The Insider Q4 2009

On behalf of Maroon PR, I'd like to welcome you to the latest edition of our quarterly E-Newsletter, which provides different perspectives from professionals within our industry and all things Maroon PR.

August 2009 was one of the busiest months in Maroon PR's history, with numerous events, press conferences and campaigns taking place throughout the United States. Each event was fun and rewarding and we're very fortunate to be able to work with such great clients. We plan on keeping the momentum going through the end of the year.

We hope you find The Insider entertaining and informative and that you will continue to visit MaroonPR.com to stay in touch with everything our firm's involved with throughout the year. If you have any suggestions for how we can improve the newsletter, please let us know.

Sincerely,

John Maroon, President

1. You have tremendous experience doing public relations for sports clients, but at Coyne PR, you work with various clients and not just sports anymore. What responsibilities do you have for all of these different clients that Coyne represents?

That all depends on the client, to be honest. For some, it could be a new product launch that they’re looking to create brand awareness for, and we’ve done that for everything from food to extended warranty services. For others, it’s creating brand awareness or even changing public perception, which we’ve been lucky enough to work on with the internal PR team at the Harlem Globetrotters for the past few years.

Even the so-called “sports” clients we work with now, for the most part, are specifically looking for coverage outside of sports. So for clients like the Globetrotters, and the USTA’s community tennis division, so much of our outreach is actually focused on family/parenting and lifestyle media, where the important “gatekeepers” for those brands are.

2. As a senior level executive, do you still utilize your media contacts to personally pitch media outlets, or are you more focused with business development in your current role?

Yes and yes. I still pitch media for the clients I work with just about every single day, and working in a senior role you do need to also try and build the business on behalf of the agency and your co-workers — especially over this past year, when there was a lot of economic uncertainty around the country. I think we all felt some self-imposed pressure to keep our business strong, and we were very fortunate in that we held pretty steady through a tough period and have actually begun to experience a nice bit of growth in the last few months.

So I do a fair amount of business development, but we’re lucky in that the agency has a great business development team that focuses solely on that area and nothing else; that takes a lot of the pressure that I think might exist at some other agencies off of us and allows us to focus more on servicing the clients we have as well as possible.

3. You were a spokesman for the NBA from 1995-2000. What was that experience like, being the voice of a major professional sports league, and what challenges did you have to face?

I was one of a few primary spokespeople, the main one being my boss at the time and one of my real mentors, Brian McIntyre. It was an interesting experience — lots of fun at times, very stressful at others. I always said that if you were seeing my name in the paper attached to a league quote, it usually wasn’t good news, so I can’t say I looked forward to having to speak in response to an issue.

There are times I almost wish...almost...that I could go back and do that time over. I don’t know if I could, because that job takes an enormous amount of time, and I had the benefit of lots of youthful energy then. But I do feel like now that I know so much more — having worked in smaller sports like soccer, and definitely working at an agency — that I’d be much better at that job now than I was then. I’ve talked to other former team and league PR people about that, including John Maroon, and every one of us feels that way. Some of that comes with age and experience, but a lot of it comes from being exposed to working in different industries and with different kinds of clients.

If you’re not careful, you can get very tunnel-visioned working for a league or team; you can easily get bogged down in day-to-day media servicing, which is hugely important, but not at the expense of seeing a bigger picture or some unique opportunities. I understand why that often happens, because that existence is often a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week commitment, where you’re constantly on call in case something of importance develops. Plus, that “something” would often happen at odd times of the night when you’d normally be sleeping, or might be out to dinner with your wife or friends. Tough gig.

4. Social media has been an extraordinary tool for PR professionals to promote their clients. What's an example of a recent social media campaign you've done for a client and what were the results?

Agreed; I think it’s completely changed the news industry and the PR industry, and I feel very lucky that my team is comprised of young, really smart people who are very fluent in social media and have been able to educate me.

They were the ones, who came up with the idea to conduct dedicated outreach to mommy bloggers on behalf of the USTA to create awareness for their new playing format for kids, QuickStart Tennis (which shrinks the game down to size for kids ages 6-10 in much the same way that t-ball does for baseball).

