Publicity tips/Don't Drink from Hotel Glasses Dec 11, 2007

The Publicity Hound's
Tips of the Week
Issue #376 Dec. 11, 2007
Publisher: Joan Stewart
mailto:JStewart@PublicityHound.com
http://www.publicityhound.com/
http://www.publicityhound.net/ (Blog)
The Publicity Hound®

Circulation: 37,023

=====================================

"Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity"
Receive this ezine direct to your desktop
http://www.publicityarticles.net/archive/

Need help with publicity?
See the resources list at
http://www.publicityhound.com/resources.htm


=====================================

You are receiving this because you signed up for it at The Publicity Hound® website at http://www.publicityhound.com/ or you told me that you want to subscribe. If you didn't subscribe, you can unsubscribe by clicking the link at the bottom of the newsletter.

Please forward this ezine to anyone you know who needs free publicity to establish their credibility, enhance their reputation, position themselves as employers of choice, sell more products and services, or promote a favorite cause or issue.

***********************************************************

Save the Dates:


December 13: Product Placement Teleseminar

If you sell a consumer product, from something as simple as bottled water to something as lavish as diamond-studded jewelry--don't miss the telephone seminar I'm hosting at 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, December 13, with product placement experts Amy Bates Stumpf and Rebecca Lightsey. They'll share all the secrets of how to get your consumer product onto the sets of TV shows and movies. Register for the teleseminar at http://www.PublicityHound.com/teleseminar.htm See Item #3 below.


January 8: Artists, Don't Miss This One

Learn how to sell more artwork without wasting tons of time on dry business stuff and the wrong marketing strategies. Join Ariane Goodwin for a one-hour teleseminar at 7 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, Jan. 8. Three experts will give away their best marketing advice on how to succeed without sacrificing your artistic voice or wasting tons of time on dry business stuff. It's a preview to her 2008 smARTist telesummit on artist marketing, and I'm a guest presenter who will talk about press releases. Register for the entire telesummit at http://tinyurl.com/3x35vr. Or, to sign up for the Jan. 8 preview call, click on that link, then click on "Register" at the top of the page. See Item #2 below.

**********************************************************

================================
In This Issue
================================

1. Don't Drink from Hotel Glasses

2. Recycle Your National Media Hit

3. Send Your Product to Hollywood

4. Attract More PR Clients

5. Promoting Compassionate Friends

6. Help This Hound

7. Hound Joke of the Week


======================================
1. Don't Drink from Hotel Glasses
======================================

The next time you stay in a hotel, you'll think twice about drinking out of the glasses and coffee cups if you watch the four-and-a-half-minute video at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a7f_1194813218

It's an I-team investigation from a TV station, presumably in Atlanta, Georgia. The team took hidden cameras into guest rooms at three major hotels--Embassy Suites, Holiday Inn and Sheraton Suites. In all three instances, housekeepers never used soap and water to clean dirty drinking glasses and coffee cups.

The Holiday Inn simply rinsed the glasses under running water in a dirty sink and left them to dry.

At the Embassy Suites, a housekeeper put a used glass inside the dirty sink, sprayed a blue liquid on it, and then dried it with a cloth. She held it up to the light to make sure it looked squeaky clean.

At the Sheraton Suites, a housekeeper also used spray from a bottle to clean a glass, then picked up the guest's used washcloth from the sink, smelled it, and wiped the glass with the washcloth. As for the rubber gloves on her hands, well, you'll have to watch the video to learn where those gloves had been just before they touched the drinking glasses.

I don't know when this report was first aired. But what's so remarkable about it is that in all three cases, when asked to comment, the hotel management never fessed up to any wrongdoing, even though they were caught on camera and admonished by the local health officials. A spokesperson from the Sheraton refused to comment, saying "It's too controversial an issue."

Let's see how media-savvy my Publicity Hounds would be in a situation like that one. Put yourself in the place of any one of those three hotels. Pretend you're the spokesperson. Then go over to my blog at http://tinyurl.com/28aqm9 and post a comment, telling me what you'd say--or whether you'd say anything at all--in response.

Your comment won't appear until next week, when I compare your answers with advice from crisis counselors. And I'll award a very cool prize to the Hound whose response comes closest to the response from the crisis experts.

Clarence Jones, a former TV and newspaper investigative reporter, says that in cases like the one above, attorneys will almost always advise clients not to comment. He was my guest during a teleseminar called "In a Media Crisis, Your Lawyer Will be Wrong," available as a CD. Read more about what you'll learn at http://tinyurl.com/zu7td


========================================
2. Recycle Your National Media Hit
========================================

When a major newspaper, magazine or niche publication prints a story about you, or when you're featured on a national network newscast, recycle that publicity by letting your local media know about it.

Mystic Pop magazine, which features articles about holistic living and spirituality topics, wrote about surrealistic artist Mickie Bellah of Austin, Texas, and included photos of her oil paintings, in its November/December issue.

