It reminded me of an old episode of WKRP in Cincinnati in the late 70s/early 80s, where they did a Thanksgiving promotion by dropping turkeys out of a helicopter… only problem – turkeys can’t fly.

When it comes to these types of guerilla promotions or any kind of publicity stunt, you need to think it through from all angles. You need to be critical and tough on the idea and think about the worst thing that could happen and the worst reaction someone could have. In this day and age, it’s likely someone will have that reaction and share it via social media.

I think the days of the “shock value” publicity stunts are gone. From our experience, if you are going to do something that will get the attention of the media, the public or your stakeholders, a smarter approach is to do something with great visual appeal that contributes to the world in some fashion. Even if it is just to make people smile. (Like a flash mob, although that’s been done a lot.)

For example, early on at AHA we had the opportunity to work with the producers of an excellent documentary series called Healing with Animals. (We blogged about Wallace a bit in a post last month.) One of the animals in the series was a llama named Wallace. Well, Wallace loves people and he is quite good at working with elderly people who have dementia. We wanted to promote the series (that showcased how animals help humans to heal emotionally and physically) so we got Wallace a spot on The Vicki Gabereau Show (now off the air) and we took him into downtown Vancouver for the studio appearance. We leveraged his appearance by having him stand on the corner of Robson and Burrard to sign “hoof prints” (a llama version of an autograph).

When we came up with this idea – we did our research. We confirmed that Wallace would not be put into high stress by this event. The owners of Wallace explained to us that he often went out into public places that had large groups of people and that Wallace enjoyed it. The last thing we wanted to see happen was for Wallace to get stressed out. Not only did we not want that for him, but it could also make him react aggressively and that might hurt someone.

The event was a huge success – his TV appearance was fabulous and lots of people got to meet Wallace on the street. And he was really happy to be there. But – we thought through what could go wrong in the planning stage, and because we did that, it worked out as planned.

Take the time to think publicity stunts through. It’s worth the extra time it takes in planning.

I have an entire rant about how valuable journalists are to a free and just society and how I believe communicators and journalists actually work in partnership (we don’t always have to agree or even like each other, but we do have work together). The actions of this communicator go against everything I believe you should do in media relations. But that’s not what I am going to talk about today. Today, inspired by this video, I want to go back to some common courtesies of communication. The basics.

I am often amazed (and appalled) at the lack of courtesy and common decency that I see in the world. Seemingly small things like please and thank you. Holding a door so that the person behind you doesn’t get it slammed on them. Responding to an email or phone call in a timely fashion. Showing up on time to meetings and appointments… the list goes on.

In the business world, there are a few things that I think are important when it comes to the basic tenets of good communication. Some of these are basic manners like those your mother taught you, some are plain old common sense, and others are about doing the right thing even when it’s inconvenient.

Be Respectful

View the people around you as colleagues or equals – not underlings.

I have had the opportunity to work with some of the best of the best in journalism and as a communicator. The people who have accomplished the most (and I have to say are the happiest) are the ones who build strong relationships with those around them – not just with those in more senior positions who can help.

In this video, it looks like the communications person thinks the media are not her equals – her lack of respect for them is obvious. If she had seen them as colleagues* and had been respectful of their perspective in this situation, this could have turned out quite differently.

*Don’t get me wrong here; I realize that some relationships with journalists won’t be easy. When we pitch media on behalf of clients, we view the information through the lens of a journalist. We poke holes in the news value, we criticize and critique the information we want to share, and we know it has to meet a certain standard before a journalist is going to be interested in what we have to say. I believe that our society needs journalists. They make my job tougher, but they make me a better communicator. And I believe that when communicators do their job well, some journalists see us a resource – and as a colleague.

Be Truthful

I realize that in the business world, sometimes this can feel challenging. Being truthful doesn’t mean you have to tell all – there are parts of your workday that are confidential and need to be kept that way. If you can’t talk about something, explain that you can’t talk about it at this point because of XYZ. If you made a mistake, come clean. Explain what happened, why it happened and how it will never happen again. I would also hope you would show some concern, compassion and care about what happened. Everyone makes mistakes. It’s when you try to lie your way out of them, or don’t seem to care about the people affected, that it becomes a problem.

Be Considerate

There are little things you do all day long that send out a much bigger message than you realize.

Respond to Emails

When you get an email from a colleague, a client, your agency or even your family – what do you do? Ignore it? Put it aside to answer later? Delete it? Unless you are trying to discourage Cousin Edith from sending you another funny cat video, respond to your emails within 24 hours. Even if that response is just – “I received this and I will get back to you by Friday.” Don’t leave people wondering if you got the email or if you are ignoring them.

