Goggle writing PRSA's PR Tactics recently reminded us that Google has changed both purpose and methodology for headline writing.
"What happens when writers optimize Web headlines for Google," PRSA writes, is that "we move proper nouns, keywords and full names to the front of the headline, crowding out wit and whimsy."
Here are four tactics that they suggest for writing effectively for both Google SEO rankings and real people. Full PRSA suggestions here.
1. Remember that "your title tag and URL get more emphasis from Google than your headline."
2. "Put the literal, search- and click-friendly headline on the content page. Place a feature headline on your own home page or sub-indexes."
3. "Use the headline for the literal story and the deck for the creative or benefits-focused one."
4. Be clever and clear.
Print savings Everyone wants to be frugal without losing quality; here’s a way to achieve both: Change fonts.
Printer.com tested 10 fonts with 11 point Arial as the baseline. The frugal quality winner was 10 point Century Gothic, saving a whopping 31% over the benchmark Arial.
That's about $20 a year for individuals printing 25 pages a week — sounds like about one ink cartridge a year.
Wisebread.com lists 10 other ways to save on printing costs.
Role reversal among the media The “nastiness index” for the media keeps rising as they “now seem to be both the purveyors and often the targets of ugly attacks,” writes Howard Kurtz in The Washington Post. His citations:
> Salon calls Fox News racist.
> Fox says mainstream organs Obama lap dogs.
> E-mails wish death to Limbaugh.
> Others say Fred Barnes is racist.
> Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone accused a lapse in journalistic ethics in McChrystal story.
> Defenders accused of being military lackeys.
“It's journalism as blood sport, performed for the masses,” Kurtz wrote.
Makes one yearn for the good ole days of the Spanish American War, when New York Journal publisher William Randolph Hearst told his artist Frederick Remington, "You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war!"
Edit30 authority Edit30 brings more than three decades of corporate, marketing and investor communications expertise to the blog arena. We provide the insight executives need, but may not get from insiders or retainers. Find out more on our "About" page.
|
Savvy communicators recognize that the KISS Theory (Keep It Simple, Stupid!) is one of their most important creative fundamentals when developing client messaging. That’s why Bill Taylor’s current Harvard Business Review column, ”It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Believe,” is so gratifying.
The reference company is Apple, whose products are uniquely successful in masking extreme complexity with unbelievable simplicity of operation.
While Taylor uses an Apple vignette (from Adam Lashinsky’s new book Inside Apple) to illustrate his point, he admits that he computer gizmo maker is not alone; others that live by the same precept include Southwest Airlines, USAA, Cirque du Soleil, the Marine Corps, and Pixar among others.
The instructive anecdote goes back two years to the time when CEO Tim Cook was chairing his first investor conference call after Steve Jobs announced his medical leave of absence. It was the first analyst’s first question; he quizzed Cook about what would be different at Apple if Cook were running the company instead of Jobs.
Jobs responded with an impromptu, as-if-scripted statement, “as if [he were] reciting a creed he had learned as a child in Sunday School.”
Cook’s response:
“We believe that we are on the face of the earth to make great products, and that’s not changing.
“We believe in the simple not the complex…We believe in saying no to thousands of products, so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful to us…
“We believe in deep collaboration and cross-pollination of our groups, which allow us to innovate in ways others cannot…
“And I think that regardless of who is in what job those values are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well.”
Anyone who has ever used an Apple product will agree that the company does “innovate the way others cannot” and that Apple products “just work,” unlike any others.
The journalism profession has been facing an identity crisis for quite some time. But the challenge has never been more daunting than it is now with the social media birthing “citizen journalists” and reporters seeking to tweet the world.
Unfortunately, our friends at the Merriam-Webster Dictionary don’t help matters much with their conflicting definitions of “journalism.”
- Journalism is “writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation;” and journalism also is…
- “Writing designed to appeal to current popular taste or public interest.”
Definition one provides the journalism boundaries previously accepted by traditionalists: Journalism is not designed to mold opinion, though that may be an outcome. (What an anachronistic thought!)
