Full Frontal PR Report
Ryan A. Schradin

“Who are you?” “What are you?” “What do you do?” “What can you do for me?”

When a new product or service hits the market those are the first questions consumers (and media) ask. Don’t get me wrong—you’re not going to see a woman standing in an aisle at Wal-Mart speaking to a box of breakfast cereal as her kids dance in circles around her…but it’s happening in her mind.

How you answer these questions is important for companies looking to attract customers, grow market share and differentiate their “new” and “superior” widgets.

Companies spend billions on positioning to give customers a reason to purchase. But when you have a superlative product (or content), the best messaging often emerges when PR and marketing pros stop talking and listen to users.

Content vs. Messaging and Marketing, Round One (Ding!)
MySpace.com is a social networking site with more than 14 million members that allows you to write a blog, map to friends, search and interact with new acquaintances, and post pictures. This phenom has experienced tremendous growth. Want to know how much? According to Business 2.0 writer Kevin Kelleher: They are signing up users at a rate of 65,000 per day and…are reel(ing) in more than $20 million in ad sales this year from the likes of Nike, Procter & Gamble, and Sony.

From my perspective it is a hot new place for people aged 5¾ and 112 to post thoughts in hopes that people will care (they usually don’t), wait in gleeful anticipation for friends to leave comments on their profile (ditto), and post pictures and embarrassing facts about themselves.

What has made MySpace so big?

• Bands like Coldplay, Billy Corgan, and The Killers have put their music and videos on their personal band pages. Billy also took the opportunity to tell his life story.

• The Blue Meanie, a professional wrestler, uses MySpace to interact with fans, answer their comments, and display the stitches he received during his most recent match.
• Unsigned musicians have flocked to MySpace to publicize themselves and spread their vibe. They use a profile to post tour dates and appearances, and gather followings of fans who become MySpace “friends.”

All of this has led to success, and the brilliance of it all was that MySpace did not orchestrate the hoopla. (Ed. Note: That’s what it appears.) By letting its users “speak,” MySpace has positioned itself as the type of social network that makes money. It is the kind of word of mouth marketers dream of fitfully. The subscribers have spoken in numbers too huge to ignore: MySpace is the space to hang in.

Content vs. Messaging and Marketing, Round Two (Ding!)
Some of you, ahem, might realize that messaging and marketing for Apple’s hardly-known little product called iPod has been driven by early-adopters. However you measure, that iPod is a smash, and it has driven the companion product, iTunes, to astounding heights. iTunes was doing okay before the contraption came around. Afterwards, Jobs & Company made sure the two were joined at the messaging hip.

Was Apple’s original vision for the iPod to have users podcasting and transporting files from computer to computer? We doubt it!

The iPod Shuffle, a flash-memory music player sold at a lower price point, has been positioned similarly to the original. But the Shuffle is considered an inferior product to other flash-memory players currently being sold. Will the iName draw enough users to embrace the new product in spite of this? Will Apple listen to the naysayers and incorporate feedback into the messaging (or next model) of the Shuffle? Stay iTuned.

A Moral? Well, if you got to have one…
First: If looking to position you, your product or your service in the tech or Internet marketplace don’t put resources into positioning if your product won’t back it up. (Duh.)

And another: While you can expect great things from your fantastic product, don’t expect us to use it the way you say we should. (Note: Aspirin was never meant to help prevent heart attacks, but quite by accident it is now.) Don’t set rules for what your product should be used for and don’t stop folks from experimenting with your goods.

Give it to us…
Let us play with it…
Stand back as we bastardize your vision.

You could become a millionaire!

Ryan “R. Schiddy” Schradin is an RLM Account Executive who delights in finding uses for new products and listening to the customers of his beloved clients.