Pirozzolo Company Public Relations

To Reach Next Level PR, Go Beyond News Writing Basics

This public relations how-to article explains how to push the limits of news.

In the rush to get out that next news release, blog post or tweet it’s easy to ignore the fundamentals of journalism.

That’s okay, but only if all you want are PRNewswire mentions, web content and, hopefully, some inbound links.

But if you aspire to Next Level PR—the kind of public relations that generates exposure in A-List traditional and online media, establishes your CEO as a thought leader, influences stakeholders, builds brand equity and generates qualified leads, then you must push the parameters of journalistic fundamentals to their limits.

MediaCollege.com lists the five basics of a news story to which Pirozzolo Company has added an additional five to help you get your client to Next Level PR. 

Let’s consider each one and how they can turn a ho-hum public relations campaign into a news-making powerhouse.

 Timing – people want to know what’s happening now as in “what’s new?”

As Media College states, “A story with only average interest needs to be told quickly.”

However, the enemy of corporate public relations timeliness is a multi-level review requirement for every routine release, tweet and blog post. It is far better to establish corporate guidelines for news releases as well as Social Media behavior, than having to review every bit of external communication. Sure mistakes will be made, but for the most part they can be corrected. Overall the campaign will be more effective if the C-Suite empowers employees serve as ambassadors of the brand and communicate with the best interests of their organization in mind.

Significance – A plane falls from the sky and everyone is killed; now that’s news. If everyone walks away, as they did in Miracle on the Hudson, that’s really big news. Walk away from a car crash in the Vons parking lot and it’s a snore.

Significance. though is in the eye of  the beholder. Let’s say you’re promoting a new app. Think about who the product matters to and focus on its significance for that audience. Too many news releases tout new technology as a state-of-the-art world-changer and a disrupter. Overreaching is counter productive, reduces creditability and will turn off editors and your target market.  

Dick Pirozzolo and Ted Kennedy, Jr. at American Polyfilm Grand Opening

Likewise, don’t think about significance only in terms of the market and investors. How does the new product impact employees and their families, does the new technology make the company a more progressive employer and thus more attractive to job seekers, does it open up opportunities for speaking engagements, how does the new product square with the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility culture and goals?

In the case of American Polyfilm's grand opening of its new manufacturing facility in Branford, Connecticut we capitalized on the national effort to encourage "Made in America" and hit all the notes in terms of significance to the local community, market reliability, and underscored the company's commitment to being a good corporate citizen, thus epitomizing the future of American manufacturing. CEO Victor Cassella underscored the importance of government-business cooperation in his remarks at the event. 

Cassella told well-wishers, “We have received ongoing support from the U.S. Small Business Administration, and Community Investment Corporation as well as The Guilford Savings Bank.

"The cooperation we experienced between our business and government agencies, clearly demonstrates the role government can play by encouraging forward-looking, energy-efficient, clean industries that support well paying jobs to locate and expand in the U.S.”

Proximity – Proximity isn’t only geographic. Media College advises that proximity can also describe a cultural, historical or social bond. Australians care about events in Singapore, because of its geographic proximity and the UK because of its cultural and historical proximity. Similarly, an event occurring in Israel will have more of an impact on Americans than one in Iceland.

Prominence – Pirozzolo Company has represented clients that are international household names. We have also established our clients’ prominence within geographic proximity or a community of interest such as the financial services,  foreign exchange, cybersecurity, or medical electronics sectors. 

Human Interest ­– Human interest stories, says Media College, “… often disregard the rules of newsworthiness; for example, they don't date as quickly, they need not effect a large number of people, and it may not matter where the story takes
place…”

For example, when Boston business leader Jeffrey Ornstein, CEO of J/Brice Design, was about to lose a valued employee whose visa had run out, he  launched not only a legal battle, but retained Pirozzolo Company to fight her case in the court of public opinion. Ornstein won and the employee, a talented young designer, remained working in the US, thanks in-part to a number of media outlets that underscored her value to the American economy including Wicked Local.

