my 2 cents

A Media Visionary

A few months after I opened my own business in 1990, I got a call from a guy named Abe Jones.  He was a consultant to ad agencies, and he wanted to check me out before recommending me to one of his clients who was looking for a public relations agency.                             

                                                                                                Gene DeWitt 1999  

I must have passed muster and got a call to meet with the head of a small media agency called DeWitt Media. After a chat with Gene DeWitt, he hired me.  DeWitt Media was my young agency's first client.

Back in those days, the ad trades mostly covered ad campaigns and the wins and losses and comings and goings in the ad business.  They rarely wrote about the media end of the business.

My challenge was to get reporters to talk with Gene about the media end of advertising.  Reporters were just starting to pay attention to media -- how much spots cost, new media opportunities that were opening up for advertisers (not digital back then -- think cable), innovations in out-of-home media.  Gene was great with reporters, and he made my job so much easier.  I knew if I could get a reporter to talk once with Gene for quotable comment, he'd come back time and again for more.

Gene made me look good.  He became one of the top 5 most-quoted ad execs in the annual Advertising Age listing.

Gene always challenged people.  He wasn't content to do things they way they'd always been done, and he expected people he worked with to be proactive and innovative.  Gene pushed me to excel.

As hard as Gene worked, he understood the importance of family.  When I first began working with him, he wanted to have a planning meeting with me.  He asked me to come see him at 4 p.m. the next Tuesday.  I hesitated and then, with trepidation, asked if we could make it another time.  My son had a Little League game that afternoon, I explained.  Gene said, "Of course we can reschedule our meeting.  We can have a meeting anytime.  Your son only has so many Little League games and it's good that you want to be there."   Years later Gene reminded me of that conversation and said he respected me for having my priorities right.

Gene was very smart when it came to advertising and media.  He saw trends before they were trends -- unbundling of media from full-service agencies, the promise of cable, the decline of network TV, the integration of strategic planning in the media buying process.

I watched from up close as Gene's DeWitt Media grew from $200 million in billings to more than $750 million.  I was with him when he sold his agency to Publicis and worked with him as he built Publicis' new Optimedia into a major media shop.

I worked with him when he left the buying side and became president of the Syndicated Network Television Association.  I saw him turn the traditional syndicated TV selling process on its head as he injected new energy into syndication with the first Syndication Day. 

Like me, Gene loved the East End, where he had a home and a fishing boat.  He loved theater and music and good books.  He got into blogging a year ago, finding a new platform to express his views on advertising and media.  Some readers may have met him at the first Blogger Social last April.  As always, his views weren't necessarily in lockstep with what all the other "experts" were saying.  Gene's voice was unique.

Gene DeWitt lost a four-year battle with cancer Thursday.

He will be missed.

I must be in the wrong business

I like the business that I'm in.  Most days, I look forward to going to work -- even after more than 35 years at it.

As I read every day of more layoffs including at media companies, advertising and public relations agencies, I know I'm one of the lucky ones.  In the midst of the economic hysteria, my business seems to be holding steady.  The turmoil is hitting virtually every business sector

But as I read this morning in Forbes online, the adult entertainment business is booming.  Maybe Hustler publisher Larry Flynt got it right when he said recently, "Americans can do without cars.  They cannot do without sex."

Well, if not the real thing, then a substitute, which is what the adult entertainment industry provides.

According to Forbes, Rick's Cabaret International, a nationwide chain of strip clubs, has seen its revenues increase by 87 percent last year, hitting $60 million.  AdultVest, reportedly the first porn hedge fund, saw a 50 percent increase in its return last year.  And the online porn business, which pioneered "monetization" of the web, is thriving by all reports.

Although it had to be a joke, Flynt and fellow sleaze peddler Joe Francis of "Girls Gone Wild" asked the government for a $5 billion stimulus package for the porn industry a few weeks ago.  Unlike Detroit, they don't seem to need it.

And here I sit, struggling with a headline for a client's news release.

Am I in the wrong business?

Be careful what you say (and where you say it)

Some poor public relations exec, a VP at a major international PR firm, was flying into Memphis to meet with a client.  He had a lapse of judgment as he Twittered how he hated Memphis.  Actually, he wrote "True confession but I'm in one of those towns where I'd scratch my head and say 'I'd rather die than live here.'"

A bit harsh for any town, but that's his opinion and he has a right to it.

But how dumb to post it on Twitter where it becomes public.

People from the client (FedEx) saw his Tweet (or should it be twit?) and were outraged, sending emails to the agency and anyone else who might listen, including this one that's been showing up on some blogs and made it onto widely-read Gawker.com...

Many of my peers and I feel this is inappropriate. We do not know the total millions of dollars FedEx Corporation pays ____ annually for the valuable and important work your company does for us around the globe. We are confident however, it is enough to expect a greater level of respect and awareness from someone in your position as a vice president at a major global player in your industry.

It's easy to get caught in a situation like this, since Twitter is about friendly dialogue (and also, often inane chatter about what you're about to have for dinner or that you  just fed your cat).  But what you write is going out there in public, and Mr. Big Agency Guy should have had a bit more sense and sensitivity.  Oops.