Definition two aligns more with the current practice of journalism in that it is “designed to appeal to current popular taste….” Translation: Cater to an audience by saying or writing what they want to hear, and thus grow your market.
To confuse the journalism-versus-social-media issue even further, now comes Ragan.com, which tells business communicators that the way to gain credibility is to practice a hybrid called “brand journalism.”
Ragan says that this “new form of communications for business [is] rapidly emerging as the digital revolution continues to evolve… [because it is] more aligned with this era of engaged conversation and transparency. It showcases authenticity.”
Ragan gets really wound up in this brand journalism thing, stating that it is “harnessing all of the appeal and credibility of news — and tapping into people’s curiosity about what’s really behind a company. Brand journalism brings a new dimension to the interactive and social media power of the Internet. It enables companies and organizations to tell their own stories and become trusted information resources for stakeholders and the media.”
Ragan lays out six fundamentals to achieve this; with the ringer coming at the end, of course.
1. Feature stories and profiles can “call out the uniqueness of a company’s products, services and people.” (All great points.)
2. Third-party thought-leaders. “Regular columns by industry analysts, experts and trade association leaders.” (Nothing new here. Third-party endorsements are one of the fastest ways to gain acceptance.)
3. Brevity. ”Keep stories short.” (The KISS theory is Journalism 101.)
4. Authenticity. “Keep things real by shining a light on employees who are making a difference.” (Personalization is always a good idea: Tried, true, proven.)
5. Balance. “A steady flow of industry news through excerpts and live news feeds underscore balance.” (Another Journalism 101 basic.)
And heeeere’s the ringer:
6. C-suite buy-in. “It’s one of the most essential elements. Without a commitment to having an authentic and balanced website, any brand journalism effort is likely to wander into promotional terrain.”
Here Ragan’s description of “brand journalism” meets a headwind. When push comes to shove, every CEO and CMO we’ve ever known is paid to sell product. If supporting a blog, wiki, Website, social network, YouTube post, whatever sells product s/he is in favor of it.
However, when it comes to a public unbridled, factual, complete assessments of his/her products, comparing them to competitors’ and the relative merit each offers, that’s another story.
CEOs and CMOs are not journalists and to expect that level of candor from them is unrealistic. They are in the business of promoting, not reporting.
That is not to say that they want to lie, intentional mislead or withhold vitals facts. It is to say, however, that every product has shortcomings, unfinished facets, or features that could be more robust.
“Journalists” who write reviews or news reports should be aware of these and report them according to their relative merit. That’s what they are paid to do, and that is why journalists should exist (as defined in Webster’s definition one above).
Corporate communicators are not “journalists” and while they may often use the methods of journalists — Ragan’s top five points — they cannot be expected to be detached from the businesses they are in. Like CEOs and CMOs, they too go to work every day to sell product.
To set for corporate communicators the unattainable goal of acting like journalists is to assure them frustration followed by certain failure. Corporate communicators are part of a corporate team, not a newsroom; The two are poles apart and have widely differing objectives; confusing their respective goals serves neither well.
To better understand the differences of these two interests, corporate communicators would do well to reread our 10 Media Relations Rules.
——————
About Ragan: Lawrence Ragan Communications, Inc., has published insights and suggestions on communications, public relations, and leadership development newsletters for more than 30 years. The firm began as The Ragan Report in 1970 and now includes 16 communications related newsletters. The company also produces conferences, workshops, and forums.
Strategies for effectively dealing with the media are at once simple and complex: They are simply stated fundamentals of caution that executives should adhere to, yet they are complex in their execution because of basic human traits.
Among those complicating behaviors are a person’s eagerness to chat, to fill any sound void, to be congenial, even to reveal inner feelings.
 France's Sarkozy, Israel's Netanyahu, America's Obama (Sources: Wikipedia Commons and White House Website) All of those are character traits that can get you in trouble when dealing with the media — as we have pointed out in our 10 Media Relations Rules.
