Nata PR School (EN)

For our 80th episode, I’m delighted to welcome back Andy Thê-Anh, an immensely talented stylist and fashion designer whom I interviewed in episode 70, when we were analyzing Lululemon’s successes.

Hello, Andy! Thank you for accepting my invitation to discuss the Balmain brand.

The 2021 Netflix documentary, which we both watched, is very revealing and introduces us to the young prodigy and creative director of Balmain, Olivier Rousteing, as he brings his daring creations to life and goes in search of his origins.

It is said that, since he took over the management of the Balmain house in 2011, sales have increased six-fold, and sales of the men’s collection have increased by 40%.

- According to your own analysis, how did this young director pull off such a feat?

- He seems to have forged friendships with big international stars such as Kim Kardashian, Jennifer Lopez, Rihanna, Justin Bieber, and many others. Thanks to these personalities, Balmain became the first brand to exceed one million fans on Instagram. They now have more than 11 million.

- In your opinion, how do you bring new codes to such a traditional brand?

- Do you think that the consumer interest in Balmain may be fading after nine years?

- In this documentary, we follow Olivier in his quest to find his biological parents. He seems to want to know where he comes from to move forward in his life and with his creations. As someone of Vietnamese origin who has lived in America for quite some time, what do you think of his quest?

- Do you think it is an advantage to be aware of your roots when being creative?

BALMAIN: WONDER BOY

https://www.netflix.com/ca/title/81325861

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Bonjour, Hello and welcome to this 79th episode of the NATA PR SCHOOL podcast.

Are you someone who believes that selling more and more contributes to a company’s growth? It’s true that in the short term, selling more items can help to increase revenue. But those who are trapped in a cycle of discounts would probably tell you the opposite.

Just a few short years ago, Black Friday was a day of discounts unique to the US market. Black Friday is the last Friday of November, the day after American Thanksgiving, a holiday that’s considered even more important than Christmas is for Canadians. Today, Black Friday sales are widespread across the Canadian market. I even remember the year I bought clothes and accessories from a brand I love at full price. I was so disappointed when, barely a month later, they were on sale for 30% to 40% off. It goes without saying that I stopped buying this brand’s products at full price. Since then, this brand has closed its only store in Montreal, even though it was located in a busy shopping mall.

So, is it these sales that are eating into companies’ profits? What message are brands sending their customers by reducing the price of their products? Surely, it’s that full price is too expensive. Loyal customers who see these discounts will stop buying at regular price, just like I did. Several retailers have even noticed that a client will avoid buying products from brands that have a reputation for discounting their merchandise too often.

It hasn’t been formally proven that sales increase long-term profits, unless you do what Walmart has with its famous “Everyday low prices” policy. This is why brands that offer discounts often experience precipitous declines in demand at the end of the sale.

The law of perspective requires you to look to the future and not concentrate solely on short-term sales. We have a client at the agency in the lingerie sector that decided to impose a fixed price on all the retailers that sell its products. Although some stores cut ties with the brand, this strategy has proven to be a winning one in the medium term. I remember that after just one year, our client had maintained its revenue, despite losing several sales outlets and, in the second year, they increased their revenue by the amount they wanted.

Inflation, for example, can give a boost to a stagnant economy, but will inevitably lead to a recession in the long term.

Here, you’ll notice how the law of perspective comes into play.

I sincerely believe that the discount spiral is not the way to increase profits in the medium and long term. Companies need to continue to create appeal, which makes consumers want to buy your products. Yes, price can have an impact, but if we look more closely at what the major luxury brands are doing, we can see that price isn’t always an obstacle. I hear you when you say that luxury products aren’t for everyone, and you’re absolutely right. But even at more reasonable prices, many brands would do well to better control how and when they offer discounts.s

I hope you enjoyed this episode, and that this PR/marketing moment stimulates your creativity.

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When you have more than 30 years of industry experience, like I do, numerous examples come to mind when this Law of Division is mentioned. To illustrate this rule, I’ve chosen to return to the media universe, because I think it’s the most obvious example, and the easiest to understand.

