ME00025 – Talking PR and social with Steven LeVine
Steven Le Vine is founder and president of grapevine pr, which he launched in 2006. A gifted and well-respected media influencer, Steven blends his acute sense of what sells with his intense skill to spin creative story ideas, bringing his clients vast exposure in countless top-tier media outlets, including everything from The Hollywood Reporter and The New York Post’s “Page Six” to The Wall Street Journal and CNN. All of this culminates into meticulously crafted, large-scale campaigns that target influential demographics.
As a recurring voice in various lifestyle and marketing publications, Steven has covered topics ranging from publicity to the arts. Steven enjoys the stark contrast between pop culture and high culture, which allows him the ability to view different audiences and to understand how best to position clients before them. Steven resides in Los Angeles.
We talk about:
- How PR and Marketing are coming together
- Social Media
- Blogging/Blogging relations
- And a lot more!
Contact us:
- http://marketingelementsblog.com
- @timgoleman
- tim@marketingelementsblog.com
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Lady Gaga: From Monster Musician to Marketeer
The biggest question most singer-songwriters ever have to contend with is when and how they will get signed to a major record label. For Lady Gaga, however, that was only the start to her already iconic career.
Now that Lady Gaga has already fought and won that battle victoriously, and quickly become the new darling of the entertainment world — potentially, even albeit temporarily taking Madonna’s spotlight — she has reached a new tier — that of a shrewd businesswoman, chiefly engaged in the endorsement and design of various products.
Arguably, in order for Gaga to have ever reached this upper echelon in celebrity status, she would have had to be a marketing genius all along. But regardless of who got her to this point, her most important issue now is whether she can stay there. And therein lies the balance between popular musician and smart salesperson. Lady Gaga’s talent (along with a few others) can and will be argued, but if she knows how to market herself, she will have no issues propelling her career further, or at least maintaining it.
And so far she seems to be doing a pretty damn good job of it. While other entertainment figures slap their name on the predictable flowery perfume or cosmetics line — Gaga seems to choose her endorsement deals just as wisely as her inimitable outfits. Whether she’s designing them or not, they have so far been boundary-pushing products in the worlds of technology and fashion, exactly the same image she has been trying to portray for the past two years. This is precisely why it is working for her. Because her collaborations align with the image she is trying to sell of herself.
Let’s take a look at exactly the products to which she has chosen to sign her name.
Last January, Lady Gaga helped to design Monster’s new Heartbeats by Lady Gaga High-Performance In-Ear Headphones. In one fell swoop, Lady Gaga brilliantly dotted her i’s and crossed her t’s on a product that only expanded her image. For one, she not only teamed up with a leader in audio/video accessories, but one that shared the same name as her new song at the time, “Monster,” from “The Fame Monster,” which she then began to use (at least for the time being) as the new moniker for her beloved fans. Hence, making her fans feel even more of a part of her image, and needing to buy her headphones that share the same title as them.
Next, what better product to collaborate on than one that enhances the audio experience of others and gives the public another way to hear your music, in addition to a fashion-forward electronic product? In addition to looking cool, the Heartbeats headphones boasted loud, high-performance sound without distortion; extreme clarity and deep bass; and a design that reduces external noise. And lastly, when these Heartbeats headphones were released, the company teamed up with (RED) to support AIDS programs in Africa — not only helping Lady Gaga build her charitable image, but also aligning with a charity that is near and dear to the hearts of the LGBT community, one of her biggest allies and supporters.
Lady Gaga Heartbeats headphones
Shortly thereafter, Lady Gaga lent her name to a new line of lipstick, Viva Glam, by MAC Cosmetics, another brand innovator, which donated proceeds to once again fight HIV and AIDS. Not only was Gaga able to “buy” herself more publicity time, but through her efforts, she was able to team up with Cyndi Lauper, another groundbreaking musician with whom she has been compared. In addition, she once again collaborated on a product that was fashion-forward and unique, but which backed an important message.
Lady Gaga/Cyndi Lauper "Viva Glam" Campaign
And most recently, in quite possibly her biggest and most ingenious synergy yet, a year following Gaga being named as Polaroid’s Creative Director, she joined with Polaroid to announce the brand’s new Grey Label, a line of three state-of-the-art gadgets that merge fashion and technology. The Grey Label includes an instant digital camera with built-in-printer, an instant mobile printer and in what could be the epitome of a Gaga design collaboration, camera sunglasses.
Polaroid Camera Sunglasses
So why can Gaga get away with launching or endorsing new products, when other celebrities flop?
“I think that when a celebrity chooses to collaborate with a major company to create a product, they do so in an effort to create something relevant to their image,” says Stephen Lucin of Intercontinental Style, a PR consulting firm. “I think Lady Gaga is doing it here with Polaroid. She has, in the past, worn trendy glasses consistent now with the idea of photo-capable sunglasses.