The real-life example of such an embarrassing situation occurred last week in an exchange between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and President Obama. Here’s what they said off-camera, but not off-mic.
“I can’t stand him anymore, he is a liar,” Sarkozy commented to Obama in describing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before a G20 news conference in Cannes.
“You may be sick of him, but me, I have to deal with him every day,” Obama replied, according to the French Website Arrêt sur Images and later distributed globally by the AP and Wall Street Journal.
(Here is one of several YouTube videos of Sarkozy greeting Obama before the misstep.)
The unfortunate exchange violates both the third and fourth Media Relations Rules:
- No communication with a reporter is casual. Interviews are not chats. They are business discussions; treat them that way.
- Regardless of what you may be told, nothing is off the record. If you say it, expect it to be reported.
In addition, this situation creates what can be called The Sarkozy Corollary: “Always assume the mic is open.”
Not only did the French and American leaders assume far too much — that their mics were inoperative at that moment — their staffs trusted the media to comply with an embargo of audio translations being provided them.
The Journal reported:
“Even though the two presidents were still in a separate room, they were already wearing microphones for the news conference and aides to Mr. Sarkozy had distributed translating devices to a small group of journalists. Reporters were told not to connect headphones until the news conference started. Those who did, however, heard the exchange.”
Now, in addition to Sarkozy Corollary (assume the mic works), we have a further caution: You trust an embargo at your own peril, as the Sarkozy staff discovered.
[Thanks to Journal reporters Geraldine Amiel, with help from Joshua Mitnick and Carol E. Lee, for reporting this revealing event.]
Americans believe that much of the media is biased and, therefore, Americans don’t trust news organizations to tell the truth, but those conclusions should surprise no one — except maybe the media itself.
The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press reports that…
- 66% of those sampled say news stories often are inaccurate;
- 77% think news organizations tend to favor one side; and
- 80% say news organizations are often influenced by powerful people and organizations.
The Gallup organization shows similar attitudes among Americans in their research…
- 55% of Americans do not have confidence in the media to report news fully;
- 60% perceive bias in news reports;
- 47% saying the media are too liberal;
- 13% saying they are too conservative, and
- 36% say the media are “just about right.”
Naturally enough, conservatives and Republicans believes the media skews to the left, while Democrats and liberals believe the media veers to the right.
The perception of liberal bias is natural enough since the collective newsroom psyche is built on the belief that “The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
Attribution of that comfort-the-afflicted statement goes to multiple sources from the Archbishop of Canterbury, to the 19th Century journalist Peter Finley Dunne, and to the social activist Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, an Irish immigrant, who was a prominent labor and community organizer, worked with the Knights of Labor and the United Mine Workers union, and founded the Industrial Workers of the World.
What news outlets help Americans form these opinions? Pew says…
- 66% of respondents say they get most of their news from television; and
- 43% cite the Internet as their main news source; obviously there is some overlap.
Pew further states that, “Despite the growth of Internet news, it is clear that television news outlets — specifically cable news outlets — are central to people’s impressions of the news media.”
Asked to identify what news organizations first come to mind…
- 63% offered a cable news outlet; CNN and Fox News by far the most prevalent;
- 36% named one of the broadcast networks;
- 10% said local news outlets;
- 5% mentioned a national newspaper such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal or USA Today; and
- 3% named a website – either web-only or linked to a traditional news organization.
Not unexpected, Pew found that “the growth in negative attitudes toward the news media in recent years in several key areas has come [predominately] among Democrats and independents. Since Barack Obama took office, the proportion of Democrats saying that news stories are often inaccurate has risen sharply, and they are now nearly as critical as Republicans.”
- 43% of Democrats believed news coverage was inaccurate in 2007; but
- 64% now believe it is inaccurate.
- 56% of Independents believed news coverage was inaccurate in 2007; but
- 66% now believe it is inaccurate.
- 63% of Republicatins believed news coverage was inaccurate in 2007; but
- 69% now believe it is inaccurate.