As a starting point, I often like to mention during training sessions that it was much easier for PR and marketing professionals to develop media strategies 30 years ago, before the Internet. There were much fewer “windows of visibility”, as I like to call them. Think about throwing a huge rock into the middle of a lake and the ripples reaching every bank. With a big enough budget, this was possible. For example, major groups swore by an advertising-only approach and paid little attention to what PR agencies were doing. With an advertising budget alone, big brands could easily showcase their products everywhere by purchasing advertising space on five traditional platforms:

Television

Newspapers

Radio

Magazines

Billboards

However, the Internet completely changed the game. In addition to these five platforms (which still exist), now each of these traditional media has its online version, their own website, a mobile version and now social media (theirs and yours): YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Google. Consumers have to make choices – which we call division – between these twenty or so different platforms.

Choosing a platform to promote a product is often complex, because each of them targets a different audience. This is why customizing messages and ads for Facebook, Instagram, TV and newspapers is important. This work of marketing and public relations professionals is very complicated, because you often have to pick your battles if you don’t have the resources to be active on all these platforms.

Companies like car maker Honda have made the most of this division by creating a new brand, Acura, for its luxury vehicles. This has enabled the company to generate excellent results in two completely different markets. I encourage to you take a look at the Polestar brand, which made the decision to market itself as a stand-alone brand with its own dealerships rather than as an electric car model by Volvo.

In the beauty sector, Clarins took positive steps by creating a completely new product line, MY Clarins, which offers more natural, vegan and organic products targeting Generations Y and Z (30 and under).

I hope you enjoyed this episode, and that this PR/marketing moment stimulates your creativity.

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We say that opposites attract, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. This law is sometimes used by brands to highlight what sets them apart from their closest competitor.

Think of Apple and Microsoft, and that magnificent ad campaignthat has become iconic:

I’m a Mac, I’m a PChighlights how the two brands are different:

This strategy is often used by brands that are in second or third place in consumers’ minds.

Today, with its market capitalization of more than $3 trillion, it’s clear that Apple played its cards right, as the company has surpassed Microsoft, which has a market capitalization of more than $2 trillion.

Think back to the Pepsi campaign (the choice of a new generation: The Pepsi Generation). This is another example that perfectly illustrates the Law of Opposites. Coca-Cola is a traditional brand that is more than a century old, while Pepsi is a young, hip brand.

This law enables brands to showcase themselves and keep at a distance those brands that are just behind, by monopolizing the opposites angle.

Consumer behaviour analysts have noticed that brand markets have often had two distinct groups: those who love the number one brand and those who would buy anything other than the number one brand.

This is where PR can help to promote the value of the brands that are not giants and not right at the top of the ladder:

At Nata, we often use this law when we introduce ourselves to new clients: we are a boutique, human-scale agency. Meaning that: we’re not one of these huge agencies that takes on more and more contracts to pay their rent and large numbers of employees…

Do you know what you could highlight that makes you stand out from your competitors?

I hope you enjoyed this episode, and that this PR/marketing moment stimulates your creativity.

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I’m a MAC I’m a PC :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfv6Ah_MVJU

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We all know that social media (SM) has a major impact in every society, in every aspect of our life, and public relations is no exception. PR must continually adapt to the new realities ushered in by social media:

Good news for public relations in 2022

Yes, TikTok will be even more important on social media in 2022, and we are factoring that into our strategic plans, because nothing gets your potential customers’ attention like well-crafted, quality content.

Not everyone is online at all times.

PR also lets us reach people who, even today, aren’t online 24/7 – including people over 40, a great many of whom still consult traditional media.

In short, 2022 will be a powerful year for us, when we’ll continue to combine PR and social media.

I hope you enjoyed this episode, and that this PR/marketing moment stimulates your creativity.

Reach out to me so we can continue the conversation!

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For this 75th episode, I am delighted to welcome Stéphane Le Duc, fashion journalist host, and cofounder of the magazine Dress to Kill. He has been a sponsor and conference host at the Fashion & Design Festival since 2014. He teaches at the Université du Québec and the Promédia school. As a journalist, Stéphane has attended the biggest international fashion shows from the world’s leading fashion houses, from Chanel to Jean-Paul Gaultier. For those of you, like me, who grew up with TV, perhaps you’ll remember Perfecto, a wonderful show that aired on the MusiquePlus channel. It was during interviews with big celebrities on this show that I discovered Stéphane.

