Bryan Scanlon

SABRE Rattling

Strong month for the Schwartz team with a SABRE Award in "Research for Publicity" for its work with Javelin Strategy & Research.

The Schwartz team and Javelin combined professional and social media to promote Javelin's annual identity fraud report, increasing media coverage 126 over previous years, and a whopping 97 percent of all articles emphasizing at least two key messages.

In addition to Javelin, some terrific clients were honored with nominations: medical device company Bioness, antivirus and desktop security software provider ESET and boutique healthcare investment services provider Leerink Swann. Although they didn't take home trophies, it's the first time Schwartz has emerged with four finalists in the SABRES and the work remains outstanding.

There's a great case study on Schwartz's work with Bioness, including a campaign that delivered $4M in sales leads. Check it out!

Posted by Bryan Scanlon on May 21, 2010 at 9:29 AM
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When Story Met Sales

The classic 80s movie “When Harry Met Sally” follows two people through the years, originally stuck together for a Chicago-to-New York drive, then by chance bumping into each other and finally into love and a long relationship.

This is not unlike what we've seen happen with marketing and sales. Anyone with tenure in the business world knows that these two organizations need to be brilliantly in love and joined at the hip, moving together or else stumbling separately.

There was a time where a great “story” got ink and everyone was happy. Pump up the volume. But now, every good business is looking to connect the sales impact of initiatives, in marketing, public relations, everywhere. Many chief marketing officers are now experts in inbound lead generation, in addition to the traditional staple of brand, awareness and visibility. And the real magic is where they intersect, with one driving the other.

Today’s announcement of Schwartz's partnership with HubSpot is another great example of the transformational work we’ve been doing for years: tying storytelling to sales at all turns, and even rejecting stories that may seem to have cool headlines, but don’t move a needle on any measurable front.

Some of the most interesting work Schwartz is doing for its clients today is what we’ve dubbed “closed loop communications” --- being able to execute a strategy that loops directly into inbound marketing efforts. We’re creating content of interest, optimizing and pushing it out with professional and social media relations, search marketing and other services. That in turn is driving awareness, measured in web traffic and leads. Then we're reporting back on exactly what’s working, who’s looking and what’s prompting action in a client’s communities.

At Schwartz, we’ve nailed an outstanding strategy and process for doing this through many different types of approaches, tactics and tools, including inbound web marketing (leveraging HubSpot), digital video content (including some brilliant video marketing solutions from Visible Gains) and other strands. Whether you're in healthcare, technology, cleantech or consumer, we understand your business and the right mix of levers to pull, buttons to push, and people to influence to deliver tremendous impact.

The best meal on the menu is closed loop public relations. Order it.

Posted by Bryan Scanlon on May 19, 2010 at 9:04 AM
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Great Caesar's Ghost! Wikipedia and the Cutting Room Floor

Wikipedia is undergoing some changes and introducing a layer of editorial approval for certain entries, including living people. This news is certainly getting a ton of coverage; the best summaries are in Tuesday's NY Times and CNET. I'm not going to recap---both are excellent at examing the issues.

What I like about Daniel Terdiman's CNET piece is he nails a couple major issues. Most importantly, he explores human nature and what happens when "unfettered rights" are left to their own devices. Yes, innovation happens. Yes, discovery happens. And yes, there are amazing "gotchas" that uncover corruption and other attrocities.

But there's a flip side. In a perfect world, conscience would drive everyone to behave. But Wikipedia has a lot of individuals and corporations with reputations---and there always seems to be trolls and others out there ready to disparage whatever appears to be clean, just to do so.   

Although there is some hand-wringing over this practice, it's actually a very positive thing. It recognizes the rise of Wikipedia as a more credible source looking seriously at the origins and evolution of its content. Wikipedia is often my first stop for information, as it is for 60 million visitors a month. There's a digital transformation underway and Wikipedia now has enough juice to be asked about credibility.

Simply put, this is the future of the modern editorial role. Tomorrow's Perry Whites are going to be found at places like Wikipedia, and whole new rulebook of ethics, values and codes is evolving for the digital landscape.

