Tuesday Quickie: Is Your Company Drinking the Kool-Aid?

Thought-provoking stuff on marketing and brand management from BlueBird Public Relations in Dallas:

All the “branding” in the world can’t change those simple equations, which is why the concept of “brand marketing” is intellectually bankrupt."

This absolutely reminds me of the old maxim: "Great PR makes bad products fail fast."

An agency or internal public relations and marketing extraordinaires can create all the buzz, find the perfect product position in the market, launch relevant campaigns to build a brand and demand the attention from target markets, but (surprise!) this will not change a bad product or service.

You can't hide behind fabulous marketing, at least not for long.

Read the rest here.

KC Event Planners Talk About the State of the Industry

Bernays Saunce mothership EventPros, Inc.'s owners are featured in an interview in Special Events Magazine, where they discuss the state of the Special Events industry and the birth of EventPros, Inc. They also touch on marketing and public relations firms doing special events:

In 2008, for instance, while other event business owners were wringing their hands about tightened budgets, canceled events and the prospect of more bad news to come, Svoboda and Short debuted a communications services department. As Short explains, the duo created the new department to compete directly with marketing and public relations firms that were cutting into EventPros' market share.

“These companies were handling events, but they didn't even like doing it — they were just doing it because their clients needed it,” Short says. “Because they weren't making any extra money on events, they weren't hiring us to do them. They were just doing the events themselves, and not doing a very good job.”

With its new division, EventPros is able not only to sell clients on the strength of its event-production capabilities but to add value by offering marketing and communication services such as Web development, scriptwriting and video production. Short adds, “It speaks to our fiscal responsibility that we were able to bring in-house a lot of services we were farming out.”

Read the rest here.

"Beard Look Okay? Great." Media Firm Markets with President's Day Humor

Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition. --Abraham Lincoln

Our friends at Thill Media in Kansas City generated some worthy recognition by having a little fun with President's Day in the form of a clever email.

Sent to clients and friends, the email links to a short video titled "Early Experiments in Video Interview". Bedded with downhome fiddle music, an animated "Abe Lincoln" appears on scratchy film stock--and he's clearly having a bad day on the set. Anybody who's had to record a spot can sympathize with "President Lincoln" as he flubs his lines.

Check it out here.

Thill Media Creative Director Dave Simmons came up with the concept and put the piece together, even doing Lincoln's voice.

What spurred the President's Day spoof?

"We had noticed a couple of messages from clients and vendors with Valentine's Day banners or messages. Not being much of a romantic (and with Valentine's Day looming -and still no flowers bought for my beautiful wife), I decided to stay away from some of the potential pitfalls of a Valentine's message," Simmons said.

He added that in the contracting economy he wanted to do something to "lighten the mood and get a message to our potential clients at the same time."

"The over-reaching philosophy is that video, marketing, communications, etc. can be fun. It can be simple. It can be cost-effective, and it doesn't have to involve a three week shoot, fancy computer graphics and a focus-grouped concept. It can just be a simple (albeit disparate), fun message. All that being said --- we also want to put our serious side to work. So call us."

Simmons said a follow-up print piece--unrelated to the Lincoln spoof--is also in the works.

The Sauce
"Beard look okay? great."

Love it.

Dave's right. This is a fun way to show off your abilities and keep in touch with your client/prospect list without appearing to make an obvious sales pitch. It speaks for itself as a great marketing tool...I mean look, we're blogging about it, aren't we?

Don't let anybody tell you a down economy is an excuse not to amp up your marketing and public relations efforts. Now is the time to be bold. Fortune favors the brave, and businesses that conserve their resources to the point of adopting a bunker mentality about marketing do so at their peril.

The comments section is open for your take on Abe Lincoln, the Thill Media approach or your marketing strategy in general.

Oh, and Dave? Get your wife some flowers. She deserves 'em.