Because moms are very involved in deciding what extracurricular activities their children get involved in, we conducted outreach to more than 30 leading mommy bloggers to see if they’d be interested in finding out more about QuickStart, as well as Jr. Team Tennis (where parents are welcome to participate as coaches and team leaders, and where boys and girls play on the same team according to their ability levels). We incentivized them with equipment so that they could try it out with their own kids, and also gave them a set of equipment they could give away to their readers as a way to engage their audience.

The response from the moms was overwhelmingly positive, as they are always looking for fun, safe activities they can take part in with their kids; the response from their readers was also enthusiastic, and resulted in lots of linked traffic to the QuickStart website in search of programs in their areas, as well as great conversation and awareness among moms about a playing format they didn’t know anything about before.

It went so well, that the USTA, for the first time this year, hosted an editor's event for other leading mommy bloggers at the US Open, giving them a chance to try out the format with their kids at the National Tennis Center and then, after about 90 minutes of fun with that, a chance to watch Rafael Nadal and Venus Williams in action from a suite at Arthur Ashe Stadium. And every one of them posted on their blogs within days that they were going to find a program in their area for their kids to play QuickStart tennis.

We’ll probably extend that program even further this year around the USTA’s national youth registration night initiative in early spring.

5. You've transitioned from working for professional sports teams and organizations to working for an agency (as did Maroon PR President John Maroon). What types of things did you have to learn in your new environment, and what things from your previous experiences helped you in your new position?

Most of the things I had to learn were mostly administrative types of adjustments — accounting for every minute worked on behalf of a client, for one thing. And the rhythms of an agency are very different from those of a league office or a team, where you’re ultimately working on behalf of one client, rather than four or five at a time.

The thing is, though, I realized after a while it also wasn’t that different from what I’d done before. You might work for a team, but you might have four or five internal clients within that team — marketing, ticket sales, community relations, player personnel, the players themselves, etc. Not to mention the beat media you’re working with and servicing. So time management wasn’t as difficult an adjustment as I thought it might be.

There’s also a sense of urgency from working in pro sports that you get conditioned to and I think that always stays with you, and I feel very lucky to have experienced that. News happens very much in real time in sports, and you have to be able to think fast, react fast, and plan quickly. Having had that experience for so many years, I’m actually very comfortable when things get really hectic now.

It was a fantastic training ground for me, and I know how lucky I was to work for and around some really smart people, and to have met some wonderful people within the media who I remain close to today. A lot of them helped educate me when I was first starting out, and they forgave me when I made my (many) mistakes. I’m incredibly grateful for their wisdom.

This quarter, Maroon PR tracked down Eric Fisher, staff writer for Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal. Fisher covers baseball, digital media and technology.

There’s still no secret or magic formula for executing Good PR. Just like us journalists on the other side of the aisle, it’s about developing contacts and relationships, knowing what your audience is after, understanding what’s really news, and being disciplined and thoughtful in your work.

We publish a weekly trade magazine that covers the detailed operations of the sports industry, and we also have a thrice-daily online news service that serves the same audience of sports industry professionals. Our bread-and-butter is in exclusive news, or analysis pieces that also have a significant element that advances a major news event. So what would work for a mainstream consumer news outlet often does not work for SportsBusiness Journal or SportsBusiness Daily. The PR professionals I most enjoy working with understand the background of our audience and mission, are able to cut through the “typical” pitch script, take the effort to understand my goals, and then can pitch me on something truly meaningful that doesn’t feel like boilerplate. Even more rare is the PR pro who can take no for an answer and not be offended.

Bad PR, obviously, is the inverse of all this. That typically manifests itself in lazy, shotgun-style or computer-automated e-mail pitches, and for us, a lack of discernment between the needs, nuances and audience of trade press versus consumer press. Within this, I have some pet peeves. First, pitches for things that have absolutely no connection to my beats, and in some cases, no connection to sports at all. I get e-mail pitches constantly from the automotive, health care, retail and energy industries, for example, and the vast majority of them have absolutely nothing to with something that would connect them back to sports like a sponsorship deal or involvement in a stadium or arena.

Second, a lot of PR professionals need to tone down the hyperbole. Covering the digital media and technology industries, I’m fortunate to see firsthand a lot of cutting-edge developments, many of which are indeed innovative. But even more frequent is the company and/or their PR rep that comes dangerously close to suggesting they invented the Internet, or these days, all of social media as we know it.

