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New Intern on the Block: Daniela Ramirez

Posted on September 20, 2016 | by Ketner Group

12359921_1233775586636458_2883868724262958616_n — Photo provided by Daniela Ramirez.

This blog was provided by our intern, Daniela Ramirez.

Hello everyone! I’m Daniela Ramirez and I’m one of the new Ketner Group interns, it’s nice to e-meet you! I am currently in my final year at The University of Texas at Austin studying public relations. It’s hard to believe that I am a senior (cue the nostalgia) and already in my last two semesters of undergrad. Looking back as a curious freshman, I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do with public relations or the type of job I wanted to work in following graduation. Through previous internships and courses, I have been able to develop a trajectory and carve a more focused track. These experiences have led me to develop a more strategic outlook and make the most of my four years at the best school in the world (Hook ‘em!).

Having worked in a variety of communication and public relations roles in the beverage industry, music business working with niche, reggae-type artists and bands as well as non-profits, I have been able to widen my scope of knowledge and skills. I’m excited to work with the amazing team at Ketner Group and continue to develop my B2B communication skills, and not to mention, learn about some pretty cool retail technology! Having only been with the team for a short time, I already feel so welcomed and truly feel like a valuable asset.

Now, a little bit about myself. I’m from a small town near Fort Worth, Texas called Kennedale – maybe you’ve heard of it? That’s why I was so excited to move to Austin and really live in a place that I haven’t experienced before. I love everything about Austin and the energy that it offers; I don’t plan on leaving the city scene anytime soon (sorry, Mom!). I’m all about experiences and living in the moment. You can often find me seeking out the next place to try brunch, attending a concert in town or going to an improv comedy show. I love to meet new people and learn about their life. That’s what really intrigued me about studying public relations; it’s a discipline that’s all about sustaining relationships through authentic dialogue. It’s a field that’s conducive to learning and exploring new interests and allows you to build an arsenal of skills. I love diving into different industries and learning how they operate, hence the range of my internships. Overall, I’m an extrovert and love to surround myself with good company. I’m excited for the semester ahead and spending my time with Ketner Group. As a senior, I’m anxious as well as excited for what’s ahead, while ironically wanting time to slow down at the same time.

Looking forward, I hope to work in the agency world so I can continue to gain varied experience in one industry and widen my scope of knowledge. I can already see that interning at Ketner Group will make my public relations undergrad experience memorable and one-of-a-kind, and I am very excited for the wonderful opportunity!

Beating the Summer PR Slump

Posted on July 26, 2016 | by Adrienne Newcomb

It’s inevitable, it happens every summer, schools out and everyone is in vacation mode. And the regularly fast pace world of PR slows down. But don’t fret, you won’t be twiddling your thumbs for long and in the meantime, we’ve come up with a few ideas to keep you busy and ahead of the curve for the Fall ramp-up.

Time for coffee and proactive pitching
Things aren’t just quiet for PR professionals; summer time is also a slow time for many journalists. This is a great time to meet up with journalists for an annual coffee, find out what they’re working on and discuss in-depth story ideas. They might be in need of something to fill in the space during the summertime slump or planning for 2017 and can pop a few of your ideas into their editorial calendars. Whether you get a story out of the deal or not, face-to-face time is essential for building long-term relationships and staying at the top of a journalist’s resource list.

Catch up on speaking and awards opportunities
The last time things were quiet, likely over the winter holidays, you probably put together a robust list of speaking and award opportunities you planned to conquer for the year. If you’re like us you probably keep it handy but things are starting to look out of date. Half the shows and most of the deadlines have passed for the year. Take a little time to refresh the info and start looking at dates and deadlines for the next year.

If you’re immersed in the world of retail tech PR like our team at Ketner Group, you know that while there isn’t major shows going on right now, plans for 2017 are well under way and a couple of major deadlines are on the horizon. This year the inaugural Shoptalk event drove media coverage and hype across the industry and the 2017 speaker lineup is already in the works. For a chance to speak at next year’s Shoptalk plan to have your speaking proposal submitted by Sept. 1.

