Brad Marley

It can be incredibly hard for PR pros to be creative.

We all have these grand ideas for the next viral video or unique ways to use new technology to tell our client’s story. But when we sit down to put those ideas in motion, we get bogged down by the minutiae that can plague our industry — time entry, six rounds of approvals, etc. — and our creative juices stop flowing.

It’s frustrating.

For a profession that prides ourselves on being creative, we sure are an extremely process-driven bunch, aren’t we?  So aggravating.

Sometimes it seems like a small miracle that we get to actually implement an idea here and there.

But fear not, fair readers. (All 17 of you.) There is a shining beacon of creativity that should give all of us hope for a better, more creative future.

And it’s the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

*record scratch*

Yep. The CDC.

Last May, they revealed “Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse.” It was an emergency preparedness guide taken to the next level.

With their tongue firmly planted in their cheek, the guide explained why it’s crucial to be prepared in the event of a zombie apocalyptic scenario, even going so far as to cite the Bible of surviving a zombie attack.

Oh, yeah: They also shared tips on how to prepare for real emergencies, too.

It was a brilliant PR strategy.

Emergency preparedness guides are boring.

Emergency preparedness guides with a pop culture twist are much more entertaining (and readable.)

(I’m not going to lie to you: I wish I’d thought of this.)

What really blew me away was the fact that a government agency would allow this idea to see the light of day. We think of large corporations and government entities as being dry and “by the book.” This was neither, which is probably why it got picked up by mainstream outlets.

To take it to the next level, they even released a graphic novel in October, just in time for NY Comic Con. A neat (and logical) next step in their continuing campaign to prepare people for emergencies.

***

This initiative proves that you don’t have to be a small, nimble agency to pull off a surprising PR campaign.

If it’s a good idea and fits the overall goals of the initiative, it can be done.

So the next time you find yourself doubting your idea before it has been presented, because you think it will be shot down, take heart.

And think about zombies.

These are strange times we live in, my friends.

Not only was it short-sleeve weather in Detroit last week, but big corporations continue to try and push extra fees on their customers, believing in their greedy little heart of hearts that we are going to accept it without a fight.

When I read about Bank of America and Verizon canceling their fees, I imagine these out-of-touch ideas were born in meetings full of big-wigs who are part of the 1 percent.

In fact, the meetings probably went like this:

A portly, bespectacled man (not entirely dissimilar to this picture of Theodore Roosevelt) approaches a podium, holding a snifter of amber-colored liquid.

“Gentlemen! It has come to my attention that we are not making enough money. This travesty must surely be nipped in the bud…immediately!”

Murmurs of agreement ripple through the assembled group of executives.

“But we live in a wonderful age, my friends. An age where our customers are unaware of what they want; an era where we have complete power over the whims of our business! By installing this completely unnecessary and unwarranted fee, we will continue to be able to afford the luxuries we so rightly deserve!”

Hear, Hear!

Glasses chink together. Cigar smoke is released into the air in great relief. Backs are slapped in good humor. The man before these powerful men has given them the answer to their problems.

Vacation homes will not go unbought! Private jets will not have to go unflown!

Their prayers have been answered by their delirious leader.

Strangely missing from these proceedings is the PR person.

Had he or she been invited to this meeting, the company might have avoided the PR disaster that has taken up residence in the public forum.

Alas, they probably were not.

There has been discussion for some time now about the importance of communications professionals gaining a seat at the table with other members of the C-Suite. But when I hear about huge corporations who think they can actually get away with charging the customer more money for no good reason, I’m disheartened.

It appears they still don’t value good, strategic PR counsel.

I liken this situation to working with legal: You can get frustrated by their advice and strict adherence to guidelines, but in most cases, they know more than you do about the situation.

In a case where a company is deciding to add fees for the sake of adding fees (even if this isn’t true, it’s what the public believes) you might not like our counsel (which should be a hearty “No way in hell”), but you have to come to the realization that we’re right.

We might not know the first thing about logistics management, but we know what will and will not go over with the public.

If you listen to us, we’ll keep your organization’s reputation intact.

And that’s worth more than a measly five bucks.

Some of us who work in PR are lucky.

Our clients are large corporations with entire divisions devoted to helping us tell our story, whether it’s a fully equipped broadcast studio that we can use to record podcasts, or an editorial division that acts almost like a news department, siphoning the best stories to fill slots that will draw the most eyeballs.

If you have this machine at your disposal, it can make your job much easier.

But not everybody has this luxury. In fact, with no stats to back this up, I’d wager that most of us have to do most of the leg work ourselves. Even out-duel the major players.

Thankfully, technology makes it easier to tell our story. And if there’s one piece of tech that has the best chance to disrupt our industry in 2012, I’d put my money on Instagram.

As of January 1, 2012, there are 15 million Instagram accounts that have shared more than 400 million photos. And organizations like the Boston Celtics and General Electric have started accounts to use photos to help augment their ability to reach their audiences, so there’s something to this service.

But how can Instagram change the way we do PR in the new year?

Well, in all PR situations, you’re trying to make news. It can be as straightforward as en email pitch to a tech reporter, or conducting a major event that is geared toward a large group of automotive media.

In both cases, you’re using words to draw their interest to interview an executive or attend an event.

But what if we added a visual element?

Even with a pool of photographers at your disposal, it can take hours (sometime a day) to get the high-res pictures you want to display.

But if you have an iPhone with the Instagram app, you can snap pictures and immediately post them wherever you want, and you can even add some artistic flair with the filters. And the iPhone takes a damn good picture, so you’re not losing much in the way of resolution. You might not be the next Ansel Adams, but even the most green PR person can create something worthwhile.