Mickie wrote a press release about the media hit and distributed it through PRWeb. More than 500 people have viewed the release online at http://tinyurl.com/34rd8m. She also sent it to media in Austin.

Directions, a magazine about the Texas "hill country," saw the release, called her, and then featured a photo of one of her oil paintings on the masthead page of the magazine along with a short blurb.

"I took advantage of your free tutorial '89 Ways To Write Powerful Press Releases' and picked up a lot of excellent tips, including the one about publicizing national media hits," Mickie said.

Sign up for the tutorial at http://www.PublicityHound.com/pressreleasetips/list.htm

Then check out PR Web's services at http://snipurl.com/PRWebDistribution

Artists like Mickie who want to keep the publicity machine cranking on all gears should sign up for Ariane Goodwin's smARTist Telesummit, an outstanding training program that will teach them how to build an entire business around their artwork. I'm one of the guest experts, and I'll be teaching artists how to write and distribute press releases just like Mickie did. In fact, I'm going to use the example above in the course. Learn more about the telesummit at http://tinyurl.com/3x35vr


=========================================
3. Send Your Product to Hollywood
=========================================

If you're willing to pay big bucks, your product can be the star of an entire episode of a popular TV program.

For example, writers for the NBC hit comedy "The Office" wrote a script in which the folks at Dunder Mifflin paper company exchanged "Secret Santa" gifts that were supposed to be worth no more than $20. Controversy erupted when the boss contributed a video iPod worth about $400 for the gift exchange.

"It may be the most creative half-hour commercial for Apple ever, but the viewers are not put off because it's pure entertainment, "says Amy Bates Stumpf, an expert on product placement.

It's also an extreme example of the expense that some companies will go to just to get their products in front of consumers.

On the other end of the spectrum, even if you have a tiny budget for product placement, or no budget at all, your product could end up on the set of a TV show or movie.

Decorating a set takes thousands of objects, from bath products to kitchen appliances, from lamps to artwork. Everything from fashion accessories to food are necessary parts of a set, and product placement coordinators are responsible for locating thousands of items over the course of production.

Take bottled water, for instance. Movie sets need bottled water--lots of it--for the actors and actresses and the many staff members who work months at a time on the production. If you're willing to donate your brand of water during the entire production schedule, the producers might agree to film an actor or actress drinking your water, and include the clip in the final version of the movie.

But how do you get through to the right people to even pitch your product? And who's in a better position to do the pitching--the person who created the product, or their PR person?
Learn how Publicity Hounds can get product placements large and small, and take even small placements and publicize them after-the-fact for more exposure.

Amy will team up with Rebecca Lightsey, publicity director for a product placement company, during a 70-minute teleseminar at 4 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, December 13, called "How to Get Your Consumer Product onto the Sets of Movies and TV Shows." Sign up at http://www.PublicityHound.com/teleseminar.htm You can order the CD, MP3 file or electronic transcript next week.


=========================================
4. Attract More PR Clients
=========================================

If you work at a PR agency, or you're a sole proprietor PR pro, one of the very best ways to attract clients is to teach PR in your own community or online.

--Teach adult education classes through your local school district.

--Offer to teach public relations for a niche audience, like small businesses, through your local college or university.

--Call your chamber of commerce, offer a half-day workshop for members, charge the chamber a flat fee and let them keep any revenue over and above that.

--Teach a free course on how to write press releases or how to do media interviews. Sell your products from the back of the room.

--If you have email addresses of people who will let you market to them, offer a free telephone seminar on how to do one aspect of a publicity campaign.

Once you use these venues to position yourself as an expert, you'll have more business than you can handle. Truth is, many people just don't have the time or inclination to manage their own publicity campaigns. And they're willing to hire somebody like you to do it.

Publicity expert Marcia Yudkin teamed up with me to present "24 Ways to Attract Clients to Your P.R. Practice," a teleseminar that we recorded and are making available as a CD or electronic transcript. Each comes with a list of 24 ideas that we've used to successfully pull clients into our own practices.

Read more about what you'll learn at http://tinyurl.com/8txj8


============================================
5. Promoting Compassionate Friends
============================================

This week, six Publicity Hounds have ideas on how Wayne Loder of Milford, Michigan can promote The Compassionate Friends/USA. It's a national self-help bereavement organization with a mission to assist families toward the positive resolution of grief following the death of a child of any age and to provide information to help others be supportive. The second week in September of 2008 has been designated as the first "Compassionate Friends Week" and he'll be helping local chapters promote it in their own communities.


From Linda Swisher:

"National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions, and its member hospitals, would be a natural place to contact. NACHRI apparently publishes 'Children’s Hospitals Today,' in which you might advertise. It's at http://www.childrenshospitals.net/"


From Leyla Farah:

"Because your organization focuses on the loss of children, something that you might consider is asking people to submit digital photographs of their loved ones that can be assembled into a dynamic online image grid or 'quilt.' The idea of a quilt evokes childhood and memory in very positive ways, and allows for individual expression within a cohesive whole.

"It would make a great story for both national and local press because it’s so visual, and local chapters could generate large-scale graphics that would each be slightly different, but within the same theme."


