Which pretty much sums up the way many BofA customers interpreted the bank’s effort to charge $5/monthly for debit card use.

Bank of America’s debit card fee was, as we all know, a PR fiasco. After DC-area resident Molly Katchpole [if ever a name belonged in a novel!] launched her petition excoriating BofA’s debit card fee, the anti-BofA doc went viral, winning more than 300,000 signatures. Many, including Katchpole, closed their BofA accounts and vowed never to return. As luck would have it for BofA, their ill-fated tax on debit card use timed all too well with the explosive rise of Occupy Wall Street, whose followers surely loved this line from Molly’s petition:

“The American people bailed out Bank of America during a financial crisis the banks helped create. … How can you justify squeezing another $60 a year from your debit card customers? This is despicable.”

Ouch. BofA backed down, for now anyway. But, in the same way that mysterious charges, surcharges, levies and duties creep into one’s monthly telecom and utility bills, some new banking fee will, inevitably, arise to replace it. Trust me on that one.

The irony is that many banks need such fees because, of all things, they’re awash in cash they can’t profit from and don’t know what to do with. Come again, you say? Simple: Investors spooked by mood-swinging markets are piling cash into banks. Even though the greenbacks earn virtually no interest there, at least the principal is relatively safe. However, because banks do little lending now and park their cash surplus at the Fed, which financial services execs themselves decry as miserly, the interest rate “spread” that drives bank profits is thinner than a sawbuck. It costs them to serve as a holding tank for cash. Net net, banks don’t want your savings, and though they haven’t thrown Aunt Minnie’s passbook into the streets yet, many are turning away new accounts.  See New York Times for the full story.

Before they blunder into some future scheme that infuriates the public, perhaps BofA’s leadership should heed a trend arising in the far land of Kenya. There a new approach to the transaction component of financial services is winning millions of satisfied customers and attracting international attention as a possible model for the future of banking. The scary part, for the banking sector: That future may involve banks in a different and more limited way.

M-PESA, a mobile money transfer system of mobile operator Safaricom, launched in Kenya in 2007 to provide cheap, convenient banking services in a developing nation where physical access to banks is very limited. M-PESA is “branchless” banking. Once customers meet with an M-PESA agent to open an account, they can use their Safaricom mobile devices to SMS basic financial transaction services, e.g., to deposit and withdraw money, transfer money to other users and non-users, pay bills or purchase more air time. M-PESA has even launched a mobile wallet app that lets urban customers use their mobile phones to make in-store purchases.

Within two years, an estimated 40% of the population was using M-PESA. Today, fully two-thirds of Kenyan households do so. People love it, and no wonder: With mobile penetration now topping 80 percent of the market in Kenya, people who were previously shut out of the banking system now can use their cell phones and M-PESA for basic financial transaction services.

Of course, none of the above makes M-PESA a bank in the classic sense — a distinction that Safaricom goes to great lengths to make clear. M-PESA does not lend money, and until very recently did not pay interest. In the same way that customers buy prepaid credits for mobile time, they can use M-PESA to purchase credits for financial transactions. Where does the money go, who safeguards Kenyan consumers if Safaricom or M-PESA go belly up, and how does Safaricom profit from M-PESA? I wondered about the economics of M-PESA, and it turns out there are good points here, too, as well as a touch of irony.

Safaricom deposits all M-PESA credits in accounts at The Commercial Bank of Africa and other banks. M-PESA customers’ funds are insured for a nominal amount — only about $1,300 per account — but then again, the amount “banked” by customers is typically small, too. Safaricom profits from M-PESA by charging a fee of roughly $1 per for withdrawals of $100 and 40 cents for other financial transactions.

You heard me — a fee. And yet M-PESA’s customers aren’t up in arms like BofA’s over fees. Perhaps it’s a matter of being happy to pay for something you’ve always desired and finally have — versus resenting the confiscation of something you always considered yours.