[Note: Instagram is only available on the iPhone, but an app for Android is coming soon, and I can't imagine that Windows Phone would be far behind.]

And with the ability to use hashtags on Instagram to categorize your images, it isn’t difficult to reserve a hashtag for providing sneak peeks for upcoming projects, or hashtags that correspond with a specific event so that media who can’t attend can still watch the images in real time.

In no way should this replace the high-res images that a professional photographer will provide, but it can help us to “tell the story” while we’re waiting, and anything that helps us become better storytellers has to be considered.

2012 feels like the year where PR professionals who experimented with new tools in 2011 will take the next step and implement those tools in their standard PR toolkit.

If you don’t have Instagram in your regular arsenal, consider this your invitation.

*This post originally ran in September of 2009. I wanted to run it again because I think it’s still relevant and it’s one of my favorite posts.*

When you become a parent, your life becomes exponentially more exciting.

Take me and my wife, for example.

The highlight of our day is watching Dexter after we put our daughter to bed. (We don’t want her exposed to the F word at such an early age.) And watching a show that makes you feel sympathy for a serial killer can cause your brain to go to places it shouldn’t, like where Dexter can teach public relations practitioners to be better at, well, their practice.

Rule #1: Adhere to ‘The Code’. The code of ethics, of course. Just like Dexter has a specific code he follows when choosing his victims, we must follow an ethical code when we go about our day-to-day business. You don’t want to be one of those professionals who thinks nobody will notice if they, I don’t know, misrepresent themselves for one little story. Bad things will happen, man. Bad things.

Rule #2: Pay attention to the spatter. When Dexter tests the blood spatter pattern caused by a candlestick being forced into a victim’s head, the result is a nonsensical pattern that only makes sense to a trained professional. When you’re crafting an e-mail pitch for a large swath of journalists, make sure there is a method to your madness. The results of a mail merge catastrophe can be deadly, and nobody wants to clean up that mess.

Rule #3: Be meticulous. When Dexter kills one of his victims, he makes sure his “kill room” is covered from floor to ceiling in plastic so none of the evidence leaks out, and he can, essentially, take the room with him when he disposes of the body.  In public relations, nothing is worse than being a sloppy professional. Spell check will only get you so far. Even if it’s something as simple as an e-mail to your colleague about a meeting, take the time to check for spelling and grammatical errors. Our words are what make us successful. Don’t disregard them.

Rule #4: Begin a relationship. One way to throw off the scent, if you’re a serial killer, is to have a public relationship, since we all know that’s like at the opposite end of the psychopath spectrum. Same goes in PR. Kind of. While we do write strategy, create campaigns and brainstorm possibilities, coverage is the name of the game. So, striking up relationships with reporters is a no-brainer. Without them, we don’t have a career, so it’s imperative that we deliver what we promise. The quickest way to burning that relationship bridge is if they view you as unreliable. Take the time to nurture it, then add water on a regular basis and watch it grow.

Rule #5: Don’t allow yourself to get caught. This is the most important rule of all — for both serial killers and PR practitioners – and it ties in with Rule #1. The account manager who thinks it’s okay to pay people to write positive reviews for his or her client’s product and post them on-line, or the account supervisor who gathers a stable of Tweeters to draft favorable “tweets” about his client, will always be caught. Yes, there is a time and a place for new tactics, but take a minute to think about what you’re doing before you do it. If the majority says it goes against some societal or professional norm, it probably does.

I’ve been talking and thinking about storytelling a lot lately, and I realize, now,  that storytelling drives the public relations profession.

Without interesting people and background stories, we don’t have a product to sell. And when we don’t have a product to sell, we don’t have jobs.  You can talk until you are blue in the face about metrics and campaigns. But if we don’t work our tails off to find the stories that our audience will want to listen to, we won’t be long for this profession.

This is why, I believe, we can learn a lot from Ben Folds.

While most good music is a form of storytelling, his songs are, literally (at least they seem to be), stories about people and events that are set to music. It’s no wonder so many of his songs contain the name of a person in the title: he’s telling you their story.

[Editor's note: One of my favorite Ben Folds' songs is called "Not The Same." As Folds put it, it's about one of his friends who climbed a tree while tripping on acid, stayed in the tree the entire night, then came down the next morning a born again Christian. Now that, my friends, is storytelling.]

He is at his best, however, when he sings stories that captures the essence of two of humankind’s most perplexing disciplines: love and relationships.

The song that perfectly encapsulates this skill is “The Luckiest.”

My wife and I danced to this song at our wedding, and for good reason: it tells the story of somebody who is so madly in love with another, they can hardly believe how lucky they are to have met their perfect other.

Throughout the song, the narrator shares thoughts that express the depths to which he will go to express his love, using the death of an older married couple — “and his wife, she stayed, for a couple of days and passed away, in her sleep” — to explain just how much he cares for the person to which he is singing this song.

And in those lyrics, Folds manages to write the words that leave thousands of listeners nodding their heads in agreement, thinking, Yes. That is love. You’ve nailed it.

In connecting with so many people through a four-minute-song, he not only tugs at the heartstrings, but he strikes a chord that reverberates in all of us; a note of longing that all of us were born with.

As humans, finding love and passion is ingrained in all of us, and if we find or see or hear something that stirs up those those two ideas, we are bound by the laws of nature to pursue.

When we tell a story, we’re looking for a nexus that will force our audience to stand up and take notice. Investigate further. Share with their friends.

We don’t look to artificial means to tell our stories. We must put in the work to find the stories behind the products. Those stories that cause you, the storyteller, to sit up and take notice.

When we find them, we must tell them.

Those are the stories that will reverberate in all of us.