AWARE t-shirt : an accidental PR coup for designer

May 7th, 2009 Dean

If you are a Singaporean, you probably would have been following the Aware saga (unless you are a totally apathetic citizen). On 4th & 6th May, we had the story of a designer who came up with quirky slogan t-shirts taken from memorable and mostly infamous quotes from the AWARE EOGM. Vicki Lew, design director at Bionic Creative, was featured in almost all the major newspaper and radio and TV news. So how did all that happen?

Here is the story.

On Sat, 2nd May, at around midnight (the night after the results of the no confidence vote against the ex ‘new committee’) I was checking out my Facebook posting my elation at the results and reading what my friends are saying about it. And there was Vicki’s post on her Aware t-shirt.

Now, I have always known Vicki to be a damn good designer. But I was pleasantly surprised at what she had done! Who would have thought of such a clever idea of making commemorative t-shirts from the most memorable quotes? And very nicely done too.

So I started chatting with Vicki who happen to be online also and found out that she was doing it as a means to raise money for AWARE. Wow! I immediately saw this as hot news, and told her that the media must be notified. Poor Vicki had been cracking her head to get publicity for her design work for some time. Ironically she didn’t seem to realise she actually just created the perfect PR opportunity!

So I had to do what a real friend must do. I jumped into action, got her to give me all the necessary info and in 15 minutes wrote a press release (see below) and then had it sent off to my media contacts. It was already past 1 am by then.

Monday came and her phone began to ring off the hook from all these interested media. Walah! You go girl, Vic!

At the time of this post she was already featured in Channel News Asia, 938Live radio, My Paper, The New Paper, Straits Times Online. Her design will be featured in 8 Days. Her t-shirt featured and her design firm name mentioned. Good Stuff!!

Lessons we can all learn:

Sometimes you don’t have to try so hard to get publicity. Do what you do best and the opportunity might just come to you…but of course having a friend who does PR would help :)

So if you want to be my friend, add me on Facebook. Click here. Or you can search for me: Dean Shams

Here’s the press release.

Read the rest of this entry »

Don’t sell your reputation with your coupons

April 28th, 2009 Dean

I came across this blog post by Elaine Fogel about gift coupon, or commonly known as vouchers in Singapore. She wrote:

I was a gift card virgin – until recently. Now, I will not use them anymore. Number one – they aren’t worth the trouble. Number two – they aren’t worth their full face value. There’s hidden info that consumers don’t know about until they try to use them, which brings me to number three – they’re aggravating!

It reminded me how true it is even here in Sg. I remember getting a $20 coupon with my credit card for one of them restaurants only to find that there were so many conditions to use it, i might as well throw it away. No way am I going to arrange my schedule to fit their requirements so nicely!

So if you are in the retail business and you have used (or thinking of using) coupons to get sales going, think carefully. Are you setting too many conditions on the use of that coupon such that it seems you were not being sincere? Are your coupons an extension of your brand’s core values or will your customer see it as just another $$ deal?

“A national survey [in USA] of 1,500 consumers done last spring by WSL Strategic Retail, based in New York, found gift-card fees and expiration dates were among the top causes of frustration. And that’s just among people who attempted to use them. Earlier this year, TowerGroup, a research firm in Needham, Mass., estimated the value of unused gift cards in the U.S. at $8 billion for 2006. And in its fiscal 2006 annual report, the retailer Best Buy revealed a $43 million gain from gift cards that were unlikely to be used.”

Consumers like to deal with authentic businesses. If your marketing tactics involves giving away coupons, you might as well make it another vehicle to promote your brand values and use it as a means to get customers to like you. It shouldn’t just be about getting them to come back. It should also be about getting them to interact with your brand more so they can get to know more. After all, true friendship comes from constant communication.

Have you gotten a coupon and thought it was pointless to use it because of all the restrictions? What are your thoughts on it?

Time your sales right and earn PR points for your shop

April 9th, 2009 Dean

I got this interesting piece of insight on customer behaviour from Marketing Profs.

If you offer a sale, say 10% on a coffee maker, for a limited period. If a customer just missed the sale dateline and you wanted to be kind and extended the offer to her, there is a 87% chance that she will reject the offer. But if you told her that the sale for the coffee maker has ended and you offer her a 10% discount on another brand of coffee maker (probably as a ‘peace offering’) there is a 40% chance that she will accept your offer. Isn’t that interesting?

Possible reason:

“The researcher suggests that consumers may transfer the “negative affect” (regret at missing a sale) to the promoted product itself, leading to a lower opinion of the product.”

