Zakazukha likes the concept of propaganda – heck, we like it so much we’ve even used the word on our business cards.

But don’t get us wrong – the propaganda we like is in its purest sense – to influence attitudes. And isn’t this what all businesses strive to achieve? Influence attitudes so people will engage with their goods or services?

Unfortunately the contemporary concept of propaganda is oft misunderstood, and the word has been given a bad name over the years by a few over zealous practitioners.

Its origin is from the Congregatio pro Gentium Evangelizatione (Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples) founded in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV’s Inscrutabili Divinae, a body charged with fostering the spread of Catholicism and with the regulation of Catholic ecclesiastical affairs in non-Catholic countries.

In reality it was the church’s marketing department ensuring the spread of Catholicism over the spread of Protestantism through the globalisation of the Dutch and English during the 17th century.

However it’s war in the 19th and 20th centuries that really put propaganda to the test.

Depending on which side of the fence you were, propaganda was viewed as either a god thing or a bad thing.

Posters encouraging people to sign up to fight for their country or invest in war bonds were seen as an effective way of immobilizing the masses. On the same token spreading horrific tales about the enemy and their insatiable appetite to kill and eat children fueled the hatred between warring sides.

But it was Hitler’s propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, during World War II that really cemented the decline of the word’s reputation (lets not forget the British Political Warfare Executive as well as the United States Office of War Information used the same techniques).

Communist propaganda (Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese) has since become pop art to hang on your wall, and more recently its become fashionable to think anything that smacks of new world order to be the propaganda instrument of the US, World Bank, G20 or G8, but the word’s central tenant –  influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position – is as relevant in today’s business world than ever.

Call it marketing, call it advertising, heck, even call it social media marketing, but when it comes down to it what we are all doing is propaganda.

So lets propagate!

We’re confused. We’ll we’re not really, but we can see how some people can work themselves into a lather trying to differentiate how marketing, advertising, public relations and communications in general all work together.

Is marketing advertising? We’ve heard some clients mutter as much recently.

Is a brand a logo? A recent pop poll of eleven year-olds says so.

And how actually does PR work for a business?

Before we try and answer these questions lets go back to basics – what is marketing? A classic text book definition is the systematic planning, implementation and control of a mix of business activities intended to bring together buyers and sellers for the mutually advantageous exchange or transfer of products.

Huh?

Our definition is marketing is the umbrella of all the communications functions for a businesses purpose (we think there’s two other umbrella’s in business, one for legal and one for finance, but its not our place to comment on these).

If you make goods or sell services then your purpose is to do just that. If you’re a not-for-profit or charity your purpose is to promote that cause (and in most cases raise funds to do so). In fact just about everything on earth has a business purpose.

And under the marketing umbrella comes all the disciplines and functions to help achieve the purpose such as advertising, PR, social media marketing, sales functions etc. etc. etc.

Capiche?

Then there’s a discipline called integrated marketing communication (IMC), which is all about consistency of message and how that message is used in the media. It’s a simple concept. It ensures that all forms of communications and messages are carefully linked together.

We like to think of it as new marketing – lets make marketing less about the functions and more about the message – the strategies on how to communicate those messages will naturally follow.

Zakazukha says goodbye old marketing, hello new marketing (IMC).

Good marketing is understanding that while all these functions need to work together for a business purpose, its the message that is the most important. What is your message, who are you going to tell and how are you going to tell them.

Advertising can promote a business purpose, PR can legitimise a business purpose, and branding is the image of a business purpose. Successful marketing is when the same message permeates through all these.

Could be on to something here.

We work with words for a living, so its no surprise that there are a number that we consider ‘no-no’s’ when it comes to succinct communication. In fact we have a hit list of such words, and where ever possible try not to use the growing number in our presentations, copy or day-to-day banter.

One that we feel is starting to become hackneyed, therefore prompting this warning, is the word boutique.

Now lets get something straight right from the get-go. Boutique is a French word meaning shop, better known for one that specialises in high-end fashion, so if this means you then you can toddle off and make a cup of tea.

