CS2 Live

BY: Kate Metcalf

People all over the world are finding various methods to express their outrage in response to the ongoing hacking scandal of Rupert Murdock’s News Corporation.

Concerned citizens are protesting, governments on both sides of the Atlantic are investigating, comedians are mining the hoopla for laughs. Wendi Deng’s slap heard ‘round the world has already become a meme all its own, hitting the online trifecta of animated gif, someecard design and Urban Dictionary entry nearly overnight. Yes, being Wendi-slapped is officially a thing now.

Beyond the handwringing and backpedaling, the controversy has launched an important conversation about journalistic ethics, individual privacy rights and the occasionally too-cozy relationship between reporters and their official sources. It’s also spawned a movement for responsible web surfing in the process.

For those looking to disassociate themselves from Murdoch’s massive media empire in the wake of the scandal, there are now several tools to make Internet browsing News Corp-free.

From Business Insider:
Murdoch Alert, a Firefox add-on, warns an Internet surfer when he or she stumbles upon a Murdoch-owned site. (A previous program called Murdoch Block simply wouldn’t allow browsers to go to any page owned by News Corp or its subsidiaries without permission from the user of the computer.)

Even if you think that the criminal acts of a few don’t necessarily reflect the corporate ethos of a whole, the Murdoch Alert add-on is still fascinating in the way it illustrates the expansive reach of News Corporation online. It’s a good reminder of the importance of the Internet as a repository for unfiltered, multifaceted news content in the face of the growing monopoly-based approach of traditional news sources.

BY: Kate Metcalf

Earlier this spring, Miracle Whip launched a campaign to stoke the debate between those who can’t live without the sandwich spread and those who find it an affront to condiments everywhere (full disclosure…I fall in the latter camp).  The campaign features well-known personalities including Amy Sedaris, James Carville and the Jersey Shore’s Pauly D expressing either their love for or hatred of the brand. The campaigns feature a call-to-action to consumers to voice their own opinions on the brand’s YouTube page.

Acknowledging that some consumers hate your product is nothing new. You don’t have to go too far back into the recent past to find examples of other companies airing their dirty laundry to regain public credibility (see Domino’s admission of subpar pizza for proof).

But this is different. This isn’t a mea culpa for a product gone awry. Miracle Whip is drawing a definitive, creamy line in the sand, saying that though it might not be for everyone, the spread has a place in the hearts of plenty of sandwich lovers out there. The brand has carved out a special niche for those who truly get their product and provided those brand loyalists a forum to share their preference with the world. They have stoked the competitive fires, and their loyalists have responded to the challenge – it must be noted that those in favor of the spread currently outnumber those opposed by a margin more than 17 to 1 on the official YouTube page.

And their choice of celebrity spokespeople, although bizarrely varied, serves a purpose too. The always classy Pauly D appears on camera declaring, “I hate Miracle Whip so much. I tell you. If I had a girlfriend who liked Miracle Whip, it’s a deal-breaker.”

Congratulations, Miracle Whip, you might have just given me a reason to purchase your product.

BY: Kate Metcalf

There was a lot of buzz in this office about The Bachelor, especially as Brad got closer to picking his “true love.” I’ve never really been a fan of the show, as I find the idea of picking someone to spend the rest of your life with out of a pack of 25 people on national television a little unsettling. But while reality show matchmaking may not be my scene, I am totally fascinated with the upcoming reality of the royal wedding.

I come from a long line of Anglophiles. In fact I vividly remember the sense of panic I felt when realized I taped an episode of Dawson’s Creek over my mom’s prized recording of Charles and Diana’s wedding (Mom, if you’re reading this, sorry about that). And I really cannot tear myself away from the hoopla surrounding William and Kate’s wedding. Not only is it a present day fairy tale of love between a prince and a normal girl who seems to be grounded in everyday life, it is also a marketing wonder. And the commemorative items run the gamut from high brow to low. As Amy Wolfe (follow her on Twitter @cs2AmyW) pointed out, you can purchase a commemorative crystal shot glass, or you can sample the latest draft on tap in pubs in merry old England – “Kiss me Kate.” Tours of Kate’s hometown are on offer, and every time she steps out in public, whatever she is wearing quickly flies off the shelves of her favorite designer’s stores. I don’t know about you, but I can’t get enough of it.

