The single best way to improve your media relations skills

If you want better relationships with reporters and editors, listen to what Adweek’s Brian Morrissey had to say in this interview with The Bad Pitch Blog:

Recognize that media organizations are shrinking while PR is growing. The ratio of PR people to reporters is probably like 75:1....

What it means for PR people is your job is harder. The best PR people I know simply connect me with people that can help me. They know what I cover, what I don’t and how their clients do and do not fit. That means a lot more work before the email and the call. It also means knowing when to get out of the way.

The goal is to be viewed as a resource, not a PR person. And the first step is knowing the difference between those two designations.

Local PR agencies discuss crisis communication

Good story about crisis communication in today's Journal Gazette, with quotes from PR folks at Asher Agency, Boyden & Youngblutt, Brand Innovation Group, LaBov and Beyond, among others. The bottom line: the "go ugly early" rule is always your best bet.

Media are people, too

Media relations isn't always rocket science, despite a lot of PR people's best efforts to make it much more difficult than it really is. One example: things usually go better when you treat the media like you would want to be treated. Think that goes without saying? Well, someone forgot to tell the person behind this e-mail, cited on The Bad Pitch Blog:

Pretty tight deadline, you should give more notice next time. As my attached bio details, I could certainly speak to the issues. I'm free from 1:30 PM to 2 PM, PST, if that works.

I'll leave it to Bad Pitch to sum this one up:

Thanks for that window Mr. Busy. God complex. Table of one! Might we touch your robe so that we might be healed? What’s the moral of the story? Don’t be a jerk.

Nancy Nall on how not to write a press release

Nancy Nall, now world-famous for her plagiarizer-wranglin', has some not-so-complimentary things to say about the news release that tried to put a happy face on the Lincoln Museum closing. And when you learn that the release was titled "Lincoln Financial Foundation to Make Its Lincoln Museum Collection More Accessible and Visible," it's pretty hard to disagree with her.

If you're in the press release-writing business, Nall's post provides a great reality check for those moments when you think you can fool your audience. In short, you can't. And if you try, you'll be setting yourself up for an even worse public response than would have been generated by the bad news you were trying to cover up in the first place. The old, venerable "go ugly early" rule is old and venerable for a reason: it works.

No, Lincoln wouldn't have made anyone happy had they titled their release "Lincoln Museum to close in June." But by adding insult to injury, they've set themselves up for a lot more criticism. Here's one example of the anger it inspires. And here's another.

Billboard backlash enboldens vandals

A couple of years ago, one of my client's billboards was defaced by someone with a can of spray paint and way too much free time. We were pretty lucky for a couple of reasons: the message painted on the board was just random graffiti not directed at the advertiser, and we had a second vinyl in inventory that we were able to get up within hours.

Other advertisers aren't so lucky. Last week, for example, the Billboard Liberation Front, a California-based group that has been "'improving' outdoor advertising since 1977," changed this board...:

into this:

The BLF's tounge-in-cheek press release stated that the goal was "to promote and celebrate the innovative collaboration of these two global communications giants."

"NSA gets the data it needs to keep America safe," the release continues, "telecom customers get free services, and AT&T makes a fortune. That kind of cooperation between the public and private sectors should serve as a model to all of us, and a harbinger of things to come.”

In case you didn't notice, they're being sarcastic.

Now there's part of me that thinks the BLF's efforts are funny and smart. After all, it's hard not to laugh when the joke's aimed at a corporate behemoth and the governmental equivalent of Big Brother. But it's easy to see the humor when it's at someone else's (literal and figurative) expense. I'm guessing I wouldn't be laughing as much if the joke was on one of my clients.

Part of the problem is the ongoing controversy surrounding outdoor advertising (see this post for more). Billboards aren't very popular, and they can be pretty ugly and obtrusive. As a marketing strategy, however, they also can be pretty damn effective.

My take is that like most other things in life, the key is moderation. Citizens and municipalities should work together to develop common sense ordinances that allow for some outdoor advertising, while limiting the kind of proliferation that blights the landscape (and also makes individual messages less effective). That's easier said than done, but even striving for this type of compromise would be a step in the right direction.

In the meantime, I'll try to stay off the BLF's radar, while keeping a backup vinyl at the ready, just in case.

