Exchanging Propaganda Equally

Kayla Medica
Jul 24, 2017 · 9 min read

There are two core concepts to public relations. The first comes from the father of PR, Edward Bernays (nephew of Sigmund Freud). After the first World War he wondered if propaganda, which had until this point been used to sway political opinions and loyalties, could be used to promote peace instead of war.

The first problem with this is that propaganda is a very loaded word full of negativity, connotations of malicious intent, and deeply related to war. So, a new term was needed. Bernays decided to refer to his own type of propaganda as public relations, and an entire industry was born out of it.

The next core concept of PR is that both parties receive something of equal value. Every single thing in this universe can have a dollar amount assigned to it. A company’s logo, a subtle product placement, a backlink in an online article, it’s all worth a specific amount and as someone requesting the PR you need to be able to offer something in return of equal or near equal value.

One of Bernays’ largest and most well known PR campaigns was getting women to smoke cigarettes. The cigarette company saw they were missing out on half the population as potential customers and so asked Bernays to come up with something. The potential here is doubling their profits. Bernays, with his background knowledge of Freud’s psychological theories, interviewed women to see how they viewed cigarettes. The conclusions were that cigarettes were a man’s item and therefore held a lot of power.

Remembering that this is post World War I, a time when women were beginning to work after having needed to while the men were at war, Bernays created a campaign that linked cigarettes to an early kind of feminism. If women could work, then women could smoke and no man was about to get in her way. In a huge publicity stunt, Bernays organised for debutants in an Easter parade to lift their skirts, pull packets of cigarettes out of their garter belts and light up right in the middle of it all. Since it was such a big parade there were already journalists there with cameras in hand, plus Bernays placed a careful selection of photographers himself and the very next day it was a huge talking point.

While the cigarette company probably made a lot more money than those girls did they would have seen it as equal value to women’s liberation of a social taboo.

PR in a modern setting has changed and both sides of the relationship are more aware of what’s going on and how much it’s worth. This means it’s increasingly more difficult to obtain worthwhile PR from reputable sources. So how can you apply what you know about PR to even get any PR at all? Start by calculating how much what you want costs.

Let’s say you have a physical product you would like promoted in a print or online publication. Find out how much traditional advertising on the platform costs and use that as an estimate for what you want to ask for. In this example you’re targeting a print magazine, and you think a small photo and a few sentences in a “products we’re loving” segment is perfect for you. Your first step should be to find out how much a full page ad is, then get yourself a copy of the magazine, find a product placement of similar size and calculate how much space it takes up. Use the full page ad price to find the price of a section of the page and here you have a rough estimation of the value of what you’re asking for.

You are going to be asking for a lot in this exchange. You’re asking for not only space, but the price of a designer putting your image into the page, a copywriter to put a sentence together, and the editor to actually like the product in the first place. How can you prove that you’re worth it? Offer as much as you can, within reason.

For simplicity, let’s the ad space you’re asking for is worth $100. The product you want them to put in the space is worth $50. Offer them one or two products for free to giveaway to their readers and you’ve already reached your $100 value swap.

Alright, so how do you get your amazing product in front of them? There’s some due diligence you have to do before approaching a publication.

  1. Find out what the submissions process is
  2. Look up the publishing schedule if they have one (magazines work slowly so don’t push something that’s time sensitive)
  3. Try to get the editor’s name (never underestimate LinkedIn for this)
  4. Read the publication and pick a specific section you think you’d fit into

Once you know who you’re talking to and you have a solid understanding of the publication, email them or use their submission process. Writing the email is by far the hardest part, and there’s a lot you need to address while still being fairly short and to the point. In order to avoid filling your email with unnecessary information, read and answer the following questions then write your email using your answers.

What do I want? I want to increase sales by 7%

What do I want from the publication? I want one online article and a shout out on their social media

What does the publication want? Stories about how people have built businesses

How much value am I offering, how much am I receiving? One online article is worth $2,000 and one social media mention is worth $500, I am offering five personalised products valued at $500 each to the publication’s readers.

What value does the publication’s readers get? If they buy my product, they will feel happier.

How can I make this job easier for the publications employees?

The final question can also be rehashed as how can I make it impossible for them to reject me? and it’s actually fairly simple. Do their job for them. Think of the anatomy of an article. It consists of a headline, a body, and some images. You can provide a short list of punchy headlines, a short outline of the body of the article (what makes you or your product most interesting) and hopefully you have some high quality images on hand to attach to your email.

Let’s try an example email. Our objective is brand awareness, we want images of the product on a magazine that’s aimed at new mothers’ social channels, and we’re offering a prize for the magazine to use with suggestions for the competition as well. The readers get an intimate chance to bond with their newborn babies.

