The Politics of Event Publicity

Dick Jones’ guest post, Event Publicity vs Idea Publicity hit a nerve with everyone struggling in this time of huge transition.  We’re expected to do what we’ve always done.  Some of us have perceptive presidents and provosts who innately know we need to be moving into the new territories of social sites but the pressure remains to get that news release published.
I thought it would be interesting to pursue some issues from Dick’s vantage point of having 20 higher ed institutions — public and private — as clients.  After his guest post appeared, we talked and I said that to try to break away from the continual stream of event publicity would be very hard.
Dick’s answer was , “Yes, because it quickly becomes a political problem.”

Later I emailed and  asked him what he meant.  His answer:

“I think it is a political problem because of the nature of higher education administration.  Colleges and universities are decentralized communities.  If you are the PR director at a small college with 100 professors, every one of those professors thinks that he or she is your boss and has a call on how you spend your time and energy.  The deans and vice presidents feel the same way. 

 ”You may see your job as protecting and enhancing the ‘brand’ of the institution and communicating its most important messages to key publics and markets.  But the greenest assistant professor of music thinks you are there to fill the seats for his chamber music concert.  And when push comes to shove, the dean will often back him over you.

 ”There are only so many times a PR director can say “no” to requests for “fill the seats” publicity without finding himself or herself in the middle of a political battle. 

 ”In corporate PR, the reporting lines tend to be clearer.  The PR director reports to a vice president or to the president.  But the main difference is that the PR person does what a small number of people want him or her to do.  And the messages tend to be fewer and more consistent.  In higher education, by contrast, there are many and sometimes conflicting messages.  The classic one is the difference between the undergraduate or graduate programs and continuing education.  The director of continuing education wants you to send a message of “easy access.”  Everyone is welcome.  The provost, by contrast, wants the message to be “quality” and, sometimes, “exclusivity.”

“I have seen corporate PR folks come into higher education and founder because they don’t understand the basic difference in governance structures and the politics that results from that. “

Dick and I will continue the dialog.  Your comments –or questions — are welcome. 

 

Dick Jones, John Lennon, Events & Ideas

Dick Jones of Dick Jones Communication did a guest blog (see last post) which for me was like a really subtle hot sauce.  It goes down easy and then, a moment later, your mouth’s on fire.  Dick is  not a real tech savvy person but when it comes to the new media, he gets it.
He states the obvious with such directness that I wonder why I hadn’t thought about it before.
In the Web 2.0 world, Dick is right.  Every faculty member should be blogging and building his or her own audience.  But there are two major challenges here.
1.  We’ve spent the last 50 years convincing faculty to rely on us, the PR folks.  Now we want to educate them to rely upon themselves.  It won’t happen overnight.
2.  When I talked with my IT person months ago about showing the music faculty how to blog and how to build their audience, her response was, “And you’ll be responsible to help them when they call with questions on how to do some technical part?”
Hmm.  No.  I’m going to have to make the idea of a blog so appealing that faculty will take it on and solve their tech issues with students.  Somewhere there’s an answer.  It will take time.
I’m in the middle of a new admissions package.  I’m working on events for our 150th anniversary.  I’m creating a new series of radio spots and proofing new  publications.  I’m doing what you’re doing and trying to make room for what I need to do.
As John Lennon said:  “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
From this blog, presentations I’ve given and lots of emails and phone calls, I sense a lot of frustration in the PR world, but I also see it as a really exciting time.
Creating change isn’t always easy, but it should be fun.
I’m frustrated but I’m having a ball.
Why?  Because I keep making little steps with my eye always on the possibilities. . . .
I’m going to ask Dick to have a blog dialog with me to see where it will take us.  I hope you’ll jump in with comments and ideas.

EVENT PUBLICITY VS. IDEA PUBLICITY

 Dick Jones of Dick Jones Communications, is a friend and colleague.  He sent me  this today.  It says so much, so concisely, and so reflects what higher ed PR folks deal with that I asked him if I could share it with my readers.

He said yes.

 EVENT PUBLICITY VS. IDEA PUBLICITY

by Dick Jones

What is the business of your college or university? 

If the news releases on the websites of many schools are an indication, colleges and universities seem to be in the events business.  Click on the “latest news” icon and you see a list of concerts, lectures, plays, oboe recitals, academic meetings, art gallery exhibitions and athletic contests.

To me, this is discouraging.  That’s because colleges and universities are not in the events business.  The real business of higher education is the transfer and creation of knowledge.  And those are the stories that college PR shops should tell. 

What knowledge is being created on your campus?  Check out the papers published by professors in refereed journals and summarize them in terms the general public can understand. 

What knowledge is being transferred on your campus?  Check out the innovative courses and tell about them.  And make use of the wealth of advice faculty and staff have to offer.  How can I get my kid to do his homework?  Someone on your education faculty has advice that will help.  What should I pack or leave behind for a European trip?  The study-abroad coordinator at your school knows the answer.

There is “event” publicity and there is “idea” publicity.  If you focus on “event” publicity, you only rarely have the opportunity to set your school apart from others.  Every college, after all, has concerts, plays and famous visitors. 