Hats tipped to AdFreak, boingboing, billboardom
Photos from the Billboard Liberation Front's photostream on Flickr

What reporters REALLY say when you're not around

A friend alerted me to a new site that provides an unvarnished view of journalists' pet peeves: AngryJournalist.com. It's a compilation of everything from the frustrations reporters are feeling to the office politics of the newsroom. The site also serves a very practical purpose, giving PR people good examples of what NOT to do--like this, for example:

Why are you angry today? PR people who don’t do their research. They insist on wasting my time to promote their pathetic story which if they knew ANYTHING about our paper would know that we’re not interested at all. As well as asking if I would like to meet with a representative from their organisation when they visit a town four hours away from me.

If you're willing to learn, the angry journalist's pain can be your gain. Just be sure to wear your thickest skin to the party.

Hat tip: The Bad Pitch Blog

Photo: alex-s on Flickr

MetaPR

I had the opportunity to do some PR for PR this month, in Indiana Business Magazine. Here's a recap of the section that included my comments:

Asher Agency in Fort Wayne has been in business since 1974 as a full-service marketing and advertising firm with PR as an important component, says Anthony Juliano, account supervisor and PR manager. "There are two reasons you'd hire a PR firm," he says. "First, for experience and manpower you don't have in-house, and second, objectivity." Monitoring TV news coverage and print is important, he says, but the explosion of information on the Internet makes it difficult for companies to track what is being said about them in blogs, message boards and podcasts. The same technology that makes it easy to get a message out also makes it harder to manage. A PR firm can help, he says, by knowing where time is best spent looking for information, which blogs to read, and which message boards get the most traffic. Then prioritize. If a factual error is found, send the correct information, he advises. But be careful not to respond hastily to someone's opinion; you could just escalate the situation out of control.

To Juliano's second point of "objectivity," he says PR firms help by looking at a situation in the same way as your company's audience. "Make your language easy to understand. Don't forget what your audience doesn't know. Also, know what's newsworthy. Know what content a reporter can use and know about timing."

Juliano works with clients on both a proactive basis and in crisis, and says the former can have a mitigating effect on the latter. "Consistently share your story," he advises. "You don't want the negative to be the first time people hear about you."

"This is not about Lickable Ads": First Flavor prez writes in to clarify WSJ story

Jay Minkoff, president and CEO of First Flavor, Inc., left the following comment today in hopes of clearing up some misconceptions about the ad his company helped create for Welch's:

As the president of First Flavor, the company bringing this Peel 'n Taste product to market, there is a major correction to the WSJ article: This is not about Lickable Ads. Welch's used the term 'lick' in their ad and no one seems to have bothered to read the fine print.

Our product, which can be attached to a print ad and peeled off, is a sealed tamper evident foil pouch containing a piece of edible film. (Similar to popular breath strips.) One peels opens the pouch and places the piece of edible film on your tongue. The edible film dissolves quickly leaving you with a burst of flavor. No licking involved!

The point that was really missed was that finally consumers now have a way of trying the taste of a product before they buy it. We call it taking a product for a 'Taste Drive'!

First, I want to thank Jay for his comment--it's always good to hear from those directly involved in the work discussed on SBB. I also want to give him major kudos from a PR perspective, since (unlike others who will go unmentioned) he clearly understands the role bloggers play in today's communication environment.

I think First Flavor is experiencing the double-edged sword that is free publicity. Most companies would salivate over the opportunity to get a story in the Wall Street Journal. However, if there are inaccuracies in the story, they spread just as fast as the accurate information. The original SBB post repeated a quote from Welch's that I think created the misunderstanding:

"A lot of people won't lick a magazine no matter how good it tastes," says Chris Heye, Welch's marketing chief.

Heye may have considered his comment a throwaway, but it seems to have stuck with readers. After all, if you say "lick a magazine," that's pretty provocative...and provocative comments stick.

Now, Minkoff is working his tail off--on a Sunday, no less--to help others get things right. So in that same spirit, here are a couple links to show you how First Flavor's product really works:

• A description of First Flavor's Peel 'n Taste^® Marketing System
• A video from ABC News

"Communication isn’t a fad": Ochman on social networks

What can social networking do for your company? Quite a bit, says blogger extraordinaire B.L. Ochman--as long as you don't treat it as some kind of magic bullet. Ochman's entire post is worth reading, but here's the excerpt that got my very specific attention because of its relevance to everything from advertising to crisis communication:

Communication isn’t a fad. People young and old use these tools and pass along information in a casual way because this way of spreading information is now part of the culture.

Yet corporations are still expecting a static website with no feedback mechanism, banner advertising, multi-million dollar Super Bowl ads, top-down messages, and over-saturated search engine advertising to pass for communication. Then they wonder why their marketing doesn’t drive sales.

