Fire Your Columnists! Hire Your Subscribers!

I think there are a whole bunch of us standing on the sidelines, arms crossed giving our best 'Vince Lombardi' stares at the Magazine Publishers of America and the rest of the litany of journalism slash editorial guilds grappling with the future of news and magazine print.

By now isn't it clear that it's not about the vehicle, it's the content? I think it might just be this simple: the most essential, nuclear element of communications is the conversation between two or more people. Human beings talking. Around the fire. In the cave. On the riverbank. Under the tent. Everything else we do is or should be designed to facilitate that.

So what does this mean for the survival of your failing or flailing media company or partner? Stop talking at your subscribers and start talking with them again. Here are three ideas or 'quick fixes' for consideration:

1) Fire your columnists. Everyone has an opinion these days -- and everyone has access to the web to share it. As Color of Change is teaching FOX News, it's dangerous to build your brand around the cult of a personality anyway. Create the personality of your media brand through good, solid reporting of facts that the average reader doesn't have the time or resources to find, then listen to what they have to say about it.

2) Hire your readers. Google. YouTube. Get it? Share the wealth and ad revenue to build interest, traffic, loyalty etc. As a test, identify your top 1,000 subscribers and cut them in on a revenue sharing model to see what happens. Select some who are your most frequent viewers, some who are your most frequent contributors and some who best reflect your target demo.

3) A free press is crucial to the survival of our democracy...and your company. Don't charge for your content, charge for connectivity. I am making two points here. First, no one will pay you for what will be downloaded, copied, scanned or otherwise disaggregated and dispersed in about five seconds anyway. Second, one of the reasons the readership and loyalty to many 'newspapers' has declined I'll argue is that most publishers have forgotten their obligation to the rest of us as the Fourth Estate. Create or support media brands that publish with integrity, that fact-check, that go beyond the press release. Right now our world needs a free and honest press more than ever and will support it.

All About Me...The Biz Version!

Robert O. Quashie robertquashie@gmail.com
312.560.3475 (Chicago) http://www.linkedin.com/in/robertquashie

SUMMARY
I’m that problem-solving guy who helps you cut to the chase in pursuit of new insights, creativity, better relationships and profits.

EXPERIENCE
Automotive
• Oversaw consumer engagement programs for Toyota USA targeting African American women
• Developed and managed public affairs and recruitment strategies for Nissan North America and the Nissan Foundation

B2B
• Managed trade and business press campaigns for Harrah’s acquisition of Showboat Casinos in New Jersey and Illinois.
• Re-launched corporate sales strategy for National Black MBA Association
• Developed “Where Did It Hit You?” B2B ad campaign for Global Lead Consulting

Diversity
• Developed integrated strategy to address consumer, media and supplier diversity issues for NASCAR motor sports
• Managed and executed business and consumer media outreach for Strut, a new program targeting Asian-American young adults, launched by ABS-CBN International, a Philippines-based media conglomerate
• Rebranded the National Black MBA Association, repositioning the membership-based organization with MBA candidates, corporate partners and media
• Managed public affairs campaigns for Miller Brewing Public Affairs, Sears, The Home Depot

Financial Services
• Provided copy direction for award-winning campaign for Shore Bank, and promotional campaign for Wells Fargo African-American Business Services
• Developed marketing communications campaigns for Seaway National Bank, and Bethel New Life Community Savings Center and Allstate Insurance

Food & Beverage
• Provided team leadership, strategic planning and communications program execution for national brands including McDonald’s USA and Wendy’s quick service restaurants
• Managed media relations and field execution for sports, entertainment and public affairs properties for brands including Miller Lite, Miller Genuine Draft, and Kraft Foods.

Health & Beauty
• Developed and managed business and consumer media relations campaigns for L’Oreal’s acquisition of Soft Sheen/Carson and the launch of the L’Oreal Institute for Ethnic Hair and Skin Research.
• Managed launch of new cosmetic and beauty lines inside the Marshall Field’s Department stores

Media
• Managed the redesign and re-launch of BlackMBA Magazine, and BlackMBA Online
• Lead team that managed African-American engagement marketing strategy for Verizon
• Coordinated media campaigns for Midwest Living, Better Homes & Gardens and Successful Farming
• Wrote copy and developed the sales strategy for A Life’s Design www.alifesdesign.com

Retail
• Served as public relations manager for the Marshall Field’s Department store division of Dayton Hudson Corporation supporting new store openings in Illinois and Texas and revitalization of the brand in eleven states.
• Managed product placement strategies with regional and national fashion, lifestyle and entertainment magazines, Oprah Winfrey Show; In-store product launches and seasonal leads

Web/Social Networking
• Provided creative direction and analysis of the user interface experience for National Black MBA Association website, social networking groups and RSS products, increasing unique subscriber data base from 7,000 to 30,000
• Developed marketing strategies and creative for BlackVoices.com during its launch phase and growth as a consumer and passive recruiting strategy for the Tribune Company

