2012: The Year of Mattering More
December 19, 2012

2012 has been an eventful period in MWW’s history. We’ve added marquee clients, won every major PR award, added to our team, unveiled our new branding, extended our commitment to the environment, and continued to make a major impact on the industry. Throughout the year our “Matter More” philosophy has been infused in each milestone serving as an internal rallying call and external declaration to our clients and communities. The infographic below offers a snapshot of our highlights and some of the moments that contributed to our success in 2012.

Thank you to everyone who helped make 2012 great. Stay tuned…we have even more in store for 2013.

And from the MWW family to yours, happy holidays!

Posted by Michael Kempner at 9:34 pm | Comment (0) | Trackback (0)

Guest Post: Who’s Got Ground Game?
September 18, 2012

Note from Michael: Ephraim Cohen, EVP of Technology and Digital Content at MWW, has highlighted over on his blog some important work our client Eventbrite is doing to track political event organizing state by state. I wanted to share it with you here.

Read it in full below, but be sure to check out Ephraim’s blog:

This past week we worked with Evenbrite, a client out of our San Francisco and New York offices, to release nine months worth of campaign event data.  Everything from local fundraisers to presidential rallies managed on Eventbrite were included as the Eventbrite Politics team took a look at which parties were organizing more events on a state by state basis.   The following are some of the key findings and infographics from the Eventbrite blog:

Trends Throughout All 50 States

Across all political events on Eventbrite in 2012, 29% have been Democratic events, and 71% have been Republican events.

On average, across the United States, a Democratic event gathers 42 supporters, and a Republican event gathers 68 supporters.

• • • • • • • • •

Free Events Trump Paid Events in Swing States

In the key swing states (Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin), 63% of Democratic events and 77% of Republican events have been free, community-building events.

This data tells us that in battleground states, candidates are more focused on using Eventbrite to gather supporters together around issues they are passionate about—as opposed to raising money.

• • • • • • • • •

Fundraising in Swing States: Who Pays More?

Also in the swing states, there is a wide gap in the average ticket price for fundraising events. The average ticket price for a Democratic fundraising event is $115.53, while the average ticket price for a Republican fundraising event is $31.50.

For more information on how we’re helping political campaigns reach and connect with their communities, visit http://eventbrite.com/politics

 

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It’s All About Relevance: MWW’s 2012 Mid-Year Update
July 24, 2012

More than 35 new clients.
12% firm-wide growth.
10 new hires in our senior leadership.
More than 45 industry awards recognizing our firm and client work.

And 2012 is only half over!

I know every year I say it’s been MWW’s best year yet, but 2012 is shaping up to outshine all others.

Already we’ve welcomed marquee clients such as Leggett + Platt, Sanuk, Vitals, H5, Eventbrite, NQ Mobile, and OfficeMax, just to name a few.

We’ve grown our family across the nation. We’ve asked David Herrick to make the move to Chief Operating Officer to make sure we’re optimizing the depth of new talent in each of our offices. On the West Coast, JP Schuerman and Steve Mnich have joined in Los Angeles and San Francisco respectively, growing our client service capabilities in those key markets. John Digles returns to lead our Chicago office. In D.C., Deana Perlmutter joins as Deputy General Manager, where her work on major corporate issues and her deep expertise in clean energy technologies adds new depth to our legislative practice.

And, we’ve unveiled our new branding and identity, including a new logo that is more relevant and represents our boldly independent  spirit. Along with that rebranding, we formalized our Matter More commitment to client service, employees, and our communities. We continue to roll out our “relevance” point of view.  And, in a first for the public relations industry, our proprietary “NetRelevance” technology allows us to create communications programs that drive relevance among our clients’ key stakeholders and then measure those results in a more tangible and actionable way.

We continue to do our part to push the conversation on relevance forward by playing a key role in Social Media Week, hosting the Obama for America social media team for a discussion on the future of digital and social media in campaigns. We’ve also been a proud supporter and leader of the Public Relations Society of America’s push to integrate PR courses at the MBA level in top schools across the country – the pilot program rolls out this fall in 5 schools.

