Bowl-derdash

The college football postseason has evolved quite a bit since the Rose Bowl was first played in 1902*. The "Granddaddy of Them All" should be preceded by "great" several times at this point.

To put things in perspective...

1938: Five major bowl games - the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl and Sun Bowl

2008: Thirty-four college football bowl games (and counting...)

The more football the better. More opportunities to extend your favorite team's season, more excuses to eat greasy food and drink beer, more money for more college programs. Bring on the bowl bonanza!

Right?

Wrong.

Put the brakes on the bowls. While all of the above may be true to some degree, the state of NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) bowls is an insult to the spirit of competition and to college football. It's rewarding mediocrity for money. Period.

With 68 teams receiving invitations to bowl games, more than half of NCAA FBS programs will play a postseason game in 2008. It means more to not play in a bowl game now then it does to compete in one.

Scenario: A 6-6 team loses four of its last five games, finishes tied for last in its conference, and the best team they beat all season was 5-7. They are then invited to a bowl. Wow. That really rewards excellence and encourages competition. By the way, it's a true story, look up Kentucky Wildcats football in 2008.

Even the most avid college football fan will find it difficult getting pumped to watch two unranked teams at or just above .500 play a game that means nothing on a national scale. It's a macro solution that's only effective on a micro level.

To elaborate, the NCAA says, "Give a bowl to every team and more college football fans will be happy (and more money will be made)!" Not really - to the first half.

I'm an East Carolina Univerity alumni and I know something of the new breed of bowls. Since 2000, ECU has played in the GalleryFurniture.com Bowl (now defunct), the GMAC Bowl, the PapaJohns.com Bowl, and the Hawai'i Bowl respectively. If you don't have a personal relationship with East Carolina or their bowl opponents, these games meant nothing to you. Why would they?

I'll watch that one smaller bowl that my alma mater plays in, but I'm still not tuning in to the PetroSun Independence Bowl with Northern Illinois and Louisiana Tech.

Bowl games used to mean something. All of them. With new sponsors/bowls like the Magic Jack St. Petersburg Bowl and Eagle Bank Bowl joining the list in the past few years, it's getting harder to keep up with - or care about - all of the bowls.

Ever wonder what happened to the Peach Bowl? It's now the Chick-Fil-A Bowl. The Copper Bowl? Better known as the Insight Bowl. Did you even notice? Gotta love sponsorship.

Candus Thompson with BaltimoreSun.com writes of bowl sponsorship:

Major bowl sponsors include "Citi ($45 billion in taxpayer bailouts this year), GMAC ($38 billion in debt), [and] FedEx (5 percent salary cuts and elimination of the 401(k) match for workers). Glad they have their priorities in order."

Good point. Lord help us if we just had an Orange Bowl or Sugar Bowl without a FedEx or Allstate sponsoring the game.

*The first "Rose Bowl Game," originally titled "The Tournament East-West football game," was played January 1, 1902 between Michigan and Stanford University. The Rose Bowl was not played continuously until 1916.
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If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Here are a few ideas to expand the field of bowls by 2010.

• The AMF Gutter Bowl
• The General Mills Cereal Bowl
• The Pepto Bismol Bowl (movement) - annual tie-in with the ACC and Pac 10 (Duke-Stanford rivalry?)
• The Disney Incredi-Bowls - ESPN and ABC develop a series of magical Christmas Day games featuring halftime shows by the cast of High School Musical and other favorites
• The Arm & Hammer Toilet Bowl - if they don't want to add a bowl, A&H can just purchase naming rights to the Texas Bowl

Ridiculous? Take a look at what exists today.

Buh Bye "Bud?"

Former U.S.-based beer maker (they still make beer here, but now their Belgian) Anheuser-Busch InBev is struggling to acquire trademark rights to "Bud" in Europe. According to the Forbes article reporting the story, AB InBev is likely to win this battle in the courts. BUT. What if they didn't?

Marketing repurcussions of a "Bud"-less European Budweiser:

• A European "Budweiser Light" is introduced. Weird.
• Tagline: "The Difference is Drinkability. Seriously."
• The baritone "Bud" frog joins the growing U.S. unemployment market.
• European paparazzi snap pics of the Ferret at AB InBev headquarters in Leuven.
• Google search for "Bud" returns 71+ million pages; more than half of them are marijuana related. Back to the marketing drawing board...
• "This Beck's for you." Sadly it's a time of change. Remember "Anheuser World Select?" Exactly.

I'm young, professionally available and love your products - call me anytime, AB InBev. Anheuser-Busch.com.

In other related news: Europeans love Budwesier. AB InBev "announces workforce reductions in the U.S." (pdf)

The Networking Lunch

Having a difficult time finding employment around the holidays? Potential employers saying "thanks, but no thanks" to your resume (via email or phone)? One piece of advice: Request a networking lunch.

A networking lunch is just as it sounds. It's a lunch where you network with someone or someones in your field. It allows you to get in front of someone that (hopefully) is established and knowledgeable of the business environment in your area. They know people who know people. They work directly with your ideal future boss. They have contact info for folks you never knew would be interested in what you do. They may not have the answer, but they can help you ask the right questions.

The economy is down, unemployment and job scarcity are up, and businesses are stuck in the middle fielding an onslaught of resumes on a daily basis. That can't be easy. Think of it like newspaper advertisements (no offense ad agencies) and how the print ads often disappear when you're reading like invisible ink. Don't let that be your resume. Make it easier on potential employers by having a chicken salad pita with the head of PR and asking them what they need, how they prefer to receive it, whether they know anybody that can benefit from your skills, and drop off a resume or two to pass along. It can't hurt.

