NEWSLETTER: November 2013
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Don’t miss a chance to hear more words of wisdom from Stephenie Fu at WWPR’s 2013 Washington PR Woman of the Year Award Luncheon. Our annual signature event will be on Wednesday, November 13 from 11:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the W Hotel, 515 15th Street NW, Washington, D.C. 
The ancient story of David the shepherd boy battling Goliath the Philistine giant serves as the foundation of Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book,
A SPLIT DECISION IN TWO STATES
Author: WWPR
The Role of PR in Politics: A Split Decision in Two States
The Role of Public Relations in Politics is a monthly column written by WWPR member Margaret Mulvihill, examining the role of PR in politics.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of Washington Women in Public Relations
When it comes to politics, is there any difference between public relations messaging and branding? I don’t believe so. Much is being said these days about the implosion of the Republican Party brand – many believe that the electorate sees little or no difference between the GOP conservatives and the Tea Party ultra-conservatives. If that belief continues to take root and grow, the 2014 political landscape will be a very interesting one for all of us observers and commentators. Tomorrow’s candidates will need to be clearly identifiable, preferably with a one-word campaign slogan (think FORWARD). They need to offer new ideas and a positive vision for the future to the electorate.
WAR ON WOMEN
An almost text-book example of messaging, the negative versus the positive, comes from the recent gubernatorial elections. Two races, one in Virginia and one in New Jersey, caught the interest of the nation and have been hot topics of discussion across all media platforms. The Republican Party was branded in the early stages of the Virginia campaign as a party waging a “War on Women.” It is vital to note that this branding was foisted on them by their opposition, the Democratic Party. I can’t stress it enough, brand yourself or someone else will do it for you. Make your message or someone else will make it for you.
NEW, NOW, NEXT
At the conclusion of the first race, Terry McAuliffe (D) eked out a narrow win over Ken Cuccinelli (R), the former Virginia Attorney General. Almost as soon as the votes had been counted, Peter Shumlin, Vermont Governor and chairman of the Democratic Governors Association was putting his party’s spin on the outcome, terming it “a rebuke to the GOP”. He went on to call the victory a foreshadowing of the midterm governor’s races coming up next year. While neither candidate actually came up with anything new for the electorate, the McAuliffe public relations team managed to surround him in a glow of positive branding. Better known as a Clinton fund-raiser, he gained that new, now, next appeal.
BRANDING
In contrast to Shumlin’s spin, there was silence from Bobby Jindal, Louisiana Governor and chairman of the Republican Governors Association. Silence, that is, until the Cuccinelli camp complained to Matt Lewis, columnist at the conservative Daily Caller website, that Bobby Jindal and his team “totally blew it.” The RGA rebuttal was that they had “a close working relationship with the Cuccinelli campaign and were surprised by the criticism.” They said that the RGA wanted to start running negative ads very early on in the race, but the Cuccinelli campaign was fearful of being the first to attack. Again, brand yourself or someone else will do it for you. Make your message or someone else will make it for you. Be the first if that’s what it’s going to take.
SPIN
From these two examples, we see that messaging and spin are critical. A social media strategy allied to a digital campaign is essential for success in today’s political environment. A weak Democratic candidate with a superior understanding of public relations and messaging won. The former State Attorney General, with no social media presence to speak of, no digital footprint, and a less than stellar public relations/messaging effort, lost. Indeed, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) and Chairman of the House Rules Committee, called on the GOP to do everything it can to win back the senate by focusing on messaging. He believes that everything the party does should be messaged with an eye to winning big in 2014. Only time will tell if anyone listens to his sage advice.
NEW JERSEY
Very similar to the Virginia race, the gubernatorial election in New Jersey was a contest between a weak Democratic candidate in Barbara Buono, and the controversial incumbent, Chris Christie. His campaign was lively, forceful and loud. The governor came with baggage, having warred with the teachers’ unions and made unpopular decisions on property taxes and state pensions. His public relations team did an outstanding job of melding Christie’s outspoken personality to the carefully crafted image of an aggressive, unrepentant reformer. Christie was and remains his own brand and his own message.
