PRSA Counselors Academy: Steve Cody

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Steve CodySteve Cody, Managing Partner of Peppercom shared his thoughts about the vital role that having a future-driven vision played in the turnaround and success of his firm.

Cody had to reinvent his firm after the dot com bubble burst. Not surprisingly with a name like Peppercom, his client base tilted heavily to technology. And when the bust hit, many of his clients evaporated.

According to Steve, “Complacency is a killer. It’s critical to figure out how to differentiate yourself because the marketplace is rapidly changing.

“Agencies that just keep on doing what they’ve been doing for years are heading for trouble. The field of dreams approach does not work. We all have the same kind of relationships with journalists. … The more you are seen as just an order taker and a tactical media relations operation, the more your business will be marginalized.”

Cody has based Peppercom’s differentiation on “understanding what is keeping the client up at night and understanding the changes in the marketplace and the business.”

Cody believes in the value of street level market research. He regularly calls “eight to nine people to find out what they see as their challenges.”

He has developed services and solutions that respond directly to the client concerns he has discovered.

For example, after 9-11, he was told by many clients and business executives that they were reining in their communications budgets. When he probed to determine what areas were moving forward, he discovered that companies were looking for ways to heighten their security and ability to respond to a security-related event. Seeing this, Cody sought out and partnered with a security company to develop a CrisisRx program. Through Crisis RX, the two partner firms provide clients with a realistic simulation of their crisis plans in order for them to preview how they will perform should they have to implement them in real life.

Other product offerings developed in a similar way include

Pain-based Selling: Peppercom partnered with a sales training organization to provide clients with hybrid sales training that draws on the basic principals of effective communications that Peppercom offers in its traditional media training.

Business Outcomes: a measurement program development in partnership with a marketing company.

Cody and Peppercom use the intelligence they have gathered through their research as the driver for an aggressive promotion program for Peppercom.

“We are very aggressive in treating Peppercom as a brand. From the very beginning, we treated Peppercom as a brand. Today, we treat it like a $25K to $30K / month client.”

He constantly mines the data for use in articles and speeches. And he says there is a constant appetite on the part of business people to hear “what is keeping their peer group up at night.”

“All of our senior people are tasked with asking what’s keeping you up at night? What’s keeping your firm up at night? Then we publish the results. Every two months or so, we have thought leadership articles coming out.”

Cody has taken much the same approach to establishing a blog: first research what others have done, test his own approach internally and finally launch it publicly.

Recently, he partnered with PR News for a survey of the C-Suite’s opinion of PR, further differentiating his firm in a hot area.

And now Cody is drawing on this research to create PepperDigital to help executives close the gap between traditional reputation management and marketing and what they are doing online. Another need identified through research.

Mesh Day One: Can Blogs Influence Politics?

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This session featured a panel of well-known Canadian political columnists Paul Wells and Andrew Coyne along with Brad Davis, the Director of Internet Communications for the Michael Ignatieff Liberal leadership campaign. Warren Kinsella moderated the discussion.

Paul Wells got off a couple of great zingers (doesn’t he always?)

  • “We are being flooded by commentary by people who “don’ know jack, can’t write the english language and give it away for free.”
  • “99.9% of Sun columnists don’t add anything to anyone’s day.” (You have to be Canadian to understand this reference. The Sun Newspaper chain fashioned itself after British tabloids in order to build an audience. They now are having the greatest problems adjusting to sweeping changes in the media market.)

Mesh Day Two: Post-mass Media Marketing

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Tony Chapman of Capital C led this workshop.