Strategize for the upcoming year
The first half of 2016 is behind us and now is great time to start looking at 2017 priorities. Internally, meet with your top executives, sales team and product engineers to find out what’s next. Are there any major company strategy changes on the horizon? Any major customer wins in the pipeline? What major product developments are coming out next year? It’s also a good time to start looking at budgets based on first half performance.

From there, you can start building out on overall communications plan for the coming year. We’ve all been there, it’s either the end of the year or the brand new year and its time to build out the first-half communication plan. Instead of stressing out about compiling all of the materials you need for this plan under a tight deadline of two days, take this downtime to get ahead of the curve by putting together a potential outline and then finalize the plan when its time.

Don’t forget to include thought leadership themes, announcements and analyst relations’ activities. Meet with all of the stakeholders across your communications and marketing teams, both internally and externally. If you have some extra wiggle room in your budget, getting together for an in person meeting is a great way to knock this out in a short amount of time with some team building activities on size.

Last but not least, breathe
As we all know, the quiet times are rare and you never know when they might come to an abrupt halt, so enjoy it while you can. Take a long weekend without the stress of needing to make up the time when you get back. If you have “Summer Fridays,” take advantage and cut out of the office early for a much-needed massage or to spend some time at the pool with your kids. Don’t worry, there will always be a client in need of public relations and a journalist looking for a good story, come Monday.

How to Find a PR Internship

Posted on May 2, 2016 | by Ketner Group

This blog was written by our intern, Cambria Sawyer.

That whole “chicken or the egg” question may be archaic, but it’s more relevant than you think.

Walking into your freshman year at a university and landing that first internship is not particularly high in the priorities list – but it should be. When it’s all you can do to find time to feed yourself in between classes, class projects and research papers, how can something that seems so far away be so immediately important?

The thing is, when it comes to internship interviews, you need some experience to prove you’re up for the job, which is kind of hard to do, considering you’ve never worked anywhere before. Classic chicken or the egg.

But the puzzle can be solved, and here’s how:

Experience
Get involved early. This is how to get over the “lack of experience” hump.

First things first, join a club. This is why starting early is such a big deal, because it takes a while to absorb enough information from that membership to be worthwhile. For public relations students, joining the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) is an excellent starting point. As a member, you will have the opportunity to participate in third-party mentorship programs, volunteer activities, networking events and PR agency tours. In other words, the good stuff.

The organization doesn’t have to revolve around PR either to be meaningful, but PR is always relevant to any group wanting to stay afloat. Run for an officer position that handles communications, PR or social media for a club. Any way you can get your hands on some real-life application of the things you’re learning in class will make you a stronger candidate.

Resume
You can be the most qualified person they interview and still not get the job. How? The way you present yourself can make or break you, and it starts with the first impression you make, your resume.

First, make sure it’s one page. It shows that you can pinpoint what is important and convey it concisely, and in reality, it’s just easier to read.

Second, make it your own. No need to glue sequins on it or anything, but find a way to personalize it in a way that reflects who you are and helps you stand out, but is still professional.

Third, do not send it off as a Word doc. While converting it to a PDF shows a heightened level of professionalism, it also safeguards the formatting of your resume. It may look fabulous to you on your Mac computer, but your interviewer is seeing awkward spacing and weird margins on their PC.

Interview
There is a reason people interview candidates instead of just look at a resume; they want to see what you’re like.

Here are three steps to ace the interview:

Research. Make sure you become familiar with the company and the interviewer, if you know who it is. If they specialize in something, look into that industry a bit. Read up on the clients they work for and what kind of work they do for them. Check out the interviewer’s LinkedIn page to understand their background and what they do at the company. Your choice to research correlates with the amount of investment and ingenuity you will bring to the job – something an employer definitely wants to see.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay

Ask Questions. This one is pretty straightforward. Actually have some questions in mind when they ask the standard, “do you have any questions for me?” This shows that you’re engaged, inquisitive and are there to learn more – which is the whole point of the internship in the first place, right?

Be Yourself. Sorry for the cliché, but it’s important. Be professional and unique, but not in a way that misrepresents who you are as a person. If you get a job pretending to be someone you’re not, it won’t be a good fit. When you get a job offer from your future employer to whom you were completely genuine with, both you and the company will grow – because that office is exactly where you should be.

