Tag: Grand Rapids Press

New MLive Grand Rapids Contact Info

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The Grand Rapids Press completed its digital conversion and physical move to a new hub yesterday.

Here’s the contact info for news staffers.

A few things for PR people to notice:

  • The title “producer” is not just for TV anymore. Think about offering b-roll and other video opportunities to the newspaper when you pitch stories.
  • Some of the staffers focus statewide as well as local. Keep scope of audience in mind when pitching.
  • They have a ‘Today Show’ style room with glass wall right on the sidewalk in their new space downtown for video interviews. Bring clients and yourself over there for interviews in advance of and/or in addition to the article coverage you pitch.
  • Every reporter has social media contact information in addition to email. A phone, apparently, is not for actually calling anymore, but for email and engagement. So follow your key beat reporters and editors on Facebook and Twitter. This is best for getting a sense of reporters’ interests. Pitching via social media requires some savvy because it is done in public. So use your judgment there.
Back to work everyone.

Media Partnerships and PR

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At first glance you might think “The Business Times of Northwest Ottawa County” is a bold new journalistic venture. Not exactly.

The new publication is a partnership between the Chamber of Grand Haven, Spring Lake, and Ferrysburg and the Grand Haven Tribune. A Tribune article recently explained the new partnership.

There’s no doubt such a partnership has mutual benefits. The Chamber is using the design and production capabilities of a local daily newspaper to upgrade the look of its former newsletter, the “Beacon.” Distribution is also a positive from this partnership, with the chamber tucking its piece into the local paper and reaching 28,000 subscribers as opposed to maintaining their own list and mailing process.

Meanwhile, the Tribune gets content and revenue. There’s no doubt the Chamber is paying an insertion fee for the privilege of distributing their branded material in the Tribune. The publication also takes advertising. Also, in this era of struggling media, it’s a great way for the Tribune to deliver more business related news to its subscribers, provided by Chamber members and others not on the newspaper’s payroll.

This is just another example of such media partnerships in this era of shrinking media budgets and staff. The Grand Rapids Press added a health section a year ago to provide more locally focused health coverage from both reporters and staff of area health institutions. The Press also partnered recently with citizen journalism outlet the Rapidian in a series of “hunger challenge” articles.

But in all the win-win for papers and partners, what about the public and public relations practitioners?

Sure, this is a great PR opportunity for hospitals and chambers and other organizations who can use these partnerships to guarantee coverage of their issues and news. But lost in seizing these opportunities may be the realization that this is a transition from “earned” to paid media, or uncontrolled to controlled media. Earned or uncontrolled media means a PR practitioner had to convince a hard-working and appropriately skeptical journalist of the news value of their content. Paid or controlled media means an organization gets to place content verbatim in the space  it has purchased as advertising.

These partnerships may be a middle ground. The Press and Tribune both show some editorial involvement. But one has to wonder what the public thinks. The key advantage of earned media is not just that it is not paid for, but that it has third-party credibility. In other words, the public is less likely to believe and trust something they know has been paid for or controlled by whoever is presenting the information. They are more likely to believe  something if they sense it has been verified by an objective outside person, also known as a journalist.

What this means for those engaging in media partnerships is caution is in order. It will be a mistake to think that achieving reach and “getting the word out” is enough. It will be how such ventures are carried out, with transparency, honesty, and credibility that will not only reach people but inform and influence them.

Ford’s Lost PR Focus

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My Fundamentals of Public Relations students should have been consulted.

In several of our PR classes at GVSU, we take on “clients” for whom students do PR projects relevant to the class content. In upper level classes, these are clients in the community. In the fundamentals class I have usually taken on a client from an on-campus entity to keep the scale and target public simpler for this introductory level class.

But last winter, I was coming off  sabbatical and had not had a chance to recruit an on-campus client. So I took an idea from the newspaper and had students create a PR  campaign plan book that sought to persuade college students that the Ford Focus Electric set to debut  was a great concept and a car they should eventually buy.

The key word  there was  ‘eventually.’ My students themselves emphasized that, after doing research that showed a number of what we call ‘barriers to persuasion.’ Their peer students at GVSU and around the country had ‘range anxiety,’ or a fear of being unable to recharge when they needed to. They also wondered if the power would be adequate. Some felt that using electricity derived from coal wasn’t really “green” so what’s the point. Others were put off by the anticipated cost, mechanical upkeep, and other questions the students had to address in their communication tactics.

The campaign was complicated when Ford delayed the release of the Focus. So students smartly (with some of my counsel) focused the campaign on building brand and product category awareness and appreciation now for eventual purchase when the product is rolled out and when current college students have incomes that they can afford it.

My students came up with a variety of good ideas. Good in the sense that they were based on research and employed strategy grounded in theory. For example, the “diffusion of innovations” theory would indicate that “observability” and “trialability” are key when getting people to accept a new concept. So having students drive a Ford Focus around campus, and allowing other students to test drive it, was a popular strategy.

All of this came back when I read Grand Rapids Press Business Editor Chris Knape’s review of a Ford Focus PR event last week in downtown Grand Rapids. After some prepared remarks, the Focus event lost focus. Knape points out:

  • Ford representatives were unable to answer basic questions, like the natural objections my students had uncovered;
  • there was no actual vehicle to test drive, just a mock-up that Ford representatives cautioned GVSU students who attended to not touch;
  • Knape concludes the event “brought little new information to the market;”
I agree. I wouldn’t go so far as to call this Ford event a “stunt,” which implies sleight of hand or bait and switch to get people out. But it was  a poorly done PR event primarily because it seemed to favor image over substance. The value of events are exactly what Ford  was unprepared for–live and therefore more persuasive interaction with your publics, hands-on interaction of consumers with product. Apparently, the Ford  people were stunned that an event is not “controlled media.” I am in turn stunned by this. If any persuasion happened it is that the Ford Focus Electric should not be a consideration when young people buy a vehicle in the next few years.
My students would have been surprised too. Ford should have consulted with them. The wisest advice they could have given Ford would have been to do some research and have answers to common and reasonable questions as well as an actual product on hand. Otherwise, they should wait. 
The market won’t be ready for your product until your product (and your PR staff) is ready for market.