EXPERTISE
• Strategy Planning
• Insights Generation (research, facilitation, analysis and brief development)
• Creative Development (ideation, concept, copy and production)
• Experiential Marketing
• Media Relations
• Diversity & Cross-Cultural Communications
• New Business Development

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
12/08 – Acting Director, Marketing and Corporate Partner Development, National Black MBA
Association, providing transitional support to client
04 – 08 Director, Client Services, Ibis, provided both strategic and creative direction for clients; helped drive agency growth and expansion
01 – 03 Senior Vice President, Engagement Marketing, Burrell Communications
99 – 01 Marketing Communications Consultant, L’Oreal, Tourist Board of Jamaica, Blackvoices.com (Tribune Company)
97 – 99 Vice President, Diversity, Edelman Worldwide
95 – 97 Manager, Public Relations, Dayton Hudson Department Store Division
87 – 94 Account Supervisor, Ketchum Public Relations
86 – 87 Coordinator, Public Relations, Meredith Corporation

EDUCATION & AFFILIATIONS
• Grinnell College, B.A. English Literature
• National Association of Black Journalists
• National Black MBA Association
• Community Advisory Board Member, NuGene Project, Northwestern University
• Marketing Committee Member, Muntu Dance Theatre of Chicago
• Past Member, Chicago Sister Cities – Accra Ghana
• Past President, Local School Council, Ray Elementary, Chicago
• News Intern, New York Times
• News Intern, Kansas City Star

# # #

I Want My Beer With Obama!

Okay, let's dumb this down. Cops versus Professors. I'm betting on the cops every time.

I am a black man whose had his share of run-ins with racists and the law and the convergence of the two. I've been stopped for driving while black. I have to admit, a couple of times it was for driving way over the speed limit while black. But that's not the point.

Every guy knows, regardless of color or pursuasion, even the President knows, you just don't do what the professor done did.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., scholar, intellectual and champion of the race, simply- broke one of the most cardinal of all cardinal man-laws: Don't pop off at the cops!

Then he goes and sprinkles pixy dust under the officer's nose by whipping out the realy big one -- his Harvard ID. K'mon. Man-up. Grow a pair. If not, at least have the smarts to do a Rodney King. Fall down, curl up in a ball, cover your jewels and take your lumps.

I am neither excusing nor making light of police brutality or racial profiling. I am from Chicago.

What I am saying is that branders like us can take this incident as an allagorical example of what it is important to remember: When times get tough, real men respect other men, who act like men. It's just that simple. It's like having a beer with the fellas.

MasterCard gets it with their "Break In Your Jeans" campaign. Watch the TV spot.

Hard Branding #2: Keep Your Head Up

By Robert Quashie

“Our financial markets have been tested in unprecedented ways.”
-- Vikram S. Pandit, CEO, Citibank

“While the tears are rolling down your cheeks
You’re steady hoping things don’t fall down this week”
-- Tupac Amaru Shakur, Demigod, Hip-Hop

With retail in a tailspin and luxury brands dropping like the Icelandic stock market, it’s tempting to let the element of aspiration within your brand’s make up give way to perspiration (shear terror and night sweats), even desperation (slash and burn sales tactics).

In my last post I lobbied for you to look beyond price point in evaluating how to toughen up your brand for these hard times. Debouched holiday parties swilled in sweat and gold dust aside (email to the cool people), cutting the crap in order to get tough doesn’t mean cutting the element of aspiration from your copy, creative or strategy.

Today is the day for you to think harder about what it really means to be a source of identity, connection and satisfaction to your consumer – especially now that the stakes have gotten higher for the both of you.

I Used to Get Mad at My School
During the Great Depression, Hollywood understood that consumers didn’t want movies to remind them of just how miserable life really can be. The Grapes of Wrath was released in theaters after the Great Depression, not during. In the 1930s – Hollywood’s Golden Age – you saw Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers flying down to Rio, not Grandma and Grandpa Joad scratching for life in the dust bowl. Things are bad enough, don’t pile on.

Another thing to consider: during hard times, people often to want to stick it to the man. Think about the movies of the recession-riddled seventies. Be careful not to set your brand up to be the man.

Hard Brand Tip: Strike a positive, upbeat tone to associate your brand with brighter days ahead for the average guy or gal. So strength, but also show some empathy for your consumer. Don’t spew false optimism, but do police your copy and creative for downers like cynicism, sharp attitudes, arrogance and aloofness. It might be time to replace that urbane scowl with a more hopeful, energetic and inviting smile.

Sound corny? Going out of business is real corny.

Ten Somersets On Solid GroundDon’t six-sigma yourself out of business. Even as a hardened brand, you need to wow and delight your customers. Make them feel smart, special, and rewarded for choosing to pay you their attention. When striving to make your process more cost-efficient, be careful not to cheapen your end product or user experience.