Pick Up the Phone

Don’t just email – pick up the phone and talk to people. Emailing, texting and other online communications are great. Don’t forget to call them or, even better, go and see them in person. Nothing replaces in-person contact.

Respect Other People’s Deadlines and Timelines

You aren’t the only person in the world who is under deadline pressure. If you promise something to someone and you can’t meet the deadline, let them know.

Be On Time

Don’t keep people waiting. That sends a message that you think their time isn’t as valuable as yours. Show up on time.

Be Present

If you are meeting with someone, don’t keep checking your smartphone for emails or texts – unless you have an issue or crisis happening. If that’s the case, apologize and explain you have an issue or crisis.

Say please and thank you.
It seems simple, but acknowledging the efforts of others in such a simple way is a big thing.

And Don’t…

Please, please – don’t chew gum like the person in the video. I don’t need to see the gum in your mouth while you are talking.

I would love to hear your ideas of what “little things” make a big impact.

We have a fun, interesting looking clock in the AHA kitchen. I am sure it was inspired by the works of Salvador Dali. It is kind of melting and surreal, and when a person first sees it, they are unsure how to tell what time it is. It’s been hanging in the kitchen for about a year now. It seems perfectly normal to those of us who spend any time in the room.

We had an AHA crew member come by a few days ago and her surprised (and fascinated) reaction to the clock was interesting. It was a clear reminder that if you are exposed to something on a regular basis, it can lose its impact on you. It is important to remember that, especially when you are developing messaging, positioning and outreach campaigns. Not everyone will have your knowledge, your exposure, your familiarity – they may not view what you are communicating through the same lens that you do.

As communicators, we often need to take a step back and look at things from different perspectives. To think about how they will be received by each of the stakeholder groups – and potentially by the groups as a whole. At AHA, we have developed a series of questions to ask as we build campaigns or develop messages, positioning or speeches (or just about anything that will be shared). It is important to remove yourself from what you think and put yourself in the shoes of others. Our approach is always to view the work we are doing from a range of perspectives – from supporters to critics to those that just don’t care (and many in between).

The work we do is called communication, but a large component focuses on perception – how what is being shared, promoted, communicated or told is going to be heard.

It’s important to take a step back and make sure that you have taken the perspective of all stakeholder groups into consideration.

I love my time in the morning. With coffee in hand, I have the opportunity to learn something new everyday. The information and knowledge shared online allows me to put information into context, to see different perspectives, and to better understand how, when and why different tools and tactics could be used. I also see best and worst practices. There is a wealth of information available online and it’s current, innovative and of value.

We are big fans of Brian Solis. I came across this piece by him today and thought I would share it. It’s a worth a read.

It’s worth a read.

There are many, many functions of PR. At the foundation, we help our clients to build positive relationships with their “publics.” (You can replace the word publics with the noun that works for you: stakeholders, audience, target market, employees, government, media, community—the list goes on and on.)

One of the questions that came up when I was speaking to the students was around engagement and the best way to approach it. That depends on the community and the organization’s objectives, but it brought home the fact that PR is about engagement and that you don’t engage by just putting up a Facebook page or opening a Twitter account.

At AHA, we have an in-depth process that we go through with a client when we are focused on engagement. You really need to understand your target market—who they are and how they want to connect with you. (Not how you want to connect with them!) There is a great deal of research involved, the defining best practices, understanding what the organization wants to communicate and discovering what the stakeholders want to hear from the organization. Being interesting, informative and, even, entertaining (which can scare some organizations) is important. You want to provide people with something that is of value to them. If you are just pushing out information, you will lose their interest.

We approach engagement as an evolving entity that needs consistent attention paid to it and that can—and should be—measured on a regular basis. Engagement is an art and a science, and it takes effort. You need constantly pay attention and review what is working and what isn’t.  You need to authentically connect and ask stakeholders what they want. You also need to respond in a timely fashion to their requests, demands and feedback or they will go elsewhere.

To me, engagement is at the heart of what we do. There are a lot of great communications plans that don’t produce results because this one important step—engagement—didn’t get enough attention in the planning stage.

We’re doing some (early) spring cleaning at the AHA office. As we go through files, media coverage binders and jump drives, we have the opportunity to reflect a little on campaigns and projects from the past. This week, we came across the files for one of our favourite creative campaigns. In the early days of AHA, we were fortunate enough to be asked to work on a documentary series called Healing with Animals, produced by Mystique Films. This was a fabulous series that focused on how animals help humans heal.

