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The Cool Factor: Building your brands image through partnership marketing

UPDATE November 4, 2008: The winners have been announced. Congratulations to Bryan Bliss who won the guitar and ten others who won books.
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"What is cool?" Del Breckenfeld asks in his new book The Cool Factor: Building Your Brands Image through Partnership Marketing. "It's difficult to identify, impossible to measure, and usually appears spontaneously."

I'm going to talk a little about Del's new book and a little about cool.

But please note that there is an insanely cool challenge with a one-of-a-kind offer (you can win a Fender Telecaster guitar used in a concert and signed by Billy F. Gibbons of ZZ Top) as part of this blog post, so read on!

As head of Entertainment Marketing at Fender Musical Instruments, Del Breckenfeld worked with the world's top musicians, helped organize amazing events, and secured product placement in hit movies. In his book, he shows how Fender became the coolest name in musical instruments and how marketers at Fender partnered with cool products, people, and events to up their cool factor even more.

Because very few of us work at way cool companies like Fender, Breckenfeld shows us in the book how you can partner with cool and have some of the coolness rub off.

That's what I’ve done! How? I was fortunate to read an advance copy of The Cool Factor and offer an endorsement for the back of the book. My own cool factor went up when I saw the other blurbs from the likes of Billy F. Gibbons from ZZ Top and Don Felder formerly of The Eagles.

Me, together with a couple of Rock and Roll Hall of Famers? No way! How cool.

"Del Breckenfeld's The Cool Factor gets the inside story on the music business partnering with major corporations fueling their brands."
—Billy F. Gibbons, guitarist, singer, and songwriter with the multiplatinum band ZZ Top, and all-around "Sharp Dressed Man"

"In The Cool Factor, Del Breckenfeld shows us firsthand how to get celebrities to partner with corporations for the purpose of positive outreach..."
—Don Felder, former lead guitarist and songwriter of The Eagles, bestselling author of Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles (1974 – 2001)

"Del Breckenfeld knows cool. Fender, the brand he oversees, has such a high cool factor that even millions of non-musicians aspire to use its products..."
—David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR and World Wide Rave

OK, so here's the challenge. As part of a cool partnership with Del Breckenfeld, we're offering a Fender guitar signed by Billy F. Gibbons. This amazing Fender® Classic 72 Telecaster® Deluxe guitar was used in a concert this past weekend (you can learn more about it and see some photos below). The guitar will go to the person who supplies the best response to my challenge below. In addition, a copy of The Cool Factor will be sent to the winner plus five honorable mentions.

Breckenfeld says. "If you ask someone what cool is, they'll probably reply that they can't tell you in exact words, but they know it when they see it."

I told Breckenfeld that my blog readers are a cool bunch. And I said that they would have some great ideas on what "cool" is.

So your challenge is: Define "cool" in two sentences or less.

To get you thinking, according to Wikipedia, "Cool is an aesthetic of attitude, behavior, comportment, appearance, style and Zeitgeist."

Details:
1. Your answer must be original, not a movie line or something like that.

2. The challenge ends at 5:00 PM U.S. Eastern time on Friday October 31, 2008.

3. Please submit your answer by either writing a blog post and sending a trackback to this post (or) leaving a comment to this post (or) blog or podcast your answer and leave a link to your blog or podcast in a comment on this post.

4. Only one entry per person please. (However feel free to leave a general comment on this post if you want and then an entry later.)

5. Please use your real name. If you enter via a blog post, make sure you have contact information on your blog so we can notify you if you win. If you enter via a comment, please enter a valid email address in the comment form so we can contact you (your email address will not be published).

6. Shannon Vargo from John Wiley & Sons Inc. (publisher of The Cool Factor) will select the winner and runners up.

7 Thank you!

Billy F. Gibbons and the guitar with his artwork and autograph

"I contacted Billy F. Gibbons to ask if he could sign a Fender® guitar as part of a promotion for my new book, The Cool Factor, on David Meerman Scott's popular blog," says Del Breckenfeld. "I had worked with Billy beginning with ZZ Top's infamous 'Legs' video (the company I worked for at the time created the spinning fur guitars) right up to Billy's appearance on this year's American Idol. My association with Billy is well documented in my book, and both Billy and David were kind enough to offer endorsements for my book's jacket.

