My three teenage kids tell me that only 6.7% of what I say has any value. Thus, I am introducing a new, occasional feature: Blogenberg Bits:

Blogenberg Bit 1: Starburst, Please Stop Selling Candy by Sounding Severely Disabled – In one radio ad, a character complains that he never learned his colors. What do you mean? the other character asks, showing a yellow Starburst. The color challenged one responds by making a noise that sounds like somebody who can’t speak, painfully trying to say the word “yellow.� Here’s a hint for the Starburst ad agency: with a bit of creativity, you could have done the same concept without being offensive. Creativity – try it, you might like it.

Blogenberg Bit 2: Spotting a Man in 13-year-old – All three of my kids give me lots to brag about (I love to brag but don’t because it’s boring, even boorish – except to my staff because I pay them and they have to listen [it’s in their contracts].) I took my 13-year-old son to visit my dad in the hospital – he had unexpected surgery, but results were perfect. (more…)

The hardest thing about running a PR shop may be building a PR shop. It’s one thing to get going and bring in enough business to keep afloat and take care of your family. I did that reasonably well for more than 10 years. But about three years ago I decided I wanted to build my small consultancy into an honest-to-goodness PR firm. Not an easy task, especially in Washington, DC, a city with more PR shops than McDonald’s.

Other than one five-day trip to London with my wife last spring, I’ve not rested since. (Indeed, ended up sick while working last week, which is why there was no Blogenberg last Tuesday.)

I’ve hired extremely talented staff – and won’t hire any other kind. I’ve got great consulting on federal contracting and accounting from Aronson & Company. We won some major federal contracts. (I’m always amazed, as happened just last week, by people who assert [with real nastiness, mind you] that I must be rolling in cash because we have some large contracts and we’re a small shop – ever hear of partners and subcontractors, folks?)

But now my job is and has been building on the success we’ve had, of continually marketing and bringing in additional business because I always assume that, at any moment, large contracts can become gone contracts. (more…)

I do a lot of media training, often with people dealing with controversial issues and, at times, a hostile press. A consistent theme is one of control – how much control do I have over what a reporter writes or a producer edits?

Can I request to see the story before it goes to print? Can I require that my responses in a taped television segment be used in full, without editing? These are typical questions I am asked.

Generally, my response goes, is that you can only really control how well you present your message and, like a pitcher must trust his “stuff� when he’s on the mound, you have to trust your “stuff� when you are giving an interview.

Howard Kurtz had an interesting article on the same theme in yesterday’s Washington Post. “The humble interview,� he writes, “the linchpin of journalism for centuries, is under assault…. [I]n the digital age, some executives and commentators are saying they will respond only by e-mail…� He bemoans the fact that more and more print interviews are being conducted via e-mail, noting that what’s lost is the discussion, the interplay between reporter and interviewee.

I’m not a fan of putting reporters at arm’s length, unless there is a good reason to do so. (more…)

We have frequent conversations around our office (that’s right, the one with cranberry zinger colored walls) about the Administration. It’s hard to avoid such talk being in Washington and having political backgrounds with an election season approaches.

It is not uncommon for these conversations to devolve into a critique of the Administration’s PR strategy. It seems they rely too heavily on playing defense and far too much on the power of the War-time President image. As Fox News blares the “breaking news� of the “President comments on the War on Terror,� we ask is it too much to ask for the President to talk about something other than the war – even if just for one news cycle? Of course, it’s not that easy. But why not try?

Then I read this quote from the book “The CIA at War� by Ronald Kessler:

The events of 9/11 fundamentally changed the way the President looked at the world,� said McLaughlin who periodically briefed Bush and attended most of the meetings with the President to plan a counterattack. “I’m convinced he wakes up every morning thinking about how to prevent anything like that from happening again.�

[note: “McLaughlin� is John E. McLaughlin who, in 2003, the book’s publication date, was Deputy Director at the CIA.]