And if you're struggling with Wikipedia (it's a tad tricky at times), let us help. We're finishing up a Tip Sheet and you should be able to grab it in a week or so at www.schwartz-pr.com. You can also comment on this post, send me a Tweet, or fill out our contact form and I'll make sure you get one when it's published.

Photo: Courtesy of Wikipedia. Originally appeared in Jimmy Olsen #22 (August 1957). Art by Curt Swan.

Posted by Bryan Scanlon on August 26, 2009 at 2:11 PM
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Schwartz Acquires Hayhurst Media

Schwartz today welcomes some new folks into our family: Hayhurst Media, a UK-based communications firm. The acquisition of Hayhurst represents both a serious expansion of our European talent and deeper penetration of two core areas---healthcare and cleantech.

Out of the gate, we’re adding more than two dozen European clients and two of the most talented PR professionals I’ve ever met. Hayhurst is run by the founding husband and wife team (sound familiar?) of Richard and Amanda Hayhurst. It’s an outstanding cultural fit. We’re a people business, and both Richard and Amanda are both fantastic business pros, writers and human beings.

We’ve even done some projects with them over the years, and have seen first hand the same results-orientation, professionalism and smarts the Schwartz team brings to our clients every day.

Richard and Amanda will become co-managing directors for Schwartz UK, reporting to Kristina Ebenius, our European managing director.

Our clients (current and future) benefit from having Hayhurst Media as part of the Schwartz team. A deeper team in the UK along with our pan-European coverage from Stockholm means even easier integration of EMEA communications efforts with the US Schwartz team. Not to state the obvious, but we live in a multi-channel business world with more companies eager to ramp their influence and sales abroad, and that includes both sides of the pond.

We’re thrilled with today’s news and know that the Schwartz/Hayhurst match is a great one. Not much time for celebrating though. There are a lot of innovation-oriented companies out there that need this growing team’s help!

Posted by Bryan Scanlon on August 18, 2009 at 12:11 PM
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AWEsome

Just in. Schwartz's EnteroMedics team has won a Bronze In-Awe Award from the Healthcare Communications & Marketing Association. (It used to be known as the Medical Marketing Association.)

The award recognizes Schwartz's outstanding work supporting EnteroMedics' clinical trial recruitment and its EMPOWER study of an experimental device for obesity. The seven-month campaign helped drive enrollment in 13 different U.S. sites.

At the heart of our efforts were feature stories in high-impact national and local media driving awareness of the clinical study and encourage potential study participants to call into the call center or go to the website to determine if they would be eligible for the study.

Total audience for print and broadcast outlets? 65 million from 140 stories in print, broadcast and Web across multiple U.S. markets from San Francisco and San Diego to Minneapolis and Cleveland. From the San Francisco Chronicle to the CBS Early Show and Good Morning America.

Way to go!

Posted by Bryan Scanlon on July 24, 2009 at 11:58 AM
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When Ringing in your Ears is a GOOD Thing

Hear ye! Hear ye! 2009 was another outstanding year for Schwartz Communications at the 40th Annual Publicity Club of New England Bell Ringer Awards.

Schwartz and our clients received 26 awards recognizing media, special event and social media efforts in Healthcare, Consumer, Social Media and High Tech PR programs.

Pardon me as I brag for a moment. This work spanned 19 clients across our practice groups. It's like a good rock concert with multiple acts---you're a bit stunned and hard of hearing the next day.
 
The Bell rang a lot for Schwartz, and it's a tremendous testament to the quality of our clients, and most importantly, the outstanding staff we have and results they deliver.
 

Hooray!

(P.S. This is on the heels of two 2009 Bulldog Awards for outstanding media relations on behalf of our clients Epocrates and Bill Me Later.)

Posted by Bryan Scanlon on June 3, 2009 at 4:41 PM
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Red Carpet Here We Come

Congratulations to Schwartz and its long-time client partner CheckFree (now Fiserv). We are a finalist in this year’s PRSA Silver Anvil awards, which are pretty much one of the most prestigious awards in the PR industry. The nomination, in the "Marketing Consumer Services Technology" category, highlights our work promoting green living and fighting fraud with online bill payment. This is a testiment to a great client who is committed to research and creative campaigns, and a close, long-term working relationship. 