 

Lesson we can learn from this:

“time sales of different brands, or even of different items in [a] product line, to ensure that a consumer who misses a sale on one product can find another sale on a different yet similar product,” this researcher suggests….When one item goes off sale, consider offering similar products at a slight reduction, to keep latecomers happy.”

Now isn’t that easy way to make build a good reputation with your customers? 

If you are offering services, would you be able to apply the same principles? get back to the drawing board, friends…

Source

Sample Work: Jewellery publicity

March 31st, 2009 Dean

Client: Gold & Silver Jewellery

The idea:

Gold & Silver wanted publicity for their latest range of high-end jade jewellery pieces. The local jeweler had been around since 1940s but has not gotten any form of media coverage. They also wanted their brand to reach out to a wider consumer group.

The challenge:

The purpose behind the publicity was simple enough. Unfortunately, for this very reason we believe it is going to be tough to media interest. Just pitching for a product line may get them token snippets in magazines. But for us this is not good enough. We want more for our clients.

The strategy:

We sat down with the Creative Director, who is the force behind their jade collection, to dig out any interesting story around their jade collection. The chat uncovered the history of her passion for jade and we learnt some surprising technical details of the gemstone that most layperson may not realise. Herein lies an interesting human story that could be weaved around the technical details of jade gemstone.

We also found out that more and more young ladies are buying jade pieces from them because of the modern designs that Gold and Silver produced. Despite jade being a very oriental gemstone, even Westerners were buying from them because of its quality and potential investment benefits. We decided to package this as a trend.

We pitched the story with slightly different angles to Channel News Asia, newspapers and women’s magazines. Radio was intentionally left out due to the visual nature of the story.

The outcome:

We managed to get Prime Time Morning interested in featuring the Creative Director as an avid collector of jade. To impart some credibility to the interview, we arranged for a gemologist to accompany her on the show.

Business Times, TODAY and My Paper picked up the story, each with its own variation of story angles. Business Times went for a more commercial angle. TODAY used the personal collector angle, while My Paper picked up the ‘trend’ angle.

The jade designs were picked up by Female magazine and Tatler’s annual supplement The Best of Singapore 2009 gave them a good 6-page coverage. We did a promotion with HomeTeam NS magazine to reach out to the mass market. For that our clients got a full page article. 

In Summary:

Total Broadcast coverage: 1

Total Print (newspapers & magazines) coverage: 6

You don’t own your brand, your customer does

March 16th, 2009 Dean

It is a common knowledge among big boys and the branding circle. Once your brand becomes popular and you have a loyal consumer base, you don’t own your brand anymore. After all the effort you have put into building a strong perception for your brand, it would be entrenched in the minds of your consumers, especially the loyal ones. Then if you want to change it, you better seek their advise, or else the backlash might be bad. And as business owners, we can’t afford it.

Here’s an example of a not so small company who changed the look of a well liked product and was met with very unhappy customers.

Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice thought it was time for them to get an updated sleek look on their packaging in early January. But interestingly, their customers were not ready for that and they were not quiet about it either. 

…consumers complained about the makeover in letters, e-mail messages and telephone calls and clamored for a return of the original look. Some of those commenting described the new packaging as “ugly” or “stupid,” and resembling “a generic bargain brand” or a “store brand.”

“Do any of these package-design people actually shop for orange juice?” the writer of one e-mail message asked rhetorically. “Because I do, and the new cartons stink.” Others described the redesign as making it more difficult to distinguish among the varieties of Tropicana or differentiate Tropicana from other orange juices.

 

Technology has made it possible for consumers to make their opinions known quickly, loudly and direct to the companies. If we as business owners don’t respond then we are in for trouble. Remember True Yoga debacle?

But does that mean we have to listen to every complain, comment and criticism? Because it might just hamper innovation. What do you think? Add a comment.

Article Source

Reputation comes cheap at True Yoga

February 20th, 2009 Dean

Something must be awfully wrong in the True Group boardroom. Despite getting bad press last month for not relenting to a court ordered refund of (just) $2,500 on Jan 24, they were still strong headed and kept on at being bad!

On Feb 13, the local newspapers reported on how customers are complaining about poor service at the fitness centre. Straits Times, in its article, noted that

  • Online, the forums and blogs are abuzz with gripes against the yoga arm, with customers venting their frustrations in at least 50 postings.
  • A group of 16 disgruntled customers have also banded together to file a collective suit against True Spa.
  • customers have so far been angry about repeated cancellation of appointments made for spa treatments, pressure selling and the unavailability of slots despite bookings being made five weeks ahead.  

In response, their spokesperson said “……., we have offered them ways to make bookings easier. There is really nothing else we can do”.

Are you kidding me? Nothing else you can do?? There is something they obviously can do. Refund the customer.

