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PR Summit: Failing Forward

You can’t appreciate the ups without the downs, the A+ without the F-, the success without the initial failure. We’re human – we make mistakes. Whether you’re a student or the CEO of a company, you’ve made them. What matters is how you channel that momentary defeat into an opportunity to learn, grow and fuel your redemption.

On October 1, we gathered at the Ace Hotel, the perfect raw space, to have a candid, open and honest discussion about the fumbles, mistakes and embarrassing moments of our careers. But the discussion didn’t end there, it led to the subsequent skills, capabilities and confidence we’ve garnered as a result. As we all know, no career path is linear or perfect.

Give a Round of Applause to Our Speakers! 👏

But let’s face it, failing isn’t necessarily fun even if it provides a platform for growth. Failing can be an obscure journey to find the buried treasure. We appreciate our speakers and panelists for accepting the challenge to share their screw-ups with a room full of strangers:

• Jason Clark, Actor, Comedian, General Manager, Arcade Comedy Theater
• Dr. John Hull, Professor of Psychology, Bethany College
• Dan Sprumont, Lead Digital Experience Owner, Highmark Health
• Lily Whorl, Fellow, Red Havas
• Stacey Federoff, Communicator and Public Relations Graduate Student, Point Park University
• Hollie Geitner, Vice President, Culture & Brand Ambassador, WordWrite

Tweet Ya Later

Here’s what some of our attendees had to say about their experience at PR Summit:

 

 

 

 

 

Always Fail Forward

For anyone who missed PR Summit: Failing Forward, check out some of the takeaways brought to us by Dr. John Hull:

• Recognize that failure is an expected part of life; we all fail.
• We need to separate failing at doing something from feeling like a failure when things don’t go well.
• Fear of failure is not all bad – it may, in fact, help us improve our planning, thereby reducing the chances of failing.
• We really can’t do just anything we set our mind on. To think this is to predispose ourselves to failure – and maybe even learned helplessness.
• Anticipate the optimism/pessimism cycles inherent in working on long-term projects. Early overoptimism can lead to unnecessary failure.
• Recognize that the way you do something isn’t necessarily the best way for everyone to do it. Your method may succeed for you, but not necessarily for others.
• Remember self-efficacy and self-image, and how self-protective we are. We need to recognize that, even though we all think we are above average on most things,  sometimes we are, in fact, responsible for failure.
• Organizational climate matters. A more collaborative (collectivist) climate is generally more supportive than a competitive (individualistic) climate, and can lessen personalizing failure.
• Let some time pass before confronting failure. Most of us are more likely to be objective rather than self-protective if we wait a bit; in the long run, that will help.
• Avoid self-handicapping. Give it your best shot – but understand that sometimes even your best shot won’t be good enough.

Thanks again to our 2019 PR Summit sponsor!

Researchscape International is an agile survey-research consultancy and SaaS firm delivering PR surveys, omnibus surveys, automated reporting tools and other research-related services to marketers and agencies. Its surveys are frequently used to drive thought leadership, support content creation and help grow organizations’ public profiles. Custom surveys support product launches, crisis communications, customer satisfaction and more.

By Ashley Jones

The advertiser’s dream: audience targeting. It’s what Facebook, Google and, in 2019, pretty much every digital platform in-between has gifted us. With a few clicks of a mouse, we can target our campaigns with hyper-precision: gender, age, demographic, geographic location. Even specific interests of those best suited to receive our ads. It’s cost-effective, and it increases the conversions we need to achieve our campaign goals.

But we don’t just target digitally — we target through our creative strategies as well. We target our ideal demographic through our creative assets in terms of our choice of colors, the age, and ethnicity of models or influencers, the copy, the media placement. The list goes on.

But targeting an audience is only half the battle of campaign success. The true heartbeat of any campaign is, and always will be authenticity. You can meet or exceed every objective of your campaign strategy, but if your messaging is misguided, fictitious or deceitful, your credibility and reputation can be tarnished. Negative backlash can connote your overall brand, sales can drop, and, in more extreme cases, legal action can be taken.

More importantly, the well-being of your audience can be at stake.

The Juul Example

Recently, Bloomberg published an article regarding the infamous Juul and a lawsuit taken against Juul Labs Inc. and Philip Morris USA Inc. for “illegally marketing nicotine-delivery devices to minors and deceiving consumers about the risks of vaping.”

Not long after, The New York Times published a piece about the FDA’s warning letter to Juul for the illegal marketing of their product as “safer than traditional tobacco cigarettes.”

If you haven’t heard of the Juul, no doubt you’ve seen the sleek USB-looking e-cig in the hand of a college-age kid, or the vapor clouds at bus stops, on the street, even in the grocery store. It’s the latest “alternative” to cigarettes. And it’s gained momentum, fast. Particularly, among Gen Z – many of whom are kids not old enough to even legally purchase. Paradoxical; considering the Juul’s “goal” is to “improve the lives of existing adult smokers.”