Also infuriating is the unsolicited e-mail pitch that includes a massive file attachment, such as a photo or PowerPoint file. Even in 2009, there remain limits on bandwidth and storage capacity, and no PR professional should be sending out anything in excess of 2 MB, and ideally a lot less, unless it’s specifically requested. In our case, we are an art-heavy publication that leverages the extensive talents of our art and design staff. So rest assured that if we’re working on a story involving your organization, we’re probably going to want art and will be looking for it, or will be sending a photographer.

Ugly PR, to me, is first and foremost hostile PR. There are going to be times when an organization disagrees with something we’ve done, and perhaps retaliates by taking their next piece of big news to a competing outlet. That’s just life sometimes in the news business. But sadly, I and plenty of my colleagues have seen the next, darker step when a PR representative then circles back to try and rub our faces in what they’ve done to get back at us. A related corollary in this type of situation is the e-mail attack, often written in all capitals, that seeks to explain how we got a story all wrong, and how we’re a waste of human existence as a result. It’s juvenile, unprofessional, and a thoroughly unproductive way to solve a disagreement or problem. And it’s not really a solution at all. The news business is still a relatively small ecosystem, there are lots of long memories, and thanks to the Internet, finding background information on anyone or anything is easier than ever. So becoming unhinged and vindictive can only have long-term damage on a business relationship. But there are still plenty of instances when a PR representative chooses a scorched-earth policy in response to a story they didn’t like.

The late Art Rooney, an NFL team owner of great renown, used to take a few cigar breaks every day. He would walk out of his office and go outside to smoke his cigar. On the way in and out of the building, he would stop at an employee's desk and ask that employee how he or she was doing, what was going on, what problems they saw as important, and so on.

Over time, Rooney began to take his cigar breaks every hour. As the years passed, Rooney rarely smoked the cigars and rarely made it all the way out of the building. The “cigar break” simply reminded him to get up and talk to his people, face to face. He found that over time, as he built relationships face to face that he had fewer and fewer problems waiting for him when he returned to his desk. His people solved problems before they got to his desk.

The more we use technology to communicate the more we have to remind ourselves who we communicate with: people. We use laptops, the Internet, Twitter, E-mail, and any other number of tools to help us get our point across, but we communicate with people. Everything else is a tool, nothing more.

Every so often, step away from the computer, put down the cell phone, and walk over to the person you want to communicate with. No e-mail can ever have the impact of looking another person in the eye. If you need a “cigar break” to remind you to do it, great. Just don’t actually light the cigar. If you do, no one will want to talk with you.

Gerry Sandusky is a communications consultant, TV & Radio sportscaster, and the Voice of the Baltimore Ravens. His company, The Sandusky Group, is on the web at www.SanduskyGroup.com.

The United Football League (UFL) will premiere this fall with franchises based in four cities; Orlando, Fla., New York, N.Y., San Francisco, Calif., and Las Vegas, Nev. In August, it was announced that the Orlando-based franchise would be officially named the Florida Tuskers.

Maroon PR began working with the UFL to manage public relations and community relations for the Florida Tuskers in July. The firm assisted with the management of the press conference announcing the team name and ownership group in August, and has begun facilitating media requests for the players and coaching staff surrounding the beginning of the Tuskers training camp.

The Tuskers are led by Head Coach Jim Haslett, the former head coach of the New Orleans Saints (Haslett finished the 2008 NFL season as the interim head coach for the St. Louis Rams). The Tuskers inaugural season kicks-off on Saturday, October 10 at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando against the New York Sentinels. The Tuskers will play one home game at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla., home of the Tampa Bay Rays.

UFL games will be broadcasted nationally on Versus and HDNet. During the season, Maroon PR will manage press box duties for the Florida Tuskers during their three home games and set up community relations events with regional charities, schools and youth football/cheerleading organizations.

The Championship Game for the 2009 UFL season will be played on Friday, November 27 at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas, Nev. and will air live on Versus.

