Doug Simon, President & CEO of D S Simon Productions, examines what the future holds from a marketing perspective for NBA player Jason Collins after his announcement that he is gay.

Doug’s VlogViews:

I give credit to Jason Collins for coming out and making it easier for current and future players to lead an openly gay life if they choose to do so. The fact that he only told his twin brother that he was gay last summer demonstrates what a wrenching personal decision this was.

But it is an enormously positive statement about our society and changing values that rather than put Jason Collins at risk, his “decision” increases his odds of remaining in the NBA, dramatically increases his earning power and opens up doors to career opportunities. Collins, a Stanford graduate with a degree in economics, will rightfully, be hailed as a hero on the talk show circuit and given a platform to showcase his capabilities, and discuss his choice to go public.  I suggest you see the Jackie Robinson film “42″ for a comparison.

While Collins is described as an “active” player, that is merely  a technicality as he will be a free agent after this season. The New York Times quoted an anonymous NBA general manager as suggesting that Collins had a 25% chance of being picked up by a team next year. Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com fame had it at more than 50%. Given the marketing approach and openminded nature of the NBA, I would place it as 100% that, barring injury, Collins will be playing at the veterans minimum for an NBA team next year. While this won’t be the birth of “Col-Linsanity,” it opens a new marketing opportunity for a savvy owner in a progressive market.

According to Mike Bako who heads Sports Marketing at D S Simon Productions and commentates on sports communications for Fox News, the announcement could expand opportunities for Collins beyond his NBA career. “In an instant, he transformed himself from someone only hardcore NBA fans knew, to a celebrity who is part of our cultural Zeitgeist,” says Bako. ” “A brand that sells integrity and intelligence, such as Cadillac, could build a campaign around him.”

Don’t misread this to suggest I don’t believe prejudice against gay people exists. One only has to look at the hateful and ignorant comments being posted online in reaction to the story.  Jason Collins’ most significant contribution is to make it easier for future pro athletes and all Americans to live their lives more authentically and pave the way for even greater acceptance of different lifestyles and beliefs. Let’s not take away from this important contribution by overstating its significance or the courage behind the decision which was a carefully calculated choice guided by experts in communication and brand building.

Doug Simon on Twitter: @DSSimonDoug

D S Simon Productions on Twitter: @DSSimon

Mike Bako, Marketing Manager for D S Simon Productions, spoke with Adriana Giuliani, Creative & Strategic Planning at DevRies, at PR News’ The Big 3 Conference  about what social media tools you need to create and measure your campaigns.

Adriana’s VlogViews:

“What we like to start first with is what are you trying to achieve. All of these tools on the Internet allow us to have a lot of listening right now. There is so much data at our disposal. The best way to make meaning from that data is to put it into two buckets. There are macro listening tools that can inform your planning and then on the other side you have your real time listening tools that allow you to listen to the stream of conversations going on in the social space. You can then activate and respond to those.”

“Two things that we would look at for a starting place to figure out what success should look like to a campaign would be previous benchmarks, what have the success metrics looked like and how we would benchmark against that and also competitors in the larger category and try to push ahead of that.”

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Twitter: @mikebako

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Twitter: @adriannagiuls

DeVries

Mike Bako, Marketing Manager for D S Simon Productions, spoke with Douglas Brundage, Director of Content Strategy at Team Epiphany, at PR News’ The Big 3 Conference  about what steps brand and individuals should take to create an authentic presence on social media

VlogViews from Douglas:

Authenticity is super important for any brand on social media . From a journalistic point of view and from a digital point of view what’s most important is reaching out to people that make the most sense for your brand.

To be on Twitter is great, but you need to be following the right people. You need to be engaging with the right people. It may not be people with the most followers or with the most reach  but rather with people who are going to engage with your brand the most.

Keep calm and keep it real on Twitter and on social media. You have to think out your messaging, approach it from an editorial standpoint and be authentic about everything that you are saying.

