A Night in Treme came to San Francisco

Music from the acclaimed HBO series Treme raised the roof of Davies Symphony Hall this past Friday night as part of SFJazz. The beloved Rebirth Brass Band, trumpeter Kermit Ruffins, clarinetist Dr. Michael White, Alto saxophone star Donald Harrison Jr. and trombonist Big Sam Williams brought the sell-out crown to their feet and kept them moving for several hours.

Everyone felt the infectious beat. Jazz-lovers were swinging their arms and dancing in the aisles. Sixty or so guests clamored on stage to shake their booties in rythym to the music. A number of fancy, sparkly umbrellas were raised and a Second Line formed. When it was over, people were wasted but happy and energized.

It was so much fun! A perfect example of pure physical activity, which got me thinking. Why do people generally associate physical activity with that dreaded word, exercise? Why do parents drive their children to school, then rush off to the gym? We walk our dogs but wheel our toddlers in strollers. And we wonder why there is a prevalence of childhood obesity.

I was talking about how to promote physical activity the other day with an educator who works with preschoolers. She said that she had asked dozens of children how they knew that their Mommys and Daddys loved them. The answer in every single case was the same. "I know my Mommy and my Daddy love me because they play with me."

We need to focus more on having fun playing with our children and worry less about running on the treadmill.
It's advice I'm going to take myself.

~ Paula

Marketing and Neuroscience - a Match Made in Heaven

Imagine that you're walking through the grocery store snack aisle and you pick a bag of tortilla chips over the bag of pretzels. You chose the tortilla chips because you like the taste better than the pretzels, right?

That may have been your conscious decision, but your brain was busy making a million other subconscious observations while you were debating which product tastes better. You probably picked the chips over the pretzels for a reason you weren’t even consciously aware of, but marketers spending big bucks to analyze your brain waves, blood flow and eye movements sure are.

Our brains process 11 million bits of information every second, and only 40 bits of that information is processed consciously. Conscious deliberation really is the exception rather than the rule. With unrelenting competition in the marketplace, companies are anxious to find out exactly how to get consumers to choose their products and are teaming up with neuroscientists to get to the root of the matter.

Neuroscience is the indirect measure of a person’s response, either about things people don’t want to reveal or to factors people aren’t aware of or don’t realize have influenced them. The various tools measure attention, emotion and memory, and marketers are applying the scientific findings to branding, product development, packaging design, advertising and in-store displays.

The presenters shared some “neurological best practices” for advertising, and since I don’t have access to the funds it takes to hook up our target audiences to brain wave machines, I found the tips to be particularly helpful.

General audience: 

• Images on the left and text on the right are easier for our brain to process


• Minimize visual clutter


• Use interesting fonts and font treatments, but none that are too difficult to process


• Lead with emotion


• Motion, novelty, error, ambiguity and simple puzzles capture attention


• Use as many senses as possible


• Emphasize your product’s link to the natural world


• Embed the product

Women . . .

• Are attracted to images of women in groups, especially when they are shown enjoying a shared activity


• Engage faster with faces that are looking directly at them


• Process language more fluently then men, so text-based ads work

 Men are . . .

• Impulsive shoppers, so short and focused messages work well


• Attracted to images of advancement and success


• Attracted to spatial imagery

 ~ Nicole

What Drives Me Crazy About Clients in PR

When someone retains a PR firm they do so because they want to get attention for themselves, a product, their organization or an issue . . . right?

Here are some real life cases that just make a PR professional want to scream. 

1)       I opened up a trade magazine to a section devoted to a particular sector of an industry. I looked for my client, a leader in that sector, and they were nowhere to be found. I called up the editor to ask what gives, why did he leave my client out? He tells me that we called and left several messages with my client, but that my client never returned his calls. So I get on the phone to my client and asked about the calls, thinking to myself that there must have been a breakdown in communications and he never received the messages. It turns there wasn’t a breakdown, my client had received the messages, but he was ‘busy’ (yeah right, for over a week!) and just didn’t get around to returning the call. OMG – You’ve got to be kidding!!

2)     A client is holding a special event for underprivileged children and wants to get some publicity. I told them that I’ll send out the release listing them as the contact and to expect to get phone calls. The next day, I asked how many calls he had received. He says, “One.” I say, “Only one? That’s odd.” And he says, “Well, after the first call I didn’t feel like talking to anyone else so I turned off my phone.” AHHHH!!!

3)     I did a little pro bono work for a charter school whose charter was up for renewal so they wanted to get some publicity before their hearing. So I send out a news release that draws the attention of National Public Radio. They contacted the principal because they wanted to come to the school and do some interviews with teachers. The principal's response, “Oh, I can’t have that! It would be too disruptive for the students.” JUST SHOOT ME NOW!

     Unfortunately, these are just a few of my stories like this. For all the good work that PR pros can do for their clients, the clients can still be their own worst enemy and in just a few seconds take all your good work and flush it right down the drain. So if you’ve ever had something like one of these happen to you, you are not alone. And when it happens to you the first time, rest assured, it won’t be your last.

    Ken

Who Needs PR When You Have Mom?

