Confessions of a Salvation Army bell ringer

Yesterday I was awarded the privilege of ringing a Salvation Army bell for two hour. It was probably two of the best hours I've spent in some time, giving me a chance to help out a great cause, meet dozens of people and had a chance to reflect on the season and humanity. It was a very busy two hours.

The holidays are special for all of us for a variety of reasons. The clang, clang, clang of a bell and a red kettle are apart of the tapestry of memories that make up the Christmas season for me. Now after the two hours of standing out in front of a Walgreen's in Elkhart, Indiana I have more vivid images to associate with the holiday season.

My favorite image was one of my first donors of my shift. The biggest obligation of being a father is teaching your child, and I had a front row seat. Across the parking lot, I watched a dad grab change from his pocket and place in the hand of his son, probably around 4 years old. Side by side, they walked towards my station, and I could see the excitement of the son as he drew closer and closer. I'm not sure who's smile was bigger; dad, mine or the little boy as the change slid off his hand and settled in the bottom of the kettle. The boy had donated pennies, but it was the teaching of giving to others that I have to believe has the potential to pay off with a lifetime of generosity taught by this dad.

Other images of the day were skewed by my marketing mind, as I found myself analyzing the customers and demographic profiles of my donors. The older and more beat up the pick up truck, the more likely the donation from the driver. Worn denim and work boots were also a good sign for a folded dollar or some change making its way into the bucket.

There were additional benefits for me by ringing the bell. That included a chance to say thank you to total strangers that dug deep into their wallets to give a dollar, when they themselves might be trying to figure out how to make their ends meet. I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty well convinced I saw that scenario played out more than once during my shift.

Lucky for me the temperatures for early December were above normal. I had prepared for frosty conditions, but was treated with near 50 degree weather. More than a few hearts were melted by a simple "hello", "have a great day" and "Merry Christmas" which I offered up to all that passed by. During my interactions with passer-bys, you get the sense sometimes that saying have a nice day to someone is the only positive words and interaction some are having in their life.

Ringing a bell and filling the kettle has deep trandition for the Salvation Army, dating back to 1891. According to the Salvation Army, the typical kettle raises $30 per hour with an active bell ringer. The money raised helps people within your community that otherwise might not have a hot meal, a warm bed or an opportunity to rise up from their situation.

For the rest of the holiday season, I think one of the saddest things I will see will be an unmanned red kettle stand in front of a store. No bell to grab your attention, no opportunity to donate and someone missing out on the chance to watch the residents of your community at their very best, donating their hard earned money and creating smiles, memories and a sense of community for all.

I'm sure every Salvation Army still needs bell ringers. For a large section of the US, you can visit http://www.ringbells.org and get signed up. For those reading in Elkhart where I was lucky enough to volunteer, visit http://elkhartin.volunteerfirst.org.

Merry Christmas!

Black Friday stressing you out? Then check out this fake Black Friday ad for a laugh or two

A little fun in the midst of Black Friday craziness, thanks to Jeff Wysaski of Pleated Jeans. Holiday inserts have become as much a part of the Thanksgiving holiday as turkey and football to some people. Wysaski is just doing his part to have a little fun and provide a smile.

Thanks to his skills in Photoshop, Wysaski has created his own Target ad and posted at a Target store. While I'm sure the store manager didn't see the humor, I certainly do. Where do I go to buy a gift that they will only use once? Target has just the thing! Did Skittles branch out from candy to TV maker? According to this Target, the answer is yes!

Mashable has the full details on the fake Black Friday ads. Tired of family stress, of shopping or possibly eat turkey, then check out this Target ad.

The tale of the quickly vanishing family owned media company

It was a bit of a nostalgic week for me on a couple fronts. First off on Tuesday, I celebrated my one  year anniversary in my current role with my current organization. Then on Wednesday, it was announced that the first newspaper I worked for full time was sold. Both events caused me to reflect.

The very first newspaper I worked for full time was the Greenfield (Indiana) Daily Reporter, owned by the Brown family and Home News Enterprises for over 100 years. Their headquarters, and frankly the main focus of their company was the newspaper in nearby Columbus, Indiana. But still, it was very obvious that this was a family business. Profits were important but being active and contributing members to the community were highly valued as well. As a result, Greenfield, Columbus and the other communities that HNE operated in benefited. http://www.therepublic.com/view/local_story/The-Republic-other-HNE-propert_1446645932

The community that is the newspaper industry also benefited from HNE. They encouraged active participation in industry groups, like state and local press association. Because they cared about more than the bottom-line, their employees, their industry and their communities were all better as a result.

As I said, Tuesday marked my one year anniversary at my current position. Federated Media is also a family owned operation. The Dille family in Northern Indiana, like the Brown family in Central and Southern Indiana have operated their business for generations. The same traits that I respected in how HNE operates are very evident with my current employer. Profits are important, but being a good corporate citizen is a driving force of the organization.

Federated is a radio focused company today, though its roots are in the newspaper business. The newspaper that I work at is their only newspaper in the organization today. Federated and HNE have adapted to the changing tides of media in this digital era. Both would say that they are communications / multi-media companies today with a focus on audience no matter what the platform. But any media company can say that.

I would suggest that what sets them apart is that they would say that they are an employee focused company that finds ways to connect the community with advertisers. That connection with the employees and the community is what makes family owned media companies unique.

The new owners of HNE say that they will remain strong in the community. I truly hope that is the case; for the community and the employees. Big corporations in the media business is far from new, and their are some good corporations out there running TV, radio and newspapers. But more often, the bottom-line wins out, people get forgotten, corporate citizenship is lost and the product suffers.

New York Times has more subscribers than ever and how that can translate to other publishers

Tis the season for statement of ownership ads running in newspapers and magazines across the country. It is the chance to see the numbers behind the numbers when it comes to circulation numbers.

