PR lessons from 'Kate' and Tarrant Area Food Bank's hunger campaign

The billboard asks a compelling question: What does hunger feel like? JustAskKate.org 

It strikes me that putting a (cartoon) face to hunger with a compelling narrative is a creative way to generate curiosity and hopefully leads to awareness, donations, volunteers, etc. The video component is simple but effective:

I reached out to Andrea Helms, Director of Communications for the Tarrant Area Food Bank and a Ft. Worth PRSA member for some insight into the campaign. I'm so thankful that she was wiling to share since I believe there are some interesting lessons and processes from this effort for PR and communication professionals:

Why did TAFB implement the 'Kate' concept campaign? 
Akron Canton Regional Food Bank in Ohio shared the Kate video concept with the Feeding America network of regional food banks, to which Tarrant Area Food Bank (TAFB) belongs. TAFB decided to customize this video for the organization not only because of the impact of Kate’s message, but to also join in creating a sense of unity across the network.

What are some of the strategic objectives you hope to achieve?
AWARENESS. We would like Kate’s message to be shared all over our community, through our Partner Agencies, donors and volunteers, and the general public. As part of our annual awareness initiative, we hope the community learns that hunger and food insecurity exist right here in our own neighborhood and we, together, can do something about it.

Through various print ads, billboards, and social media, we seek to increase awareness about hunger and direct people to the Kate video. We hope the Kate video and her message goes viral. The more that people share the video with their networks, the bigger the awareness of hunger we can create within our community. The video not only educates the public about the face of hunger--for example, Kate could be your next door neighbor, a co-worker or friend--but it also educates them about Tarrant Area Food Bank’s role in fighting local hunger.

When did it start and how long will the campaign run? 
The campaign started mid-October and will run through December. We will do another flight of the campaign in the Spring of 2013. The Kate video will remain active on our website and on justaskkate.org and through social media when the campaign is not active.

How would you say your version of the campaign differs from the original version?
We are the first Feeding America food bank to launch a traditional marketing campaign around the video. Up until now, the Kate video has been used as a tool in food banks for educating volunteers and donors and has been used through social media and word of mouth.

What communication channels are you using to share Kate? 
Facebook and Twitter posts, Facebook ads, billboards, print ads in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Fort Worth Business Press, the Just Ask Kate web page, the TAFB website, YouTube, e-blasts, email signatures, volunteer training and exclusive showings at TAFB related events.

We also have several collateral pieces our staff use for various audiences, such as children’s activities and giveaways, including Kate as a fan with suggestions on the backside for taking action to build awareness about hunger.  Our life-sized Kate cut-out is being used for photo opportunities with key people in our community for posting on social media.

How will you determine the success of this campaign?
Because this is an awareness campaign, we are most interested in how viral the campaign becomes. The more video views, shares and likes we get from the Kate video, the more we know the word is being spread around our community. We have been using Facebook and Google analytics to track where our viewers are coming from and what actions they are taking after they view the video, such as visiting our website or liking our Facebook page.
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What do you think? Is this a compelling campaign to help generate awareness for the food bank's fight against local hunger? As always, the comments are yours.
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The post is from the Next Communications blog.

JPS Health Network: A Changing Vision and Communication Lessons

The best way to tour a hospital and check out its fluorescent lighting is from a standing position, not while lying on your back. At least that's what we were told by JPS Health Network President and CEO, Robert Earley.

For the record, he's right.

Robert Earley, 

 JPS Health Network
President and CEO

Recently, the Ft. Worth Chapter of PRSA took its monthly lunch program on the road and got an "unfiltered view tour" [his words] of Tarrant County's public hospital with Mr. Robert Earley. This tour was our chance to hear from this local leader who is using a strategic communication and community outreach campaign to help change hearts and minds about the Tarrant County Hospital District.

"We're in the life and death business," said Earley of the work JPS does for what last year was over 1 million people. "We hope it's more life." 

