The Tipping Point

Malcom Gladwell defined the Tipping Point as, the name given to that one dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once. The Tipping Point has to be contagious, little effects of the Tipping Point must become big effects, and change has to happen at one drastic moment. To make our campaign, “One Team, One Spirit” “tip” we must emphasize the three rules of the Tipping Point: The Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. As a small campaign team, we need to use the famous word-of-mouth technique to better broadcast our plans for the athletic department this year. Most people will respond more to a person that they know, and are acquainted with, and will listen to what they have to say. This will allow us to implicate the word-of-mouth strategy. We all know so many people on campus, whether it is in our fraternities or student organizations, or the people we work with, so we need to start using our word of mouth to bring students to the games. We also have to use the stickiness factor, which says that repetition is the key to remembrance. Gladwell said, that a commercial has to be seen at least six times before anyone will remember it. We have to make sure that the events are posted out on campus, and placed through many means of communication, like facebook, twitter, the Colonnade, etc. so that the message will have gotten out there. Gladwell also made the point that viewers in the television shows weren’t just an audience, but had become participants. In our campaign, we are implementing crowd participation and that is the right direction towards making our campaign tip. The Power of Context, by Gladwell’s definition is that epidemics are sensitive to the conditions and circumstances of the times and places in which they occur. He says that you don’t have to solve big problems to solve a crime. Filling seats at the basketball games isn’t a big problem, we are just trying to solve an issue. Our job is to decide what will make students attend, and we created events to ensure this. Now we just have to use these tips to do so.
I think I am a Connector in society. Gladwell defines a connector as a person with a special gift for bringing the world together. I would like to see myself as that type of person. Connectors are known for the number of people, and the kinds of people they know. A connector must know a lot of people, and through many of my life experiences, I think I have embarked myself upon maintaining a large group of acquaintances and friends. I have met many people from being involved in my sorority, Delta Zeta, my church, my previously attended schools, and now my college environment. I feel like I am a very personable person, and I have never had a problem talking to someone I didn’t know or meeting someone anywhere I went. I hope to become a better connector. I also can see myself as being a Salesman. Salesmen are critical to the word of mouth epidemic and are persuaders of the unconvinced. I think I have great influence on my friends to be able to persuade them in a certain way. I think this is a great quality to have because I see great leaders as salesmen and see how they have swayed their crowd in a certain way.
I feel like our class as a whole has tipped regarding the use of twitter. At first we didn’t really understand how it worked or how we were going to implement it in the classroom, but now that we have gotten the hang of it, we have tipped! I think facebook has really “tipped” in the last couple of years, the use of that social media has grown so much and has been sculpted into a great tool. Everyone we know has a facebook and has opened the “connector” world, where some people now have at least 1000 friends to communicate with. I think I need some work on the blog part of our social media. I just haven’t gotten in the groove yet for it to have tipped.

PR Day

I really enjoyed our PR Day today at GCSU. I learned a variety of different perspectives of my field and enjoyed listening to the speakers portray their companies to us. My favorite speaker was Scott Hartman from Jackson/Spalding, an independent PR firm. Their company is located in Atlanta and they have a satelite campus in Athens. Some of their clients are: Orkin Pest Control, Delta SkyMiles, and Coca-Cola. I like that there are no titles at their firm. It makes me feel like they see all of their employees as equal. Scott told us the best way to find a job as he found, was cold calling. He said that you need a lot of media training, and you have to diversify yourself to achieve in the workplace. I really enjoyed his way of communicating, and how he had a great personality and made his presentation interesting.

P&G's Tide and Downy partner with Ann Taylor Loft

I was reading an article in PR week about P&G teaming up with Ann Taylor Loft to promote new Tide and Downy total care products. They are putting forth a 60 million dollar marketing effort and 10 million investment in PR to "align its new Tide and Downy total care products with fashion. They decided to partner with Ann Taylor Loft because 65% of their product is washable and the brand carries a similar psychographic. The PR team is working on joining promotions for Tide and Downy and also gained Jorge Ramon, celebrity stylist, as spokesperson. Tide Total Care has also tapped Project Runway star, Tim Gunn, who is also the chief director at Liz Claiborne, to represent the product.
I think this is a great initiative from P&G to partner up with Ann Taylor Loft. Ann Taylor is a well-known, established, successful name and will do P&G well working with them. They are taking the initiative to persuade fashion designers to create washable runway looks, suitable for everyone with a washing machine! I think this will also promote Ann Taylor Loft to business women who don't have time to get their clothes dry-cleaned.

The G1 smartphone

After reading an article in PRWeek, i learned that T-mobile and Google are teaming up to introduce the G1 Smartphone. It is the first smartphone to run on Google's Anaroid operating system. It was introduced at a press conference on September 23, to reporters and bloggers, and was also broadcast via podcasts and webcasts. T-mobile PR director, Peter Dobrow said, "Because consumers will not be able to buy the G1 until October 22, the next phase of outreach will focus on sustaining press interest by offering the device to top-tier journalists and bloggers for review."

I think this new phone will bring compeitition to the apple iPhone, because as quoted in the article, this new anaroid phone is "much more evolutionary." I also think that it is a great initiative to offer the G1 to the top tier journalists and bloggers because they are the ones that will make or break a product based on their reviews.

I am interested to see how the G1 competes with the iPhone.

Coke Zero targets 007 fans

I was reading the business section of the ajc from Saturday's paper and I noticed an article that Coke Zero was teaming up with the new James Bond movie, "Quantum of Solace" that will open in the U.S. November 14th. Coke will temporarily re-brand Coke Zero as "Zero Zero 7" and a new logo will be on the bottles. The campaign will also feature a facebook tie in and a text messaging promotion taht offers a chance to win Bond themed prizes. Coke is specifically targeting the male population and Coke Zero's volume has grown from 42.5 million gallons to 370 million gallons last year! This is an excellent example of Coke using PR as a benefit for their company. They are targeting towards a specific audience and using the Bond film is a great idea to grow popularity of Coke Zero.

press release grader!!!

after reading Robin Wilson's blog, AGAIN... (my new found love) I found that he blogged on a specific tool called the Press Release Grader. It grades your press releases and gives you a grade based upon factors from public relations experts. It evaluates them and gives you a marketing effectiveness score. This tool would be really helpful to our class to get an alternate opinion when writing our press releases becuase no matter how many times you proof read something, you still can miss errors!

Save the Honey Bees!

I was reading Robin Wilson's blog (the head of PR at McCann Erickson) and it was really interesting. It is called Genius Social Media Campaign from Haagaen Dazs to save the honey bee. It includes a short video that Haagen Dazs created to raise awareness of the depletion of the honey bees. Not only is it hilarious, it is also informative. Also if you click on the Haagen Daz website, it reveals the new Vanilla Honey Bee icecream and their mission to bring the bees back!