enThrall Promotions

Ignatieff for Prime Minister?

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 02:34:00 +0000

It's no shame to admit that I am a bit of a blogwatcher. Of my Google Reader feed, three sites are webcomics (or comic commentary - a shout out to the Curmudgeon!), three sites are "humour", and four are in the miscellaneous bin: an Edmonton foodie blog, Seth Godin's marketing insights, a guy annotating the downfall of the Sun chain of newspapers, and a friend. The other 11 are political blogs.

They skew quite left. I find the commentary more to my taste, of course, but I also find them without the mean spirit I tend to find in many righter writers. I find them more light-hearted and, at times, downright funny. Impolitical is about as vicious as my lefty choices get, and I enjoy a good double dose of Calgary Grit and Dave Cournoyer. Manufactured News and M n M don't post nearly often enough, and I have given up on Alberta: Get Rich or Die Trying. The Grandinite is the most intelligent and insightful blogger I follow, mainly because he has a way of framing economic isuues in a way that this indifferent Econ 101 student from 1991 can grasp.

I also follow Angry in the Great White North (note the emotional indicator in the title). At first, it was to keep some balance in the issues I encountered on the lefty blogs when the Enlightened Savage was on hiatus. However, I was drawn in by his command of pertinent detail. I'll get a righteous cloud of steam up over some latest Conservative folly when AitGWN says, "But what about this?" and I'm forced to stop to reconsider.

AitGWN has Ignatieff in his crosshairs again, as the Liberal Party figurehead. He builds a convincing argument among people who don't know any of the players: Iggy was acclaimed by the Liberal money men without an election among the rank and file, but he seems to fold like Dion in confrontations with Harper and he is refusing to muse over a fall election that the Liberal strategists seem to be planning. He's also having trouble building his brand. (Call me, Warren.)

Does it really matter? AitGWN claims that Rae saw this coming and backed out to let Iggy be the fall guy for this doomed election run. However, Warren Kinsella claims that the Liberals are both ready and willing for a fight, so the wind could blow the other way for AitGWN's beloved Tories. (I wonder if he's aiming for a Senate seat?) The Liberals still has a significant party base in the east, and the Martinites might have been purged by now to let the Chretien-istes to come back and hold up the standard. Wouldn't this failure reflect as poorly on them as it would on the guy at the top? I think the Libs are in it to win it.

I just hope the election isn't fought over a sweater. When you let the Tory war machine define the battle, we get puffin poop and coalition crap. Let the old Liberal war horses do their job to make Iggy palatable to the shaky Ontario and Quebec ridings and keep ignoring the west - they also have the ability to slap back when it gets dirty, which the Harperites excel at and the Martin/Dion people fumbled for years.

We'll just have to wait another ten years or so before the younger guns start talking about "listening" to us again, but it might be worth it. The Chretien years were quite productive for this country, all entitlement scandals aside.

But would it smell as sweet?

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 03:56:00 +0000

Brands are updated all the time. Logos, taglines and visual identities are tweaked almost every time there is a new head honcho in the marketing department. Follow the McDonald's evolution over a few decades, or even Michael Jackson's. (Too soon?)

However, a complete renovation - a rebranding - happens only in the direst of days. When the associations of the current brand are so plagued with baggage or bereft of support, a rebranding is sometimes the only way to reboot the franchise. Everything that had gone on before is eliminated, and in its place is something completely new. It's the "same great product with a new name" concept. And it works.

In Canada, a tainted blood scandal hit the Red Cross so hard that a new organization had to be formed. Since then, Canadian Blood Services has played a similar role without the negative associations. You can reform an old brand - cancer merchant Philip Morris becomes the blandly inoffensive Altria - or you can renew interest. Kentucky Fried Chicken was facing falling sales in the health-conscious masses when they rebranded as KFC. Heck, even Batman had to reboot after the ridiculous excesses of Clooney vs. Schwarzenegger.

Does the same apply to political parties? I'm of two minds on the subject.

The federal NDP (New Democratic Party) is making some noise about dropping the "N" from their name to become the Democratic Party. Most of the reasons I have heard suggested have been to ride the coat tails of Obama's Change Revolution. This is an absurd reason to change the brand and spend the time, money and effort it would take to sway both old supporters and new potential voters.

I haven't heard about platform changes or formal revisoning that would mean that the Dippers had something new to offer: leader Jack Layton earned over 80% support to stay in place. A rebranding without change, just to mimic a (temporarily) successful party south of the border, strikes me as foolish at best. If the Democrats landed a terrible leader next time out of the blocks, would the Dippers change again? Would Layton feel as good about close ties to Dukakis or Kerry? I doubt it.

