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This time I’ve decided to talk about television – because in all our strategic plans, TV still tops the list of the most powerful media. Nothing can match a story that’s aired during a prime-time newscast, no matter what countries or regions in the world. And for several years now, all the news shows have been broadcasting their stories online.

Is TV losing steam?

Although viewer numbers did rise during the pandemic, we know that people aged 15-24 are leaving TV behind and staying informed via the web and social media. I’d even say for certain that I’m the only person at the agency who still has a TV set worthy of the name. All my young employees – those 35 and under – just replay TV on their computer.

Still, there is one exception – reality TV. I don’t know why, but it’s a real phenomenon, and one worth examining. All my young employees no longer watch TV, but will make an exception for those shows, where they watch (a bit like voyeurs) the contestants having adventures that we all know are rigged, and filmed whenever. These reality shows have themes ranging from the chance to meet your soul mate, to round-the-world races, to competitions of every kind: cooking, singing, hairdressing, and business. Viewers get really involved in the stories. They talk to each other about them and quickly become fans of these insta-celebrities, who they then follow almost religiously on their TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook accounts.

According to the French Centre for the Observation of Society, the small screen still has a lot to offer. It has long had competition from other kinds of screens (computers and video games). Until recently, they seemed fairly complementary: it was total screen viewership that increased. What was true yesterday isn’t, quite, today. People only have so much time, and the Internet is taking up more and more of it. Médiamétrie says that each individual spends 1 hour 37 minutes per day on it, compared to 50 minutes in 2012 and 20 minutes a decade ago.

The stagnation of time spent in front of the TV, all ages combined, masks a very sharp drop since 2012 with those aged 15-34, from 2 hours and 45 minutes to 1 hour and 43 minutes in 2019.

For the youngest, PCs and smartphones dominate: 15- to 24-year-olds now spend more time on the Internet than in front of the TV. YouTube has become the favourite channel of a good many teenagers.

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You may have heard it said: “If you're not first in your category, create your own.”

I find this law fascinating, because it lets creative entrepreneurs find their place in the sun, even in markets that might look saturated or impenetrable, especially when the giants give the impression of taking up the whole field.

Take athletic footwear – those sneakers that seem to be in every closet in the world. Every major luxury brand has its signature trainers; even the most fashionista of influencers has fallen into line, wearing them with dresses and skirts.

But let’s get back to the Law of Categories, because I wanted to draw your attention to the On Running brand. They’ve been winning market share by, you guessed it, creating their own category.

The company was founded in Switzerland in 2010, and it’s managed to scoop up an over 40% market share of running shoes in Switzerland, and 10% in Germany. And now they’re spreading their wings around the world. The On Running brand currently has locations in 55 countries and more than seven million customers.

How can a new sneaker brand make a place among the giants of this world like Nike, Adidas, Reebok and New Balance?

By creating its own category, of course, where it’s in the lead: making running shoes that give you the feeling you’re running on clouds!

Simple, you think. That’s why I’m fascinated by this idea. You immediately think about how extremely comfortable these shoes are and, even if you’re like me and have never wanted to take up running, you want to give them a try!

Recipe for success:

1 – The founders:

- A world champion in duathlon, winner of many Ironmanraces

- A Swiss engineer

2 – Engineering applied to running

3 – Shoes that win international prizes (ISPO BRAND NEW) – ISPO GOLD –one of the most coveted awards for innovation

4 – A steady stream of public relations:

The Wall Street Journalpresents On as a revolutionary running shoe.

5 – Other champions and celebrities adopting the shoe

After his Oscars for Birdman and Gravity, Emmanuel Chivo Lubezki took his third consecutive Oscar for his work on The Revenant. For an Oscars photo shoot with Variety, he wore his favourite pair of sneakers: On Clouds

6 – Combining PR and social media

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

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If you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, you probably know that I created this new service at the agency – NATA PR SCHOOL – to teach you how to combine public relations with social media and your digital (online) strategies.

Today, I felt like sharing a model of exceptional success with you. We at the agency are privileged to have begun working with a young brand of vegan handbags just a few months ago. In short order, we’ve expanded its reach and boosted its sales phenomenally. And since this is the perfect example of what I’m teaching you, I’d like to tell you about the key points in this success story.

- Four years of work online to develop an engaged community and serve customers (some have become real fans) who buy the brand’s new products every season.

