[A note from Arthur: Every so often the tables are turned. Jeff Vance has contributed feature articles and editorials to such publications as Forbes.com, Network World, CIO,Datamation, Wi-Fi Planet, Cloudbook and many others. Jeff blogs at Sandstorm Media. Recently Jeff interviewed me about our agency and our Brandtelling approach. I asked Jeff's permission to share the interview with my readers here on Brandtelling.]

Q & A with Arthur Germain – Part I

Arthur Germain, Principal & Chief Brandteller, Communication Strategy Group

By Jeff Vance

I recently had the chance to talk with Arthur Germain, Principal & Chief Brandteller at Communication Strategy Group. Arthur originally ended up on my radar because account execs at CSG consistently send me good pitches. Later, a few CSG-generated press releases caught my eye. They didn’t read like press releases. Rather, they read like stories. I wanted to find out what they were doing differently that made them stand out from other PR agencies.

In our recent conversation we talked about the disappearance of media tours, what’s replaced them, how brand marketing differs from traditional PR and plenty more.

JV: How do you think PR-press relations have changed in the past 10 years or so?

AG: Many traditional PR practices have disappeared or are disappearing. For instance, in 2000 it was common for us to take clients on media tours. That meant the client came to town (I’m in New York), and we’d go to Business Week, Time and the New York Times. We’d set them up “desk side.” We just don’t do that anymore.

JV: Definitely. In the early 2000’s I lived in Boston, where I edited a couple high-tech magazines. I could have spent pretty much all day, every day on media tours or dinners with vendors. Today, I live in L.A., and while L.A. isn’t as much on the tech circuit as Boston, it’s not far off, especially with Silicon Valley so close, yet I rarely get the kind of in-person meeting requests I used to get pretty much every day.

With so many journalists, editors and analysts working either remotely or as freelancers, a media tour would have to log a heck of a lot more miles to have the kind of reach you used to get from just visiting a few major cities.

AG: Right, and then there are bloggers outside of major cities and just overall media fragmentation. So, today the media tour is replaced by phone interviews or web conferences. What that means is we have to work with clients to train them to speak with media on the phone. We have to teach them not to give “yes” or “no” answers. We have to remind them not to start reading bullet points. These are mistakes they’d be less likely to make in person. Over the phone, though, visual cues are all lost, and that can be a tough transition for executives who thrive on those face-to-face interactions.

You have to introduce a whole new set of skills in media training now. If I have three bullet points I want to get across to you, I have to state up front: “okay, Jeff, I have three things I want to talk about. The first is this; the second is this; the third is this.” Talking in person, I could tap my fingers on the desk, or when I say “my second point is,” I could reinforce that by holding up two fingers. The gestures and body language that we all rely on in face-to-face interactions are useless over the phone, so you have to find ways to replace them, and those replacements should sound natural to listeners.

JV: Judging from my discussions with PR pros and other journalists, the press-PR status quo isn’t really working for anyone. Ideally, how do you see the role of PR evolving and how can PR better work with the press – or is it better to lessen the emphasis on the press in favor of speaking directly to potential customers?

AG: It’s true that PR is changing greatly. However, I classify CSG more as a brand marketing agency than a PR firm.

JV: What’s the difference?

AG: We’re as likely to get tapped to write a feature article or a case study as a news release. This changes how we approach things. Even when we end up writing a more traditional news release, we ask, “What’s the call to action?” We’re always looking for ways to get customers and the media engaged. So, we’ll do things like offer editors slideshows, rather than just bombarding them with pitches and press releases.

JV: So, is the press release dead?

AG: The printed press release certainly is. I remember when I was a journalist I used to have press releases and press packets piled up around the office. That’s not the case anymore.

JV: Even at trade shows, smart companies don’t leave stacks of packets and folders in the press room. No one wants to lug them around. The smart ones leave USB drives, which will disappear quickly.

AG: Sure, and you can reuse them.

JV: Whether the info stored on them is ever looked at or just deleted is another matter . . .

AG: Another thing to consider is the rise of search and inbound marketing, both of which deemphasize traditional press releases. Inbound marketing targets content to customers and potential customers, not journalists. That’s part of why we think of our releases as “news” releases, not “press” releases. There has to be some real news within, and it’s not necessarily targeted only to the press.

This approach also gives us an opportunity to do something that press releases don’t usually do. We use our releases as thought-leadership tools. That is where we feel that we’ve really made a difference. It’s changed how we think of ourselves.

Today, we help companies tell brand stories. And we offer some PR services as well.

JV: Besides writing “news” releases and not “press” releases, what’s the difference between traditional PR and brand storytelling? The cynic in me would say that it sounds like a nifty euphemism. Is there more to it? Does your emphasis on stories mean that you’ll pass on potential clients who really don’t have compelling stories? As you know, all PR agents have experienced a few of those clients in their careers, the ones who just don’t have anything interesting to say, and what they do have to say is in no way newsworthy.

AG: Good question. Let’s look again at press releases. We focus on two categories of news release: the first is a “milestone and momentum release”. For instance, we’ll put out a release if our client just achieved some sort of Cisco certification. Or we’ll write something up if our client has a new customer in the financial services industry.

These are important because they make a statement to your customer base. We’re out there getting key certifications and we have customers. This news validates what the company is doing. It’s hard to make a sale these days if you haven’t done it before, so it makes sense to publicize those milestones.

On the other hand, if our client wants us to publicize something that we can’t classify, we’ll push back. We won’t distribute a press release for some small local event. We may alert local press, but why would you distribute that release globally?

