Valentine's Day: Salsa Story

Valentine’s Day can either create fear or joy in your heart. Several years ago, I was dreading another lonely Valentine’s Day. I didn’t want to stay at home but I didn’t want to feel out of place on this “romantic” day.  

My first love has always been dancing – ballet, tap, jazz, even hula as a girl. One day, I read an article in the SF Gate about salsa dance lessons on Valentine’s Day. I was intrigued.  

The organizer, Evan of Salsa Crazy, positioned the event as a great way for single people to mingle, have fun and not be intimidated. I went to the event and it worked on several levels:

1. Targeted single men and women
2. Provided an alternative to the usual mixers for singles
3. The instructor didn’t take himself seriously, putting everyone at ease
4. Though it was a club setting, the event was in the early evening so it wasn’t an intimidating “club” scene
5. By rotating partners, you go to meet a lot of people but not stressful like speed dating        

Evan is a great marketer. He knows how to market his product – salsa dancing – to the right market with the right message. He’s grown his business to include paid online videos and more.   

And me? I didn’t find my true love at the event, but I did fall in love with salsa dancing! 

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Blogger Social – 48 Hours to Register

Will you be there? Tons of great people will be there. You only have 48 hours to register. It includes three events – one Friday evening, Saturday afternoon and Saturday evening.  

These great people will be there:

Susan Bird Tim Brunelle Katie Chatfield Terry Dagrosa Matt Dickman Luc Debaisieux Gianandrea Facchini Mark Goren Gavin Heaton Sean Howard CK Valeria Maltoni Drew McLellan Doug Meacham Marilyn Pratt Steve Roesler Greg Verdino CB Whittemore Steve Woodruff Paul McEnany Ann Handley David Reich Tangerine Toad Kristin Gorski Mack Collier David Armano Ryan Barrett Lori Magno Tim McHale Gene DeWitt Mario Vellandi Arun Rajagopal Joseph Jaffe Rohit Bhargava Anna Farmery Marianne Richmond Thomas Clifford Lewis Green Geoff Livingston Kris Hoet Connie Reece Toby Bloomberg Seni Thomas Darryl Ohrt Joe Kutchera Paul Dunay Marshall Sponder Chris Kieff Tara Anderson Jason Falls Paul Soldera Roberta Rosenberg Saul Colt Todd Andrlik Nathan Snell Ryan Karpeles Mike Sansone Jennifer Laycock Neil Vineberg Cam Beck Mike Arauz John Rosen

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Celebrex Ad Missed the Mark

The other day, my husband and I were watching TV and saw this ad. With a blue background, the images were being outlined by words – I’m assuming it was a transcript of the voiceover?  

The way the announcer was proceeding, we thought the ad was an anti NSAID commercial. It described the risks of NSAIDs, including Celebrex. 

We were VERY surprised when the advert was actually for Celebrex. This was a little bit counter intuitive. You’re trying to SELL a drug by discussing what the problems are with them to begin with?  

Pharma Marketing Blog also provides a good break down from the industry perspective.  

But from a consumer perspective, won’t this backfire. Is it just me? You be the judge. Check out the Celebrex ad here.   

PR Agency – Retainer Becoming More Popular?

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been hearing that more agencies are working on projects on a retainer basis vs hourly. My understanding is that the retainer enables an agency to focus on the work versus the administration. 

This is intriguing, because I previously wrote that charging by the hour contributed to part of the bad image that PR folks have. It raises several questions for me:

- Are smaller/boutique agencies the only ones doing this?
- Does this result in better quality work?
- Does this mean there is less “nickel and diming” since it’s a set retainer? 

Heck, being in-house, I like this. I know what my budget is on a month-to-month basis. No ugly surprises. No explanations to my boss and finance department. What is there not to love.

I posed this question to my twitter folks, “do you think a retainer basis is better than hourly? If so, why?” Here;s the conversation:

I would love to hear from PR agencies and other folks – in-house or agency. Which is better – montly retainer or monthly projections billed against hours?

PRMeetsMarketing Weekly Articles: February 7, 2008

Here is this week’s summary of articles. You can click on the Weekly Articles tag for previous issues or subscribe to the Weekly Articles Feed.

Measuring Social Media – Hubspot’s blog provides some good tips for measuring your social media marketing efforts. I’m surprised that the number of links to your blogs and Technorati Authority weren’t included as ways to measure your social media.