Is M-PESA the future of banking? That’s likely too sweeping an idea. However, there’s a strong possibility that banks will see many basic transaction services move to competitors with disruptive models such as M-PESA’s. Banks could also take a page from M-PESA’s thoughtful approach to winning the hearts and minds of customers.

M-PESA’s parent company Safaricom this summer launched a free service that lets customers search refugee databases to reunite with missing family members among the 300,000 souls living in government shelters and camps, still a problem in the wake of 2008′s post-election violence in Kenya. The United Nations, which keeps tabs on the world’s 47 million+ refugees, are observing Safaricom’s program as a possible model for other countries.

And the difference in public images? It’s hard to take issue with a company that helps put peoples’ families back together — for free. It’s easy to begrudge a bank that levies a debit card fee, however small, while millions are losing their jobs and homes.

Jim Crawford is the president and founder of Crawford PR and the author of Black Box Blog, where he offers hard-earned perspective on public relations for the tech and telecom industries.

If there’s a refreshing bit of news perhaps it’s the “occupy” movement that began on Wall Street then spread nationwide as the vehicle for a grab bag of grievances and causes. Some criticize “Occupy” for its lack of a unifying theme. But c’mon, the message is loud and clear, drawn straight from that famous line in the classic film, Network:

“We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.”

Don’t laugh. Revolutions including our own in ’76 began for much the same reason. Usually the flash point is less intellectual than visceral. Per Jefferson, the occasional revolution is a healthy thing.

On the smaller stage where I live, editors and publishers could be on the verge of an “Occupy PR” movement. Granted, I haven’t seen any reporters waving placards yet, but nonetheless there’s a very discernible anger in the air. What’s making journalists “mad as hell” are companies and agencies that misuse social media. Who can blame them for revolting against:

• Second-Hand Blog Content.  The practice of re-using company web site content as a media placement is coming to an end. Increasingly, media are returning to the practice of demanding first or even exclusive rights, or insisting that companies pay a licensing fee, i.e., make the contribution a paid piece.
  
• Self-Promotional Comments. Editors are sick and tired of blog and article comments that carry a sales pitch or a link to the commenter’s corporate web site. We’ve heard tales of editors threatening to ban all news/features bv companies that use the comment space to self-promote. One editor even ended his threat with “This is your final warning.” Ouch.

Personally, I think this editorial reaction is a healthy trend.

Companies have enjoyed a free ride with double-purpose content created first for their web site then placed externally. For months many in the media went along with this practice, resulting in huge spikes in company and agency hit counts. But now publishers are wise to it and clamping down on such “two-fers.”

That makes perfect sense. Whomever first publishes a piece reaps all the traffic benefits; he or she who re-publishes the came content sucks Google’s hind you-know-what. Publishers aren’t stupid: If they’re giving you the benefit of reaching their broad audience with your guest piece, you have to give them the benefit of the web site traffic. Otherwise, feel free to pay for the privilege.

Similar thought on commenting. The comment section, like the old-fashioned “letters to the editor” page, is intended as a feedback mechanism for input and fresh ideas. It’s not a billboard. Editors are absolutely within their rights to go postal and penalize offenders who paste blatantly commercial messages into the comment page, or post links that pull the audience into a self-promotional blog posting. Why that steams editors: Obviously because the comment section loses all value as an objective forum, and people stop coming. Again, it’s all about the traffic.

So what is a company to do about these developments? Here are 3 simple pointers:

• Create Single Purpose Content for Media. In some ways we’re seeing a return to the old days when PR people pitched an idea, then based on the editor’s interest followed up with an abstract or outline and finally the guest piece. In that vein, create dedicated content for media. Make sure it is informative, objective and free of self-serving links back to your company’s web site.
• Get Permission to Re-post – or Treat Blog Content Separately. Ask for permission to re-post the piece to your company site after publication. Alternately, use the concepts in a published piece to create a separate, shorter company blog. Here, too, go easy on the links to marketing brochureware. The best links are those that take the audience to a place where they learn more — not to where they’re sold more.
• If it Adds Value, Comment All You Like. Journalists love comments that deliver a different perspective and new info or create an online discussion or debate. When you add such value, then simply having your and your company’s name highlighted is promotion enough. People will start to pay attention and look for your comments.

