Essie's Royal Following

Brand loyalty is a fabulous thing. These loyal followers will defend their favorite brand in a crisis, constantly (and unintentionally) participate in word-of-mouth campaigns to increase awareness among friends and acquaintances as well as returning to this brand purchase after purchase. When these followers are famous, organizations essentially receive a free celebrity endorsement due to an individuals sheer adoration of the brand. Essie, a brand of nail polish owned by L'Oreal USA, is one of these types of brands.

Essie has a cult following among American women. Creator Essie Weingarten set out to create a type of nail polish "that would go on like silk and wear like iron and would look wet for a week to ten days." Followers of the brand are more than happy to agree that she has succeeded. Since 1981, Essie has created over 200 colors of nail polish. In 1983, Joan Rivers announced she was wearing Essie color "Jelly Apple" while hosting the Tonight Show. But the brand has a slightly more famous celebrity fan.

In 1989, Queen Elizabeth II's hairdresser contacted Essie requesting a bottle of "Ballet Slipper", a subtle pink color, because it is the only color the monarch would wear. During the royal wedding of 2011, Kate Middleton wore the Essie shade "Allure", a flattering nude color, during her vows to Prince William. 

In a world as fickle as cosmetics, having brand enthusiasts among some of the most watched women in the world is nothing but positive press for a brand. While Essie owner L'Oreal pays celebrities like Beyonce to serve as a brand representative in advertisements, having the most anticipated bride in years wear a shade of nail polish for the price of $8 from her own pocket is the best type of advertisement a brand could ask for. 

Personally, I tried Essie after Kate and Prince William's wedding just because she wore it. Honestly, who has never thought that if a brand is good enough for a celebrity, it was good enough for them? After trying it, I understand why it has such a following. Have you tried Essie brand nail polish? Is there a product that you have tried simply because a celebrity has used it? 

Trust is the Key to Building and Defending Your Reputation

In chapter 11 of Measure What Matters, Katie Paine discusses threats to reputations and how to measure these crises. Trust is extremely important in building and repairing these relationships. When a crisis is not handled correctly or in a timely manner, organizations can experience damaged trust with their consumers, which in turn hurts the relationships and reputation the organization had established with those consumers. 

Organizations depend on trust to create and nurture relationships with their target publics. Employees that trust their their employers are more satisfied with their jobs, which in turn creates lower employee turnover. Trusted organizations grow faster. Most importantly, good relationships with the media can help prevent a crisis. 

Trust is multilevel, culturally rooted, communication-based, dynamic and multidimensional. When you trust a business, organization or brand you are more likely to take the time to listen to their explanation of the crisis and not jump to conclusions.  

Let's look at Burger King, a fast food giant in America. In February of 2013, Burger King's Twitter was hacked and its name changed to McDonald's with a Fish McBite's background and a photo of the golden arches as its profile picture. The hacker tweeted about Burger King being sold to McDonald's, people doing drugs and linked to videos of controversial rapper Chief Keef talking.

The hour long Twitter hi-jacking resulted in Burger King gaining 30,000 new followers, the account being suspended and Burger King's social media team taking responsibility for the situation and doing their best to fix it. Burger King's response to the media was “It has come to our attention that the Twitter account of the BURGER KING brand has been hacked. We have worked directly with administrators to suspend the account until we are able to re-establish our legitimate site and authentic postings. We apologize to our fans and followers who have been receiving erroneous tweets about other members of our industry and additional inappropriate topics.”

Because Burger King was quick to respond and take control of their crisis, the media listened and empathized with their situation. Followers and fans of the brand did make some jokes at the burger giant's expense, but it was in good fun. Mentions and conversations about the brand sky rocketed. People trusted the brand, believed them when they they had nothing to do with the hacking and Burger King definitely came out on top in the situation. According to Social Media Today, Burger King received an almost $1,000,000 campaign investment for free due to Burger King trending on Twitter, media coverage of the event and the lack of time, agency involvement or human resources to create this type of campaign. 

What are some other examples that trust in an organization can help it come out on top during a crisis?

Find Your Inner Mister Rogers

In chapter nine of Measure What Matters, Katie Paine discusses measuring your relationships with your local community. She states that "it is more important that ever to understand and measure and improve your relationships with your local community," or what I like to think of as finding your inner Mister Rogers. Mister Rogers was the ultimate neighbor. He cared about people, did his best to resolve negative situations and talked about the important issues in a timely manner. 

In a world where many organizations and businesses focus mainly on their key publics, the Mister Rogers of the world would not stand for this. You must look beyond your customers, stakeholders and the media and learn to think about what else you may need to do to get approval. To be a good neighbor in your community, you must become involved. Businesses need to take an interest in the community they are involved in by creating a plan of corporate social responsibility, treating employees and consumers well and fully embodying all the positive attributes of the company. Mister Rogers would not say something to his audiences face that he didn't mean, nor would he let fear keep him from doing what is right. He would admit that his business practices were wrong before he would let his image take a hit on the internet by bloggers and the media. He would take responsibility for his actions. 

As Mister Rogers says, "We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It's easy to say, 'It's not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.' Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes." Be a hero, share responsibility for whatever your business or organization has done to create a negative impact and be a good neighbor.