- A continuous combination of online and media articles (including a spot on a reality TV show about entrepreneurs, Dragons’ Den, a kind of Shark Tank, for our friends in the US).

I’m not going to delve into every area here. I may cover that in another podcast.

I’m going to focus on the ongoing intense work that’s brought the company to a point today where it’s accelerating its growth.

Before we worked together, the brand had already formed close ties with many influencers, one of whom had taken part in a reality TV show in a very limited market, namely Quebec (a Canadian province where French is the official language). This influencer, propelled by reality TV, has maintained close contact with her followers.

Are you wondering where public relations fits into all this? I’m getting there.

A collaboration was already underway with this influencer when we began our PR work for the brand. The question was how to launch this bag in the media while giving her all the space we could, despite her very busy schedule of events and launches.

My first question was whether we could combine a press event with a shopping event in the influencer’s hometown. Next, we had to make sure the brand had enough fans in that city to invite them to meet the influencer and give them the new handbags as a bonus.

Our client’s response: “Yes, we do have a large share of our fans living in that city, and they often ask us when we’ll go and meet them.”

I was thrilled with this response. Local media are often quicker than national media to take an interest in a well-known influencer. So we opted for a local strategy.

Local TV was a major ally here. We managed to convince them to come and meet this influencer in her own city along with the brand’s founder. The story exceeded all our expectations: special coverage at the scene of the event, with relevant editing and a prime-time broadcast on the evening news.

The combined effect of social media and traditional media literally sent sales skyrocketing. In 24 hours, the company’s biggest sales day had increased five-fold.

The moral of the story is: It can be done!

And that’s exactly what we teach at NATA PR SCHOOL!

Contact me for a free consultation or sign up for our upcoming training sessions.

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We sometimes get asked if we’d rather market our services to companies led by Europeans or Americans.

As you might expect, there are big differences, because values and education vary widely between the two continents.

We have no “preference” as such, but we have the advantage at the agency of knowing and understanding these two cultures.

What I would like to share with you in this podcast is the aspects of their culture and their beliefs about work, and the business practices we like in each of them.

Communications

I especially like not having to explain our services to a European company – either to win them over or to demonstrate how effective our strategies are.

Right now, we’re mainly working with French- and German-led companies, but based on our experience, the same goes for the Spaniards, Swiss, and English. What our friends in France call “la comm” is an automatic part of any good marketing plan: for them, it’s a must-have. When they choose to work with us, what’s important is implementing the strategies; they already believe in the results.

For Europeans, getting the word out on a product or service has always been crucial – since well before the advent of social media. So we don’t have to talk them into it as we often do with American companies. We don’t have to sell them on the importance of investing in key messages, rolling out press releases, or developing an annual communications strategy.

Straight to the point

Our American friends, meanwhile, haven’t got a minute to lose – time is money. So, no long meetings for debating our editorial decisions or the thousand options available to them. It’s taken me some time to understand that the long meetings and discussions with our French friends were not a waste of time, far from it! Our French friends like those meetings where we discuss things, because it’s often during professional discussion that exceptional ideas emerge. You’ve got to let time do its work.

For an American (and, I admit, for myself as well – I’m French Canadian), I felt like some of these meetings were a waste of my time. But after all these years, I’ve come to understand how to get the most out of these discussions. An important exchange of information is taking place, and it’s a terrific opportunity to get to know management, partners, and companies.

Americans tend to make a decision sooner and then go with it, even if it means quickly reworking their strategy if it fails.

A genuine partner

For large US corporations, agencies are all alike. If the results don’t meet their expectations, they move on to the next one. We’re considered services. That’s why the agency has had to develop its consulting and services at the highest level. We’ve learned how to “live to serve.”

Our European friends, on the other hand, like to develop partnerships. The business relationships we have with them may take longer to deploy, and monetary investments are often gradual (they start with low-budget operations before bringing out the big guns). Americans, meanwhile, are quick to deploy large PR budgets. There’s no best recipe here, but I must say that I’m fond of developing partnerships that stand the test of time.

To start making yourself known, nothing beats combining PR with social media.

Contact me for a free consultation or sign up for our upcoming training sessions.

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Many businesses have literally exploded, experiencing dizzying growth – especially online – during the pandemic. Look at ZOOM, which was almost unknown and is becoming a new verb!