However, there are times when rebranding a political party is the only real solution. The Alberta Liberal Party fights for its very existence in every election, and can hold caucus meetings in a booth at Moxie's this time through. This party needs a new look, new policies and a new way to engage voters. There is talk about alienating the rank and file, but if there are fewer each time, where is the risk? A socially liberal party with a conservative economic platform would be exactly what this province needs, and could reinvigorate the political interest among the 80% of Albertans who either a) didn't vote PC or b) didn't vote at all.

The upcoming electoral boundaries issue is going to be (yet another) tempest, and could present some real mileage to a stable and engaged political party active in both urban and rural ridings. It may take longer to sway rural voters, but the urban ridings are interested in some change. Unfortunately, the grassroots growth of the Wildrose Alliance is getting far more attention than the increasingly-irrelevant ALP. Shuck the trappings and baggage of the old name, put all of your push into a new brand, and try to engage what could be the most powerful demographic in the province: people pissed off at the Tories.

After all, the ALP probably couldn't do much worse.

Sunrise, Sunset

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 04:13:00 +0000

I live in Edmonton, Canada - it's a metropolis with upwards of a million people living in its greater urban area, but pretty small potatoes compared to cities to the south. That suits me just fine. I've lived here nearly all my life, my family is nearby and I get the satisfaction of being a somewhat larger fish swimming in a smaller pool.

However, living in northern climes has coloured my perspective in ways that I can't imagine.

An uncle with a home in Florida mentioned something that I have been mulling over for months. He told me that he was looking at a house at the end of the day in a newly developed area without streetlights. The realtor warned him that the sun would be going down soon and he might get stuck in the development. He scoffed a bit, as any northerner would. In the summer, the sun sets over the course of hours and twilight lingers until nine or ten o'clock. (A winter sunset sometimes happens before you get off work.)

Imagine his surprise when he finished inspecting the house and stepped out into the pitch black streets. He had spent maybe 45 minutes inside, but sunset meant that a line of impenetrable darkness had passed over the area. He stumbled back to the development office, a little shaken and much the wiser.

I have difficulty imagining a world where sunrise means light, sunset means dark, and you get twelve hours of each. I wonder what other simple facts of life exist that are completely beyond my ken. I understand (and mock) the fact that "winter fashions" designed in the States are laughably insufficient for waiting for the bus on a December morning in Edmonton. I guess I can appreciate that some places encourage citizens to purchase bottled water out of fear or dread of what comes out of their taps.

I value the standard of living that I enjoy, but sometimes I wonder at the things I simply don't know. The solution, of course, is travel - that is, if I can shake the comfort of my daily luxury in exchange for expensive trips abroad into unknown dangers, social norms and wondrous discovery.

Does that make me a little provincial? Yes. And that irks me just a bit.

Thoughts on Wafergate

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:19:00 +0000

Stephen Harper is a scrapper. The guy cut his teeth on the bloody fields of the Reform grassroots revolution and worked his way to power in the pugilistic role of underdog opposition within the sphere of the then all-powerful Liberals. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is the purest incarnation of partisan politics. The fact that he can't abandon the role to serve the larger benefit of the country should take no one by surprise.

The machine he has built is simply a purer refinement of the "attack dog" mentality he brought so effectively to the benches of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. Opponents are vilified and eliminated with a combination of innuendo, grassroots appeal and high-handed gestures. It worked on Martin and Dion, and it will work (perhaps less effectively) on Iggy. Why should it change?

In unraveling the Wafergate "scandal", one simply has to look at the coverage. An admittedly minor possible incident (against a background of colossal errors in judgment and various legal actions) had a brief flash, then vanished. The presumably more liberally-inclined media has a tough time sustaining outrage against this administration's fumbles. However, the Conservative machine is expert. I have heard far more about Wafergate as a Liberal conspiracy than I ever did about it being an affront to the Catholic Church.

Whether or not the PM pocketed the wafer is immaterial by this point. It is ignored. Instead, a mid-level Liberal player will be outed as asking a favour of (or simply encouraging) a businessman he knows and the politico's career will be over. The Tories will be vindicated, and the example will be used to bludgeon Iggy over "backroom politics" or his inability to run a tight ship.

Would it be too much to hope for another YouTube clip to surface, from another point of view? There had to be more than one camera there, no? If it does, expect the issue to be dropped in a terse Friday afternoon press release and another crisis or celebratory announcement to surface by Monday.

The tools of my profession can be used for a number of purposes. I'm not proud of some of them.