This networking lunch can be mutually beneficial as well. You have the opportunity to sell yourself in a casual setting (rather than an oak desk, perfectly parallel pens and dust-free pictures of family; think bar table, random poppy seed crumbs and ketchup stained menus). Just a wee bit easier to be yourself, right? The individual across the table is a human being too; they appreciate relaxed atmospheres as much as you. It's a chance for them to scout talent for colleagues and friends, establish a freelance contact, and/or promote the local business environment.

Not everyone is going to schedule a lunch with a stranger during their busy work week. However, if you put yourself out there as a professional, you might be surprised at how many people will carve out an hour to chat with you. I've had a couple of these network lunches over the past month. Many thanks to Gotham, LLC and X-Factor Marketing in Hickory, NC, Mark Brock of Wray Ward and Bert Woodard of Next Level Communications in Charlotte. No, I'm not hired yet; I'm hopefully making it on some "to consider in '09" lists though. It really is about who you know these days.

Best of luck, I know I need it too.

Recession "PR"oof

The Berlin Wall falls. Five U.S. presidents in the Oval Office. U.S. national debt ratio more than doubles. Microwaves outsale range ovens. Heath Ledger is born and dies. Watergate scandal and fallout. Hank Aaron breaks Babe Ruth's home run record. More than a billion people gain access to the world wide web.

What do all of these events have in common? They all have taken place since the last time U.S. unemployment claims were as high as they are today. The economic crisis worsened further this past month as employers cut more than 500,000 jobs in November, the largest one month decline since 1974. More than a million jobs have been lost since September. With a president-elect waiting to take the nation's reigns and the government acknowleding that the country has been in a recession since late 2007, hope may still be on the horizon.

One industry's gloom can be another's gold. The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) held its 2008 Annual “Masters of Marketing” Conference in October, where attendees including client-side marketers, media and creative agencies and others were polled about their marketing and media budgets, plans and tactics going forward. The findings are encouraging for those in marketing communications. Following is a sample of the results:

• 67 percent reported they "will spend more" or "spending will be constant/no changes"
• Of that 67 percent, 26 percent plan to increase spending by more than 10 percent

Public relations in particular is and will continue to be an essential piece of the fiscal pie. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (U.S. Department of Labor) estimates that the number of "public relations specialists" will increase to nearly 300,000 by 2016, an increase of roughly 18 percent. The forecast for public relations practitioners is mirrored internally.

• Social media integration was selected as the "marketing discipline" most likely to promote growth, with 28 percent of respondents choosing it as their top choice
• Next most important: Grassroots/viral public relations (19 percent)

Chuck Werle, an Asheville, NC-based public relations professional, gives a synopsis of the difference between advertising and public relations. "Advertising is what you tell others about yourself, your products or your services. Public relations is what others tell about you."

That definition in mind, it's easy to understand the pending marriage of social media and public relations. It's as natural and fitting a match as cereal and milk. One is seemingly incomplete without the other. Sure, businesses can still post online ads on Facebook or create pop up videos where you catch the monkey and win, but as with traditional media PR has always been superior in credibility.

The opportunity is ripe for public relations professionals to integrate with social media; post podcasts, build blogs, tweet on Twitter, mingle on MySpace. Create relationships and authenticity. Help others to tell about you, your products or your services (or your clients').

The reason social media still feels refreshing and new despite its age is that the message pipeline, although growing more narrow, is nowhere near as clogged in social media as with other media. For now it's "real," and a real opportunity for PR departments and businesses.

If your business hasn't caught the wave yet, it's not too late to grab a board and get your feet wet. Social media is growing. Approximately 25 percent of the Inc. 500 reported that "social media was very important to their business/marketing strategy" in 2007, reports The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research. That number increased to 44 percent in 2008. The growth is staggering even on a global scale. According to Comscore, "social networking use grew 25 percent year over year worldwide."

Think social media like Facebook and MySpace are for teens and twenty-somethings? Think again. Rapleaf report on the gender and age of social media users.

- Justin Moore

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The emergence of Web 3.0 ("Semantic Web"). The electric car is revived. U.S. economic debt eliminated. Abagail Breslin wins an Oscar. Carolina Panthers win the Super Bowl. U.S. national unemployment rate dips below 3 percent. First female U.S. President.

All events transpiring during the next 34 years(?)

Plugging the Portfolio

My professional experience and responsibilites in a communications capacity have included,

• public relations
• marketing
• market research
• brand positioning
• relationship building with local and national clients from multiple industries.

I've regularly developed...

• media relations strategies
• key contact databases and execution plans
• key messages
• positioning strategies
• online content (web editing)
• creative client materials
• internal communication documents
• unique public relations campaigns and initiatives
• wide variety of written materials, including editorials, press releases, newsletters, reports, training manuals, brochures, web copy and ad-based copy.

I've also supervised multiple interns while working on and leading professional and diverse account teams representing major brands.

Whew! Say that three times fast...

After all, career seeking is one giant self promotion, right?
(Try clicking on the drawing board looking icon at the bottom right of the presentation for a "full screen" view if your browser cuts off the right edge.)

"To establish oneself in the world, one does all one can to seem established there already." - François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680), French writer, moralist