A company that has open channels of communications that include social media tools has the opportunity to interact with online influentials. But they need to speak in a human voice, to answer and ask questions, to provide information. Because in a crisis, only a company with open lines of communication can be heard. Companies that participate in social media will have the opportunity to be heard and perhaps believed.

I commented on Ochman's blog, and I'll share the spirit of my comment here, too: if you're in marketing or you're an executive of any type, there's only one way to truly understand how social networks work: join one. Sure, it might seem a little awkward to be the only adult at the kids' table, but you can't fully understand what's going on unless you're in the middle of the action (and you'll be surprised how many adults are on board, most of whom are fairly normal). I'm 38, and I'm a Facebook member--primarily so I can provide my clients with a first-hand view of how social networks are shaping consumer perceptions. And like most things, I've learned much more about social networks by immersion than I would have by simple observation.

Social networks aren't going away, but they are changing. If you want to know how they're changing, and how that affects your business, you have to be willing to jump in.

Doctoring the footage

Today's Journal Gazette Scorecard puts Lipitor spokespitchman Robert Jarvik in its "Losers" column:

Inventor of artificial heart comes under fire for cholesterol drug pitch, including a commercial in which he is shown rowing a racing shell. An ad agency hired a double to portray the doctor, who a colleague describes as “about as much an outdoorsman as Woody Allen.”

After reading about Jarvik, I immediately thought of Lutheran Health Network CEO Mike Schatzlein's December blog post, which now looks pretty prescient:

I’m not sure I’d take drug advice from Rob. His artificial heart was way cool, but the company he founded to make and sell it went belly up. Additionally, if memory serves, Rob went straight into research after medical school. I don’t believe he ever served an internship or residency, held a license to practice medicine, or wrote a prescription.

So much for my resentment and envy over all the money Pfizer is paying Rob to look good for the camera.

Now that Lipitor appears to be paying someone else to look like Jarvik in order to make Jarvik look good, we have to wonder what other smoke and mirrors Lipitor is using. Not that smoke and mirrors are new to advertising, but the bar is set a little higher when we're talking about medical advice, as the Pharma Marketing Blog explains:

I admired the skill of the rower, turning the blades of the oars just right for minimum drag between strokes. Because I thought Dr. Jarvik was the actual rower, I admired him all the more, which in turn made me more prone to trust his statements about Lipitor.

Has the Jarvik flap changed my mind about law firm ads? Nope. The legal professional does need to impose some rules on advertisers. But it also needs fewer ads that look could have been created by Ross Fishman's Automatic Advertising Generator.

Pharmaceutical ads need rules, too, but the important takeaway here for every advertiser is the importance of authenticity. If your spokesperson can't row a racing shell, don't show him rowing a racing shell. And if you need a body double, think twice about the message you're sending.

Not the response SalesGenie hoped for

My guess is that SalesGenie's "Two Pandas" spot was intentionally bad--they generated a lot of buzz with last year's horrible spot and they wanted the same response this time. But were they trying to be offensive? Here's just one example of the response it's receiving so far.

I think they've created a PR problem for themselves. And I don't think that's what they were trying to do.

Off Target

Interesting PR misstep this week from Target, a brand that usually gets it right. In the aftermath of the flap over its Times Square billboard, the Big Red Bull's Eye revealed its bizarre stance toward new media in a response to questions from the blog Shaping Youth:

Thank you for contacting Target; unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with non-traditional media outlets. This practice is in place to allow us to focus on publications that reach our core guest.

Once again thank you for your interest, and have a nice day.

Erik Deckers summed up the stupidity of this position very nicely in his comment on Rare Bird:

Wait, is this the same Target that has a website at Target.com? The same Target that sells more stuff online than they have in stock in their stores?

Here's the thing that has turned this story into a scream instead of a whisper: after the initial Shaping Youth post criticizing the billboard, the response from the blogosphere included some pretty vigorous comments in defense of Target. But after Target slapped the blogosphere, the blogosphere began slapping back.

After this week, I wonder if Target still thinks that it "doesn't participate with non-traditional media outlets." The truth is that your company will participate in "non-traditional media" one way or another, either actively or passively. Make no mistake about it: you can't control the message anymore, and you only have a limited say in how your story gets told. But that's still much better than letting everyone else tell your story for you while you ignore them, making believe they don't exist.