It’s hardly an earth-shattering statement. It’s nearly cliché. We’ve read something like it a million times since 9/11. For some reason, in light of our office discussions, it strikes me differently this week. (more…)

[youtube jcjpnKIT0_s nolink]

Ok, so this isn’t really a PSA. But if it were, a new study suggests it would not just run in the late night hours. (H/T: PRSA’s PR Tactics and The Strategist Online)

(more…)

My Blogenberg of last Tuesday elicited some interesting, to-the-point questions from Jim Durbin of brandstorming. In my post, I talked about our intensive effort to understand and navigate a communications market that is becoming ever more segmented. I talked about our efforts to expand “media relations� at a time when Americans are expanding their own, often individual definition of “media.�

Durbin asked three questions:

• How do you quantify and bill for that time?
• Is time spent talking to a blogger the same value as talking to a friendly reporter?
• Is writing a blog post the same value as writing an editorial?

His questions go to the heart of how I must look at today’s PR challenges as a businessman. After all, my ultimate job is to make sure I can keep a small PR shop in a city full of behemoth PR shops running, and running profitably.

In my last Blogenberg I wrote that this more sophisticated approach to outreach is really “a new modification to what I’ve been telling clients for more than a decade.â€? The starting point for every campaign, every outreach project remains the same: Who does the client want to reach? Everything else reveals itself in the answer. The difference is that there is much more to reveal itself. It used to be that the strategy available to us was traditional media, with various cuts by market, circulation, audience, etc. Today, there are myriad strategies available to us – from traditional media to blogs to podcasts to online and offline word of mouth. (more…)

I’m placing a big bet. I’m betting my business (12 years of toil) that I know where public relations must head. I’m betting that I know how we’ll be telling the truth a decade or two from now. (In the future I’ll Blogenberg about truth and PR – and if you’re now thinking that’s an oxymoron, your cynicism needs a dose of creativity.)

Recently I attended a press conference at the National Press Club. It was extremely well run. It was very well attended by national press. I’ve no doubt the PR firm that did the work – with whom I was very impressed – celebrated “mission accomplished.â€? But accomplished what? I’ll tell you what – they accomplished getting their news to the same intellectual elite, opinion leaders, and politicians that represent the target of every National Press Club press conference. That’s not unimportant. But it’s not enough, not if you want to make a real difference in how people think and behave. (more…)

This is inside my head. Right now, it’s sitting, still on top of my shoulders, in my office, which is painted gold, just off the common areas of my shop, Rosenberg Communications, which is painted cranberry zinger. That’s right, cranberry zinger. I don’t think it’s an ordinary PR shop. I don’t think it’s an ordinary head.

For more than 20 years I’ve been doing PR in Washington, DC. If you’ve looked at our website, you’ve hopefully seen my bio and seen how impressed I am with myself. My favorite line about Washington, DC is, “Do you know how important I think I am?� Kind of sums up life in this city right there.

My favorite line about running a PR shop comes from Winston Churchill. That’s right Winston Churchill. Actually, it’s two lines – one about Winston Churchill and the other by Winston Churchill. I recently finished Roy Jenkins’ Churchill. It is 900 pages of type so small that I’m going to bill Jenkins’ publisher for the bifocals my eye doctor says I’m soon to need. (Jenkins died before this book was published.) Nonetheless, because of its excruciating detail, the book is the greatest study of greatness I’ve ever read. In it he describes Churchill this way: “Driven men are not often the most balanced. But they are generally the most dedicated.â€? That’s me. I gave up on being balanced a long time ago. I’m not talking about Oprah-style claptrap of balancing work and family. I’ve got my unique ways of doing that while working 60-70 hours a week (keep clicking in and, I’m positive, you’ll hear about them!). I’m talking about inside my head – it’s not balanced (which, if you keep clicking in, you’ll see!) but, thus far, it’s serving me real well. It served Churchill well, and you should read Jenkins’ book. (more…)