Pump Up The Volume has arrived

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 04:30:00 +0000

Pump Up The Volume has arrived.

This 1990 classic starred Christian Slater and a then-unknown Samantha Mathis, as a pair of improbably elderly high school students engaged in ham radio anti-authoritarian hijinks. I loved it. Don't judge me. Slater broadcast sedition on the FM band to an increasing number of listeners among the student body and faculty - which included the brass-balled principal (Annie Ross) and the slacker (Seth Green).

The flick ended with Slater led to a paddy wagon and the eternal words, "Talk hard!" Over the credits run several pirate radio broadcasts from imitators across the country.

I don't recall if there was a sudden outbreak of ham radio purchases after the release of the film, but few people I mentioned it to over the ensuing twenty years remembered the movie very well.

It turns out that the film's creators got the message right, but backed the wrong medium. The Web has become the great equalizer in the fight for freedom of information - be it accurate, misinformed or misleading - as well as communication. I love the unregulated nature of the medium, which allows for anything from mindless rants to corporate messaging without judgment: all can be seen, and all can be evaluated by the seer. It is art, it is technology, and it is beautifully human.

A blog or wiki can connect all the right people from the same block or around the world. I can find out what Ashton Kutcher had for breakfast by following his Twitter, and share the same info with my followers. Marketing guru Seth Godin posts insights and observations daily, which I read to adapt to my own efforts. This is synergy beyond what was envisioned by any but the craziest sci fi writers of old, and it continues to grow.

Need help navigating the seas? Drop me a note.

Talk hard.

Media Relations Tips

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:23:00 +0000

You're holding an event or you have reached a significant milestone, and you figure that the media would be interested. You wrote a media release (or hired me to do so) and suddenly, the phone rings! A reporter under a time crunch (they are all under a time crunch) wants to ask you a few questions to flesh out the story.

What do you do?

Remember that there are always a few minutes to collect your thoughts before you agree to an interview. An "I'm busy right now - can I call you back in fifteen minutes?" will give you time to sit down and review your key messages. However, grab a pen and paper to ask some of the most important questions right now:

Write down the journalist's name, media outlet and phone number. Find out their deadline.
Ask about the focus of the interview. What is the nature of the story/piece they are producing?
Who else are they interviewing on the subject?
If television or radio, will the interview be live or taped? If print, will it be recorded?
How long will the interview last and where do they want to record it?
When will the story be broadcast or printed?

Get this information down and chat with your friendly neighbourhood media relations contractor to decide the best approach. Choose a comfortable, quiet setting for the callback where you won't be interrupted.

However, if you can, arrange for an interruption. The interview could start going poorly or overlong - remember that you want to deliver your key messages clearly and concisely, you want to avoid speculation and you want to limit the interviewer to only using the best responses you can give.

This has been a quick media relations tip - stay tuned for the flip side, where I give tips to reporters on how to shake PR training from spokespeople!

Would your company buy a Social Media Starter Program?

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 03:37:00 +0000

I have a business idea I'd like to run by you. How much would you or your company pay to catch up with social networking? I'm talking a business case for why you should (or shouldn't) embrace social media, then setting you up with the best platforms for your needs: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, podcasting, Flickr, YouTube or even MySpace. I would post the first few and build up your audience a bit using standard networking techniques, then teach you how to use the tools. When you felt comfortable, you would take over - or pay me to keep it up.

The idea is that any company or individual with something to promote could benefit from adding social media communications to their mix. Most are intimidated by the learning curve, amount of effort, or dismiss the concept as a fad. I could simply take care of the startup headaches and hand over a functional network which could be grown or simply maintained. A blog, Twitter feed and Facebook presence would be the minimum, and could expand to search engine promotion, broadcasting yourself and several other techniques.

I am an accomplished communications planner and public/media/government relations practitioner, a professional writer and an avid blog reader. This has lead me to embrace social media to a degree beyond many people in their mid-thirties. My age helps give me the professional experience to be able to evaluate the business value of the tools.

I believe firmly in the strength of connections that are so easy to make online. The face to face has greater impact, of course, but an online meeting is so much easier to make with people it would be tough to run into. I chat with MLAs and television reporters, or discuss articles written by some of the most insightful contemporaries I can imagine. I represent an educated and (moderately) affluent demographic of potential customers online, and I know how to reach them.

I think that social media has a definite place in business communications and promotions. I have hired people that I met only online, through recommendations from people I trust. I believe that social networking represents a brand new sphere reminiscent of the Internet itself in 1994. It's wild, unexplored, and it will pay off big for the people who know how to use it. I know how to use it.