How does this so-called law work, and how can you make it work for your business? Number one, steer clear of fadsand instead, follow the trends – those longer-lasting ground waves.

A fad is a passing phenomenon that consumers will most likely tire of. Remember how quickly hand sanitizer sold out at the start of the pandemic?

Several companies started producing it, and now, many of them can’t move their inventory.

Following a fad can earn you a lot of money, but be careful. No one can accurately predict when it will be over. Not to mention how hard it is to build a company that lasts by relying on short-term phenomena.

Trends will give you staying power. They’re like those waves that keep rolling in one after the other. I’m thinking of some businesses that only make winter coats. They update their best products by giving them new fabrics, new colours, and a few new details. So these become the standard and get consumers’ attention – sometimes just because of the colour.

Le Creuset is the perfect example of a company that follows trends by featuring its classics in the colour of the moment – but they don’t retire that cherry colour the world loves so much. PANTONE is well aware of this, and each year it unveils its Colour of the Year to great fanfare.

Yes, colour is a fad, but it’s also a trend that returns every year. Are you making, say, a revolutionary new vegan outdoor cover? Offer it in new fabrics and new colours every year, and you’ll see consumers lining up.

Next you might wonder how to publicize your product and your new colours.

And that’s where public relations – combined with your social media – come in. Contact me for a free consultation or sign up for our upcoming training sessions.

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For our loyal listeners who tune in to our podcast each week, you’ve probably heard me talk about our six-step model, the one we use every day to create successful public relations or influence campaigns.

If you go back to our very first episodes, you’ll hear me talk about each step more in detail in a series of podcasts.

I’m revisiting that today, because we have groups that are starting soon, and this tool is the core of everything I teach. If you decide to register for our group, we’ll have the chance to go into each of these six steps in-depth. I’ll share with you the toolkit we use to help you create what you need.

I first created this model to explain to our clients what it is we do. Public relations and influence campaigns are hard to identify and understand. I often say we’re selling the wind, because it’s difficult, if not impossible, to demonstrate what the results will be (articles, blogs, unboxing) before publication. We are, in a sense, the opposite of advertising, where you can choose the text, images, and exact publication date. That’s not true in public relations, where our power is one of influence. We offer up stories and products, and it’s up to the journalist or influencer to choose to talk about our clients.

But, to get back to the wind image, you know as well as I do that wind is pretty crucial to any sailboat worthy of the name. So, the NATA model explains every step in creating the wind that will bring your clients right to your website or shop shelves.

Just like advertising campaigns, PR campaigns have a beginning and an end.

Every campaign is designed around the following six steps:

The NATA PR Model is the backbone of our public relations campaigns, the basis of our actions and an effective guide for understanding. Each step can be expanded as much as you want depending on the resources you have. You should be aware that we use this same model for massive campaigns that we have run for global businesses.

The NATA PR Model is equally effective for multinationals as it is for small businesses with local reach.

Use this model to make yourself or your product known.

And above all, don't miss our upcoming groups. Twelve live sessions with me, where I have all the time I want to go through some examples with you and help you develop your own toolkit.

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THREE KEY REASONS

I have over 30 years’ experience in public relations, marketing, and social media. I founded my own agency 20 years ago, and I know that public relations are stronger than they have ever been – especially when combined with social media and influencers.

Far from being a tool of the past, public relations are more relevant than ever:

I’ve supported more than a thousand businesses, and I continue to do so every day with my team at NATA PR, that we train using our own methods.

The training program I’m telling you about is an exceptional offer:

You’ll have access to the agency’s best resource – all our expertise and knowledge.

Each week, I’ll answer any questions you have.

I’ll teach you:

Why sign up for our three-month training program?

Interested in taking your thought process further? Do you want to talk? Sign up now for a free consultation.

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It’s already been one year since I started uploading and sharing a weekly podcast in French and English. What a terrific exercise! I’m on Episode 53 now, and I’ve chosen this moment to take stock, celebrate this accomplishment, and share what I’ve learned and the lessons I’ve drawn from it.

Let’s start with what drove me to do this, which is still the same after 12 months:

Why:

Three major lessons that make me want to take things further and share my next adventures with you.

I believe that, as the most experienced and most qualified people, it’s in our interest to figure out how to roll out on the Web. Here’s what I’ve learned:

Whatever method you choose, one thing is clear: if you want to achieve something new – carry out new plans, realize a dream, start your own business – unless you change what you’re doing right now, those dreams won’t take shape. You’ve got to try new things and take risks.