THE BLAME GAME
Barbara Buono’s (D-NJ) public relations campaign was clearly not as successful as Christie’s. Although the candidate had a presence across several social media platforms, there was a glaring mismanagement of messaging from the beginning. With two weeks to go in the race, Buono started to pull her message together. It was too late. Again, the golden rule of branding and messaging – brand yourself or someone else will do it for you. Make your message or someone else will make it for you. In an honest concession speech she blamed her own party:
“The Democratic political bosses some elected some not made a deal with this governor despite him representing almost everything they’re against,” she said. “They didn’t do it for the state. They did it to help themselves politically and financially. But we did it our way and I’m proud of that.”
The Democratic Party bosses in New Jersey may share in the blame for Buono’s election trouncing, but the candidate’s own team needs to revisit their public relations strategy, messaging and branding plan.
PERSONALITY
Contrasting the two separate elections in Virginia and in New Jersey, where one conservative lost in a purple state and one conservative won in a blue state, the GOP has attempted to downplay the Christie win, saying that his personality contributed to the landslide win, just as Cuccinelli’s reportedly dour social conservatism helped lead to his loss. If it were only that simple! Personality matters, yes, but effective branding and messaging are critical to the mix. In this case, I believe it was that Christie’s team has remained on-point not only during his gubernatorial re-election campaign, but throughout his career. It was hardly an accident that Christie refused to campaign with Cuccinelli. Sometimes, public relations people need to keep candidates away from each other. Looking down the New Jersey turnpike towards Virginia, Christie’s team must have seen Cuccinelli as “off-brand” – conservative, but too much so.
Christie understood the importance of refining his brand and sticking to it. In the end, what is it with him? Personality or messaging? Maybe a little of both.
Margaret Mulvihill is Director of Communications at Lawson Mulvihill in Washington, DC. Follow her on Twitter: @lawsonmulvihill
Trends of the Trade: Are You Pushing Data? Some DIY Infographics Can Help You
Trends of the Trade is a monthly column written by WWPR member Cory Churches exploring, well, trends in PR.Follow her @Coricita or reach her at Cory.Churches@gmail.com.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of Washington Women in Public Relations
Is your business data driven? Do you have great research findings that are complex and dense? If so, are you using infographics to help you reach your audiences? If not, there are plenty of ways you can create eye-catching infographics without being a designer.
Let’s back up a minute and talk about how infographics can boost your reach. An effective infographic can grab a reader’s attention, provide important information at a glance, and give key takeaways that are reader friendly. Most people are visual learners and as such infographics are appealing and beneficial both to the reader and the provider (you).
Key reasons to consider using infographics:
- Easy to use. Think about it an infograph is sometimes easier than writing a new blog post.
- Attention getters. They have the ability to capture an audience where words alone would fail.
- Increase search marketing. Infographics work great in search engines, if someone publishes your infographic and provides a link back to your website, you win.
- Viral magnets. It’s easy to share infographics because they are attractive and can easily be shared on social networks. This increases the chances of them going viral.
- Brand awareness. Add your logo and your website address and you’ve increased your brand awareness.
- Position you as an expert. An infographic will show your knowledge of a subject and reveal your expertise in a subject.
Let’s use a real-world example to illustrate the point. The Department of Labor releases the unemployment rate for October 2013 today. Their official releases are perfunctory, data driven, and filled with all sorts of economist jargon.
Imagine if they (or someone) took the same information and created a simple infographic to help readers absorb the key facts.
Resources like HubSpots’s free downloadable PowerPoint templates help communicators create fun and informative infographics for audiences.
Five more tools that allow you to create DIY infographics include:
- Infogr.am – a free tool that is simple, robust and allows you to import XLS or CSV files.
- InfoActive – includes interactivity and live data. This platform allows you to embed live data, making the graphic more interactive.
- Piktochart – gives users access to a WYSIWYG editor that allows you to drag and drop elements to create infographics.
- Easel.ly – creates visual themes or “vhemes” and makes it easy to select and insert a variety of objects.
- Many Eyes V2 – go beyond pie charts and create word trees, heat maps and word clouds.
And once you get rolling on creating informative and fun infographics, maybe you will see your infographic on the Daily Infographic!
Words of Wisdom: Catching up with Former PR Woman of the Year Stephenie Fu
When you were announced the PR Woman of the Year, what was your first thought?
