It's Logo Fever Time

It's February, or as I write this it's almost February. The new year for this Texas PR consultant is off to a good start. The holidays are finally behind us. It's too soon to know if there will be time for spring break, and too soon to plan summer vacation, so in American business it is now,excuse my French, "Balls to the walls time."

I love this time of year. Not just the business part and the being as busy as I want to be part. In Texas, the sun is shining and it isn't 110 outside. I can do 65 degrees with sun all winter long with no complaints. Good weather, good moods, good business.

This year I'm keeping my eye on a trend that feels good. It's the precursor for a leap in economic recovery at least for the marketing sector.

Budgets were obviously created last year, and not a lot has been spent YTD, but at OutreachPR we are starting to see new work in the form of rebranding requests and PR to support new brands and new product launches. A lot of this work starts with logo work and new design.

New logos lead to new marketing money hitting the economic scene. Logos are the first step in any branding or rebranding effort. New logos are a constant, as are new businesses. New businesses often fail, so logo work alone cannot signal good economic news, but it's almost always good for the marketing sector.

That's why I might be one of the few marketing consultants who cautions against massive rebranding, unless the business has really changed or the old brand is simply outdated. It's not that I don't like my partners in graphic design making a lot of money, new brands have to bring something else new too, or it's just window dressing that won't fool anyone or sustain the expense for long.

The "What's new about the business" part is what fuels public relations, and it's what keeps me getting up for work every day.

It's different though when large entities like sports franchises and universities start the rebranding process. I've been involved on an intimate level with a few major name changes or rebranding efforts in my time. They can be exciting or exasperating. It just depends on how much effort goes into it up front, during, and after.

For example, this weekend I received an email from the University of Colorado at Denver, where i got my master's degree in marketing. They wanted my opinion on the new mascot for the campus. Either I haven't been paying attention (very possible), or this had to be some sort of early stage marketing survey.

While the CU Denver campus is an urban campus right downtown, it is part of the University of Colorado system. I have a CU Buff Christmas ornament. I have a CU Buff penant in the garage. I may have graduated from the Graduate School of Business, and it was in Denver, not Boulder, but it was still CU. It's a top business school. It doesn't have a football team or even really need a mascot. Until this weekend, I never gave it a thought.

Apparently, that has changed. The survey I was asked to complete asked about several different "favorite new mascot" names. The options included, and I am NOT lying: Golden Elk, Stegasaurus, Minters, Fourteeners, Bandits, Snakes, Marmots, Harvester Ants (seriously, I am not lying), and so many others but not "Buffs." Excuse my alphabetical annunciation, but WTF? There was no option to pick "Buffs." While the alumni in me became a bit agitated, the marketing person in me went, "What are they thinking?"

Logo fever, or in this case "Mascot Mayhem" is the first sign that there's a lot of studying and research that is about to be done and a lot of marketing activity that is about to begin. I am hoping, against all hope, that in this particular case this survey was an attempt by the marketing team (or a group of marketing students, PLEASE) to find out how strongly alumni and students identify with the CU Buff. In my case, I don't care if you put a city scape behind him and make him a slick cousin of Chip's, but make it a Marmot, and as they say on reality TV, "I'm done."

My point: change can be good or not so good. Logo redesign can signal any number of things. If a sports franchise is not having a great season and merchandise is languishing, a new logo will spark interest in getting a new shirt, hat or jersey, and it might help ease the downturn for that particular budget line item.

Case in point: the Carolina Panthers. This new logo has created a need for new officially licensed merchandise, equipment, jerseys, advertising, marketing materials...it hasn't helped the football team win any more games, and more than a few fans are booing, but the new logo created work for lots of people and it will generate an economic boon, of sorts.

This is why I like focusing on the second part of a new logo. Leave the new logo to the board of directors and the focus group people and the graphic designers and the t-shirt folks. I want to leverage the attention the new logo might generate toward new things going on with the business: improvements, new divisions, technological innovations. That's where PR people have fun with logo design.

So here it is, February. It's Logo Fever time. From a "reality" standpoint, as I said up front, new logos cannot be used as an economic indicator extrapolated for the entire economy. Don't go buying stock today and say I told you to do it.

I do think that 2012 is going to be a good year for my graphic design partners. I only hope businesses put soome substance behind the new looks so that I have something to work with too.

P.S. CU Stegasaurases...are they nuts?

Public Relations in 2012

While it's a little early to document the trends for public relations or PR in 2012, there are a few things that seem to be happening here on the "front lines" of PR.