In addition, to these news fundamentals, consider Pirozzolo Company’s Next Level PR Basics: Controversy, Humor, Story, Consistency and Simplicity.

Controversy –  More than anything, the media love controversy, something the President of the United States has mastered to control nearly every news cycle.

We constantly scan the media for current events and issues. More recently we capitalized on the controversy involving Russia hacking our elections and tied it to the Republican National Convention to generate coverage for Stealthcare, a cybersecurity consulting company. The firm's CEO appeared on CBS-TV Cleveland and other national business and professional media outlets where he commented on the foreign involvement. 

Humor – There are times when funny will get you a lot more positive exposure than deadpan.

Washington Post humorist and syndicated columnist Gene Weingarten once interviewed our client Hilla Ovil-Brenner, founder of WhiteSmoke, a turbocharged writing engine that includes advanced editing and spellchecking.  

Columnist Weingarten quipped that Ovil-Brenner probably didn’t like it when people learned to spell because it would hurt her business.

She quipped back, “If I sold plus-size fashions, that would not mean I want women to be fat, it means I want them to feel good, look good and be successful in their lives. Just like WhiteSmoke helps people with become more successful communicators….”

The WhiteSmoke-Weingarten interview was hilarious and got picked up by newspapers nationwide. Product sales soared. 

Story – Too often organizations forget that their CEO is a real life person whose heart, skills, challenges, obstacles and conflicts make for far more interesting reading than canned quotes about how, “Delighted we are to announce Rebecca as the new VP engineering at Techno Pants Corp.”

Stop sanitizing CEOs. Let them be human, let them talk about how they resolve conflicts with the board of directors, investors or the government and include information about their personal relationships and activities. Make them come alive. We love knowing about Ben and Jerry, Jobs and Wosniak, Bill and Melinda and Richard Branson because we see them as real people with exciting, committed lives. Few people know anything about the CEO of Dell or American Airlines and their PR suffers.

Consistency – While representing institutional investment managers, a journalist once mused, “How come 75% of all money managers are in the top quartile when it comes to their performance releases?” That’s because the poor performers hide in the weeds when their numbers are down and emerge only when their numbers are up.

Want to win the respect of journalists, build credibility and generate positive press over the long haul? Be accessible when the news is bad. Get it out, get it done and move on. When it’s time to deliver good news, you will be far more credible and will have a trusting relationship with the editors and reporters. They will credit your for your candor and their coverage will be more positive and prominent when the news is good.

Simplicity – Keep it simple. How many times do we use jargon like OEM, FX or Q4 without thinking that the journalist who makes the first cut on a news release might be new to manufacturing or finance to say nothing of the reader. Journalism critics note that The Wall Street Journal, whose readers are supposed to be mostly business types, does better job of explaining business and financial terms than a The New York Times, whose readership is more general.

Kim Wallace of the market research firm Wallace & Washburn in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and author of “Why People Don’t Buy Things,” puts it this way: “Liken new concepts to what we already know. If you want to reach customers who had never seen snow tires before and need to explain their benefit say: They are like snowshoes for your car. Everyone will understand the concept instantly." 

Try to incorporate these news-making criteria into your next public relations foray—if you want to establishes your company’s CEO as an influencer, maximizes awareness and build brand equity.

That’s Next Level PR!

Dick Pirozzolo is Managing Director of Pirozzolo Company Public Relations in Boston, whose PR campaigns have helped startups become publicly traded companies or be acquired by major public corporations. Dick lives in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Veterans Deliver Job Skills Employers Often Miss —Like Leadership, Commitment and Innovation

November 11. Veterans Day—A day set aside to honor those of us who served in the armed forces. There will be parades, flag waving, speeches, ceremonies dedicated to American military people and there’ll even be free pizza and coffee at chain restaurants.

 As well as the occasional: “Thank you for your service,” from fellow Americans.