We’ve released our third annual Corporate Citizenship Report chronicling our commitment to sustainability and environmental stewardship in a number of different ways. We’ve leant our public relations support to worthy causes, including the White House Council on Community Solutions and the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship.

We launched MWW Ventures – our stake in the ground for incubating PR and marketing innovation.

We launched our own entertainment practice along with Kevin Liles, former President of Def Jam Records and EVP at Warner Music Group, and his KWL Enterprises to connect clients with some of the top performers and influencers of culture.

We’ve been proud to deliver top-notch research and insights, including our report on what influences Digital Moms and a look into how business executives view the connection between internal culture and corporate reputation. We’ve also shared research on the differences in video consumption on tablet and smartphones and revealed insights on what matters most to Superbowl viewers.

And the awards and recognitions keep flooding in, including two Silver Anvils and accolades for our CSR work. Our client work with JetBlue led by Carreen Winters and her corporate reputation team has earned more than 11 awards in just a year, and they just keep coming.

While some firms slow down during the summer months, that’s when we’re just getting started – we’ve got plenty in store for the rest of 2012.

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Is PR Experiencing its “Mad Men” Moment?
July 20, 2012

Mad Men is not only one of my favorite television shows – earning multiple Emmy nods yesterday – it’s brought to light to what has been called the “Golden Age” of advertising, as Don Draper and his partners re-invent the industry amidst the rise of television and the Civil Rights movement…in other words, a whole lot of cultural change all at once.

Which has many in our industry asking “could this be the Golden Age of PR?”

No doubt that the changes we’re experiencing today with the rise of social media and technology are reminiscent of the 1960s era portrayed in Mad Men. But as MWW’s Senior Vice President Joe Cohen says over at PRWeek…and I think he’s right…it’s not up to our profession to judge when our own “golden age” has arrived. That’s for history to decide. What will matter 50 years from now is not how these changes defined our profession, but how we defined the future through the decisions we make and the innovations we build.

Check out Joe’s thoughts – and let me know your own.

 

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Good things happening on the West Coast
July 16, 2012

Great news over the weekend from our LA office.

Last week the City of Claremont, California, voted 4-1 to adopt a resolution toward creating a smoke-free outdoor environment. The City will be implementing a marketing and education campaign that reduces smoking in outdoor public areas, such as restaurants.

The MWW team out in LA has been working on this issue for two years and has received high praise from community stakeholders and local politicians.

Just another way we’re helping clients matter more…and breathe easier…in communities around the country!

 

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Guest post: Why a doctor’s office and a hammock are important to mobile video
July 10, 2012

Note from Michael: MWW’s EVP of Technology & Digital Content Ephraim Cohen posted important insights on mobile marketing over on his own blog that I wanted to share with you here. If you thought consumers viewed video in the same way on both their tablets and smartphones, think again…and read on.

At MWW, we recently took a look at what words, images and situations are most closely associated with watching movies and TVs on smartphone and tablets.  We found both notable differences in how people associate video entertainment with smartphones vs. tablets that illustrate that marketing mobile video is not as simple as focusing on mobile itself.

The chart below shows how images and words associated with watching video on tablets include home, bed, couch, night and with mobile scenarios being centered around travel topics, as travel has longer wait and down times.  Not suprisingly, smartphones are almost 100% on-the-go devices where watching video is associated with waiting rooms, lines, working, car – situations generally associated with being on the go.

In both cases, they are maximizing downtime, but in the case of tablets it is longer periods of relaxing downtimes while with smartphones, video is used during short snippets of downtime while you are on the go (such as waiting in a line).

The types of video watched match up to these scenarios with tablets being associated with longer form movies and TV shows and smartphones more closely associated with shorter forms such as YouTube videos scaling up to TV shows (but not the longest form – movies).

Having kids then drives a third scenario most strongly associated with watching video on both tablets and smartphones – mobile video as a distraction.  Three out of four parents that watch video on a tablet also download video for their children with over half doing so frequently.    60% of parents who watch video on a smartphone also download video for their children.

video on smartphone and tablet usage family smartphone tablet video usage samsung galaxy tab with video

You can find the full report on watching video on smartphones vs. tablets here.

