The Spin
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at October 21st, 2007I’ve always been fascinated at how the good public relations agencies master the art of The Spin. They are able to pitch, convince and communicate ideas and transmute them into a brand campaign, advocacy, or promotion. There is no moral judgement present in such cases as these awareness campaigns are to be taken as “amoral” at the very least. What’s important is the communication of the idea. The Spin.
The Spin can convince you to choose brand X over Y. It can coerce you to donate money for a certain cause. It can reorient your moral value to see something once evil as good.
To illustrate my point, here’s what happens when you recut The Shining and turn it into a family comedy:
It’s all in the spin. Nothing is real 
Christmas Gadget Wishlist: EPSON 30s Home Theater Projector
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at October 20th, 2007I spent the long weekend with the EPSON Philippines team for a regional business conference. As an observer, I was witness to the launching of EPSON’s new solutions business unit that basically consisted of POS solutions, small to medium business projectors, and of course, their printers.
Amidst the array of hardware solutions, one particular product caught my eye – the EPSON 30s Home Theater Projector, which is targeted towards consumers who want to set up an affordable home theater system in their living room. The 30s is very affordable for what it is, at a mere P36,000 to P40,000.00. Standard projectors usually set you back by around P60,000.00 and above. As a plus – this model comes with a built in DVD/CD player!
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Dawn of the Blogging Relations Officer
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at October 18th, 2007
I’ve dealt with with Web 2 companies on several occasions through their Blogging Relations Officer (I kid you not). Yes, there are such positions that exist in the new corporate set up. A BRO or Blogging Relations Officer is in charge of public relations for the blogosphere. Though it may still be far off to consider bloggers as members of mainstream media, their influence and presence in the online web space cannot be underestimated. Take for instance Fring, a VoIP service that has a dedicated page for blogger testimonials for their service (Cellphone9, my mobile phone blog is mentioned).
Does your company have a blogging relations officer?
Hey PR Agencies! This is how to do a social media PR campaign!
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at October 15th, 2007
This is a template I took from the news blog of CNET. The post caught my eye because it talked about an actual TEMPLATE to doing social media campaigns. I’m not sure if Mike Abundo (head curmudgeon) or Steve Rubel (PR guru) would agree with this chart — but hear me out for a bit. The image above is basically a means to illustrate the different channels of our innovative Internet space, with a zero in on social interactions online. You can download the PDF template by clicking on this link.
Click HERE to see how Ford made use of this template to come up with their own social media friendly site.
Enter the social media news release (SMNR), originally conceived by SHIFT Communications, a viable new format to spark and cultivate online conversations about a product. Todd Defren, Shel Holtz, Chris Heuer, and other bloggers have been on the soapbox preaching about SMNRs for almost a year now. The list of companies that have used the SMNR includes Coca-Cola, BEA, SAP, Novell, and Belkin, among many other smaller companies.[Read]
The chart doesn’t tell you HOW to do things. It tells you WHAT is available in the Internet community – blogs, social networking, social bookmarking, viral videos, and the like.
What is web copywriting?
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at October 8th, 2007
This is.
See you tomorrow
How do you write effective web site copy that engages the reader and also helps your search engine rankings? We’ll walk you through best practices for writing for your customers (conversions) and for search engines (traffic). [Read]
I’ll be doing something rather different tomorrow as there are just too many topics on effective web copy on the web. This is the web copywriting on drugs.
Free tickets and a ‘Thank You’ to my readers!
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at October 5th, 2007
True Faith belting it out. A glimpse of what’s in store on October 20
Some bloggers are giving away tickets for the Toblerone Thank You Day concert at the Mall of Asia. I recently wrote about how October 20 has been declared National Thank You Day, with Manila being the Thank You capital in the Philippines.
I have 300 tickets to the concert this coming October 20 at the Mall of Asia. Bands include (but are not limited to) Cynthia Alexander, Reggae Mistress, Stone Free, Salindiwa, Mozzie and The Dawn!
To claim your free ticket, all you need to do is leave a comment expressing your desire to come. As an added bonus, Toblerone will be giving a special prize to the commenter who posts the most creative way of saying THANK YOU
After you have left a comment, you will be contacted by Alma. If you wish to reach her to claim your tickets ahead of time, you may do so by texting her at 09175344624 or emailing thankyoudayphilippines at gmail dot com. See you there!