BRITE Conversations – Valerie Maltoni provides some food for thought in advance of an interactive CMO Summit being held at the Center for Global Brand Leadership. She discusses some of the challenges that organizations face when trying to innovate and build brands. I wonder how resource constraints and changing priorities fits in the picture? =)

Don’t Do this When Promoting Your Event -Mac McIntosh writes the Sales Lead Insights blog. He provides his 13 Don’ts When Promoting Events. Great insight if your tasked with managing a roundtable or dinner event for your client.

Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks – Brendan points to an example of how journalists and PR folks responded to the Bird Flu. Instead of being a short lived story, it extended over 10 days. I haven’t heard the podcast yet, but it seems worthwhile based on Brendan’s summary.

Is this PR Person You? – David Meerman Scott poses what the future PR job description would look like. It’s most likely, “You haven’t graduated high school yet but you’ve already started 2 start ups, sold another and angel investing in another. You’re invited to beta test EVERY new software offering and your recommendation can make or break the company…”=P

Seeing You Face-to-Face – Sheila Scarborough of the every dot connects blog about the value of meeting people in person at conferences. I know blackberry’s have been banned from company meetings. I wonder if conferences will ban computers and PDAs to keep people focused on the content and people versus Twittering the event?

With Analysts, It’s All In the Briefing – Jeremiah Owyang provides great insight into how to successfully brief analysts. Great advice on how to get the most out of briefings. Remember, analysts can provide a wealth of information in addition to learning about your company.

PRMeetsMarketing Weekly Articles: January 31, 2008

OK – either I’ve been lazy lately (which is possible) or I’m just not finding things that I want to share. I think I need to expand my list of reading. Until then, here’s this week’s articles.

You can click on the Weekly Articles tag for previous issues or subscribe to the Weekly Articles Feed.

Email Marketing Gone Bad – PR Week demonstrated what NOT to do with email marketing. Per BL Ochman, PR Week spammed thousands of subscribers and exposed passwords.

Pack a Twitter? – This was a topic addressed by Chris Brogan and Dave Fleet. The idea is creating a way for people to find who to follow on Twitter. This post provides advice on using Twitter Packs. Here’s the original post from Chris Brogan. Granted, that depends if Twitter can be stable enough to even allow you to find, follow and tweet!

Beyond the Age of Conversation – Frankly, I go through different stages of reading lots of marketing, PR and technology books and times when I just can’t. The Age of Conversation is one of those books that is waiting anxiously for me to read. I plan to. I just haven’t gotten to it. So it’s interesting that the folks behind the first project are soliciting contributors for the next book. I’m tempted. If you’re planning to contribute, let me know in the comments.

Designing the Right Email Newsletter – I know that this doesn’t usually fall on PR, but I know it does happen. For those asked to write and design an email newsletter, here’s an interesting report on email newsletters from MarketingSherpa. Act now. Only available for one week to non-subscribers.

PR Blogs that I Read

I have several PR blogs that I follow. Some are from PR agencies and others are from PR practitioners. I purposely didn’t include some bloggers who may be more “marketing” related.  In alpha here are the PR blogs that I follow.  

1. Chris Brogan – Chris has undertaken a project titled Social Media 100 to write 100 useful blog posts on using social media. 
2. Fleet Street PR – Written by Dave Fleet, I find his insights on PR, social media and the industry interesting.  
3. inmedia Public Relations -  A public relations firm based our of Toronto, I like their thoughts about PR.  
4. KD Paine’s Measurement Blog – KD is the goddess of PR measurement. Need I say more? 
5. NakedPR – Jennifer brings a sassy sense of humor to all things PR.  
6. Now Is Gone – Goeff Livingston is the most frequent contributor with a couple of authors. Looks at the industry, PR strategy and general thought leadership.
7. PR Communications – John Cass provides practical insight on how to implement blogging, PR, marketing, etc. for companies. 
8. PR Squared – Todd Defren was probably one of the first PR pros to blog. His blog is influential and provides thought leadership on the topic 
9. RaceTalk – RacePoint is a boutique PR agency. Occasionally some good content, sometimes not.  
10. The Flack – Peter Himler provides commentary on how corporations are or are not doing a good job with PR. 
11. Update: The Buzz Bin  – I forgot about Goeff Livingston’s other blog related to his Livingston Communications company.
12. Update: a shel of my former self – Yes, how did I miss this one? I don’t know, I just did. I’ve just added this blog to my reader and look forward to Shel’s insights.

Surprisingly, I only follow 2-3 PR firms. Why? I find that the blogs are unfocused with a group of people posting day-to-day happenings. I’m looking for relevant, actionable information for my job.  Let me know if there are others I should be following.