Schwartz and CheckFree (Fiserv) secured more than 1,500 articles and on average the majority of articles contained at least two key messages and/or statistics. Green coverage for the campaigns ranged from key blogs and regional papers to the Sierra Club magazine. Working closely with CheckFree, partner banks and the industry, the company offered various promotions, including an offer to plant a tree for each E-bill activated. This generated more than 125,000 new users and planted that many trees.  If you are interested in finding out more, visit ebillplace.

The identity fraud campaign was just as successful, and generated more than 1,000 total articles, blog posts and TV stories. More than 60% of the articles contained at least two of the top messages including paying bills online is safer than mailing them.

A client for ten years, the CheckFree (now Fiserv) and the Schwartz team partnership is no stranger to awards. It's the fourth time in seven years that the CheckFree/Schwartz team is a finalist---and we took home the gold for two of those.

I wonder if we have a Meryl Streep thing going here?

(Photo courtesy of Entertainment Weekly.)

Posted by Bryan Scanlon on April 20, 2009 at 11:25 AM
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Congratulations, Merv!

Merv Adrian, a terrifically talented individual, has struck out on his own with IT Market Strategy.

For those of you who may not know Merv, he has been a significant figure in the technology analyst community for many years, first with Giga, and then later Forrester. I first met him when we represented Austin-based Pervasive Software for a number of years shortly after its IPO in the 90s. (Ron Harris was CEO and Rob Adams was the VP of Marketing.) Merv really got our story and had no problems setting us straight on the things we didn't get as we waged war with Oracle and Sybase---both of which were trying to move down into the embedded database market.

Like the best analysts, he never knee-jerked his judgement, and pushed in all the places that hurt with great suggestions for repair.

Anyway, enough memory lane. I encourage you to RSS to Merv's blog and reach out to him. He has a fantastic mind and terrific experience.

And this just in: Merv's BeyeNETWORK channel hits in a week. Stay tuned!

Posted by Bryan Scanlon on April 13, 2009 at 6:12 PM
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Movable Type: Newspapers in Motion

It wasn’t too long ago that our clients were upset when their stories “didn’t make the print edition.”  Now, right before our eyes, the economics of the traditional print model are collapsing. Yesterday, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published its last print edition, and will move completely online, letting go most of its staff and pumping out the bytes.

Even though Craig’s List did a number on classifieds and it’s clear that newspapers are in serious fiscal trouble, I don’t mean to go all Chicken Little on you. I don’t believe that newspapers will all crumble and go the way of the telegraph. There are still some powerful entities out there. As Paul Gillin points out this week on Newspaper Deathwatch, the P-I is “choosing to focus on the future.” I have to give the P-I a lot of credit for cutting the cord and moving to a future away from static snapshot reports of the news. It’s clear that many papers will not be “news” papers. The news moves too fast to be captured. It’s now organic, localized, changing and dynamic---like a movie vs. a photograph. It’s about clusters, groups of stories, blogs, video and discussions aggregating together to provide a series of lenses. Some lenses are more accurate than others, but a broader perspective of voices gives a more complete view.

I expect newspapers will continue to be staffed by some of the best and brightest. As my Schwartz colleague Mark McClennan often points out, newspapers will also be hyper-localized. They are going to have to provide context and analysis (the why and how vs. the straight up who, what, where, etc.). Look at TIME Magazine or Businessweek, which provide a lot of analysis on any given topic. And like the Seattle-PI, a reporter will deal in far more than words---actually creating all the content and producing it from start to finish. (The P-I describes this change here). Even Businessweek is now interacting directly with its audience prior to writing stories, and all the reporters are Twittering away. The discussion happens continuously, leading up to, through and beyond the publication of the story.

I’ll be the first to admit that I like the physical paper and smudgy fingers. I am a sucker for all types of journalism movies (ranging from The Mean Season to All the President’s Men). The sources, the race to beat the printing, all of it excites me. There is also something to be said for slowing down and folding the pages, much like reading a good book that grabs you and screams:  “Don’t you dare start skimming.” But the electronic world is too loud, too prominent and too important to ignore. Well, at least a paper doesn’t lose its content connection in the middle of the BART tunnel.

Photo courtesy of the Seattle P-I.

Posted by Bryan Scanlon on March 18, 2009 at 12:02 PM
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