Happy interviewing!

Gifs: Redefining Interpersonal Communication

Posted on April 28, 2016 | by Ketner Group

A “gif” is defined as “a computer file format for the compression and storage of digital video images.” (Thanks, Merriam-Webster.) But most recently the term has come to define the looped video used in reaction to a situation or to add “color commentary” to an ongoing conversation between groups of people or to one’s social media post.

Suffice it to say, I am a BIG fan of them.

Since Slack announced its integration with GIPHY two years ago, Ketner Group’s inter-office /giphy tags have provided comedic relief to pretty much any situation we find ourselves in or in one-off conversations we may be having with other team members. I even find myself having entire conversations via /giphy. (Personally I’m partial to Game of Thrones and Beyoncé gifs. Given the recent release of the new season of GoT and LEMONADE, I’m pleased I’ll have a lot more content to work with.)

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

Gifs really are the new expression of emotion or reactions through a two-dimensional medium, be it in interoffice messages or texts with friends. Some might argue that emojis are the current “it” thing, and while I appreciate a good emoji conversation, nothing really says “I-just-secured-awesome-coverage-for-my-client-and-didn’t-break-a-sweat” like Michelle Pfeiffer in Grease 2.

via GIPHY

Or when receiving an unexpected complement, I look to a children’s classic.

via GIPHY

Many brands and companies have introduced their own branded gif keyboards, including Kik with their partnership program, Starbucks with their Frappuccino featured keyboard and Mississippi State’s athletics focused keyboard, to increase their reach with consumers.

With these brands creating their own keyboards and countless others in development, it’s generating a whole new vehicle for us to engage with those brands and use those brands as a means of self-expression, much like we would clothes or accessories. This integrates brands further into our everyday lives, blurring the distinction between marketing and organic content, including GIPHY’s head of business development.

As my parting gift, I’ll leave you with the hilarious fail gifs and let you see if you can figure out which ones are branded.

via GIPHY	via GIPHY
via GIPHY	via GIPHY
via GIPHY	via GIPHY

Scoring a Perfect 10 on Earth Day

Posted on April 20, 2016 | by Ketner Group

This blog was written by our intern, Cambria Sawyer.

Cause marketing is a lot like college.

I first started to see this connection in my journey as a Ketner Group intern back and forth from the office to the jungle (a.k.a. campus). You see, college is a balancing act.

Professors assign you more hours of homework than you have in a day. Somehow I’ve managed to survive off of cheese sticks and grapes for the past week, but the grocery store is in my imminent future. I need to go to the gym, steel drums practice, a club officer meeting and still go out with friends tonight– and all I want to do is take a nap.

Figuring out how to fit all the pieces together so they make sense and reach a goal is a delicate art; the same type of challenge comes with devising an effective cause marketing campaign.

If you break it down, it has two, equally important parts: the cause and the marketing, but putting the two together is easier said than done. Brands have to be careful when they choose a campaign. It must be simple, interesting and brand-relevant, while not appearing insincere. Digiday explains the stakes well in an article warning brands of “cause fatigue,” where poorly balanced campaigns cause consumers to stop taking corporate social responsibility seriously.

This Earth Day, I want to take a few brands from the apparel and fashion industry and rate them on a 1-10 scale for their Earth Day cause marketing balance skills.

Photo courtesy of Amour Vert

Amour Vert
Rating: 4
The sustainable fashion brand’s “Buy a Tee Plant a T(r)ee” campaign is fine, but that’s kind of the point– it’s just fine. While the rhyme is catchy and the cause is admirable, the connection between the fashion brand and planting trees is not particularly strong. Not to mention this is definitely not the first time a campaign identical to this has been launched, so it also looses points on originality. It’s clear to a consumer that this campaign is more about the marketing.

Burton
Rating: 8
A brand for the earth-conscious adrenaline junky, Burton takes environmental campaigns to the next level.