For her, getting a bargain means getting more quality or added value for less output – not less for less. Show her more car or computer at a better price. Not a cheaper car or desktop at a cheaper price. In fact, turn a few flips to inspire and surprise her while you are at it.

Hard Brand Home Work: Study the business model of Radiohead.



Orbiting Your Living Room…Social networking media like Ning, Yammer, and Facebook, shows like Idol, Dancing with the Stars, and promotions like the Barack Obama Yes We Can world tour, are proof that the consumer has evolved to a point at which she or he is no longer interested in just watching. Campaigns that place your customer in the position of voyeur on someone else’s good fortune are dead. The new aspiration is to do. In addition to asking yourself how any element makes your customer feel, you have to ask what each piece of creative or tactic allows your customer to do. If a component of your strategy doesn’t allow your customer to opt-in, upload, show up, buy, subscribe, return, upgrade, join, test, sample, renew, post, link, embed, gripe, contribute, co-mingle or commiserate – kill it. Kill it fast.

Robert Quashie

robertquashie@gmail.com

A little advice from Bruce for all the six-sigma black belts out there.

Hardening Your Brand for Hard Times

By Robert Quashie

…Just read a New York Times report saying that in yet another sign of a struggling economy, the Consumer Price Index, a key measure of how much Americans are spending on groceries, clothing, entertainment and other goods and services, fell by 1 percent in October compared to September.

The Times reports it was the steepest single-month decline in the 61-year history of the survey, raising concerns of deflation.

Here in Chicago another troubling report stated that in last quarter, only 160 new contracts were signed for condominiums downtown in The Loop, a seven-year low – or as low as they’ve been since 9/11.

After a gulp, I a snapped back into creative mode (survival mode!) and started thinking about what clients and partners can do to harden their brands against these hard times.

I came up with a list of six points for consideration:

1) Lose Fat by Building Muscle. Fad diets, liposuction, and starvation can yield temporary, even sexy results. But at the end of the day I’m told the fastest and healthiest way to lose weight is to build muscle. Your first reaction these days may be to cut costs by cutting head counts, distribution, inventory or media spending. But remember, a skinny brand may not be an efficient brand. Look at how to make your architecture, initiatives and programs work smarter, not just harder. Get ripped.

2) Go back to brand basics. Quality, superior attributes and a defining experience – that’s it. The basics aren’t going to change, if anything, these fundamentals are likely to become more essential. Resist letting reactive moves inhibit your ability to deliver on your promise. Think about how you are demonstrating lasting quality or consistency over time. Price point is only one attribute, what other tangibles are you, or should you be amplifying right now?

3) Re-connect with your alpha consumers. With so much change and so much at stake in this economy, can you be confident that last year’s data and research still holds true? As the Price Index shows, consumer behavior is changing drastically. Now is the time to revisit your core customers through the networking and feedback tools you should already have in place, as well as through a fresh round of focus groups and/or ethnographies. Keep in mind your alpha consumers may be the first to signal challenges and opportunities, or point out your exposures – and if treated well, the most likely to stick by you through down cycles.


4) Teach your brand to multi-task. Conventional wisdom right now is to focus on what you do best. But you and your brand are going to have to figure out how to do what you do best for a broader range of consumers or customers. President-elect Obama is right, we’re not two Americas, but don’t be fooled, we are not one consumer market. If anything, Obama’s campaign proved the power of well-organized and orchestrated target marketing. How can you make what you do best more relevant to the larger number of segments within your reach.


5) Be the Candidate: Yes We Can. Speaking of Obama, his campaign is being widely touted as the most effective and efficient in U. S. history. He did it, and yes, you can too. Take a page from the Axelrod & Co. play book – strengthen your brand through your organizational facilities. Now is the time to remove the impediments to the free flow of information inside your organization, and between you and your consumer. Make sure the right and left hands can and do talk. Cross-train and cross-hatch between departments and functions as much as possible. This will help close many unnecessary gaps in the experience and the delivery of relevant knowledge to your customers. Consider that efficient and informed workers, service providers and sales teams will make better choices and decisions on behalf of your consumers. Good field work and a tight campaign translate into added value.

6) Expect the Worst. Identify, practice and prepare for your worst case scenario. I don’t want to get into asking how an entire industry got caught flat-footed by a $700 billion sucker punch. But champion fighters don’t train hard because they might get hit – they train hard because they know they will. In this economy, you will too. If you’re an ad man or woman now might be a good time to do a few training rounds with your PR, HR and customer service teams. Crisis planning is built in to what they do. They should already have much of the research in hand regarding some of your worst-case scenarios, as well as the tools in place to take the temperature of your customers, suppliers, government and the media.

What do you think?

Robert Quashie

robertquashie@gmail.com

P.S., for a take on really hard times, check out a recent podcast from This American Life featuring the voice and stories from the late Studs Terkel.