At a previous job with a non-profit organization, we frequently held events for the clients of our program. As a small program that was always in need of community donations, we recognized the need for media coverage of our events, so that our name could be more visible in the community. Unfortunately for a time, none of us actually knew how to write a press release or appropriately let the media know about our events. Several attempts were made to attract the media to our program, but without success. If only I'd heard the lecture by our most recent guest speaker during my time at that program! I'd know the appropriate steps to take to approach the media and would have had practice writing a press release.
Alas...I've since moved on from that organization and will have to settle for using that experience plus the new information I have about the difference between advertising, marketing, and public relations to inform any future work I do with organizations that would benefit from media exposure. Obviously these topics are complicated and do require some experience in order to be successful. It's not just a matter of writing a letter to a newspaper or television station and saying 'Our organization is great and we think you should feature a story about us!' How many times a day do they hear that? It's all about the emotion and the story told. You've got to really grab their attention and make them feel something. Otherwise, you're just another paper on the huge stack of minor stories that no one will hear about.
March 27, 2008
March 24, 2008
TED Talks Marketing
If you haven't discovered TED I highly recommend you check out the website - tons of inspiring and intriguing talks by fascinating and brilliant minds on nearly any subject imaginable. Here are two videos related to marketing from the TED website:
1. Touches on asking the right questions, focus groups, and segmentation...by Malcolm Gladwell
2. What gets people's attention & who to target...by Seth Godin
1. Touches on asking the right questions, focus groups, and segmentation...by Malcolm Gladwell
2. What gets people's attention & who to target...by Seth Godin
Week 9: Identity & Branding
This week in class we talked about identity & branding and in the class blog Amanda brought up an excellent point - that we are surrounded by brand names that have been successfully marketed to us, such that when we think of any item we immediately associate the brand name and often substitute the brand name for the item (i.e. Kleenex, Xerox, and more recently Google). Just as the term Xerox went from merely a brand to also a verb, so did Google. No one says 'search for something on the internet' anymore...everyone just 'googles' it! Way to go Google and Xerox and Kleenex, etc. for getting their products to the tops of our minds.
On a related note...click here for a link to an article about an alternative method of finding out what people really think of different brands.
On an unrelated note yet related to a topic covered earlier in the semester, this morning on NPR I heard a segment with the VP of Campaigns for PETA. He and the interviewer were discussing the different advertisement strategies PETA has used over the years and their discussion was clearly an example of how PETA has utilized the two pathways to persuasion in their marketing. According to the conversation, several years ago PETA was taking more of an 'information-based' approach to their marketing strategy (read: central pathway). Now they are relying more on celebrity endorsements and less information packed ads (read: peripheral pathway). Their reasoning for this is that by using celebs (such as Pamela Anderson) they are trying to capture the attention of the masses of people who are interested in celebrities, specifically mentioned were frat guys.
However one caller made me realize an interesting dilemma when trying to negotiate between these two pathways. The caller mentioned that she was a supporter of PETA but made her feel less inclined to support the organization when she saw Pam Anderson advocating for them. The caller felt that this particular celeb is not a respected enough or does not invoke a positive enough image of the organization for her liking; she added that Pamela as a rep of PETA actually does more harm than good, in her opinion. This brings me to the dilemma I realized....when an organization is creating marketing messages and deciding which processing pathway to utilize in order to reach their target audience (ideally decided through the use of formative research!) they run the risk of alienating or turning off other segments of their audience that may process the information in a different way. Exhibited by the female caller who was more apt to identify with the PETA ads that required high involvement in the message processing, and who was less responsive and reacted negatively to the ads that capitalized on low involvement processing. Makes these decisions made by the big-wigs (or health educators) seems like more of a balancing act...how much do you want to capture Audience A, and is it worth the potential risk of losing Audience B? This could be a very involved dilemma but I bet the best answer is...more formative research!!
On a related note...click here for a link to an article about an alternative method of finding out what people really think of different brands.
On an unrelated note yet related to a topic covered earlier in the semester, this morning on NPR I heard a segment with the VP of Campaigns for PETA. He and the interviewer were discussing the different advertisement strategies PETA has used over the years and their discussion was clearly an example of how PETA has utilized the two pathways to persuasion in their marketing. According to the conversation, several years ago PETA was taking more of an 'information-based' approach to their marketing strategy (read: central pathway). Now they are relying more on celebrity endorsements and less information packed ads (read: peripheral pathway). Their reasoning for this is that by using celebs (such as Pamela Anderson) they are trying to capture the attention of the masses of people who are interested in celebrities, specifically mentioned were frat guys.
