Advertising Negatives: From Soup To Nuts

Almost every editorial on the final debate between U.S. Sen. Barack Obama and U.S. Sen. John McCain leads the same way. It only took 20 minutes before both candidates forgot about the issues and shifted toward political campaign ads.

They were kidding, right?

No, no, I suppose not. While the last reason I would elect a president is based on the prowess of their television production teams, most political talk seems to be all about the ads.

Some are even arguing over which side has more negative advertisements than the other. The University of Wisconsin Advertising Project says Obama airs the larger percentage of negative ads. The Nation says that is not true and McCain ads are much more negative. Has everyone forgotten grade school?

When Billy lies about Sally twice and Sally lies about Billy once … Ms. Clark made them both clean erasers after class.

So let's talk soup.

When it comes to negative advertising, there is no clear winner in another brand battle taking place across America. There are only losers.

For several weeks, Campbell and General Mills have been in engaged in an ongoing soup battle. Cambpell launched the first attack ad in The New York Times, claiming General Mills' Progresso soups are made with MSG. They are. General Mills fired back, saying some Campbell soups have MSG. They do.

So Campbell counted all of its soups to conclude that 124 soups have no MSG.

"The pot can't be calling the kettle black if it has the same problem itself," Laura Ries, president of Ries & Ries, told Brandweek.

So let's talk nuts.

One would think that after noted author Geoff Livingston wrote that astroturf comes in a variety of colors, including blue, someone might get the hint. Not so with Allison Copening and crew. They are dead set to stay the course with a $1 million smear campaign against State Senator Bob Beers — a campaign that almost everyone calls pathetic.

Their solution? Allison Copening's backers, who admit that the negative advertising has backfired because some residents "have stopped opening election mail” are now moving their lies onto television. Some estimate they will spend up to $500,000 on television, splitting the figure between attacking State Sen. Bob Beers and State Sen. Joe Heck, who is another elected official targeted this campaign cycle.

Given the size of the media market in Las Vegas, the television buy is equivalent to tossing a glass of water into a swimming pool and hoping to splash a few people. If it does splash some people, one can only hope that those splashed will know that most messages move beyond distortion and are of the plain old-fashioned lie variety.

As it turns out, it would not be the first time Copening has played a PR spin game. She was once a marketing director at PurchasePro, a company charged with stock fraud. She also worked as a public relations specialist for a homebuilder when it dealt with rat infestations and home fire sales that left new residents with mortgages higher than their assessed value.

She claimed that the rats were part of the allure of the desert. She rebuffed reporters when the homebuilder cut home values by simply saying they were too busy with other things.

Ironically, she claims it is Sen. Bob Beers who makes up stories. For his part, Sen. Beers has remained focused on campaign issues. In one case, he criticized a third party mailer that attacked his opponent's math skills and called them below a fourth grade level. As it turns out, he is not the only one tired of campaign ads that deviate from the truth.

Several states away in Minnesota, U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman recently said his campaign would halt negative advertising in a race recently dominated by it. "I want folks to vote for me, and not against the other folks," he said.

Discussing Poverty: Blog Action Day

There were blue tickets and there were red tickets.

Blue tickets for the kids whose families could afford a 30-cent lunch. Red for those who could not.

My ticket was red. And as red ticket holders, usually kids with large patches on secondhand pants, we lined up last as if a class system somehow existed within our public schools. Maybe it did. After lunch, most of us red ticket holders were ushered off to portable classrooms dubbed the "barracks." Education sometimes seemed optional.

Don't get me wrong. I was never afraid of missing a meal or going hungry. My grandparents, survivors of The Great Depression, were poor but understood priorities. Education and values, they said, are two things you can keep with you for life.

They were right. Even being enrolled one year at the Holy Redeemer Christian Academy in Milwaukee lasted a lifetime. It did for several reasons, but mostly because it removed the labels that had begun to become the ties that bind.

Today is Blog Action Day and thousands of bloggers from around the world are taking part to raise awareness about poverty. Blog Action Day, much like BloggersUnite, does a lot of good because it helps you stop and think.

Almost 40 million Americans are living in poverty.

Of course, thinking about it is not always enough. After that, the opportunity to turn words into action is up to you.

Since 1991, Copywrite, Ink. has donated time and resources to more than 60 nonprofit organizations with the hope of empowering people to help others by giving them a hand up. So, as a communicator, I could probably give you about a hundred different reasons for businesses to support their communities. But not today.