As about the media’s role as a so-called “watch dog” — “press criticism of political leaders as a check on possible wrongdoing:”
- 71% of Democrats in 2007 (during Bush) favored the press keeping an eye on politicians; however
- 55% so believed in 2009, at the outset of Obama’s term; and
- 58% so believe now, in 2011.
- 44% of Republicans favored the watch-dog role in 2007 (during Bush);
- 65% so believed in 2009, at the outset of Obama’s term; and
- 59% so believe now, in 2011.
“While the public has long been critical of many aspects of the press’s performance, negative attitudes are at record levels in a number of areas,” Pew concludes. “The percentage saying news organizations are often influenced by powerful people and organizations has reached an all-time high of 80%.”
Read the full Pew report here.
While it is obvious that PR and IR are intrinsically different disciplines, demands of the marketplace and regulatory authorities over the last decade have brought them into close alignment and, in some cases, melded them into a single unified function.
Factors influencing this uniting of responsibilities include global competition for customers, capital and talent; the revolutionary influence and power of social networks and online based information platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and WikiLeaks; and calls for more transparency following the recent global financial crisis.
“Transparency and credibility are the two key factors” driving this convergence according to an O’Dwyer’s article by Ulrich Siebert, Managing Partner at Intellisource GmbH in Frankfurt, Germany. “They are the most important aspects of a company’s code of conduct and corporate policy. It seems inevitable that the information quality of companies has to be sustained in order to reduce uncertainty, build trust and credibility and thus make a significant contribution to increasing enterprise value.”
While expanding, this trend is not new. Fully 10 years ago, Lou Thompson, the former president of the National Institute for Investor Relations (NIRI), told Communications World that the primary drivers for the confluence of responsibilities was “the scope of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s disclosure rule, US Regulation FD [full disclosure, which], covers all corporate communication.”
Only slightly more recently, the head of Korn/Ferry’s Washington, DC, external affairs search practice was quoted by Inside Investor Relations as saying, “We’ve definitely seen an uptick in the number of IR folks going into the top corporate communications role.”
The convergence is especially evident at newer, smaller companies because “they have the luxury of building a combined function under today’s [SEC] guidelines rather than having to live with legacy structures,” according to the head of IR searches at Russell Reynolds Associates.
Intellisource’s Siebert observes that ”while PR is primarily committed to reputation building [and] IR activities are aimed at stabilizing or enhancing shareholder value or stock prices… reputation, moral integrity and market value cannot be forced on the public or capital market,” Siebert wrote.
Therefore, with many PR professionals increasingly becoming responsible for at least some aspects of IR, we thought that an article by Alexandra Walsh in the current NIRI journal, IR Update, would be of value to edit30 readers. [NIRI doesn't have the magazine online, or we'd give you a link.]
“The Seven Deadly Sins of Sell-Side Relations” is the title and even though they were drafted for IR professionals, most of the thou-shall-nots are fully applicable to PR professionals. They are the following.
1. Not returning calls… Today. This needs no explanation.
2. Overzealous Gatekeeping. “Don’t become a barrier to direct discussion between the analyst [or a reporter] and the company executives.” IR and PR people should remember that they are not the story; the company, product, service or executive is. The I/PR person is an explainer, a facilitator, a counselor to company officials.
3. Over-managing the Investor Base. Thus don’t “avoid talking to certain types of investors [or reporters]. Every investor dollar, every line of ink, every second of airtime is important; don’t get picky about the people you communicate with. Remember the adage: Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.
4. Making Lemonade from Sour Lemons. “Sugarcoating risks or bad news and treating analysts [and reporters] like they’re in grade school” is futile and counter-productive. This is especially the case in crisis communications situations. Remember Warren Buffet’s crisis communications rules; Get it right. Get it fast. Get it out. Get it over.
5. If It Ain’t Broke… Mess with It Anyway. Don’t. Leave well enough alone. Unnecessary changes in “segment reporting or operating metrics” just confuse analysts [and reporters] and can make useless their performance models.
