Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’

Jennifer Severns, Creative Director for Zocalo Group, On Telling a Brand’s Authentic Story

Monday, December 6th, 2010

To Link To Post: http://bit.ly/hywHPw

Doug Simon, President and CEO of D S Simon Productions, caught up with Jennifer Severns, Creative Director for Chicago based Zocalo Group, at the BrandsConf (Brands Conference) in New York City on December 2, 2010. Jennifer gave insight into how Zocalo helps clients create applications and products which lead to user generated content in social media and online platforms. Zocalo focuses on each client’s “authentic story” to help shape each application or product they build.


Some of Jennifer’s VlogViews:

“We’re deploying products that actually help drive recommendations for our clients. We’re creating applications and products where people can interact in meaningful ways and pass it along in ways they want to pass it along. So we’ll look into a client or company and figure out what is their authentic meaning behind what they’re doing, what is their sharable story and we will build those applications around that and build the communications around that story online or offline to spread that message.”

“I think if anybody is doing their job right, user generated content is what it’s about. Users are the ones who are telling the meaningful, authentic stories. Brands can’t actually come from a place of authenticity because they’re automatically marketing their products and seen as a brand. First and foremost, we’re going to trust other people so we need to figure out ways to get into other people’s lives in meaningful ways where they’ll share with their friends.”

WEBSITE: www.zocalogroup.com

Olivier Fleurot, CEO of MS&L Group, Discusses the Rising Roll of Public Relations

Friday, November 12th, 2010

To Link to Post: http://bit.ly/cspNcL

Doug Simon, President and CEO of D S Simon Productions, spoke with Olivier Fleurot, CEO of MS&L Group at the PRWeek Age of Opportunity conference held in New York City on November 9, 2010 about the growing importance of public relations in a social media savvy world and how MS&L, the flagship specialty communications, PR and events network for Publicis Groupe is rising to meet changing PR demand.


Some of Olivier’s VlogViews:

“If I am in PR today it’s because I see a very interesting possibility to transform this industry and make it even more relevant in the coming years.”

“If you look at the transformation that is happening at the moment between a world where we were pushing messages to a world where now people are creating their own content and choosing which community they want to share ideas with… I think there is a big opportunity (for PR) IF we know how to seize it.”

“I think we have to raise our game. We also have to demonstrate that we can be a lot more proactive because I think in the PR industry we’ve been a bit too passive … we need to show to our clients, existing or potential clients, that we can have very big ideas.”

WEBSITES: www.mslworldwide.com ; www.mslgroup.com ; www.publicisgroupe.com

Dallas Lawrence of Burson Marsteller on using Social Media in a Crisis

Thursday, October 7th, 2010

To Link to Post: http://bit.ly/cB8KMc

Douglas Simon, President and CEO of D S Simon Productions, spoke with Dallas Lawrence Managing Director of Burson Marsteller about strategic use of social media in a crisis as well as its value as a research tool for crisis preparation and prevention. He also offered an interesting take on President Obama’s strategy for the midterm elections. The interview took place at the PR News Digital PR Next Practices Summit, where Dallas was a keynote speaker.


Some of Dallas’s Vlog Views:

“Obviously we tell our clients to use your peace time wisely. Now if you are in business today you are in the business of crisis, it’s going to happen it’s just a matter of when. But if you haven’t, one of the key take-aways is you don’t have to have a twitter account necessarily to be able to engage and correct what’s happening in the online space.”

“Every single industry has a key set of blogs that they need to be following and be a part of. When your crisis hits if you know who those folks are you want to reach out and in real time engage those people.”

“Republicans in Congress are far more active on Twitter than their Democratic counterparts by a factor of 72% to 50%. They’re much more engaged, they have more followers. I happen to think it has a lot less to do with partisanship and more the party in power. The party out of power usually has a much more organized and much hungrier base.”

“I’m a political guy and I will tell you that probably the best thing that can happen to President Obama is to have a Republican Speaker of the House.”

Study on Congress Twitter Usage
http://twitter.com/dallaslawrence

Eliot Mizrachi of the Entertainment Software Rating Board

Thursday, October 7th, 2010

To Link To Post: http://bit.ly/cZ4KnY

Douglas Simon, President and CEO of D S Simon Productions, spoke with Eliot Mizrachi, Director of Communications for the Entertainment Software Rating Board, about the upcoming Supreme Court case involving California law limiting access to violent video games as well as the role of communications in education campaigns. The interview took place at the PR News Digital PR Next Practices Summit.


Some of Eliot’s Vlog Views:

“A big part of what we do is educating parents and other consumers about the tools and information we provide so that they can make informed decisions about the games for their children.”

“We’ll team up with a group like Game Stop to do public education campaigns through their stores, in store signage. We’ll work with the New Orleans Saints or state officials to do state wide PSA campaigns that are on TV and radio. It’s really a question of finding the right partners and putting good tactics in the proper places that are going to educate the public about the ratings.”

“The issue is really a question of can a state impose a law that restricts access to constitutionally protected speech and that’s why the Supreme Court is looking at it. One of the issues that they’re going to have to weigh is, is there a less restrictive means that the state could use to achieve its purpose. So if we don’t want kids playing games that are inappropriate for them, how can we go about doing that? The rating system is really the answer.”

Links:
http://twitter.com/eliotmiz
http://esrb.org
http://twitter.com/OKtoPlay