First off, they need to decide which is more important, money or customer satisfaction? I would suggest to the GM that put customer satisfaction before money. A satisfied customer can be a customer for life. An unhappy customer is going to make a hell lot of noise. The management at True Yoga must have been living in a well. Don’t they know that with Social Media, anyone can spread a piece bad news like a bush fire.

Customers can band together either for your company or against your company. I hope the Management wasn’t surprised to find “a group of 16 disgruntled customers have also banded together to file a collective suit against True Spa” (ST). I bet these 16 people didn’t even know each other before this. And now they have a common enemy. Dangerous.

Why bother spending so much money in glossy ads, spokesperson and promos to build credibility and then let is all go down the drain because of greed. I guess reputation comes cheap at True Yoga. Definitely cheaper than their spa packages.

What we can learn from this:

1. Your reputation is more valuable than the cost of any product or services that you offer. 

2. If your customer is not happy, help resolve the issue sincerely. If you cannot resolve it, then give full refund. The sensible customer will understand and forgive you for your mistake. The irrational customer will not dare make news about it, because they know inside them that they are being irrational.

3. If your customer has to use legal means to resolve the issue, its as good as losing him/her for good. As reported: “Marketing manager Nora Yusoff, 43, took True Spa to court last year, where an agreement was made that allowed her to make bookings a week in advance. She said: ‘It improved for me after that, and I was able to use my whole package. But I am never going to sign up with True Spa again.’”

4. Remember what Warren Buffet said. It takes years to build a reputation and a day to destroy it. (or something like that). 

 

Full article as appeared on ST below:

Feb 13, 2009

Wellness group gets flak from customers

Complaints pile up online and at Case; unhappy spa clients file collective suit

By Jessica Lim

 

 

 

COMPLAINTS about poor service are piling up against the True Group, the wellness empire that runs yoga, fitness and spa businesses here.

The Consumers Association of Singapore (Case) received 331 last year, more than double the 155 filed in 2007. And barely two months into this year, True’s business arms have already drawn 15 complaints, mostly against True Yoga.

Online, the forums and blogs are abuzz with gripes against the yoga arm, with customers venting their frustrations in at least 50 postings. A group of 16 disgruntled customers have also banded together to file a collective suit against True Spa.

Last month, True made the news when a court bailiff went to its True Fitness outlet in Suntec City to seize equipment to raise money to make good on a customer’s court-ordered refund of $2,500.

True’s customers have so far been angry about repeated cancellation of appointments made for spa treatments, pressure selling and the unavailability of slots despite bookings being made five weeks ahead.

Assistant marketing manager Tan Siang Mei, who bought a $4,000 spa package in 2006, said she has hardly been able to get through the booking hotline and has had appointments cancelled at the last minute. As a result, the 29-year-old has used only $580 worth of services in two years.

Of her attempts to make spa appointments, she said: ‘No one picks up the phone. And when you are lucky enough to get some attention, spots are fully booked for weeks on end.’

Going online in the middle of last year, she had no difficulty finding 80 others with bad experiences at True Spa. Out of that number, 15 of them joined her to file the collective suit.

One member of the group, a 27-year-old teacher who declined to be named, wants a refund for the $6,000 package she bought. She is frustrated in having snagged appointments for only three sessions in her eight months as a member.

A True Spa spokesman confirmed that the spa received a writ of summons through the group’s lawyer on Jan 24, but said True has ruled out refunds.

‘In these cases, we have offered them ways to make bookings easier. There is really nothing else we can do,’ he said.

He explained that the existing system allowed customers to book spa slots two weeks in advance for peak hours and a day or two ahead for off-peak times; some of those who complained were assigned personal representatives to help them with bookings. He said these customers had earlier sought refunds for entirely different reasons, such as financial difficulty or because their favourite massage treatments were no longer offered.

But one of two lawyers representing the complainants, Mr Michael Loh of Clifford Law, said: ‘It’s not a case of wanting their money back due to making a bad decision. They are coming forward with what they have experienced, which should not be discounted in any way.’

He said his clients were asking for a full refund, though they were open to ‘any sincere offer’ to settle the matter.

Case, which has described the number of complaints as ‘quite high’, advises consumers to be clear about the terms and conditions of membership and to go online for reviews before signing up.

It added that, it may, if needed, invite True to sign a Voluntary Compliance Agreement, that is, admit to unfair trading practices, compensate its customers and clean up its act.

Mr Peter Sng from the Spa Association of Singapore put down True’s problems to its membership base being too large.

Marketing manager Nora Yusoff, 43, took True Spa to court last year, where an agreement was made that allowed her to make bookings a week in advance.

