We recently attended presentations by Ted Koppel, formerly of ABC Nightline, and Steve Kroft, 60 Minutes correspondent.

Koppel compared today’s journalism to that of the Vietnam War era, noting for example, that video clips often took three days to get from Vietnam to our TV screens, while today it’s a matter of minutes.

Kroft traced how 60 Minutes stories are uncovered, researched and produced, noting some stories can take as much as a year to air.

The commonality of their talks bemoaned the balkanization of American journalism into conservative and liberal camps, as well as discussed their impression that consumers simply tune in to news media that reflect their personal views; i.e., if you’re conservative you stick to FoxNews, if you’re liberal, you will watch mostly MSNBC.

Koppel compared this current state to the era when three networks existed and because they utilized public airways, the federal government required them to air news that people needed to hear – as determined by a very small group of producers.

Today, the proliferation of news and opinion programs, blogs and other news sources democratizes the consumer’s news gathering. Most reasonable people do not rely on a single news source or single news media for all their information. It’s not hard to figure out that Glenn Beck, Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly are hardly objective journalists. Nor is it difficult to determine where on the political spectrum The New York Times and Wall Street Journal lie. Indeed, even the three original networks’ mandate to provide information people “need to know” can be called into question. Koppel cited the evening when Katie Couric’s lead story on the CBS Evening News announced that Tiger Woods would play at the Masters.

In today’s news environment quality information and sources rise to the surface. In the blogosphere, sites such as GigaOm have gained a reputation for quality news, information and informed opinions, while other bloggers have failed to gain a similar quality reputation.

We think most people are smart enough to discern quality information from misinformation and make sensible choices. Ted and Steve aren’t giving today’s news consumer enough credit.

Despite this crazy year, Stearns Johnson is growing and hiring. As you can imagine, for every ad we’ve run, we’ve been drowned in a tsunami of resumes – some great and some, well, not so much. I’ve really enjoyed reading some resumes of people who have had interesting jobs and experiences, and winced at others with obvious errors. But rather than whine about these, I thought a few tips might be in order.

Here are some tips for effectively applying for a position. Keep in mind this is just one person’s point of view.

Put yourself in my position. You know if you’re applying for a position with Stearns Johnson, so are lots of others. Tell me your story clearly and concisely, don’t leave big gaps in your work and/or education history and don’t include multi-megabyte attachments. Make it easy for me to learn about you.

Your cover letter and resume should tell your story. The cover letter should highlight a few specifics you think we’d be interested in, make it clear you’ve reviewed our Website and know who our clients are, explain to me why you’re a fit for the position, and let us know the salary you’d like, if we’ve asked that in the ad. And that’s it!

Use your email as the cover letter and flow your resume in the email as well as attaching it. This makes it easy to review and share.

Some people have submitted their resumes through a Website that help you create a page for yourself that functions as a resume. This includes photos, video and text. This is cool. Others have simply attached a link to a Google doc that often doesn’t open easily. Others just attach their resumes with no email, no letter, no hello. This isn’t cool.

If your experience doesn’t fit the position (like people with 10 years experience applying for an entry level position), then don’t apply. You’re wasting your time and mine. If you’d like to apply for another position that may be available in the future, then make that clear. We keep a resume database of people whose experience is impressive and are in touch with them on a regular basis.

And after you send us your resume, do follow up. Squeaky wheels do get grease. But figure out creative ways to do it. Email is best, calls are OK, dropping in unannounced isn’t.

More later …

Recently, there was an interesting article posted on Ad Age on the general differences between advertising and PR. To expand a bit on some of these topics, we’d like to give some additional perspective on the role of the medium in delivery and measurement methodologies.

The Medium and the Message

Advertising is what you say about yourself. It is 100% in your control – input to output – because you paid for it to be. However, your audience often takes the message with a grain of salt for simply that reason. After all, you are 100% vested in your success, and your corporate and professional ethics determine where the ends justify the means with your advertising messages.

Conversely, PR is what others say about you. While you may control the messages you deliver to an editor, analyst, blogger or other community/social network influencer, you do not control the final output. However, most readers will consider that final output to be verified, balanced and truthful because of the role of the filtering medium.

Spend-to-Results and Measurement

Advertising is directly measureable for spend-to-result for the duration of a campaign. You paid X amount for the advertisement for a given period of time that has X circulation/viewers/page views, and that ad placement is then measured through built-in, sales-tracking tools, such as click-through, special codes, etc. leading to direct measurement of the ad campaign into sales for that given period of time – very clean and easy to report the spend-to-result measurement.

