Colle+McVoy’s PR arm, Exponent Public Relations, won seven awards during last night’s Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) 2013 Silver Anvil Awards ceremony in New York.

The Anvil Awards honor organizations that have successfully addressed a contemporary public relations issue with exemplary professional skill, creativity and resourcefulness. The Silver Anvil are the industry’s oldest and most prestigious awards program honoring complete strategic public relations program.

Exponent won two Silver Anvils for work on behalf of The Medtronic Foundation’s HeartRescue Project, which is dedicated to teaching proper bystander response to sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) — the leading cause of death in the United States. The nominated entries, “HeartRescue Project Rallies Public to Save Lives” and “HeartRescue Project Inspires Virtual — and real-life — Heroes” provide an overview of the Save-a-life-Simulator, an immersive online experience that lets users make virtual life-or-death choices and teaches the proper steps to follow. The Save-a-Life Simulator has gained viral momentum, training more than 5.5 million people to save a life since the spring of 2012.

The agency’s third Silver Anvil was won for the entry, “Land O’Lakes Brings Butter Back.” Exponent helped inspire younger generations to cook with Land O’Lakes Butter more often, through a digitally integrated campaign that leveraged celebrity blogger and Food Network personality, Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman.

Exponent’s fourth Silver Anvil was awarded for the entry, “International Olive Council Adds Life to Olive Products Promotion,” in which Exponent developed a multifaceted campaign — called Add Some Life — that showcased how olives and olive oil can add excitement to everyday life, to help reverse stagnant sales in North America.

The Bronze Anvils, which honor tactics within public relations programs, were first announced in May. Exponent received three Bronze Anvils for work on behalf of Farm Credit Mid-America (in the annual report category), Medtronic Foundation (in the website category) and Winfield (in the direct mail category). The agency also received three Bronze Anvil Awards of Commendation for its work on the International Olive Council, Medtronic Foundation and Winfield.

“This recognition is a reflection of the creativity, passion and effectiveness of collaboration with our wonderful client partners,” said Tom Lindell, managing director, Exponent.

 

Briana Peterson

What’s the new consumer path to purchase, and are you ready for it?

As participants discussed at the recent Advertising Research Foundation conference in Minneapolis, the traditional sales funnel from awareness to purchase is a thing of the past. The new path to purchase is nonlinear and complicated, more like a flight map than a funnel.

To expand on the metaphor: There are more touch points (cities) at which users connect with the brand and more channels (flight paths) and platforms (type of plane) on which they can connect.
Think about buying a new car. In the past, you might see a commercial on TV that piques your interest, ask friends and family for their opinions, read some reviews, visit a couple dealerships and then buy a car when there’s a big sale.

Today you are more likely go online and start searching for cars based on specific requirements, read reviews on Edmunds.com, take to Facebook to ask for advice, and check out a dealer website on your iPad after seeing a commercial on TV. Once you finally make a trip to the dealership, you might even whip out your phone during negotiations to check prices at neighboring dealerships.
The path to purchase just got a lot more complicated.

This poses a huge challenge for marketers because it requires a much deeper understanding of the audience and their user journey to determine which channels and platforms are right for their brand (not everyone brand should be on Pinterest).

Mapping the new consumer path to purchase is only half the battle. The real work happens when you aspire to build a truly holistic strategy that engages users and gives them the content they want, when and where they want it. Within an integrated, full-service agency, this requires a level of client and cross-functional team collaboration that was unheard of in the days of Mad Men.

The digital landscape is changing rapidly. However, I believe there is enormous opportunity for brands and agencies to capitalize on these changes if they take a step back and build a holistic strategy based on a deeper understanding of their audience, the consumer path to purchase and the impact emerging digital trends will have on their businesses in future.

Bethany Iverson

As advertisers, we have incredible influence to move things forward and take on challenging issues of culture, society, technology and economics. We can spur honest conversations (even if they’re difficult), and create work that broadens discourse instead of reducing it.