“Idea” publicity, on the other hand, holds more potential for you to open windows into the soul of your institution.  In addition, start to focus on idea publicity and you find that your local media relationships improve.  Editors no longer see you as someone who just wants something from them.  They see you as a person who can deliver something that they (and their audiences) can use.

I confess that I thought the arrival of new media would largely take college PR shops out of the event publicity business.  I believed that e-mail listservs and blogs controlled by individual academic units such as the music department would give the sponsors of campus events unbeatable laser-focused tools to inform their regular constituents about upcoming events.  This would take pressure off the PR shop to do event publicity to “fill the seats.”  It doesn’t seem to have happened. 

Here we are, heading toward the end of the first decade of the 21^st century, still cranking out “fill the seats” releases when there are better things to do.

 

I Didn’t Cheat on Lonely Girl

I unwittingly*  seemed to have stumbled upon the perfect headline magnet.
It was my last post.  The headline: Lonely Girl: Sex, Mystery and Web 2.0.  It’s pulled in the most downloads of any of my 67 posts.
Makes sense.  Let’s take a look at it.  Let’s tear  it apart,  analyze the hell out of it and leave it in helpless shards as academia loves to do.
Lonely Girl:  something straight out of a spam tag so I’m sure I attracted a lot of lonely guys; probably a bunch of lonely girls, too.
Sex: the most popular word on the web.  What the hell, the most popular word in our culture.
Mystery: everyone loves a good mystery, especially when it involves lonely girls and sex.
Web 2.0:  This may have attracted a couple people.  When I introduce Web 2.0 into a conversation on campus, I am still met with questioning looks. When I explain it, the questioning look turns into a glassy-eyed stare.  It’s  big in the Wired world, friends, but it has some long, lonely miles to go to become a pop culture phrase.
So, while I attracted a lot of new readers, I don’t think they’re ones who will come back.  But it taught me a lesson.  If you want to really start your search engines, keep your list of red words handy, toss one into a headline, tag it, and watch the readers roll in, whether you want them or not.
It makes me want to write a boiler plate disclaimer: “I feel your disappointment.  My apologies.  It’s just one of the hazards of Web 2.0.  BTW, Lonely girl is 20-something and sex really is a mystery.”

*Who does anything wittingly?   (I wittingly discovered that my friend’s wife was cheating on him with his mistress).

Lonely Girl 15–The Creation Continues

This is an update on A Tribute to Lonely Girl 15, (LG15 for us insiders). I’m not really an insider but I’m sure I’m its oldest loyal follower.

I had written in a previous post about my fascination with LG 15 and how creative the show is, building a compelling story in small chunks that range from the occasional long video of four minutes to the riveting 45-second video of a drugged, brainwashed Bree who has just been kidnapped back from the cult by her friends Daniel and Jonas.

Since I last wrote, the story has included murder, kidnapping, brainwashing, a mysterious chemical experiment and the introduction of the sexy, provocative, sarcastic emo girl Sarah.

We can learn a lot from this series. First is the power of the story, which, I’m sure they’re making up as they go.

Secondly, the Creators fully understand the Web 2.0 philosophy, taking reader criticism seriously and often having the characters asking the audience for suggestions in a way so intimate you find yourself thinking of suggestions.

They take Marshall McLuhan one step further. The medium isn’t just the message. They use the medium to create the message.

Third, what they’re doing with the camera is intriguing, using out of focus shots that slowly clear up as if an amateur is operating the camera. There are blackouts, jittery hand held camera, audio ups and downs, all things amateur.

The camera itself becomes a character, a third person through whom they communicate with each other and the audience, asking for understanding, forgiveness, support. . .and suggestions.

It has all been done before, but never quite in this way.

Fourth, they mix story with close-ups. Each character takes a turn telling the story in an intimate way, directly into the camera. Sometimes the camera is so close only part of the face fills the lens.

And the eyes. They understand the power of the eyes. They used this effectively in the beginning with Bree, the main character. In fact, in the beginning, it was Bree’s big brown eyes and playful pretty face that was the show.

One can see the evolution of this as the videos progress. I’m sure they hired the actress who plays Sarah open the basis of her beautiful and expressive green eyes (and pouty lips and rebellious nature).

Fifth, the genius of this show is how the creators and the actors have involved their audience. As I said before, the comments range from the immature and silly to discussions about chemistry, biology and medicine to Biblical text and obscure writings about religion.

They’ve created a large community whose members have their own in-jokes and talk about from work to hangovers but it all revolves around LG15, a situation PR people dream about.

Check out LG15. To watch all the shows might take you a few hours but you’ll find pop culture enlightenment. This is some of the most innovative and engaging storytelling around.

If you watch the shows, do three things:

1. Start from the beginning and watch the development, knowing that the Creators had no idea how long the show would last.
2. Watch the camera, lighting and sound techniques.
3. Read the comments and understand that LG 15 is driven and influenced by an audience that has become a community. The show and audience influence each other almost instantly and create one large, living entity.