Suffice to say I believe that the children we help rise above poverty today will eventually grow to up to be the people who help others rise above poverty tomorrow. At least, I like to think so.

Campaigning For A Weak Economy: $100 Million

Kearsarge Global Advisors (KGA), a government affairs and communications firm based in Washington D.C., calculates that nearly $100 million has been spent in negative messages about the economy.

To put that number into perspective, it is the same amount Ford spent marketing the 2008 Chevy Malibu, Microsoft spent marketing Windows 2000, and Gillette spent marketing the MACH3 razor. And, of course, none of these products had the benefit of daily earned media and a few million blogs.

"As businesses and government seek to build confidence in the markets, they should also consider the direct affect these ads are having on people throughout the country," said Jim Courtovich, managing partner of KGA. "The trend in spending on these negative messages has no end in sight and could be a continued drag on confidence in the markets."

This isn't to say that current economic challenges aren't real, but it does acknowledge how negative messaging can exacerbate problems. According to the release, KGA says the bulk of these negative messages (51 percent) came from presidential candidates. The balance came from congressional and state races. Why?

Simple. Most people don't want change when the cheese tastes good.

Editing: One Class At A Time

"Is it me or does there seem to be an epidemic of illiteracy and/or carelessness in campaign materials this cycle? Candidates who don't know the basic rules of grammar or spelling are legion." — Jon Ralston, Las Vegas Sun

No, Jon, it is not you.

While I cannot preach from the pulpit of good grammar without admitting an error or two or three on this blog or in the comments section where they occur too frequently (especially since the comments section does not have a post edit feature), there is an epidemic of bad writing and it's not limited to campaign materials. In the haste to communicate, candidates and companies are laying waste to the written word.

Newspapers are not exempt either. I don't know any reporters or columnists who profess perfect writing. Not anymore.

It seems all of us are so hardwired to mentally correct mistakes as we read, doubly so if we only proof on the screen. The net result is that more and more errors go missed in everything from government signs to the simplest letters. What I've also noticed occurring with more frequency is the propensity for other people to make additional errors while correcting the author's original errors, sometimes at a rate of three errors for every two corrections. And then, add to all that a whole lot of people who think they know.

Editing And Proofreading Your Work — 9 a.m. to noon, Oct. 18

One of the topics I spend some time on in my half-day Editing And Proofreading Your Work class at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas is undoing the damage that other instructors have laid before me. Amazingly, at least 75 percent of the students (many working professionals) who take the class profess to be above average when it comes to good writing, editing, and proofreading.

It generally takes two exercises to undo this idea that they know. The first is to provide them an in-class editing exercise that usually results in startled expressions when they self-correct the assignment. After five years, I have yet to have a single student catch every error, and that assumes they don't correct what doesn't need to be.

The second is reading fifteen sentences with two word choices, and asking them to make the appropriate choice. Here are five:

1. Damage/Damages from the hurricane totaled more than $1 billion.
2. This is the photographer who/whom I had seen earlier.
3. The family emigrated/immigrated from Russia in 1995.
4. Neither the reporter nor the editor were/was pleased with the article when it was written.
5. The publisher's praise of my article was entirely pretense/pretext.

The last time I read this list, the class was overwhelmingly wrong. Not a single student could profess to have all fifteen right nor did the class ever overwhelmingly support a single correct word choice. Not once.

So that is what I do twice a year. For three hours, I try to help 15 to 20 students improve clarity, consistency, and correct usage. Does it work? Sometimes. But even then, only at the pace of one class at a time.

Pushing Vendetta: When Past Clients Go Bad

Yesterday, I received an e-mail from one of our clients with a rather cryptic lead. And, as it turned out, it wouldn’t be the last e-mail I received from other concerned parties.

“I think she got it wrong about which company decided to change.”

Scrolling down, it became all too clear what she was referring to. One of our accounts, an image consultant we resigned several months ago (before sending her to collection), had decided to use an e-mail blast and blog to paint an inaccurate picture.

“… After reconciling for a short period, we decided to go ahead and divorce. On top of that, the company I was using to edit my posts and I decided that our working relationship was no longer working,” wrote the image consultant, making the case that, perhaps, she let us go.

In most cases, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought (just like I didn’t give it a second thought several months ago when she posted it). Except this time, she sent the blog link to a compilation of e-mails from a speaking engagement that our company had arranged for her just prior to resigning the account. In other words, the audience just happened to consist of colleagues and clients. Ho hum.