Would YOU Pay $1.99 For Safety?

Technology is an amazing thing. We can send each other pictures that instantly vanish, give real time updates about what we are doing, check in at restaurants and other places to let our friends know where we are and connect with people we haven't talked to in ages. But, some developers have ideas on how to use technology to make users feel safety. No, I'm not talking about Facebook, Twitter or Instagram privacy settings to keep people from "creeping". What if you had a smart phone app that would call the police for you in an emergency? 

For the small price of $1.99, you can be the owner of SafeTrek, a smart phone app that changes the game on being afraid when walking alone. The app works by letting users hold the screen when they don't feel safe. When they finally feel safe again, they can put in a four digit PIN that will acknowledge that you are no longer in danger. But, the greatest feature is what happens when you are in danger. 

If a user removes their finger from the screen without putting in their four digit PIN, the police are notified of their location and that they need help. The greatest part is that the criminal has no idea that the police are coming. 

While technology like this isn't necessary in a village like Ada, the ability to feel safer in an unfamiliar city or area is priceless. 

Miss Northwestern Ohio 2014

All 13 contestants before crowning.

This past weekend, I had the chance to compete in the Miss Northwestern Ohio 2014 pageant. This pageant is a local pageant that serves as a preliminary pageant to move on to Miss Ohio, which is produced by the Miss Ohio Scholarship Program, where one person will move on to Miss America. This system is completely unaffiliated Donald Trump's Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants, which are great systems that allow for many opportunities for contestant. 

Chelsi and I after the pageant

Pageants affiliated with the Miss America Organization must have multiple phases of competition that account for a certain percentage of the total score. These phases include interview (25 percent), lifestyle and fitness (15 percent), on stage question (5 percent), talent (35 percent) and evening gown (20 percent). Each of these phases include rules such as remaining behind the podium while in interview, talents may only be a maximum of one minute and 30 seconds long and no necklace during the swimsuit portion of the competition. Each contestant must accumulate a $100 donation for the Children's Miracle Network to compete in a local pageant up to a certain monetary amount.

Rules aside, the actual competitions are so much fun. For this pageant, we were asked to come to Defiance on Friday for rehearsals before the production on Saturday. Each contestant had a hostess that they stayed with on Friday night and most contestants were paired up with another contestant for the weekend. Dominique was my roomie for the competition. I could not have been paired with a better girl! She was sweet, funny and we had a lot of common interest. Plus, anyone willing to eat Wendy's with me the night before a pageant is pretty cool in my book.  Our hostess was named Karen and she was a pretty rockin' lady. Not only did she open up her home to us for the weekend, she showed us some of the best local businesses in Defiance. 

After waking up and getting ready for the day on Saturday, we headed to the home of one of the directors of the pageant where they served us brunch. Interviews were set to begin at around 11:30, but Dominique and I had interviews later in the afternoon. With our spare time, Karen took us to a new store that had opened in Defiance called Nest, then to two more stores in the area that had Christmas decorations and cute gift items. While Karen was finishing up at one of the stores, I headed next door with Dominique to a coffee shop called Cabin Fever. While I was there, I tried this awesome latte called Caramel Cabin Fever and bought a half pound of dark chocolate covered espresso beans, which I had never tried before but loved! On our way back to Karen's house I spotted a cheesecake place and mentioned that I loved cheesecake, which Karen immediately turned around to take us to. Karen treated Dominique and I to the dessert of our choice, I went with a sea-salted caramel cheesecake. A Little Slice of Heaven is easily the best cheesecake I have ever ate in my entire life and I would recommend it to any cheesecake lover!

When interview time rolled around, I was feeling pretty confident. In typical Brittany fashion I was running behind and ended up doing my makeup in the car on the way to our interview. My personal interview went fantastic. Interview is by far my favorite part of the competition. I was animated, I was confident and I felt like I answered everything the best that I could. To celebrate our interview being finished, Karen took Dominique and I out to lunch at a local golf course that had a really amazing restaurant in the club house. With time left to kill, we went back to Karen's to pack our things and get ready for the rest of the competition.

Some snapshots from my night

The rest of the night went by in a blur. Before I knew it, it was time for crowning. Kara Mitchell won and she totally deserved it! She looked amazing all night, gave an incredible answer for her on stage question and performed her talent beautifully. When the pageant was finished, I came off the stage to meet my mom, Megan and Jordan who had came to cheer me on. My mom introduced me to Tony Alcosiba and Larry Nakano who were visitors from Hawaii that are heavily involved in the Miss America Organization. 

Tony, Larry and I after the pageant

My mom helped me pack up all of my clothing before we went to the after party. While it was great to catch up with some of my pageant friends, I was definitely ready to get home and relax. I learned a lot this weekend and I feel like I've improved since my last pageant. But, now it's time to focus and get ready for the next one. Miss Hilliard 2014, here I come!

The Home Depot and the Racist Tweet

I have wrote previous blogs about major corporations making the mistake of creating insensitive posts on social media. Whether it's related to race, gender or sexual orientation, companies continue to offend people through accidental posts. Unfortunately, the Home Depot is the guilty party in this blog post.