I'm going to try it with the Town of Beaumont and see how it goes. If you think that you or your company could benefit from a social media starter kit, email me. We could try this together.

Klein and the Bloggers Behind this Blog

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 03:20:00 +0000

I'll be posting the occasional link here, when someone else's opinion will express mine far better than I could. One of daveberta's posts was such a find. The former editor of Insight Into Government, Ric Vivone, is publishing a book of essays on Klein-era politics in Alberta. I am completely in agreement with Cournoyer that I can't wait for this book to hit the shelves!

I discover current events and nuggets of wisdom on a variety of blogs, which I consider and regurgitate to you, Fair Reader. I figure you deserve to know what I'm reading, so you can form your opinion on the quality of my own perspective. In my Google Reader, you will find:

Manufactured News

Alberta: Get Rich or Die Trying

Calgary Grit

Daveberta

Idealistic Pragmatist

Warren Kinsella

Enlightened Savage

Angry in the Great White North

Grandinite

Impolitical

My Twitter feed includes many of these people, as well as reporters from Paula Simons and Lynda Steele. I follow most of the Alberta politicians (try #ABLeg) and several news feeds.

There you go: draw your own conclusions on the opinions I can offer. I will have a (sometimes less than subtle) leftist agenda but I am willing to give credit wherever credit is due. I also want to help improve things, rather than simply tear them down.

A (Wild)rose by any other name...

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:47:00 +0000

So I live in Alberta, which means that every once in a while some provincial-level politics are going to seep into this blog. Case in point: the Wildrose Alliance.

All of a sudden, the blogosphere is all abuzz about this fringe of rightist wackos who couldn't get enough face time among the PCs. (FYI: there are usually several "righter than PC" parties running in Alberta, and most get soundly trounced.) This one had a little success in luring an indie conservative seat their way, but managed to get nobody elected in last March's Stelmach Sweep.

However, a government relations friend of mine mentioned that there were Calgarian interests willing to fully bankroll a social conservative party with less... "interventionist" views on oilsands development. The anemic royalty program tentatively approved by the current government was enough to send new developments into the waiting arms of the other prairie provinces, who have been following Alberta's original "drill first and worry about the landscape/water/CO2 emissions/public health risks later" mentality.

So, is this the perfect storm of Harry Strom-ian proportions? Albertans don't switch loyalties easily, but when they do, it is breathtakingly fast. Despite the fact that I have never lived under a different provincial political party, could we see the end of the conservative stranglehold on Alberta in my lifetime? Dare I dream of a less conservative or even - the heart aches to consider it - a post-partisan Alberta?

Um, no. A Wildrose by any other name would simply be the Calgary Tories backing a different horse to power. They lost their party to an Edmonton-area farmer and need a new one to run. How much do you want to wager that we would see Jim Dinning and Craig Chandler on the lists if the Wildrose starts to grow? (Or perhaps I can fuel your conspiracy theory by suggesting that the Wildrose grows just large enough to siphon serious votes from the Tories, at which point the PCs decide to choose a new leader... Sharpen your pencils, class: Where do you think this new leader will be from?)

In short, I suppose this is politics-as-usual here in Big Sky Country. The urban areas that hold two thirds of our population are gerrymandered into ridings with enormous rural populations included. Forty per cent of us vote, and half of the voters elect Tories to 72 out of 81 seats - what difference does it make if they're called "PCs" or "Wildrose"? It will still be tough to be gay in Alberta, corporate taxes and AISH payments will remain low, and the Party will rule like kings.

Because what's gonna happen? Are Albertans going to vote for someone else?

I didn't think so.

Finding Webs.com remarkably easy to use

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 03:29:00 +0000

All right, so I have taken some design courses and have built a number of websites myself. However, in order to get my new site up and running as quickly as possible, I decided to try out some of the online site builder options.

My first attempt was with HostPapa and SohoLaunch. Friends had told me they had great tools, but Soho wouldn't work for me and I ended up chewing the carpet in frustration. My beloved bride had just built a little site on Webs.com to promote her dayhome, and it looked pretty good.

I checked out the tools and built this (admittedly basic) site quite easily. Webs.com has a lot more functionality to it: there are analytics, e-commerce and discounts on site promotion tools. For a basic fee of $100 per year, it also handles email and a few other things - including registration of a domain name.

So, the long and short of it is that I brought along my old domain name (www.enthrall.ca) and also registered - for free - the domain www.enthrallpromotions.com. You should be able to reach me through either address, but email will likely only work for the former.

Good work, Webs.com - you've earned a customer and an advocate. But I swear... if this site goes down, heads will roll.

Have a nice day!