However if your an accountant, law firm, investment bank, corporate adviser, business broker, or even PR firm, then listen up – please don’t refer to yourself as boutique. You’ll look silly.

We can see where the attraction for the use of the word started, boutique as in one-off, niche and original, but because of its proliferation in everyday communications it has now become very cliche.

For example take a look at these company descriptions taken from a random sample of web sites:

• We are a boutique mid tier quality advice law firm…
• As a “Boutique Accounting Firm”, our service is prompt and of the highest quality…
• A boutique lifestyle marketing agency, offering you collaborative PR, design and direction to creatively build and enhance your brand…

In fact PR agencies are the worst offenders – just do an online search for ’boutique PR’ and you’ll see what we mean.

Does it all come down to the issue that no one wants to use the word ’small’?

C’mon people, lets talk about to ourselves in reference to what we are and what we we can do for our clients instead of using terms that mean nothing and demonstrate our lack of imagination.

In our fast-paced information overloaded world, we often forget about the small things that can really make a difference between average and outstanding, especially when it comes to public perception.

Take good customer service for example. Now if you’re in any form of retail this should be a no brainer (although we are constantly reminded that brains are not always necessary to run a retail business, which is why so many go bust) with customer service a priority to really be a success.

However customer service in the online world, because of its nature, is not as front of mind as in its mass consumer counterpart, and the need for frontline customer service in this space could be argued to be redundant. However what businesses need to remember is that no matter what channel of sales, good customer service is always good PR.

Take a recent encounter Zakazukha had with an online supplier that went awry, but through good old fashioned customer service, turned out to be a memorable experience and a reminder about the power of service excellence.

You see we were in need of some new office furniture, and spent many an hour trawling through numerous online furniture sites before we settled on what we needed. Once we decided on a supplier the ordering process was easy enough, and as it was all online there was never the need to speak with, or enter into a sales relationship with a real person. For some this is a preferable way to shop.

So what happens when things go wrong?

Ten days later (well after the website assured us we’d have our furniture) we became somewhat concerned because we hadn’t received the ordered goods, and called to see what the problem was. To be honest we were expecting some form of automated process, or even a referral to contact them only by email as seems to be the de rigueur these days, but to our surprise we got to speak to someone.

It seems we were the last order in an order book before they started a new book (strange process you may say for an online furniture company) and the order was lost in between. The problem was identified quickly and apologies profusely offered, and we were assured the order would be shipped the next day (which it was).

But it didn’t stop there – we were also offered a free piece of furniture for the inconvenience.

Now they didn’t have to do that. The apology and rectifying the problem quickly would probably have sufficed. But as an act of good faith they offered a gift, and it was accepted with gratitude.

Now thats good customer service and great PR.

Zakazukha is partial to the occasional tipple, so when we splashed out on a bottle of fine Islay single malt scotch whiskey we were pleasantly surprised to see the good folk of Laphroaig using their noodle (and their prized real estate) for a cracker of a marketing idea.

You see the master makers of one of Islay’s best known distilleries give away one square foot of of their land to each of their ‘friends’ (and yes, as a purchaser of a bottle of one of their range you are immediately admitted as such).

Contained in the bottles presentation box is a small leaflet which tells you, “as a friend you will be given a numbered plot of our land that runs alongside our all important water supply – the Kilbride stream.”

To claim your plot all you need to do is go to their website, enter your unique reference number found on the back of the leaflet and you’re instantly the owner of your own piece of the UK.

You even receive a personalised certificate of ownership with your individual plot number. Once a ‘friend’ you can send messages to your ‘next door neighbours’, join chat forums, post photos, enter competitions etc. etc. etc.

If you ever visit the distillery you can view your plot and even claim your ground rent of a dram of their finest.

At the time of our purchase there were over 250,000 friends from over 150 countries, which makes for a very solid database of committed scotch aficionados. What a great way to engage with a targeted group.

Now if only the good folk at Leeuwin Estate in Margaret River would do the same.

A good client of Zakazukha’s, Little Green Genie (LGG), recently told the world about their amazing new software that helps offset the emissions created by the world’s billion-plus computers.