Highlights of Tony’s presentation:

  • The common element between mass and digital is attention – the oxygen of brand building.
  • The first 50 years of marketing relied on one thing: He who shouts loudest wins.
  • We shouted and we shouted – 3.3 million brands; 27,000 new brands launched in 2005
  • We shouted at retail: saturation; consolidation; intimidation; exploitation
  • We shouted on media
  • Advertisers are demanding more and getting less
  • And consumers stopped listening
  • Consumers went from mass media to their media: watching; searching; gravitating; loitering; forging; coaching; scavenging; playing; hunting; chatting; dating; gambling; voting; listening; joining; shopping; gaming; learning; consuming
  • But there is a new passtime that is sucking even more time online: CREATING – blogging; mashing; designing; performing; confessing; publishing; creative directing; do it yourself advertising; filming; animating; living on line; expressing
  • Creating and expressing are the new pop culture trends
  • Digital is their media
  • The more time they spend with the mouse, the less time they leave the house -social isolation is increasing
  • The consumer has too many choices. They give us only two seconds of their attention
  • We are in a marketing revolution – moving from mass attention, where we never knew our consumers names, to a consumer-centric platform where we know our consumers names and so much more: how they feel; how they spend their time; where they shop and what they buy; what media they consume
  • With that type of knowledge, mass marketing becomes Precision Marketing – as targeted as one to one
  • Three simple steps to get there:
  1. Connect: Push – frame the brand in the way the consumer gets it (head; heart and hands); understand the junction between the physical and emotional appeal; take advantage of the retail theatre to anticipate and respond to the mood of shoppers; take advantage of promotional media; grassroots and sampling; word of mouth; customize mass media campaigns
  2. Engage: Push and pull – provide them with an online experience
  3. Interact: Pull – respond to your consumer wants – value added; influence; content; access; status
  • Use Advertising and PR to bring people into this process
  • Tell a story that connects with your known consumer wants – e.g. iPod; Dove; Axe; the Land of Cadbury; PepBoys Auto
  • Five predictions:
    1. Conventional mass tactics will be rendered obsolete;
    2. Consumers will hijack the creative process;
    3. Consumers will have complete power over the buying process;
    4. Wall street will pay a multiple on the size of your online community; and
    5. More advertising dollars will be spent at retail than with the conventional TV networks.

Mesh Day Two: Steve Rubel

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The second day of Mesh opened with an interactive session with Steve Rubel, the A list PR blogger.

Highlights:

  • “On the name of his blog, Micropersuasion, It’s no longer about the largest number of eyeballs. It’s about one person with a voice who can be influential. It’s about one voice and one person being just as persuasive as anybody.”
  • “Public relations has to mean literally what the word says, how to relate to the public. We’ve been dealing for years with the media. … Now it’s totally different. The public relations professional needs to know how to deal with people – as people.”
  • “We have to understand the motivations of the bloggers we deal with. Bloggers have a lot of different motivation. You have to think about how I can help this blogger to succeed and at the same time help me to succeed.”
  • “It’s about befriending a community. It’s about working with a community to further their goals and to further your own. … That’s the new model: Further the conversation.”
    The Edelman Trust barometer this year showed a shift in trust: “A person like myself or a peer is the most trusted person. People want to have a news means to connect and interact with each other.”
  • What’s working? “Advertising is still working. It’s adapting. … Word of Mouth has always worked. PR is working. … Marketing isn’t dying. PR isn’t dying. They’re just spreading out and adapting.”
  • On credibility: “The community will tell us who’s credible and who’s not. … The community does a wonderful job of checking what people are writing.”
  • “Who you should be talking to is a bigger question than who you should believe. There’s a tendency to go to the bigger blogs. … It’s not a numbers game. … You find a small section of an audience that’s interested in a specific thing and you develop a deep relationship with them.”
  • Who will pay for that? “I’ve seen some companies begin to set up budgets for community marketing.” Examples: Microsoft and Lego “Companies will see others do that and then ask themselves why they don’t do that.”
  • Campaigns are moving away from impressions and GRPs to be measured by “How many links did we get? How many conversations did we generate?”
  • “Companies will have to get their minds wrapped around that narrow is good. Niche vs. Reach.”
    About the Edelman Walmart controversy and the crossover of PR from media relations to blogger relations: “We learned from that. There are some things that are going to work and others that won’t. The important thing is to remain transparent and ethical.”
  • Re: MySpace and other social networking sites: “Look for where the relevant community is hanging out. … Whatever you do with social networks needs to be done on the terms of the community. … You need to do it politely and by fitting in.”
  • On Strumpette, the PR gossip blog: “I realize that I sit in the public. And with that, you’ve got to take your lumps.”
  • Pay for Play in the Blogosphere: “I’d advise you not to go there. Unless the rest of the world changes overnight, don’t do it. And the way to know what the world considers acceptable is to read blogs.”
  • On measuring success: “Touch points with influentials. How many times did we generate a conversation with people who are considered influentials. Also look at web traffic. Look at Links.”
  • Several questioners argued that character blogs have a place as an entertainment device. Rubel took an uncompromising position against character blogs.
  • “Character blogs are an example of blogs done wrong. Characters aren’t people. … It’s all fake. … Blogging is about real people, authenticity and conversation. It’s about the people who make the product, not the characters who are used in advertising the product. … If Mickey Mouse were really blogging, he’d be telling us how much he’s sweating in the costume and how long it has been since he went to the bathroom.”
  • “A character blog is a controlled message. It’s putting up a big shield, a barrier between you and the consumer. And consumers see that as the company saying, ‘I don’t want to get down and dirty and be honest with you.'”
  • Where is this going three years from now: “It’s headed toward a shift with advertising dollars coming out of unidirectional and going into two-way media. In three years there will be metrics … and new budgets for generating conversations.”
  • Advice to corporate executives: “Know where your people hang out. … Develop the infrastructure to have conversations. … Engage the audience in dialogue. … Empower the audience. What do they want to achieve and then help them do it.”

