Speaker 1: Hey, this is Jim Silver, and welcome to Shop Talk. I don't watch TV commercials anymore, fast forward, right through them, and I have three daughters in their 20s, and they don't watch TV commercials anymore. It's become tougher to reach the consumer, and that's why PR has become more important. We have three very distinguished guests in the PR community today, and I'd like to introduce and talk about these subjects. With us is Kathleen Tomes, President of Brilliant PR.

Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: Bruce McGuire, President of Freeman PR. Great to be here, Jim. Jocelyn Welch, President of Litsky PR.

Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: Let's start with this question. Have companies adjusted to the new age of television and PR? Are they a little old school, or do you find some adjusting, and we're in the in-between path?

Speaker 3: I think it depends on the company and their objectives and their budget. So for example, a lot of the larger companies have been able to change as technology and our industry have evolved, but I think a lot of the smaller companies are still trying to figure out and right-size what their budget and their marketing plans are to adapt to the new landscape today.

Speaker 2: I agree. I think it depends on the company, and it also depends on what their market penetration is. So companies that have national distribution with national retailers, they still are benefiting from the use of TV and TV commercials. If you don't have national distribution and national change, that's where you really need to funnel your focus and your efforts and your energy from a PR perspective into the influencers and the TV in terms of the programming on the TV and the segments that you do with the product roundups. That's when you can make a big impact in sales, even if you don't have national distribution.

Speaker 4: It's constantly evolving. I mean, what's happening now is very different than what happened a year ago, never mind 20 years ago. And so companies that adapt are going to succeed better. And the idea that advertising is dead is a little overreacting. It's still, there's a place for it. As Kathleen said, companies with budgets can do it. And in fact, small companies can benefit more now because if they only had a half a million dollar budget, TV would have done anything for them. But now between influencers and PR, it becomes more viable. So they're forced to adapt.

Speaker 1: Now I'm a little confused. You know, we talk about PR, we talk about social media, which is really important. We talk about influencers. Some companies I work with, influencers falls under PR. Other companies, it's separated. I mean, is social media part of PR?

Speaker 3: The lines are graying. And I think it also depends on the company and the agency and what you have in the marketing mix. Like clearly we all know that both social and PR need to be part of an integrated marketing campaign. And I think how the two work together depends on the players that you have for each campaign or company. Some agencies have in-house social capabilities and some outsource that to partners. A lot of manufacturers and brands have taken social in-house. And then as an agency that focuses on PR, you're able to collaborate with an in-house social or digital team. So I really think it depends on who you're working with, but both are certainly part of the mix. And I think the lines are blurred across the whole agency landscape.

Speaker 4: I mean, the key word that Jocelyn mentioned is integration. It has to be all together, whether it's in-house or with other vendors, multiple vendors. That's the key. There are clients who will use our resources. There are some in which we will say point blank, we aren't the right agency for that. Let's bring in another vendor for you. It may depend upon how complicated it is, what kind of sponsor and boosted posts will be used. But by and large, it has to be integrated. And one of the terms that we use internally is we play well in the sandbox. It's vital now that we play in the sandbox that includes digital marketers, advertisers. The separation isn't there anymore. That gray area goes into PR and it goes into advertising. And we all have to play together in that center area.

Speaker 2: I agree 100%. It has to be fully integrated. And I've always seen what we do as kind of a trifecta of PR, social media, and the digital side of things. We at Brilliant definitely consider working with influencers as part of PR. Very rarely will we only do traditional media. We basically operate at a 60% influencer, 40% traditional, and then adjust based on the client needs. The other thing I find really interesting is it's really based on the client size too. Some clients who are emerging brands and smaller, they really need your help to be able to do social media the right way to get them to that next level. And then you can evaluate from there. Whereas oftentimes larger companies, and we do social media for larger companies as well, sometimes they have a fuller staff and it's going to be better for them to be able to execute the social media. But just like Bruce said, everybody has to communicate together. They do not operate independently. So it's that shared thing and knowing the product and the brand and what you're doing from PR campaign that has to resonate and be timed with what's happening on social media.

Speaker 1: And you talked about social influencers and we're in the age of like social influencers are really hot. You have YouTube stars, TikTok stars, Instagram stars. Where do you start? I mean, it's not easy. And how do you pick them? How do you work with them? What are the best practices in terms of working with social influencers?