What I Wish Everyone Would Take Away From Social Media

A few days prior, Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Al Gibes shared what some of my students at the University of Las Vegas, Nevada might take away from my half-day social media class. (You never really know until you see the post commentary.) An excerpt:

"It's not an opportunity to create 'spin,' but rather authentic information. Be real about your communication," [Becker] said. "We're bombarded with so many messages per day that every message has to count. If you don't manage your message, your message will manage you."

Of all the lines and slides, the one above is precisely what I hope students and professionals take away form what I teach. And, it seems to me, such a shame that the image consultant never did. She would have been better off moving forward instead of looking back.

At the same time, I suppose it raises an interesting lesson for future social media consultants who may one day face a former client who decides to use the tool you taught them against you. What can you do?

A Few Tips For Social Media Pros When Past Clients Go Bad

1. Privately address any concerns that exsting clients who brought it your attention and thank them for doing so. Beyond correcting any inaccuracies, do not use that communication to attack back. It’s not worth it.

2. Privately notify the offending party that you are aware of the inaccuracy, providing them an opportunity to correct the error. If there will be additional consequences, outline what those consequences might be.

3. Consider the audience that is receiving the erroneous information, with the knowledge that most people who spin tend to communicate their own ignorance more than they communicate anything about you. Generally, it’s not worth expanding the audience.

4. If the offending party makes the matter more public (our former client resent the e-mail, without any correction, after being notified), then consider your options including whether or not the incident is a foreshadow of a crisis communication to come. (Fortunately, my example is not.)

5. In some cases, a well-thought out response in the comment of a post might be enough. If comments are moderated on that blog, you can always discuss it on your own after conducting the appropriate assessment.

6. Be prepared. On the off chance that the past client aims to escalate the drama, the general principles of crisis communication may apply. In the end, you always have to have faith that truth has a tendency to win.

For additional insight, consider a few past posts, here and here. Hopefully the takeaway from those will be that social media, especially when it is used for professional communication, is no place to seek out a personal vendetta.

As for the example I shared: since any concerns from those on the list were immediately quelled when the consultant resent the e-mail, I’m inclined to forgive it. After all, we cannot control what people say about us, we can only manage what we say about others and ourselves.

Helping Bloggers: PicApp

Given one of the most common challenges for bloggers is fresh photography, PicApp seems to be the right online service at the right time. It allows bloggers to access some striking stock and editorial photos from places like Getty and Corbis at no cost.

The search engine is fast (with your choice of creative or editorial searches), the terms fair, and you need never worry about copyright violations again. One setback for some bloggers might be the inability to alter the photos (check the comments for additional problems), but PicApp otherwise allows for sizing. Members can choose from three sizes and set alignment.

“We wanted to help bloggers by giving them the ability to legally use some of the best stock photography out there," Etay Geller, CEO PicApp, told me at BlogWorldExpo. “The companies whose photos we use were interested because it discourages copyright violations and provides advertising revenue [at no cost to the blogger].”

In other words, it might be a win-win.

I used a PicApp photo to illustrate. Since Sarah Palin continues to be a hot topic in the news, a simple search on PicApp pulled several dozen recent photos of Palin, some of which have been used by editorial teams at the local and national newspapers. Then, I added the javascript into the post. Done. (And then, not so done. See the comments.)

Additional Photography Options For Bloggers

• Original Photography. While original photography is always best, most of us don't have every shot under the sun nor the time to go out and get it.
• Professional Stock Photography. Some of us, especially anyone working in advertising, tend to amass a private library of files and discs over the course of several years. Storage is sometimes an issue, but it works.
• Member Generated Sites. Sites like iStockphoto have done a great job at making stock photography accessible for frequent use. There is a cost, but it's nominal compared to owning the disc.
• Flickr. Since usage terms are clearly identified, thanks to a partnership with Creative Commons, finding photos on Flickr is easy. Just keep in mind, some folks might not own the rights to what they upload.
• Google. It's possible, but a little more time-consuming, to find photos in the public domain on Google and other search engines. Just remember that unless fair use applies, those photos need to be clearly identified in the public domain.
• Fair Use. Section 107 of copyright law contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered “fair,” such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. (For example, fair use may allow you to screenshot our Web site and critique it. But you cannot reproduce elements of it and use it for unrelated purposes.) You can learn more about Fair Use here.