From Michelle Meacham:

"I bet there’s even a celebrity out there who would be willing to align himself/herself with Compassionate Friends. Eric Clapton quickly comes to mind, since the loss of his young son is quite well known."


The Publicity Hound says: I was going to suggest the celebrity angle, too. Contact Any Celebrity, a subscription service, provides contact information for more than 54,000 celebrities, agents, managers and publicists. Learn more at http://tinyurl.com/lorvx


Read all the responses to this Help This Hound question at http://tinyurl.com/3adgay


================================
6. Help This Hound
================================

Kammy Thurman of Laurel, Montana writes:

"I hope your Hounds can help our photography studio, Anchor Photography, at http://www.anchorphotography.net/. We’ve been in business several months and we want to become the most recognizedstudio in our area.

"That will be tough because we’re up against studios that have been in business for 30 to 50 years, and more. I am trying to think of ways to use publicity because the other studios don’t do this, and I know it would build visibility fast. I’m just trying to think of ways to that aren’t blatant advertising."


The Publicity Hound says:

Most of the ideas that my Hounds will suggest, Kammy, won't have even a tiny whiff of advertising. They'll be publicity tactics and strategies so solid, that your competitors won't know what hit 'em. Hounds with ideas for Kammy can post them to my blog at http://tinyurl.com/yptul3


Jeff Zbar, the 2001 U.S. Small Business Administration's Journalist of the Year, knows all the ways to catch the media's attention. He explained them when he was my guest during a teleseminar called "The Fastest, Cheapest, Easiest Ways to Publicize Your Small Business" at http://tinyurl.com/3tbbp


=================================
7. Hound Joke of the Week
=================================

Top 10 things heard at Fido's office Christmas party:

10. "Wow! Check out the hot poodle with Rover."

9. "So I says to him, throw in toilet bowl privileges, and you
got yourself a deal."

8. "Look, I gotta go chase a cab..."

7. "Hey you--cat! You work here?"

6. "Not the Macarena again! Somebody cut off the boss' bar
tab..."

5. "Did you see the neat photocopies of Bowser's rear end?"

4. "Hey, good lookin'. Wanna swing by the ol' doghouse later?"

3. "Who ordered the hot dog pizza with everything?"

2. "Dead Cats--We're Still for 'Em!"

1. "Gainesburgers? Who catered this disaster?"


DOG JOKES & QUOTES EBOOK: 170+ G-rated dog jokes and quotes, perfect for a dog-lover, your favorite vet, or just for a few good laughs.

BONUS: Buy the ebook and you also get a compilation of the 50 best websites for dog humor.

http://www.publicityhound.com/dogjokebook/


----------------------------------------------------------


Where to See or Hear The Publicity Hound:


Dec. 13: Write Like a Journalist Teleseminar:

I'll be one of four guest experts on Bulldog Reporter's 90-minute teleconference "Write Like a Journalist: Newsroom Vets and PR Wordsmiths Reveal How to Write Compelling, Credible Copy That Sells" at 1 p.m. Eastern Time. Come with your questions. Register at http://tinyurl.com/2vuku4


December 13: Product Placement Teleseminar

"How to Get Your Product onto the Sets of Movies & TV Shows," 4 to 5 p.m. Eastern Time. Product placement experts Amy Bates Stumpf and Rebecca Lightsey will share the secrets of product placement. Register at http://www.PublicityHound.com/teleseminar.htm


January 21: 2008 smARTist Telesummit

I will teach artists "The New Rules of Press Releases: How to Write Them for Art Buyers and Collectors, Not Only for Journalists" from 1 to 1:45 p.m. Eastern Time. Register for the entire telesummit at http://tinyurl.com/3x35vr If you want a taste of what you'll be learning, you can register for a one-hour teleseminar at 7 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, Jan. 8. Three experts will give away their best marketing advice on how to succeed without sacrificing your artistic voice or wasting tons of time on dry business stuff. To register for that call, click on the link above, then "Register" at the top of the page.


PERMISSION TO REPRINT: You may reprint any items from "The Publicity Hound's Tips of the Week" in your print or electronic newsletter. But please include the following paragraph:

Reprinted from "The Publicity Hound's Tips of the Week," an ezine featuring tips, tricks and tools for generating free publicity. Subscribe at http://www.publicityhound.com/ and receive by email the handy list "89 Reasons to Send a News Release."

If you like these tips please pass them on to your friends, clients and colleagues.


You are receiving this because you signed up for it at The Publicity Hound® website at http://www.publicityhound.com/ or you told me you want to subscribe.

PRIVACY STATEMENT: The Publicity Hound® respects your privacy and has a strict anti-spam policy. Read my privacy policy at http://www.publicityhound.com/privacypolicy.htm

=======================================================
Joan Stewart
a.k.a. The Publicity Hound®
3434 County KK
Port Washington, WI 53074
U.S.A.
Phone: 262-284-7451 (Central) Fax: 262-284-1737