I appreciated Paul Holmes asking me to serve as a judge for the Sabre Awards this year.

After reviewing the award submissions for my assigned categories and participating in a task force to select the winners, I wanted to share a few tips that will help a submission gets its due.

Before going further, I would be remiss if I didn’t say that the quality and creativity in the campaigns was consistently excellent and often spectacular.

No question, the profession has moved beyond the useless debate, regarding who owns social media. Agencies and companies are blending owned media and earned media and at times paid media to deliver on a given PR campaign’s objectives.

With that said, the writing in the submissions can best be described as mechanical … which leads into what I consider the No. 1 tip:

1. Apply Storytelling Techniques: I wrote about dullness of job descriptions last week. Award entries don’t rate much better with the same nouns and verbs showing up again and again. When an entry did tell an actual story, you noticed. Keep in mind the judges can be reading 20 - 30 entries or more. If an entry can entertain as well as impart the vital details and stats, it stands out.
2. Explain Results Beyond Media Coverage: I was blown away by campaigns that routinely generate reader impressions in the millions. I must confess I became a bit numb to the gaudy numbers. The campaigns that captured a range of results in support of the objectives tended to be short listed. 
3. Avoid Advertising Cost Equivalency: I thought this 20 years ago, and I still believe it. Crunching the numbers for the equivalent cost of advertising trivializes the power of public relations. (Now seems the right time to make the point that this post reflects my personal views and should not be associated with the Holmes Report, Paul Holmes or the other judges.)
4. Don’t “Cheat” with Point Size: If the campaign summary should fit on two pages, don’t cram 600+ words on the two pages by using nine-point type, single spaces and wide margins. A painful read hurts your cause. Less can be more.
5. Play the Disaster Card Only One Time: It’s useful to understand when something out of your control goes astray. Nimbleness and the ability to ad lib are positive qualities. But when the “problem” gets repeated, it starts to take on an “I believe the woman doth protest too much” message.

If you’ve judged competitions, I welcome hearing your suggestions.

It almost seems like HR gives the following guidance to the copywriter before drafting a job description:

“OK. You know what’s at stake. I suggest you review the job listings from our competitors and borrow what you consider to be the best elements. This is no time to go rogue. Be smart. Let’s use what’s already working. Great. Have that new description to me by the end of the day … Of course I’m not looking for new, but you know what I mean.”

How else do you explain the homogenous dullness that permeates this type of writing?

I posted on horrid job descriptions late last year, picking on a particularly bad Facebook job listing:

I would characterize them [Facebook] as boilerplate and pedestrian – take your pick – lifted from the Job Descriptions 101 Manual that seems to dominate Corporate HR America. 

In a nutshell, that’s the problem.

Everyone is writing the same stuff.

It took a few months but we’re finally applying storytelling techniques to our own job listings.

You can see how this plays out with a recruitment ad that’s running in ReadWriteWeb and Mashable over the next month.

Job Title: Senior Communications Consultant

What most accurately describes you, PR person or storyteller? If the latter, keep reading.

We’re retooling our consultancy to take a holistic approach to communication campaigns. Think earned media + owned media. Our programs increasingly blend traditional PR with thought leadership, digital properties, social media, SEO, etc. – all underlined with the type of storytelling that has relevance to the target audience as well as influencers.

Regardless of the assignment, clients come to us for a combination of brainpower and passion.

Naturally, this particular role calls for smarts, op-ed grade writing and a track record in triggering client reactions ranging from “Well done” to “I’m naming my first born after you.”

Here are a few specifics that start to dig below the surface of the type of person we’re after:

• In a world where anyone can access a digital megaphone, we believe content based on storytelling techniques is the answer to sustaining thought leadership campaigns. Are you the type of person who flags anecdotes during evening reading?
• It’s not exactly enduring or endearing if you only reach out to someone when you need something. Yet, most communicators only contact influencers when a client has a news announcement. Do your interactions with influencers deviate from the norm, reflecting more of an industry source?
• We don’t expect you to be a SEO guru (or live on Mt. Sinai), but ideally you know how to scrutinize a title tag in the source code.
• Are you a brave soul? While everyone seems to “zag,” do you know how to a) develop thinking that “zigs,” and b) counsel clients with strength of conviction on the benefits of going the “zig” route?

We suspect these qualities call for at least eight years of experience.

If our thinking resonates, we’d love to hear from you.

I’ll report back next month how the storytelling made a difference.

In the meantime, if you’re looking for a new gig and think you could be a fit for the role, by all means shoot me a note at lhoffman@hoffman.com.

We’ve discussed this topic before.

While professionals coming from a technical orientation gravitate toward the tangible, there’s also a place for storytelling in reaching this audience.

That’s why companies like Intel devote considerable resources to putting a “face” on the company.

That’s also why the editor-in-chief of EE Times, Junko Yoshida, applies storytelling techniques in her own writing.

