Photo courtesy of Flickr user martinbowling.

It is, as they say, all in the details.

I recently wrote a new-information sheet for a client. While doing so, I learned that the preferred term for a said new-information sheet is news conference, rather than press conference.

Why does news claim victory over press?

Because, as Mark Chamberlin, our director of marketing and public relations extraordinaire told me, a press (think printing press) is not typically at a conference. Folks who are about to be presented with news are waiting with eager anticipation. Those calling the conference are presenting news that they hope will go seriously viral. And because so many types of media are prevalent today, press is simply too narrow a term. The pièce de résistance is that the AP Stylebook hails news conference as the preferred term. Thus, it is as it should be — news conference.

Does the same thinking govern news release vs. press release?

Alas, there’s no mention in the AP Stylebook of press releases or news releases. But dig a little deeper and you’ll find on the AP Stylebook website a little nugget: a page dedicated to previous press releases. You read it correctly — press releases! It almost jumps off the monitor, it’s so blunt. Press Releases tops the page in a striking sans font.

There it is — news conference and press release. Now get out there and make some happy news worth shouting from the rafters.

Advertising agencies don’t usually make an announcement when they say goodbye to a client. Today, we are making an exception.

Wichita Mid-Continent Airport has become more than a client over the past five years. Like others we have served for a longer period of time, they have become part of our extended family.

We have shared successes that went way beyond traditional advertising. By any measuring stick you might choose, Armstrong|Shank over-delivered on the advertising goals, while we under-spent the annual budgets. Among our accomplishments:

• Initiating a courtesy crew team to provide positive experiential marketing
• Increasing awareness of the airport to unprecedented levels
• Reducing leakage of travelers to other airports
• Building social media promotions to reach our community in new ways

It has been a busy, and rewarding five years.

Now, as this very special client moves on to another agency chosen by the City of Wichita, we want to wish them well. Our hope is that they will have an exciting journey, filled with new adventures.

And, of course, we want them to return safely home to us someday.

Because that’s what we do at Armstrong|Shank: wish our clients well, and hope to see them again and again.

Many thanks to our friends at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport (Victor White, Valerie Wise, the fabulous Courtesy Crew, and the Airport Advisory Board). You have made each challenge a joy to tackle together.

Bon voyage.

Typesetters actually used to “set” type and fonts and weights (thus, the moniker). Back when such design capabilities were not just a quick keystroke away as they are today, old-school headlines were written with every word — or nearly every word — initial-capped on every word:

• Jane Doe Relocates To Denver, Buys Mountain

Such stylized formatting helped readers back in the day know that the headline was, indeed, separate from whatever followed. More robust. More important. More headlinerish. The mix of uppercase and lowercase letters was a technique that was supposed to draw readers in, hopefully to have them become engaged with whatever followed. And that technique taught readers that the headline was a headline simply because every first letter of every (or nearly every) word was bigger than the rest. Sometimes, though, that technique focused more on the presence of the headline than on what followed.

In this modern world of faster-than-Superman wordsmiths who can craft headlines as they go, type treatment has evolved — so says the AP Stylebook. For some time now, the go-to writer’s guide has mandated initial caps only for the first word in the headline, as well as any proper nouns:

• Jane Doe relocates to Denver, buys mountain

Easy, simple and clean.

Character design overload: down style, all caps, all initial caps and an improperly used ellipsis, to boot.

Tiny articles (e.g., a, an, the) and prepositions (e.g., to, of, for) no longer receive preferential initial-uppercase treatment. The size of the initial letters no longer suggests heightened meaning. Now, writers must truly offer compelling text that lures casual passers-by, drawing them into their mystical world of words. Headlines must make the reader want to read more, not only the headline.

Viva the down-style headline! If nothing else, it’s easier on the reader’s eye. It invites readers instead of coercing them. It implies a (slightly) higher level of understanding rather than speaking to the audience as if it’s a first-grade teacher reading a held-up book. That alone must count for something.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Alamosbasement.

