Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween to all the readers!!

Make sure to "trick or treat" safely this weekend and represent yourself well!

-The PRowl Public Relations' Staff

Congratulations Philadelphia!

The Phillies are World Series Champs!


*An interesting tid bit: Today The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News printed an additional 350,000 copies in addition to the 350,000 copies printed last night!

Enjoy the celebrations, be safe and have fun at the parade tomorrow!

Also!
This Sunday, Carnival Cruise Lines is attempting to break the world’s largest piñata record, with 8,000 pounds of candy. From 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the corner of Broad Street and Washington Ave (I assume where the dirt lot is, where the Cirque de Soleil tents were set up this summer) is where the festivities will take place. The six-story piñata will be destroyed with a wrecking ball at about 1:30 p.m. and Philadelphians will be able to enjoy all the candy!


What a weekend in Philly! Can’t wait!

Damage Control

After reading Melissa's post from yesterday, I immediately thought of Monday's World Series game. The Phillies/Rays game was suspended half-way through the sixth inning on Monday due to a torrential downpour in Philadelphia. Many questions were raised after the game was called:

"Why did they wait until half-way through the sixth inning?"
"The game should have been called earlier, why did they do this to the Phillies?"
"The team was playing in puddles, why didn't they call the game when the knew the weather wasn't going to clear up?"

There were many baseball fans up in arms about this situation on Monday night. MLB Commissioner Bud Selig and the umpires from the game held a press conference after the suspension was called. Selig got many criticisms after the game was called on countless blogs, websites and news sites.

This all leads into damage control. Some of the things Selig said made it seem as if he was trying to steal the game from the Phillies. How will this be fixed? In the world of PR, you would need to tell your client to come out and re-explain what they had said earlier. This way, it doesn't seem like they're saying something other than what they had really said.

Read all about it on MLB.com! Let's finish this game tonight, Phils!

Sarah Palin Speaks Her Mind

Everyone has been hearing that the McCain campaign is keeping Sarah Palin on a short leash. Apparently, they don't want her saying too much to certain people. So when she made comments about her wardrobe in a rally on Sunday, the McCain aides were not happy.

"Those clothes, they are not my property. Just like the lighting and the staging and everything else that the RNC purchased, I'm not taking them with me."

Even though the McCain aides were upset she went off the script that they had prepared for her, Palin associates said she wanted to say something to defend herself. She wants to be able to speak out about what she wants. Whether or not she should have compared her clothing to lighting and staging is another argument.

As PR professionals, we can prep our clients the best we can. Ultimately, we have no control over what they say when it's crunch time. What can we do when things get out of our hands? Damage control?

*Quote courtesy of Bulldog Reporter's Daily Dog

Know Your Audience Part 2

After reading Laura's post about knowing your audience, I realized that this weekend I had a personal experience that emphasized to me even more, the importance of knowing your audience.

I went to Long Island, NY to visit a friend, and we went shopping at the Roosevelt Field Mall, which is one of the biggest malls in America.

It's a great mall, especially for those who love shopping....upscale shopping, at that.

I realized the differences between the Roosevelt Field Mall, which is located in a suburb in Long Island, and my local mall, the Willow Grove Mall which is also located in a suburb.

Many people who live in Long Island are well-off. The stores in the mall there rival NYC's shopping. The mall has stores like Betsey Johnson, Michael Kors, Armani Exchange, and Brooks Brothers. The most upscale stores in my local mall include Coach and Bloomingdales.

Just as it's important to understand a target audience while planning for a campaign, it's clear why it was important in deciding what stores to put in these two different malls.

A Michael Kors store in my local mall would just be out of place. It probably would not gain much revenue. However, many people seemed to be shopping at Michael Kors while I was at Roosevelt Fields.

Perhaps Roosevelt Fields has many upscale stores (it also has normal stores) because it is a very large mall and they simply have the space to place those stores. Pehaps it has to do with the statstics regarding income in the area.

I am not trying to make any broad generalizations, but I think this example paints a vivid picture of understanding the importance of knowing your audience.

Rule of Thumb: Know Your Audience

I have learned a lot so far about public relations in school, and I’m sure there is even more to come. Of all of those lessons, I feel that the most important one involved a basic concept. Know your audience. If you want to get anywhere in PR, you need to know your audience. Although this seems like a straightforward notion, people often underestimate its importance and are unsuccessful. By having an understanding of your audience, you are able to tailor your message and methods of communication. This will make all the difference for your campaign.

You will need to know all demographic information about your target audience; these facts are the basics of their lives. This includes age, race, gender, income, and religion, among other things. Using the demographic information you find, you can use secondary research to find generalizations about these groups. If you were working on a campaign that targets Generation Y, anyone born from 1980-now, you would probably be using many new technologies such as Twitter or Facebook. Social media is a key source of information for this generation.

One thing to remember in today’s world is that your audience is changing and becoming more diverse. Research the majority, but also the ethnic minorities. Hispanics and African Americans are the minorities with the most rapid growth in the United States. Both groups have strong family ties, value friendships, and great appreciation for the cultures they belong to. If you are working on a multicultural campaign, one idea may be to have a spokesperson with the same cultural background as your target audience. They will appreciate this and be able to identify with someone of the same culture.

No matter who your audience is, you need to understand them. It will only benefit you to do your research and plan accordingly.

This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations firm staff member, Laura Macenka.

Juicy Campus= Perez Hilton on a Smaller Scale

Who says you have to live in a small town to know just about everything about someone’s personal life? In today’s fast-paced, growing world of media outlets and the increasing amount of online sites that aid to the attacking of other people, it’s simple to put your opinion out there. Two of the most popular sites for opinions (and not always in a good way) are Juicy Campus and Myspace.

Why have young adults stooped as low as writing degrading posts on public web domains just to attack one single person or an entire organization? Thanks to Juicy Campus, Greek organizations, sports teams, and famous singled out individuals can all become topics of conversation by being posted items on the site. Not only can someone become a posted topic of interest, but all people are allowed to give their opinion. The remarks are rude, degrading, and anonymous.

Anonymous posts? Yes, it is true, secret individuals that will never be known by their victim, and nothing can ever be done to stop the site. Juicy Campus was created by a Duke University Alumni that wanted to promote, "the simple mission of enabling online anonymous free speech on college campuses." There are over 60 campuses that are enabled to act on this “anonymous free speech”, but the personal attacks being posted, I hope, were not what the creator had in mind as “free speech”.

In the month of September our campus was filled with worry about who would be the next person to be posted on this site.. Though this seems to be the latest fad in online gossip, I only hope that something may be done for stricter guidelines on the Juicy Campus or that groups can ban together to not even use the site at all.

This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations firm staff member, Jade Barnes.