Stéphane is the Guest curator of “Parachute” – a must-see exhibition at the McCord Museum in Montreal about subversive fashion of the ‘80s.

https://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/en/exhibitions/parachute/

I hope you enjoyed this episode, and that this PR/marketing moment stimulates your creativity.

Reach out to me so we can continue the conversation!

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It may be a mystery tool for those who don’t know about it, but the press release is really very simple. At the agency, we write and send out press releases every day. It’s our number-one tool for sending news from our computer to select influencers and journalists.

According to CISION’s annual study on the state of the media [The 2021 Global Comms Report], 78% of journalists want relevant press releases from brands and organizations.

What is a press release good for?

A press release is not:

When you’re ready to send your press release, it’s good to remember that:

The most important items to include are:

A press release is a short, informative text. A single page of text (400-600 words) is generally enough to get the basic information across:

So! I hope I’ve convinced you how important the press release is!

I hope you enjoyed this episode, and that this PR/marketing moment stimulates your creativity.

Reach out to me so we can continue the conversation!

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We all harbour a desire for overnight success. Yet, as I know from personal experience, when business really takes off, we’re thrilled, of course, but we’re seldom ready to tackle that overpowering wave, because maybe we don’t have the resources we need.

We’re often asked to estimate how long it will take to make a brand known and boost its sales.

We can answer that pesky question in multiple ways, especially since our range of solutions grows with every contract we handle at NATA PR. To illustrate how unique each case is, here’s the question from a well-known brand in a Canadian province:

Realistically, how much time and effort does it take before we should start to see the brand get known across Canada?

Here’s how I answered:

What a great question! Drawing on our experience, this is how long it took with some of the brands we’ve helped grow throughout Canada:

Caudalie: 3 years + 1 shop opened in Toronto + 2 in Quebec Province

Innisfree: Less than 1 year (internationally-known brand) + 1 shop opened in Toronto

Kérastase: More than 3 years

Shu Uemura Hair: 2 years

Bogs Footwear: More than 2 years (Canada made up more than 20% of their sales a few years ago)

So, if your company wants to grow and be more successful, I urge you to contact me directly. I’ll be happy to tell you what the steps are and what actions to take so you can continue to prosper.

I hope you enjoyed this episode, and that this PR/marketing moment stimulates your creativity.

Reach out to me so we can continue the conversation!

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I’ve shared our experience at NATA PR with ‘brands with not story’, brands that often had great success before the Internet came along. Some have seen their market shares melt like snow in the sun and, since the pandemic, they suddenly want to get on the web.

So I thought it would definitely be interesting for many of you if I also shared our experience with these fabulous brands with stories behind them. I have to say, that’s true of the majority of our clients.

And these brands have several things in common:

Here’s what they’re looking for:

As you can imagine, we love working with these brands, because:

How to tell your story

It’s also what we teach at the NATA PR SCHOOL, and it’s Step 2 in the NATA model that we’ll send you for free if you sign up at www.natapr.com

So, if your company wants to keep being more successful, I urge you to contact me directly. I’ll be happy to tell you what the steps are and what actions to take so you can continue to prosper.

I hope you enjoyed this episode, and that this PR/marketing moment stimulates your creativity.

Reach out to me so we can continue the conversation:

Free consultation

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If you haven’t listened to Episode 65 yet, where I welcome the amazing Tina Poitras, a two-time Olympic athlete who sold her first company, Magma Photo, to Bill Gates and founded Namasté Leadership, I urge you to do so.

On that note, I wanted to talk to you about Tina’s concept of Type A personalities, because without a team that she calls Olympic, it’s hard to achieve the goals you set for yourself. Tina says: “No athlete gets to the Olympics on their own.”

According to many studies and many researchers, we are the sum of the people who surround us.

Jim Rohn famously said that “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

Apparently even happiness is contagious:

Happiness is contagious:“Each happy friend increases our probability of being happy by 9%, while each unhappy friend decreases our happiness capital by 7%,” according to a Harvard study of nearly 5,000 individuals over 20 years.

I hope you enjoyed this episode, and that this PR/marketing moment stimulates your creativity.

Reach out to me so we can continue the conversation!

Free consultation. Join our mailing lists for useful updates: www.natapr.com

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