As the county's public hospital, JPS gets a bit of bad rap. There's a misconception that since it's funded by tax dollars, people tend to think the care would be sub-par and that there's no need to provide additional resources through private funding. To be clear, his pre-tour talk did not come across to me like a fundraising effort. Instead, he just pointed out parallels to other publicly funded institutions getting additional resources from benefactors to programs they support. (cough - college football coaches salaries - cough) Funding challenges are typical for public institutions and there were many of those challenges he inherited.

As for the care, he explains that he wants a cultural shift. They had previously been operating in a realm of mediocrity. "We're not there yet," he said. Earley recognized, "while the care was good, [they] weren't treating people right." So he made some changes and expected more.

He wants JPS to be a place where best-practices in healthcare are created and then followed by others. Earley expects more from his 4,500 employees: "When people walk in the front door, everybody gets respect."

When they hire, he says they take a "360° approach." They want people with the right skill-set and heart.

Robert Earley has Three Rules for the JPS Health Network staff:

1. Own It. He wants staff to be proud of where they work. When they hear about the good, it's ok to share that they work for JPS. When there are challenges, it's still ok to share that they work for JPS.
2. Seek Joy. He wants employees to smile. Ideally, he hopes they have reasons to smile throughout the day. Healthcare can make for a stressful environment, providing clear direction and positivity can go a long way.  
3. Don't Be A Jerk! Earley is on a personal campaign to against "jerkdom." He cites examples in our society where we seem to raise up jerks and jerk-like behavior ahead of being simply good people.

"We are trying to be a transparent organization." Earley is using what I consider to be a smart community relations tactic with on-site tours. One example of this unfiltered view was that we were encouraged to ask any question along the way; anything was fair game. He's proud of JPS being the Level 1 Trauma Center for Tarrant County. We saw operating rooms, including two that stay staffed, stocked, and ready 24-hours a day, seven days a week. Honestly, it's highly impressive.

Here are some additional public relations take-aways from Robert Earley and the JPS tour:

• The JPS team observe other healthcare systems going through challenges and then they look internally to see if they have the same issue(s).
• They want to establish a network by which they can communicate directly with stakeholders and not be reliant on traditional media methods.
• The quality and safety standards as an organization are constantly in need improvement.
• Training is top-notch: A JPS nurse receive approximately $64,000 in training. (Trauma nurses get double that amount!) The problem they have is talent retention. Nurse get well-trained, work a while then split. Earley said they have about a 20% turnover rate, which is way too high. (I wouldn't be surprised if JPS starts an aggressive campaign to keep their talent.)
• Earley instituted a chair policy in the hospital. A folding chair hangs behind the door of the hospital rooms and doctors are required to remove the chair and set it next to patients so that they can be at eye-level with them to talk.
• There are so many electronic and networked aspects of healthcare in general and especially within the hospital, but not much in their communication. Yet.

During the Q&A period, someone asked how do they tell the JPS story. Earley responded with a smile, "we hired J.R. Labbe."

Jill "J.R." Labbe is the former editorial director for the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. I think this is an intriguing move for JPS and for Labbe. I'm interested to see how she can bring her skills to the other side of the news for storytelling and work from within the organization. She expressed some parting words in the newspaper about her new role:

While my responsibilities as vice president of communications and community affairs at JPS will differ greatly from what I've been doing the past 20 years -- and the irony of going from inflicting pain on government employees to being a government employee is not lost -- my love for this community and the people who call it home will not.

Wise move, JPS.

Robert Earley concluded by letting attendees know that others are welcome. They'd appreciate more people coming to JPS and seeing first-hand what's happening and how things are changing for the better. There's work to be done and it's wonderful to see organizational communications and community relations take starring roles in the process for this organization.
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This is cross-posted from the Next Communications blog by Richie Escovedo, Fort Worth PRSA 2012 VP of Programs.

Communicators as Change Agents

Linda Jacobson, APR (@LindaJacobson) shared her program on Change Management. Get the full presentation on Slideshare.

Know thy objective

Guest post by Linda Jacobson, APR

I recently judged communication campaigns and tactics, and was struck by the lack of planning involved in nearly every entry.  Particularly absent was the lack of specific communications objectives. If you’re in public relations, marketing or corporate communications, you need to know how to craft a solid strategic communication objective because that is the single most important focal point of any communications campaign. If you don’t know what you're aiming for, you’ll never know if you reached it.