Remember That Scene in Mad Men?

But it’s no secret that the tobacco and nicotine industries have a convoluted advertising history.

In 1937, Camel ran an advertising campaign supporting the idea that their cigarettes “aided digestion.”

In 1949, Viceroys cigarettes deployed an advertising campaign that claimed your dentist thinks “smoking isn’t all that bad for you.”

In 1951, L&M claimed their filters were “just what the doctors ordered.”

These are just a few examples of the vintage advertising campaigns that claimed cigarettes could achieve great feats — like helping you keep a slender figure, curb your candy cravings and cure a common cold. With a quick Google search, you can find countless slogans, billboards, and advertorials perpetuating the health benefits of cigarettes — unsupported by facts.

But there’s no denying these ads were, well, really successful. Although they didn’t have digital targeting at their fingertips, thanks to the introduction of color print, tobacco companies were able to create campaigns and cartons that were aesthetically pleasing to target mothers, athletes, and young adults. They constructed a trendy lifestyle, even fashionable – if you didn’t smoke a square, you were a square. They included beautiful women and handsome men. Their slogans purported health benefits, self-image improvement and normalized the act of smoking.

As suspicions began to arise about the real health risks of smoking and its link to cancer and other diseases in the ‘50s, the ads began to reassure consumers by featuring doctors, dentists as well as popular actors and athletes, like Ronald Reagan and Willie Mays who swore by cigarettes, thus appealing to consumers’ trust. And consumers were dedicated to their particular brand of smokes.

By 1953, 47% of American adults were smoking cigarettes.

After the U.S. Surgeon General’s first Smoking and Health report were published in 1964, there was a steep decline in the smoking rate of adults.

Not a Solution, but a Replacement 

Despite the radical decline of smoking in recent years, “vaping” has found its place. But not with the community of adult smokers who have been addicted to nicotine for years, or those seeking to kick the habit to try to combat the long-term health tolls their bodies have taken. Since the Juul’s inception in 2015, vaping among 12th-graders increased from 16.3% to 26.7%.

For a company dedicated to curbing the already-existing habit of adult smokers, Juul’s targeting didn’t quite seem to align. Their initial ads were bright and colorful and depicted attractive 20-somethings enjoying the pleasures of life while vaping. These ads were scattered along with metro areas and highways, in addition to social media platforms with trending hashtags. The company also tapped dominantly millennial and Gen Z demographics social influencers for blogs and Instagram posts. And the campaign performance has been incredibly successful: teen exposure to these ads is every seven in 10. As a result, 27.5% of high school students and over five million youth are current e-cigarette users.

Juul didn’t appeal to the middle-aged parents trying to quit for the sake of their children or elderly smokers diagnosed with smoking-related diseases looking to finally put the habit to rest. In fact, they’ve done just the opposite. They’ve placed addictive nicotine products in the hands of people who have never touched a cigarette. Instead of educational campaigns that expressed the dangers of smoking and how the Juul could help wean cigarette use, their campaigns repeated the tobacco industry’s past of glamorization.

Thanks to recent backlash, Juul has pulled many of its original ads and replaced them with commercials that explore existing smokers’ experience with “making the switch.” However, this has done little to curb the radical increase of vaping, according to The New York Times.

Considering traditional smoking’s negative stigma, and compared to the harsh smell of tobacco, it’s understandable how it may be hard for younger users to believe that the mango smelling nicotine within their dainty, decorated little devices could have the same health repercussions as cigarettes. And true, scientists are still learning about long-term health effects. But, will it be too late?

After all, there are now hundreds of cases of curious vaping-related diseases. And the toll for vaping-related deaths has risen to seven. While none of these can be linked to one specific source, it’s enough to heighten concern and scrutiny.

Learn from the Past, Old Sport

As communicators and advertisers, we hold great power and responsibility can be heavy. We influence the world down highways, on television and phone screens. We shape how individuals feel about a company and its products, what individuals purchase and what individuals believe.

As our capabilities continue to advance, we must be as transparent and genuine as possible as we approach our campaigning and the way the world perceives the messaging we share. Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. It’s a dangerous game we play – don’t cheat.

Originally Published on Public Relations Strategery| By: Steve Radick

 

I get distracted easily. I don’t call my mom nearly often enough. I’m sometimes, ok, oftentimes, arrogant. I have constant anxiety over the fact that I give presentations talking about how success isn’t measured using impressions and likes, yet I find myself building client reports that do exactly that. I’ve sent emails complaining about how bad my client is…to my client. I have no idea how to use power tools.

The list of my mistakes and flaws could go on and on. Just ask my wife. So could yours. So could everybody’s…if people were willing to talk about them.