In order to accomplish this, our industry needs diverse intellectual talent — people who see and experience the world in many different ways. But a disturbing trend is emerging: women and men who would have once pursued a career in advertising are being lured away with tempting offers from startups and tech companies (see 8 Reasons To Choose A Startup Over A Corporate Job). Attractive new job offers, coupled with a less-than-favorable reputation as an industry (advertising is the 10th most hated profession in the U.S. according to Gallup), means that advertising could be facing a very real shortage of diverse intellectual talent in just a few years’ time. A lack of talent means our industry’s point of view will become staid and our ability to create change will quickly fade.
 
The issue of talent is precisely what we set out to address in our recent collaboration with the 4A’s, a leading ad association looking to jump-start a dialogue with the next generation. The project was designed to share untold stories of real people who work in agencies. But before we could tell their stories, we needed to know what we were up against.

We began by talking with college students and young advertising professionals in order to understand the gaps that exist between students’ perceptions and employees’ reality. We asked similar questions of both groups and then compared their responses. The results were staggering: the things that students are most wary of are the same things young working professionals enjoy most.

In general, students believe that 1) You have to be a brilliant creative genius to make it in our field, 2) There aren’t enough ad jobs to go around for those who are interested, 3) Digital agencies are the only ones that work with new technology, and 4) Agencies are cutthroat, backstabbing places that eat their young.

Most of these perceptions are unfounded. First, young professionals told us that they thrive on the creativity in agencies, whether they’re an account executive or a copywriter. Second, they found jobs by landing internships, meeting the right people and having the right attitude, even when the job search sucks. Third, they work with emerging technology every day — it’s actually an area where they feel the most empowered. Finally, those just starting out in advertising told us story after story about how much they enjoy collaborating with coworkers, how welcoming agencies are, and how most of the folks they work with are driven to create great work rather than clutter the world with more garbage.

The disparity between perceptions and reality means that it's up to us to redefine creativity and show that there are many seats at the table, help students understand that finding the right internship is the first step toward finding the right job, communicate that technology is the lifeblood of every agency and an area where young talent rules the roost, and last but not least, show that advertising is the new team sport.

On the heels of our research came a new website, openadvertising.aaaa.org, designed to open up the walls of our agencies and welcome those who are skeptical, excited or curious about our field. The site features short videos from art directors, writers, strategists, analysts and account executives that show what a day in the life is really like, which we hope will dispel misperceptions along the way.

Colle+McVoy had the pleasure of creating four videos for the site that feature our employees. Take a peek at our stories (and the new OpenAdvertising site). We’d love to hear what you think about where our industry is headed and what we could do to make it better than it’s ever been before.

Melissa


Micah


Bethany


Nat

Grant Olson

Maintaining a social media presence has become an essential part of the marketing mix for just about any consumer-facing brand. In fact, enterprise class corporations now have 26 employees on average creating social content on their behalf (Owyang, Jeremiah. Social Media Management: An Industry Perspective).

Although marketers realize that a social media presence is crucial, social media (or community) management is still a young discipline. Over 80% of enterprise-class corporations’ social media programs are less than three years old (Owyang, Jeremiah. Social Media Management: An Industry Perspective). The exciting part is best practices are still being forged all the time. This includes the emergence of a handful of social media engagement tools that aim to help social media teams listen to and interact with their communities.

It’s important for marketers to stay abreast of the tools that can make us more effective while engaging in the social space. That’s why we’re constantly evaluating social media engagement tools. Most of these tools include features like:

• Conversation streams from various social networks to keep an eye on what’s being said about your brand
• The ability to flag or assign posts for follow-up and facilitate collaboration between team members
• Publishing capabilities for multiple social networks to broadcast content to your community
• Post-level analytics to gauge the effectiveness of your content

Of course, you should always keep your specific social media objectives in mind when evaluating these tools. But, to help narrow the list, a recent evaluation from Colle+McVoy identified three frontrunners: Hootsuite, Buddy Media and SocialVolt.