PR, on the other hand is different in almost every way – from how results and spend should be viewed to how it is measured. PR results (positive articles, broadcast and webcasts opportunities, secured speaking opportunities, etc.), are earned through providing provocative ideas; engaging and ongoing, relationship-building with editors and other influencers; and positioning your company/products as a market, technology and/or thought leader.

Given the time constraints and skepticism of many editors, analysts, conference managers and others, it can take awhile for a continuous stream of high quality results to occur. It could take months (or even years) of PR spend securing trade and vertical articles to get to that big Forbes or Wall Street Journal article win or the opening keynote at the tradeshow of the season. This is important when considering how you view your PR spend – what you’ve spent does not just provide value for those initial results, but rather that previous spend continues to deliver value to your PR program and future spend over time because PR builds presence, momentum and leadership on itself to continually bring in more high-profile opportunities and results.

To put it another way, think of PR spend as an investment in a leadership positioning bank. Over time, creating a leadership position and increasing your profile results in editors proactively contacting your company for commentary, more conference managers requesting your executives for higher-quality speaking opportunities, and bloggers and social media mavens reposting your commentary regularly. Ultimately, this leadership positioning results in increased sales of your products or services because they are widely recognized as the best available as reported through reliable media sources; companies approaching you to secure partnerships; the best and brightest talent sending their resumes; and a higher valuation for that next round of VC funding or liquidation event.

Now that we’ve explored how to view PR results and spend, it’s important to also compare and contrast PR measurement. Like advertising, PR reach is reported through circulation/audience numbers. But, that’s where the similarity ends. PR is also evaluated on qualitative factors. Did the messages in the final article accurately reflect those communicated to the editors? Which ones got through and which ones didn’t? Did a blogger position your company accurately against your competitors? Did the VCs in the audience leave your presentation with a positive impression? Did your sales pipeline explode after that new product launch? These are real results that show your PR program is effectively getting your messages out there and increasing your leadership profile.

Mix and Integrate

Net-net, PR is a long-term, ongoing marketing communications strategy and investment to continually build awareness, momentum and leadership, not a short-term direct ‘spend-to-sales’ advertising program. While there are vast differences between PR and Advertising in audience perception, spend consideration, and results measurement, they are both important components of the marketing communications mix. Furthermore, they should be integrated to increase consistency of your message (and therefore, overall resonance with your audiences), and to maximize your budget spend.

Innovation and/or disruption can come at any time to change your position, requiring a change in strategy, and subsequently, your messaging. Are you launching breakthrough products in new spaces? Are you expanding your business or offerings through new, strategic partnerships? Has a new development in the market caused you to change your product strategy? How are you reacting?

Dynamic shifts in the marketing environment such as the introduction of a new competitor, a new product, or a new executive drive the need for essential changes in strategy and messaging. However, these changes usually require expertise in how to revise the messaging in a way that 1) doesn’t conflict with your past, 2) shifts towards new strategies, products, and ideas, and 3) still provides you with flexibility for the next change agent. Nuances are critical. Essentially, you need a master of language to help guide your company through these times, and these writers are generally found in the PR profession.

So, if you are looking from today forward and find that there are disruptive technologies on the horizon and new areas of strategic growth for your company, then you want to find a one-stop agency that comes from a strong PR discipline to craft your messaging.

Once the agency has helped you frame your new strategic position and messaging, your one-stop shop can centrally project manage its dissemination through integrated planning, campaigning, budgeting, and billing. Their PR team can manage traditional and social media campaigns and analyst relations. Their creative/advertising team can update your brand, web presence, sales materials, and advertising to map to the messaging. And most importantly, it can all be brought together consistently to strengthen the resonance of your message and brand, and maximize the results for your budget spend.

Welcome to the new and improved Stearns Johnson website!  Over the course of the last few months, we have been taking stock of our growth over the last 5 years.  Naturally, as many businesses experience, we discovered that our business has evolved.  To reflect this growth and more accurately communicate our new brand and value proposition, we’ve refreshed our philosophy, methodology, and expanded our current list of services.

We started with our brand and its visual representation, our new logo.  The new design reflects our communications philosophy: to score.  A simple word rich with meaning. We score through the surface to get to the core of your innovations and uniquely position them to tell your story. We maintain the flow of awareness with your audiences as your story evolves, just as the score of a movie moves the plot. We score meaningful results from the communications programs we develop and execute for you, always tracking and reporting on how those results help your business grow and outperform your competitors.
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