However one caller made me realize an interesting dilemma when trying to negotiate between these two pathways. The caller mentioned that she was a supporter of PETA but made her feel less inclined to support the organization when she saw Pam Anderson advocating for them. The caller felt that this particular celeb is not a respected enough or does not invoke a positive enough image of the organization for her liking; she added that Pamela as a rep of PETA actually does more harm than good, in her opinion. This brings me to the dilemma I realized....when an organization is creating marketing messages and deciding which processing pathway to utilize in order to reach their target audience (ideally decided through the use of formative research!) they run the risk of alienating or turning off other segments of their audience that may process the information in a different way. Exhibited by the female caller who was more apt to identify with the PETA ads that required high involvement in the message processing, and who was less responsive and reacted negatively to the ads that capitalized on low involvement processing. Makes these decisions made by the big-wigs (or health educators) seems like more of a balancing act...how much do you want to capture Audience A, and is it worth the potential risk of losing Audience B? This could be a very involved dilemma but I bet the best answer is...more formative research!!
March 14, 2008
Week 8: Right or Wrong...
This week we talked about 'wrong reasons' for health behaviors in class. And in the end it seems to me that nearly reason for initiating a positive health behavior should be applauded (assuming it doesn't do harm to anyone)...if in the end an individual or group is working to improve their health, even if they don't realize or acknowledge it, that's great! In order to be effective health promoters we need to be in touch with our audience and be open to capitalizing on their actual needs, wants and motivations, even if to those in the health world these fall into the category of the 'wrong reasons' for practicing a health behavior. And just because we are in this field doesn't mean that we can't be motivated by some of these reasons too...the other night I was debating with myself about whether to go to the gym and really having a hard time finding the motivation to do so. 
Even though I am in the public health field and know all of the health benefits of regular exercise, in the end what actually got me to make it inside the gym was thinking about the cruise I'll be going on in a few months and how I will be wearing a bathing point at some point. Superficial I know, but that is where I was at that night. If I as an educated health promoter can't even get myself to exercise for the 'right' reasons, how can I expect to motivate anyone else to?
Even though I am in the public health field and know all of the health benefits of regular exercise, in the end what actually got me to make it inside the gym was thinking about the cruise I'll be going on in a few months and how I will be wearing a bathing point at some point. Superficial I know, but that is where I was at that night. If I as an educated health promoter can't even get myself to exercise for the 'right' reasons, how can I expect to motivate anyone else to?
March 11, 2008
Week 7: Health Literacy
Talking about health literacy in this week's class made me remember some of the experiences I had as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Paraguay. I worked with several women's groups there and ended up designing a health course for the women I worked with, so that they could learn more about health topics that they identified as important to them. One challenge to teaching this group of mostly middle-aged women was that the majority of them were no
t literate, in either of the languages spoken in Paraguay. There were definitely ways to work through this challenge...I had to be creative with how I chose to get the health information across to them without using written words...instead lots of visuals including posters, pictures, etc. Although this experience was not in a U.S. setting, reflecting on it made me remember that there are other ways to communicate health messages without relying on written messages. It may not be the cheapest and/or easiest way (in the educator's mind), but as the video we watched in class pointed out, health literacy is an issue in the U.S. and is an important issue that needs attention. While it needs our attention as health promoters, to have an ever more wide spread influence we also need to have buy in from the policy makers who create all the confusing forms and documentation that alienates those who cannot read them.
t literate, in either of the languages spoken in Paraguay. There were definitely ways to work through this challenge...I had to be creative with how I chose to get the health information across to them without using written words...instead lots of visuals including posters, pictures, etc. Although this experience was not in a U.S. setting, reflecting on it made me remember that there are other ways to communicate health messages without relying on written messages. It may not be the cheapest and/or easiest way (in the educator's mind), but as the video we watched in class pointed out, health literacy is an issue in the U.S. and is an important issue that needs attention. While it needs our attention as health promoters, to have an ever more wide spread influence we also need to have buy in from the policy makers who create all the confusing forms and documentation that alienates those who cannot read them.