I can't think of a better way to honor and thank our veterans, than to make sure they come home to a job that recognizes the skills they acquired in the military. Things have changed for the better. When Vietnam veterans returned, we met resistance from potential employers who wrongly claimed military people are too regimented, unfamiliar with latest civilian technology, and can’t think for themselves. Sometimes, opposition to the war resulted in opposition to veterans.

There were also creative ways of calling vets “losers” back then. In one case, a reporter for The Boston Herald wrote that she went to the Pine Street Inn – a Boston homeless shelter — to get “the veterans’ point of view.” Never mind that John Kerry and the CEO of State Street Bank were veterans, who were hardly residing at the Pine Street Inn.

During a job interview, a potential employer discounted my entire military experience by asking: “Don’t you feel your career doesn't really start until after the service?”

It was as if my four years in the U.S. Air Force didn’t exist. Fortunately, I learned my craft, public relations and journalism, in the Air Force through formal schooling, at the Defense Information Officers School (DINFOS), and on-the-job training. The Worcester Telegram & Gazette recognized my capability and hired me right away. A year later the late Jack Star, who headed up PR at Boston University, hired me for the international media relations skills I acquired as an Air Force press officer in Saigon.

In addition to specific job skills, Veterans come home with general leadership and management skills, and other qualities that are a huge benefit to civilian employers.

Leadership. Whether officer or enlisted, the military does not hold back when it comes to putting you in charge and, often in situations that are way above the job description. To be sure, I made plenty of mistakes when I was a second lieutenant, but the most valuable lessons I learned was to listen and learn from the enlisted folks who had years of experience and technical skills far superior to mine.

Military people take an oath. Most folks don’t go around thinking about the oath they took when the signed up, but it underscores commitment. In a nutshell, once a soldier signs up, he or she can’t say, “I quit” and walk out on the boss or colleagues.

Diversity and equal rights. The armed forces are not without problems when it comes to gender and race and, in most cases, commanders deal with sexual misconduct and discrimination quickly and definitively. Nevertheless, the military has been way out in front on race relations that began with the full integration of our armed forces after World War II and ongoing efforts since then that include the integration of the LGBT community into the military.

Simply put, rank matters. Race and sex do not. No one tells the female lieutenant to make coffee or the African-American captain to make photocopies!

The ability to improvise. When a four-man squad goes on patrol, there may be command and control from headquarters, but the squad leader, probably a young 20ish soldier, will make hundreds of life-and-death decisions to complete the mission and return everyone safely.

Completed staff work “Hey boss what do you want me to do now?” Putting the monkey on the boss’s back is no-no in the military as the armed forces adhere to the doctrine of completed staff work .

When a team has a job to do, the job is completed totally before presenting the results to the commander or superior who delegated the responsibility. Of course, not every project goes according to plan and obstacles come up. In those cases, the presentation has to be sufficiently complete so that, if more information is needed, all a supervisor has to do is sign a request.

One of the hard-and-fast rules team members learn is they cannot go directly to their supervisor to get partial approval, or to lobby for their own solution to the problem. This cuts down on a lot of office politicking and backbiting.

Chain of command. This might be anathema to a lot of current management thinking, but the principle avoids a lot of ill will. In the military trying to curry favor with one’s boss’s boss usually ends badly.

Likewise, the military insists that when you give an order it comes from you no matter where it originated. Military folks don’t give whinny orders like: “I wouldn’t make you do this, because I’m nice, and I want you to like me, but the big boss insists soooo ….”

Empathy. The military is often a matter of life and death and people can be together 24/7 where the division between work and off-duty life does not exist. I was always in awe of leaders who could navigate the murky waters of their people’s personal and family issues, while staying focused on the mission. It’s a complex skill that is well taught in the military and applicable to civilian employment.

The Marines often teach leadership through what are called sea stories that underscore the risky decisions and dilemmas one must face in combat such as: do you risk two Marines' lives to bring back few cases of cold Coke, that will improve everyone's morale, or do you not take the chance? The outcome is not nearly as important as opening debate on the leaders' dilemma.