JV: Yet, you see plenty of those releases out there.

AG: Right, or you see releases that say “we have a new version of our software under development.” Who cares? Is it available? Why are you telling me this?

JV: Half of my communication with PR is spent saying “that’s not news,” or “there is no story here.”

AG: Now, some of those releases are news, but to a very specific audience. If you’ve moved your offices, that matters on a local level, but not to a wider audience. Rather than using a shotgun approach of distributing a press release for that kind of news, we set our sights on the right audience for the news.

The second category of news release, and the one we prefer, is the “thought leadership release.” This type of release allows our clients to really showcase what makes them special, their approach or process.

Next week, in part 2 of this interview, Arthur and I discuss surprising ways to package content for specific publications, how services like HARO are changing press-PR interactions and what Arthur believes is the number-one challenge for PR.

I happened upon a gratuitous slam about the shallowness, i.e., valueless-ness of marketing in an article in the New York Times recently. Gratuitous slams on marketing are ubiquitous these days. It’s almost taken as a given that marketing is shallow and has no inherent value. Obviously the New York Times editors didn’t think a slam on marketing required two sources to substantiate.

While I was a journalist, which covers most of my career, I never questioned gratuitous slams on marketing. Most journalists assume that marketing is basically crap. That marketers typically get paid more than most journalists, only adds a touch of resentment to that unexamined opinion. Now that I’ve crossed over to the dark side and am writing marketing material, it seemed appropriate to examine the value of marketing.

Having seen marketing from both sides now, I would have to conclude that an awful lot of marketing is crap; but then so is an awful lot of what gets passed off as journalism. My mini-epiphany was the realization that the source of all this shallow prose within both disciplines is the same: Writers who don’t understand what they are writing about, but have to write something anyway.

At its most basic level, the point of writing anything is to communicate something of value. That is equally true in journalism and marketing.

But here’s what happens to both journalists and marketers. They have to write something. They have a deadline, and they have done very little or no research. So they just start writing what they think their editor or client wants to hear.

I’ve done it. I admit it. I’ve also heard managing editors on deadline tell writers, “Don’t get it right, get it written.” But that kind of writing is neither very good, nor very satisfying. That’s when the over-writing starts: hyperbole and clichés and the kind of gosh-oh-golly prose that wraps shallowness in fake enthusiasm. Lots of exclamation points and capitalized words that are not proper nouns are red flags that the writer doesn’t know what he or she is talking about.

A lot of that kind of writing gets passed off, both as marketing and journalism. Good marketers, however, like good journalists research their subjects until they find something of value to communicate in their writing. If there is no value to communicate, there should be nothing written–certainly not published. Editors should enforce that principle–more than they often do. Likewise, a good marketer needs to have the discipline to not write content that may sound good but says nothing of value. It cheapens you, and it cheapens your field. And it doesn’t actually do your client any good, either. It goes without saying that if your client has nothing of value to write about, you should drop that client.

The good news–for any writer–is that holding the line on the value of what you write increases your value over time whether you are a journalist or a marketer.

Creativity can be a challenge for anyone. It’s not an industry-specific or job-specific challenge either. I came across this terrific explainer video from the folks at Explainia and TO-FU Design that shows 29 simple ways to stay creative. I particularly like No. 27 — my office tends to be a bit messy and I always feel more creative and energized (and sometimes a few dollars richer) when I clean it up!

29 Ways to Stay Creative

29 WAYS TO STAY CREATIVE from TO-FU on Vimeo.

There may be few more powerful words than these six:

Let me tell you a story…

From the time you were very little to whatever age you are now, a well-told story holds unimaginable power over you. Stories have heroes and villains, challenges and solutions, happiness and sadness. But most of all they are compelling. We listen, we relate and often we retell the stories we’re heard.

As we close 2011 and enter 2012, think about brand storytelling and how it can work for your brand. Think about your stories of triumphs and failures and how it has shaped you and the brand you represent.

And share those stories.

Related articles

• Storytelling Is Overlooked in Workplace Design (forbes.com)
• What’s the inciting moment in your story? (brandtelling.com)
• It’s Not About You; It’s All About Your Customer (brandtelling.com)
• How well does your team represent your brand story? (brandtelling.com)

Four times per year, television can be really terrific –  or it can be really terrible. That’s because four times per year the Nielsen folks and other television ratings companies poll, count and otherwise survey households to learn about their television viewing habits. So, if you’re involved with producing television programs then there are four weeks each year when nothing is off limits in your programming strategies.

These four weeks are often when we see strong news coverage, top personalities interviewed, and lots of twists and turns in scripted programming.

So, the question this made me think of as I recently watched a few season cliffhangers is:

Does your brand have a sweeps week?

Is there a time for your brand that you must pull out all the stops in order to tell your brand story to the greatest number of prospects? Is there a time when your brand must shine above all others? Cut through the noise and clutter?

Often, especially for technology brands, that time comes during major trade shows and technology media events and special issues. That is when all of the tech world seems to be watching, comparing and making notes about potential purchases. Time to put on a fresh suit and look your best!

But, there is a small problem with this thinking. Just as with television sweeps, you may attract a few new audience members, but you risk damaging your long term relationship with your core audience. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t dress your best during your brand’s sweep weeks, but I suggest you make sure that you are not alienating your core audience by changing your brand story, or worse, ignoring your core values.

Because the television industry has a term for that – jumping the shark — and it’s the last thing you want your customers to think you’ve done.

So, what do you think?

Related articles

• Does your brand change for the season? (brandtelling.com)
• Can you answer the cocktail question? (brandtelling.com)