“In regard to other celebrities, I think only a handful have succeeding in creating products consistent with their image or their fan base. It’s important for a celebrity to think, ‘How is this product consistent with my image, talent or profession?’ Those who can figure that out are the ones who are sure to succeed. And Lady Gaga is one of those celebrities. These soon-to-be released products are consistent with both her image and her persona.”
The main question to be asked is whether Lady Gaga can and will be able to continue these types of joint ventures, and just how many she can successfully launch without over-saturating the market with endorsement deals. The public’s attention span is pretty limited, and they seem to only remember your last endeavor. So she needs to be careful not to taint her image with even one bad deal, or else she starts all over again. But there’s no question she has the marketing talent in her, and that will surely keep her successful in the public eye.
“I consider myself to be a visionary, not just a songwriter and a singer. I am an artist,” said Lady Gaga. “I brought my vision and love of fashion, technology and obsession with the future into all of my work with Polaroid.” I think that about says it all.
Starbucks’ New Logo: Branding Blunder or Genius Maneuver?
This week, coffee titan Starbucks did something it hasn’t done since 1992. It changed its logo. But that wasn’t the biggest story. The biggest story was that the brand removed its trademark “Starbucks Coffee” wordmark that has encircled the centerpiece of the logo — a siren — since 1971.
Starbucks through the years...
My first thought was: “This was a very wrong move for Starbucks. They have just wrecked their iconic image — one that they have been building steadily for the past couple of decades.” I questioned whether anyone would be able to tell that this new logo represented Starbucks, and more importantly, that they would even recognize it.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I realize that one of the truly significant leaps a brand can make is to move to a wordless logo. But even more so, I realize that in order to do so, a brand has to be ready — meaning, the public has to be ready to embrace this logo. Apple has done it successfully. They have built a culture around their trademark white apple logo. But that’s because the company’s name is an apple. The same goes for Target. But, how does a siren represent Starbucks Coffee?
Surprisingly, when I polled a random sample of 20 people, much to my chagrin, all were able to recognize it as Starbucks. Even more surprisingly, although they recognized it, they were also fairly confused as to why it was done and still were unsure of how this siren represented the brand.
“I personally think that on its own, it looks just a tad odd – perhaps because I’m so used to how it is at the moment, and we can’t assume that areas less populated by Starbucks will automatically recognize the logo as well as those in large cities or in Seattle.” said Raven Harrell, an interactive media and web designer from Seattle. “On the other hand, I give Starbucks props for taking a step towards a wordless logo.”
Robert Padbury, director of design and user experience for Stipple Inc., agreed: “I think this is a great move. I don’t think that having the words “Starbucks Coffee” surrounding the logo is necessary anymore, because Starbucks is such a ubiquitous brand. I also think this will help the image of Starbucks, because the logo now stands on it’s own, resulting in a much more powerful presentation.”
But Jason Frazier, the owner of Jason Frazier Creative Design, countered that: “I don’t know that the refresh was necessarily a ‘smart’ move – or that it’s necessarily a move ‘forward.’ … I’m not too fond of the new look, but my main issue with it is aesthetic: it’s looks somewhat unfinished and containing less depth — almost like clip-art. The original felt very solid, and the fact that it contained the company name, to me, is what helps makes the more powerful statement.”
Whatever the case is, the general consensus seems to be one of acceptance, but not one of loving embrace. Starbucks’ reason for its logo change was to get away from being seen as a coffee brand, and to expand a bit more on its products and culture. Yet, one of the essential elements to smart marketing is never to spread your brand’s image too thin by expanding too far and losing sight of what made your brand iconic in the first place — in this case, coffee.
What will remain to be seen is just how this new expansion will affect Starbucks’ branding. It’s completely bold and daring, considering Starbucks is known as the juggernaut of coffeehouses, but it could just work if the brand’s marketing department is smart and play their cards right.
What do you think of Starbucks’ new logo change?
Facebook’s One Account Policy Should End
I have a beef with Facebook’s one account policy. Granted I know nothing will come of it but I have to vent. I really think Facebook needs to do away with its one account policy for several reasons.
The first is they should allow brands to have profile to manage pages. I have been consulting and have had clients that have a Page, but it’s not clear who created it, who has admin rights. If they had companies with a profile you could manage it and have it directly under the company. An example of this one of my current clients has two Facebook pages, and we created a new one for this exact reason. But, the customer service is so bad at Facebook that we have been unable to delete this other account. If you have been in the so called help of Facebook its virtually impossible to find where to contact someone and when you do you never hear back from them. Now, if you spend around $12K a month you get an account exec but I don’t know many that spend near that on Facebook.
