Even if you own a top-flight video camera, think twice before you decide to make a promotional video on your own. If you aren’t a filmmaker, you won’t have a refined sense of editing, pacing, and cinematic composition. Not everyone can do this. But if you think your project would benefit from video, find out if there’s a film school in your town, or a local college that teaches film. You may snag an ambitious film student willing to help you at no cost. He or she may even be able to provide film, camera, editing facilities, and actors. If there’s a grade at stake, you’d be surprised how enterprising students can be.
Once you’ve decided to go ahead with a video press kit, remember a few key precepts:
Don’t make the video too long. Unlike with written material, scanning a video is a chore.
Combine movement with static shots to lend visual variety.
Combine voice-over (i.e., offscreen narration) with on-screen presentation of information—think of it as a PowerPoint presentation with moving video.
If you are going to be the chief spokesperson for your project, put yourself in the video. If that makes you nervous, see the section in subsequent chapters about media coaching and appearing on camera.
Insist on quality. No shaky handheld cameras, no fuzzy sound. Even if it costs you only a few hundred bucks, make it look like a million. It’s not hard: digital video equipment is not expensive, and in the hands of a film student who has a spark of inspiration and the first chance in a lifetime to show it off, a micro-budgeted video can look incredibly impressive.
A script is not simply a sales pitch. Think about the tone you want to set for your video. Is humor appropriate? Do you want to dramatize a certain section using actors who will act out a scene (again, students can be found who will probably do the job for nothing)? Think about the visuals, or there will be no point in making a video component of your press kit. If it’s all about words, you can just write them into a press release and save yourself some time and money.
The video press kit is meant to inform. In your script (and you will need to write a script), make sure the important points are covered. But remember, this tool shouldn’t be used in lieu of a written press kit, only as an adjunct.
Duplication is no longer a tremendous problem. Any computer that can burn DVDs is a duplicator, and the discs themselves are not expensive. It may be time consuming, and it might require some additional prior planning, but you can make enough copies of your DVD to impress the people who’ll be watching, and to keep your costs manageable at the same time.
Video press kits can be extremely effective. But don’t attempt one if you have no sense of dramatic presentation or a visual idea. There’s no point in sending out a bad video press kit, but a well-planned one can have a serious impact on your campaign.
Magnet Events
One afternoon twenty-five years ago, five L.A. businessmen met at a local coffee shop. Though they’d established careers in diverse fields, they were brought together by a common passion: a love of chocolate. These five chocoholics decided to form an organization of like-minded zealots, and the Chocolate Lovers of America was born.
They struggled at first, sending out newsletters and releases, trying to get press attention. But what put them in the national limelight was an appearance in the annual Doo-Dah Parade, Pasadena’s loony alternative to the Rose Parade. The perennial briefcase drill team and a squad of cop-slapping Zsa Zsas are typical entrants in this marching madhouse.
The Chocolate Lovers of America entered the Doo-Dah Parade dressed as chefs throwing chocolate kisses to the onlookers lining the street, who literally ate ’em up. After that, the CLA was at last in with the in crowd.
When the Mel Brooks film comedy classic Blazing Saddles opened in 1974, the publicist in charge staged a screening of the western spoof at a drive-in. Only horses were allowed in, each tied by its reins to the speakers’ stand. “Horse d’oeuvres” were served, and a “horsepitality” suite was available as well. Oh, and of course, the press was invited.
Staging a magnet event like these is one of the best ways to draw attention, and for my money, it’s a most appropriate alternative tactic in the Guerrilla P.R. arsenal. We used to call them publicity stunts, but that term has fallen into disfavor. In some ways, I prefer it because it smacks of daring. As with anything you do with the media, there should be some semblance of a news angle, but as you already know, the media cover the ridiculous as often as the sublime.
The key to conceiving magnet events is thinking tangentially. Of all the components of Guerrilla P.R., this one allows the most freedom. Dream up anything you want as long as it ties into your project, somehow, in the end. The Planet Cafe, a faceless little restaurant in Chicago, landed a feature on the NBC Nightly News for cooking up Pajama Night: show up Sunday evenings in your sleepwear and get 10 percent off your bill. A little weird? Maybe. Effective? No question.
I’ve mentioned how Bob Columbe of RALPH made news when he called out the media to witness the arrival of Jackie Gleason’s Honeymooners bus driver’s uniform, which the Great One shipped from Miami to Long Island. It was just a coat in a box, but Columbe’s front lawn was so packed with media that the delivery man had trouble making it to the front door. As another example, one business author hired people with sandwich boards strapped to their bodies to promote his book in the financial district.
It was the same with Jean-Claude Baker and his restaurant, Chez Josephine, in New York City. Jean-Claude managed to get the New York Times to cover his event, which wasn’t an event at all. But he declared his postcard-censorship incident to be an event, held a press conference about it, and voilà! there it was in the Newspaper of Record.