Speaker 3: At Let's Gee, we do a ton of influencer work and we always recommend a blend. And so we typically do some organic, some paid, we do some event work. And so it all depends on a client's objectives and budget and the product or the brand that they're looking to represent. So some of the small companies that might not have a big budget will want to seed product with influencers to get some of that organic coverage. But some of the clients that might have bigger budgets that can think about working with macro influencers as opposed to nano or micro. So I believe that it's always a mix of different kinds of influencers and across different channels as well. So thinking about, like you said, is TikTok appropriate? Is it more of an Instagram? Do you want to work with families on YouTube? And so it's important at the beginning of every campaign that you sit down with the client and what we do is we sit down and we collectively align on what does the campaign look like? And of course, what are the objectives? And I think setting those objectives and those KPIs will then drive which size and quantity and across which channels your campaign will run.

Speaker 4: A lot of it has to do with budget. A lot of it has to do with timing. To deal with some of the larger influencers, generally there's a lot of people ahead of you in line to deal with them, especially people with money. They're ahead of you in line. But some of the smaller ones, if you need to get to market quickly, you need to do some seeding, then maybe they become more important. So it's nothing, it's not one size fits all. That does not work anymore. So everything has to be customized. Budget is a very big part of it. Working with the influencers where they have to understand we can't pay for everything. There has to be a give and take. Why don't we see how this draws for you and for us and if it does right, then maybe we'll put some money behind it. So there is a combination and a lot of it, again, whether we're playing well in the sandbox or interacting with our clients, you have to be open to any kind of maneuver, but timing is also crucial.

Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, it's really three things, budget, objective, and what's the product. And that's how you determine what are the right influencers to work with. And I've always seen influencers on kind of on a spectrum. So over here you have the non-paid ones. So the nano influencers, the micro influencers, which a lot of them can have very high engagement and produce some tremendous results for your clients. And then you have the macro and elite influencers over here. And at Brilliant, we've really, I believe, found this beautiful place to work where every client and product has the right spot, but there's this, in the whole spectrum, there's this place right here in the middle where it's really top-notch influencers that probably would be on the paid side, that also when you build that relationship with them and you're working with them for 10, 15, 20 clients and products, you build that relationship. You go to their birthday parties, you go to their New Year's Eve parties. It turns into something more than just paid versus earned. And so when you're looking at those things to be able to help your clients move the needle with influencers, that's an important place to be.

Speaker 4: Relationships. Yeah, relationships. PR is still what PR was. Correct. 40 years ago, Litsky and Freeman, we were in the PR world and it was about relationships with the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the TV shows. Today it's relationships with a broader amount of people. PR is the same. The delivery methods are different, but you still have to do the same tactics. Know your audience, know who you're talking to and work with them. And that's the difference between advertising. advertising talks to consumers, PR we work with and communicate back and forth.

Speaker 1: Bruce, you just mentioned the Wall Street Journal, New York Times. Let's talk about traditional media. It's not dead. I mean, people read papers. I read them online, but how important are they in the overall mix? And does it really depend on the client and the item?

Speaker 2: It's still very important. You know, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, let's not forget, that's at the top of the food chain. The producers at the Today Show, Good Morning America, they wake up every morning and that's what they read. So it's a very important part of the mix. For us at Brilliant, we also market a lot to grandparents. They're the ones that still get their newspaper delivered to them every day and they read it. Very, very important. So it's an important part of the funnel. Like I said, with us, we do about a 40-60% blend. And it's the same thing with influencers, right? With influencers, you have to have the right product paired with the right influencer who's doing the right content. You can have a top-notch elite influencer post about a product that has 20 million followers and get no results because it wasn't appropriately paired to the audience. Same thing with the traditional media, we find true. And if we're classifying TV, like the news stations, the local news stations in as traditional, I don't know about you guys, but lately we have gotten tremendous results for our clients. We were on this segment a couple of weeks ago. We had a full segment for a client on a Chicago station. And it was one company showing three products and they literally sold 120 units online right after the segment, got 50 emails being sent to them as a result of the segment. And then somebody went into one of the local retailers and bought out every single product. So traditional, I'm still a big fan.

Speaker 3: I also think that traditional media outlets are getting smarter in terms of thinking about how to increase their activity to sort of match the digital evolution that's happening. So for example, outlets like Good Housekeeping, which is a great magazine that you want placement in, they're starting to do events. And so they're starting a parenting summit that's attracting influencers and celebrities. So when you think about traditional media, it's not just about what's in print or online anymore, but how are they evolving their brand and expanding the opportunities that they're giving to both publicists and brands and also consumers.