Below are components of a communication objective, but ultimately, you’ll want to ensure this is part of a strategic communication plan that aligns with your organizational or departmental business objectives.

• Expect your outcome. Are you trying to raise awareness of a new widget or new process? Or do you need to move the needle by changing employee or customer attitudes? Perhaps you need a target audience to adopt a specific behavior. Before you can craft an objective, know what you expect the outcome to look like.
• Use verbs! Once you know the expected outcome of your objective, select an appropriate verb. Do you want customers to buy, ban or endorse? Are you looking for employees to adopt, support or change?
• Be specific. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at communications plans that aren’t tied to specific objectives. If you can’t articulate the objective specifically, then you are already missing the goal.
• Who is the audience?
• What is the timeframe?
• What is the attainment level?
• Measure the objective.  Know how to accurately measure your objective, and know your baseline. This is your starting point. What is the current status quo? You need to know this before you initiate your strategy; otherwise, you won’t know whether you moved the needle or not.

Below is an example of a specific communication objective that anticipates an increase in audience awareness:
 

Within the next 60 days, 70 percent of our organization’s customers will see or hear about our new widget.

Starting with these basics, you’ll add a solid, measurable component to your strategic planning. What other components help you achieve your goals?

Recap: Building a Corporate Social Responsibility Program

The following is a summary of lessons learned and take-aways from the Ft. Worth PRSA June 2010 program, Building a Corporate Social Responsibility Program, with Laura K. Moore, Vice President - Global Communications, Kimberly-Clark Corporation:

What is strategic Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)?

• Aligning your corporate strategy with your business strategy
• Defining the positive impact you aim to make based on what your company is good at
• An understanding that doing good can be good for business
  

Why is CSR important?

• Growing environmental concerns
• Companies moving from seeing CSR as less of an obligation to more of a business opportunity
• Internet enables people to scrutinize corporate behavior
• Increased expectations of companies to contribute
  
• Corporate reputations bruised post-recession
• Millennial expectations (the connected generation)
  

CSR goes beyond philanthropy, this is about corporate citizenship.

How the company treats:

• Community
• Suppliers
• Government
• Employees
• Customers
• Environment

Your CSR strategy has to be lived from the inside out.

• Be it. Do it. Say it.

A cohesive CSR strategy ensures all key elements of the organization work together.

• Employee contributions + Brand Cause Marketing + Corporate Giving = Greater Impact, More Recognition

Corporate trust is a key driver of choice and is currently seriously challenged.

* When people trust a company they:

• Will pay more
• Will recommend it to others
  

Engagement increases when an employee is satisfied with the company's CSR initiatives. Employees need to be asking themselves, "What do we stand for?"

Laura Moore pulled the curtain back a little bit on Kimberly-Clark's CSR strategy and plans to move forward. She stated that Kimberly-Clark Corporate Goal: Be responsible stewards of the environment and positive contributors to our community.

Kimberly-Clark has the global assets and framework, however Moore explained that she doesn't have the Ta-Da example from the corporation yet since it is still a work in progress.
(Photo: Kimberly-Clark Sustainability Report)

A CSR Enterprise Signature Project needs to:

• be based in research;
• have a defined focus to be successful;
  
• leverage brands for focus in relevant areas and expertise from with organization; and
  
• be supported and endorsed by whole organization.
  

What would you add? What do you see as necessary components, objectives, or concepts for a successful CSR program? The comments are yours.
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Special thanks to Corey Lark, AE at Open Channels Group for providing feedback and notes on the June program for the chapter.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Education Benefits from Corporate Social Responsibility Programs (education.change.org)
• UN calls on BP to restate CSR pledge (businessgreen.com)

BP: A disaster on all fronts

By Margaret Ritsch, APR (cross-posted from the Balcom Agency blog)

As PR professionals watch the biggest environmental disaster in U.S. history unfold, we just shake our heads in wonder. Are there any seasoned public relations people at BP's executive table?