Let the counter-revolution begin — the one where you make sure that you and journalists are on the same side.

Next up: The Prematurely Reported Death of the Press Release. If old school announcements are really dead and reporters increasingly rely on social media for leads, then why do so many business news stories stem from — you guessed it — the venerable press release? Let’s find out.

Jobs fit squarely in the tradition of the American self-made man who rises from humble, even troubled beginnings to build an empire. He founded the archetype of the techie who flouts conventional means of getting ahead — the college education, the impressive starter job — to blaze his own path and find success beyond one’s wildest dreams, which is saying a lot considering the imagination of Steve Jobs.

As the tributes flow in, people will hail all that the man inspired, invented, bought, borrowed (or as he put it, “stole”) then made better. At the heart of everything was the tech counterculture of Apple that cut across the Establishment grain to make computing simple, fun and accessible to Everyman, then went on to subsume and vastly improve the worlds of music, mobility and video entertainment.

Jobs’ many achievements tend to obscure the fact that he had to overcome significant trials, and at one point in his life was even considered a failure. The biggest blow came in 1985, just a year after the triumphant launch of the Macintosh. With too few programs written for the Mac, sales and then Apple stock tanked. Jobs’ ensuing battles with Apple’s board led to his ouster. At age 30, Jobs found himself in one of the most bitter predicaments any person can face: on the outside looking in at the company he’d created.

“What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating,” Jobs later recalled. “I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”

That phrase, the “lightness of being a beginner,” defined the man. Of all Jobs’ many creations perhaps the greatest was his own perpetual reinvention, giving lie to that line by F. Scott Fitzgerald, “There are no second acts in American lives.” For Steve Jobs, the curtain opened on a new scene every day. It’s an act we’ll all miss.

Those are the words used by Mad Men‘s Don Draper to communicate his pitch for the 1960s-era Kodak Carousel, and in a mash-up sleight of tech making the rounds this morning courtesy of A&G, they’re also a call to see the new Facebook timeline as something far more appealing than a website redesign. As usual, the fictional ad man makes an incredibly insightful point — one that tech firms and their PR teams should commit to memory.

The knee-jerk reaction among many in tech is to sell the future; in fact, many of us are drawn to technology precisely for the fun and creativity of imagining how this device, this service, this concept will rocket the world forward and change everything. That kind of vision is important and inspiring, but it’s also too often a promotional approach that speaks only to a miniscule segment of fellow tech geeks who run on future. It does nothing for the vast swath of potential customers who could benefit from a high-tech product, but have not read the eight articles in Wired explaining how and why.

The market doesn’t need to be rarified; in fact, it has to be brought down to earth to succeed.

I know many smart consumers who have feature phones. Who hear “mobile wallet” and think “pickpocket.” Who use Yahoo accounts, are put off by Twitter, and have no idea how any cloud service might help them. No, not every tech product is a fit for these people — but in the future of your vision, they’re going to be there. And your product will be a seamless part of their lives, or it won’t.

That Don Draper pitch and its reuse for Facebook are brilliant because they put technology in terms of life value here and now, not in some cold distant future of gigabytes and analytics. Technology can be communicated to people, or over them. Guess which strategy makes the future actually happen.

The time: late 1999/early 2000 — the height of the dot.com frenzy. Sage observers predicted a New Economy based on the Internet that would end up-and-down business cycles and see us on our way to an era of ever-increasing prosperity. Software company management, whose expertise was confined to — well, just software, really — outdid the prophet Ezekiel, casting visions of a new corporate Jerusalem (and their role as archangels in it).