Throughout the summer, Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) conducted several large events across the country. As part of their national "Book A Brighter Future" campaign with Macy's, RIF hosted 26 spelling bees in major cities nationwide to promote awareness and announce the success of the campaign, RIF’s largest fundraising initiative held annually at Macy’s stores from July 1 through August 31.

Maroon PR worked with RIF to help secure celebrity judges at several of these spelling bees. Some celebrities that Maroon PR secured, included CNBC Reporter Darren Rovell and famed children's book author Jarrett J. Krosoczka for the New York City event, 2006 "America's Got Talent" winner Bianca Ryan for the Philadelphia event, among several others.

Throughout the summer, Maroon PR worked with RIF to secure media coverage of their "Book A Brighter Future" campaign with Macy's from various outlets around the country, including The Wall St. Journal, CBS Radio in New York, Time.com, The Arizona Republic, The Wilmington News Journal, and others. For the entire campaign, Maroon PR secured more than 2 million impressions and the "Book A Brighter Future" campaign ultimately raised $6.5 million. It was the largest amount raised in the four-year history of the campaign.

In addition to these events, RIF teamed up with Communities In Schools New Orleans and the National PTA to launch "United We Read," an initiative in support of the United We Serve national effort launched by President Obama to engage more Americans in serving their communities.

Throughout this school year, the CIS–New Orleans RIF program will provide children with 7,500 free new books.

Maroon PR worked with "United We Read" to secure celebrities and media coverage for the event. Harry Shearer, the actor/comedian famous for his days on "Saturday Night Live" and as the voice of many characters in the TV Show “The Simpsons,” was secured to be the headliner of the event. The Times-Picayune, as well as local NBC and ABC affiliates, covered the event.

Starting this quarter, Maroon PR will feature a regular column by someone from our team, in an effort for our readers to get to know us and hear our opinions. This quarter, we’ll hear from Associate Account Executive Abby Draper about her experience with social media marketing.

***

As a team here at Maroon PR, it was decided that each member would author a column for the newsletter, and as the newest member of the team, it was inevitable that I would be the guinea pig! I joined the Maroon PR team at the beginning of June and have had the pleasure of sharing what I know about social media marketing and public relations with a team that supports and empowers each other.

I have always been amazed by the power of persuasion, so when social media marketing was first introduced to me, I was hooked. The idea of being able to converse with and influence audiences at all times was fascinating to me. I hadn’t entered the professional world yet, so I used social media to market myself as a brand, while also encouraging others to discuss pertinent news, experiences and offer insight.

Taking advantage of social media as an entirely separate channel of communication has become even more significant as I have entered the professional public relations universe. As a team at Maroon PR, we created a strategy for best utilizing social media for each of our clients. The priority was that each site works together to communicate with a larger audience, one in which we may never have reached without social media marketing.

By increasing our social media marketing presence, we continue to excel in the changing media world, and are exceeding the needs of our clients. These sites have driven a significant increase in web traffic, improved search engine optimization, helped spread news, driven attendance for recent events and connected our clients with one another. Most importantly, we have been able to communicate with a larger audience and develop several strong online communities.

Through our Maroon PR Twitter and Facebook pages, we have expanded our network and grown as a team. While social media marketing has been a great addition to our public relations strategies on behalf of our clients, we are sure to keep in mind that it is just that - an addition. Social media marketing reaches its fullest potential only when it is part of a larger effort in conjunction with ongoing mainstream media outreach and traditional PR efforts.

Social media marketing allows and encourages our audiences to be involved, to speak up and share their thoughts. It provides a platform for contributing ideas and the opportunity to participate however often they choose. It is powerful, and it is consistent... exactly the way public relations and brand management should be.

Abby Draper is an Associate Account Executive at Maroon PR. She can be reached at Abby@MaroonPR.com. You can follow her on Twitter at Abby4043.

After two decades with various sports teams and leagues John Maroon opened Maroon PR in April of 2006. We opened our doors with two clients, Ripken Baseball and the Babe Ruth Museum, and we are proud to say that they are still with us. We now manage over two dozen active clients that include sports properties, non-profit organizations and small businesses. Our Vision Statement is "We Drive Growth Through Relationships" and it is so much more than a statement, it is the way we do business each and every day to help our clients. Visit the Capabilities section of our site to learn more.

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