But no one wants to talk about their flaws, mistakes, screw-ups and failures. They’re embarrassing. They’re uncomfortable. They’re awkward. They make us seem weak and inadequate.

That’s why we use technology to hide every flaw, cover up every defect, and filter every word. Every text, email, post, and Snap is concepted, staged, shot, and shared to emphasize our strengths and optimize our brands.

We can present the absolute best version of ourselves all the time. And that’s the problem.

Our flaws are our greatest strengths and we’re not only not using them, we’re actively hiding them.

Don’t believe me?

• Think about the waiter that tells you not to order the fish because it’s not fresh.
• The car salesman who tells you the car you’re considering has a lot of reliability issues.
• Or the politician who goes on Saturday Night Live and lets the cast poke fun at him.

Now think about your reaction to those situations.

• You don’t order the fish, but you do order the pasta the waiter recommended.
• You believe the salesman when she directs you to another car she says is much more reliable.
• You start to think that politician isn’t such a bad guy – you might even say you’d have a beer with him.

These reactions are driven by science. The Pratfall Effect states that people viewed as highly competent are deemed to be more likable following a blunder. And as Robert Cialdini explains in his book “Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade” – when you admit your flaws, people are more receptive to what you say or do next. And several recent studies have demonstrated that while we over-magnify our own flaws, we minimize flaws we see in others.

It’s why we still embrace celebrities like Charles Barkley or Britney Spears. It’s not despite their scandals and mistakes. It’s because of them. It’s why celebrities read mean tweets about themselves on Jimmy Kimmel. It’s why shows like Worst Cooks in America: Celebrity Edition and Dancing with the Stars exist. It’s why Dove’s Real Beauty campaign has won every award. It’s why Eminem won the final rap battle against Papa Doc.

Psychologically speaking, it’s our own insecurities that prevent us from using some of our greatest assets in building and maintaining relationships. We underestimate the power of authenticity, flaws and all. Our flawed reality, no matter how difficult it is to talk about, creates a stronger, more sustainable brand than a perfectly manicured one.

That’s why flaws are the basis for PRSA Pittsburgh’s annual PR Summit – “Failing Forward.” We’ve all bombed job interviews, flubbed presentations, sent emails to the wrong person, and shared unflattering pictures of ourselves. Instead of hiding from those things, let’s celebrate them. Let’s turn our flaws into our strengths.

By: Ben Butler

To prepare for this year’s upcoming award season, we’re taking a look back at some of our previous Renaissance Awards winners to see what made them successful, and what they’ve been up to since.

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Campaign Name & Year 

“Will Work for Beer” – 2018

Agency/Organization

Top Hat — an award-winning design and marketing communications agency in Millvale.

Campaign Overview

As of April 2017 Top Hat had worked with 30 different industries, but something was missing: beer clients. So rather than waiting around hoping their luck would change, they decided to launch “Will Work for Beer.”

“Will Work for Beer” was a call to all craft breweries — Top Hat would do any communications project purely in exchange for beer for one brewery. Interested breweries had to send in a compelling presentation as to why they should select them as our partner.

The campaign resulted in a flood of media attention — from Hop Culture Magazine to Adweek — and word of mouth. It attracted brewery pitches from all over the United States, and even as far away as Brazil. Top Hat ultimately selected Lord Hobo Brewing Company, the country’s soon-to-be fastest growing regional craft brewery from Boston.

The campaign also went on to win (2) prestigious Silver Anvil Awards later that year.

What It Won

• “Best in Show”
• B2B Campaign
• Reputation Management
• New Products & Services Communications
• Media Relations
• Digital Campaign

Why it won

“Aaron (Top Hat creative director/partner) and I have always been pleasantly surprised by how much people love this campaign,” says Ben Butler, APR, founder of Top Hat.

“It was a relatively simple idea, but very disruptive for our space. Usually agencies kind of just wait for the new industry sectors to come to them. Any efforts otherwise tend to fall flat (pun intended).”

“Most of all, however, I think besides being a fun idea, we had tangible measurables that demonstrated to the judges just how successful our efforts were. We blew those out of the water, entered a brand new industry we’d never touched, and doubled our business within one year.”

Advice for Creating an Award-Winning Entry

“The judges want to know what you were trying to achieve with your campaign, and why that goal mattered at all,” says Butler. “For us, it was crystal clear — revenue-driving business development in a new sector that we aimed for and surpassed.”

“You also have to sell them on why your approach was a good idea. What research did you do? What hypothesis did you come to? Make that all crystal clear in a nicely formatted PDF, and you’ll be putting yourself in the best possible spot for success.”

What the agency/company is up to now

Since “Will Work for Beer,” Top Hat has gone on to work with 19 different beer brands including the iconic Pittsburgh Brewing Company. They recently launched the complete design identity and communications overhaul for Iron City Beer, I.C. Light, and I.C. Light Mango this summer.