Breaking into the advertising and public relations business in the early 1990s was a multi-year effort. It was a decision to pursue writing followed by relentless networking and appropriate entry-level writing work. It let me sharpen my abilities as a good listener and distiller of information.
I knew I wanted to write for a living thanks to an independent study completed at Baldwin-Wallace College under adjunct professor and presidential campaign consultant Aaron Fox. I researched and wrote about the effectiveness of Lyndon Johnson’s Daisy Spot, a TV commercial that he explained had only aired once. It was a shocking creative execution involving a little girl counting to 10 as she plucks the petals off a daisy, miscounting as she goes. It then pivoted to a loud and unstoppable launch countdown and concluded with a mushrooming explosion that predicted nuclear war if Barry Goldwater was elected president in 1964. Johnson’s voiceover outlined the stakes: “We must either love each other, or we must die.” Here is the wiki if you love this stuff as much as me.
I dislike the phrase in most uses today, because it seems so vain, but it is accurate to say the Daisy Spot went viral. It was frightening and struck a nerve with an American electorate concerned about the possibility of nuclear war. As a child of the 70s and 80s with a contemplative nature, I can vouch for that widespread fear.
An exclamation point for the effort: I got a taste of that all-important writer’s pride thanks to a Friends of the Library Award for Excellence in Research and Scholarship.
What is stringing?
Before, during, and after my gig with The Oppidan Group, the PR firm that helped underdog Mike White get elected mayor of Cleveland (Writers: What Is Your Journalist Tree (part 1 of 3), I cut my teeth as a writer by working as a stringer covering local government and public schools in the western Cleveland suburbs of Bay Village and Rocky River.
My reporting and writing supported the production of news handled by Edith Starzyk with the Sun Newspaper chain and Tom Breckenridge, a long-time reporter at The Plain Dealer.
Stringing took an excruciatingly long time to do successfully because I had to cover bi-weekly meetings that would last for hours. The personalities were far more interesting than the topics, especially since I did not live in either city and had limited perspective on the duty of public servants or the weight their debates and decisions placed on their shoulders.
In retrospect, the younger me needed to write, even way back then.
Seeing those headlines and bylines was the payoff. The meager pay simply signaled that I was valued. It might have covered a nice meal (for one) out somewhere like The Cooker, a long-gone favorite restaurant chain.
Even though I worked for them, I did not see Edith or Tom too often. The draft copy or meeting highlights were handed off via fax, mail, phone, or delivery. There was no such thing as email at the time.
As a stringer, I was part of something larger in an era when local news organizations were well-oiled machines–still humming. People relied on the media to stay informed and engaged in their communities.
What were actualities?
Back to a reflection I teased in an earlier installment of this article: actualities.
Actualities were on-the-scene reports from live events that I remember using during my support of union boss Frank Valenta’s run for congress, while working at The Oppidan Group.
We employed them because media targets could not and would not cover every campaign event themselves. The actualities were audio assets that might supplement a news release we created and issued after an event.
There was one campaign event I remember where Valenta supporters were going to blow the whistle on a salient campaign topic (or ring some bells to ring the bell of someone not doing their job). We organized the event so that multiple supporters would have whistles or bells, and they would sound them after Frank spoke to everyone gathered.
We coordinated things up front to enable the mass whistling or ringing, covered the event with an audio recording device, and then back at the office we called media targets to pitch the availability of that campaign content. The quality could not have been stellar, but I remember there was a way to connect the device to our office phones and replay highlights of the event we had produced and executed.
I do not remember how effective we were generating TV, radio, or print media coverage, but this was one tool we used in trying to influence reporting about our candidates and the issues most important to them.
What’s old is new again
The near equivalent to actualities today is everywhere: corporate-owned content. Think about the frequency needed to stay top of mind with customers and prospects and the wisdom of former Financial Times journalist Tom Foremski, when he noted how every company is a media company.
That’s where I come in nowadays–for you–with Storytelling as a Service (STRYaaS).
You have the communication channels to be your own media company. But you may need a reporter type to help shape your story, chunk it up for easy digestion, and make it supportive of your business strategy.
When you act as a media company, you need to approach it with the carefulness of an old-school reporter, looking for meaningful angles for targeted audiences. You need what may feel like ruthlessness in editing because this isn’t promotional content. You cannot include every last detail.
Another efficiency you should consider–if you believe in storytelling–is producing content for external audiences that can be easily adjusted to speak to your employees. Call it planned repurposing.
For example, when you invest budget to produce a customer success story, that same content can be directly used or slightly tweaked to help frontline workers gain an appreciation for the pressures your customers face every day. Themes could include innovation, product quality, capital investment, supply chain stability, or any other factor that sets you apart from competitors.
NEXT: Bonus Q-and-A with Tom Andrzejewski, former journalist, founder of The Oppidan Group, and world-class communication strategist, writer, editor, and mentor, as well as Leslie Kay (Tom's spouse), another former journalist who I always felt had an inborn curiosity and dedication to getting things right that every writer and editor should emulate.
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