When the Professional Line Blurs with the Personal Line the Public Looses

Alex Marvez of FoxSports.com mentioned in his Tim Tebow column that two accredited media members asked Tebow for an autograph. One was a Cincinnati reporter.  One was a photographer. Tebow obliged with his signature, and then the Broncos P.R. staff promptly booted the two media members from the premises who were harshly criticized for being just one step from hitting the press box wearing a home team’s jersey and cheering through the entire game.

Cuban-American CNN Host Rick Sanchez was fired after making controversial remarks on a satellite radio show. Sanchez called Comedy Central host Jon Stewart a "bigot" for mocking him, and complained that Jews — like Stewart — don't face discrimination. He also suggested that CNN, and perhaps the media industry more broadly, is run by Jews and elitists who look down on Hispanics like himself. He didn't just make a single impolite statement, but spoke at length — for roughly 20 minutes — about Stewart and a media world he believes to be filled with "elite Northeast liberals" who consider Hispanic journalists "second tier." This wasn’t the first time in Sanchez's four years at CNN that his comments had led to controversy or mockery. He once called President Obama a "cotton-picking president," and had attributed unconfirmed quotes to Rush Limbaugh and misidentified the Galapagos Islands as Hawaii.

Juan Williams was fired by NPR after saying on Bill O'Reilly's show that he gets nervous when he sees people in "Muslim garb" on airplanes. Within 24 hours Williams signed a $2 million contract with FOX. Fox News Chief Executive Roger Ailes said, “He's an honest man whose freedom of speech is protected by Fox News on a daily basis.” Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin and other conservative leaders rushed to Williams' defense calling for the federal government to stop providing funds to NPR. Erick Erickson, author of the "Red State" blog, called NPR's decision disgusting.  "All Juan Williams did is say both exactly how he feels and how many, many other Americans feel on this subject," Erickson wrote. “The man's body of work makes clear he is no bigot. But we sure can't offend [m]uslims can we?"

Not long ago you had to have a college degree to be a journalist, but now that anyone can publish anything —be it news, rumor or innuendo— on the Internet, the rules and the profession itself are changing. There was a time when journalism placed a high internal value on the rules of objective coverage and had a code of ethics to ensure it. Believe it or not, facts and sources had to be double and triple-checked before anything was published. Reporters and on-air personalities were aware of journalistic standards that prohibited them from injecting themselves into a story. They knew these standards and codes applied to everyone, in every circumstance.

The lack of professionalism in all cases mentioned is staggering, especially from a "mainstream media" that never holds back a chance to take shots at the blogosphere holding itself to a higher standard. However, it is not a matter of free speech; it is a matter of professional standards. Do you think Coca-Cola executives are free to divulge Coke’s secret formula under the First Amendment protection? Every company makes its own rules; every employee is free to leave a company when they don’t like the company’s mission, ethics or standards. NPR spokeswoman Dana Davis Rehm told the L.A. Times that Williams had been warned about the policy that their journalists should not participate in programs "that encourage punditry and speculation rather than fact-based analysis." NPR said that William’s comments “were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR.” But Williams thought free speech trumped company policy and said, “Political correctness can lead to some kind of paralysis where you don’t address reality.” 

Political correctness doesn’t negate objectivity and reality is objective. A professional recognizes that they have to be circumspect about their own opinions on divisive issues. There are some news organizations that present only one side and only one agenda letting fairness and balance fly out the window. They have much lower journalistic ethics and standards; but as long as they make them known to their employees, and the employees are comfortable working in that environment there is no problem. On the other hand, there are some news organizations that understand the role of the reporter/host is to present the story or the issue, not to make it. They feed objectivity to the public and let them make their own mind by presenting all sides of an issue; that’s what fair and balance is all about. Thank goodness there are some news organizations that still uphold their journalistic standards and ethics refusing to lower the bar!