Among the most euphoric and prolific in this realm: the CEO of a Washington, DC tech company specializing in business intelligence software. Not once but on many occasions this gentleman made one of the more memorable statements in business history:

“We’re purging ignorance from the planet.”

No small feat, that. Despite these lofty ambitions, in mid-March 2000 the firm’s bean counters noted accounting errors that required the company to issue a restatement of earnings. Overnight the stock plummeted from above $300/share to the $60s, starting a broad tech sector rout costing investors $billions. By summertime, the company’s stock traded around $6.

Relax, this is not one of those gloom & doom posts comparing social media to the dot.com phenomenon or predicting a similar outcome. It’s just a reminder to CEOs and their PR handlers to throttle that urge to become or create business messiahs. It’s also a warning to journalists not to get so close to the business hero you’re interviewing that it clouds your investigative senses — as I feel happened in the aforementioned Wired story. It was not only corporate flights of fancy but in many cases an uncritical press that fueled the dot.com bubble.

As for that DC area tech outfit hellbent to root out ignorance? Ubi sunt?

The company survived the bust, made a strong comeback over the decade, and today is considered one of the market leaders in business intelligence. They’re led by the same CEO, who is successfully evangelizing his company’s role in the big tech trends of our day, including mobility, cloud computing and social media. The difference this time: In outlining his plans here on earth, he never leaves the planet. If that lesson helps other leaders stay grounded and real when they peer into the future, perhaps we’ve taken a step toward purging ignorance, after all.

If you’re like me and pay a cable/sat provider through the nose each month, you have probably long wondered why you are a slave to their programming. Why is it that night after night, scrolling through the guide, we find the same films and TV shows — chosen by the provider, not us — listed ad nauseum?

Content selection in TV is very similar to radio. It lives by a Top 40 or Top 100 list outside of which no other content exists. If you went by what played on classic radio stations you might conclude that “Money” and “Another Brick in the Wall” are the only two songs recorded by Pink Floyd — because those are the only tunes you’ll ever hear by the group on commercial broadcasts.

This self-limiting approach to content is as bad or worse in TV. As a result, be assured that somewhere in the world, usually on my flat screen, Jaws, ET, The Shawshank Redemption and Godfather Part II air every day. They’re inescapable. Fans of classic content don’t fare much better. AMC and TCM can be relied on for showings of Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush or Modern Times. But good luck finding The Great Dictator, Chaplin’s first talkie and most commercially successful film. For whatever reason, it didn’t make the cut with content dictators. Similarly, if every episode of Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life is available for viewing somewhere, I’ll eat my cigar.

Think you’re better off with Roku, Xbox, Apple TV and Google TV? Got news for you: You’ve cut the cord and saved a buck, but you’re still chained to a menu — their menu.

Why make a fuss when there are thousands of channels, plus OTT options and YouTube?  Precisely because these are only channels. Channel counts pale beside the amount of video content produced over the last century — perhaps millions of shows, many of which still exist. Why can’t we see them?

To be sure, like Mr. Jacoby, I’m thrilled at the prospect of tweeting during Mad Men, seeing ads tailored to my needs and interests, and even playing with T Commerce to buy wingtips just like Steve Buscemi’s in Boardwalk Empire.

But I’m not kidding myself that the apps are anything but a toy. “The show’s the thing.” Smart TV will have truly arrived when viewers control content access 100 percent and can order up any program, film or even commercial ever created.

According to a recent survey, 4 out of 5 consumers are clueless on the meaning of “cloud computing.” Even those who make frequent use of cloud apps haven’t the least idea what this “cloud” is. It’s not hard to find the reason. Except in business and trade press, PR and advertising are flying in a cloud bank.

Take Microsoft’s recent “To the Cloud!”ads. Each ad is a cute set-up of a classic problem/resolution, e.g., the mom who has trouble taking a decent family portrait, or the couple stuck in an airport with a lot of downtime. The solution: “To the cloud!” The ads provide a good demo of the apps available via cloud computing, but what “the cloud” is remains a mystery. The ads might just as well shout “To the moon!” or “To the beach!”

