PR 101

So, I am watching television the other night. A commercial pops up for the Chrysler minivan. One of the lines the narrator says is that the van is “the mother of all minivans.” That makes me sit up and take notice.

I object to using that line for two reasons: the late Iraqi Dictator Saddam Hussein coined one the phrase. That’s like quoting Hitler in an ad. Two, it’s just lazy writing. Rather than come up with something original, the copywriter fell back on something easy. Of course, the client approved the script. But, that’s no excuse.

Using clichés is never acceptable in my book – except in an ad that is deliberate satire. On that matter, I beg you if you are creative not to try satire unless your name is John Stewart or Jonathan Swift. Most people are just not any good at it.

Getting back to clichés, there are so many phrases that shouldn’t be used; yet they are. Let’s run down a few:

• “To be perfectly honest – so you have perfected honesty. What imperfect honesty, lying?
• Pushing the envelope – that phrase originally came from test pilots, who were pushing the limits of their planes. It meant they could die if something went wrong. That is not how that phrase is used now. You really thinking you are going to die with the new campaign?
• For the record – a legal phrase that originally meant something to be entered into the court record. I have heard and read this in too many campaigns. Is this campaign meeting some kind of legal requirement?
• World famous – I see this on restaurants a lot. So, the next time I am in Dublin, can I ask what they think of Joe’s Hot Dogs?
• Fantastic and amazing – Usually used when describing some new product, such as a cleaning soap. I got news for all of you, chemically all soap is exactly the same. I am rarely amazed by ketchup or beer bottles.
• Prices will never be this low again – yeah, until the next sale. That one is a favorite of car dealers. While I am the subject of car dealers, why do they always shout? Why would I buy anything from anyone who shouts at me?
• We always give 110 percent – mathematically impossible.

I could go on, but I am curious what clichés you crazy. If I get enough responses, I will publish them.

In the Star Trek television and movies series Deep Space Nine and Next Generation, there was a race of creatures the Borg. They conquered other races by assimilating them into the Borg collective. Don’t ask me how; I didn’t watch it that often.

Facebook is doing the same thing, although in a much less violent way obviously. The difference between the Borg and Facebook is that people want to join Facebook. It is remaking the way we interact with our fellow human beings. It has become the key site for any advertiser or marketing company that wants to build or extend a brand.

(Note to Trek Fans: I do not want to hear from you about the nuances of the series. I don’t care.)

I was reminded of the other day when I received the latest numbers on Facebook’s penetration of the wired world. Facebook now has 512 million followers in 212 countries, according to the Sept. 22 issue of World Internet Stats News. The News says that as of Aug. 31, there were approximately 1.9 billion Internet users on Earth. If you want to read the entire report, go here.

What makes Facebook’s assimilation of the Internet even more amazing is that the estimated 420 million Internet users in China cannot access the social media site. It has been banned in China since 2009.

So, the Earth’s estimated population is an estimated 6.84 billion people. Facebook is reaching just about 10 percent of it. There is nothing else in the world that reaches that many people on a continuous basis – with one exception. The World Cup soccer championship reaches over 700 million people during its run. But that only happens once every four years.

I think Internet Stats Editor Enrique De Argaez puts its best: “Mark Zuckerberg, without being a political leader and without planning to do so, has sparked the only true revolution taking place today in the world: the — Social Web Revolution –. The main characteristic of a revolution is a drastic and far-reaching change in ways of thinking and behaving. This is precisely what has happened worldwide in the Internet due to his now famous Facebook network. More than 517 million persons in 212 different countries have joined the Facebook Social Web, in the surprisingly short period of time of six years.”

Argaez is the chief executive officer of the Bogota, Columbia-based Miniwatts Marketing Group.

Keep in mind that Zuckerberg just turned 26-years-old. If you want to know more about him, read this article from the New Yorker. I suspect it is more objective than the movie “Social Network” about Facebook that is scheduled to be released Oct. 1.

What Zuckerberg and company have done is create and grow the dominant social media application. Facebook has become the must place to be for social media marketing.

“The company has developed a potentially powerful kind of advertising that’s more personal—more “social,” in Facebook’s parlance—than anything that’s come before, Bloomberg Business Week reporter Brad Stone wrote in the magazine’s Sept. 22 issue. “Ads on the site sit on the far right of the page and are such a visual afterthought that most users never click them. These ads can evolve, though, from useless little billboards into content, migrating into casual conversations between friends, colleagues, and family members—exactly where advertisers have always sought to be.”

As Stone points out in his article, Facebook has nailed the essence of social media marketing: “Facebook’s promise to advertisers isn’t to get consumers to buy their products—or really even to get them to click through to their website. Instead, it wants to subtly park the advertiser’s brand in the user’s consciousness and provoke a purchase down the line. More immediately, it also aims to get you to ‘like’ the brand yourself, which then serves as a sort of all-purpose opt-in, allowing the advertiser to insert future messages into your feed.”

That’s the real key to social media. It is why I now tell my clients Facebook is where they need to be. They should use other sites, but without using Facebook, it is like trying paddle kayak with a spoon. It just makes sense.

You can follow me on Facebook at Jeffrey Cole.

In Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s inaugural address in 1933, he uttered that now famous phrase: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” What he meant was that what keeping the economy from recovering from the greatest economic disaster in U.S. history was people’s inclination to hunker down.

Unfortunately, I see the same thing happening today, especially with US companies. They are afraid to do anything right now, especially spend money. Their fear is very specific. Publically traded companies only really want to do one thing – please Wall Street. I think that is one of the biggest problems in our country right now. I think it is what is holding us back.

My friends know this is a common rant with me. I think American business pays way too much attention to what some pimply-faced MBA/analyst has to say. How many company’s justify layoffs, or moving a factory by saying Wall Street demands it? Every state in the United States has seen this happen. If some analyst says a company should be make $1 share and it makes 99 cents a share, the stock price is pummeled. The Board of Directors and the CEO both talk about how cuts need to be made to make that $1 a share.

Now the company might be wildly profitable, but that doesn’t matter. It suddenly doesn’t want to spend any money or hire more workers because it has to make that Wall Street imposed goal. In my mind, it is a stupid way to do business.

That’s why three of my favorite companies are S.C. Johnson Wax, Jockey, and Kohler Corp. They are all privately held companies. They can do what needs to be done without having answer to some analyst 800 miles away. I wish more companies were like them.