In our particular case, we were looking for a tool with a good balance of collaboration features, real-time listening, post-level analytics and publishing capabilities across multiple networks.

HootSuite provides the most bang for your buck. It offers solid analytics, a decent user experience, and standard collaboration features like assigning community posts to team members for follow-up, for $5.99/month, plus $15 per additional user per month.

Buddy Media is a true enterprise solution, with a scalable offering that spans just about every social network. It is one of the few tools that provided options for publishing to a YouTube channel.

SocialVolt is solid across the board. Although more expensive at $1,800 per month for the professional edition and a website that leaves you needing a live demo for the full picture, we were still very intrigued.

The most important thing we learned through our evaluation is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. No silver bullet. It’s extremely important to articulate your goals for the social space and tailor your team and tools to them. We did arrive at a clear decision for the tool that best fits our particular needs: HootSuite.

HootSuite provides all the necessities a social media team needs in a clean and intuitive interface. Collaboration is streamlined. Publishing capabilities include almost all social networks and post types. Analytics are integrated across the board. Customizable conversation streams on the home screen allow you to keep an eye on the conversation. And, perhaps an often-overlooked benefit, the training necessary for a team to use the tool would be minimal.

If you’re part of a social media team that could use some streamlining, there’s a good chance one of these tools could make your life easier. Just don’t forget to consider the whole picture before jumping on the bandwagon of any single one. It’s a long list.

Allison Janney

Bloggers can get a bad rap. “Who even reads blogs?” is often a question posed by teams or clients when discussing a potential blog outreach program. Actually, a lot of people read blogs. According to eMarketer, the number of blog readers in the U.S. will reach 122.6 million in 2011, representing 53.5% of Internet users.

I’ll be the first to admit that not all blogs are good blogs. It’s like finding websites – there’s the good, the bad and the ugly. However, when you want a third-party endorsement for your brand online, bloggers hit the sweet spot.

Here are some points of differentiation that make bloggers a powerful influencer group, and some ideas for how you can best work with them on behalf of your brand. 



Passion


I love working with bloggers because they are passionate about their subjects. In most cases, bloggers are not making a living off their blogs. Unlike reporters, who are given topics by editors, bloggers can write whatever they want and provide a POV. The end result is content that reflects their personality, with priceless personal anecdotes about your brand. 



Tip for marketers: Pay it forward. 

Always think about how you can help a blogger create relevant content and further establish credibility within his or her community. Ultimately, they’ll work with companies that help increase their readership but allow them to remain authentic to their beliefs and interests.

Personalization


Bloggers reveal a lot of personal information. In fact, they need to share personal information to build their brand and provide a way for readers to connect. A blogger’s personal life directly effects what they are writing about on their blogs. Life events such as getting married, having a baby or traveling will have a direct effect on their blog’s content and frequency.

Tip for marketers: Do your research. 

You can find out a lot about bloggers through their posts, about sections, and social channels. Read as much as you can, and personalize each message to account for recent developments in their lives. You don’t want to appear insensitive or ignorant for not knowing something they’ve already made public.

Creativity


Bloggers are able to experiment and push the boundaries because they aren’t answering to a larger team. They don’t need to get permission to write about controversial or unpopular topics. Also, because they are topic experts, bloggers help identify and create “What’s Next” before anyone else.

Tip for marketers: Be flexible

Constantly solicit feedback from bloggers and allow them to help customize a program. Don’t be afraid to provide suggestions, but always allow bloggers to infuse their own creativity and ideas.

Obviously, I’m a fan of working with bloggers. Bloggers are able to organically create a highly engaged community of readers, fans and followers. Their influence is invaluable as a third-party endorsement to help fuel conversations and reach your target audience. In the future, bloggers will continue to thrive. What do you think makes great blogs stand out in all the online noise?