By Tim Bahr
The Internet has created a new communications platform that now allows organizations to reach consumers directly with video content in a cost-effective and interactive manner
that was not possible until recently.
In the past, broadcast PR companies reported on which television stations aired a VNR and their viewing audience size. Today, effective broadcast PR means creating a way for
an organization to connect directly with their consumer audiences, opening a dialogue that can help set the stage for a sale or request for more information. As we all know,
Google, Yahoo!, Ask.com, MSN and other search engines are the among the most popular means to find more information on a particular subject.
Those organizations that provide consumers with additional information - more in-depth video, audio, brochures, testimonials, case studies - when and where these consumers seek
it online will effectively help close a communications loop.
VNR Viability
Consider a pharmaceutical company that produces and distributes a 30-second VNR on a new drug for diabetes that airs on 100 stations. The VNR includes information that piques
the interest of diabetes patients and their families, but because of the nature of the format, it can only touch on the various benefits and risks. A patient then uses Google to
search the name of the drug along with the pharmaceutical company and finds a multimedia news release that contains a video presentation of a patient/doctor FAQ session, a
brochure listing the full spectrum of risks and benefits, and a link to the client Web site where a patient can request an online newsletter.
With all this additional information readily accessible, the patient becomes a highly interested and engaged potential customer.
Go, Gadget!
Or perhaps a consumer electronics company promoting a new gadget decides that they would rather spend their communications dollars reaching out to consumers directly instead of
relying on the media as a conduit. Video is still key to illustrating the various attributes of the product, but in this scenario the company decides to create video that will
only be distributed via the Internet.
As a result, the company is not limited to a 60 to 90-second non-promotional news report geared towards television news programming. A video illustrating how the gadget works,
interviews with consumers and product reviewers, and footage of how it was made, can be produced and combined with additional information about the product, a link to a tech blog
touting the new gadget, and more into multiple multimedia news releases and distributed directly to targeted audiences depending on their affinity (consumers, technophiles, the
media, investors). The same video can be used to create a podcast that's posted to iTunes for retrieval by an entirely different group of consumers.
Disappearing Tradition
Interestingly, this direct-to-consumer process is creating the need for a new media relations skill set that requires a knowledge of how online audiences seek information.
Understanding the keywords that consumers associate with your organization, its products and services will help you write advisories and scripts that are better optimized for
search engine retrieval, thus grabbing the attention of the consumer. This differs from the style of a traditional media advisory.
For example, when writing an advisory for the television media, care is taken not to mention a product name too often in order to avoid being too promotional. When writing
copy to accompany video that is being distributed on the Web, the product name may be mentioned several times in the headline and body copy, along with other words that a consumer
would associate with the story like the name of the organization or a celebrity spokesperson.
With these opportunities in mind, we should all carefully consider the potential of our outbound communications and make sure we are closing the communication loop for our
clients and taking major steps toward delivering a new and much more powerful ROI proposition.
Contact: Tim Bahr is president of MultiVu, a PR Newswire company, and the author of "Broadcast and Beyond - A Users Guide to Broadcast and Web-based Public
Relation." He can be reached at 212.782.2879, or [email protected].