The art of Media Kits

In my opinion, chapter 15 is the most useful chapter I’ve read thus far. While all of our readings have been interesting and helpful, I feel like I am taking some tangible knowledge away from this content. I can actually apply this information to the real world. As always, it stresses that you can only start a media kit with the medium you are targeting already in mind. There is a variety of media kits depending on what medium and what situation it is needed for. Public relations practitioners must be prepared for all of them.

 Web sites: All about access

 Now that we live in a digital world, organizations must go above and beyond to make sure that their website provides any possible information necessary. Some companies offer up to 65 features! I can’t even imagine what all of those could be. I found it really interesting that a lot of companies have a “dark” web site that is only available during crises. I also couldn’t agree more with the top-five elements rated as important on an organizations web site. They are: Press releases, search module, PR contacts, photographs, and product information. These ratings are so accurate in my opinion.

 Which kit to use?

 The chapter went into a lot of the different contents of kits depending on what it was being used for. Media kits for special events seem to be the most thorough and heavily loaded. “Media kits for a crises” depends on a lot of preparation. The kit is made up before the crisis obviously, considering that crises are usually unpredictable. Crisis management has to be the hardest situation for PR people. Not only do they need a complete media kit ready but they need news conference materials ready, as well as knowing how to react correctly. While I was reading this I thought of the beef recall that recently happened and wondered what their crisis media kit looked like. Were they actually prepared? Were all the right materials in the kit? One thing I did notice throughout the different media kits was that a backgrounder seemed consistently important in all of them. I suppose this is because no matter what the situation calls for, having something explaining the character and roots of the organization is very important.

 Blogging

 While I read about media credentials and what constitutes media today I realized how prominent blogging has become. It has become a forerunner of media and news. So it may be predominantly subjective but there are so many blogs that you can weed out what you don’t want to read. I also find it amusing that I am talking about blogging as I am joining the bandwagon of bloggers. If you had asked someone a decade ago what media was I can bet money that blogs wouldn’t even be an option, let alone believed to become one in the future. However, today, especially the youth, go to blogs to get their news.

How do we get YOUR attention!?

A main concept in this chapter (chapter 13) is that advertising can do its best to persuade you, even brainwash you for a minute or two, but it cannot force you to do anything. Advertising specialists’ goal is to convince you that what they say or what they show you is worth accepting. Advertisers usually pick either emotional appeal, which we apparently base most of our decisions off of, or reason to position their message. However, a combo of the two is probably best. Its funny to think about how people in this business potentially base their success in their careers on how well they position or target a message to people like us. I can picture a bunch of advertisers in suits sitting around a table trying to judge what we are like or what we need.

 Picture Perfect

 I enjoyed reading the section on positioning with the example of Hertz and Avis. It is fascinating how three words can subconsciously persuade us in our decision-making. By using the slogan “We Try Harder” they left the facts behind and appealed to peoples emotional cues for supporting the struggling underdog. It actually reminded me of the movie “Picture Perfect” with Jennifer Aniston. She’s an advertiser and they work for the number 2 mustard brand. They come up with this advertisement about how Cindy Crawford graduated 2^nd in her class in college, and “that ain’t bad.” Again, the message has nothing to do with reason or facts about the product really but pulls at peoples emotions.

 Logistics of a good ad

 As we have talked about a million times, simplicity is so crucial in every aspect of advertising and public relations. Everything from color to the amount of words used to the language used must be as simple and concise as possible in order to reach full effective potential. I found it interesting that people prefer to read something that is two to four grade levels below their ability. It makes sense, especially in advertising, that people do not want to think too hard. We are, in general, cognitive misers and when we are the consumers we definitely don’t want to put too much effort into making decisions. While hearing or seeing a message over and over can get annoying, it is good for the advertisers because it means that we have stored away the message. Repetition of a message is important because we get millions of messages a day. The only way to really remember one is if you hear it at least three times.

 The discussion about different approaches of advertising in electronic media went through different ways messages can be presented to us so as to gain our attention. It talked about the “jingle approach” in which a message contains music with words so that it is both identifiable and entertaining. Music is so much easier to remember so, like the theory of classical conditioning, whenever you hear that music you will think of the product or idea being promoted with it. Apple does an excellent job with this approach. Their latest commercial campaign for the notebook introduced people to a catchy song that whenever anyone hears it they think of the product. This is geneious in my opinion. The chapter goes into the various types of media that advertisers write copies for, and how different each one is. One thing that kept surfacing, however, is the need for action to be forefront in every ad, whether it is through color, movement, voice pitch, etc.  One they get the publics attention, then they can worry about persuading us with their message.

Apple notebook commercial (in case you havent seen it multiple times):

http://youtube.com/watch?v=GBCfW9-hjKI