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Twitter: @mikebako

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Team Epiphany

Mike Bako, Marketing Manager for D S Simon Productions,  spoke with Erica Campbell, Director Of Social Media for Homes.com, after her recent presentation on How to Engage Your Audience with Pinterest at the  at PR News’ The Big 3 Conference.

Erica’s VlogViews:

“Pinterest is a huge traffic driver. The average time on the website is about 98 minutes. 1 in 5 users that are online are using Pinterest.  I think the site skews women but men are absolutely using it.”

“For our brand in particular, women are making the household decisions when it comes to purchasing so it lends well to our specific brand. The time spend in there is very similar to the amount of time spent on fantasy football.”

“We want to provide our users with lifestyle tips on how to achieve the American dream. We want to give them inspiration on what goes into their new home or what goes into their dream home that they are aspiring to have.”

“Our primary goal is to drive traffic to the website. From there we want consumers to convert into actual phone call. Website traffic and brand consistency, brand awareness.”

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Twitter: @mikebako

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Twitter: @ericacampbell

Homes.com

Mike Bako, Marketing Manager for D S Simon Productions, spoke with Nicole Yelland, Director of Marketing & Communications at Livio Radio, about the process of turning your in-house staff into social media spokespeople. Yelland recently spoke at PR News’ The Big 3 Conference.

Nicole’s VlogViews:

“If you are going to utilize your staff in a public facing way you need to make sure that they are media trained.  Go over the tough questions with them, some of the fun questions, make sure they can laugh and they are comfortable.  These are engineers that we were dealing with so you also have to make sure that it is not taking away from their actual responsibilities. “

“We make sure that every blog post has a name and face next to it. Who they are and what they do so people will know that it is not just someone behind the scenes pulling the strings in the background.  Keeping it authentic and keeping it real. Everyone has their own voice.”

“It is really important for staff moral to be able to point out that you are the expert in this, you are the smart one. I do not need to be right there next to you.”

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Twitter: @mikebako

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Twitter: @NWLife

Livio Radio

Richard Pesce’s VLOG VIEWS:

“We encourage them to use their own voice because it comes across more authentic. We want them to make the content we are giving them and put it in their own words and share it with their network.”

“People want to hear from humans. They don’t want to see a logo all the time in their news feed.”

“We partnered with legal, we partnered with HR and compliance. We work with them to make sure as a brand, as a company, they are comfortable with the information we share.”

“For us it falls into three pillars. Our community involvement, sponsorships and information about Capital One being a great place to work.”

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Twitter: @DSSimon

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Capital One

Doug Simon, President and CEO of D S Simon Productions, speaks with Julie Estrada, Media Relations Specialist for LEGOLAND Hotel, about what media relations techniques went into making for a successful grand opening of the LEGOLAND Hotel in Carlsbad, California.

Julie Estrada’s VLOG VIEWS:

“We were always giving media something that they could pull and pick from but also not bombarding them. We didn’t want them so burned out by the time we were pitching them on the grand opening.”

“Having a first hit like Good Morning America begets more media, which begets more bookings for the hotel. The day we aired on Good Morning America we had 600 bookings for the hotel within hours.”

More information on Doug Simon:

Twitter: @DSSimon

More information on Julie Estrada and LEGOLAND Hotel:

Twitter: @JEstradaEwart

LEGOLAND Hotel

Illinois Blasdel, Principal, BCS Communications, Kansas City sits down with Doug Simon, President and CEO of D S Simon Productions,  to discuss the best practices for communicating your client’s non-branded educational messages.

More insights from Blasdel:

“Education is a huge part of this message. Finding an indirect way to communicate our client’s message through non-branded educational messages has been very successful.”

“In the digital space there is so much information out there. With all that noise out there it is even more important to have credible sources and knowing how to drive people to those sources. You need to have scientific information and information that supports the product in a very credible way.”

“We are seeing an upturn in the way the veterinarian community and pet owners are using social media to get information. It is critical, across digital and some of the traditional methods of receiving information, that we become a credible source of information.”