my 2 cents

B-to-B Books: Still sliding, but more slowly

Editor & Publisher gets last-minute breath of life...maybe

Despite the disheartening news this week of Nielsen's plans to shutter the 108-year-old newspaper industry trade bible Editor & Publisher, the news on the b-to-b publishing front may be slightly less bleak than it's been the past two years.

In 2009 (so far, at least), 120 trade publications have been closed down.  Many are continuing in digital form, and others have been merged into other related books.  Out of literally thousands of business trade titles, 120 may not seem disastrous, unless you happen to have been working at one of those titles.

What is perhaps a bit encouraging in these numbers is that they may represent a slowdown in the downward trend.  According to Crain's b to b, about 140 trade mags closed in 2007 and 120 shut down a year ago.

Some publishers have been wisely, I think, using their trade titles in print and/or online as a lead into the often profitable businesses of trade expos, trade seminars and online webinars. The publication can provide both a potential audience and needed credibility.  In some cases, the back end of the expos and seminars may end up as the real moneymaker that helps keep the publication -- in print or online -- going.

And then I read this morning in Bulldog Reporter's Daily Dog that Editor & Publisher may yet have a bit of life in it. Here's their story...

Daily 'Dog - December 17, 2009 Hope Remains for Editor & Publisher: Although Nielsen Media Pulled the Plug Last Week, Mag's Readers and Advertisers Demand January Issue

Nielsen Business Media shuttered Editor & Publisher last week, and sold off eight other titles, but due to overwhelming reader and advertiser demand, E&P gets an issue's worth of life support as the title will indeed publish a January issue — and offers hope for the hallmark publication's readers and staff that somehow, some way, the magazine might rise from the dead. That seems unlikely just now, but mag staffers are taking it one issue at a time. An outpouring of support for E&P from within and outside the newspaper industry, and from readers and advertisers alike, led to a decision by staffers to go forward with the January issue, and continuing to post stories at E&P Online until Jan. 1 when, under current plans, the end of the line will arrive, Editor & Publisher reports.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

And, despite the gloomy business climate, some people just keep trying, thankfully.  About 80 new b-to-b titles launched this year. 

Good news for journalism

A shield law that protects journalists from being forced to reveal their sources was passed yesterday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, a key step toward the bill becoming Federal law.  A report by Broadcasting & Cable said the bill now must go before the full Senate before it gets reconciled with a version passed by the House.

There is still likely to be some discussion on the Senate floor regarding what are called "carveouts" that would exclude from Federal protection information relating to certain types of crimes and issues like national security, bodily harm and sensitive personal and business information.  And there has been -- and will continue to be -- discussion about who is actually a journalist.  Bloggers and freelancers are still in question as to whether they are journalists who merit protection under shield laws.

Once passed, law enforcement will have the burden of showing proof that the source of information gathered by a report falls under the umbrella of national security or the other areas that are specified.  It would then be up to the courts to determine whether or not a reporter must give up names.

There have been, and will continue to be, some abuses of this privilege afforded journalists.  But overall, I feel it is important to maintaining a free and independent media in this country. 

Tiger & Me

I just heard that Tiger's latest count is now at 15. I don't know if they all can be called affairs.  Maybe dalliances is a better word.

Whatever!

We're breaking news here at my 2 cents.  I am now admitting that I slept with Tiger too.

Want more details?  Calls will be accepted from the National Enquirer and TMZ.  Just be sure to call with checkbooks open and ready.

Note to Tiger's management:  Hush money will be accepted.  Call with an offer before the media gets to me.

Enough, already!

Here we go again -- a media pile-on over a celebrity's private life.

Why was Tiger Woods leaving his house in a rush at 2 a.m.?  Had he just had a fight with his wife?  Was it over another woman or, perhaps, another "other woman?" 

WHO CARES?!!

Tiger Woods is a phenomenon on the golf course.  Off the course, he's involved in charitable work and makes tons of money from endorsements.  If news broke that he had taken performance-enhancing drugs or that he had surreptitiously moved a ball from the rough to a foot from the cup to win a tournament,that would be news.  What he chooses to do in his personal life is not news -- or it shouldn't be news.

Tiger injured himself in a car crash and will be out of action for a while, including missing a tournament he hosts.  That's really all we need to know.  All the other stuff doesn't concern us and is not our business.

I fully understand, though, the need-to-know mentality of many people.  I suppose some people get off on seeing the rich and famous stumble.  And yes, being in the public eye comes with a price.