Photo courtesy of Burton

Their most creative plan to save the world (yes, they have many) is, in my opinion, the Burton x Mountain Dew campaign, where recycled plastic bottles are converted into the thread Burton uses to make some of its equipment and athletic wear. It’s unique, but still hyper-relevant to what they do as a brand. Where the brand falls short is its lack of focus on a specific campaign. While it undoubtedly earns a perfect 10 conservation-wise for facilitating a whopping 11 separate eco-campaigns, the marketing aspect suffers. As the Harvard Business Review advises, keep it simple. There’s a fine line between impressing and overwhelming your customers.

KEEN
Rating: 10
The footwear brand’s motto is “Follow Your Feet,” so that’s what it’s doing– and it’s awesome. KEEN’s Live Monumental Film Tour campaign began as a cross-country road trip 10 months ago in a yellow RV. As the brand ambassadors travelled 7,500 miles from Oregon to Washington, D.C., a film crew captured their efforts as they received more than 40,000 petition signatures to protect 3 million acres of public land, according to Cause Marketing Forum.

Photo courtesy of KEEN

The grand finale? A yellow-carpet movie premier of the film on Earth Day and film tour to follow. The campaign directly correlates with the hiking- and travel-oriented merchandise the brand offers. Even if it wasn’t relevant, the idea itself is so intriguing you forget it’s a marketing move in the first place. What’s even better? Two of the five natural areas the KEEN campaign focuses on have been declared as “protected” since the outset of the movement, a tangible achievement consumers can really take to heart when evaluating the brand.

A perfect 10. Nailed it.

To Press Release or Not Press Release, That is the Question

Posted on April 18, 2016 | by Catherine Seeds

As PR professionals, our main goal is to drive and secure coverage for our clients. As Ursula the sea witch from Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” says, “It’s what we do. It’s what we live for!”

In our last blog, we talked about the value of the modern press release and the benefits releases generate for PR campaigns. But according to our friends at NonProfitPR.org and as PR folks worldwide know, press releases are not always the best course of action and can often be just a big waste of time and money. See below for examples of when to not go down the press release path:

Announcing an event
Many companies, private and public, often use a press release to announce an event such as attendance at a conference or the launch of a propriety event. Even though you’ve taken the time to craft a release and send it to local media, rarely will you see these releases published among general media. Instead, consider listing on a community page or industry calendar. You can also utilize social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to highlight the news of your event and motivate your network into action.

Announcing a great story
When you have a great story to tell, look beyond a press release. Whether it’s to highlight a successful implementation with a customer or a longer feature story on a specific topic or trend, writing a release may give you some coverage, but there could be a better way to highlight this news. This is the perfect opportunity to give the scoop to a journalist to write a more in-depth story and publish your news. Not only do you begin to develop great media contacts, you end up with a great story about your organization.

Sometimes it’s just not newsworthy
Some companies assume they have to send a particular number of press releases each month or year in order to engage in strategic public relations. It’s never a good strategy to send releases simply to fill a quota. Sending the media lots of non-newsworthy releases (awards, speaking opportunities, small product updates, etc.) could cause journalists to stop reading your news altogether. When this happens, even when you have something truly newsworthy, it’s possible you still end up with no news coverage through no fault of your own. It’s much better to objectively analyze the worthiness of your announcement from a reporter’s perspective and then decide if a release is really the way to go.

There are many ways to have your news heard beyond the press release. From utilizing social networking, industry calendar listings and even pitching directly to journalists, picking the right strategy can provide better coverage and more public awareness, all at a more efficient cost.

New Year, New Site, New Baby!

Posted on February 10, 2016 | by Ketner Group

This has been an exciting couple of months at Ketner Group. As we covered in our last few blogs we had a very successful NRF with 11 of our 18 clients attending, making announcements and holding over 80 meetings with analysts and media.

Jeff Meets Jack! Behind the scenes, our team has been furiously working on building this brand new site that you see today. Countless hours went in on our end cultivating the content and working with Creative Pickle to create this beautiful site! We thank them for their patience and creative leadership.

Thirdly, and most exciting, we are happy to announce that our fearless leader, Jeff, and his wife, Molly, are
now grandparents! Their daughter and son-in-law welcomed Jack Andrew Winterroth in to the world at 9:30pm on Wednesday, February 3. He is a healthy 6 pounds and 12 ounces. We are thrilled to welcome this newest addition into the Ketner Group family. Congratulations Jeff, Molly and the entire Ketner clan!