Frankly it isn't the most exciting ad that will run in the publication, especially if you are the publisher trying to make the numbers tell a good story. One of the exception might be the New York Times, who announced today that they have more subscribers now than they have at any time in their history.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/05/business/the-new-york-times-reaches-a-milestone-thanks-to-our-readers.html?_r=1

The New York Times has reached the 1 million mark for digital only subscribers. Add in the 1.1 million print / digital subscribers and the audience opportunity is stronger than it ever has been in the 164 years of Times publications. Pretty impressive, but not terribly easy to replicate.

Unique content is the key to publishing's future; print and digital. The Times by its very nature has that type of content, and there are others including the Wall Street Journal. Every publisher has the opportunity to find their unique content. As it was described to me recently at the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, you have to determine what content you can provide that is the best in the world. In many cases, publishers are the best in the world at covering their local market. But what else? The key to success is finding those additional niches, especially since local broadcasters and internet only sites are also trying to fill the local information market.

Internet hoaxes within social media feeds dupe millions

I guess it started back in the 1960's with the "Paul is dead" hoax surrounding Paul McCartney's death. Probably earlier frankly, but the concept of a hoax was tougher and more isolated pre-internet days.

Today, the internet hoax is a daily occurrence. In fact in the past week, I've seen fake death announcements for both Willie Nelson and James Earl Jones. Both are alive and well as of my writing this post. It is such a regular occurrence now that The Washington Post has a digital culture critic, Caitlin Dewey that does a weekly column titled "What was fake on the Internet this week". I highly recommend the column, as it keeps me up to speed on just how gullible people are plus it is pretty clever and well written. 

The scary thing about these scams and hoaxes is the alarming amount of people that get their news solely from their social media feeds, especially Facebook. Real news outlets, such as the Washington Post fact check and sift through the garbage to report on the facts. Online outlets like the Business Standard News (B-S News) continue to hook people on these fake news stories and make money. 

The James Earl Jones story is a great example. The Facebook feed, if anyone would bother to click on it links to a display that reads "you got owned!" Problem is, thousands (millions?) of people never click. They just go about their day thinking that the voice of Darth Vadar, Mufassah and CNN is dead. 

Legit news sites have to do a better job of marketing themselves as the reliable, trustworthy source for news and information. Fighting the social media feed of 'news' is the next battle for consumer's time, and it is a battle that most news outlets are losing.

Social media outlets, especially Facebook have been given by default an extremely important task of informing the population. I would say that they are failing so far, allowing bogus claims to seemingly dominate the platform because of the share-ability factor and click through rates these often get. It is a fine line, trying not to sensor information, but there has to be a responsibility to promote factual and reliable content. 

In the meantime, news outlets online need to work on creating confidence in their product by the general public. Educating the general public on what to look for in terms of if the source is leg it or not needs to also happen. Facebook can help on that if they wish, and hopefully they will.  

How legacy media can position itself to compliment SEO campaigns

In my early days of advertising sales for a newspaper, one of our biggest competitors was yellow pages. There were multiple books competing in a relatively small market. In fact, I worked at a newspaper that even started its own yellow pages product.

Clearly times have changed for yellow pages. They are doing so much more that an annual directory; a directory that is likely to go away in many markets. Honestly, I'm not sure where my phone books are at my house.

Yellow pages are offer a wide variety of services to help them survive. Among them, yellow pages offer SEO, SEM, text clubs, mobile advertising, web hosting, online directories, and...oh yeah yellow page ads!

Selling against the yellow pages was an important training session. I hired consultants to help sell against yellow pages, with some level of success. The key was pretty simple:  sell top of mind awareness (TOMA) campaigns to businesses that would run at a high frequency in the local newspaper. That way if consumers were reaching for a phone book because of a need, they would turn to the white pages and that directory instead of the yellow pages and the ads.

It wasn't rocket science, but it worked. The percentage of referrals to yellow pages for event their best categories was very small, while newspaper readership was strong (and it still is!). As I read an article about the importance of SEO, I started thinking about that old tried and true strategy.

Barry Feldman's from feldmancreative.com writes about the importance of SEO. I don't diminish the importance of SEO by suggesting reps sell against it. While I would sell against it, I would prefer actually sell it as a solution to a customer, and in fact my current company does.

I do think that legacy media like newspapers need to get back to TOMA selling as either a way to combat SEO or to compliment it if you are offering it to customers. The same principle applies to SEO that did with yellow pages. Run high frequency campaigns so that when that go to Google to search, they are searching you specifically instead of your industry type.  A specific search is the same as getting the consumer to look your contact info up in the white pages directory instead of being exposed to the open market through yellow pages.

Marketing win for Arby's for their handling of The Daily Show with finale TV spot and social media posts

Kudos to Arby's for making the best of a bad situation and turning it around into a win for their marketing team and their brand. Arby's Restaurants have been the butt of numerous jokes and jabs at the hands of The Daily Show's Jon Stewart.

The finale for Jon Stewart's run on The Daily Show is coming soon, and Comedy Central's working on selling out the available inventory. Estimates are the :30 spots are going for $230k each which is a nice boost from the typical $46.2k per spot earlier this year.

Arby's is buying a spot on the show, despite hundreds of lampoons by the writers of the satire show. The TV spot from Arby's features a collage of the comments made by Stewart with the tune "Thank You For Being A Friend" playing in the background. "Not sure why, but we'll miss you" is on the screen as the commercial ends.

This isn't the first time the Arby's marketing department has gained free publicity and positive brand awareness off of The Daily Show. When Stewart announced he was leaving The Daily Show, the Twitter feed for Arby's offered him a job. That message was retweeted over 2,000 times.