 

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It’s a great day
June 28, 2012

It’s a great day for America…particularly for the 30 million Americans who will now have access to health insurance thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling to uphold the Affordable Care Act … for the individuals with pre-existing conditions…for the young people under 26 who will be able to stay covered under their parents’ insurance…the list goes on.

But it’s also a great day for the Supreme Court as an institution. In a poll released earlier this month, only 44% of Americans approved of the Court’s job performance, down from the 60s in the 1980s. The perception since Bush v. Gore has been increasingly that the Supreme Court has become a partisan player, which has taken a toll on its reputation.

With this ruling, Chief Justice Roberts has silenced many of those critics, and like this commentary from the New York Times nailed, hit the reset button. Let’s be honest, the Chief Justice had every reason to vote with the four dissenters. Yet, he went as far as to deliver the majority opinion. It was a bold statement, but the right one to make.

Just like Ben Bernanke and his attempt to bring transparency and relevancy to the Fed, the Chief Justice knows what he’s doing. It was clear when he saved the most newsworthy ruling for last, forcing the media to cover every detail of the Court in order to fill up the airtime.

And like transparency at the Fed, it’s a good thing for our nation. I can guarantee more people know the names of some Supreme Court justices today than they did yesterday. Probably not all of them yet… there’s still more work to do. Still, it’s a great day for democracy.

Finally, it’s a great day for digital journalism. A month ago, only the die-hard legal types had heard of SCOTUSblog. Today, and for the last week and a half, it drove the news cycle. Not CNN. Not Fox News. In fact, those guys blew it. In a rush to be first to break the news, CNN got it wrong, putting the final nail in the coffin for its relevance that started slipping the moment it called the race for Bush in 2000. At least SCOTUS got it right this time around…

With the Court on recess and pundits turning to November, SCOTUS won’t continue to dominate the conversation.  But today was a great day in reasserting the relevance of the Court in Americans’ daily lives and restoring a reputation long in need of repair.

 

 

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Introducing…Matter More
June 7, 2012

Notice anything different?

Over the past six months, our creative and marketing teams have been developing and laying the groundwork for a rollout MWW’s new brand identity. The first phase was the new signage on our headquarters at Meadowlands Plaza in East Rutherford, New Jersey. And yesterday we launched a fresh look to our website and social media platforms.

The new logo, tagline, and overall identity represents exactly we’ve stood for the past 26 years, while moving the brand forward. We’re more than meets the eye, more than what you might expect from a traditional public relations firm.

A rebrand is always a bittersweet moment, particularly for a founder. It’s a time to think back on how far the brand has come, and look forward to what the brand can be. For years, we’ve made our commitment to “Aim High and Deliver” front and center. That commitment isn’t going anywhere, it’s just evolving.

But while it continues to be a driver of our internal culture, we felt that “Matter More” better conveyed our external philosophy: nothing matters more to us than our clients and our employees, and we’ll work hard to make our clients matter more to their stakeholders…driving more engagement, more relevance, and more emotional connection in their daily lives.

To learn more about what “Matter More” means to us, read our manifesto. You can also explore the site, check out our new Facebook and Twitter pages and our family of blogs, including Return on Reputation and Absolute Value…let us know what you think.

 

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Digital Moms Aren’t Created Equal
May 15, 2012

Today, MWW Insights released a study on the heels of Mother’s Day looking at how moms influence (and are influenced by) other moms online. Based on a survey of more than 1,000 moms, we’ve learned that “digital” moms aren’t created equal when it comes to what they’re doing online and what kinds of technologies they prefer. In fact, there are five kinds of digital moms – and brands will need to market to them each individually. Take a look at how these five digital moms are using their digital networks to drive trends, purchases, and engage with brands.

 

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Will the MBA Class of 2012 Have a Social Media Problem?
May 10, 2012

Today on the Huffington Post, I talk about the lack of social media skills education offered at some of the top MBA programs in the nation. In a recent survey, 6 out of 10 managers who have hired recent MBA grads said those grads didn’t have the adequate skills to protect reputational credibility. I recommend five ways recent grads can make up for it…would love to hear your recommendations as well.

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