But should the media -- other than the gossip rags and the entertainment news shows -- get involved and thus spur the obsession with Woods and other celebs?  There's a market for this sort of news (or in many cases, allegations and misinformation would be better words to use).  I understand that the papers and TV shows need to build their audience, so if this is what the public wants, then give it to them  I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the NY Post had a jump in its newsstand sales yesterday, with its cover photo of Rachel whatever-her-name is, under the headline "Tiger & Me." 

But what troubles me about the pile-on with stories like this is the rush to get something juicy at any price. 

"Juicy" may not necessarily be true.  In this scenario, for example, we're hearing allegations from "friends" of the "other women."  ("Friends like that, willing to sell me out, are hardly friends.)  Or we're hearing from disgruntled former employees, possibly with an axe to grind, as in the case of National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, who's accused of a deal with Woods' people to keep quiet about an alleged affair in exchange  for getting Tiger for a cover shoot for sister publication Men's Fitness. It just gets more and more seedy.

"At any price" is another problem for me.  We have questionable sources getting paid to tell their stories, or the stories of their friends and acquaintances.  $25,000 or $150,000 can be pretty convincing for someone to say what they think a reporter wants to hear.  And stick a camera in their face and the money might be almost secondary to their getting 15 minutes in the national spitlight.

So I see two problems here, at least.  1)  Paying for information.  2)  Taking and using information from sources with questionable credentials or questionable motives.

I'm not surpised when I see this type of "journalism" in the gossip magazines.  That's their stock and trade, and most of us look at them more as entertainment than as factual news.  But when all the other media, from The NY Post to FOX 5's "Good Day New York" morning show and The Today Show jump in, the story takes on a life of its own.  When that happens, it can too easily careen beyond the bounds of careful reporting, since everyone is out to scoop the competition.

Another sorry result of this type of journalism is what it does to the real news of the day.  Today's NY Post had more than 2/3 of its front page devoted to a picture of one of "Tiger's birdies," with the Obama speech on Afghanistan stuck off to the left side.  Both stories got 2 full pages inside.  

I suppose I'm not in the majority on this, but I don't need to know about Tiger's supposed daliances.  That's between him and his wife -- not me.  I didn't need to know every last detail of the OJ crime as it unfolded in Judge Ito's courtroom,w hich rivaled "People's Court."  And I could care less about lowlifes like Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafucco.

But that's me.  I guess I'm being a grumpy stick-in-the-mud for not jumping onto the latest gossip bandwagon.  I may be a bore at the water cooler, but I'm too busy keeping up with the real news of the day. 

Hometown hero

The suburban New York town where I grew up and still live -- Mount Vernon -- has been home to a pretty good number of celebrities for a city its size.

It was the birthplace of writer E.B. White, author of the children's classic Charlotte's Web.  Actors Art Carney and Denzel Washington also hail from Mount Vernon.  Eternal teenager Dick Clark is from my town.  Sports figures like basketball's Gus Hall and baseball's Kenny Singleton (he was a high school classmate) are from Mount Vernon.  Others who have lived here include jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal, Cosby co-star Felicia Rashad and biz guru Seth Godin, with whom I used to play pinball.  Rock musicians like Roy Blumenfeld of the legendary Blues Project, as well as more contemporary names like Heavy D also come from this city of 70,000.

We recently lost one of our hometown heroes, pro-wrestler Captain Lou Albano.  I didn't know Captain  Lou.  I may have met him a long time ago at a local political or charity thing.  I know his younger brother George, who is a well-respected and much-loved principal at an elementary school in town that's won all sorts of awards for excellence.  George is a nice, caring and giving person. I've had the privilege of working with him over the years on local school board activities.

So as I was reading some of the obits on Captain Lou, it didn't surprise me that the kooky-looking, blustery big guy that was Captain Lou to the world was just the opposite in his private life... a family-first person, eager to help others whenever he could.  He came from a good family, whose values stayed with him.

It just serves as a reminder that you can't always a judge a book by its cover.

Condolences to George and the Albano family.  Mount Vernon will always be proud of Captain Lou.

Odds 'n ends

A couple of things of odds 'n ends today, as I just returned from the Distracted Driving Summit in Washington. 

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood invited nearly 300 people involved in traffic safety to a 2-day meeting to focus on distracted driving -- a growing epidemic that's killing  thousands of Americans every year.We've all spoken on our cell phones while driving, and many of us have texted while driving. (Not me -- I don't like to text.)  This dangerous practice is especially prevalent among young people, who have the need to be constantly connected. 