1. Budgets are back, and companies are willing to spend money and commit to the concept and value of PR for the purpose of supporting their marketing, brand development, and communications.

2. That said, clients are impatient. In this "get it NOW" world, clients want tangible results, and they want them fast. Today that seems to mean web traffic. While PR can drive web traffic and spike it, (and it does), that's not the complete measure of good PR. To keep clients happy while "buying the time" it takes to put enough information together and out there to get results will continue to be the biggest challenge that publicists will have in 2012.

3. Facts with sequins on them still works. PR has always been the sector of marketing that gathered, compiled, and stored facts and information and communicated it to key audiences,primarily media, sometimes with some glitz and glam, some video, speeches, media tours, media kits, etc. This "stuff" still works. Today media relations has changed, but not much. People are still people, and people are in charge of the digital media. So in addition to news releases and paid distribution services, companies are recognizing they still need to "press the flesh," develop relationships, and put the time into creating the media network that makes the rest of marketing so much easier. That takes a publicist and it takes time.

4. Trend: Outsourced Social Media. Companies will continue to use social media for a variety of things, but it will shift from a marketing driven "project" to a top down C-level project that will put it in into the PR mix. Companies are discovering that social media is on the front lines of customer service and PR. Businesses are beginning to recognize that they have put the youngest, least experienced employees (or even interns!) in charge of their social media program. This means they have the kids running loose with the microphone, effectively in charge of a global image. Trend for 2012: outsource social media content creation to professionals. Social media is an awesome tool for PR and customer service, and in 2012 more companies will figure out how to use it effectively. PR firms and copywriters will help. Marketing will manage the back end of the system and help with strategic direction, but professional copywriters will supply the content.

5. Content in bulk, but it has to be good. It's about quantity today, which is good news for all those out of work journalists who need something to do. Everyone wants and needs content to drive their SEO engine and give it what one of my clients calls "Google Juice." (See post WRITERS WANTED!)

Check back here in a year and we'll see if these trends hold true for 2012. In the meantime, have a wonderful New Year's Weekend as the start of what I hope will be a blessed new year for you.

Hockey is the Coolest Game Around

Sunday, Feb. 28, we watched the USA Hockey team take it to Canada -- all the way into overtime. Non-hockey fans don't realize what a big deal that was. USA Hockey fans only wish Sid the Kid had held out just a few more minutes. Had this been a tournament with different scoring systems, the US may have won that Gold Medal. In typical tournament play, a win gives you a point, a loss gets you nothing, but a win in overtime gets you two points and a loss in overtime gets you one. Given that math, the fact that we beat Canada once (they are still stinging from that) and then tied it to go into Overtime says to me it was really a draw. Way to go USA!

Of course, the reality is that all the players in the Olympic Gold Medal game were NHL players who spend most of their time here in the U.S. Sydney Crosby who scored the winning goal for Canada plays for Pittsburgh, Brendan Morrow plays here in Dallas, I could go on and on.

Hockey may be Canada's game, but for those of us who love it, we're sure glad it's big here in the U.S. too.

Sunday, just minutes -- literally -- after the US won the silver medal, my son and his team stepped onto the ice to go for their own win. It was Senior Recognition Night, so we parents got a minute in the spotlight too. This pic is our oldest son, Tanner with his proud parents. He's been playing hockey since he was old enough to pick up a stick -- banging real pucks against the baseboards in my kitchen, sliding around on his stocking feet on the hard wood floors, telling anyone who ventured in during his "games" to "get off the ice!"

We were on vacation in San Diego once and went to a minor league game. Sitting in the front row, we listened to a four year old Tanner bragging to another little boy that he had a rink in his house. That kitchen was his rink, and he was serious about it. We got him on the ice at the University rink near our home in Boulder when he was five, and we waited anxiously for the call from Boulder Valley Hockey to tell us they had a place available for him on a Squirt (or is it Pee Wee) league. In the meantime, while we waited, he played roller hockey and had a ball.

A lot of time has passed. Lots of roller, lots of ice. Flash forward 14 years, and he's still playing hockey as often as he can. He'll leave for college in the fall and play hockey there. The biggest difference: I won't get to watch every game. He's planning to go more than 1000 miles away to Colorado -- his home state. He's been wanting to get back there for years, and now he has his chance.

Standing on the ice the other night, it started to hit me. My days as a hockey mom, getting up at 3:30 a.m. to make sure I am showered and awake enough to drive him to practice, are about to end. I won't be spending 12-15 hours a week either in the car on the way to/from hockey or in the stands, bundled in a blanket, at a hockey game.

