Silver Anvil Awards: interviews with finalists [videos]

August 31, 2012 • admin • PR

Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich and Joseph Thornley got busy this year at the PRSA Silver Anvil Awards. They, well, Gini, caught up with award winners and finalists to find out what made their campaigns and initiatives successful.

Here are some of those interviews, enjoy!

PRSA 2012 Silver Anvil Awards: Home is Where the GIFT Is

PRSA 2012 Silver Anvil Awards: Centennial Celebration of Service

PRSA 2012 Silver Anvil Awards: The Power of the Purple Purse: Talking About Domestic Violence

PRSA 2012 Silver Anvil Awards: Oink Outings: Bringing Moms to the Farm

PRSA 2012 Silver Anvil Awards: Helping Pets Win a Losing Battle

********************************************

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Kristine Simpson.

Inside PR 3.06: Two Silver Anvil awards about giving back to the community

August 30, 2012 • admin • PR

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

As we continue our special summer series of interviews, this week we feature two interviews from the Silver Anvil Awards, or as Gini likes to call them, the Oscars for the PR industry.

First we talk with Jay Winuk from the non-profit organization MyGoodDeed. Jay shares his story of the birth of 911 day, a national day of service to commemorate and remember those who perished on September 11, 2001.

9/11 Day is the international non-profit movement to observe September 11 every year as a day of charitable service and doing good deeds. It was created soon after 9/11 to provide a positive way to forever remember and pay tribute to the 9/11 victims, honor those that rose in service in response to the attacks, and remind people of the importance of working more closely together in peace to improve our world. Today millions participate annually by taking time out on 9/11 to help others in need, in their own way.

Then, we talk with Taryn Sullivan from Edelman in Atlanta and The Gateway Center about their award winning submission called Home is Where the GIFT is. Atlanta’s nonprofit Gateway Center, which battles chronic homelessness by providing services and self-sufficiency skills, asked Edelman to secure media coverage of a $32,000 gift from the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District publicprivate partnership. The agency did much more than that by executing a program that drove $70,000 in donations, contributed to securing 54,200 homes for the homeless, and established sustainable relationships to continue generating support.

That is all for now, until next week!

********************************************

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Kristine Simpson.

Inside PR 3.05: June Cotte, PRSA International Conference keynoter, on ethical consumption

August 27, 2012 • admin • PR

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

[display_podcast]

This week, Martin talks with PRSA International Conference keynote speaker, June Cotte, associate professor at the Richard Ivey School of Business in London, Ontario and the school’s George and Mary Turnbull Fellow.

Professor Cotte studies consumer behavioural and purchase issues, also the subject of her presentation, ‘When Will Consumers Pay to Be Good’.

Cotte and her colleagues conduct research on socially conscious consumption including recent experiments where consumers are exposed to certain purchase conditions and then asked to respond in order to determine how and why people behave the way they do and when they’ll pay more for ethically produced products.

In addition to paying a premium for ethically produced products, she found consumers will penalize brands by paying a lower price for goods when a company’s corporate behaviour is in question. Consumer attitudes are cyclical and Cotte observed that ethical consumption was important in the ‘70s though less so in the ‘80s and ‘90s. The current prevailing sentiment toward socially responsible behavior began to emerge again in the 2000s. She contends a cultural zeitgeist drives the change and that is where PR can come in, to explain the story and the benefits of an organization’s positive behaviour to consumers. This is especially important in an economic downturn where price becomes more of a consideration.

And because firms can get into trouble when they oversell a claim, communicators can help organizations strike a balance between explaining what they’re doing and the effect it has and help them deliver the story in the right tone.

It’s a fascinating study and you can hear more at the PRSA International Conference, October 13 to 16, 2012 in San Francisco.

Gini, Joe and Martin will also be at the conference and we look forward to meeting you there.

********************************************

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Kristine Simpson.

Inside PR 3.04: Domestic Abuse is No Longer Taboo with Purple Purse

August 17, 2012 • Gini Dietrich • PR

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

[display_podcast]

Domestic violence affects one in four women in their lifetime, which equals more than 145 attacks every hour in the United States.