Speaker 4: Social media is also key to the retailers, and we can never forget the retailers, such an important part of this whole mix. They have affiliate partnerships. So they may be with the Today Show, Walmart may be with Today Show, or Amazon may be with Today Show. And so we have, for example, a segment of Today Show last week for one of our clients, their affiliate partner was Amazon. And so when it went online, a consumer could click right through to Amazon, which is one of the magic about digital, because how do you impact sales when you can click through, it's measurable. And that's traditional media. Today, bloggers are traditional media because they're 10 years old. And in five years, 10 years, we're going to say influencers are traditional. Jim, you were an influencer 40 years ago. We didn't call you an influencer. You called me a lot of other things. We might have called you an opinion leader or something, but you're still an influencer and you're an influencer to the Wall Street Journal, because you speak through the Wall Street Journal to consumers, to retailers. So they are still very crucial. At Freeman, we don't quite have a 60-40 mix. It's going to kind of vary. And when possible, cross-platform influencers, those that have, they might be influencers to their own audience, but the media speaks to them. Or they're on Instagram and TikTok, and they might have relationships with YouTube. They're the, that's the holy grail, because then you're hitting everybody.

Speaker 1: Gauging success has become harder, especially for a manufacturer. PR companies can do everything correctly, and the product might not sell. And often, manufacturer might not want to say it, it's the product. So how does somebody gauge success? I'm working with a PR firm. I'm working with one of the three of you. How do I know if I'm successful? People call, oh, here's 9 billion impressions, but it's like, who's reading it? So what's the best way for a manufacturer to evaluate, hey, this is working for me?

Speaker 2: It's all trash till you see the cash. Show me the money. Increase in sales is the best answer that I like to give. That said, one thing that we do a lot of is we have a panel of 15,000 moms, dads, and grandparents across the US, we affectionately refer to as our brilliant parenting group, and simply doing a awareness survey. What was the awareness when you first started campaign, unassisted awareness before you started campaign? What is it after the campaign, or what is it at six months in, 12 months in, is a great way.

Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think it just, you know, success is going to be unique to each client, right? Because every campaign is going to have different objectives, and so I think it's important at Litsky what we do is we sit down and we talk about, before we start a campaign, what does success look like? Because one client might be doing a regional campaign where they really want to focus hyper local on who are those influencers, what are those local affiliates, and those local hometown papers, or maybe there's a client that really just wants to push national broadcast. So I think it depends on really thinking about, obviously, driving sales is the pinnacle, that's important, but I think, you know, how are we going to drive those sales? Do we really want to focus on Instagram influencers and make sure that we're including swipe up links to drive to, whether it's Amazon or their own site? So I think in order for manufacturers not to be disappointed, you have to set what success looks like at the beginning with your agency partner so everyone is on the same page. And as you move the campaign forward, if maybe Instagram's not working and you want to switch platforms, or maybe you want to dial back from local TV and want to think more about national, or maybe you do want to dig into traditional media, you guys can do that in lockstep at the same time and you can start to pivot when the campaign might not be achieving the goals that you set at the onset.

Speaker 1: Campaigns need to be more flexible.

Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1: You need to pivot and move and adjust.

Speaker 3: And you need to have conversations with your agency partner in real time. And I think that's part of the agency's responsibility as well, is if we hit a stumbling block, we need to be transparent and talk about, so this isn't working, let's talk together about what would make sense, how do we change things? And because PR is only one piece of the marketing mix, you also have to take a look at what else are they doing, whether there's a digital partner or whether there's advertising that's turned on, and really think holistically about the campaign. Because sometimes it might not just be the PR, there might be some other things that you can tweak and then you can sort of reposition the campaign and everyone can move forward together.

Speaker 4: It reminds me of an old expression, which was, successes of many parents, failures are orphans. The truth is, if something works, it's not just because of the PR and it's not just because it's a great product. The opposite, of course, when a product fails, it's the product's fault. When it succeeds, it's the PR people's. Yes. It doesn't quite work that way. You need a great product. So that's part of it. Another part of it, what we have found, and one of the reasons it's exciting to be in PR, is we used to be an afterthought a little bit. What money's left over can go to PR? Tail wagging the dog. We are at the table now. And one of the reasons is you have to adapt quickly. We're in a world that now it's 15 minutes of fame, it comes and goes. PR can adapt much faster than advertising. So if you have to shift on the fly, we are used to doing that. And we can go out to an influencer and get a video up much more quickly than an ad agency can create new creative, get the spots on TV and get it out there. Like I said, it's an exciting time to be in the PR business.

Speaker 1: I'm now a manufacturer, and I think most manufacturers realize in today's world, you can put a product on a shelf or it's going on Amazon, and people are not just going to find it, especially with the larger companies they're promoting. So I need a PR firm, and I start interviewing. What should I be asking? What are the key questions to help identify which firm is right for me?