She said: ‘It improved for me after that, and I was able to use my whole package. But I am never going to sign up with True Spa again.’

…..end…….

 

Are you talking nonsense? Stop the corporate babble

February 11th, 2009 Dean

Time and again I come across corporate profiles written in a language that don’t seem to be English at all. They are so full of jargons and adjectives weaved into one tight nothing! I keep reading a lot of words which has no meaning to me. 

Here is a fine example of ‘talking’ a lot and saying nothing. The business deals with flowers and gifts, but I shall not name the entity, just the initials will do.

HT is a floral design firm acclaimed for its bold attempts to inject vibrancy and excitement to conventional floral creations. HT is inspired to bringing dazzles to bouquets, inspiring emotions and joy to life. HT seeks to give the best by crafting warmth through its flowers to touch your loved ones and creating stunning floras to forge new relations, strengthen corporate ties or simply to brighten a dull day.

Woa! What??

All I can sum up is that HT is just a florist. Everything else is noise.

“acclaimed for its bold attempts to inject vibrancy and excitement to conventional floral creations” – acclaimed? did it win awards? if so, why not mention it?

“inspired to bringing dazzles to bouquets” — What does this mean, really?

“inspiring emotions and joy to life” – Do we need to be inspired to feel emotion and joy?

“seeks to give the best by crafting warmth through its flowers” — So HT craft warmth with its flowers and therefore they are giving their best? I am confused.

Oh dear!!

Here’s my humble attempt to unravel the corporate babble:

What do you want our flowers to say? That is the first question we at HT ask our customers. We all know that flowers are used for a myriads of situations and purposes. We at HT will bend our backs, and our floral arrangements, to give you stunning floral creations that send just the right message.

If it is a loved one that you are giving flowers to, we add warmth into our design. If you want to forge a new business relationship, we will add a touch of class and respect to your name with the right choice of flowers. Tell us the message you want to send, and we will say it with flowers.

Some of our customers are already referring to us as a design firm rather than a florist! Honestly, we can’t blame them. Come find out if they are right.

 

..…………….

Ah! the joy of simple English.

But that is just my opinion. Which version do you prefer? HT’s or mine? Why?

Understanding Media Relations Download Page

January 25th, 2009 Dean

Thanks for subscribing to KinetiqBuzz newsletter. You can now download the article “Understanding Media Relations Process” via the link below.

http://www.kinetiqbuzz.com/publicity_tips/understanding-media-relations.pdf

Four points to a great marketing for 2009

January 23rd, 2009 Dean

When I come across a good article, I love to share it. I got one yet again from Cision. Written by President of Eisen Marketing Group. He mentions very aptly that a good publicity and marketing plan involves not only a realistic plan but also a sustained committed action plan. This is where many business owner falter. Being “multi-taskers”, they always end up giving preference to ‘working in the business’ to ‘working on the business’.

The author tells us to base goals on realistic market research rather than just plugging numbers out of thin air or based on assumptions. This can lead to frustration when your efforts don’t produce the expected results. 

I particularly liked these lines:

…good public relations and marketing activities take time and are not a quick fix to your business ills… 

…Regardless of whether your marketing program is grand or modest, continue to do at least something…

Yes, indeed! Don’t wait for your plan to be perfect, just do it and fine tune along the way.

Here is the article:

Source

New Year’s Resolutions and Marketing Activities: Success or Failure Exactly the Same

By Rodger Roeser
Eisen Marketing Group 

Here it is just a few weeks into the new year and already those resolutions are fading away. Well intentioned efforts to lose weight, get into better shape, quit smoking, stay in touch with family – perhaps already things of the past. It got me thinking how similar resolutions are with marketing and public relations. Regardless of the economy, marketing activities are not flash in the pan, quick fix options, but rather long-term, sustained programs and campaigns that actually yield positive results.

Experts will tell you that the reason most resolutions fail is because they involve sustained commitment and effort. Also, they are often unrealistic in nature – leading folks to give up altogether. Similarly, good public relations and marketing activities take time and are not a quick fix to your business ills. Finding good publicity angles, creating image and article opportunities, reaching out and sharing a company story or profile all take time, patience and stick-to-itiveness.

It also takes time and effort to achieve realistic results. One push-up will not make you thin or build your biceps. All too often, I see business executives simply increasing sales numbers because Excel allows them to plug in a 25 percent increase in widget sales – for no apparent reason. It seems solid research and market realities have given way to just plugging in numbers and storming the gates. This is a bad practice and often leads to frustration and a lack of business clarity and focus among employees. Don’t be that executive who says you want X amount of articles in the newspaper or just any other number that appears to be pulled out of thin air, and when those numbers aren’t hit, you’re disappointed. These types of business mistakes are not productive, and surely not good for morale.