It’s simply a question of being different, of doing something that everyone else doesn’t do. The unexpected, the unusual, and the flagrantly bizarre will always get press coverage, even if it’s not all positive. Think about your message, and then try to come up with a way to dramatize it in a new, fresh, innovative fashion. It’s a cliché, but I’ll say it: Think outside the box.
To devise your own magnet event, ask yourself the following questions:
How willing am I to toy with my image? Magnet events sometimes involve unusual—sometimes absurd—escapades, and this might clash with a more decorous reputation. As an example, I think it unlikely that either a Republican or a Democratic Senate majority leader will ever cruise the D.C. Beltway on a wheat harvester combine in order to push his farm bill (not that it wouldn’t be fun to watch). But if the nature of your project allows for some spirited fun, then proceed.
Should I inject some sort of theme into my magnet event? Zany for the sake of zaniness is useless. The media don’t have time for that. You must concoct something that tells a story. MADD launched candlelight marches in several cities commemorating the many dead and injured victims of drunk driving. Find a way to symbolize some aspect of your project through the magnet event.
Is my magnet event visually compelling? Whatever you do has to be photographable. When the radical AIDS activist group ACT-UP interrupted Catholic church services and poured blood on the sanctuary steps—offensive though it may have been—it made for indelible images. ACT-UP was on every newscast in America that night. I’m not suggesting that you in any way break the law—in fact, I’ll say you shouldn’t ever do so—but if you develop an outlaw imagination, you’ll grant yourself the freedom to come up with all kinds of ideas.
Once you’ve selected an event, plan not only the details of the event itself but also the media attention you hope to solicit. Use the same basic tools of phone, e-mail, press release, fax, and network, but, to retain an element of suspense or surprise, couch your wording with a touch of secrecy. Build suspense. Cultivate curiosity. A magnet event is one circumstance where you don’t give the whole story.
For example: From 2005 to 2007, billboards appeared in the Philadelphia area with a simple message seemingly scrawled on a blackboard: “I Hate Steven Singer.” The only explanation offered was a We
b site, ihatestevensinger.com. That was it.
The billboards became the talk of the area, and eventually it was discovered that they referred to Steven Singer Jewelers, based on a story the owner, forty-nine-year-old Steven Singer, told about a man who bought his wife of twenty years a diamond ring at his store, and was rewarded that night with “something more than a thank-you.” Nine months later, their third child was born, and the husband, exhausted from late-night feedings and diaper changes, came back to the store to say the catchphrase later emblazoned on the billboards.
By not providing any information, Singer had created curiosity about his name, which also happened to be the name of his business. By withholding some information, you might also generate interest in your project before your event.
Entice the media, and they may just go for it.
Tips & Traps
Remind the media to send a photographer.
Budget carefully. You don’t want to run up a big bill staging a fancy event.
Magnet events can be time consuming. Make sure you allot enough of your own schedule to planning, organizing, and staging yours.
Walk through the event on site beforehand. The more you know about the terrain, the fewer surprises await you.
You may want to invite more than just media. Perhaps the public at large can join in. Youth groups, church groups, or any other organized group might add the right populist touch.
For something like this, get help from family, friends, or colleagues.
Michael Levine’s Top-Ten All-Time P.R. Stunts
1. In 1809, writer Washington Irving staged his own kidnapping to promote his book Knickerbocker’s History of New York.
2. John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s infamous 1969 weeklong “bed-in” honeymoon at which the Beatle and his wife donned pajamas for peace.
3. A publicist for Frank Sinatra planted a concert audience with bobbysoxers paid to fake hysteria. It caught on!
4. In 1964, the Beatles were about to land in New York City, and while they were hotly anticipated, there wasn’t much of a crowd at the airport. Publicists from a local radio station and their American record company organized teenagers to greet the group at the airport, and the British Invasion was launched in full.
5. During the contentious 1968 presidential campaign, the anarchistic Yippie party ran a pig for chief executive. (He lost.)
6. Mel Brooks’s comedy classic Blazing Saddles was given a P.R. send-off with a horses-only-transportation premiere at a drive-in theater.
7. At the Live Aid concert on July 13, 1985, Phil Collins appeared at the London show—and the Philadelphia show. On the same day. He flew the (now-defunct) SST Concorde from London to New York and played at both shows. Much good publicity was launched, and $70 million was raised for charity.
8. Sir Paul McCartney launched his album Memory Almost Full in 2007 with “secret” club concerts in London, New York, and Los Angeles. About three hundred loyal fans were given free admission to the shows in clubs that generally held about seven hundred people. McCartney, never a slouch in terms of promotion, played Beatles tunes as well as new songs, and appeared in an animated commercial for Apple’s iTunes and the Larry King Live show with Ringo Starr the same week.
9. Hands Across America: in 1987 millions joined hands to raise money for the nation’s hungry.
10. The relay of the Olympic torch across America in 1984. Thousands participated, from children to wheelchair-bound athletes, and many more thousands cheered along the path. It set the stage for the most watched and most exciting Olympiad ever.
More Write Stuff
A canned feature is a piece you write to include in a press kit—and to be honest, that’s often as far as it gets. But you can generate first-rate clips for your press kit by writing articles for print media as a sideline.