Hats tipped to Rare Bird, PR Squared

Final thoughts on The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR

This is the last of three posts on the SBB Book of the Month, The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR (you may want to read post 1 and post 2 if you haven’t already). A few more places where I believe the Rieses get it wrong:

• The Rieses argue that the prevalence of “alternative” forms of advertising—their examples include blimps, stadium naming rights, and point of purchase displays—demonstrate that advertising is less effective than ever before. The problem here isn’t that this premise is wrong—they’re 100% correct when they say there’s more advertising clutter out there than ever before. But PR has exactly the same problem. That’s why you’re see PR agencies using more promotional stunts—some very effective—to get the audience’s attention, instead of just relying on earned media. We have more stuff competing for our attention these days, and that’s true whether you’re talking about a full-page newspaper ad or the full-page news story running next to it.

• The most egregious head-to-head comparison the Rieses make is between Coca-Cola and Microsoft. Here’s the crux of the argument: the Coca-Cola brand, launched in 1886, was built on advertising; the Microsoft brand, launched in 1975, was not built on advertising; therefore, advertising must be in decline. Again, I don’t disagree that the rules of the advertising game have changed dramatically, but this example is beyond oversimplified. The reason why Microsoft didn’t need a large advertising budget to build its brand is that they had very little competition. If you had a near monopoly, how much would you spend to advertise your product?

• In a book full of flaws, the biggest one may be the Rieses use an ad from Long Island’s Adelphi University to demonstrate why advertising doesn’t work. The headline: “Harvard. The Adelphi of Massachusetts.” This ad’s failure has nothing to do with advertising itself and everything to do with a horrible ad concept. If you’re an unknown, you don’t take on the brand leader by claiming you can beat them at their greatest strength (especially when you probably can't beat them at their greatest strength). This goes beyond David vs. Goliath: this is David dropping his slingshot and challenging Goliath to a wrestling match. With one hand tied behind his back. After insulting Goliath’s mother. Sure, bad ads won’t help you build your brand. But bad examples like this don’t help the Rieses build a case for PR's supremacy.

Overall, The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR provides some good case studies in PR done well and advertising done poorly. But in focusing only on those extremes, the book ignores the true problem that today’s marketers face: both advertising and PR face serious challenges in today’s cluttered, chaotic communications environment, and marketers need to use every tool available to them. Sometimes that’s PR. Sometimes its advertising. And sometimes its neither. But don’t put away that slingshot just yet.

More on The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR

This is a continuation of yesterday’s post about the SBB Book of the Month, The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR. Here are a couple of places where I believe the book falls short.

The Rieses contend that today, PR is more powerful than advertising because advertising lacks credibility. And while it’s absolutely true that people today are skeptical of advertising, it’s due in large part to their skepitism about everything, including the earned media coverage that the Rieses proclaim as a marketing smoking gun. One of their supporting arguments is that advertising people rank just above car salesman when it comes to crediblity. But they failed to look at those same survey respondents' feeling about public relations practicioners and media professionals. I might be wrong, but I’d be willing to bet that neither group would rank much higher than those in advertising—and certainly not as high as the nurses and doctors against whom the Rieses use as a benchmark. Both advertising and PR have a credibility problem, and we need to ask ourselves what if anything we can do about it instead of kidding ourselves that one is better than another.

One thing the book does well is reminding readers that advertising should lead to increased sales instead of just hard-to-quantify “awareness.” They support this argument with several examples of campaigns that had no effect, or a negative effect, on the bottom line. Almost without exception, however, the examples they use feature dinosaur brands that have serious product problems or that have experienced major changes in their competitive environment. Sure, you could make an argument that AT&T’s advertising did nothing to help sell its phone service. But what the dozens of competitors who entered the marketplace leaner and more agile than AT&T? And it’s probably true that Chevrolet’s ads have done little to move cars off dealers' lots. But Toyota runs ads, too, and it seems to be doing pretty well nevertheless.

Perhaps the worst example that they use, however, is one intended to show how a brand can succeed even with ineffective advertising. The brand they chose is Target. Here’s an excerpt:

As with many marketing programs today, there’s a disconnect between the advertising and the consumer perception. Target’s advertising focuses on visual symbolism using the "target" logotype, while the targets of Target’s advertising, its customers, talk about wide aisles, neat displays, and hip merchandise. No one ever says "I go there because they have this neat trademark.”