My first thought was, I honestly can’t believe I was selected, because the other two nominees are really so accomplished so it was really humbling and just a shock! I had honestly gone into that day just thinking it’s a real honor to be nominated, but I’m just going to enjoy it because there’s no way I’ll win. I actually blanked out when they said my name!
During your acceptance speech last year, you told this amazing story about the way your stepdaughter portrayed you in an art project she did for school, showing all the different roles she sees you playing in her life. A year later, how has the title of PR Woman of the Year impacted the role you play as a communications counselor?
I think it just amplifies the challenge that I feel when I get up in the morning. And that is: How is what I’m doing today, tomorrow, this week, doing more than just giving my client numbers to talk about? So I try to get to the real meaning behind the numeric measures of success for a client.
What motivates me the most is when what makes them successful, that end goal, is also something that contributes from a social standpoint with something that I personally find really meaningful. That’s the whole basis for me deciding to do my own thing, and [the meaning behind] my tagline—Change for our Wellbeing. That’s what it’s about.
In our own small way—in communications and PR—our work in itself is not what’s going to change the world. But it’s what we do that really helps causes. Organizations that are trying to impact change, if they don’t have someone who understands marketing and communications, will miss out on a lot of opportunities. So we have the ability to tell their story in a more powerful way to try to help them advance their goals. DC is a great town to do that in. DC is the kind of town that’s filled with ideas and ideals. People come here because they want to help impact change.
You’ve mentioned before that you think it’s extremely important for everyone to “feed the fire in their bellies” and find something they’re passionate about and find a way to feed it through the work they do. How are you feeding the fire in your own belly these days?
I just actually completed doing PR with my team for the first fundraising race for Children’s National Health System [Children’s Hospital]. And I know everyone thinks, “oh great, there’s another race”, but what powered that race is the incredible work that the hospital does. For this event, we worked really hard to find personal stories of families that had been cared for by the hospital who were willing to share their stories. Spending time with those families and hearing their experiences and what they went through and how the hospital was so unique and caring in the services that it provides—that makes all the difference in the energy that goes into the work that we do to support it. Sometimes talking to real people and hearing their experiences reminds me why I love what I do.
And the race was quite successful! We had almost 4,000 participants who raised about $200,000 more than Children’s thought might be raised by race day. And the fundraiser isn’t even over; it kicked off with the race and will continue through the rest of the year. (For more information visit: www.raceforeverychild.org)
What words of wisdom do you have for this year’s PR Woman of the Year and aspiring PR female professionals?
I would say two things:
First, think back to the most recent time you felt really great about what you do and remember what made you feel so good about that because that’s really the nugget that helps remind you [why you’re in this field] when you’re not feelings so great about it.
Second, do as much as possible to help your colleagues, especially your female colleagues. It takes a lot of energy to keep the infighting and drama that happen in any organization going and using that energy instead to help each other is going to go a lot further ultimately. Literally: if we can’t help each other, who’s going to help us? This is still a female-dominated profession and if you think about how much more we could get done by supporting each other and promoting each other we could go a long way. Which is why WWPR is so important!
I would actually make a third point also, and that’s to have a life. Work is important, but if you don’t have something outside of that that gives you purpose you’re going to feel frustrated and unhappy at a certain point. This is a business that’s a magnet for pleasers because we’re not doing work for ourselves; we’re doing work for other people to make them better. So by virtue of what we do, we’re successful when we please other people and other people are not going to be pleased all the time. So when something goes wrong, it’s so easy to feel like the world has collapsed on you. And when you have those moments—and you’re a pleaser—what’s going to help you get out of that? When you have a healthy robust life outside of work you can separate it and come back to it in the morning with some freshness of perspective in mind and just plain new energy. And remind yourself of who you are because who you are is way more than what you do.
Don’t miss a chance to hear more words of wisdom from Stephenie Fu at WWPR’s 2013 Washington PR Woman of the Year Award Luncheon. Our annual signature event will be on Wednesday, November 13 from 11:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the W Hotel, 515 15th Street NW, Washington, D. C. This year’s PR Woman of the Year will be chosen from three finalists who have excelled in their profession and are raising the bar in public relations. Register today! Discounted rates for WWPR and PRSA members.