We wanted traditional media coverage for the launch of the series. (This was back before social media was as widely accepted as it is today… Seems like a million years ago, but in reality we’re only talking about seven years.) We also wanted ongoing coverage as well. We were fortunate that the filmmakers (Mary Bissell and Chris Bruyere) were out-of-the-box thinkers and “got” what we wanted to do, because we used a creative approach that took a bit of a leap of faith on their part. (Which is why we loved working with them!)

One of the segments focused on Wallace, a llama that would visit homes for the elderly. It turns out that Wallace loved people and that seeing a llama in their lobby created a positive reaction in some of the elderly, especially those suffering with dementia. Quite often, the surprise of seeing Wallace would pull the person into a period of reality. They were able to interact, converse and connect in a way that they normally struggled with due to their condition. Wallace loved the attention and the people he visited loved him.

We ended up generating a huge amount of national coverage for the series and Wallace was one of our “stars.” Our client was thrilled with the results.

The lessons we learned working with Wallace were many—below are the top three.

If you are pitching media, do your research.

We knew that (at that time) national talk show host Vicki Gabereau had a soft spot for animals. She ran a weekly spot showcasing pets that were up for adoption. She owned two labs. We saw an opportunity here to appeal to her personal interest in animals, as well as to pitch why it was good for the show as a whole.

We customized our pitch to reflect the key points we knew about Vicki and the show. It wasn’t a generic pitch; it reflected the show’s mandate and touched some personal interest points for the host. The producer loved the idea and Wallace and our client were invited to come on the show.

Get the most value for your efforts.

Wallace lived on Vancouver Island and The Vicki Gabereau Show taped in downtown Vancouver. There was a body of water between us. Wallace’s wranglers brought him over via ferry. (He loves the ride and had his own customized van for travel.) It took a lot of time and effort from everyone involved to bring Wallace to Vancouver to appear on the national talk show. In order to make the most of this opportunity we added an autograph session to Wallace’s visit. (I mean, really, how many times in a communicator’s career do you have a llama in the downtown core of Vancouver?) Prior to the taping of the talk show, we had Wallace at the corner of Burrard and Robson (one of Vancouver’s busiest corners) “signing” hoof autographs for fans. Wallace loves people, so he was in his glory with the tourists, the children and everyone coming to meet him and pet him. We sent out a photo opportunity notice to media across the country—explaining that Wallace was in town to be on The Vicki Gabereau Show to promote his segment in Healing with Animals.

There was huge national coverage on this. The coverage not only showed images of Wallace in downtown Vancouver, but also mentioned his upcoming appearance on The Vicki Gabereau Show (the show was live to tape so aired a day later) and mentioned Healing With Animals and when it aired. Everyone benefited.

We also had a shot taken of Wallace on the corner signing autographs and sent this out to community papers and other media that couldn’t make the photo opportunity. This also generated coverage and it was used in promotional materials for the show, providing additional value to the filmmakers and the broadcaster.

Do whatever it takes to get the job done.

People have an idea that the life of a communicator is filled with nice lunch meetings and business class trips to posh client organizations. Not my life, not that I would trade it for anything.

I learned a lot about llamas while working with Wallace. 1) They spit when they are mad. (I am grateful I never made Wallace mad at me.) 2) If Wallace really liked you, he would lean in for what seemed to be a kiss, and then he would expel air in your face. No spit, just stinky llama breath of affection. (He seemed to really love me!) 3) They won’t go to the bathroom unless there is already llama poop at the spot. Well, Wallace needed to do his business before we took him into the studio. His wranglers had thoughtfully brought a bag of llama poop with them. It was my job to put out the poop so Wallace would then do what he needed to… which he cheerfully did. Then it was my job to pick up all the poop.

There I was, in a small parking lot just off Burrard Street, picking up llama poop in my business clothes. Such a glam life I lead.

Now, I am not sure I would put Della up against Jeopardy genius Ken Jennings—that’s just a different kind of smart (and one that I believe has more to do with memory than anything else). But I have seen Della in a wide range of scenarios—from dealing with an organization facing a huge crisis to sipping a cold beverage at an outdoor patio on a hot summer day—and along with her strategic, steel trap of a mind… There is something else, something special and rare and well, simple, that is the foundation of her style of genius (and her success). She is a relationship builder.