I’m sorry, but this argument is just stupid. Sure, Target's advertising features its logo—but so does nearly everyone in the history of branding and advertising. The message of Target’s ads is that they offer accessible, inexpensive high design, and they are successful because—guess what?—they really do offer accessible, inexpensive high design. Target’s advertising is integral to its success as a brand because it reinforces its differentiated position. You would think Al Ries, one of the men who helped define positioning, would understand that.

Obviously, I have some strong opinions on The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR. I’ll post some final thoughts tomorrow, and after you read those I’d encourage you to give your opinion in the comments.

Book of the Month: The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR

Just as Time occasionally selects a Man of the Year due to his impact on society more than his contributions to society (Adolph Hitler, 1938; Joseph Stalin, 1939; You, 2006), SBB will occasionally offer up a Book of the Month that is more influential than it is exceptional. Our choice for January, 2008--The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR by father and daughter team Al and Laura Ries--is such a book.

Now, given the book’s title, it could be that I’m biased because I work in advertising. But here’s the catch: I also work in PR, so I just as easily could be in the choir to whom the Rieses are preaching. As a result, I ended up looking at the book pretty objectively and without much in the way of preconceptions. As I result, I found several flaws in the authors' logic, an oversimplification of several important issues, and somewhat of an ignorance of the true shift that both disciplines are experiencing. What we’re really seeing today is the fall of bad advertising and PR, and the rise of good advertising and PR. Your audiences won’t let you waste their time, whether you’re doing so in an ad, a news story, or anywhere else. The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR, however, ignores this reality and instead draws only from the best of PR and the worst of advertising. It’s kind of like saying that beef is better than chicken because filet mignon is better than the wings at KFC.

The Rieses seem to have come up with a thesis first and then found evidence to support it, while also ignoring anything that contradicted it. The unfortunate thing is that they could have written a more balanced argument and ended up sounding much more credible instead of looking like they’re out of touch and ill informed.

If you’re looking for a PR how-to manual, The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR offers some great suggestions. However, much of what the book says about advertising is either shortsighted or just plain wrong. Tomorrow and Wednesday, I’ll post a few examples of where I think the Rieses miss the mark, along with a discussion of some important issues that affect those who work in advertising , PR, or both. If you've read it and would like to comment, I'd encourage you to do so after you've read all three posts about the book.

Is this Texas candidate The Biggest Loser?

Fox News reports on a Texas congressional candidate with a big fat PR problem:

Dean Hrbacek appears slimmer than usual in a new campaign brochure because a photo of his head was affixed to the image of a different body.

While the mailer sent to voters this week by the former Sugar Land mayor says "Dean's record speaks for itself," his physique clearly does not.

The picture, presented as a true image of the candidate, is a computerized composite of Hrbacek's face and someone else's slimmer figure, in suit and tie, from neck to kneecaps.

[...]

Campaign manager Scott Broschart acknowledged the image is a fake. Hrbacek has been so busy meeting voters that he had no time to take a full-length, genuine photo for the political mailing, Broschart said.

So Hrbacek's campaign put the headless body with the candidate's head.

"He may appreciate that we took a few pounds off him," Broschart said. "I think the voters ... are more concerned with the issues as opposed to pretty photo shoots."

Actually, Scott, they’re concerned with both. An audience will let you get away with best-foot-forward tactics in your advertising, as long as what they’re seeing is somewhat authentic. You can have the photographer adjust the lighting. You can have the candidate shave right before the photo shoot. You even can put him in a suit that hides a few pounds. But use the ol’ head/body switcheroo, and voters are going to start wondering what other tricks you're using to deceive them.

Advertising on its own doesn’t win elections, but advertising that creates PR problems sure doesn’t help. In trying to make Hrbacek look like The Biggest Loser in his brochure, his campaign may have just ensured that he’ll be a big loser in the March primary.

Bonus coverage: the Lone Star Times has a close up of the less-than-stellar PhotoShop work that started the big fat controversy.

Kelly Tilghman, the PGA, and PR

The Kelly Tilghman “Lynchident” is an object lesson in how public relations has changed—and how it hasn’t—in the New Media age.

If you haven’t heard about it, here’s a summary: during a recent PGA event, after commentator Nick Faldo said that Tiger Woods’ opponents might want to “gang up” on him, Tilghman took things one step further by suggesting that they should “lynch [Woods] in a back alley.”

As a result of her comment, Tilghman received a two-week suspension from the Golf Channel (she’s due back Thursday). Woods has brushed the whole thing off as a “non-incident,” but the Rev. Al Sharpton is calling for her to be fired.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the story, however, was what followed, as the Chicago Tribune’s Ed Sherman reports:

The first person to get fired as a result of Kelly Tilghman's "lynch" comment wasn't Kelly Tilghman.