I had just started working here at the agency and was excited to start things off right with an updated AP Stylebook at my fingertips. Since my own copy of the veritable writer’s bible was the 2007 version, I thought that getting a newer version was the wise thing to do. Staying current with the 2010 version (even though it’s already 2011, thank you very much) seemed like a grand idea, especially since the 2011 version wasn’t going to be published for a few months yet.

For those with inquiring minds, the 2010 version is the first style guide put out by the AP folks with website spelled as one word and an uppercase “W” on the first word. That change alone was a monumental advancement. Ask any writer or editor (or even an opinionated designer or two — they’ll freely offer their stance on the subject); he or she will probably be able to explain in enormous detail the good, the bad and the ugly concerning the one-word-versus-two spelling format.

Now — back to the crapshoot.

As a wordsmith in my new gig at Armstrong|Shank Advertising, I thought it necessary to get my hands on the latest AP Stylebook. The office manager said, “Absolutely — no worries. I’ll order one of those thingamajiggers today.”

Yay!

The spiral-bound guide arrived and I settled in, prepared for whatever freakish grammar query may pop up.

[Ominous background music kicks in.]

Just a few days ago, though, the AP Stylebook powers that be sucker-punched me by deciding to give in to the hoards of people who relentlessly complained about constantly having to hyphenate the word. The new rule? The unhyphenated email kicks its hyphenated cousin e-mail off the stage.

And that, readers, is monumental. Even more newsworthy than Web site changing to website. It’s so monumental because, in the English language, compound nouns that start with a single letter do not lose their hyphens. For example:

• A-frame
• G-string
• S-curve
• T-ball
• T-shirt
• U-turn
• X-ray

It seems strange to me that the hyphen is missing in email, too, because for the three people who still don’t know what electronic mail is, reading the word without the hyphen encourages improper pronunciation: ehMAIL. And that, as the rest of us in the know already know, isn’t correct. And now, to add insult to injury, I have an out-of-date stylebook! Oh, the humanity.

Why should email take over? Perhaps because the majority of people, while tweeting and texting and e-mailing (er, emailing) on a daily basis, decided that it’s just too complicated to add the hyphen to a word that gets communicated on such a frequent basis, and those people bended the AP Stylebook editors to their will.

So — lazy wins.

And you know what? That’s probably OK in this case. It may not be a decision based on correctness, but many, many folks will be much happier — and faster — tweeters and texters with this new rule in their back pocket.

One last detail: Email with an uppercase “E” is the correct way to begin a sentence; email with a lowercase “e” is correct in all other sentence constructions. Good times.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user vistavision.

Is technology a hindrance to the customer service experience?

I’ve heard about restaurant servers who can’t take food orders when the computer is down. But sometimes I think that we must be exaggerating the downside of technology’s impact on the customer. Surely the stories of poor service can’t be true.

Then, I experience it firsthand and wonder: Is there no element of common sense remaining? Recently, I stepped into a small gift shop in a trendy, upscale shopping center.

A series of magnets caught my eye. They were hanging near the greeting cards. Each had an inspiring quote imprinted on its face. I selected three that I thought would be ideal gifts for special friends.

It shouldn’t be difficult to go to the cashier and purchase three magnets, right? But after nearly 10 minutes of waiting somewhat patiently for the young girl to total my order, I finally asked, “Is there a problem?”

She stopped searching the pages of a notebook and looked up at me. “One of the magnets doesn’t have a bar code on it, so I need to find it in our inventory list,” she explained. “If I can’t find the number, I can’t sell it to you.”

I wanted to laugh, but she wasn’t kidding.

Trying to be helpful, I suggested, “All three magnets are the same price. Just charge me for three, and sort out your paperwork later.”

We discussed this at great length but, regrettably, she was unable to sell me the unmarked magnet. Even when I inquired how the manager or owner might react upon learning that the clerk refused to sell a customer the desired item, the girl insisted that it would violate the rules.