It is clear that BP's mistakes not only have damaged untold species, livelihoods, and local economies. Its problems are compounded by the apparent disregard for some of the key principles of crisis communications. Granted, lawyers are now in control because of the likelihood of criminal charges. But early in a crisis is when a company's behavior and communications matter most. Failure to respond quickly and communicate openly in ways that meet the public's needs and expectations will always make matters worse.

1. Accessibility and openness. When a company has a big problem that causes public harm, that company should communicate both internally and externally just as aggressively as it works to fix the problem.

This is one of many principles taught by James Lukaszewski, APR, a leading national figure in crisis communications and public relations. (I've learned a lot from Jim Lukaszewski. His company's website is worth a visit: www.e911.com.)

A public crisis of this dimension demands that a company's top executive step up, communicate, and answer the hard questions. CEO Tony Hayward should be much more visible and accessible to press and to the many publics affected by this disaster. Sorry Tony, you can't have your life back, not for a while.

I believe BP would benefit from allowing TV cameras on its rigs to talk with the workers who are laboring around the clock to repair the leak, drill relief wells and perform other demanding tasks. Workers cleaning up beaches also say they can't speak with press. Now controlling the message is important to a company in a crisis, but within reason. There ought to be a way for the company to demonstrate and describe its cleanup and repair efforts at the ground level.

It would go a long way to rebuild confidence that BP is working tirelessly to try to ameliorate the damage caused by the oil rig blowout and continuing oil flow. It would humanize the company.

2. Responsiveness. Companies have a responsibility to talk about problems affecting the public and to provide important, relevant information as quickly and completely as they can -- especially when health and safety are at risk.

Only this week has BP provided the HD video footage that shows the oil gushing out of the well hole. Scientists and others have been asking for this video for weeks in order to accurately gauge the amount of leakage.

3. Ethics. If a company is at fault, it should admit its mistake, apologize, and explain as quickly as possible. With an absolute commitment to telling the truth. Granted, this was a complex operation involving multiple companies besides BP. Still, BP owes its employees, shareholders, and all affected parties a huge apology, an acknowledgment of its role in this disaster, and an assurance -- grounded in reality -- that this kind of problem will never happen again.

4. Engagement. It is important in a crisis to answer the public's questions and volunteer information that may be of interest -- to use a two-way communications model so that the company is not just talking, but it is also listening and responding.

Instead, BP is engaged in an elaborate, costly, one-way advertising campaign. It is talking at its publics through full-page color ads in the New York Times and likely other news vehicles and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars purchasing Google and Yahoo search terms. More direct engagement with the publics affected by the disaster would cost a lot less and be more effective in rebuilding trust in the company.

5. Commitment. Companies need to learn from their mistakes, talk publicly about what they learned, and commit publicly to fixing whatever needs to be fixed internally to prevent big mistakes from happening again.

BP pleaded guilty in the 2005 explosion at its Texas City refinery to violating the Clean Air Act. It pled guilty again to another federal violation for its role in causing oil spills in Alaska in 2006. One has to wonder if BP has learned from its mistakes and examined the business practices that have now led to an enormous environmental disaster. In my humble opinion, from this small agency in Fort Worth, this should be BP's first priority.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Gulf Oil Spill: BP's Failures Amplified By Numerous Gaffes (huffingtonpost.com)
• BP's Crisis Communications Strategy Is Fundamentally Flawed (desmogblog.com)
• BP's failures on the Gulf made worse by PR woes (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

5 Ways to Save Money on a Viral Video Project

This is cross-posted from chapter member and March luncheon speaker, Jamie Brown's PR blog:

Most public relations practitioners think of corporate video has high-dollar productions. However, the rules in today's world of social media are such that creating a video for your organization doesn't have to be expensive, and it can be just as valuable as a big budget corporate blockbuster. Click here and check out this rapping flight attendant from Southwest Airlines. Southwest put it on their blog and not long after they were fielding phone calls from CNN and The Jay Leno Show! You can't buy that kind of press.