This past Thursday, Home Depot tweeted a preview picture for College GameDay featuring three people drumming on plastic buckets and asked followers to identify which drummer was different than the others. These followers responded and they were not too happy about it. 

Fortunately, Home Depot did not ignore the situation. Instead, they were quick to respond and explain what had happened, as well as taking responsibility for the tweet. While the tweet should have never been created, real time response prevented this situation from becoming out of control.

Butt Glue, Lashes and Lipstick, Oh My!

Butt glue...Check. False eye lashes...Check. Caboodle full of make up...Check. 

While to some of you these items may sound like strange torture devices, for me these items are essential. This week, I'm preparing to compete in Miss Northwestern Ohio where I have the opportunity to win scholarship money from placing high in the competition and winning individual categories and the chance to become a titleholder and continue to Miss Ohio. I'll compete in multiple areas of competition, including a 10 minute interview panel, lifestyle and fitness which is better known as swimsuit, evening gown, talent and on stage question. A panel of judges will decide between myself and 12 other girls on who will best represent this title. 

I've been preparing for this pageant for a while. Lifestyle and fitness is an ongoing effort and I've been trying to better myself through being in the gym five to seven times a week for one to two hours at a time. I memorized my piece for talent, which is an alto saxophone arrangement of Adele's "Rolling In The Deep", over the summer for a pageant I competed in before school started. Evening gown is probably the easiest section, it just requires you to walk elegantly and smile. 

For this pageant, I'll be staying the night at the home of my hostess who will also be my lifesaver when the actual competition begins. While I haven't met her yet, this woman will be the one that will help zip me into my evening gown, find my swimsuit and talent costume, locate my earrings and more than likely have to calm me down at some point. When you are quickly moving from one section of the competition to the next and stripping as fast as you can to be ready for the next section this kind of help seems heaven sent. 

The amount of things that I have to pack for this pageant is a little overwhelming. Picture this: an evening gown, my black talent costume, my swimsuit, an outfit for opening number and on stage question, my interview dress, five sets of jewelry organized in a tackle box, extra earring backs and back up earrings, butt glue to keep my swimsuit bottoms in place while I walk, four pairs of heels, a bathrobe for when I'm backstage, shapewear, a caboodle filled with more make up than I need, clothes for rehearsal the night before and day of....The list goes on and on and on. 

I did well in my last pageant. Not only did I win interview, but I won some scholarship money that is really helping me out this year. I'm nervous, that's for sure. I've been nervous since Sunday. But no matter what, I'm going to be loading up my Nitro and making my way to Defiance, Ohio for this pageant. Wish me luck!

Seven Steps to the Perfect Measurement Program

In "Measure What Matters", Katie Paine has an entire chapter dedicated to the "Seven Steps to the Perfect Measurement Program". These seven steps include:

1. Defining your goals and objectives
2. Define your environment, audiences and your role in influencing them
3. Define your investment
4. Determine your benchmarks
5. Define your key performance indicators
6. Select the right measurement tool and vendors and collect data
7. Turn your data into action

When I read the title, I was naturally intrigued. Measurement is an important concept to understand in public relations, but I have not had the opportunity to really learn much about measurement yet. This is at absolutely no fault to my professors, because Kathie and Aggie are pretty much awesome. I just have not been involved in any projects or campaigns that have or will involve measurement until this semester.

These seven steps will be invaluable to my group during our Bateman Case Study Competition campaign.  Being able to clearly define what we intend to accomplish will make it easier to actually achieve our goals and not overwhelm ourselves with ideas or impossible expectations. Having a set strategy of how we will measure our results and constantly evaluating our strategies as we develop our campaign will help us create the best possible campaign that we can, as well as measuring how successful we were with our campaign.  But the greatest thing about these seven steps? Every single one of these ideas have been preached to me in multiple classes since I became a public relations major. 

COSI in the PAC Lab

Last Tuesday, Jaclyn Reynolds came and gave a presentation on her job as the Public Relations and Social Media Director for COSI, or the Center of Science and Industry, in Columbus. This girl has one of the coolest jobs in the world, in my opinion. Growing up I loved to visit COSI and the idea of working there is crazy. 

Jaclyn did a cool experiment for us with the help of one of my classmates and had brought videos of science experiments that they perform at the facility. She also explained how social media, media skills, multi-tasking and working with her target publics of moms, science fans and families is important in her job. 

I loved that she shamelessly plugged the internship opportunities at COSI, as well as how highly she spoke of her job. Having a job I love when I finally grow up is something that is very important to me and the fact that she wants to share her and her interns amazing experiences shows how much she loves it. It was comforting to know that all of the things she does on a daily basis with her job are things that I'm being taught in the classroom, like good writing skills, proper use of social media and the importance of being skilled in multiple areas. She was extremely personable and entertaining throughout her entire presentation. It also doesn't hurt that she is an alumnae of my sorority, Alpha Xi Delta!

Check out one of the videos that we were shown in class below. If you want to learn more about Jaclyn, follow her on Twitter @jaclynreynolds1 or email her at JReynolds@cosi.org.