March 3, 2008
Week 6: Understanding Your Audience
Recently my fellow PH663 group members and I were diligently working on our project for this class, recruiting undergrads from the on-campus food court for our focus groups, when we found ourselves suddenly being recruited. We weren't being recruited to answer formative research questions - but instead to sign several petitions to get measures on the upcoming ballot. Unfortunately our interaction with the recruiter that approached us was less than 
positive for me, and despite the negative impression he left with me, I am deciding to turn this encounter into a learning experience of how NOT to approach an audience. Without using specifics, hopefully I can still get important points across.
Last week in class we talked about the so-called 'hard to reach' audience and some alternative ways to conceptualize this audience . Using these ways as a guide, we can see how NOT adhering to them can alienate an audience instead of creating a positive relationships with them.
1. Different not deficient -- It turns out myself and others in my group had different opinions on the measures on the signature recruiter's list. In my mind I though that shouldn't matter since he assured us that we weren't actually voting for or against any of them, just signing the petition to get them on the next ballot so then people could vote on them. When he discovered our different opinions, he became a bit rude, to put it nicely. Lesson learned: insulting and stereotyping people who have different opinions from you, instead of accepting those difference is not the best way to get people to listen to you.
2. Society vs. individual -- Here I do have to say that the signature recruiter was approaching us more as a group rather than individuals. Unfortunately his approach didn't have the positive spin that I understand to be intended with this method of reaching audiences. Instead of putting blame on us as individuals, he was putting the blame on the larger segments of society that we fit into...i.e. in his eyes we have the 'wrong' opinions that we have because we are women and intelligent. Lesson learned: it is important not to blame the individual for whatever situation they are in and to examine the societal influences leading to their situation. But it is equally important not to insult the society the individual is a part of. Such insults may not get you on the audience's good side.
3. Communication as dialogue -- Ideally communication with an audience should be reciprocal, both sender and receiver driven. Unfortunately in this situation, with us as the audience, there were no receiver driven messages being delivered. Instead of Lesson learned: in order to get your audience to buy into whatever it is you are 'selling' you have to make sure to hear their side of the situation and pay attention to what the audience is telling you. Otherwise, by delivering one-sided dialogue, you may alienate the audience and easily turn them against your 'product.' In this case, this incident made me not ever want to sign any more of those petitions again, for fear that I will be attacked and insulted without cause.
I realize that this entry has a bit of a negative vibe...this run in with the signature recruiter is obviously conjuring up strong feelings for me, even several days later. Hopefully by next time, I will have some positive examples of communication in action!
positive for me, and despite the negative impression he left with me, I am deciding to turn this encounter into a learning experience of how NOT to approach an audience. Without using specifics, hopefully I can still get important points across.Last week in class we talked about the so-called 'hard to reach' audience and some alternative ways to conceptualize this audience . Using these ways as a guide, we can see how NOT adhering to them can alienate an audience instead of creating a positive relationships with them.
1. Different not deficient -- It turns out myself and others in my group had different opinions on the measures on the signature recruiter's list. In my mind I though that shouldn't matter since he assured us that we weren't actually voting for or against any of them, just signing the petition to get them on the next ballot so then people could vote on them. When he discovered our different opinions, he became a bit rude, to put it nicely. Lesson learned: insulting and stereotyping people who have different opinions from you, instead of accepting those difference is not the best way to get people to listen to you.
2. Society vs. individual -- Here I do have to say that the signature recruiter was approaching us more as a group rather than individuals. Unfortunately his approach didn't have the positive spin that I understand to be intended with this method of reaching audiences. Instead of putting blame on us as individuals, he was putting the blame on the larger segments of society that we fit into...i.e. in his eyes we have the 'wrong' opinions that we have because we are women and intelligent. Lesson learned: it is important not to blame the individual for whatever situation they are in and to examine the societal influences leading to their situation. But it is equally important not to insult the society the individual is a part of. Such insults may not get you on the audience's good side.
3. Communication as dialogue -- Ideally communication with an audience should be reciprocal, both sender and receiver driven. Unfortunately in this situation, with us as the audience, there were no receiver driven messages being delivered. Instead of Lesson learned: in order to get your audience to buy into whatever it is you are 'selling' you have to make sure to hear their side of the situation and pay attention to what the audience is telling you. Otherwise, by delivering one-sided dialogue, you may alienate the audience and easily turn them against your 'product.' In this case, this incident made me not ever want to sign any more of those petitions again, for fear that I will be attacked and insulted without cause.
I realize that this entry has a bit of a negative vibe...this run in with the signature recruiter is obviously conjuring up strong feelings for me, even several days later. Hopefully by next time, I will have some positive examples of communication in action!
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