6. Selling Stocks. “An IRO’s job is not to sell stock, it’s to provide a greater understanding of the company whose stock will be sold.” This is where IR and PR differ somewhat: PR people are, at times, pitchmen, but hyperbolic PR spiels propped up by endless streams of glorifying adjectives serve only to mask core merit and will irritate a serious reporter.
7. Calling to Say Nothing. ‘Nuf said. Don’t do it. Time for analysts and reporters is important and valuable. Call only when you have something real, something substantial to convey.
Note: If your responsibilities are only PR, “sell side” might be an unfamiliar term. Investopedia defines it as “The retail brokers and research departments that sell securities and make recommendations for brokerage firms’ customers.” Their counterparts are the “buy side,” which comprises “the investing institutions such as mutual funds, pension funds and insurance firms that tend to buy large portions of securities for money-management purposes… Together, the buy side and sell side make up both sides of Wall Street.”
Communications form the heart of effective leadership in business and politics. But today, some business leaders are frustrated and believe that they are not effectively communicating with political leaders.
That’s because the business team perceives that the political team is neither paying attention to their needs — nor are they responding to voter messages sent through Gallup and Rasmussen that express dissatisfaction with Congress and the White House.
 Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" - "Liberty is too precious a thing to be buried in books." This all seems reminiscent of Cool Hand Luke, where the Captain so succinctly captured the problem: “What we have here is: Failure to communicate. Some men you just can’t reach.”
This failure to communicate led Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz to tap out an internal email in which he laments that he is “growing more and more frustrated at the lack of cooperation and irresponsibility among elected officials as they have put partisan agendas before the people’s agenda. This is not the leadership we have come to expect, or deserve.”
Schultz cites high unemployment, the financial crisis in Western Europe, extreme market fluctuations, US debt debacle, and a higher level of economic and political uncertainty worldwide.
According to New York Times columnist Joe Nocera even before sending out his employee e-mail, “an idea had begun forming in (Schultz’s) mind about how to force the country’s dysfunctional politicians to stop putting party over country and act like the leaders they are supposed to be.”
Schultz would use the labor union model: When you don’t like what’s going on, strike.
“In effect,” Nocera wrote, “Schultz thinks the country should go on strike against its politicians.”
The fundamental problem, Schultz told Nocera in a telephone interview, “is that the lens through which Congress approaches issues is re-election. The lifeblood of their re-election campaigns is political contributions.”
As communicators know, if you want to elicit a response, touch your stakeholders where they are most sensitive. For politicians, Schultz believes that tender spot is campaign contributions.
To spearhead his communications campaign seeking to stifle small and large, personal and corporate political contributions, Schultz landed Democracy 21, the Washington non-profit with an agenda of its own.
“‘Democracy 21 wholeheartedly supports the Schultz proposal to boycott campaign donations to federal officeholders. We will work with Mr. Schultz to help build national support for this effort to break through the polarization and partisanship in Washington that has blocked fundamental solutions to the fiscal and economic problems facing the country,’ said Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer,” D21 wrote on its Website.
D21′s mission is “to eliminate the undue influence of big money in American politics and to ensure the integrity and fairness of government decisions and elections.”
This alignment between D21 and Schultz’s Starbucks — the global brand and business behemoth — is ironic inasmuch as D21′s denunciation of “donations to federal officeholders” and “undue influence of big money.” Those are code phrases for corporate contributions funneled through Political Action Committees, PACs. (But, in the world of lobbying and public affairs, the rule is: “Never permanent enemies; never permanent friends.”)
According to Nocera, Schultz believes his contribution boycott must be “completely bipartisan” if it is going to work, which, we presume, inoculates him from the of conservative scourge on one side while enabling him with liberal (D21) indemnity on the other.
Schultz believes that the first step in the right direction will be for politicians to cancel their vacations and go back to work. That’s an optimistic objective.
In the end, lost cause or not, Schultz-the-communicator stands to gain a ton of publicity for Starbucks. He’s casting himself as the idealistic good guy (Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) battling the evil, embedded, unresponsive system in a valiant effort to achieve public good. Even if Schultz’s idea is a functional flop, he likely will win, in a way.