I got caught up in an awkward email faux pas a while back.  I had written to a friend some negative comments about the behavior of a mutual acquaintance.  Months later, my friend used that old email for my email adrress, hitting reply and then sending me a new message.  But my old correspondence was still there, way down below.  And she also sent it to someone else, who happened to be good friends of the person I had criticized.  How embarrassed was I when the person I had criticized three months earlier forwarded me my original email and asked why, if I had a problem hadn't I gone to her directly.  Good point and I learned a valuable lesson.

If you don't want your comments made public, even by accident, don't write them down anywhere online.

As a public relations person, I've told many people to be careful what they say when talking to reporters.  "Off the record" is a dangerous thing, because some reporters feel nothing they are told in an interview is off the record.  Many years ago, I had set an interview for a client's director of sales with a bright, young and very pretty reporter at Women's Wear Daily.  All went very well and as things were wrapping up, my client and the reporter started talking about non-business things -- where are you from, how long have you been with the paper, where'd you go to school, etc.  Clearly, my client was smitten by this pretty woman, who was using her charms to distract him.

Seeing he was now at ease, she said she had heard a rumor that the company was about to launch a new line of products that would put it into a different category.  I knew they were working on it, but it was supposed to be secret.  But the client, under the reporter's spell, spilled the goods before I could stop him.

The news of the new product line made the front page of WWD the following Monday, and the director of sales came within inches of losing his job. 

A good example of the need to be careful what you say and where you say it ... online or off.

Update March 16th --  MarketingProfs' newsletter "Get to the Point" talks about this post and offers their own take on it.  Click here to see that post.  (Thanks Ann.)

New Times

In the face of dire news for the newspaper business, I've been writing how essential newspapers are and how the death of the newspaper will have a negative impact on the depth and accuracy of the news we consume in the future.  But, much as I hate to admit it, the odds keep piling up against the future success of newspapers as more papers, fueled by the recession, go online, cut their frequency or their size, or simply go under all too quietly.

The Pew Research Center just reported that the internet has surpassed all other media except television as an outlet for national and international news.  Since 2001, the percentage of people citing newspapers as their main source of news has dropped from 45 percent to 35 percent, while the web has grown from 13 percent to 40 percent.  TV has pretty much held steady -- 74 percent in 2001 and 70 percent in 2008.

For local news, newspapers still have a chance to shine -- if people buy the paper.

So I was encouraged when I read a lengthy piece in New York Magazine (sorry, couldn't get a link) about the "new" New York Times.  What's new is a new attitude about digital. 

The Times management, including newsroom management, has recognized that digital can enhance and expand the paper's coverage and insight into stories and issues.  No longer is online being viewed as an afterthought.  Instead, they're having their reporters and editors work side by side with the digital team to see how reporting can be expanded to give readers so much more than what they can see on the printed pages.

With their enlightened attitude toward digital, the Times' motto perhaps should be changed from "All the news that's fit to print" to "All the news."

Other papers around the nation are experimenting with digital in their own way, but since The Times is so often seen as the standard of newspaper journalism, what they do is significant.

The Times is still a mass medium, with a daily readership of 2.8 million and a Sunday readership of 4.2 million.  But the online audience is nearly ten times that number -- 20 million unique visitors a month.

I don't think they -- or other newspapers -- have figured out how to make real money from their online readership.  Banner ads simply don't bring in the ad revenue that full-page ads do in print.  And many advertisers are questioning the marketing value of banner ads, looking instead for online vehicles that are more proactive.

I hope they come up with a solution soon, because the longer it takes to figure it out, the more newspapers will disappear -- maybe forever.  That would be a shame.

Good advice for students? I'm not so sure.

Note (1/6/09):  Jack O'Dwyer's, the p.r. industry newsletter, writes about our post.

Exploring the web today, I came across Scatterbox, a blog by Steven Silvers, a principal at a Denver-based agency.  His posts are interesting and I plan to check his site regularly.

Steve's current post, titled How the PR business is changed forever (and why you might not be in it), gives a good synopsis of changes in p.r. that are being driven by the recession.  Jobs will be cut, he says.  Media outlets are shrinking.  Reporters, being thrown out of jobs, are migrating to p.r., flooding a market that's shrinking.

Steve closes his post  with:  "If you're a PR student, consider changing your major. Seriously."

I must respectfully disagree with Steve. If public relations is what a young person wants, then he or she shouldn't be discouraged from pursuing it.

While jobs may be tight for a bit during the recession and its aftermath, the field will continue to employ people.  Once the economy gets settled down, the p.r. field will probably grow again, as the function takes responsibility for management and content of publicity and corporate and customer relations through social media channels.  Young people conversant with social media will be in demand, as agencies and in-house departments grapple with how to utilize the new media.  And while traditional media outlets, especially those in print, continue to shrink or disappear, many more new outlets are opening, in droves, in the form of blogs, e-zines and other digital formats.

So, young people, learn how to write, study to get an understanding of what motivates people to act and think, and learn the tools and techniques of public relations. It won't go to waste.  There will be jobs.