I left the store with the two properly coded magnets. It will be my only purchase from that little gift shop. I’m not likely to return, even to browse. Somehow, it just seems wrong for a store to display merchandise and then refuse to sell it.

Rules: 1. Customer: 0.

There you have it — attesting to the importance of technology in today’s retail environment.

Thank goodness I wasn’t trying to buy an emergency medication or other life-sustaining item.

The title of this post is actually the title of a seminar that we conducted for the Wichita Area Builders Association. We discussed how to get the most out of personal profiles, business pages and all of the other opportunities for interaction on LinkedIn. As I did the research for this seminar, I fell back in love with LinkedIn. It is a really a remarkable social network and is continuing to introduce new features.

For part of the research, I surveyed individuals in my own social networks about their use of LinkedIn — what they find valuable, what frustrates them and what they want to learn more about. I had a great response.

The chart above ranks the features of LinkedIn that people  find valuable. It is not surprising that the personal profiles were seen as most valuable. The profiles are robust, living resumes. They offer people a way to take some control of their online personal brand. They can drive positive SEO performance. Most important, personal profiles act as the gateway to building a network of connections and unleashing the platform’s business development power.

Company profiles, or pages, were seen as the fourth most valuable feature. Company pages offer many ways to enhance an organization’s presence and participation. Beyond populating basic company info and creating connections to employees with profiles, businesses can tap into integration and sharing features. Adding blog and Twitter feeds provides another channel for that content and helps keep the company profile fresh. Fully utilizing the ability to provide information about products and services strengthens the selling power of the business page. Each product and service can have a description, features list, associated image, video, list of points of contact and a link to more information. Products and services can also be recommended, similar to people recommending other people on LinkedIn.

One thing that surprises me is that advertising ranked last. With 32% of the company’s $161 million dollars in revenue coming from marketing solutions, there are obviously some people finding value in the tools. The targeting capabilities alone make me a fan. For example, targeting by title allows a company to home in on consumers who are more likely to possess decision-making power. That is not an easy thing to find in other advertising media.

Bottom line: Do yourself a favor by investing some time in LinkedIn. You will be pleasantly surprised.

A few of us at the agency had the opportunity to lead a discussion on shared equity branding with the Wichita Chapter of the Society for Marketing Professional Services. Check out this video presentation of a few images from the event set to overly dramatic music:

Our talk was titled Brand NXT. Here is the one paragraph recap:

Shared equity brands are built on unique attributes that organizations feel they deliver on and that the organization’s customers say they find valuable. Brands that are built on points of shared equity are positioned to compete in today’s environment of substantial consumer control over exposure to marketing messages and building and sharing brand stories. This is because shared equity brands are:

1. Inherently authentic
2. Built through collaboration with customers
3. Designed to help shape what customers share about your brand

For the full discussion, feel free to give us a call. We love talking branding!

OK, Not really over here. Not in the office; too messy. But over at the Wichita Blood Donor Center this Friday, Feb. 18, from 11 a.m. to noon? You betcha, baby.

The Wichita Blood Donor Center, at 707 N. Main St., is holding its first bleedup — a blood drive fueled by the viral influence of Twitter. Jennifer Keller, communications manager for the American Red Cross Blood Services — Central Plains Region, developed the idea as a variation of the classic tweetup, in which people who are connected via Twitter meet in real time. This bleedup takes it one step further by incorporating a blood donation into the meeting.

We at Armstrong|Shank think that this is a red-hot idea and we’re in for the duration. Some of us will be donating life-giving blood to help the local blood bank build up its supply, which is running low after the area’s two snowstorms. Other employees will be donating time as canteen aides and donor receptionists and escorts. Still others (or some of the aforementioned) will be promoting the bleedup on Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media.