The second is for gaming. Ok, I know many of you out there HATE, and I mean HATE Farmville. I see people gripe about it all the time. What if people can create a profile just for gaming? I have and play Farmvile, yes I drank the koolaide, and it send out more notifications then anything else. It would be awesome to do a profile just for that. Our friend wouldn’t have to see it and you can remain a closet Farmville player. Then you can find other gamers and have them on that account. It would be smart and have less people complaining about it. But in the mean time just click the hide notifications from stream on you wall!
The last reason is with the growth of social media, it’s always good to divide up your professional and personal life. Facebook used to be only friends, but as it grows and grows many more of my friends in the business are allowing more business contacts. It would be great to have two profiles to have one for business and one for friends and family. The privacy, I don’t think, will ever be where you can really customizable. If they do it, it will be so complex that no one will be able to do it. Other social networks don’t have the same restrictions such as Twitter, Buzz, and such. I have two twitter accounts one for business and one for personal.
I would love to see Facebook relax this standard, but at times I don’t know what Facebook is doing or their reasons behind it. I have a feeling that they maybe the next Microsoft if they don’t put some reasoning behind their actions. Just when you get used to it they change it, over and over again. I saw on twitter they are looking at putting a new button on Facebook, I just rolled my eyes and
Atlatnta Integrative Marketing Summit Recap
I attended the Atlanta Integrative Marketing Summit (AIMS) the other week. I know I have been meaning to post this, but haven’t actually sat down and made myself type. Well, it’s Thanksgiving day and while waiting for the food to be done, I decided to type a few blog entries.
I really liked the speakers this year and they ranged from Corporate to Agency people. It was great got see both sides and how they view marketing. I learned a great deal at the conference. The attendance wasn’t as big as last year, but I think the quality of speaker improved this year.
The first speaker was Michael Cerill, Integrated Marketing & Brand Strategy for Navistar. The case he presented was about how to reinvigorate a mature brand. They wanted to revitalize their trucking business and set out to do it. They accomplished it by doing some amazing things. The basics of the talk was:
Craft a Bold Vision
- Navistar creating a brand new truck never before seen accomplished this. The truck was redesigned to catch attention and the campaign was built around it.
- A listening tour was conducted to get consumer research
- The organization needed a change and react to a redefining market
- New Ideas had to be bold, confident and innovative
Base Decisions on Customer Insights
- Customers were consulted and they found out what exactly they wanted in a truck. Then they took that information and built a truck.
- They came up with style, comfort and fuel efficiency out of these talks.
Drive passion at every touch point.
- Created a trucker advocate
- Created a documentary “Bring the Pride Back to Trucking”
- Reinvented the Trade Show – This included going to the Chicago Auto Show, which is not a trucking industry event. The spill over got them mainstream press
- Created a blog, Life on the Road, which is run by an industry expert.
- Teamed up with Harley Davidson to create a special edition truck
The results of the campaign are that they had a 15-22% market share that is expected to grow to 25% the end of 2009. It was really great to see how a mature brand can reinvent itself and come back stronger then before.
Voce Communications – Sony Playstation
The next speaker was Josh Hallett, New Media Strategies at Voce Communications. He spoke specifically on the Sony Playstation and how they came back from a major blunder in social media that happened to Sony and the release of the PSP.
The blunder was that Sony created a blog for the Sony PSP portable gaming device. It was written like it was two teens, but turned out to be two Sony employees. The backlash was instant. Most consumers felt betrayed and didn’t trust the brand.
Josh was faced with the task of turning consumer opinions around and making Sony a player in the gaming social media world. So here is what they did:
- Created a new blog for Sony’s Gaming Ventures
- The purpose was to involve the community
- Started posting about the CES Trade Show, which comments started to come in, and continued posting relevant content.
- Developed a commenting process called redlining in the WordPress blogging platform
- This allowed the team to comment on any comment right where it was rather then having it buried on at the bottom of the page.
- The redline process allowed them to talk directly to readers and have other readers see the answer
- Now, they have said reader’s look for these red lines when reading comments. The more redlines the more readers and comments they receive
- This function is now standard in the WordPress platform its called Author reply.
- Engaging Readers
- Constantly doing Polls
- Quick updates – the top area of the blog which gives readers quick info.
- Have the social media easy to find under the Find Us section.
- Do 3-5 posts per day
- Created a separate European blog
- Measuring social media
- Delicious reflects participation of readers
- Viddler – A video sharing site gives you more analytics then YouTube
- Radiant 6 – measuring share o f voice
- Measuring social media can be done but it’s a labor-intensive process. I hope to have more about that soon on the blog.
The results were the consumers now trust Sony and it has become one of the most popular gaming sites on the web.
The third speaker was Sally Harberson, from Southwest airlines. Their challenge was flying into NYC. They were launching their service into an already busy market. How could they get their service to stand out, with so many other carriers?