I can’t figure out why this love story has me wanting to know everything about it. Is it that I remember idolizing Princess Diana as a child and crushing on both princes? Could it be that it is the real-life embodiment of every Disney movie ever made? Could it be because the bride has such a great name (Kate with a K and Catherine with a C is really the way to go)? Or is it possibly because it is a great PR event with lots of marketing dollars behind it? Whatever the reason, I am all in. Where’s my invitation?

BY: Kate Metcalf

I’ve always heard that advertising speaks to you when you’re ready to hear it. For instance, if you are expecting a baby, you’ll start to see ads everywhere for diapers, formula and monogrammed everything everywhere you look. When you’re in the market for a new car, those car commercials involving manically screaming strangers seem less ear-piercing and more persuasive.

I’ve discovered that the same is true for the relentless, all-consuming wedding industrial complex that I currently find myself in the midst of. Since getting engaged, every newsstand seems to have a bridal magazine, every bus shelter an ad for a wedding expo. Even clients seem to be a part of the conspiracy, launching new wedding-themed promos and events.

Now, I realize that wedding advertising is ubiquitous and that my sudden tendency to be overwhelmed by the persistent calls to my inner bridezilla says way more about my own state of mind than it does about any advertising trend.

But it does illustrate how getting in front of the right audience is only really part of the battle that our advertising dollars fight every day. Your target customers need to be ready to hear the message.

Sometimes it involves repeating your message until it gets through the barriers consumers put up against the onslaught of messaging they encounter every day. Sometimes it takes innovative tactics to cut through the clutter. And sometimes it takes good old-fashioned patience (for both brand and agency) until that hallowed ROI makes its appearance (and the wedding planning begins).

BY: Kate Metcalf

Two of our Embassy Suites clients, Jim Holthouser and Charles Gremillion, co-authored a recent article for HotelBusiness.com about Embassy Suites’ unique approach to building and fostering the brand’s service culture. They point out some interesting points about the importance of cultivating employee engagement in the hospitality industry, but the one that resonated most with me was fairly simple. In their words, “A hotel is not a factory; we’re here to open doors, not produce doorknobs.”

If they were producing doorknobs, the process would be relatively streamlined and straightforward (someone more versed in door knobbery might disagree with me on that). Opening doors, however, is an entirely different story. The simple gesture of opening a door exemplifies hospitality.

Being a really good host involves a level of ownership, flexibility and intuitiveness that can’t be found on any assembly line. Good hosts take pride in their homes (or in this case, their hotels). They are adept at reading their guests’ cues, both verbal and non-verbal, to anticipate their needs and act in a way that makes them feel comfortable and secure. Being a good host is much closer to an art than a science, and the brand’s service culture allows team members to be the artists of their own style of hospitality by giving them the support and tools they need to create the ultimate guest experience masterpiece. Embassy Suites has gone to great lengths to ensure each team member understands how to be a great host and to create an environment where they are proud to host guests.

Don’t you want your next hotel stay to be at a place where people truly believe in what they do and are committed to hospitality in its most basic form?

When a brand shows that it understands their customers (or guests) and sincerely delivers what they are looking for, it creates the kind of relationships that will open doors to loyalty and growth.

BY: Kate Metcalf

There is a certain rhythm to the newsletter process.  We do three electronic newsletters every week for some of our hospitality clients – Conrad Hotels & Resorts, Embassy Suites Hotels, and Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts. The tight turnaround of this weekly electronic endeavor calls for ruthless deadlines, and at this point, we have the whole process down to a science.

The regular submission of articles. The writing. The editing. The inevitable scrambling. The irreversible blasting of the newsletter out into the Internet ether. Like the familiarity of a liturgy, there is some comfort in the predictability of the process, but sometimes the process makes me forget just how valuable these newsletters are for fostering internal communications and building brand culture.

The world of internal communications can be tricky to navigate. Understandably, it can be hard to justify devoting time and money to your internal audience when you are so focused on attracting new customers, building customer loyalty and driving revenue. The reality is that employees that feel connected to the brand, who feel valued and informed and supported, can be the very best vehicle for growing a business.

You could compare it to a stop by your favorite local dive. Your waitress, who has been at the place for going on a hundred years, feels a certain amount of pride in and ownership of the place. She knows the menu backwards and forwards. She has a steady of regulars whom she knows by both name and order. She knows the specials and the beers on tap and the most sinful dessert in the joint. Of course, at times she might grumble about low tipping patrons or the manager who calls her into work on her day off, but overall, she sees that place as hers and treats it and the people who visit it accordingly.