    • Blogtipping: Canadian Entrepreneur

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    A blog I like: Canadian Entrepreneur by business author, Rick Spence.

    Rick Spence

    Things I like:

    1) Rick posts frequently about marketing, one of the functions that studies tell us entrepreneurs hold for themselves, but do not always understand.

    2) Rick knows his stuff. A former editor of Profit, the Magazine for Small Business, he has been covering business for longer than he likes to admit. And now he is an entrepreneur himself. Living the dream.

    3) A Canadian writing about Canadian small business! The U.S. has a much more vigorous blogging community. Rick is one of the pioneers in Canada. Keep going Rick.

    Tip: Rick please enable Trackbacks. I frequently want to continue the conversation on my own blog, but Canadian Entrepreneur provides no way for me to ping back to your posting.

    Inside PR Podcast launched

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    Terry Fallis and David Jones have launched a new podcast, Inside PR, a weekly podcast on the state and future of public relations. Terry and David are President and Vice-President respectively of Thornley Fallis Communications. (I work there too!)

    In their inaugural podcast, Terry and Dave say that want to “take a look under the hood” of public relations. They plan to cover “everything from agency life to the tarnished and dubious reputation of our industry.” The guys say they will talk about “what it takes to succeed in our world and also the latest techniques and best practices.”

    In their first episode, topics covered in depth include the newly formed Canadian Council of Public Relations Firms, the upcoming Web2.0 mesh conference in Toronto and a new philosophy for media training.

    Inside PR should prove to be an interesting perspective on PR from two of Canada’s most thoughtful public relations practitioners. Congratulations guys!

    Social Marketing: Toronto AIMS Seminar with Shel Israel

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    AIMS (Association of Internet Marketing and Sales) took advantage of Shel Israel’s presence in Toronto to organize a session on social marketing.

    In addition to Shel Israel, the other featured speakers were:

  • Mark Evans, a senior technology reporter with the National Post. His principal blogs are Mark Evans,a Canadian take on telecom and technology and All Nortel, All the Time, a blog about all things Nortel.
  • Amber MacArthur, co-producer and co-host of Call for Help,a daily one-hour TV show on G4TechTV. She also produces commandN, a weekly web/tech news video show online and Inside the Net, a weekly podcast ; and
  • Jon Husband, visionary and evangelist for Vancouver blogging software company Qumana Inc.. He contributes to Qumana’s blog as well as his personal blog, Wirearchy.