Golfweek editor Dave Seanor was dismissed Friday, the fall guy for the magazine's decision to use a cover featuring a noose in its report of the Tilghman controversy.

Bad decisions all the way around, that’s for sure. So what can those in PR and media learn from all of this? Quite a bit, actually:

• Branding matters. Tilghman and Seanor’s employers celebrate all things golf, and that means they are part of the sport’s ethos. The downside is that this ethos includes an unfortunate legacy of racism, sexism and exclusivity that affects any brand that aligns itself with professional golf. Would have Tilghman’s words and Seanor’s cover have gone unnoticed if the sport was baseball, basketball, or football? No, but golf’s reputation as discriminatory towards minorities—warranted or not—sure didn’t help. (And it’s worth noting that even though Woods’ race and Tilghman’s gender demonstrate how far the sport has come in recent years, the brand is still bigger than any one person.)

• But your personal brand matters, too. Most people probably hadn't heard of Tilghman before her gaffe--and that may benefit her in this case because we're not predisposed to support or criticize her. Among those who do know her, however, she seems to have a reputation as a solid, uncontroversial professional (in a world where solid and uncontroversial are highly valued). This makes her much different than the likes of Don Imus and Howard Cosell, whose careers changed dramatically after they made comments that were deemed insensitive. Both Imus and Cosell built their reputation with their mouths, which paid off handsomely for both for most of their careers—until they slipped up. The lesson? Be aware of your “personal brand” and the risks that come with it. What you’re known for can make you famous—or infamous.
  

• Personal relationships matter. When you discover that Woods and Tilghman are friends, it takes a lot of air out of the argument that Tilghman had malicious intent. And when Woods came to her defense quickly and unequivocally, it took a lot of air our of the controversy as a whole. Who you know, and how you treat them, still means something.
  

• YouTube and the blogs are watching. Today, if you make a mistake, someone’s going to catch it. And if you’re in the spotlight, you’re going to make a mistake eventually. What can you do about it? Mitigate the damage by apologizing early and sincerely. And don’t try to make believe it didn’t happen, because your audience can log onto YouTube and watch it happen over and over again. I don't know how many people saw Tilghman’s slip up when it was first broadcast. But it’s almost a guarantee that the original audience is inconsequential as compared to the number of people who have watched it on YouTube or read about it on a blog. News has always traveled fast, but today it doesn’t even have to move—it just sits there where millions of people can find it, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, forever.
  

It’s obviously better if you can stay out of trouble in the first place, but the next best thing is being prepared. Think ahead to how you’d respond if you were in Tilghman’s Footjoys. Everybody makes mistakes, but what really matters is whether your immediate response minimizes the damage—or makes things even worse.

Magazine sayz CrazyPinz bowlz 'em over

WANE reports that Fort Wayne's CrazyPinz has received several awards from Bowlers Journal Magazine:

"We won four awards, but the one were most proud of is that we won "Best New Center" in the world. There were other places in England, Italy, and Poland... so it truly is an international award," Crazy Pinz owner Dave Kerschner told Newschannel 15's Matt McCutcheon.

Other awards include First Place in "Best Exterior", "Best Arcade Area", and Second Place for "Best Interior."

This, along with their big ol' ad in Sunday's paper, makes this a very good week on the marketing front for CrazyPinz.

I haven't been there yet, but it sounds like this might be one of those Fort Wayne purple cows we've been talking about so much this week. If you think so, tell us why in the comments, or submit a contest entry.

Smart, honest PR advice from B.L. Ochman

B.L. Ochman's What’s Next Blog is a consistently good source of PR advice, and her pitch/press release quiz is one of the most concise, brutally honest, and useful reality-checks I've seen. The questions:

1. Has the print, online or broadcast reporter you are pitching ever covered this topic?

2. Would this pitch or release elicit a response from people who read it?

3. Is this pitch or release bullshit?

4. Would anyone pass along a story on this topic to a friend or colleague?

5. Have you Googled the reporters and bloggers on your list so you know if they've covered your competitor?

6. Have you read your competitors' press releases?

7. Have you checked to see if any blogs specifically cover this topic?

8. Can you make the copy shorter?

The right answers are obvious, but the goal isn't to make you think while you're taking the quiz--it's to get you thinking before you send a news release or make a pitch.