It's quickly dawning on professionals that the Internet promises some unique PR and communications conduits - those that go beyond the obvious and sometimes cursory let's-track-our-visitors-as-a-reinforcement-of-our-demographics mindset. Instead, progressive and trend-setting corporations are using the online world to clarify controversial media issues; to promote themselves as information providers; to mesh marketing and PR through industry partnerships; to set up virtual press rooms; and to provide investor relations information.
At the recent International Quality & Productivity Center's Effective Public Relations on the Internet conference, communicators got a taste of what corporations are doing to whet their key audiences' appetites. Here's what one speaker, Suzanne Segelbaum, senior product manager, Barbie Collectibles (which netted $350 million in retail sales since it premiered in 1990), revealed about Mattel's barbie.com Web venture, which was launched in October 1996:
The site generates 1 million hits a week; handles 2,400 visitors a day; and 16 percent of its users are male (Barbie apparently isn't just for girls!);
Eight people, primarily those with technical responsibilities, manage the site. Two of those are copy writers;
The site is positioned as an informational - not entertainment - venue and the company uses it to quell mini PR fires, such as denying any connection to the "trailer trash Barbie doll" or to explain its quest to introduce more ethnically oriented dolls;
Industry kudos and press coverage have come from Yahoo (which named it a Site of the Day); The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition; and CNN online.
As part of its marketing and PR efforts, the Collectibles division has partnered with other corporations such as Avon, Bloomingdale's and Hallmark and will begin publicizing online - sometime in the next few months - its future alliances. (It does, however, already plug those relationships online by providing links for its corporate partners);
A company marketing, direct-marketing, consumer affairs and PR representative looks at every e-mail generated from its site - but, alas, they're not all answered. Instead, PR and other company staffers use these messages to learn more about Collectibles consumers; to track issues and keep a "pulse on what's happening in the marketplace and what's on the minds of collectors"; and to decide what content should be there.
The company reinforces its brand online by conveying consistent colors; consistent logos; consistent personality and consistent information;
Communications specialists are in the process of adding up-to-date press releases and archived information to give the Web site more weight as a PR medium; and
Sales for only about a dozen different dolls (out of a pool of hundreds) - all part of its direct-marketing Collectibles line - are conducted online but planners have been cautiously savvy by making sure that the venture doesn't conflict with its retail sales. That's been accomplished by emphasizing its importance as an educational source, not merely a commercial venue;
(Barbie Collectibles, Suzanne Segelbaum, 310/252-2544)
