Most companies want to be known as innovative. To bastardize the Wallace Simpson line, “you can never be too rich, too thin or too innovative.” The problem is those same companies often depend on adjectives to tout their breakthroughs. The Wall Street Journal challenged the use of the “i” word over ten years ago: “Businesses …more
The Journal published a feature story about people using Twitter to deliver updates on the lines of shoppers waiting to get into Trader Joe’s. As the first step in reverse-engineering the “why” behind the Journal devoting significant real estate to the topic, we ask the macro questions: Does the story reveal something new about the …more
The concept of “storytelling” has been trending in the communications industry for years. Virtually every communications consultancy touts its storytelling expertise short of saying: “Hey mister, step into our tent and see how storytelling can change your life.” There’s just one not-so-little detail that no one talks about. When it comes to business communications, storytelling …more
Particularly in Silicon Valley where most executives started their careers on the engineering side. Coming from a technical orientation, they tend to think of anecdotes as inconsequential and yes, a bit fluffy. Yet, the science suggests that PR should be sourcing anecdotal content as part of media outreach. We leaned on a couple interns to …more
The concept of “storytelling” has been trending in the communications industry for years. Virtually every communications consultancy touts its storytelling expertise short of saying: “Hey mister, step into our tent and see how storytelling can change your life.” There’s just one not-so-little detail that no one talks about. When it comes to business communications, storytelling …more
The public relations function typically constructs media pitches based on the story that the company wants to tell. These stories tend to be pristine narratives — the sun is shining; birds are chirping — that dull the senses. That largely explains why 95%+ of pitches to the business media fail. Instead, we should be thinking …more
Journalists get anecdotes. PR not so much. A few years back, we analyzed three months’ worth of tech stories in The Economist breaking down the content type by category. It turned out that 17 percent of the articles were anecdotal. . We consistently find that the anecdotal content in business publications ranges from 15 to …more