"It just so happened that ZZ Top was playing the 25th Anniversary of Southern California’s 'Love Ride'. The event typically attracts over 20,000 motorcycles and to date, the ride has generated over $20 million which is donated to try and help solve Muscular Dystrophy and to fund local charities. This year proved to be the biggest and best one yet! I brought along a shiny black Classic 72 Telecaster® Deluxe for Billy to sign and when my wife Bettina and I met him on his tour bus, we were joined by Duff McKagan, bassist with Velvet Revolver and formally with Guns & Roses. Duff was planning on sitting in with ZZ Top along with Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters, who just finished their blazing set. The problem was that Duff didn’t have a guitar with him. He took one look at the Classic Tele and thought it would do just fine for the performance. The next thing we knew, we were watching Duff on-stage with Grohl and ZZ Top ripping through 'La Grange' and 'Tush' in front of a delirious crowd estimated at 40,000 fans. As soon as the show ended, we were back on Billy's bus, where he carefully wiped off the guitar and proceeded to create his own brand of hot rod 'pin-stripping' on the face, then signing and dating the artwork. The guitar, resplendent with Billy's art and a few well placed 'dings' from the rockin' show as war wounds, is now part of rock history."

ZZ Top with Duff McKagan using the guitar in a concert in front of 40,000 people

Come on, you know you want this guitar. It is so damn cool. You're a smart marketer, aren't you? How would you define "cool" in two sentences or less?

Duff McKagan (with the guitar) and Del Breckenfeld in Billy F. Gibbons' tour bus prior to the gig

Disclosure: The Cool Factor is published by John Wiley & Sons, the publisher of my books including The New Rules of Marketing & PR (2007) and World Wide Rave (coming March 2009).

Twitter and personal branding: The BIG mistake I see people make every single day

I've been enjoying Twitter and (so far) have managed not to become obsessed. I'll tweet a few times a day and check out others now and then throughout the week.

As you probably know, people use Twitter to keep their "followers" (people who subscribe to their Twitter feed) updated on their life. For instance, you might tweet about the conference you're attending, the project you're engrossed in, or you might ask your network a question. Users can choose to follow the Twitter updates of anyone they want to hear from: family members, colleagues, or perhaps the author of the last book they read.

Twitter has been a valuable personal branding tool for me. I've connected with people who read my stuff, met new contacts, pointed people to my books, and promoted speaking engagements. All for free and in just a few minutes a day.

Many people ask me about Twitter and it's use in personal branding and marketing. But they immediately dive into stuff like "how often should I tweet", "what should I tweet about", "is it cool to DM people" (send direct messages), and other details of using Twitter. Well, that's all fine, but the vast majority of people miss the most basic (and important) personal branding aspect of all.

What does your Twitter page look like?

Most Twitter pages don't say enough and most have crappy design. While that's fine if you're just communicating with friends, if you care about your personal brand, you need to do better. Much better. And it is so easy!

Here are my suggestions. You make these changes under the "settings" tab in Twitter. Again, this is Twitter for personal branding, so it may not apply to you:

Twitter ID: (mine is dmscott) Use something that is not silly. Something like MrSillyGuy is probably not a good idea for most people. (However it that is your personal brand of course it is fine. As of this writing MrSillyGuy is not taken as a Twitter ID, so go for it if you want to.)

Name: (mine is David Meerman Scott). Use your real name. Don't just default to your user ID. And don't just use a nickname like "Pookie". You can put your nickname in quotes inside of your real name if you want to. You want people to know who you are if you care about your personal brand.

Location: (mine is Boston, MA area) Use the town or nearest city that makes sense for you. Saying something cute like "earth" or "somewhere in Canada" turns people who don't know you off. Besides, the location is a good way to make local contacts.

Web: (mine is my blog URL) If you have a blog, put the URL here. Or maybe a company Web site makes sense for you. This should be somewhere people can go to learn more about you. You can leave this blank if you want.

Bio: (mine is Bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR) This is where you say something about yourself. You only get 160 characters. As a component of personal branding, this is a critical section. Don't leave it blank. And don't make a mini-resume from a laundry list of attributes like: "father, brother, surfer, economics major, world traveler, marketer, and rockstar wannabe." (That would be my list) I see this sort of thing all the time and it is not good for personal branding. Try to be descriptive. And try to be specific.

