From the brilliant PR campaign archive

An oldie but a goodie:

The Lemonade Stand That Umpqua Bank Built Umpqua Bank, an Oregon bank famous for nontraditional marketing and customer service, has created a clever summer campaign to promote its services to small businesses: it is offering children a kit and start-up capital to set up and run a lemonade stand. Dubbed “the lemonaire,” the campaign is aimed at children in the 96 cities in Oregon, Washington and California where Umpqua operates 144 branches. Lani Hayward, executive vice president of creative strategies for Umpqua, said 70 percent of the bank’s deposits and loans came from small and medium-size businesses.

- The New York Times

Right. It's a lot easier to pull off a stunt like this when you already have an established base of 144 stores and hordes of moms and dads as customers. But what about when you're a small startup with nothin' but a great idea? Answer: Think Bacon Salt. Have fun, be clever and use the tools of the new digital frontier.

We're working right now with a little company that meets that description, who we will probably be introducing to you very soon. They have a great story -- it's actually about making lemons in lemonade as well, figurative ones in this case. And they have a great product (not lemonade). We can't wait to introduce them to the world.

-Adrianne (@msfener)

PR Daily Webinar: How to pitch journalists in a new media world: Is the pitch dead?

The Campbell Consulting Team gathered around a shiny Mac and took notes yesterday at noon for the PR Daily Webinar: How to pitch journalists in a new media world: Is the pitch dead? Points covered:

• What has and has not changed?
• Boost your online interaction
• What needs to be changed?
• CEO vomit
• Measurement of success
• The Embargo
• The Magic Middle vs. The Human Network
• Is social media a viable tool?

...and the final words from the amazingly blunt and hilarious David Pogue from NYT, "DON'T JUST PITCH!" Webinars are not a waste of time - listen and apply. Cheers,

-Jacq (@jacqsmith)

What is public relations?

An individual or organization which is aware of those with whom it comes into contact may want to make an effort to behave in a particular way so that it can get along with them better. This is the business of public relations. -Shirley Harrison, author of Public Relations: An Introduction Some more definitions: Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing the communication between an organization and its publics. -Wikipedia Staff that work in public relations, or as it is commonly known, PR, are able to present a company or individual to the world in the best light. The role of a public relations department can be seen as a reputation protector. -WiseGeek.com Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers who make them seem great. -historian Daniel J. Boorstin Social media is essentially public relations in the online world. Divide the category up by component — blogs, social networks, microblogging, podcasts/Web TV, wikis/collaborative software — they each ladder in some way to a component of public relations — writing, corporate communications, community relations, media relations, event management. -Social Media Explorer I would say something like, "the art of crafting the story of a brand and reinforcing it through effective communication, constructive relationships and creative scheming."

If you need some PR, maybe we can help. Head over to http://campbellconsulting.com and see what we're about. We'd love to hear what your definition is.

-Adrianne (@msfener)

Twitter in the newsroom

Check out journalist Abraham Hyatt's latest Oregon Understory podcast, "Twitter in the newsroom." He interviews reporters, editors and anchors in the Pacific Northwest about how Twitter has changed journalism, public relations, and their interaction.

Stop rolling your eyes — this is more than just a Twitter love fest. We talk about why journalists aren’t using it, why it’s changing how the PR industry views reporters, and why it really doesn’t matter if Twitter blows up and disappears in the next few months.

It's an interesting look at how editors and reporters are reacting to Twitter's uses and challenges, as well as the greater lessons microblogging can teach media professionals.

-Adrianne (@msfener)

Influencing the influencers

In yesterday's NYT, an article about PR caught our attention. For several years now, we PR practitioners have been scrambling to take as many online webinars and read as many industry e-letters as we can. Scrambling - some would say panicking! - to remain experts and stay on top of our game. Public relations and media relations have become blogger relations, influencer relations, user relations, follower, friend and fan relations. Sometimes it has felt overwhelming, but as we move forward, we've realized something that this article sums up pretty well: it's not as much about the medium as it is about the message, and the relationships we build to get those messages out. We're still communicators and the web is a great place to cast a wide, wide net! Read the article here.

-Judy (@judycampbell)