At their best, weekly newsletters make employees feel engaged with the company. The result is they care more about their jobs and how they treat their customers. A driven, committed and involved group of employees doesn’t just happen naturally. It’s the result of a sustained, concerted effort to cultivate pride in their job and their company, of recognizing their efforts and making them feel like they matter.

Though the economy is still uncertain in many sectors, it’s worth putting thought into how you can allocate time and resources to building employee engagement. A loyal, knowledgeable, passionate group of employees can be a deciding factor in which companies flourish and which flounder in a changing economic environment.

BY: Kate Metcalf

cs2 once again participated in Embassy Suites Hotels’ brand conference, which this year was actually a series of four regional conferences. From concepting the theme, to designing the look and feel, to creating presentations and scripts, we helped our clients figure out the best way to deliver their vision for the future of the brand to the general managers, revenue managers and directors of sales in attendance.

I attended the first two conferences in Portland, OR, and Loveland, CO, so that I could be on hand if any of the presenters needed to make last minute adjustments to their speeches. There was, as always, a last minute flurry of fine-tuning before showtime, and it was, as always, fun to see the words and slides we created come to life in front of an audience.

As at most conferences of this variety, there is usually a guest speaker of some type, and this conference was no different. Our client selected a motivational speaker to get the crowd, well, motivated about the content being presented. As soon as I heard the words “motivational speaker,” the cynical side of my personality kicked in, and I envisioned myself rolling my eyes during the presentation rather than listening and taking the message to heart. This time was different, however.

Taking the stage this year was a guy named Keith Harrell. His energy and charisma matched my idea of what a motivational speaker should be to a T, and I prepared myself for the inevitable cheese-fest. But the combination of his engaging delivery, stable full of anecdotes and refreshing refusal to take himself too seriously caught me off guard. and I actually started listening to his message. And that message was so simple, but something that I think everyone should probably try to keep top-of-mind: Attitude is Everything.

In the course of his raucous, entertaining speech, Keith emphasized that all of us are ultimately responsible for our own success and that our attitudes and approaches go a long way toward making that success a reality. It’s easy to look for the negative, to complain and settle rather than strive for something better, he reminded us. It’s easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day routines of our jobs and lives and forget that we control our own destiny. But as he pointed out, it doesn’t take a whole lot more work to shift our attitude to better position us for greatness.

Keith’s example was a simple one. When someone asks you how your day is going, instead of just mumbling the customary “fine,” Keith recommended throwing out an enthusiastic “super fantastic” instead. There is nothing quite like a totally off-the-wall answer to a mundane question to jolt you and those around you into a slightly different frame of mind.

In a similar vein, our office manager, Amy, and I try to tell each other one positive thing going on in our lives every day. It might seem like a silly, trivial exercise, but it helps us to focus on the good things going on around us, even in the midst of the inherent chaos of the deadline-driven agency environment. It’s a simple reminder that attitude really is everything.

BY: Kate Metcalf

A new billboard recently went up right outside my office window (my real office, not the windowless bunker I retreat to when I need to be uber-productive). “The Commercial Appeal is Sending Memphis Jobs to India,” it declares, along with a link to www.saveourca.com. The survival of the newspaper industry has been the subject of debate since the advent of the Internet (and probably since the advent of newspapers themselves), but this billboard has been the catalyst for more newspaper-related conversation around the office than anything in recent memory. Continue Reading »

BY: Kate Metcalf

The number of blogs occupying real estate on the Internet is somewhere in the neighborhood of the hundreds of millions (give or take a few ten million). That number itself is staggering, but the importance of that number to those of us in the PR world becomes even more apparent when you consider this: 52% of bloggers consider themselves journalists, according to a recent study by PR Week and PR Newswire. Continue Reading »

BY: Kate Metcalf

Last week Methodist University Hospital, one of our clients, launched the first in a series of Twittercasts related to women’s health. Methodist followed Brenda during a specialized treatment for breast cancer known as SAVI, a new procedure involving partial radiation therapy. Methodist is one of just 200 sites in the country to offer this innovative treatment, and the first to follow a patient through the procedure in real-time. Continue Reading »