WOM: Paranormal Activity Case Study

Movie studios and music houses are tapping social media not only to generate digital word-of-mouth (WOM) appeal - a strategy first deployed to great success with the Blair Witch Project more than 10 years ago - but also to listen to fans' judgments of film and music and make decisions based on them.
According to Marketing Vox, though Hollywood has always intuitively understood the power of WOM marketing, such buzz usually paled in comparison to the publicity generated by mammoth-sized advertising and promotion budgets. Now, those budgets are not quite so large, and thanks to the viral nature of social web, WOM has become an important communication channel in its own right.
Twitter and Facebook, perhaps not surprisingly, are the two main WOM platforms used by movie studios. Studios are also using Twitter and Facebook to track movies that prove unpopular with viewers as well.
The movie "Paranormal Activity" was a $7.9 million box office hit on its first weekend last year in large part because of the online viral campaign that accompanied it. Part of what made the original "Paranormal Activity" such a topic of conversation last year was how it took audiences by surprise. The trailers didn't give away much of the story, showing how audiences reacted to the movie more than the actual footage. While some of the buzz was genuinely favorable reaction from viewers, some of it was also studio produced. The trailer, instead of typical scenes from the movie, was instead a clip on how defibrillators fell short during the test screenings. The actors didn't pop up on talk shows. And anticipation for the movie grew organically on the Web, and it quickly became the "must-see" movie of last fall. According to CNN, the campaign's ROI is impressive, especially since the movie cost only about $11,000 to produce. When the first movie made an astonishing $107 million at the domestic box office, it was inevitable that a sequel would be haunting theaters once again. Now it's a year later, and "Paranormal Activity 2" is opening tomorrow. And like before, the film's studio, Paramount Pictures, is releasing very little information about what's in this new movie.
WOM entertainment success stories are so prevalent now that other industries have wholeheartedly embraced the techniques, making it a $3 billion-plus phenomenon that is clearly entering a new phase of growth – one that is accompanied by stepped up government regulations.
Transplanting these techniques to other business sectors, though, is not always straightforward. Much depends on the product in question of course; in some instances, the community that generates the buzz is just as important as the buzz itself.
In other cases, marketers find they don’t need to prompt customers too much to work on their behalf. A study out of Penn State University found that 20% of Tweets are brand-related, and many are positive. Bottom line: WOM has become a huge IT category. Another study by PQ Media reported that WOM marketing is the fastest-growing segment of the
 $254 billion marketing services sector of the media industry, with expenditures projected to climb at a compound 
annual rate of 30.4% in 2006-2011 to $3.7 billion.
More so than other forms of marketing, WOM, can be a double-edged sword if its use is seen as inappropriate or manipulative, and over-the-top campaigns are likely to attract regulatory scrutiny if not action. For example, the Federal Trade Commission's new guidance calls for bloggers and tweeters to explicitly state if there are financial ties to the products they are promoting. As it happens, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) agrees with the FTC - especially since it has become clear the agency expects more of the burden of disclosure to fall upon marketers vs. bloggers.

The Latina Demographic: Not What You Think They Are

It is not unusual -- to put it mildly -- to see Hispanic-market advertising focused on families and moms. But Chicago-based global market research firm Mintel says that doesn't reflect the Latina population in the U.S., either demographically or culturally. 

Leylha Ahuile, Mintel's senior analyst of multicultural reports, said that Hispanic women are more sophisticated, English-dominant, bi-cultural and also retro-cultural than they have ever been. And they are also much more likely to respond to marketers who understand them and speak to them as Latinas. There are 23.6 million Latinas in the U.S. now, which will increase to around 24.5 million by 2014. There are also more U.S.-born Latinas than non-Latina, and that trend will increase with a tightening immigration policy. 

Latinas spend more time on social media than non-Latinas, they are younger than non-Latinas, almost half are not married, and the majority is under 45 years of age. A full 52% is yet to enter their peak earning years so their purchasing power is on the rise; and with Hispanics constituting 25% of children being born in the U.S., most Latinas are now between 5 and 14, so children's' products are important.

"Most advertising to Latinas depicts them as married with two children. But the majority are unmarried, and the educational attainment of Latinas is higher than that of Latinos," said Ahuile. "That means she will have a higher-paying job and discretionary income." 

Between 1997 and 2006, the number of Latinas earning bachelor’s degrees increased by 222% and the number of Latinas earning masters degrees increased by 307%. Advertising messages need to speak to this more sophisticated consumer, according to Ahuile, who added that the notion that all Latinas like spending time with family is a myth. "Foreign-born actually want to spend even less," she said.

As for products, Latinas over-index with beauty and personal care products, which represent power and upward mobility. Latinas with household income of between $50,000 and $75,000 have the highest rate of makeup usage. And Hispanics don't consume less makeup when they get older, as is the case with other ethnic groups. "Those between 50 and 60 actually use more," says Ahuie, "But are beauty advertisers targeting older Latinas?" 

Media consumption among Latinas reflects, paradoxically, acculturation and "retroculturation," -a desire to connect with one's heritage. When it comes to consumption of print, there is an increase in preference for English-language media and decrease in Spanish, but we need to keep in mind that most consume print in both English and Spanish. Ahuile says the preference will tip toward English as U.S. Hispanic births continue to outpace immigration. When it comes to language preferred for TV it's a slightly different story with one-third watching English-language TV and some Spanish, reflecting the popularity of telenovelas. Latinas spend more hours per week in about every type of Internet activity except online games. They spend an hour more per week on social networking than non-Latinas, and they are also much more likely to access the Internet on mobile.