“The New Order” Ad Congress this November
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at September 30th, 2007I’m a little disappointed that this year’s advertising congress isn’t getting a lot of buzz in comparison to the past ones that were held in Baguio and Cebu. I’m not quite sure which agency is sponsoring this year’s ad congress PR — the radio and television, as well as the online beat campaigns don’t seem to be very visible, if at all they are being run.
I have a theory why they aren’t very visible. Just check out their website address:
http://www.20thadcongress-theneworder.com/
Oh god. Who can possibly remember that insanely long URL? Ironic as it is, the “New Order” which will be held in Subic this coming November 21 to 24 2007 will touch on such things as new media, social media and emerging trends for advertising. As a guy who’s been in the blog industry for 2 1/2 years, I will be first to say that they should have chosen a friendlier URL.
From what I learned, the “New Order” pitch goes something like this: In the same way that soldiers were sent to Subic for training, so will advertisers and communicators be sent off for different kind of training. Wheee.
So, who’s going to ad congress? It would be cool to see new media practitioners and blogtrepreneurs there! If you’re a corporation, it would be a splendid idea to sponsor some interested bloggers and get to know them better.
Tagay!
Offer a novena for my talk today!
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at September 28th, 2007
Hey, Globe really rebrands everything so quickly. Their new Globe Visibility dongles come armed with the new corporate logos. I had to borrow one for a presentation I’m giving today: well I’ve been fretting all week over this – for the sole reason that the topic is rather obscure. I’ll be talking about “Gadgets and Software for PR practitioners” at today’s Public Relations Society Summit.
It’s actually a breath of fresh air, talking about something that doesn’t have anything to do with blogging. I used to give these talks with the boys at schools and exhibits, and its been months, heck, years, since I’ve been paired with them again – well not all of them, just Adel who’s talking about podcasting and then there’s Mike who’s doing DIY video editing. Annalyn Jusay is talking about blogging today.
Wish me luck. This is one of the more challenging presentations I’ve been assigned to give this year because I want to be more interesting than saying “hey this is a Treo 750, you use it to make phone calls.” Or “This is a laptop, it’s sorta like a PC, but you can put it on your lap.”
I cooked up something fairly interesting. I’ve been pulling out gadgets here and there. Makes me realize that apart from the stuff I already borrowed from tech distributors, I’ve been diagnosed with GAS.
GAS = Gear Acquisition Syndrome.
Wish me luck!
A Toblerone Thank You via Free Music
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at September 27th, 2007
Yet another traditional industry – the chocolate industry, to be more specific – has jumped into the online viral marketing bandwagon. Toblerone has collaborated with a selection of local artists to release a torrent friendly album.
This effort is actually part of a campaign to establish Manila as a ‘Thank You’ Capital:
Thought: The impact of Playboy Philippines to the publishing industry
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at September 19th, 2007EDIT: Review of first issue here.
EDIT: Read today in the Philippine Start that Playboy Philippines will be launched on April 2 2008 at the Sofitel. The editor in chief is Beting Laygo Dolor. There will be no nudity as being daring is not a mark of success. Playboy Philippines will contain articles in good taste written by at least 5 Palanca award winners and will be very tasteful.
Though I am not updated with the rumor mill on this development, it seems that Playboy Philippines will allegedly make its way to local shores as the buzz in the industry states late this year.
Rumor or not, the scenario puts forward a lot of questions that demands a lot of answers. First, will the overused argument of “free speech” rule over the CBCP? Second, what will happen to leading men’s titles such as FHM, Maxim and UNO? Will that “raise the bar” for explicit nudity in these magazines too? Third, what exactly will Playboy Philippines have to offer? If it is going to be a “toned down” version of what Playboy is everywhere else in the world, then what’s the point of bringing in the franchise?
Was Mark Verzo correct after all when he said that Filipino males are indeed sex addicts?
Food bloggers as the new food critics
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at September 19th, 2007
I wrote a piece for the September issue of Rogue Magazine on “the new food critics,” revealing food and travel bloggers as authorities in the art and science of degustation.
In the 1950′s, the dawning of the food critic gave rise to a certain fear in the food and beverage industry. The New York Times, one of the pioneers in the food writing industry, released a weekly column that reviewed restaurants and hotspots. By the decade, the food critic wielded a powerful pen as reviews could literally make or break a restaurant. [buy the latest September 2007 issue with Cristina Garcia for the rest of the article]
Rogue sells for P180.00 and boasts an impressive lineup of contributors including Andy Maluche, Lourd de Veyra, Yvette Tan, Eggy Tioseco, Arnold Arre, and Quark Henares.