This morning I met with a couple of young people, as we were prepping for a session on outreach to youth about distracted driving.  One young man, Greg, was texting while he drove and ran into another car -- killing two men.  He now has to live with that burden and he broke down as he told us the story, even though it was four years ago.  I met another young woman who now spends her life paralyzed in a wheelchair, after crashing while on her cellphone as she drove.

New studies show hands-free cell phone use while driving is almost as dangerous as hands-on units.  A key message that has to get out -- and that's a challenge we involved in public safety marketing have to address -- is that driving a car requires our full attention.  Most of us do it practically on auto-pilot because it's easy to drive.  But taking our eyes -- or our concentration -- off the road even for 3 or 4 seconds can be a fatal error if something happens (a car stops or swerves into your lane, or an animal runs into the road, or any of thousands of unexpected scenarios) while your eyes or your mind are elsewhere.   

I've developed, for my non-profit client The National Road Safety Foundation, a program to reach teen drivers and involve them in the communications challenge.  Along with National Organizations for Youth Safety, a youth-based coalition of advocacy groups, we announced today at the Distracted Driving Summit a competition for young people to create concepts for PSAs that address distracted driving and other risky driving behavior like speeding, driving under the influence, drowsy driving and failing to buckle up.  The winner gets $1,000 and a  trip to New York to see his or her idea turned into a professionally-produced PSA that will eventually be broadcast nationally and will go everywhere virally on the web. 

Pretty cool that the Secretary of Transportation likes the idea and featured it at the Summit.  And it's going to be written about on the White House blog.  The Secretary's office put us in touch with Seventeen Magazine, who will be partnering, and we welcome other media partners to step up as well.

I'll have more about this as the project progresses.  Meanwhile, corny as it might sound, don't text or talk on your cell while driving... and tell family and others you care about not to do it either.

UPDATE 10/16/09:   My client The National Road Safety Foundation, is running a competition for teens to come up with ideas for a PSA on safe driving.  It got the attention of the Secretary of Transportation, who is now working with us the project.  This story is appearing this weekend on some 200 TV stations nationally on "Teen Kids News."

....

I just saw this on the O'Dwyer's PR blog and had to share it... 

Before I began blogging almost three years ago, the letters WTF meant nothing to me.   Had you asked, I might have guessed it's the call letters of a radio station somewhere.   Then one day, when someone used it in a blog comment, I asked a friend who's a texter and she told me.  Oh... ok.  Since then, I've used the expression myself.

Pity the poor unsuspecting folks at the Wisconsin Tourism Federation.  When the group was formed 30 years, who would have thought those letters would eventually come to mean something that has nothing to do with Wisconsin or cheese or lakes or whatever else that fine state has.

It's sort of like the public relations company that handles lists and release distribution -- PR Aids.  It's now called Cision, once Aids took on another unfortunate meaning. 

So the people in Wisconsin have finally made some changes.  It's now the Tourism Federation of Wisconsin -- TFW. 

Let's hope texters don't come up with some other shortcut that uses those letters.  New logos and stationery gets expensive.

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Not sure how I feel

I read in the Los Angeles Times the other day about a new ad campaign promoting Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  MSNBC picked up the story, which included a clip of the ad "Save the Boobs" from the non-profit Rethink Breast Cancer. 

The spot looks more like a beer ad than one for a disease that's the leading killer of women 25 - 49.  It features a woman with large breasts almost popping out of her bikini top, while every man

she passes stares, slack-jawed, at her chest.  Stripper music plays in the background.

Dan Neil's L.A. Times story is headlined "Breast cancer ads use lechery for good."

I'm not so sure.  It's still lechery.  It's still more of objectifying women's bodies.  It also reinforces the thinking that, when it comes to women's breasts, bigger and bouncier is better.  How does that make women with smaller breasts feel?

I understand, of course, the intent of this ad.  Get attention.  Get people talking.  It looks like that's worked (evidence: this post, the L.A. Times and MSNBC stories and others). 

I'm just not sure if this was the way to do it. Ads on serious subjects can use humor to get attention and recall.   Coincidentally, I saw another ad on breast cancer awareness (it's part of the MSNBC clip linked above) that had closeups of women with their hands on or under their chests, pledging allegiance to fight breast cancer.  Each woman referred to her breasts using a different slang expression -- my hooters, boobies, tatas, my girls, chi-chi's (never heard of that one), etc.  But they weren't in tiny bikinis; they were wearing street clothes.  And they were women of all sizes; not just the Barbie stereotype 36 double-Ds.

From what I've seen online so far, I may be in the minority here. 