Speaker 3: I think that you have three different agencies represented on this panel, and each of us, we all are going to have very similar capabilities. So I think there's those standard questions you want to ask an agency about, do they specialize in a certain industry? What are their relationships like with traditional media and influencers? And maybe ask some strategic questions. But I think one of the most important questions to ask is culture questions, because I think you really want to find a fit with your agency that feels right. You're going to be working together, talking probably every day. Your teams have to feel that real sense of partnership and integration in order to hold hands and be successful together. And so I think on top of all of the standard business questions that you want to ask, you really want to make sure that you feel that there's a personality fit and a cultural fit with your agency partner, because I think that builds a really strong foundation for a lasting partnership.

Speaker 4: Well, Jocelyn, Kathleen, and I share the title of president. Ask who else is working on the account, because oftentimes, and there are some agencies that the big shots go in and sell it, and interns are doing the work. Yeah, I've seen that. Yeah, I've definitely seen that. I don't want to just meet you, Bruce, or you, Jocelyn, or you, Kathleen. Who's working the account? Who's the next level down? And what are their experience levels? What clients did you, you know, okay, so Freeman, you did Tickle Me Elmo. That's good. What are you doing now? Which of these might be conflicts? Give me an example of what you've done lately. It's evolving constantly. You have a reputation being great and traditional. Can you handle the influencer? And we say, well, look at all this influencer stuff we've done. But people necessarily know that. So you want to ask what's current and who's really doing the work? What's my role going to be? Am I going to ever speak with you again? That's crucial.

Speaker 2: Agree. It absolutely has to be a culture fit. When you develop a relationship with your agency, it's marriage. You have to have good communication. You have to have good chemistry. You just have to feel connected and enjoy working with those people and having those conversations. It's a must. It is absolutely a marriage. Absolutely agree that you need to really look at who are all the people on the team and do that in the interviewing process. Very important.

Speaker 1: Let's close out with this. I always like to hear about cool initiatives in PR. Over the last year, I'm sure you've all done something very special. What's the favorite thing you've done PR wise in the past year? And Kathleen, we'll start with you.

Speaker 2: I've got a good one. Most people are aware of one of the top influencers in the kids space, Mila and Emma Stoffer. They were just on the front cover of Parents Magazine. And we did an activation with them with Nordstroms and a stroller company. And the activation was to have them go into Nordstroms and look around at the different strollers and purchase our client's product. And it was on Instagram. We did, I think it was three stories, one post, and then a giveaway. According to our client, it was the single largest revenue producing activation that they had done all year. So that's my top one. Pretty good.

Speaker 4: Yeah. Bruce? I'm supposed to try and top that? Yeah. So I'm actually going in a slightly different area. Good. A lot of our clients have bells and whistles, cool toys, science kits that come alive with 5D. And those are kind of cool. The harder are some of the traditional wholesome product lines. So we have a product line of collectible for young girls. And what we did is we had a little event at a cafe in New York. It wasn't a big thing, but we actually flew in some influencers. We made sure there was a right mix of influencers that brought kids. The videos were showing kids interacting. And for a company that's hard for them to create magic, magic was created. And it was very successful. It moved the needle. And it also increased their number of fans. Because what we're trying to do is reach fans, broaden the number of people who are delivering our message. It's part of what's great about what we're doing now. It's not just a today show, but it's every customer is telling a message via social media. So it becomes important that way.

Speaker 3: And I think for my example, it's similar to Kathleen's, just really thinking about how to leverage the power of influencers. And so I'm going to step outside of the toy industry for a moment. Because I think a lot of what we've talked about is within this industry. But we have a client that makes family footwear. And they wanted to dabble in fashion and get a little bit more highbrow. And so they challenged us with a fashion program. And no one was sure if we could do it. But we were really proud of the fact that we created a two-pronged approach, leveraging micro and macro influencers with organic and sponsored content. And not only did we raise the awareness of this new collection for women's boots, but we actually sold out one of the items and crashed their website. So we felt like it was a wild success, even though it caused a little bit of chaos. It's good chaos. It's good chaos. And just thinking about the power of PR and how to drive sales, I think it was a win all

Speaker 2: around. One last comment about the power of PR. I think one of the most missed opportunities for companies to leverage the power of PR is showing your buyers, your current buyers and your potential buyers, even a deck of all of the hits and coverage that you are getting for the retailer, their category, your product inside their store.

Speaker 4: More and more of our clients are recognizing that PR is being demanded by the retailers. When Walmart sits down with you, they're not just asking, so what's your advertising by? What are you doing with PR? Who are you using? What influencer are you using? I want you guys to do this. So it's part of it now. It's not an add on. So if they're not taking our information and showing it to their buyers, their buyers want to know about it.

Speaker 1: So they should be Kathleen, Bruce, Jocelyn, thank you for being on shop talk. And don't forget to hit that red button to subscribe to shop talk and look for new episodes every month.