Archive for July, 2010
We are Obama fans, so when we heard that Shepard Fairey, famous for the Obama and Obey art chose our office building in South Park for a mural installation as a part of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego exhibit, Viva la Revolucion, a multifaceted, international exhibition featuring works both in the Museum’s galleries as well as at public sites throughout San Diego, we were excited!
James Brown of Public Architecture who designed and owns our building had submitted it for consideration for one of the site installations. Fairey and his crew started on a Wednesday and completed it on Friday. (Ok, and shall we also tell you that one of his crew was Spencer Elden, famous for being the Nirvana baby, pictured on the famous Nevermind album cover.)
The crowd that gathered to watch and catch a glimpse of Shepard was a little overwhelming and distracting to staff (oh well). The first day the young girl with the blue fair followed the crew’s every step from morning to night. We had fun seeing some of our favorite journalists as they came by to see the progress and didn’t realize our office was there, including Robert Pincus, Nina Garin, Dave Maass, Seth Combs and David Rolland.
Since the art lovers were so accessible, we took the opportunity to put postcards out about client, Lux Art Institute’s latest artist Sati Zech.
Ok, you can see more on our Facebook page; on to the work:
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- The start
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- Shepard paints
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- Stencils in J. Walcher office
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- Almost done …
I get over 1,000 e-mails a day – and this is nothing compared to journalists and reporters, whose attention PR professionals (like me) are clamoring to captivate. But as e-mail interaction has replaced the phone as the primary source of communication, it’s become increasingly difficult to get noticed.
Like a plain-Jane trying to get past the velvet rope at the hottest new LA club – overly mundane subject lines often get lost in the shuffle while outrageous ones might make you an outcast, thrusting your carefully quipped, well-written pitch into the realms of SPAM. So always remember that simply hitting “send” on an e-mail is no guarantee that it will actually be read.
So what does it take to be seen and more importantly, get read? Well, as we see it, a subject line needs to be somewhat irreverent, highly intriguing and/or slightly confusing (but in a good way – not in the “that makes no sense” way). In other words, it’s got to catch their attention, get them to open the e-mail and then read it top to bottom.
For Example: “Laps with Led Zeppelin”
Got your attention, didn’t I?
Bet you want to know what that’s all about, huh …
Well, so did the media. That headline generated interest amongst top national consumer publications like Time magazine, U.S. News and World Report, Men’s Journal, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. 
Had we led with something safe like, “Aqua Lung Invents Snorkel with a Radio,” or something more aggrandizing like “Aqua Lung’s New Technology Revolutionizes Swimming,” our pitch may have been passed over as PR hype – or in other words, “just another new product being hocked by overzealous PR peeps promising something out-of-this-world.”
By the way, since you’re dying to know, the aforementioned subject line was used to promote our client Aqua Lung’s launch of the then revolutionary Aqua FM snorkel – the first snorkel with a built in FM receiver so swimmers and snorkelers could tune-in underwater using state-of-the-art Bone Conductivity Technology. (Of course now you can take your Ipod underwater but this was ground-breaking news at one point – we promise.)
Some basic rules to follow:
- DON’T use hyperbole
- DON’T be too technical
- DON’T be boring
- DON’T lead with outrageous claims of excellence or revolutionary concepts (no one will believe you)
- DO be clever and eye-catching
- DO use creative devices such as alliteration (when appropriate and in moderation of course)
- DO keep it short
- DO play on words