This bleedup ties in well with the agency’s celebration of 30 years in the area’s marketing, advertising and public relations community. The agency is celebrating throughout the entire year by performing 30 acts of service in 2011. So far, employees have:

• Taken part in the Senior Services of Wichita’s Meals on Wheels program, delivering hot meals to south-side residents homebound due to health issues and perhaps the recent snowstorms.
• Donated old pairs of eyeglasses for the Kansas Lions Sight Foundation. The organization has the glasses analyzed and distributed to the visually impaired in third-world countries, such as the Central and South Americas, via the Volunteer Optometric Services to Humanity (VASH) program.
• Edited their closets for business attire to donate to Dress for Success, a nonprofit organization that provides disadvantaged women with “professional attire, a network of support and the career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life.”
• Partnered with Cochran Mortuary & Crematory in collecting old cellular phones to donate to soldiers. The Cell Phones for Soldiers recycling program offers deployed soldiers the chance to contact home and speak with loved ones.

And that, friends, is just the beginning of our “30 for 30” resolution. Please feel free to join us along the way, for this path that leaves a trail of good deeds in its wake has room for us all.

Microcosm draws a line in the sand with this illustration and their new offer.

We love underdogs. When an underdog pulls out a surprise win, it seems to bring a little balance to the world. It appeals to our sense of fairness and our competitive natures.

Marketing is no different. It seems like large corporations are controlling more of the market everyday. In comes a Wal-Mart or a Target and out goes an independent grocer (if there are any independent grocers left). A national chain restaurant opens up and leaves two or three family owned restaurants in its wake. Sometimes it feels inevitable that small businesses will always lose to the big corporations. How can they compete? Many try to match prices and offer similar services as their larger competitors. But that isn’t always enough.

What if, instead of playing the “me, too” game, small businesses drew a line in the sand, established an us vs. them mentality and embraced the underdog role? A great example of this is detailed in this post from Crunch Gear about a small Portland bookstore that is fighting back against the trend of ebook readers. Here is the offer from Microcosm Publishing according to their blog post: “Beginning RIGHT NOW you can bring in your Christmas Kindle to the Microcosm store in Portland (636 SE 11th) and trade it in for its worth in new or used books and zines.”

Microcosm is taking the David position to the ebook reader’s Goliath. This is a strategy rooted in an emotional appeal. And, for my money, that is the best type of strategy. Will people actually cash in their Kindles and Nooks? Maybe not. Here is the kicker: It doesn’t matter.

What Microcosm has done is generate awareness, establish a marketable position (“We are for books and book lovers”), and offered up a rallying cry for their brand ambassadors. That is the stuff that builds loyalty. And loyalty translates to more sustainable sales over time.

That’s not a bad place to be.

It is a snowy, cold day here at the agency. Maybe it was having to drive 20 miles an hour the whole way here, or perhaps it was the negative windchill temps, but I began thinking of what marketers can learn from a snow storm. Here are three examples:

1. Don’t be fooled. A blanket of fresh snow makes things seem somewhat serene. But, it also masks what is below, both the beautiful and the treacherous. Be sure that your marketing process looks below the surface. The insight that makes a real difference may not be visible at first.
2. Prepare for when the storm hits, and for when it goes away. Often, forecasts can let us know when a storm is approaching. This allows us time to prepare–throw some salt down on the walk, stock up on hot chocolate, adjust the thermostat, etc. We can be pretty good about preparing for the storm. But what about being ready for the time when the storm lifts and the snow melts away? Do we have a plan for that? In business, we can be really focused on preparing for disasters, like, say, an economic downturn. We can identify cost cutting measures and implement spending freezes. We would be smart to also plan for the recovery. What do we do to rekindle activity in time to take advantage of new opportunities?
3. Not everyone likes (or dislikes) the snow. For some, the winter weather conjures up fond memories and associations that bring joy. For others, snowy days and gray skies can be depressing. You can never forget that your customers approach situations and receive messages with the influence of their past experiences. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. If your marketing plan pretends that there is, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

What lessons have you learned from the snow?