Intro (00:00):

Welcome to the Taylor Ten. A fast-paced, 10 minute deep dive into the minds of those shaking up the marketing world, bringing you the sharpest insights, boldest ideas and breakthrough trends driving the industry forward. So tune in, get inspired, and stay ahead.

Naomi
Hi everyone, I am Naomi Ballah, and welcome to the Taylor Ten. I'm here with Jane Mazur, who is a mentor media expert overall, just aficionado who knows everything about Earned Media, and I thought, who better to speak to today about just the overall ever-changing media landscape than her. I've known Jane not to date ourselves, I would say almost 18 years or so, and she gave me what I'd like to call my first start. I was probably maybe three years into my public relations career, and I shot my shot and shot a few random emails to some big wigs at Ogilvy, and I was able to get a meeting with Jane, and at the time, I had no idea what a media specialist was. I just was doing pr and I came with my, again, not to date ourselves, my clipbook binder of hits for a conversation with her, and I was able to impress her enough to invite me to join her media specialist team. But yeah, I just wanted to kind of start off with how long have you been in PR and media relations?

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Jane (01:34):

So I have been in communications for basically 35 years, so I'm not ashamed of my tenure because that in itself has given me a lot of opportunity to see the trajectory of our industry and I suppose get the nomenclature of being an expert just by sitting on the sidelines watching it all.

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Naomi (02:05):

As I mentioned, when I first started off, I started off in beauty PR, which was pretty much everything from send outs to writing pitches to creating an event. But when I joined Ogilvy, that's where I feel like I really learned the ins and outs of earned media and how we fit into the cog of the machine. I'm curious to get your understanding why you might not be on the front lines of pitching media day to day. What would be the biggest difference from how people should approach pitching media back then to now?

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Jane (02:35):

Back then, it was a matter of smiling and dialing and the journalists. There wasn't social media, there wasn't the only way that you actually could reach somebody was possibly an email if they had it early on and by picking up the phone and calling. And I still think that being able to get a strong media placement is through relationships and knowing what the journalist is wanting to cover, the beat that they're in and what they are going to cover when they're going to cover it, who their audiences are. But nothing is different in the sense that you have to have a story. It still has to be of value to the people that they are writing for or talking to. And so you just have to think about that first and foremost.

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Naomi (03:28):

Yeah, I love that because no matter how many times, how many things would change outlet shuttering, if you don't have a story, it really doesn't go very far.

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Jane (03:40):

When I shifted from being an account person working on the big, I love doing the creative ideas and working with the teams every day, but when I shifted to being specifically a media, I looked at the media as my client as much as I did the customer that we were servicing. You want to have fun and do something that's going to attract everyone, but you also want to have integrity about what you're pitching. And so pushing back was the hardest thing I always had to do to my account teams was saying, “that's not going to fly, that is not going to be of news value to them, so we need to think about something differently.” Was the hardest job was telling our clients? No. Or my team members and colleagues? No, which I got very good at.

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Naomi (04:31):

Yes, I remember. I definitely remember, and something you just said was so interesting, and I don't think I've ever heard anyone. I'm sure maybe someone has, but I've never heard of treating the media as your client too, because I think that that is definitely kind of a light bulb switch of like, this person isn't going to answer my call next time or open my email next time if they know I'm going to send them stories.

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Jane (04:55):

Exactly. So you really do need to do your homework. If your job is to either newsjack or understand what a journalist is thinking about or where the story angles are going, you have to be aware of what's happening. I mean, now every morning I turn on my Google Home and I'm having the news read to me as I'm getting dressed because I want to know what's happening and what the market is saying or et cetera.

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Naomi (05:21):

Yeah. One of my questions was like, you see a lot of these traditional mass heads now are online and everything is like, okay of the next minute of the next trend. What are your thoughts on this? You used to be able to work on a pitch a little bit. Now it's like this 24 hours news cycle where you have to jump in on it, and I love the fact that you use the term that's something we use every single day. What would be your biggest advice to media specialists who are trying to navigate that?

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Jane (05:51):

First of all, it's exhausting. Let's just be real. What I would say is understand what your client's objectives are. If you are going to be a specialist and focus on achieving the goals, is it specific? You don't have to be everything. You can be strategic and thoughtful, but you also have to be then in line with your client because you don't want them coming back and saying, Hey, did you see this? Why didn't we get this? So you have to kind of be prepared for what and stick to your strategic approach with them. The other thing too we haven't discussed is kind of the changing media landscape. It's not just about print. It's not just about television anymore. You've got all these podcasts and other ways to reach social media, et cetera, to reach people. And I can be honest, I don't listen to many podcasts, but it really is a good avenue because it's very directed. People who are tuning in want to hear this. So it may not be en masse, but it's going to be very qualitative. And so looking for quality over quantity sometimes becomes the better approach.

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Naomi (07:11):

Just curious, and maybe it's the same one and the same, I was curious of what was the hardest placement? If you had to pick one, what was the hardest placement for you to land, and what is a media placement that you're most proud of? And they could be different or the same?

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Jane (07:24):

Several years back, New York City, they were the first city that was going to eliminate trans fats from menus. And you had all of these fast food restaurants that had a lot of trans fats. Well, KFC at that point, Kentucky Fried Chicken was going to be the first fast food restaurant to take out their trans fats. And we timed it brilliantly to correlate. Obviously with that timing, it was going to be the first one where we were announcing it. I've never had what I call the trifecta of media, but I had every single morning show, every single evening news program and every late night show with jokes, doing stories simultaneously over the course of an entire week. And I negotiated and did all of that while I was on jury duty in New Jersey, and I was with my Blackberry under the table during deliberations of a drug trial.

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(08:27):

So I laugh now. I listened to the Today Show when I'm driving in the morning to places, and Tom Maro, who's now the executive producer of the Today Show with my producer that I was working with at Today Show at the time, and I'm like, I'm under the table. I'm like, I can't step out to talk to you. But I was getting the CEO of KFC at the time on the program. So that one, I mean, I've done a lot of really fun, creative things, but that was real news, real exciting, and it got everything, and it was strategically timed, and so it was smart PR and I loved it.

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Naomi (09:07):

I love that. I love that it is the way that you just were able to make it work, and that's why PR people were like, yes, we pitch media. Yes, we do client service, but we just do it. We're just doers and we just figure it out because ultimately we have to. So I love the fact, I'm just picturing a young jade under the table with, was it the role of Blackberry or was it the–

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Jane (09:30):

Oh, was it my thumbs? It was my thumbs. They were going underneath the table massively, and I had that keyboard down. Great. I miss my Blackberry.

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Naomi (09:39):

Well, thank you again, Jane, for just imparting some wisdom on us and just joining us for the Taylor Ten, and really appreciate your time.

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Jane (09:46):

Thank You.