A good marketing executive or agency can offer better, more realistic guidance to those types of numbers, and advise best ways to achieve those goals. And, like a good personal trainer, help keep you motivated and on track. Here are four simple steps to a successful 2009.

1. Get a Plan!

If you don’t have a marketing or marketing communications plan, get one. Do yourself and your business a favor, hire a good firm and get a plan developed. The investment of just a few thousand dollars may be the best investment you make this year. The plan will have realistic goals with realistic prices. You do yourself no favors when you believe you can do a national advertising campaign for $500. A good plan will lay out strategies, tactics, timelines, goals and budgets that will be easy to follow. The firm should be able to implement the plan with skill, or work with you to share in the implementation duties. If you don’t have a plan, this is the first and most important step you can take for your business.

2. Stop with the Magic Bullet

We all play Monday morning quarterback, and surely if you’re the coach you likely know more about football than most. It doesn’t stop people from wanting to share their “ideas.” The same holds true for marketing. Rarely are folks short on “ideas,” but recently it seems there is this great new invention that will revolutionize marketing as we know it and cause all other forms of marketing to wither and die – social media. For some reason, all the Monday morning marketers are jumping on the social media bandwagon and putting up any manner of information on Facebook, Twitter, Plaxo, MySpace and others, and waiting for the sales to roll in. While having a good social media plan is important, it is not THE answer. It certainly can be integrated into an overall marketing plan, and blogging and tweeting and friending and updating are all smart – just be realistic about it. If I hear one more time, “we’re not going to do much marketing this year, we have a blog now,” I may have to send out the Marketing Police.

3. Keep at It

Regardless of whether your marketing program is grand or modest, continue to do at least something. While you must be smart and you should certainly scrutinize every dollar invested, now is not the time to “stop.” I recently had a client that, for all intents and purposes, stopped their proactive marketing outreach last June. Now, they have no pipeline, no leads and no revenue. The lack of consistency in their outreach has likely caused yet another business to go under. So invest wisely, be proactive and keep at it.

4. Change up the Routine

Just like working out, changing things up a bit can yield some quick and dramatic results. Now may be an excellent time to do something different – perhaps an event, a new sponsorship, a cause marketing initiative or a podcast. Properly positioned and integrated, new programs can attract entirely new segments of consumers or prospective business partners in a fresh way. When was the last time you wrote a thought leadership article or submitted an opinion piece? Take a look at where you may have some holes and where opportunities may exist, and then capitalize.

By taking some simple proactive steps, businesses can look forward to a bright 2009. Now is the time to get out there, stay focused and be aggressive. Ideas and options are a good thing. Now, go make some waves.

 

Rodger Roeser, APR, is the president and owner of Eisen Marketing Group, Northern Kentucky’s largest fully integrated public relations firm. Roeser served as the 2005 president of the Cincinnati Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America. He is an accomplished and award winning print and broadcast journalist, and currently hosts Business Focus, an online broadcast news magazine.

YouTube becoming a powerful PR tool

January 19th, 2009 Dean

I was having a discussion with one of my client, a learning programmes business owner. I told him he neededto record a video of his best classes and upload it to YouTube. And his response was, “You Tube is for entertainment, not for real business”. I was speechless!

I wish he knew that even world leaders are using You Tube to get votes. World-class trainers and speakers are using it to promote their programmes. Chefs are using it to promote their recipes and books.

If you don’t know it yet, You Tube is becoming a major How To resource centre. I myself have gone onto the portal to check on how to do this and that, especially new exercise routine. Here’s a article on Straits Times to proof my point (Sunday 18 Jan).

If you are a consultant, then you need to seriously consider making a presence on You Tube. Here’s how you can do it in 3 easy steps…

1. Get a video recorder of some sort. It need not be super high quality

2. Record something you already know well but might be of interesting to somebody. Your video need not be polished, as long as it has good info. Keep it within 5 min. You might want to add your website link onto the video to encourage viewers to go to your site.

3. Upload, add the correct tags.

4. Sit back, feel proud of the work you’ve done, no matter how poor the quality of your video. You can improve it the next time around.

Many business owners hold back on doing this simply because they are waiting for a time when they can produce a high quality, polished, corporate video. The problem is, that time may never come. And what they dont understand is, the You Tube community dont care for high quality, polished, corporate video. They want reliable, interesting content. It needs to be authentic more than polished.

It is a good way (read low risk way) for your consumers to sample a little bit of you before they commit to a proper programme, product etc.

So what are you waiting for?

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