My opportunity to create a viral video came while working at JPS. We wanted to launch a new customer service initiative and roll it out to all 4,500 employees who were geographically separated. We decided creating a series of videos that used humor and was attention grabbing would be far more effective than sending out an e-mail telling everyone to be nice and smile more often. Check out how we created elevator heroes and reminded everyone to provide better communication to patients by clicking here.

You too can create heroes or promote your company's fun atmosphere without breaking the bank by using the following guidelines:

• Write it yourself
• Use your own people as talent
• Keep it short 1:30 - 2 min
• Shoot multiple videos at one time
• Use limited:
• audio
• graphics
• 1ighting

Use these tactics and you should be able to produce a series of viral videos for $6,000-$10,000.
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(Photo credit: Scott Kinmartin)
Do you have any additional ideas or tips on creating potentially viral videos on a budget? The comments are yours.

PR pros thrive and learn @FortWorthPRSA

This is cross-posted on the Next Communications blog:

I am a member of and hold a board position with the Greater Ft. Worth Chapter of PRSA. At the January Board meeting, we were given the local results from the PRSA's all-chapters survey that was launched in March of last year.

According to William Murray, the President and COO of PRSA, the purpose of the survey was "to identify, in a methodical, statistically sound way, which Chapters represent best practices in the area of service delivery, and who can serve as models for other Chapters to learn from and emulate."

The Results
Here are some of the interesting and in some cases, surprising, data points from the Ft. Worth chapter report:

Chapter Satisfaction was listed at 82% compared to a 53% all chapter average and 58% peer chapter by size.

Quotes from the open-ended questions included Positives

• “Good for networking.”
• “Necessary.”
• “Can't think of anything that it is not doing. Very busy bunch.”

...and Negatives

• “We need more of the higher level training experiences like they provide at PRSA New York.”
• “Sometimes not substantive.”
• “The same basic formula for monthly meetings gets boring after awhile.”

 The respondents wanted to see our chapter Do More

• Programs delivered by thought-leaders
• Ethics programs
• Newsletter

...Do Less

• Award programs
• Mentoring programs (This was actually surprising since mentoring should be a fundamental aspect in my opinion.)
  
• e-Group or listserv

...and Maintain

• Website (This pleased me because I manage much of the online content for the chapter.)
  
• Social media (such as chapter blog, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook group)
• Volunteer opportunities

Chapter events were rated very well including highest remarks in the categories of Professional, Beneficial, Relevant, a Learning Experience, and Welcoming. (I attribute the last one as being in part because we are in Ft. Worth.)

There are some great take-aways for the chapter leadership and members to assess moving forward. I really appreciate PRSA National taking this on for the chapters as a way to help us grow as an organization and on our local levels. As a PR professional, I think it is a great investment of my time to be a member of PRSA and look forward to another enlightening and challenging year.

If you have attended any of the Ft. Worth PRSA chapter events/meetings (or other PRSA chapter meetings) I would appreciate any feedback on your experiences. As always, the comments are yours.

Fort Worth PRSA Dues Increase Vote Revisited

From the Chapter President, Andra Bennett, APR

Several weeks ago, I e-mailed chapter members and posted a blog item informing you of the Board’s proposal to increase our chapter dues from $45 to $55 annually.

As I outlined in the previous post, our dues have not been increased since the mid-1990s, yet our chapter has grown and with that growth comes increased activities, obligations and associated expenses.

We knew our bylaws called for a vote by the membership at the annual meeting to be able to increase dues for the next fiscal year. However, after looking at the language a little closer, and consulting with a National PRSA, it appears that our bylaws mandate a majority vote of the entire membership, not just those who are present at the annual meeting.

Article IV, Section 1 states: “The amount of Chapter dues for the next fiscal year shall be fixed every year by the Board of Directors. If increased, the increase will be approved at the annual meeting by a majority vote of the Chapter membership.”

In the absence of any other language, such as “a majority of members present and voting,” (which we do have for officer elections), a majority vote means a simple majority, which is 50 percent plus one.

As of Oct. 14, this chapter has 157 members, which means that 79 members would need to be present at our annual meeting luncheon to have a quorum – also defined in the bylaws as a “majority of the membership” – to even take a vote on this issue.

