CQ Alumni Are Awesome

Always a good day when you hear about a CQ alumnus doing well. Today's news is that David Rapp is starting at 1105 Government Media as the Editor-in-Chief.

Read the story at The Dorobeck Insider: "FCW Gets a New Editor: David Rapp...and the new marketing person is official"

Friday Random Linkage

Bill Bishop has been writing a great series of posts at Slate.com, analyzing the polling and results of the election. He theory has been that there is a "big sort" going on as people move to areas populated with people of similar beliefs. Liberals to the coasts, conservatives moving south, etc. His last post reviews the election results: No, We Didn’t: America Hasn't Changed as Much as Tuesday’s Results Would Indicate. Here is a quote:

Political campaigns these days aren't designed to change minds. Candidates target voters who are already likely to support them-and then the campaigns feed these voters more of what they want to hear. That's a strategy that is all about polarization, and it works.

Switching gears, Axl Rose released the latest Guns-n-Roses album this week. I was going into my senior year in high school when Appetite for Destruction came out- it's literally the theme music for the year I lived in London. Every time I hear those riffs, I feel like kicking something just go the sheer aggressive fun of kicking something. I haven't bought the new album yet, but the reviews have been rather slashing (lol). Here is a quote from SPIN:

Guns N' Roses, 'Chinese Democracy'

An outrageously overblown pop-metal extravaganza, Chinese Democracy feels like a perfect epitaph for all the absurdity and nonsense of the George W. Bush era -- one final blowout before Principal Obama takes our idiocy away.

The music toggles between two primary modes: grinding industrial rock and keys-and-strings balladry. (Imagine Rammstein covering Wings, basically.)

And in the, closing the barn door after the horse has run away, GM is getting rid of its jets, after getting skewered in the press. Truly, the management of the car companies must be some of the stupidest people on earth.

Lastly, mint.edu has a great post, A Visual Guide to the Financial Crisis. Lol.

My take on the Motrin debacle

No news to anyone interested in PR these days, but Motrin screwed the pooch over the past week. How can any company be taken by surprise by a negative reaction to a new campaign nowadays? Consumers are active, vocal and organized. You might want to run your messages by them before rolling out a campaign. Get their feedback- you know, find out what their pain points are (he he).

Here is an excellent list of things to do, from NevilleHobson.com:

Of the many blog posts published by communicators and pundits with opinions, one of the best I’ve seen comes from Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang and lessons learned:

• Always test your campaign with a small segment first
• Always have staff on hand to be prepared to respond during the weekend
• Don’t launch a campaign right before the weekend unless you’re prepared to respond
• The participants have the power, so participate
• For better or for worse, more influencers are talking about Motrin than ever before

I’d add one in the middle:

• Ask yourself: what is our plan of action if a viral effect develops around our brand/product/service, especially out of our normal business hours?

But it’s the last two of Jeremiah’s bullet points that are especially important.

Amen.

LinkedIn's Applications

Hi all, it's been a while since I last posted. With the market gyrating and Sequoia's famous powerpoint presentation scaring the bejesus out of everyone (btw, you should read this is you haven't already), I've been busy focusing on new business development activities and developing a new marketing initiative. I believe in the theory that companies that can invest in marketing to maintain positive cash flow and compete effectively in a downturn can take market share and drive some competitors out of business.

One company that seems to have the same approach is LinkedIn. They announced the launch of their applications platform today. I've been very impressed with the groups feature they added earlier this year. In terms of traffic to my website, and generating conversations, it's the best, most immediate return on my investment of time, I find.

I'm eager to explore the apps they currently offer and I'm excited to see what apps are developed down the road. My concern however is that LinkedIn will have to gradually loosen the restrictions on contacting people you don't know. Now, any email you receive is going to be legitimate and, most likely, worthwhile to read. It would be a shame if they killed the golden goose by letting LinkedIn turn into a spam machine.

Oscar Fuster! ePok! Straight to the Point podcast!!

Yes, it's very exciting! Last week, I was lucky enough to sit down with Oscar Fuster, the VP of Marketing and Strategic Alliances at ePok, an access management software company based in Bethesda, MD. Oscar is an experienced marketer having lead marketing teams at iGov, International data Products, SMS Data Products Group. He shares his experiences working in growth environments and the impact of social media. Oscar's been with ePok for less than a year- would you market ePok differently?



(In the interests of transparency, ePok and Strategic (my firm) are working together. We were picked to develop and run the social media/PR aspect of Oscar's marketing strategy.)