Retail’s BIG Show: #NRF16 Client Recap, Part 1

Posted on January 27, 2016 | by Ketner Group

NRF’s 105th annual conference featured over 30,000 attendees, a plethora of thought leadership sessions from retail’s top leaders and a vast selection of innovative new technologies— too many to even count— however, in the midst of all the activity, our clients definitely shined through the crowd at Retail’s BIG Show bringing their own innovative stories into the mix.

360pi

According to RIS News, 360pi’s session, “Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery: Learn from Amazon” hosted by VP of Marketing, Jenn Markey, was a session quick hitter with the company’s “Holiday’s Insights Executive Intelligence Report,” which covered various pricing strategies of the world’s biggest retailers like Amazon, Target and Walmart. The report’s most interesting insight revealed that though Walmart is usually within 5% of Amazon’s Prices, the pricing disparity increased to 10% during the holiday season with Amazon’s exclusive membership-only shopping opportunities.

Advanced Pricing Logic

This year at NRF, Advanced Pricing Logic presented their easy-to-use analytics interface, PRICEXPERT, which combines the use of price optimization and competitive data. At their booth, APL got the chance to showcase their innovation that can enhance the way retailers and other businesses meet their financial goals. APL was also able to network with many retailers and top tier media alike.

Birdzi

With thousands of attendees from the retail industry, Birdzi utilized the conference to network with big names in the retail industry and the media. Birdzi had the chance to connect with fellow industry players and share how they’re transforming retail through their state-of-the art personalized shopper engagement platform.

CART

At NRF, CART presented how their website can help navigate the ever-changing industry of retail technology. With over 5,000 solutions, CART was able to show how their innovation can aid with searching and learning by connecting retailers to a variety of solutions and products. By demonstrating how their service works, CART was able to network with a variety of retailers and members of the press.

Displaydata

As the leading, global supplier of fully graphic, 3 color electronic shelf labels and in-store location management, Displaydata took NRF by storm by showing how their innovative system leads to better sales, profits and customer loyalty. By demonstrating their dynamic solution, showcasing their electronic shelf labels and offering interactive tours with real-time consumer interaction, Displaydata was able to boast their dynamic pricing tactics.

Adam Blair of Retail TouchPoints went on to highlight Displaydata’s capabilities in his NRF recap post.

Mirakl

This year at NRF Mirakl had the opportunity to meet with a vast amount of retailers and the press about their e-commerce marketplace platform and Best Buy Canada’s launch of its online marketplace. With constant networking all around the conference, Mirakl was very busy making their name known to the big players in the retail industry and earning their spot on Retail TouchPoint’s “What were The Hot Topics of #NRF16?” coverage round-up.

To be continued…

A Lou & Grey Love Story

Posted on January 18, 2016 | by Ketner Group

This blog was furnished by our Nashville-based Account Manager, Kirsty Hughan.

I’m in love and I don’t care who knows it!

My sweetheart? The flagship store of a soon-to-be big time brand called Lou & Grey.

You may be familiar with the name. If you are an Ann Inc. fan, you’ll have seen the name on some of their clothing’s tags at Ann Taylor Loft. Lou & Grey started off as a line within Loft and has now branched into their own division under Ann Inc. The new retailer is slowly opening brick and mortar spaces throughout the country, positioned as a “tomboyish fusion of active and street wear, or ‘lifewear.’”

But this post is not about style—and trust me I could go on and on about how much I love the style—the post is about how the decisions of the brand tapped into ongoing trends in technology and buyer behavior to develop a retail environment that’s both fresh and effective.

The first trend the retailer noticed and ran with was active-wear. Traditional retailers like Urban Outfitters and Tory Burch, among others, have launched their own active-wear lines in the past few years based on the success of fitness brands like Lululemon and Under Armour. Beyond that, the clothing line draws from the way modern women dress: focused on comfort, switching outfits seamlessly from day to night and valuing fit. That translates to natural fabrics, beautiful neutrals and fit perfect for any body type or age. There was a hole in the market, “lifewear,” and Lou & Grey filled it.