I'm going to miss hockey. I'm going to miss my fellow hockey moms and dads, some whom I've known for years. I'm going to miss the other kids. I'm even going to miss the alarm going off at 3:30 a.m. Most of all, I'm going to miss my son. A lot. It's really starting to hit me.

Maybe he really wants to go to community college and stay at home for a year...or two...when he gets home today, or on the way to hockey tonight, I think I'll ask him.

Most Snow in the History of Texas

Yes, this is a big deal. On Feb. 11 we woke up to a light dusting of snow at our house an hour south and east of Dallas, Texas. We were amazed. This rarely happens here. What fun! An hour later it started to snow. And it snowed for the better part of 20 hours. Some of it was rainy snow. Some of it was huge snowflakes. At times, it was truly snow SHOWERS. Needless to say, work and school were all cancelled around here. Dallas got more than a foot, we got far less, about four inches, I'd say. Most of the neighborhood kids have never seen snow like this in their lifetimes, and every one of them is outside, sledding, snowballing, making snowmen. It's quite a phenomenon.

My friend in Iowa says, "Big deal, we've had 50 inches this year." My relatives in DC are snowed in and have been for weeks. My friend's son is stranded in DC on his sixth grade field trip. We get this once every dozen years? It must be, because I've never seen snow like this here, and I've lived here for 10 years.

Now that I've seen it, photographed it (from my backyard, above), and seen my kids and everyone else's enjoy it, I'm ready for some sunshine. Tomorrow it will be in the 50s, let's hope by 60s by next week, then come the 70s and tennis weather, and then it will get hot. That's okay. I can deal with hot. I'm not so good with cold, and this snow, just seeing it from my office windows, makes me cold.

Thanks Mother Nature for the reminder of how beautiful the snow can be. Now let's get back to Texas weather. Tennis anyone?

The best photographer -- ever.

Yesterday I had occasion to stop by and see my favorite photographer, Jamye Perelli. She was in her studio editing, while her assistant tried to get her work done as a construction project (the installation of a huge light) went on overhead. It was very obvious that this lady is busy!

I stayed just a few moments. We discussed some writing I had done for her and some photography she will do for me. I left glad I'd stopped by. Some people just brighten your day and their creativity and passion fuels your own. That's the way I feel about Jamye, her husband Dino, and their entrepreneurial spirit and sense of fun.

Thanks for the inspiration, Jamye.

You can read about Jamye on her blog. Get there by checking this out...I don't know how I missed this, but I'm glad I found it now!
Tannerhttp://jamyeperelli.com/blog/tanners-senior-portraits/

You Can Change Behaviors with Fun

Where has this month gone?

If you're like me, it took you a while to get back in the swing after the holidays.

If you're like me, once you got in the swing, you started spinning,and it's been a whirlwind ever since.

The horrible earthquake damage in Haiti. I don't know about you, but I am paralyzed about what I can do to help. Do I have ten bucks added to my phone bill by texting a certain number? Do I give to the Red Cross? Do I adopt a baby or offer a family refuge in my home? For days I have been worried about what I should do.

Now somehow it's already Jan. 21. In Texas, it's 72 degrees outside and the sun is shining. It feels like winter is gone. Last night there was a tornado about 20 miles from my house. Tornados in January? That's just odd.

It's January 21. Pretty soon it will be spring break and graduation. Isn't my FAFSA paperwork due next week? Don't I have to do my taxes first? I've never done them before August, or at least April. Do I really have to do them now? Housing contracts from college will be here soon...is he sure that's where he wants to go?

Yes, in my world there is spinning and whirlwind activities, and time racing by and tornados just down the road. I'm thinking this is going to be one heck of a year. It surely has to be better than last year, right? If not, at least it's moving fast. So far, work is crazy, people are excited, and I'm having fun. So why don't I feel in control? I like my clients, they seem to like me, I've got more than ever, so it must be good, right?

But WHAT am I really doing every day?

Yep...I have to figure out what I can do about the situation in Haiti, or at least find out if the people who lost their homes a few miles down the road have some clothes to wear. But first I have to call that guy, and write that thing, and follow up on that other...I need to clear my desk of the lingering December work and get my invoices that aren't out, out! I owe this thing to that guy, and that thing to this guy...and new business is rolling in...

Yep, things are moving fast. This month has flown by. The holidays are definitely behind us.