Quite by accident, I recently had the opportunity to test consumer awareness of “the cloud.” The subject of my informal research: a young lady who works as an accountant for a $50 million/year non-profit, owns a smart phone and uses Gmail. In other words, somebody who’s fairly tech savvy.

I asked how her day had gone at the office and she frowned, “lousy — I was working on a massive spreadsheet, thought I’d saved it, then discovered that half my data had vanished.”

“Why don’t you switch to cloud computing?” I asked. “That way your data is always backed up and even though big cloud computing services like Amazon’s sometimes go down, your documents are always safe and secure.”

She had no idea what I was talking about.

So I went to my PC, opened up Gmail, showed her how to click on “Documents” and enter Google’s free cloud computing service to input, save and share data in any format. She “got it” immediately, was delighted and swore she’d suggest cloud computing at the next weekly staff meeting. Chalk up one new convert. Was that so hard?

It struck me that this problem of mass unfamiliarity with cloud computing comes down to a very fundamental PR issue: pigeon-holed communications. PR on cloud computing is typically done in one of three flavors: (1) very high level campaigns like Microsoft’s that sell the apps without explaining the underlying service; (2) highly technical coverage in trade media like Cloud Computing Journal; or (3) business media coverage that assumes the audience already understands “the cloud.”

If vendors expect cloud computing to succeed with consumers the way it has with business customers, they need to come down to earth and present “the cloud” in simple English. Sooner or later, marketing teams will wise up. The same people who tried to sell us “VoIP” before defaulting to “voice” will one day part the clouds and find “data.”

I know, I know: your first thought is that you heard this before circa 1997. And touche, to a certain extent. But while we are clearly in a kind of dot.com 2.0, as Jim wrote on Monday, I actually think the tech market has grown up sufficiently to avoid a repeat of that crash. Investors are smarter, business plans involve profit models (!), and technology is becoming an enabler of efficient growth, with vast quantities of data providing useful information on scalable systems that can turn profits out of low prices.

There will no doubt be some failures and some malinvestment, but to my mind, the basic trajectory is a pretty good one. That may make me a contrarian, but more fundamentally, I think, it makes me a rational optimist.*

The money glut of dot.com 1.0 was an exercise in startups duplicating and (further) infantilizing corporate structure — populating huge org charts, pimping out expensive offices to look like adult-sized romper rooms, and then being stunned — STUNNED — when the tech never came to market, or the demand never materialized.

In contrast, today’s tech looks a lot more like a thriving entrepreneurial market building on actual consumer and business interest. I see so many brilliant ideas coming to market with lean structures and appealing products: folks like GoJee, Saygent, Kinvey, WattVision, countless app developers, even physical or traditional product companies using low-cost tech services to nail bigger competitors and old models with a better product, service, or price. “Efficiency” isn’t exactly a buzzword yet, but it is a reality, and it defines both the positive and painful effects we’re experiencing.

The reality of good tech is that it helps you do more with less; less money, less time, and in most cases fewer people. Read: higher profits, productivity, and (hopefully briefly) unemployment. The latter sucks, but only if those folks can’t rejoin the market as more creative innovators. The pain we’re feeling now has a lot to do with that hurdle — but even change on that front is more likely to come from tech itself than from nostalgia.

Yesterday, Apple briefly topped Exxon Mobil as the most valuable company in the world, with a market cap of $341.5 billion. They’re the big boys, but that’s the economic future, and it happened even as the market is mid-massive-stumble. We may not be out of the woods (we never are), but incisive problem solving — which is now tech-enabled — is a rising tide. Eventually it will lift all boats.