Danielle Veira is a Communications Associate at Nahigian Strategies and a 2013 Washington PR Woman of the Year Committee Member. Follow Dani on Twitter @DaniV7101.
4 Women Leading the Public Relations Industry
Far from the old stereotypical cigar-chomping male flack of yore, today’s PR professional is more than likely female and leading the PR force at an agency or company in a managerial capacity.
Nearly three-fourths of the 21,000 members of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) are women. According to a PR industry story at Ragan.com, about 85 percent of PR professionals are women. The UK experiences a similar situation. The Institute of Public Relations (IPR) noted PR women (60 percent) now outnumber PR men (40 percent).
In the world of public relations, both at agency and corporate levels, the key elements of PR are primarily about developing business relationships and fostering influence. Industry leaders propel their influence forward with websites and a social media presence. They even rely on good old fashioned networking tactics like business card distributions, luncheons and thank you cards. This influence carries over to media placements, brand exposure, campaign awareness, and increased business deals. Today’s women leaders take the industry to new heights. Here are spotlights on today’s top female PR execs who are admired for their skills, genuine friendliness, responsiveness, and goodwill.
Kendra Bracken-Ferguson
Kendra Bracken-Ferguson is Co-Founder and Chief Operation Officer of DBA (Digital Brand Architects). She was initially a leader on the emerging digital media team at Fleishman-Hillard agency in its global communication area. She began working in new tech companies when she helped the PR campaign launch MySpace in 2003. Eventually, she moved to the top of the digital consumer group at the agency and managed campaigns for brands like AT&T, Reebok, PepsioCo, Motorola, and DKNY. More recently, Kendra was named as one of the winning executives in the 2013 Mashable-WiCi awards.
Her advice for young industry women: “Innovation is disruptive!” Bracken-Ferguson said in an interview with MadameNoire.com. She reminds other female entrepreneurs that entrepreneurship is crucial for economical and community growth. “Innovate, explore and creating something new,” she advocates.
Gini Deitrich
Gini Dietrich founded and runs the marketing communication agency Arment Dietrich. She also has turned the term Spin Sucks into a mini cottage industry of sorts. Dietrich founded and writes the award-winning PR and marketing blog Spin Sucks, and she also launched the offshoot development site Spin Sucks Pro. Online rankings service Klout and TechCrunch recently named her one of the best PR people in the business. Follow her on Twitter as @ginidietrich.
Her advice for beginning women bloggers: Deitrich suggests using social media, friends and family to build early readership. More importantly, she states is an interview with branding professional Craig McBreen, “every blogger has to learn search.” Taking a crash course or having an SEO-savvy friend teach you the basics of search engine science can make all the difference between first-page Google results and invisibility. Deitrich suggests using Google Analytics to measure results.
Debbi Jarvis
Debbi Jarvis leads the corporate goodwill efforts for utility firm PepCo Holdings as its Group VP for Corporate Citizenship and Social Responsibility. She develops and manages corporate goodwill strategies and helps the company increase its philanthropic work. Her philanthropy includes the company’s initiatives in the development of policies and programs for the utility’s corporate social responsibility efforts.
Her advice for business women facing challenges: Jarvis started as a journalist and used that experience to understand the business world and community. Jarvis was honored as one of the 25 Powerful Women in Business in 2007, especially for her ability to overcome obstacles and become an industry leader, according the the Washington Business Journal. “I don’t like to look at things as challenges,” she said, “I like to look at things as more opportunities.”
Deborah Brenner
Deborah Brenner is the co-founder of Women on the Vine, a site and community for spotlighting women entrepreneurs in the wine-making field. She gained exceptional PR and marketing skills for her current role while working for several successful high-end technology startups. Between 2002 and 2005, Brenner ran SmallFishBigPond (her own PR firm) and worked on accounts like NBC, CNBC and Quantel.
Her advice for women doing something new: Brenner was a successful executive in New York and followed her passion for food and wine to research women in the wine industry. She discovered more than just her ‘Women of the Vine” project. “I found a career that feeds my soul,” Brenner said in a Mashable article. She and other pioneering women can serve as excellent examples for women stepping into new territory.
