Backpacker Magazine’s Rocky Mountain field editor, Steve Howe, was on a little product testing trip on Denali when the following message was sent from his SPOT Satellite Messenger to Steve’s wife and to Steve’s friend and Backpacker Mag editor, Jon Dorn: “Steve Howe is injured or immobilized & cannot proceed, but has no immediate life-threatening condition. Evac please.”

Thing is, Howe wasn’t actually in need of evacuation. Due to some unfortunate, yet-to-be-determined series of events, the SPOT unit was inadvertently activated and sent the distress call that ultimately initiated preliminary search and rescue activities.

Read Dorn’s blow-by-blow account here.

It’s a great story, so great that other blogs and publications are linking to it. Lots of them. Which, according to how SPOT handles it, could be either a great opportunity for them or a big problem.

(more…)

The tricky dynamic of this “news” is that it should actually be two press releases: One from the new client’s perspective announcing a major investment in their marketing activities and one from the PR firm’s perspective announcing a sweet new business win.

However due to the relatively limited media coverage of our industries, the new client’s target audience gets their news and information from the same places that the target audience for the PR firm’s release. Two releases would be overkill. Sometimes, one release that tries to do too much is just as bad.

Is there a right way to do this? Who knows…each firm has their own style and approach, different clients have different demands, but…

We feel that you can address the needs of both new client and PR firm by writing a sweet release from the new client’s perspective and make it valuable and newsworthy by honestly answering the question, “Why did they hire us? No, really.” The answer to that is the ‘So What’ for the release.

Let’s look at it step-by-step:

Is it news?

New Client: Yes.

PR Firm: Yes

To Whom?

Client: Dealers, prospective dealers, employees, vendors, sponsored athletes/events, distributors, the competition.

PR Firm: Current clients, prospective clients, The Media, employees, vendors, swag hunting brethren.

Why?

Client: Has made a major investment in it’s marketing to become more competitive through increased brand name awareness and differentiation among target audiences, increased demand for products, drive sell through at the retail level, strengthen brand loyalty, win awards, get chicks and generally sell more stuff.

PR Firm: We’re growing, we know our stuff, Suck it Other PR Firms

So What?

Client: ?

PR Firm: Suck It Other PR Firms (We’re all friends and we enjoy competing…)

This release is the first shot at establishing brand position under the new relationship. So, it’s important. Again, each firm and client has their own approach and needs, so whatever works…but first think about how it would feel if your release wound up on ThePiton for the wrong reasons…and then begin to write it.

Also, don’t franken-quote unless it is adding some color, something interesting other than how pleased you are…

Twitter’s popularity as a communications channel is soaring, so much so that Twitter’s servers can’t handle the traffic. That there hasn’t been a mass exodus of Twitter users to competing micro-blogging platforms due to Twitter’s frequent service interruptions demonstrates Twitter’s popularity and perceived potential.

So why Twitter?

People are tired of crafting long form, deep thought, ego and credibility building blog posts and have discovered that they can, usually, communicate the essence of their thoughts in the required 140 characters of less. Twitter forces you to be succinct and there is Joy therein.

Twitter is also more immediate. Blogs, RSS feeds, aggregators, etc… have made us impatient. We no longer want to know what is going on with the people and companies we respect, we want to know what is going on NOW. Twitter/Tweets provide the answers.

As well, people/companies we respect are using Twitter in cool, valuable ways: VeloNews sent/Twittered(?) race updates from the Giro and the Tour of Pennsylvania; The Piton Twittered updates from OIA/Leisure Trend’s market research conference call; SteepandCheap fans are Twittering the current deal in real time, to name a few.

Continuing to experiment in our test kitchen, Base Camp Comm has been sending press release headlines with links back to the full release. So far, the system works.

Did I mention that the linking to/from also helps build search results rankings.

Finally, Twitter is so simple that there is no shortage of professional and amateur programs trying to make it more complicated by creating all sorts of applications that make Twitter available in any format, flavor, system, platform you need. Some are even helpful and valuable.

So, if you are into it, follow Base Camp Comm on Twitter, and we’ll see where this goes.

New York Mag’s regular Party Lines photo collage feature documenting the Big Apple’s most swank and fabulous society and media affairs visited the 2008 National Magazine Awards on May 1st and caught Backpacker’s JD and Runners World’s David Willey after they received their, um, trophies(?). JD for General Excellence under 500,000 and Mr. Wiley for General Excellence Online

I’m just going to cut/paste the first couple of paragraphs from the release as it speaks for itself:

An online survey was sent to over 3,300 Consumer Panel members to find out how consumers use online product reviews when researching and purchasing snow sports products. According to the Panel, the majority of snow sports participants (86.4%) said that they take the time to read online product reviews that other consumers have written before purchasing new products. These reviews are even more important to consumers getting ready to purchase big ticket items like snowboards, apparel, and skis. More than 88% of panel members said they seek out and read these reviews before purchasing expensive snow sports equipment and apparel.

Snow sports participants claim to be directly impacted by these consumer reviews. Almost 7 out of 10 consumers have decided not to purchase a product because of a review another consumer has written. On the other hand, the impact of a bad review only goes so far, 61.6% have purchased a product even after it received bad consumer reviews.

It gets even more interesting when SIA breaks it down by gender, age and geographic location, but…all the percentages are super high. There isn’t any mention or comparison between traditional media review influence versus consumer review influence…that would be interesting to see. You can download the entire report here.

So What? Crappy product can’t hide behind great marketing anymore. The people will call you out in plain, direct language.

 Who: 25 sickbird riders of all ages and locations on everything from town cruisers (who didn’t fare well) to single-speed, fixed gear bikes (who killed it)

What: Kickass Alley Cat Race video

Where: A burly course though the streets of downtown Monterey, California

When: Friday night April 18, 2008 during the Sea Otter Classic

Why: For fun and bragging rights

How: By pedaling hard and knowing there was cold beer and the coolest swag at the finish line

How, How: Thanks to sponsors Princeton Tec, Dirt Rag magazine, Swobo and Robbie and the boyz at Aquarian Bicycles

Oh yeah, all those bright red blinking lights you see, that’s Princeton Tec’s new high-powered Swerve bike tail light - check it out here at www.swerveyourbike.com. Enjoy!