*In the book of the same name, Matt Ridley argues pretty persuasively that humans have an incredible capacity for pessimism despite the demonstrable improvement of our health, lifespan, and economic circumstances over time. Trained by evolution to suspect that every rustle in the tall grass is a hungry carnivore, expecting the worst is a powerful habit, but perhaps not one best suited to a post-hunter-gatherer society. The end has been nigh, after all, since around the early first century.

People forget that for all its nonsense — massive cash “burn rates”; business toddlers as CEOs; angels funding any “.com” idea; megabuck Super Bowl ads by companies that soon vanished; and the worst merger in history (AOL/Time Warner) — the dot.com era gave us some of today’s most successful companies: Amazon, eBay, Google and Paypal, to name a few.

Who or what will be the next Amazon and Google? It’s anybody’s guess, but if you’re an exciting new venture the odds are that when you hear that question you pipe right up, “We will be!”

If you’re “the one” you will, like your predecessors, find that the greater part of your market power stems from PR and effective use of the media. For that you’ll need expert help from an agency that knows its business as well as you know yours. The trick is in picking the agency that’s right for you. Here are a few pointers:

• Lots of Fish in the Sea. Tech PR agencies themselves are more prolific than in the 90s, ergo you have more and better choices. Previously, startups often resorted to “Top 10″ agencies that were new to the field — amateurs, really, that treated technology as a sideshow to their mainstream business. Today startups have a much better selection, including smaller and mid-size agencies that may specialize in your niche. Take your time and run through all the checklist items below. Don’t let anyone pressure you or hurry your decision.
• Kindred Mentality. You wouldn’t marry your polar opposite, would you? So why hire it? It’s essential that your agency not only know your business and industry, but also think and act like you. For most startups, agencies with an entrepreneurial mindset make the best union. Wed a mismatch and you’ll waste valuable time divorcing them before you can start over, hopefully next time with your “true love” in PR.
• Journalistic Savvy. Good agencies always have someone on staff with a strong background in journalism. Why that matters: Marketing types are very creative but sometimes get carried away by their own ideas, while journalists have the focus (and, to be frank, the skepticism) to “cut to the chase” — defining and shaping your story based on the merits that will attract the interest of media and customers alike.
• Good Sales Skills. PR is not only about great ideas and winning stories, but also the knowledge of how to sell them and to whom. Like its sister discipline sales, PR requires in-depth knowledge of the customer, who for PR people is the journalist or social media “key influencer.”  Your account team must know the prospects most likely to take your story and run with it, and have strong relationships to make sure that the “sale is closed,” i.e., the coverage happens.
• The Ever-Evolving Realm of Media. The changes that have overtaken media are worth a dozen or more blogs, and can’t all be covered here today. Suffice it to say that media is a different world from 10, 5 or even 2 years ago. In some ways it’s smaller — traditional media have contracted and those that survive have done so primarily by going digital. In other ways media is a much bigger universe thanks to the explosion of social media venues. Your agency needs to be adept in both the traditional and new media realms. Don’t make the mistake of thinking one type of media rules over another. They’re all important, each in its own way.
• You’re the Media, Too. Increasingly, journalists, bloggers and other news hounds and feature scribblers rely on social media for story ideas. Often they take their lead directly from companies’ social media programs, and expect those firms to both follow and interact with them. How do you ensure your startup is “linked in” with media in a meaningful way? Pick an agency that is: (1) well-versed in web design to ensure your site is worth visiting; (2) knowledgeable in search engine optimization to attract the right targeted audiences; and (3) skilled in building robust social media programs. They should also be on top of services like HARO (“Help a Reporter Out”) that post story opportunities in tech and other sectors throughout the day.
• Experience Matters. Exciting new markets attract opportunists and scam artists of all types looking to make a buck, and PR is no exception. Sometimes the “come on” is a big name in your own niche, or in a hot field like social media, or even from the media itself. All that glitz is irrelevant compared to one overriding concern: the agency’s track record. Check out the agency’s PR bona fides by reviewing case studies and talking to client references.
• Turnover Rate. Getting fired by a client is part of any business and no sin in itself, but if it happens a lot that can be a sign of trouble. Maybe the agency is better at winning new business than at serving and keeping it. Maybe they view clients as projects and front-load their billing with the expectation that they’ll get the boot in a year and then — yikes! — move on to work for your competitor. Ask about the average tenure of client relationships, with examples.
• Set Concrete Objectives. PR agencies do one thing well: build awareness and mind share. That market recognition, in turn, should have a cascading set of benefits that serve your business mission. So. . .what is your mission? — gaining a toehold in selected markets, driving sales, winning a policy fight that opens new markets, or attracting a nice fat buyout after X number of years? Be specific and completely candid with your agency about your goals — and demand that they specific on how they can help.
• Regularly Measure Results Against Objectives. You’ve hired an agency. Now what? From the beginning, set quarterly reviews to measure progress and adjust PR programs as needed, or if you question the results, to provide the data needed to determine whether it’s time for a different agency.
• Results Not Excuses. Can you see a difference in your public profile in the first 90 days?  Does it continue to grow? Most importantly, is PR doing what you expected it would do? You want to be able to say to yourself, “Thanks to the agency, we are building recognition that drives sales” or “The agency made all the difference in winning a policy battle critical to our business” or “Our healthy acquisition price is a credit to our PR.” What you don’t want: week-after-week of seeing this phrase on reports — “Agency following up,” often abbreviated to “Agency f/u.” That pretty much says it all. It’s an excuse, not a result.