Your photo is very important! Don't default to the placeholder that Twitter provides for those with no photo. And don't use something clever as a stand in (like your cat). If you care about your personal brand, you should use your photo. Remember, the photos appear very tiny on Twitter, so use a close-up shot.

The background image of your Twitter page is a place where you can really show off. The default blue background is like when you first open PowerPoint - it is a default. Twitter has some choices, but many people use them so you will not be unique. Shoot a custom photo that only you have and you will really shine. I have a close-up photo of a nifty old typewriter keyboard. It’s my personal brand on Twitter.

Don't protect your updates. If you want to meet new people and promote your personal brand, I suggest you make your updates available to the world.

This stuff is really easy and important for your personal brand. If you are on Twitter, take the time to make some changes today.

Comfortable air travel or the lowest possible price?

Like most people, I'm on hundreds of email lists. I get dozens of "marketing" emails a day from organizations I support and companies I do business with. You probably do too.

Most of the content of these "opt-in" emails are just a bunch of advertising. You know, things like:

- 10% off your entire order!
- Free shipping!
- Two for the price of one!
- Act now while supplies last!
- Available until Friday only!

Very few of the companies I do business with send me anything of value, especially the six or eight airlines I get email from. The airlines are always bugging me with "sale prices," "special offers," "vacation packages," and other crap. The airlines just don't get that someone who travels nearly 150,000 miles a year for business doesn't book travel based on price and special offers.

I was surprised and delighted last week when American Airlines actually send me some interesting information via email. I am a Platinum AA customer now and will likely go over the threshold to become the highest level, Executive Platinum, (100,000 miles) by the end of the year. That’s a lot of travel making me one of their best customers.

The email I got announced American Airlines plans to acquire 42 new Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft.

That's actually a big deal because Boeing designed the 787 Dreamliner from the passenger perspective, thinking that people will book travel based on the plane. That's exactly what I do (and what other frequent travelers do too). When you're in the air as many hours as I am (about 300 hours a year) comfort is the most important thing -- more important than price, special deals, and other things.

Boeing photo

The American Airlines email said:
"Boeing's Dreamliner aircraft offers a new level of comfort for our passengers. It features improved air and water purification systems, as well as new humidification techniques and lower cabin pressure, which are expected to reduce passenger fatigue. In addition, the 787 advanced engine design provides a quieter operation, with an expected noise footprint 60 percent smaller than other aircraft of similar size, benefiting those in the air as well as those on the ground. The plane's lower overall weight and improved design means we also will reduce our impact on the environment by burning less fuel. The 787 aircraft also has the largest overhead bins in the industry – approximately 30 percent larger than comparable aircraft bins. The large 19-inch windows are designed to make the cabin feel more spacious."

I'm amazed at how often companies send press releases to the media but fail to inform their customers of important news. In this example, American Airlines did send a press release about the new aircraft, but they were also smart enough to alert their frequent travelers.

Yes, the airline industry has problems. But if the marketers focus on buyer personas, such as business travelers, create products that we want to buy, and communicate intelligently, then they will make it through these tough times.

How are you using your permission marketing assets? Are you using it to advertise in a lame attempt to drum up sales?

Or are you sending valuable and welcome information to your customers?

Gartner fails miserably in product test, immediate action required

UPDATE 1: About six hours after this post, Andrew Frank commented (see below) and also clarified on his blog in a post This is Not a Product Test. Thank you Andrew.

UPDATE 2: The day after this post, Andrew Frank posted The Watchdogs List which aggregated the responses from the two Gartner blogs in order that they were received. This is a welcome and appropriate followup to my blog post below. Once again. thank you Andrew.

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ORIGINAL POST:
Andrew Frank, a Research VP at Gartner "the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company" conducted an interesting experiment in a blog post on October 2 called Which Social Media Monitors Eat Their Own Dog Food?

Unfortunately the experiment went terribly awry and Gartner did nothing about it. I find this behavior by a research firm appalling and misleading and completely counter to the sorts of things that they advise clients. In fact, I think given the post in question, Gartner should be required to issue a formal apology.

Frank issued a challenge to firms that monitor social media by including the names of some companies in the space in a blog post. The test was to see who noticed and you told Frank by leaving a comment.