A reminder, though, when businesses enter politics strange things can happen and consumer reactions are often swift and unpredictable.
Among the keys to effective communications is using language that your intended audience can easily understand. Ideally, your audience will be able to personally relate to what you are communicating. When they do, then your message resonates, reverberates and assumes greater impact than the mere words themselves.
That’s why we found David Thomas’ “Federal Budget 101″ so compelling.
Well before the US federal budget moved out of the billions category and into the trillions most Americans had no idea of the real magnitude of all those zeros. Indeed, it seems that the 535 members of the House and Senate and the president have had a hard time getting a grip on the amount of public money they are spending — especially in relation to how much money they are taking in.
Thomas is the CEO of Equitas Capital Advisors LLC in New Orleans. He works daily works with his clients’ money; and he knows how to communicate with them. His messages resonate. “Federal Budget 101″ is an example of taking the too-big-to-understand and making it meaningful, something the officials in Washington might want to consider before the nation goes bankrupt or prints so much money that it is worthless.
Here’s Dave’s Federal Budget 101; pass it along.
The U.S. Congress sets a federal budget every year in the trillions of dollars. Few people know how much money that is so we created a breakdown of federal spending in simple terms. Let’s put the 2011 federal budget into perspective:
- US Income: $2,170,000,000,000
- Federal budget: $3,820,000,000,000
- New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
- National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
- Recent budget cut: $ 38,500,000,000, or about 1% of the budget
It helps to think about these numbers in terms that we can relate to. Let’s remove eight zeros from these numbers and pretend this is the household budget for the fictitious Jones family.
- Total annual income for the Jones family: $21,700
- Amount of money the Jones family spends: $38,200
- Amount of new debt added to the Jones’ credit cards: $16,500
- Current balance on the credit cards: $142,710
- The amount the Jones’ cut from their budget: $385
So in effect last month Congress — or the Jones family — sat down at the kitchen table and agreed to cut $385 from its annual budget.
What family would cut $385 of spending in order to solve $16,500 in deficit spending?
It may be a start, although hardly anything close to a real solution.
After years of this, the Jones family has $142,710 of debt on its credit cards (which is the equivalent of the national debt).
You would think the Jones family would recognize the seriousness of this situation and address it, but neither they nor Congress do.
The root of the debt problem is that the voters typically do not send people to Congress to save money. They are sent there to bring home the bacon to their own home state.
To effect budget change, we need to change the job description and give Congress new marching orders.
It is awfully hard (but not impossible) to reverse course and tell the government to stop borrowing money from our children and spending it now.
In effect, what we have is a reverse mortgage on the country. The problem is that the voters have become addicted to the money. Moreover, the American voters are still in the denial stage, and do not want to face the possibility of going into rehab.
Since Thomas penned these thoughts, pollsters have confirmed that the masses — everyone not elected to federal jobs — have lost confidence in their supposed leaders.
This week (8-10-11) the Rasmussen organization reported that “77% of voters say the country is heading down the wrong track.”
Gallup says that “Americans’ economic confidence plunged to -53 in the week ending Aug. 7.”
A New York Times poll sampling voter attitudes regarding the behavior of elected officials in Washington shows that…
- 28% are “angry,”
- 56% are “dissatisfied but not angry,”
- 14% are “satisfied but not enthusiastic,” and a mere
- 1% are “enthusiastic.”
So, it seems to us that the elected officials charged with collecting and spending public tax dollars — and maintaining a fiscally responsible budget — may want to knock off a few zeros and see if the simpler message resonates with them.
Sometimes the most difficult assignment for a business leader is answering one simple question, “What does your company do?” And not only is effectively answering that question critical, but the answer must be in simple, convincing, non-jargon-laden language.
A CEO, department head or spokesman must be an evangelist for his company and its products or services when he or she is in public. This is especially true when that executive is talking with the media. That’s why being able to successfully accomplish this seemingly simple task is so important, yet so often left un-archived.