The LGG is a program that calculates how much energy is being used by a computer, and then uses this information to buy a proportionate amount of carbon credits to offset this use. Simple but potentially having a dramatic effect on the environment as the manufacture and energy used to run computers creates just as big a carbon footprint as the global airline industry (and we all use a computer).

So apart from working with LGG to craft a newsworthy media release, we also pushed the word out in three ways; a good old fashioned launch with the Hon Kate Jones MP, Queensland Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability (as a newsworthy event), the distribution of the media release to a number of publications and blogs worldwide (as a newsworthy story), and the use of a high profile musician’s Twitter, Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell, who has one million plus followers.

What ensued was really interesting.

Three media outlets turned up to the event. The Courier Mail posted the story on their website that day. Brisbane Business News is writing an article to appear in this months edition, and the Brisbane Times wrote an article which was published on their website the next day then syndicated to most Fairfax publications around the country including the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

Not a bad result.

The media release was sent to a number of the most read publications and blogs worldwide on the premise that it was a decent news story and that international distribution was a bit of a numbers game. So far dozens of publications and blogs have picked it up including USA Today, PC Magazine and La Repubblica (nice to see the story translated into Italian), with many syndicated through blog postings.

The upshot is this media relations campaign has resulted in approximately 1,500 hits on the LGG website, with almost 20 percent signing up to the program.

Chris Cornell tweeted the message to his 1,109,881 followers (thanks Chris) which has resulted in approximately 3,000 hits on the LGG website but zero sign ups.

Now we understand there’s only so much you can say in a tweet, but we would have thought a better response than nothing from Twitter, especially as it resulted in twice the amount of hits than the traditional media relations campaign. Maybe its a rock and roll thing?

Now don’t get us wrong – Zakazukha has no doubt that social media marketing and tools such as Twitter are here to stay and will increasingly play an integral part of any PR campaign – but the exercise says a lot about the power of good information more in-depth than 140 characters.

From what we read on various blogs and in well-heeled marketing publications, social media marketing (SMM) is all about networks and using them to influence. 

It’s so ‘now’ that business has taken to the phenomenon with gusto as its latest marketing tool. We’ve even overheard some business types admit they don’t know what it is, but they know they need to have it!

But as far as we can see, everything old is new again. So after much digging through our old text books, soul searching and a few glasses of single malt scotch whiskey, we think we’ve finally understood what this whole SMM thing is all about. It’s a PR strategy!

Now before SMM aficionados take umbrage at this statement, please let us explain.

Firstly lets take a look at the grand daddy of public relations, Eddie Bernays. Now Eddie (apart from having the thumping dinner party conversation starter that he was the nephew of Sigmund Freud) was a pioneer in the area of influence way back in the 1920’s. He said if you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway. Sound familiar?

Eddie pioneered the use of crowd psychology and the psychoanalytical ideas of Uncle Sigmund to manipulate public opinion using the subconscious, and went on to convince the public it was OK for women to smoke, that bacon and eggs was the true all-American breakfast, and to even facilitate the overthrow of the democratically elected president of Guatemala on behalf of the multinational United Fruit Company. Nice work Eddie.

So using the power of peers or groups to influence purchasing or decision making is nothing new. Its just been turbo charged.

Secondly an integral part of SMM for the business world is the ability to have a conversation with their customers.

Again, nothing new. As an example a client of ours has built his very successful business on word of mouth. Only problem is its taken a long time (15 years to be exact), but his customer retention rate is around 98 percent because he has a great product and he’s taken the time to build relationships with his customers by speaking with them one-by-one. He’s soon to embark on a SMM campaign.

PR academics will also fall over their tweed jackets to tell you all about Grunig and Hunt’s four models of PR, one of the most common theories in the field: press agentry, public information, two-way asymmetric and two-way symmetric. Its the two-way symmetric, or engaging in a dialogue with a view to changing practices, that most of our learned friend hold high as the perfect PR model.

Trouble is, that until now, the ability for businesses to actively and cost-effectively engage with their customers in such a manner has been out of their reach. Enter SMM.

So again, the idea’s been around in PR circles for a while, its just the technology that’s finally caught up.