    • Some takeaways:

    Mark Evans:

  • Why do I blog? First and foremost, it’s a branding exercise for me and what I do. I have bigger plans beyond the National Post. Unfortunately, the National Post has a backward approach to blogging. They are just getting into it now. And I’ve felt the need to lead them. … Networking. I’m a small fish in a big pond. Blogging allows me to get my thoughts out there, maybe get some credibility and maybe the New York Times will hire me sometime.
  • Revenue: I’m not in it for the money. Although I have Adsense, I make about a dollar a day.
  • Newspapers and blogging: Canadian papers are way behind the U.S. The Toronto Star is most advanced in blogging. The Globe and Mail is a close second and the National Post is way behind.
  • Advice for PR/Marketing practitioners: Jump into Blogging. You don’t have to write one, but read them every day. Engage them. Talk to them. Ask them to talk to you.
  • Corporate Blogs: I have an issue with CEO blogs. In the era of Sarbanes Oxley, most CEO’s cannot say what they feel. Legal and IR filter them and they seem stale.

    • Evans also reminded the audience of the Web 2.0 conference May 8/9 in Toronto. Check out Mark’s blog for more info on this.

    Amber MacArthur

  • Podcasting has expanded my audience internationally whereas previously on television it was only national.
  • Why would I waste time making a podcast if I can’t make money from it? Eventually, there will be opportunities to make money from advertising. I have an advertiser. It doesn’t give me much money, maybe enough to go out to dinner once in a while.
  • 12 to 20 minutes is a good time to get into a topic without going too long. I tune out of the hour long podcast.

    • Jon Husband

  • Pleasantville is the best movie about the effects of the internet and it doesn’t have a single computer in it.
  • First they will ignore you (was done). Then they will ridicule you (was done). Then they will fight you (in process). Then they will lose.

    • Shel Israel

  • Most C-level people just can’t do it. Their primary obligation is to shareholders. They may be constrained in what they can do.
  • The best bloggers are the people, like Robert Scoble, who are able to express themselves, have knowledge and have a lot of heart.
  • We trust people who are like we are.
  • Human nature is to want to have a conversation. Now for the first time, we can have conversations on a global level with people who care about what we want to talk about.
  • Perhaps we can call this “Mass micro-marketing.”
  • Web 2.0 companies in their early stages don’t need PR. They should blog. The blogosphere can capture the imagination of people; word of mouth will get the message out.

    • Thanks to AIMS Toronto for organizing this session.

    Seth Godin at Google

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    A video of Seth Godin’s presentation at Google.

    Vintage Godin:

    “There is a belief among a lot of companies … that technology wins. …I don’t think it does. I think what technology does is, it gives you a shot at marketing.”

    “I believe that what made Google work were some brilliant, maybe not intentional, marketing decisions. And those decisions have allowed you the freedom to do some really cool technology.”

    “The challenge is, if you’re going to bother doing something, is it worth talking about.”

    “It’s at the edges that people wait in line and talk about you.”

    “…emotional marketing: If you want me to talk about something, you better deep down love it. Or why should I?”

    “People don’t surf the web. … They poke. They poke around a lot. Poking in and poking out. … Click on one ad and then click back. Click on another and then click back. … Back and forth. Back and forth. And then finally, what you have done is establish a lot of clues…. The problem with clues is that they are too slow. … You’re either going to give up or finally you will have meaning. … You can’t get somebody to be a happy surfer until there is a sense of meaning, until they get the big picture. I think the next frontier is … how do you put in one place enough clues that in one second I get the big picture, I have enough meaning to take action.”

    “The Fashion/Permission Complex: Step number one: Make something worth talking about. If you can’t do that, start over. Step number two: Tell it to people who want to hear from you. Step number three: They do what people used to think of as marketing. They spread the word. They interrupt their friends. … And then the hardest part … Get permission from these people to tell them about your next fashion. … As this asset grows … you have the ability to launch new fashions. You don’t have to start from scratch every time. And you end up not having to find customers for your products but finding products for your customers.”

    “When are you going to build an asset like that one? … The opportunity with all the things that you are building … is to start now before it is too late to build in a permission asset, to build in the ability to have people want you to be a closer partner. To be there so that you can make them the next fashion and they’ll listen. … The opportunity here is to keep building remarkable stuff, but to build it with a compass that says if we build stuff that people want to hear about in a way they want to hear about it, they’ll want to keep interacting with us.”