As well, 75 percent of Americans think domestic violence is an issue that needs to be talked about, but only a third actually do.

Enter The Allstate Foundation. With a long history of supporting efforts to end domestic violence through financial empowerment programs, they partnered with YWCA USA to encourage a national conversation around the issue during Domestic Violence Awareness Month last October.

But a partnership wasn’t enough. Along with PR firm Fleishman-Hillard, The Allstate Foundation and YWCA designed a program that would help people talk about domestic violence through the “Purple Purse.”

The Purple Purse became the new symbol for domestic violence and the code word that would launch a campaign to build a collaborative community of people – both online and offline – who would help share information and resources to make it easier to talk about domestic violence. The team targeted women of all races and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Not only did it build a collaborative community, it gave women the resources they need to leave a domestic abuse situation. Things such as financial planning, saving copies of key documents, and how to prepare for moving out…and on.

In this interview with the Silver Anvil finalists, we learn the Purple Purse website, social shares, a portable widget, and offline events created an opportunity for women to discuss this very important issue, talk to one another, and hear from survivors.

********************************************

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.

Inside PR 3.03: The gang’s in Toronto

August 15, 2012 • admin • PR

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

[display_podcast]

When we record our ‘one-track-pony’, Gini, Joe and Martin are all in Toronto and about to watch Gini talk about her new book, Marketing in the Round at Third Tuesday Toronto. Here’s a link to the event Twitter feed on Storify.

The night before Gini was at Third Tuesday Ottawa and the following day, she and co-author Geoff Livingston are at Social Mix 2012. Busy? Why would you ask?

This week’s topic centres on the post Gini wrote about Ryan Holiday’s new book, Trust Me, I’m Lying. Holiday claims he’s a media manipulator. To prove it, he and his assistant conducted a test where they posed as sources and responded to reporters who were looking for experts to quote in articles. Holiday made up lies that were included in various publications. He claimed this demonstrated how few media do their homework and how easy it is to bamboozle them with false information.

The three of us agree this is unethical behavior that casts a shadow on the communications industry and reinforces negative stereotypes about PR that, in the majority of cases, just aren’t true.

Joe says that in journalism and PR mistakes do happen or something falls through the cracks, but that’s the exception and not the rule and that Ryan is a publicity-seeking outlier who’s out to sell books.

The situation reminds Martin of P.T. Barnum, a promoter and publicist (among other things), who would do anything to get attention. But it runs counter to our industry and the ethics many of us practice every day.

Gini contends it’s not unlike the get rich quick schemes that people fall for and wonders if you need to lie to succeed.

Have a listen to our discussion and let us know what you think.

This is our last recording of the summer. But we’re not going on a full hiatus. We’re featuring podcast interviews from PRSA Silver Anvils, Social Capital Conference, PRSA International conference and more. We’ll be back with our regularly scheduled programming mid-September.

So stay tuned… And thanks for listening!

********************************************

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.

Inside PR 3.02: Jet Blue lands better relationships with their pilots

August 7, 2012 • admin • PR

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

[display_podcast]

This week we feature an interview that Gini Dietrich and Joseph Thornley did at the PRSA Silver Anvil Awards in New York with the Jet Blue communications team.

Jenny Dervin, vice president of corporate communications at Jet Blue, Victoria Neville, manager of communications for flight operations at Jet Blue, and Phil Walotsky from MWW Group, and their full team where nominated for a PRSA Silver Anvil Award. They share with us on today’s show the communications challenges they faced when their airline went through a union battle.

The team built a communications plan that would inform pilots of their choices and the benefits of not unionizing the airline, but maintaining a positive and direct relationship with pilots and to preserve their company’s culture.

Also, the hosts of Inside PR want to give a big shout out and thank you to their producer Kristine Simpson for the awesome birthday gift celebrating our 300th show, a blooper reel from the past six to seven months. Check it out on her blog. Her gift was much better than the other birthday gift we got, a virus on our website. That may explain the lack of activity on the website, but we are back up and running. Thanks to 76design for the hard work putting us back online, and thanks to everyone for your patience!

********************************************

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.