And a last word on the subject (because we can), SMM is not free as many think it is. Just as it takes time and resources for you to canvas new clients, engage with them, and maintain relationships, it takes the same when engaging in a SMM campaign. Its just a whole lot quicker and bigger.

Now where’s that little black address book of ours?

Rummaging through a pile of old newspaper clippings the other day we came across the predictions by a number of major financial institutions about their forecast of where the Australian dollar would be at certain points in the future.

The article was published in the Courier Mail on 27 December 2008 (amidst the height of the global financial crisis) asking nine financial institutions, including three of our largest banks, where they thought the dollar would be on 30 June and 31 December 2009.

Now remember things weren’t too rosy in the world of finance at that stage (probably an understatement), so it’s not surprising that they all got the 30 June prediction wrong (in fact between as much as 34.4c and 13.4c wrong), but reviewing the article got us thinking about using predictions to generate publicity opportunities.

A number of financial, business and social commentators have made quiet a nice living out of ‘predicting’ the future of certain markets, and the property industry is one that immediately springs to mind.

Real estate commentators are all now saying the market has turned and are tipping price growth in the housing market. This may be true, but don’t forget we’re also coming off the back of a general property slump and heading into the traditional ’spring’ sales period. So unless we experience a cataclysmic event like a meteor hitting the earth or Michael Jackson rising from the dead, chances are they’ll be on the money and will take full advantage of bragging rights.

But what happens when they get it wrong, like the banks in the aforementioned example? We’ll not a lot really. No one comes back and asks for an explanation or holds them to account. The Courier Mail hasn’t done a follow up, and after all it was only a prediction.

So, is it safe to do this sort of thing as a legitimate PR opportunity? We think so, but only if your predictions are based on realistic information and you have a genuine reason for doing so. It also helps if it becomes a part of your ongoing PR strategy, which over time will position your business as thought leader in your particular space.

If the likes of Michael Matusik and Bill Morris can do it for the property market, why not for your industry?

Zakazukha have noticed a fair bit of chatter about branding of late and thought we’d throw our propaganda skewed view into the mix.

When we think of big brands images such as Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Nike, Apple and McDonald’s instantly spring to mind (notably all from the U.S.). And when it comes to Australian brands the likes of Vegemite, Bonds, Akubra, Speedo and Cadbury are all at the top of our gum tree.

Interestingly though in a recent ranking of Australia’s best brands by the world’s largest brand consultancy, Interbrand, none of our own home-grown list made it on to the 2009 league table. Try Telstra, the four major banks, a handful of retailers and a global leader in barrier protective solutions (eh?).

Which got us thinking, if there’s so much focus on brands and branding, and so many marketers talking about it, then is there a place for branding for SME’s?

Well, if you’ve got a business plan that stretches 100 years or so, and you execute it successfully, then your brand will almost certainly gain a decent ranking on some sort of list. Take Coca-Cola for example. The company has been around since 1886 and is now the most recognised brand in the world. Same goes for McDonald’s, General Electric, Ford etc.

The common denominator here (apart from being successful) is time, and plenty of it in their respective markets, something most SME’s don’t have.

The other path to having a recognised brand is being at the forefront of some sort of revolution (technological, creative or cultural). Think Apple, Microsoft, Nokia, MTV, Google, eBay etc. Most of these behemoths haven’t been around for that long, but have pioneered their field and have risen to the top very quickly.

The common denominator (again, apart from success) is their timing in or creation of a new market, something most SME’s aspire to but haven’t yet achieved.

So without the century plus track record or not yet creating the next big thing, do SME’s really need to worry about branding?

Well yes, all the time.

Brand specialists will tell you branding is more than just a logo (and this is true), and some will even be able to ‘distill’ your brand essence for you so you can get to know it better, albeit all at a price.

Call us old-fashioned but we subscribe to the notion that branding is a by-product of doing what you do well. In other words establishing a brand means getting on with the job, providing a great product and even better customer-centric service.

Yes you need to spend money on a decent logo, and yes you need to put the appropriate systems in place to be able to deliver on the brand promise, but no one knows your business better than you – and this knowledge shouldn’t cost you a cent.