If they run in the paper, you get not only clips but credibility, stature, and a potential audience of thousands or millions. Best of all, with your byline adorning the piece, you establish yourself as an expert in your field, which means the media will come to you for information and analysis from here on.
A letter to the editor of your local paper is one great way to get started. News articles that relate in some way to your project, even obliquely, offer a golden opportunity to write in. Newspapers always need well-composed letters responding to the issues of the day. You may not get much response from such a letter, but, included in your press kit, it shows you have a style that grabs the attention of editors.
Still, the editorial section does get read. Perhaps it’s not the most widely read in the paper, but it’s the most closely read. Devotees of the Op-Ed pages are often intellectual, highly educated, and influential. Op-Ed pieces (“Op-Ed” stands for “opposite the editorials” or “opinion and editorials”) are another excellent way to make you and your opinions known. Although these pages are largely composed of syndicated columns, every newspaper on occasion runs unsolicited essays by local citizens. The general guidelines are these:
Keep the piece short, no more than four hundred to five hundred words (two to three typed pages, double-spaced).
Write in the first person. This is the opinion section, after all, so allow your personality to run free.
Write the piece as if it were a blog entry. Keep it short, keep it to the point, and make sure you back up what you say.
Even as you strive to make your piece flow, make each paragraph unique. Begin with an overriding theme, presenting that theme in the first two paragraphs, then cite several supporting examples.
Read twenty Op-Ed pieces, and you’ll see what I mean. The following is an example of an actual Op-Ed piece I wrote that ran in several publications. Notice how I build on my theme from paragraph to paragraph. Though this piece wasn’t directly about me or my business, it served to augment my standing within the P.R. and business communities.
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THE CASE FOR INTERNSHIPS
by Michael Levine
America may be the Land of Opportunity, but this is also the Land of the Big Trade-Off. Sure, you can have that nice house, but you’re going to have to become a mortgage slave to keep it. You can drive that fancy sports car, but you’ll have to fork over an insurance premium as hefty as the GNP of some Third World nations. The Bible says that in life, if you want honey, you get bees with stingers. For anything worth having, there’s a price to pay. It’s the same with a career. Most professional positions require experience, but in this classic Catch–22, how does a young college student or graduate gain that experience? Well, it’s just as Mark Twain said: “Never let school interfere with your education.”
I believe the intern programs in place at companies like Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, CBS, and my own provide the best chance for young people to enter and grow in many professions. Although the work is demanding, with little or no immediate financial return, interning is a textbook example of a win-win situation.
When a young student comes to my public relations company and tells me he’s willing to intern, a distinctly modern social contract is entered into. Though he is not a servant, and I am not a teacher, if he does some unpaid work, we’ll do some teaching. The company gets the opportunity to observe eager and smart young people who energize the company. Like a farm team, interns are prospective employees, and we get to watch them in action.
For the intern, the rewards are far greater.
First, most interns are college students, and nearly all receive valuable college credit for their services. Beyond that, interning teaches the neophyte how to function in a complex, real-life, adult business environment. Derek Jeter could have studied the physics of baseball for years in a classroom, but he never would have won World Series or MVP awards if he’d never stepped up to the plate, literally. No classroom can substitute for visceral, palpable learning in an authentic setting.
Problem solving, initiative, creativity, and cooperation are all fostered as the intern struggles to carve a niche for herself. To make it as an intern,
one must embody the qualities of any effective worker, and the rewards go far beyond the merely educational. Many interns go on to highly successful careers.
Interning is practical. In an ever-tightening job market, it provides career preparation, and enables a young professional to develop marketable skills and demonstrate potential to a prospective employer.
But beyond the practicalities, there’s a bigger picture that needs to be addressed.
For too many, America has become the Land of the Freeloader and the Home of the Lazy. People seem to want it all, right here right now, with a minimum of effort. Dreams of winning this week’s Lotto game have supplanted that dream of building a life built on Freud’s twin peaks, “Lieben und Arbeiten,” love and work.
The old-fashioned work ethic is, if not dead, then surely on the critical list. America says it wants to be No. 1, but many refuse to expend the effort to get there. We can do it, but there’s only one way, and that’s simply to work for it, and work hard. For centuries, apprenticeship was the equivalent to today’s technical college. The spirit of apprenticeship is still alive in interning. If America’s workforce whined a little less, and had a little more of the initiative of my highly motivated interns, maybe this country could find a semblance of its former glory. No, they do not get paid. But as my interns have so brilliantly demonstrated, nobody works for free.
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Don’t just limit yourself to the editorial page. You should strongly consider writing your own articles for trade and consumer publications, too. I’ve done many, and I don’t think anything has proved as beneficial in establishing my personal credibility with the public. My article for Psychology Today on the psychology of beauty triggered the most e-mail and snail mail response that any article for that magazine had ever generated. That not only means Psychology Today might be interested in another article if I decide to write one, it also means that my story was being talked about, and my name mentioned, much more widely than before the article ran. So: how do you do it for yourself?
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