If you’re a startup looking for an agency, the above points should help get you started. If you have questions, give us or any tech PR agency a call. The best ones love to talk to people with exciting ideas.

Now, you Googles and eBays of the future — go break a leg!

The same holds true in PR.

When headlines blare disaster, many companies rein in communications programs, figuring it’s a waste of time to promote during a time of negative customer sentiment. “Cluck cluck.” They make a mad dash for the chicken coop to wait out the storm. I love it when that happens. It means the competition has given up and gone home, leaving a clear field for our clients.

Time after time we’ve helped companies grow to dominate their space during economic hard times, and we get a big boost when faint-hearted competitors refuse to put up a fight. On occasion, clients’ VCs come back at us with, “This is a terrible time to be doing PR — are you guys completely nuts?”  To which we reply, “Maybe so — and dumb like a fox.”

One obvious tidbit we’ve learned over the years is that when times are tough, people want to see a glimmer of hope. They’re dying to know who’s winning and how. They want somebody to throw them a lifeline — an idea they can follow to emulate the winner’s success. We always encourage our clients to oblige. The key: acting like a leader. A few ways we help them do that:

• Turn success stories into news
• Keep up the news flow
• Show how your products make/save money for others
• Back it up with case studies
• Blog practical advice
• If you’re hiring, let the world know — when you create jobs it means you’re succeeding at what you do
• Seize the opportunities that others dismiss
• Don’t just email press/analysts — talk to them
• Host customer events and invite the media

All the above activities and more build the aura of company with a positive outlook. Is this just some silly Dale Carnegie platitude? Maybe a bit, but the thing is — it works. Customers and media gravitate toward the individual or company with a clear eye and steady pulse during a panic. Need proof?  Then remember how one man stopped a rout merely by standing his ground at the worst of times — an imminent defeat in battle. Seeing his tiny band face the enemy all alone, other troopers halted their retreat, turned around and took up the cry, “There stands like Jackson like a stone wall — rally behind the Virginians!”  They won the day. Neither side in that fight was better equipped or trained. One side was better led and motivated.

Fast forward. When the stock market took a nosedive in 2008-2009, sellers pushed the Dow Jones down to 6000. Guess who was buying in that “depressed” market?: Warren Buffett. Like the famed French banker, Baron de Rothschild, Buffett knows that the time to act and buy is when there’s “blood in the streets.” PR is just the same. How you respond to the opportunity depends — are you a hen or a fox?