Della recently launched a blog – Della’s Deck. It’s about effective, powerful and authentic communication. And it provides straightforward advice that can be put into action immediately. It is valuable to me from a professional communications perspective, and I get value from it in my personal life. This week, Della wrote about the power of authentic relationships. She also shared a list of questions that you should/could know about the people in your life… I was amazed at how many of them I couldn’t answer about people—clients and friends—who I would say I have particularly close or positive relationships with. I am going to change that.

Authentic relationships are at the heart of communication. And that doesn’t mean that, as a communicator, you need to meet every single person on your media distribution list—although you should know who they are, what they cover for their media outlet or blog, and understand why what you are sending them is of interest to them. That is a relationship. It might be a few steps removed from the kind of relationship where you can call a journalist and ask them to meet you for a coffee, but it is still a respectful relationship.

At AHA, we often have people call us out of the blue and tell us why we should hire them. No relationship building by commenting on this blog or chatting with us on Facebook or Twitter. Their calls are based on what we should know about them. I often wonder how much they know about us—if anything.

We recently had someone become quite persistent about calling to tell us why we should hire the company she works for to produce video for our clients. We asked her if she realized that we have a video crew here at AHA. She hesitated and then said: “But we’re better.”

Really?

Firstly, I don’t think she even checked our site. Secondly, our crew produces brand journalism videos. Had she looked at our site and paid attention to who we really are, she might have said: “Yes, I see you do brand journalism videos. I really liked the one that you did for Vancouver Community College’s Year of Science event. We actually produce a more corporate (or documentary or VH1-like) style. Perhaps we could chat and see if we can be of value to you, for those times when you need a different video style.” That might have gotten my attention. Opportunity lost because she didn’t even try to start an authentic, mutually beneficial relationship with us.

Relationships matter.

There are some standard approaches to storytelling that consistently work – if you have compelling content. There is the “Hero’s Quest.” This tells the story of someone standing up – against the odds – for what they believe in. We have had many opportunities to use this in showcasing how individuals in an organization brought social responsibility to their workplace or how they overcame personal challenges to grow and evolve, and what that experience means to their professional role.

The “Coming of Age” is the story of transformation where there is a valuable life lesson that is learned through experience. This storyline can be very effective in our wired world. We have used it to showcase how an organization grew and evolved, how another embraced new methods of employee attraction and retention, and how one embraced the new conversational approach of social media and the active, online consumer.

There is the “Stranger in a Strange Land” approach, which speaks to change and how to adapt. We have used this with great success when introducing a new CEO or senior executive that has come from another industry.

And we can’t forget the “Romance” – in a corporate environment, this would be called “Collaboration” – which we have used during mergers and acquisitions, when two diverse divisions or departments were given an opportunity to work together.

These are just a few of the classic storylines that you can use to tell your story. At the heart of it is the human interest component, which we will talk more about in Thursday’s post.

Once you have defined your storyline and understand what it is you want to share, it is also important to identify the medium (or mediums) that will work for your stakeholder groups. Often we develop a storyline that is told through different mediums, which gives us the opportunity to share different aspects of the story. Writing a profile article is very different than a feature piece; telling the story through video will showcase different aspects than a print piece. A podcast is different again.

It isn’t just about what medium will tell the story most effectively; it’s also about how your target audience wants to engage. We often reach out with a brief survey and ask them whether they would prefer to read an article or watch a video or, in some cases, listen to the podcast. Instead of assuming, go to the stakeholder group and ask.

The fact is, stories are being told about your organization all the time. Whether the stories are good or bad, they are being told by clients or customers, by service providers, employees and contractors (and their families and friends), by competitors, your board members, government officials and by the media.

When we start working with a client, we often do a little bit of research and find some of the stories that are being told about the organization. There is a great deal of information that can be found online, in blogs, in media coverage, on social media networking sites and on consumer review sites. We also often develop and execute communication audits that ask a range of stakeholder groups for their confidential feedback. Focus groups, both more formal and informal, can also help to inform us of what your story is “on the street.”

Once you have a sense of the story that others are telling about you, it helps to understand what type of story you should be telling at this point. Are the stories that are being told by stakeholders positive or negative? Are they accurate or do they contain errors or misinformation? What is the theme of the stories?

You can learn a great deal from what is being said about your organization now. Understanding this component is the first step in developing your organization’s story on your terms and, when you share it, having your stakeholder groups connect to it and retell it – the way it should be told.

Next week – step two and three.