Knowing that we rarely have that many members at a luncheon, and not having time to conduct the vote using proxies, the Board withdrew the proposal for a dues increase at its October board meeting.

However, this issue will likely come back. Our chapter’s budget is around $30,000 annually, and the cost to operate – including luncheons, committees, SIG programs, scholarships, bank and credit card charges, web hosting, tax preparation and filing, etc. – is about $190 per member annually.

We do have a few other revenue streams, but our dues are not keeping up with the cost of doing business. If we want to continue having a vibrant chapter that delivers quality programs in a professional setting, uses up-to-date technology, and encourages professional development of our members and our college students, we will need to revisit that .83 cents per month increase in the next year or two.

Wouldn’t you like to see the GFW Chapter hit the 200-member mark in 2010? Thank you for being a part of it.

Making the News: The Rise of the Crowd

On Tuesday, September 15, GFW PRSA members Tracy Syler-Jones and Richie Escovedo provided a session for the chapter's Education Special Interest Group.

Making the News: The Rise of the Crowd

Tracy Syler-Jones (@TracySJ) - Vice Chancellor of Marketing and Communication at TCU
Richie Escovedo (@vedo) - Media and Communication Development at Mansfield ISD

Today's supercharged communication world presents numerous challenges for communicators. In the recent past, one could rely on traditional media to pass along news and information that could reach, and hopefully, influence the masses.

However, a shrinking number of reporters means communicators must learn how to effectively utilize, integrate and manage social networking and new media tools to remain visible and connected with key audiences. Learn more about the role the crowd plays in pushing your message along and how to tap into that energy.

Additional links promised to attendees:

• Social Media Guidelines for Schools
• Social Media Policies
  

Ft. Worth PRSA member receives promotion at TCU

Congratulations to Tracy Syler-Jones has been promoted to Vice Chancellor for Marketing Communication at TCU, Chancellor Victor Boschini  announced in an internal e-mail to faculty and staff July 27th. Tracy succeeds Mr. Larry Lauer who is now the Vice Chancellor for Governmental Affairs for TCU. Mr. Lauer will be based in Washington, D.C.

Until her assumption of this new position, Tracy was the Associate Vice Chancellor for Marketing Communication and Executive Director of Operations in the Office of Communication. She is the first African-American to be named to the post.

Three reasons why PR is no longer the whipping boy

This is cross-posted from The Saltlick blog.

From marketers to journalists to mom bloggers, PR has traditionally been the favorite scapegoat of those in other areas of the communication field. Commonly referred to as purveyors of the “dark side” of communications, public relations professionals have dealt with a tainted label far too long. But that label is a non sequitur now, and here’s why:

1. The economy is a great leveler. Hoards of journalists have exited their profession – and at least some of them have entered public relations, a field they once castigated. I’ve watched this trend with interest and predict that more seasoned journalists will come to view public relations professionals with a lot more respect.

2. Digital deadlines and a “news now” mindset necessitate an alliance. News journalists simply have more to do with fewer resources. Today’s journalist must view PR professionals as a service-oriented commodity, necessary due to digital news timeframes. Newer journalists will welcome strong PR relationships.

3. The mommy blogger PR Blackout yielded backlash. Even Trisha, owner of MomDot.com, admits that she ill chose the name of a one-week campaign whose intent she *claims* was to encourage mom bloggers to get back to the basics of parent blogging. The ensuing conversation split the parent blogging community, yielded poor participation (latest estimates were 20 committed to participating) and had journalists like Cnet’s Caroline McCarthy declaring that “Working with the public relations industry is core to any journalist's (and now blogger's) job, as is the use of press releases and in some cases review products.” It’s a sure sign that whipping up on PR is passé and not to be done.

I also think that PR is naturally embracing strategic relationship management and expectations from an increasingly complex array of stakeholders and publics in a way that marketers and advertisers cannot in Web 2.0. Stakeholder demand for authenticity is placing PR professionals in the leadership role to define corporate values and to sustain interactive relationship building. The result is that the PR profession is building trust with more constituencies than ever before.

Taken together, these markers signal – to me, at least – a new era in PR, one that shows the value of the profession.