It isn’t uncommon to see a blank stare when I respond “Public Relations” when someone asks me what I do for a living. Yes, I know. It’s an all-encompassing word and for most, they either have a negative perception of what they think it is or they simply don’t know what it is. So here’s how I’ve explained it.

Think of your mom. She is the ultimate multitasker and communicator. She’s able to do dishes, have a conversation and flip through her planner, all while soothing a crying toddler from a fall. She is your cheerleader and your biggest fan. But all too often, she’s the one backstage making things happen while you’re in the spotlight. No one blinks at the dinner she puts on the table or when she stays home to take care of you when you’re sick. And let’s talk about how she made you feel about that project you excitedly brought from school because well, of course, it’s the most amazing piece of glued pasta ever made!

Public relations is exactly like that. You have to have a whole toolbox of skills, build relationships and not to mention, do crisis communications on the fly. You’ve seen them – PR folks on TV (or moms everywhere) with their hair a little messy because their day has suddenly turned into a hectic series of events. But it takes skill to be able to take control and get everyone calm and doing what they’re supposed to do.  It’s complex and filled with many deadlines. But the rewards can be great and satisfying. It’s why I love PR – and why we all love our moms and what they do.

A tribute to moms everywhere.

Happy Mother’s Day!

~Muriel

See Rome and Live... Healthier

I just got back from Italy, and while we were there, I noticed that people, in general, are definitely thinner. Here's some of the factors I attributed this to:

• Much more walking. High gas prices and very little parking mean that people walk more to get to where they want to go.
• No fast food chains. Yes, they do have McDonald’s, Burger King and others, but not on every corner as seems to be the case in the U.S. In their place are cafes, hundreds of them, that serve coffee every way you can imagine, freshly made sandwiches, pastry and gelato. I didn’t see a single fried item the entire time in Italy.
• Sodas? Yes, Coke and all its friends were everywhere, but not in your face as it seems in the U.S. And I didn’t see a lot of people drinking them.

While I don’t eat very much fast food and drink very little soda, it always amazes me that there are so many people who can’t seem to live without their daily fast food/soda fix. (I've read stats that say the average American eats fast food as much as six times a week and average soda consumpstion as high as a 1/2 gallon a day!) In Italy I saw an entire country of people who are apparently doing just fine without massive intakes of fast food and/or soda.

So what drives Americans to eat enormous amounts of fast food washed down with copious quantities of sugary drinks? Have we fallen prey to big business’s fast food advertising? When traveling or in a hurry, is it easier to get a burger, fries and a soda or a freshly made sandwich with some fruit and water? In Italy, it seems they have opted for the later. Why can’t we do it here as well? It seems we would all be better off if we did.

Ken

A Step in the Right Direction -- Getting Rid of High Fructose Corn Syrup

In Arlo Guthrie’s old song from the late 60s, you would have heard that you can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant, but not so anymore. On a recent trip to Half Moon Bay, my husband and I stopped off for breakfast at Alice’s Restaurant in Woodside. I was pleasantly surprised to find an excerpt from the Half Moon Bay Review dated March 23, 2011, entitled “Alice’s swaps corn syrup for real sugar.”

According to the article, the owners of the restaurant have gotten rid of all the traditional sodas such as Coke and 7-Up and replaced them with natural sodas that don’t contain high fructose corn syrup. The change was prompted by their concerns about the obesity epidemic. Not only have they put an end to high fructose corn syrup in their offerings, but they have replaced unhealthy foods with organic, locally sourced products. They’ve even brought in a pastry chef who uses organic flour and less processed sugar.

Though some of their other changes have resulted in a 30-40% increase in prices, their new natural sodas produced using beet sugar cost them half the price. Wouldn’t it be nice to see more businesses opt to go in this direction? By cutting into the profits of Big Soda, maybe it would force them to produce a better product, one that consumers will consider a special treat and not their sole daily intake of liquids.

So even if you can’t get everything you want at Alice’s Restaurant anymore, you can now get a better-for-you soda.

Sharron


 

State Soda Tax Could Be Lifeboat for Fiscally Strapped Counties

For cash-strapped counties struggling to fund vital programs, the state’s proposed soda tax (AB 669-Monning) could be a lifeboat, according to a new county-by-county analysis of how that revenue would be returned to local communities. The proposed penny an ounce tax on sugary beverages would raise an estimated $1.7 billion annually in California. The bulk of those funds – 85 percent or $1.4 billion – would be returned to counties proportional to their population to pay for education and children’s health programs.

“Local communities will be the direct beneficiaries of a soda tax,” explains Dr. Harold Goldstein of the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, which conducted the study to better understand how the monies will be allocated. “A soda tax would return about $233 per student in the county to programs aimed at protecting the health and well-being of children. That’s a smart investment.”

Local schools will be the biggest winners of a soda tax, with about 60 percent of local funds going to the classroom and an additional 20 percent to help pay for improvements to physical education and provide nutritious school meals. AB 669 also carves out another 20 percent of the local funds to pay for local children’s programs like youth sports and afterschool programs.

To learn more about the study and see how much money would go to your county, visit the CCPHA website at: www.publichealthadvocacy.org/revenuestudy.html