Honesty “I will not lie cheat or steal or tolerate anyone among us who does.” We’ve all heard the mantra, but what it means is that military people learn to both delegate and trust the people who work for them without reservation. If someone says, “I counted all the M-16s and there are 46,” you can, without checking up, sign a document endorsing the count.

Learning in public. From basic to advanced training fellow students may compete for class rank, but they pull everyone up with them. Then the whole team wins.

Can-do spirit. Military folks believe they can achieve anything. After returning from Vietnam, I served with the 253 Combat Communication Group in Massachusetts. We could install all the navigation, air traffic control and communication needed for a temporary airport, while the Navy Seabees, built the runway and erected tents for the whole lot of us. Done quickly and as a matter of routine.

And consider Mike Cotton, who created a surf club at China Beach while serving in Vietnam so that airmen and soldiers could get a taste of home when they were off duty.

It would be great to hear from veterans about their job hunting experiences, how the military helped them with their careers and also from companies looking to hire smart, motivated veterans with a can-do attitude.

By Dick Pirozzolo, Managing Director of Pirozzolo Company Public Relations in Boston and coauthor of "Escape from Saigon" a novel, with Michael Morris.

 

 

Squatty Potty, Scrub Daddy, Amazon Launchpad, Stanley Black & Decker, Other US Innovators Back Invent-a-thon TV Series "Make48" to Spark American Ingenuity.

Some of the America's most innovative  brands like Amazon Launchpad, Squatty Potty, Scrub Daddy, Indiegogo and QVC, plus lead underwriter Stanley Black & Decker are backing Make48, a new invention competition series on Public Television aimed at sparking American ingenuity.

The eight-episode Make48 debuted this fall, has already begun production on Season Two, and is taking applicants for the Season Three competition.  The producers say they hope the show encourages entrepreneurship inspires more Made-in-America products.

In Make48, seventeen diverse teams are given 48 hours to come up with a new consumer product—going from idea to prototype in a televised invent-a-thon. Three winners, picked by judges from QVC, Indigogo, Pivot International and Handy Camel, will get to pitch their products to major retailers. The series is distributed nationwide by American Public Television, Boston, and underwritten by Stanley Black & Decker. Check local listings.

The teams are supported by tool technicians and industry mentors including some of America’s most successful product inventors. Once the top three winners are picked, professionals create prototypes, and produce marketing videos. The competition culminates in a crowdfunding campaign where the products are put before the public.

“Equipped with high-tech 3D printers, digital routers, hand tools, the internet, passion, inspiration, and lots of coffee, the inventor’s products coming out of Make48 might just make it into your home one day,” said Curt McMillan, co-founder of Make48, adding, “This is reality TV that works.”

 “Make48, dubbed, “reality TV that works”, fosters imagination, creativity, problem solving and the inventive spirit,” says Make48 CEO, Tom Gray adding, “Make48's educational product innovation series is more like swimming with a pod of dolphins rather than being thrown into a tank of sharks.”

Stanley Black & Decker is the Make48 exclusive production underwriter. “Both Stanley Black & Decker and Make48 know that the doers, the makers, and the inventors are our future,” says Tim Perra, Vice President, Public Affairs for Stanley Black & Decker, “This show is a reminder that everyone has great ideas. We hope Make48 inspires other individuals to see their ideas through to fruition.”

More than 207 public television stations are airing the show to reach over 90 million households including those in the three top US markets: New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. The series is produced by Outpost Worldwide, Kansas City and presented by KTWU Washburn University, Topeka, KS.

"We're confident that the Make48 series celebrating innovation and problem solving will resonate with a public television audience," said Christopher Funkhouser Vice President, American Public Television Exchange Programming and Multicast Services.

Supporters include Stanley Black & Decker, Amazon Launchpad, Squatty Potty, QVC, Duck Tape. Indiegogo, GoDaddy, ScrubDaddy, The Grommet, the Handy Camel, Wet & Forget, Ace Hardware, QVC, Pivot International. Complete list of sponsors at: Make48.com

Contact: Make48 LLC, Dick Pirozzolo, 617-959-4613, dick@pirozzolo.com