Next up, mobile POS. Lou & Grey has the benefit of opening brand new stores, meaning brand new POS software, while harnessing the deep technology already present in Ann Inc., namely their CRM. Open the door to the flagship store and you’ll find clothes on wall racks to either side, a long table with folded items and at the very end a beautiful, curated table. On that table? Accessories, books and a sheaf of tissue. Worked in retail? You’ll see a traditional Cash Wrap missing one item: a clunky computer powering POS. That’s because Lou and Grey’s point-of-sale is stealth, iPad powered and easy to move through the store. This not only declutters the space, increasing the easy going feel of the brand, it makes customer interaction easy. Need to do a quick ring up in the dressing room? No problem.

But my personal favorite trend Lou & Grey builds upon is the re-valuing of local artisans. Integral to the brand is the Makers Movement, Lou & Grey’s curated collection of third-party vendors focused on their craft. The Westport store features makers from throughout the country, with a larger focus on vendors from New York and Connecticut than their Texas store, who focuses more highly on—you guessed it!—Texas. Next to each maker’s items is a beautiful, hand written card featuring the name of the maker, their location and a description of why they come highly recommended. Talk about educating the consumer, and the sales associates. As someone easily swayed to shop locally instead of with a large chain, this personal touch wins me over and increases my brand loyalty.

What strikes me about each and every one of these trends and executions is the ease by which Lou & Grey integrates them into a retail space. As big brands grapple with how to capture customer attention and launch challenging technological tools, it is refreshing to see a retailer focus on a few key trends integral to their brand. Now you know more about my sweetheart I wouldn’t be upset if you fell just a little in love too.

Ice Cream’s Biggest Fan (and our new Intern): Meet Cambria!

Posted on August 12, 2015 | by Ketner Group | 1 Comment

Hello! My name is Cambria Sawyer, and I am thrilled to be joining the Ketner team as their newest intern! And yes, Cambria as in the font, wine, California town, and the heavy-progressive rock band Coheed and Cambria- but I am actually named after an old sailing ship in Rhode Island. My middle name is one of the most commonly chosen for children in China, but I’ll let you guess about that one!

Cambria Words are some of my favorite things on this earth. You can use them for good or evil, express your deepest thoughts and feelings, ask for ice cream (very important use of words), harness them to become closer to someone or push them farther away, motivate people toward life-changing action and a million other things. Words are powerful but also mischievous- it is not always known what effect they will have, and I think that is so dang cool. It’s truly a science to figure out how to best approach communication, and I think that is why I am so drawn to the fields of PR and marketing- they are mysterious and very, very fun.

My first major try at figuring out words came last year when I ran the promotion, marketing and creative aspects of a local non-profit’s 5K. We decided to call it the Record Run (themed around breaking a new world record every year), and broke the world record for the number of pennies collected for charity with over 500,000 pennies. Although it was my greatest challenge yet, I had an absolute blast branding the race, contacting media and strategizing for how to get more runners at the starting line. If you’ve ever wondered what half a million pennies look like, you can check it out here.

During my internship freshman year at the Frank Erwin Events Center, I had the Cambria opportunity to approach marketing from an entirely different angle. Between holding interviews, analyzing social media response, and blog-writing, the learning curve was steep and also totally awesome. Plus, getting to high-five practically every professional fighter in the UFC was an added bonus.

Of course, there are a few completely non PR-related things that play a considerably large role in my personality, so here you have it:

I am six feet tall, but I am an absolute sucker for a pair of high heels.
My younger brother has a severe form of Tourette Syndrome. He and I have become ambassadors for the Tourette Association of America to help raise awareness and funding for the disorder. I am also currently writing a book about my family’s journey with Tourette’s (there are just way too many good stories for them to go untold).
If you give me ice cream, we are friends.
I absolutely love to travel and try new things. If you want to go on an adventure, the answer is almost always yes.
I am a drummer- I spent seven years in percussion, and four years playing tenors (55 lbs) on drumline. My next step is to learn steel drums!

Going into my sophomore year at The University of Texas at Austin as a PR major, I could not be more excited about the adventures that await me both on and off-campus. I am so thrilled to have been welcomed here at Ketner Group, and am excited to see what I can learn from such a talented team!