For exhibit A, we turn to Junko’s editorial, “One Man’s Treat, Another Man’s Twaddle“ that articulates the vision for the publication.

Look at how the piece kicks off:

The news business is dead. Toss in a few lilies and start filling the grave. At least that’s what a vocal coterie of triumphalists in the media and advertising industries—although not necessarily our readers—keeps saying.

This isn’t about facts and figure.

It’s a narrative setting the stage.

She moves on to sharing an anecdote from a reader and the genesis for ”twaddle” in the headline (now, there’s a word you don’t see every day) who wrote:

“I don’t understand the strategy of turning EE Times into some kind of social media Web site experiment. It’s the same Muppets who post the same mind-numbing comments time and again. I want to view a media site with good journalistic content and opinion pieces from the best minds in the industry . . . not twaddle that fills 50 percent of the front page. Go back to the old format.”

Not a bad turn of a phrase, “the same muppets who post the same mind-numbing comments” and from an engineer no less (assumption on my part).

With the issue framed, Junko moves to the punch line: EE Times has embraced a model that combines building an online community (free) with a subscription service called EE Times Confidential (paid).

Again, the editorial depends on an anecdote to hammer home the point:

But what really got to me was when hundreds of our readers flooded us with responses after George Leopold posted a story asking, “Flush tech companies slow to hire. Why?”

That’s when I realized our readers should be heard by the wider world. They are articulate professionals who have something to say and the right to say it. They deserve a public forum where they can voice their views openly, exchange their ideas freely and vent their frustrations safely in a supportive environment. If I’m right about this, we have laid the foundation for that intellectual refuge within the EE Times community.

Junko closes with yet another anecdote, this one involving a foreign media executive who some time ago asked if the publication has a soul.  

Fast forwarding to today, the question provides the inspiration “to ensure that the soul of EE Times is revealed in every venture.”

Folks, she’s a telling a story with the reader riding shotgun in the hero’s role.

How has the story resonated?

We’ll find out when Junko graces our stage in May as the guest speaker for our quarterly Lunch Bucket series.

This post doesn’t exactly fall under the storytelling umbrella.

I figure a rogue post every now and then keep things interesting.

Which serves as my segue into the client-agency relationship.

PR agencies disdain the “V” word.

Calling an agency a vendor is akin to a slur against the principal’s mom.

Agencies want that partner mantle.

But I’ve learned through the years that the vendor versus partner debate doesn’t get at the core of the issue.

Instead, it comes down to the client’s day-to-day interactions with the agency.

Does the client treat the agency with dignity (mutual respect)?

Does information flow both ways?

When something goes astray, does the feedback come in a constructive form?

It’s also worth noting that the intangibles make a difference.

In short, does the client make the agency feel valued?

I’m not espousing a philosophy that clients should take on marshmallow behavior.

We like driven clients.

We can handle “tough love.”

We can deal with a bad day (or even a bad week).

Taking this into account, which agency will deliver the better performance? The agency that feels valued or the agency that doesn’t feel the “love”?

Of course, the answer is self-evident because people make up the product.

We conducted an internal survey some time ago to better understand how various elements make up the overall Hoffman Agency experience.

You can see the results below.

Client interactions rated only behind the direct manager in shaping the Agency experience.

One could make an argument that agencies should spend more time helping clients understand how to get the most out of them.

After all, the benefits stand to be both improved work and a more satisfied staff.

Note: We created a SlideShare deck called “How clients get the most out of us” which touches on this issue and others.

There.

I’ve said it.

Taking liberties with the Hans Christian Andersen emperor story, why do professional communicators continue to worship the message?

Every PR agency offers a messaging workshop.

Every corporate communications type has spent the requisite two agonizing days in a hotel conference room eating bridge mix while debating the merits of “innovate” over “pioneer” as the verb of choice.

All this time and money and bridge mix to create pristine messages that ultimately end up not being used.

Hold on. That’s not fair.

Those messages do sometimes end up in the company boilerplate. As the coach of my nine-year-old nephew’s baseball team would say when the ground ball does NOT go between the legs, “well done.”

I’m all for having a plan.

What impression are we striving to impart to the audience?

This seems like a reasonable question to answer before embarking on a communications campaign, an announcement or even a contributed article.

But the time and energy and - yes - bridge mix should go into developing the story that’s going to cultivate such an impression.

That’s the hard part. How do you craft a narrative with texture, drama, anecdotes, etc. that will spur others to share the story and which ultimately grabs the reader by the scruff of the neck?

I defy you to find one customer - I’m talking one customer in the history of commerce - who has ever uttered the following words:

“Wow! Now, that’s a great message.”

On the other hand, you hear customers and even cynical journalists say all the time, “What a great story.”

Which is why it behooves all of us to focus on what matters.

Side note: I penned a column back in 2008 for VentureBeat with startups in mind titled, “RIP: The Controlled Message.”