binges and close encounters with prostitutes and drunk expats. I'll read...anything... It's been done as many times as a Thai Hooker <---That one's for you.

To sum it up the book was like this blog: pure masturbation (self pleasure).

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Revelations about narrative

Alright, so... this is going to be brief because it is simple: everything is better in fiction than in reality.

All stories are embellished because the way they really happened is boring. When telling stories you can create the "ideal situation". Take my own story about the Ferrari for example. It happened, but in reality there was no colourful language...there were no parkas the lady didn't call me hunny.

The easiest way to make an interesting character is to make them either extremely wealthy or extremely poor 'cause lets face it, who wants to read/watch/listen to a story about regular people. Watch almost any movie or TV show. Doctors, lawyers, criminals, police, spoiled high school kids (The Hills). Heck, take money out of the equation and Donny & Jaclyn's lives are looking pretty interesting...we could even be on cribs!

This doesn't just apply to scripted fiction, but to everyday news as well. Remember they are called news "stories" for a reason. Sure the events happen, but keep in mind there is a person, just like you or me, writing about them. Their job is to make it newsworthy which is synonymous with: interesting, meaningful, crucial, significant, and a whole slew of other words turning most things in the news into nothing more than embellished reality.

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...I guess by brief I meant ranty.

February whirlwind

So it has been a long time since I have posted. It is not because I have had nothing to write, but because February was a very busy month.

Today I am going to populate my blog with a few of the thoughts that have flooded my mind throughout February.

A lot of my time has been committed to an event that I am organizing as chair. I designed a website which is just about to go live. You should check it out, there is a cute video spoof that our students made just for the event, along with other useful info.

I would like to extend my congrats to Mark and Sarah on your wedding! It was a wonderful day, thank you for allowing us to be a part of it.



Finally, at the end of the month we got a puppy!!! George is a five month old French Bulldog, he is healthy and full of love.


Alright, so that was February at a glance. Stay tuned for more about what's on my mind.

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