 What not to do for a media spokesman Tackling the task
Our friends at The Media Trainers in Atlanta spent their early career days in broadcast news journalism. From that background, they know corporate communications shortcomings quite well and now teach executives how to avoid them.
In a new post on the TMT Website these pros show what can happen when a CEO cannot succinctly answer the question: “Tell us what your company does.” Not only does the CEO in this clip act surprised at the question, he stammers, clears his throat, repeatedly looks to the ceiling for guidance, and finally gets close to answer the question — the product saves a company money — in the last five second of the 60 second clip.
Take a look here at TMT’s Executive Rewind to see just how bad this performance is. This is an example of everything a CEO, department head or spokesman should NOT do when talking with the media about his/her company, what the company does, and why the company’s products or services are valuable.
Apple is very much an “est” company — a company that’s all about delivering the best, a company of superlatives. It inspires, produces and rewards excellence — and, in turn, it is rewarded.
In the last seven days, the economic value of seeking — indeed, demanding — excellence among the Apple staff (for the benefit of the Apple legions) has been emphatically demonstrated. The mantra “It just works” works in so many ways.
On June 3, Apple’s market cap (share price times outstanding shares) was $317.60 billion. On that same day, Microsoft had a market value of $201.59 billion, and Intel’s was $115.21 billion. These add up to Apple having greater market value than the “Wintel” combination. No small feat.
But market cap is the end of the story. What’s more important for business communicators is the beginning of the —est story, the unrelenting quest for excellence in everything from production through packaging to the all-critical messaging strategy.
That messaging strategy became visible once again again this week with Apple’s iCloud announcement. It is a perfect example of how Apple’s it-just-works philosophy is effective in marketing communications.
Commentators and analysts have labored to successfully explain the “cloud.” And “the great server in the sky” is not it.
Apple took a different tack. Not so much “what” is the cloud, but what the company’s new iCloud can do.
In a mere 23 words, two sentences, two paragraphs Apple answered the cloud question (see graphic) in terms that the company’s customers actually care about.
“iCloud stores your content and wirelessly pushes it to all your devices.
“And because it seamlessly integrates with your apps, everything happens automatically.”
This description of iCloud is a model of elegance in simplicity, order in a chaotic world. And, therefore, it is a valuable lesson for all business communicators.
- What is the iCloud? A place to store all of your digital stuff.
- What does it do? It pushes all of that stuff to all of your devices.
- How does it do it? Seamlessly and automatically.
No technical gobbledegook. “Don’t tell me how to build a watch when I ask for the time.”
And if you don’t get it the first time, your first click delivers you to a bit of restatement and elaboration that also answers the critical question, “What’s the cost?
“This is the cloud the way it should be: automatic and effortless. iCloud is seamlessly integrated into your apps, so you can access your content on all your devices. And it’s free with iOS 5.”
This type of phrasing reflects an approach to business and communications that is clear, straight-forward, and works. It is part of a commitment to excellence in products and communications about them.
That sort of unrelenting focus on excellence was preached by business lecturer Tom Peters three decades ago, before many of today’s iPhone and iPad users were born.
Only the oldest of Apple’s management team would have heard or read Peters’ exhortations, but his philosophy exists in the Apple DNA. Peters believed…
- Target areas of individual competence that determine long-term excellence;
- Foster superior, unswerving customer service;
- Encourage and support creativity, innovation and risk taking;
- Promote caring leadership as an inspiring model of superior performance.
The net result is that “It just works,” and yields enormous market success.
|
Generations Ever wonder where one “generation” ends and another begins? We’ve never really been sure where the Boomers stop and the Gen Xers begin. So, when we found the answer, we thought we share it.
Millennial Generation, 1980 to now, 21 and younger
Gen X, 1964-1979, 22 to 37 years
Boomers, 1946 to 1964, 38 to 65
Silent Generation, 1925 to 1945, 66+
|
Recent Comments