The companies included 1st2c, Biz360, BrandIntel, BuzzLogic, Nielsen Buzzmetrics, CIC, Clarabridge, Collective Intellect, Converseon, CoreX Technologies, Crawdad Technologies, CSC NameProtect, CustomScoop, TNS Cymfony, Echo Research, Envisional, Factiva, Kaava, Market Sentinel, MotiveQuest, Networked Insights, New Media Strategies, Onalytica, Opinmind, Popularmedia, Radian6 Technologies, RelevantNoise, ScoutLabs, SentiMetrix, Techrigy, Trackur, Umbria, Unbound Technologies, Visible Technologies, Waggener Edstrom Narrative Network

So far so good. It’s sort of clever actually.

However the blog comments that were a part of the Gartner blog system made this a terribly flawed experiment. Several people’s comments did not appear and they had to resend. One person commented within 24 hours and that comment never appeared. It is quite likely that some people commented and their comment never appeared at all.

Here are some of the comments that led me to write this post:

Marcel LeBrun, CEO of Radian6 said: "Hi Andrew, We are listening. Didn't see my earlier comment appear on your post so trying again."

Andy Beal of Trackur.com said: "Unfortunately, I see all and hear all. Nice test! **Either you need a better confirmation system, or my last comment vanished. Feel free to delete this one if needed. **"

Alecia O'Brien of dna13 said: "We are in fact listening (and have been..). We posted a comment several days ago but I guess comments are being moderated?"

At the New Marketing Summit #NMS08 yesterday, I had an opportunity to speak with several of the companies in this experiment. Many were, excuse my language, ROYALLY PISSED OFF.

One person said that they reached out to Gartner through the blog about the issue and got an email from Tom Kobak, Communications Director of Gartner's Product Platforms Group who said: "Thanks for your email to Site Feedback about your comments on the Social Media Monitoring on one of the Gartner blogs. I have passed on to the appropriate person here to take care of, so should be fixed shortly. Sorry for any problems, and please let me know if you have any questions." Interestingly, Kobak's email signature line included this: "Gartner delivers the technology-related insight necessary for our clients to make the right decisions, every day."

Okay, so here is why this is an appalling situation that Garner must make right:

1. Gartner is an analyst firm. Clients trust them to make decisions on technology. In this case, clients may make actual purchase decisions based on this flawed post.
2. In this post, Gartner was testing media monitoring company speed of response to a post. They were TESTING PRODUCTS on the blog but the test was ridiculously flawed. (The test implies that when you are quick to respond, you are better, yet some people were unable to respond).
3. The flaw was pointed out yet Gartner did nothing about it.
4. The vendors in question would probably be too timid to call Gartner out on this for fear of retribution in the form of bad product reviews.

Here's another test. How long will it take Gartner to respond to this?

EMC Corporation and social media marketing

Every week I encounter people working for large organizations with huge marketing and PR budgets who are resistant to the ideas of The New Rules of Marketing & PR.

They're used to the things that worked in an exclusively offline world (TV ads, tradeshows and events, media and analyst relations, Yellow Page ads, direct mail, and the like) and they don't want to experiment. Or there might be an individual who wants to jump into new marketing, but the bosses are resistant. Or the PR department is scared of "losing control of the message."

EMC is a big company (revenues in the USD$10 Billion plus range) and is jumping into social media marketing. Unlike other large organizations that are good at making excuses, EMC is good at experimenting.

For example, at the EMC World Conference 2008 (which brings together 9,000 people), EMC set up a social media newsroom, an EMC Twitter feed and other ways that people could stay in touch online while the physical event was happening. In fact, Joe Tucci, CEO of EMC, talked about these things in his presentation at the event. I find this compelling because most large company CEOs don’t even know what Flickr is, let alone would be willing to talk about it from the podium.

EMC also has a stable of employee bloggers. You can find a directory of them here.

Dan Schawbel is a blogger and EMC social media marketing machine. He spends a lot of time figuring out, experimenting and executing social media programs at EMC Corporation, where he is a social media specialist. Dan is also the author of Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success a new book which will be released in early 2009 from Kaplan. Dan’s Personal Branding Blog is read by tens of thousands. Not your typical big company employee, Dan is stirring it up and making it happen.

Barry Burke, is another blogger who works at EMC, writing The Storage Anarchist. Barry is a technologist who's spent most of his career in product marketing and management of products and services for enterprise IT and MIS.