So what if it’s difficult. “So What?” is one of my favourite new affirmations. Look at NIKE, which used that messaging and that slogan to move us to buy its products: “Just do it!”

I hope that you enjoyed this episode and will join us again NEXT WEEK.

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Appearances can be deceiving, and there’s nothing more human than wanting our peers to think we’re at the top of our game. Many of you surely know the saying, “Fake it till you make it.” This belief may drive us to keep moving forward and taking action, but it can also quickly become a trap.

Since the advent of social media, I’ve had the sense that this Law of Ego, which can result in hype or overexposure on social media and mainstream media alike, has unfortunately become the rule among influencers and celebrities who found their fame online.

Many of them are forever being featured in fabulous settings, exotic locales, and high-end designer outfits. I know they’re trying to inspire us, but if they really are influential, I suspect that many of their followers end up feeling depressed when they compare their own lives, which may look a lot less shiny, to the glamour and bling that these influencers are constantly displaying.

But hype, like propaganda, is nothing new; you need only look to the *fables of La Fontaine, written between 1668 and 1694. La Fontaine refers to the hypocritical members of the court, always fawning for the king’s favour.

These fables are taught to children, but they’re also very useful for adults.

Watch the businesses that get a lot of media coverage over the next few weeks. If you’re hearing that much about a company, a celebrity, or a service, be careful before choosing them or paying for their products – if they have so much time for promotion, it might be because business isn’t so great.

The perfect example of hype right now is space tourism. It’s the battle of the billionaires – Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk – each sharing his version of space tourism with us. What incredible publicity they get.

Yet Bezos spent just a few minutes in weightlessness before coming back down to Earth. We’re talking about a new industry that doesn't even exist yet.

As for Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, they’re getting worldwide publicity that they could never afford without their high-profile bosses. It’s a perfect example of the Law of Ego or the Law of Hype described by our American friends. And for us, it’s a heaping helping of hype, one that companies with more modest egos cannot serve up.

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*The fables chosen and set to verse by La Fontaine, known simply as the “Fables of La Fontaine,” are three collections of 243 allegorical fables published by Jean de la Fontainebetween 1668and 1694.Most of these, inspired by the fables of Aesopand Phaedrus,feature anthropomorphicanimals and contain an explicit moral(shared at the beginning or end of the poem) or an implied one.

You’ve probably heard it said that a good idea will never take off without the right financing. This statement – this belief, even – is quite commonly accepted. It could be proven before the advent of the Internet. Today, of course, that’s exactly where people turn to start up a business. That’s where we test out new concepts and new products, to take the pulse of potential customers without making a massive investment.

However, without a plan or a set of recurring actions, even the best idea may never see daylight. That’s why we strongly recommend you combine your social media platforms with media relations. You may have heard me say that PR is the organic ingredient in your marketing plan. Why? Because we don’t pay any journalists to talk about you or your product on TV or in the media. Because influencers will be lined up ready to talk about your start-up, for free, in exchange for your fabulous products. Today, we achieve more than 75% of results for our clients online: in articles published in webzines, in online newspapers, in TV segments rebroadcast on websites, and on social media platforms.

When you’re just starting out, you can set up your public relations campaigns yourself. This can be learned, and we teach it at NATA PR SCHOOL.

Likewise, promotion is not a miracle solution, especially if your product is not up to speed and doesn’t provide consumers with a solution. In that case, all the money in the world, and the best marketing plan, will have no impact.

In many countries, boxed, ready-to-cook meals like HelloFresh, Blue Apron, Gousto and Goodfood have been all the rage for a few years and, since the pandemic, their popularity has literally exploded. Many of these companies have, of course, found serious investors to drive them forward, but many had proven themselves by already having an online presence and were generating substantial sales while collecting plenty of data on their potential customers.

It’s true that to mark your customers, sooner or later you’ll have to invest in major PR and advertising campaigns. Nothing comes for free. You probably know this if you have followers on social media. You’ve no doubt already invested in content creation: photos, text, images, etc.

Although you don’t need much in the way of resources to start things up today, investing in promotion and marketing is critical to taking the next steps.

There’s a cost to every public relations campaign. It can be anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 a month for a public relations and influencing agency.

Interested in taking your thought process further? Do you want to talk? Sign up now for a free consultation.

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