Hi (editor’s name),

My name is Kayla and I’m the founder of Kin Scents (link to website). We make unique scents in a variety of forms including candles, perfumes, and soaps. Inspired by a number of studies that linked olfactory senses to memories, our scents are designed to form strong memories of significant moments in life. Use our soaps to wash a newborn baby and the matching perfume to remind you of them when you’re apart.

With Mother’s Day approaching, we’d like to offer five of your readers a package that includes all of our scented products to give them the Mother’s Day they deserve.

We’d love to run an Instagram based competition with you, where mothers can upload a photo of them and how they bond with baby then use a hashtag to enter the picture into the competition.

All of our products are vegan and cruelty free, so they’re appropriate for all mums, and most importantly safe for baby too. I’ve attached some high quality images and

While it’s not a perfect example, and it might even get rejected, it’s not too long or too short, it describes the product, the target market, links to the publication, and offers value. Should you offer a sample of your product? It’s not always necessary. Publishers often have a whole heap of stuff they never use that just collects dust, and you risk being added to this collection. Edibles are a different story, but also remember that they might be getting sent a hundred cupcakes a day by hopefuls trying to stand out.

One example won’t cover all types of products or PR, so here’s another one. In this scenario, you’re a fintech startup who hasn’t raised anything other than a seed round from friends and family and you’re yet to even launch a fully developed product. What you’re after is some mentions across various places to build a bit of momentum come launch time. First step is to pick where you want to be mentioned:

  1. A startup newsletter or online publication
  2. A guest speaker position (like on a podcast or panel)
  3. A finance blog
  4. A tech blog
  5. A financial newspaper

In this scenario, you have very little traction or value so you might want to make a long list and play a numbers game. Again, go through the questions but this time you’ll need to rely more on how you can make their job easier than just a simple value exchange. Lots of founders play on disadvantaged backgrounds to make their story more interesting. For example, someone who is either physically or mentally disabled yet has become a self made success story is inspiring and motivating and teaches a lesson. Or, someone who experienced something extremely negative, like a death in the family, that was the catalyst for their business idea. If you have a story like this, use it. Some people don’t like this, and it’s understandable as it might feel a little underhanded or as if you’re looking for a pity party.

It’s important to take advantage of whatever you can. However, if you don’t have any story that immediately jumps out as marketable, it can be a littler harder. Usually founders are the worst people to tell their own stories, because they leave out interesting things to make space for what they consider important. What you should be doing as a founder or small business owner is asking those around you with questions like “what is it that you specifically like about the business”, or “is there any instance of our company going above and beyond for you”. Another approach is with a case study, how you maneuvered your way around or out of a major set back, pivoted, or even how you acquired your first customer. If you can offer insight or a lesson, that’s worth something to the reader and you should include it in your value exchange.

Good ways to test which angle will resonate best is to start a blog or search forums for what people are asking questions about. Blog posts with high engagement can also be sent in PR emails to prove that people are interested in you and making your story less risky.

Another gem Bernays imparted onto the public was celebrity endorsements. Influencer marketing is such a common part of daily life that it’s actually difficult to imagine a world without people trying to sell you something. Once upon a time, in a far away land people used to only buy items that were necessary — everyday luxury items were yet to be invented for the common people. If a woman needed to buy a new pair of stockings, she would pick the pair that was made out of a long lasting material at a reasonable price, but consumerism began to sell a lifestyle or ideal rather than a product and pretty soon women were buying decorative, body shaping, and stockings they saw their favourite celebrities in. With media outlets now available in the pocket or purse of most people, product endorsement comes from your favourite Instagrammer or YouTuber.

Luckily for you, most ‘influencers’ will have their contact details readily available. Even more available is their social media accounts. If you’re attending a conference or event, Tweet the speakers a simple note like “looking forward to your talk” and see if they respond, it could land you a Twitter mention or a coffee meeting. A more sneaky tactic is to Tweet at reporters who are going to be attending and asking who they’re most looking forward to, building rapport with them so that one day you can ask them for a favour.

Aside from Twitter, you can also send products as gifts to influencers (with a handwritten note that says you hope they’ll love it and recommend it to their followers — never leave out an ask) with large followings on YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook. ‘Unboxing’ videos have been trending on YouTube since as early as 2006, and more recently beauty guru channels have dedicated entire videos to boxes they receive just from PR, so see if you can end up in one of these videos.

Remember that everyone else is trying this too, so make sure you stand out. The easiest way to do this is with a sincere and handwritten letter or note. Once again, emotions sell more than products alone.

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