I like the disclaimer on Barry's blog. It reads: "The opinions expressed here are my personal opinions. I am a blogger who works at EMC, not an EMC blogger. This is my blog, and not EMC’s. Content published here is not read or approved in advance by EMC and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of EMC."

Great stuff. Isn’t it great that EMC encourages bloggers in this way.

As much as I like what EMC is doing, I wonder how much the company is paying attention to it's buyers and the search terms that buyers use? Some time ago, I wrote a post on this blog What are the search terms your buyers use to find products and services like yours? Where does your company rank on Google for those terms?

I still don’t see EMC at the top of these results…

Attention Century 21 Real Estate: Proof new marketing works

Late last week, Matt Gentile, Director Public Relations and Brand Communications for Century 21 Real Estate LLC challenged me to give my Top 10 ideas for Century 21 Real Estate to implement The New Rules of Marketing & PR.

Many people commented on the post, including real estate professionals Mike Lefebvre and Jay Thompson. Matt Gentile himself also jumped in a few times. Thanks to all who participated in the discussions.

But it was Jay who pointed out something remarkable. Just two days after I sent my Top Ten post, Google has indexed that blog post as the number six result for the phrase Century 21 Real Estate out of 1,780,000 hits.

Imagine that!

These search results should be very telling for Matt and the other executives at Century 21. Hey, I'm just a guy with a blog. If I can generate a search result in the first page, I would think that a company as large as Century 21, with more than 8,000 offices in some 45 countries can achieve even better results.

This is absolute proof that my suggestions would work.

What do you have to lose? Why not implement the ideas?

Top 10 ideas for Century 21 Real Estate to implement The New Rules of Marketing & PR

This is a response to a comment that was left by Matt Gentile, Director Public Relations and Brand Communications for Century 21 Real Estate LLC on my post The one question to ask new marketing & PR detractors.

Matt asks: "…as the Director of PR for CENTURY 21, I have been working to implement new media ideas into the marketing / pr mix. What I'd like to see from you and the other prophets of social media publish are the top 10 things I can do immediately that will help me spread the gospel of home ownership and drive brand preference to CENTURY 21… While I don't want to spam everyone, I do want to make sure they have access to our messaging in the channel of their choice should they want to learn more about what CENTURY 21 is thinking on a variety of topics." You can read Matt's entire challenge to me here.

Matt, first, I have three assumptions about your business:

A) I'd say your biggest challenge is that you are a big bunch of local businesses but housed under an international brand. So my ideas will focus on how you can use the power of a recognized name globally yet still be hyper-local for each market.

C) Based on my extensive research, I'd argue that when people begin the process of solving a real-estate problem (buy a house, sell a house, find a rental in the city, earn extra income from a beach house by renting it for a few months, and so on), the vast majority go to the Web first, either via search engines or by a link sent to them by a friend, colleague, or family member.

C) Based on my research, very few people do not choose a real estate agent based on television advertising.

Then I have a clarification about my answer to your challenge.

My ideas and implementing most certainly will be a huge benefit for Century 21. However, it is not as easy as your question implies. The New Rules of Marketing & PR are not about tossing up a few videos onto YouTube or getting some digs pointing to your stuff. You have a tremendous opportunity, but you need to work at it.

Okay. Given that, here are my 10 initiatives for Century 21.

1. Immediately cut back on the insanely expensive TV commercials that you're running and instead plow that money into hiring a large team of journalists (broadcast TV and radio reporters, photojournalists, and print reporters). These people will become a Century 21 editorial team and be charged with the creation of valuable content for you to post on the Web. Given how often I see Century 21 TV ads, I would estimate you could hire at least twenty but possibly as many as one hundred people in your new editorial department just by shifting budget. I call this approach brand journalism.

2. Immediately cut back on your product-centric advertising and communications. When companies prattle on and on about products and services like this TV ad, it just doesn't get through to people who turn such messages off because they are exposed to thousands of ads a day. Based on my research, these efforts are a colossal waste of money. Instead you should be using your team of journalists to create a series of proprietary (but freely shareable with no registration required) information that helps people to solve their problems.

