The “Rock” in RockOrange, agency principal Miguel Piedra sat down with Bulldog Reporter to answer questions about his life as a PR professional.
Click through to read Miguel’s PR PROfile and find out what got him interested in a career in PR, his favorite journalist to work with, what he thinks the most misunderstood thing is about PR and the best thing about working at RockOrange.
Merry Happy Christmahunnukwanzaka!
As we enter the age of inclusion, pleasing all your customers with your holiday campaign can cause marketers some serious headaches. But as the holiday season is by far the busiest shopping period of the year, it also presents the largest revenue opportunity. And that means, as complex as it is to come up with a campaign that not only appeals to a diverse audience, but convinces them to spend their dollars with you, it’s an issue that you have to address.
That’s why we asked out in-house marketing experts for their top tips on how brands should talk about the holidays.
Check out our video below.
RockOrange managing principal Miguel Piedra was coincidentally in Cuba visiting family this weekend when news broke that Fidel Castro had died at the age of 90. A Miami native whose parents both fled Castro’s Cuba before he was born, Miguel spoke with Cubans on the island about what the dictator’s death might mean, and authored this dispatch from Havana.
Click through to read his article – A Stark Contrast – that compares the contrasting responses to the news from the citizens of Cuba versus the Cubans in Miami.
It’s never been more important for brands to be good at talking to themselves. But today, that can mean communicating to more than just employees.
Often, those who have spent time outside the corporate world can be blissfully unaware of its realities. With large teams and budgets, the common misperception is that it is easy to get new initiatives implemented and to get everyone on board, paddling in the same direction.
But effecting change across large organizations is more often like slaloming the Titanic through a gantlet of icebergs. The lurking danger, just under the surface, is lack of communication.
This is why we have seen an evolution during the past 10 years toward seamless intranets that integrate into workers’ day-to-day activity. It’s about communication, getting every single member of the organization to lean left, then to the right, in concert.
But organizations are changing. Communication is no longer as simple as us (employees) versus them (the public). Today, brands need their own internal PR to speak with contractors, vendors, equity and commercial partners, board members, franchisees and other stakeholders.
Recently, RockOrange developed and launched a complex, multi-pronged internal communications portal for an automotive aftermarket-franchising client using proprietary software called Jive. The client is a conglomeration of some 10 separate, unique brands, each with their own distinct business model and footprint across North America. It was our second such project in the past three years that focused not just on employees but networks of franchisee and store-level managerial constituents—the first having been for quick service restaurant giant Burger King. In these engagements, the threads weave together to form complex permutations of different user roles, permissions, communication types and requirements. By necessity, these platforms must take fragmented needs and coalesce them, becoming all things to all people.
Don’t worry—it’s only half as daunting as it sounds. To find out how to do it, click through and subscribe to PRNews to read David Quinones, RockOrange’s VP Editorial & Content article on how to build an intranet that works for internal stakeholders across the board. The article was published in two parts in the weekly PRNews Pro newsletter: Before You Build an Intranet Listen to Employees and Determine KPIs (published Oct 24, 2016, Issue 41) and, Why Feedback is Important as You Build Your Intranet (published Oct 31, 2016, Issue 42).
Today is Halloween which, as well as meaning I’m dressed as a skeleton in the office, means that there are only 54 days left to Christmas. And only 25 till Black Friday which, for brands, is the real start of the Holiday season.
Two facts that holiday marketers need to have top of mind at this point in time are that firstly, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF), 40 percent of consumers will have already started their holiday shopping by Halloween, and secondly, according to eMarketer, total retail holiday season sales this year will only increase 1.8 percent. That means this year, brand marketers must up the ante when it comes to their holiday marketing initiatives if they want to maximize share of wallet.
So how, especially this late in the game, can they do that?
Simply put, right now, brand marketers need to put all their efforts into fishing where there are fish. And by that we mean focus on digital. Your digital channels must be at the center of all your holiday marketing initiatives from this point on. Why? Because, almost half of holiday shopping (46 percent) will be done online and 21.4 percent of smartphone owners will use their device to purchase holiday merchandise this year, the highest seen since NRF first asked in 2011.
And when thinking about digital don’t limit your thinking to your website. Over half (55 percent) of respondents in a recent survey said a brand’s social media presence has at least some influence on their decision-making process when deciding where to buy during the holiday season and that Facebook and Pinterest influenced 69 percent of respondents for shopping ideas and inspiration.
Similarly email should be integrated into your communication efforts with eight in 10 consumers who sign up for a brands’ email will make a purchase based on what they receive in their inbox. In fact, brands who sent out two mailings in a day last holiday season saw an 88 percent increase in email revenue.
The best thing about a digital first approach is that you don’t have to blow your budget to make a significant impact. For example, last year RockOrange implemented an ‘on-a-shoestring’ digital campaign that saw online retailer Zappos own back-to-school. The integrated campaign earned a robust 8,189 online mentions, representing a 2.6% share of voice out of the total 2015 Zappos brand mentions of 314,016. You can find out more in this blog post – How to Make the Most of Limited Back-to-School Marketing Budgets.
How are you planning on using digital marketing this holiday season? Let us know in a comment.
We’ve definitely been there when the scary music scares us more than the actual scene; and the worst part is that pillow over your eyes can’t also kill the music. Most scary scenes have a clever way of using sound to shock us one high-pitched note at a time. So, in the spirit of Halloween, we compiled some scary and suspenseful classics that will surely give you goose bumps!
Just kidding… we also incorporated some less scary ones too!
Hit play and get ready to get some chills!
Social media has created a share-society. And, with the rise of real-time social sharing apps like Facebook Live and storytelling features and apps like Snapchat and Instagram Stories, social media users can quite literally share their every single move, all day, every day. And by users we’re not just talking about the everyday consumer snapping photos of every meal they sit down to eat, or celebs posting endless selfies, but also brands, who are leveraging the channels to build deeper relationships with their customers through authentic, behind-the-scenes, how-the-sauce-is-made glimpses into their day-to-day operations.
However, there’s a line of appropriateness that shouldn’t be forgotten. You can share too much on social media and if you cross the line you’re at risk of alienating, and potentially losing, customers and fans. So as we watch DJ Khaled snapchat his wife giving birth, we’re left asking… How can brands prevent sharing #TMI?
Last week, Bob Dylan, an American folk singer who is one of the symbols of the peace movement in the 1960s, won a Nobel Prize in Literature. Dylan’s award is seen as the most radical choice in history and stretches the definition of literature.
It also opened up a discussion of whether musicians are actually artists or simply entertainers. Some, like Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson, have changed the course of history by creating music that resonates with the younger generations. Woodstock started the free love movement and changed the course of a nation.
So we asked our Rockstars – Which modern musician might one day win a Nobel Prize?
This week Verizon joined the growing list of global brands including HP and General Mills that are now demanding diversity from their agencies. With these very public calls to action, some are wondering if we’re at a tipping point in entering the age of inclusion in the agency sector? As our Principal, Miguel Piedra outlined in a recent blog post, diversity is baked into RockOrange’s DNA. We make diversity work for us, and for our clients. So with the issue being one so close to our hearts, this week we asked our RockStars – Why is Agency Diversity So Important?