The "Save the Boobs" ad is drawing positive comments from ad critics and from readers.  But I just wonder if the same message to younger women and the men who love them -- that breast cancer strikes young women too -- couldn't have been communicated in a way that doesn't reinforce the objectifying and demeaning of women.Maybe it's just me -- I'll admit it.

Your thoughts?

NBC's big gamble... Will it pay off?

Monday night at 10 p.m. will be the start of "do or die" time for NBC, as The Jay Leno Show debuts.  NBC has been hyping it heavily and I think a lot of people are rooting for Jay to succeed.  He comes off like a nice guy... an "everyman" sort of fellow, and most of America wants to see him do well.

The new show is a gamble for Leno, who's been at the top of the late-night heap for years.  But as he's made clear in recent interviews, he feels he doesn't have anything to prove and if the show should stumble, he can still make a very nice living doing standup in Vegas and/or in big venues around the country.

The real gambler is NBC.  They've been justifying the move by talking about the profit factor, saying they can make money even with lower ratings because the cost of the Leno show is way cheaper than scripted dramas or comedies. 

But there's another factor at work here -- the local affiliates, who need a strong 10 p.m. show as lead-in for local newscasts, which can be the real moneymaker for the stations.  So even if Leno succeeds in profitability terms for the network, if the ratings are down significantly, it means fewer eyeballs tuned to NBC that might hopefuily stay tuned when the late news comes on.

That could cause an uproar from the affiliates.  Some might eventually try to put other programming in at 10, rather than carry the Leno feed on the network.  NBC brass could have a mutiny on their hands.

What can we expect?  I'm sure the new Leno show will have strong ratings at the start, especially with guests like Jerry Seinfeld.  The real test will be after a few weeks, or maybe a few months, when the newness has worn off and people start migrating to other shows.

Topical comedy will draw people, but it may not be enough to bring people back five nights a week.  Maybe if Jay allows his on-air humor to be a bit more biting, people may tune in to see what he has to say on the day's hot topic.  But what about days when there's no big, hot issue or news item that has everyone's attention.  Every day can't be a giant news day a la Michael Jackson, Bernie Madoff, Bill Clinton and the blue dress, etc.

And he'll have to have guests who we don't see all the time on the usual talk-show circuit, hawking their latest movie or book or CD.  Leno's bookers will have a real challenge.

Like most of America, I wish Jay Leno luck in his new gig.  I'll be watching next week, like many of us.  After week 2 or 3, I'll probably become an occasional Leno viewer, depending on who his guest is, what else is on the tube (and that includes the hundred-plus cable channels, pay-per-view or whatever I've DVR'd), or if I'm engrossed in a good book or on the computer blogging, twittering or just surfing the web.

Quite a challenge for Jay Leno and NBC.  It certainly will be interesting.

Never forget

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September 11th - New York City

Exploiting bad news for marketing -- Use common sense

There was a flurry of news that moved throughout the ad/marketing world and into the mainstream consciousness when a Brazilian ad agency recently released an ad for client the World Wildlife Federation.  The ad showed lower Manhattan -- World Trade Center towers still intact -- being attacked by dozens of planes. 

The ad drew criticism from around the world and, as I understand it, was withdrawn.  WWF issued an apology.

But the ad was seen, via stories in news media and through viral transmissions online, by more people than probably would have seen it in the magazines where it was going to be placed.

Advertising Age asked its readers if 9/11 should be permanently off-limits for the exploitation of marketers and advertisers -- even those advertising non-profit and humanitarian issues like environmental concerns.  Overwhelmingly, readers who commented said Sept. 11 should not be used in any advertising or promotion.

To me, it should be a no-brainer.  Man-made disasters like wars and terrorism have been tricky ground, even for storytellers who want to use things like the Holocaust and VietNam as backdrops for films or TV movies.  But why on earth would an advertiser or its agency choose to use a terrorist event of epic proportions to communicate a message?

I can see an unscrupulous or desperate advertiser doing it, simply as a way to get attention.   Never mind that it will turn many people off, they may think, as long as it gets more attention than what they're paying for.

But a quality agency and a smart marketer can certainly come up with other means to gain attention.  There is no need to exploit an event that is still painful to thousands -- or probably millions -- of people.  Off-limits forever?  I'm not sure.  But look at how, even after more than 60 years, use of Hitler's image and Nazi insignia is still considered extremely bad taste if used for advertising.  Smart advertisers will stay away from such painful images and use their creativity to find other ways to get attention and communicate a message.