3. You and your team (including the journalists if you go with suggestion #1) must get out of your nice, comfortable offices and meet with your buyer personas. My sense is that much of your communications is product centric. But imagine how different it would be if you knew, in great detail, the sorts of things that your individual buyer personas required (because you and your team interviewed them). You would know how they describe their problems, what words and phrases they use, how they make decisions, what’s important (and what isn’t).

4. You should meet with and find out as much as you can about people such as:
- People who want to sell a home.
- Younger buyers who want to trade up.
- Older buyers who want to trade down.
- People looking for a flat in the city.
- People looking for an investment property at a ski resort.
- (And all the other perhaps dozens of Century 21 buyer personas.)

5. The Century 21 editorial team would then create compelling content for each buyer persona. The content could include YouTube videos, ebooks, audio podcasts, photo essays, charts, interactive tools and calculators, as well as participate in real estate forums, chat rooms and blogs. You would end up with an online publication that looks much like WSJ.com all about the global real estate market and all pointing to you. How cool is that?

6. This amazing information would serve as you centralized Search Engine Optimization strategy. If you are generating terrific information and solving problems for your buyers, you are using the words and phrases your buyers use. Therefore you will get high search engine rankings. This would also serve as your national media relations strategy as mainstream media would quote from your resources.

7. Once your editorial team has created what is essentially an online publication of information for Century 21, I would want you to localize each bit of Web content. You could give local office managers or even individual go-getter agents the tools to record their own introductions to podcasts or create a blog that points to the central content that is most effective for their particular market.

8. In order to be effective in #7, I would implement an online (or onsite classroom style) training program for office managers and agents to learn about online marketing. This training program would be voluntary for the many Century 21 agents who know that the Web offers an amazing opportunity but who don’t know where to start. I would want a Web marketing expert in each region, or city, or even each office. But I would only want the eager people who want to be there.

9. Each local Century 21 expert would create such things as a localized real estate group on Facebook, localized Twitter feeds, would participate on local forums, chat rooms, and blogs and perhaps create a local blog.

10. This is your local Search Engine Optimization strategy. Your local efforts, using the words and phrases that are used locally ("the tri-county area" or "Rockville Beach" or "the Jefferson school district") will generate great local search results. This would also serve as your local media relations strategy as local newspapers, radio and TV would quote from your localized resources.

What do you think, Matt?

New Marketing Summit Podcast: Why new marketing is more like journalism than advertising

The New Marketing Summit is just a few weeks away -- October 14th and 15th at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts (where the Patriots play!). I'm part of the organizing committee for this event, and I worked with Chris Brogan, A-list blogger extraordinaire and Paul Gillin, author of The New Influencers and a new book coming soon called Secrets of Social Media Marketing. Each of us will be delivering a keynote presentation and we've worked together to create a great roster of speakers, exhibitors and sponsors.

If you haven't gotten your conference ticket yet, register using my special code for a discount DAVIDVIP

Paul (right) and I sat down with Mike Lewis (left), President of the Business Marketing Association of Boston for a discussion on social media marketing. In the podcast, we preview some of the many things to be discussed at the summit and share some examples of what's working today. We agree that marketers need to make some fundamental changes to the way they approach their work, but the payoffs are huge.

One thing that struck me like a lightning bolt as Paul and I were talking is that we both have a journalism background. Readers of this blog know that I often say: "The new rules of marketing mean thinking like a publisher and using the skills of a journalist." It was interesting to have that discussion with Paul, a fellow journalist. The chat helped me to refine my thinking of what I sometimes call "Brand Journalism". Listen here.

Hope to see you at the New Marketing Summit.

The one question to ask new marketing & PR detractors

Many people tell me that their bosses, company executives, the CFO, and others in their organization are resistant to new marketing.

I point out that executives are just scared. But they aren't really scared of new marketing itself. They are scared of the unknown. They are scared of measurement other than sales leads and clip books. They are scared of media they don't use themselves.

People are comfortable doing the same old rubbish year in and year out. They spend tons of money at tradeshows. They spam their customers with inane email "campaigns" that typically include "offers" such as free shipping or some sort of discount pricing. They invest in television commercials and yellow page ads. They pay PR agencies the big bucks to get a mention on page 60 of a local newspaper, a laundry-list inclusion in an analyst's report, or a quote in the tenth paragraph of a story in a trade magazine that almost nobody reads.

I have a simple question for you to ask the naysayers:
"Are you thrilled with the company's current marketing & PR programs?"