They created the Southwest Porch at Bryant Park in the Southwest corner, of course, where else would it be! The concept had minimal corporate branding. Craft restaurants, the restaurants by Tom Colicchio of Top Chef, did part of the partnership. This porch concept became an instant hit of people in NYC. The porch played a major role in the promotion of Southwest.
Traditional Launch tactics were used as well
- Promotions
- In Airport Opening festivities
- Press conference
- Community service event
- Partnered with NYSE to ring the opening bell
- Employee party.
- Southwest Porch
New Ways of Promotion
- Blogger relations
- Nuts About Southwest – Corporate blog
- Held executive chats at the Porch
- Had the entire marketing staff work a week in the park just talking to people
The Porch got publicity and partnerships
- Had artists from Sony Music come play in the park
- An Ad agency had an event to host potential advertisers
- Developed a partnership with the Marriott at Bryant Park.
- Received coverage in Skymall magazine
- Partnership with Chase Visa
- Participated in Hispanic Heritage month.
- People in the area came down from their offices out of curiosity of what was going on.
The Porch was so successful that the porch will be there till 2011, a year longer then the original plan.
The last speaker was David Smith, Chief Creative Officer from RPA. He presented two case studies from Honda. He also talked about media fragmentation and how to engage consumers.
The agency created the Civic Project. The project was to bring together Civic fans. They did this by launching it with no mainstream media purchases. It was done completely with interactive and new media components.
The campaign created six degrees of separation from you and other Civic lovers. The website was very interactive and tied in with Facebook. It was a social site just for Honda lovers. Once signed up they could see how many people they were connected to, in the US and through out the world.
They also created a musical highway in California. When the Civic drove over the road it played the William Tell Overture. This proved so popular that many people drove down it up to 5 times. The city it was built in considered it a nuisance, and repaved the road, but soon found out it was a good tourist draw and recreated it on a less traveled road.
The Honda Brand Campaign consisted of:
- Don’t be afraid
- Be Smart
- Get Emotional
- There’s something for everyone
- Its never too late
The campaign solidified the Civic core customers and created a community.
The whole even was a great event and I really enjoyed going. I hope the next one is just as in formative. I also want to say Dr. Ken Berhard from GSU did a great job as moderator. If you are in the Atlanta area next year, GO!
New Gary Vaynerchuk Key Note
I think he says a lot of things, that I agree with, especially the TV is going to change. Remember this is probably NSFW. But, regardless if you agree or not, it gets you thinking!
Apple’s Snow Leopard Low Price and does Vista suck?
Apple announced many new items as the Key Note speech yesterday. Apple is known for it’s product launches. It has set up a few dates around the year they use to make very big announcements. Yesterday, they released new laptops, iPhone 3.0 software, Snow Leopard preview and the new iPhone 3GS, which is the most advanced iPhone yet, but that’s not what I want to talk about. It’s more the new operating system.
Microsoft and Apple have been fighting it out over the last few years. The Mac vs. PC commercials have been some of the best around. They are always entertaining, but Microsoft has hit back with the “I am a PC” and the Laptop Hunter ads.
Now, the OS wars is getting a little more serious. The new OS for Mac will be out in September and will upgrade speed and reduce size of the OS. It has been said by Apple each computer will get 6 GB more space on the hard drive. Which to a lot of people will be welcome space.
Apple is constantly trying to get people to switch to the Mac platform. This was started with the Switch ads they had a few years ago, and continue with the current ads with the Vista mentions. Snow Leopard will have out of the box Exchange Server support. Which means when you plug in the computer you put in your email and password and everything else is done for you automatically. There is no more lengthy installations and remembering all the technical jargon. The Mail (the Mac email client), iCal and Address Book will all be ready to go on the Exchange Server. I would also assume this will work with Entourage (MS’s Outlook for the Mac). This will make a lot of people consider Mac’s for their next computer.
What is the most interesting part of the announcement yesterday is the price. Whereas, Leopard debuted at $129 back in October of 2007. Yes I know this because I was one of the many standing in line that day to get it. This operating system will retail for $29. Which in the world of computers is a really low price!
Microsoft is about to unveil the pricing for Windows 7, but not sure how this Apple pricing will affect the overall price. Microsoft has about 90% of the worlds operating systems. The last operating system was released about two years ago and has been a disappointment to many people, and been the target of ads by Apple. In the next few weeks, we’ll see what the pricing will be for the OS.
Microsoft has listened in the past to consumers. Many have felt the Office suite was way too expensive for the average home user. They then released a scaled down version for around $150 that could be installed onto three computers. The scaled down version just has Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. The Outlook doesn’t have Exchange server support, but for the average user it is a feature you won’t miss.
What will this new pricing do to the penetration of the Mac OS? Right now it’s unsure, but if Apple keeps up with this pricing, it bet you will see it affect the Windows market share.
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