2009 – the end of a decade and hopefully the beginning of a new chapter. We witnessed one of the worst economies in our lifetime, lost a pop icon and wondered if our AT&T calls would ever go through, and yet we still think it was a pretty good year. As we start off a new year at Vantage Communications, we’re looking forward to what 2010 will bring – will Twitter survive? What’s the next big thing in mobile devices? But as always, you can’t look ahead without contemplating where you’ve been. Here’s a look back at the year and some of the many things that Vantage accomplished in ‘09.

Net New Clients

Even in good economic times, the reality is that any agency will end relationships with various clients for one reason or another. For Vantage, while we did amicably part ways with a few clients, we added a whopping 19 new clients in the cleantech, green, Web 2.0, semiconductor, virtualization, mobile and trade management software industries to our roster.

Expansion of Green Practice Area

As an agency, Vantage Communications believes in and is committed to the environmental movement. In 2007, we took our commitment to the next level by broadening our practice areas to include cleantech, smartgrid and green building. We extended our services to increase the awareness of pioneering new companies who have the same passion to preserve our Earth. Each year we’ve steadily increased our client roster with some of the most forward-thinking cleantech and green companies in the industry. In 2009, we took our dedication up another notch beyond providing our PR expertise to clients and became a strategic partner for VentureBeat’s inaugural Smart Grid conference, GreenBeat 2009. We also hosted a bi-coastal Vantage Earth Day event, complete with live streaming of a panel discussing “Sustainable Innovation in a Recession.”

Growth of Social Media Services

In 2008, our CEO, Ilene Adler, recognized that social media would impact the PR industry and we successfully re-launched the company to reflect our social media offerings. In 2009, we continued to build upon these services with the launch of Vant.edge, a program providing clients with social networking promotion, corporate blog development, blogger relations and more. At one of the largest green building conferences of the year, the Vantage Video team broadcasted live from Greenbuild in Phoenix in November.

Client and Vantage Awards

Awards are an integral part of our PR campaigns, and 2009 was a year of many wins for our clients, some up against large public corporations – a feat on its own.

Two of our clients, Serious Materials and Verayo, were selected for the Wall Street Journal Technology Innovators Award, arguably one of the most sought-after awards of the year.

Two clients (out of a total of 26 companies) were named winners of the World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers Awards, another prestigious and competitive industry technology award.

In other awards: Ixia won the 2009 4GWE LTE Visionary Award from TMC and Dilithium Networks’ Dilithium Content Adapter (DCA) was a runner-up for the Best of 4G Awards. ANDA was a finalist for Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal’s 2009 “Fast 70” and On-Ramp Wireless was a finalist for San Diego’s CONNECT MIP Awards. Xelerated was a winner for the Global Semiconductor Alliance’s Outstanding Financial Performance by a Private Semiconductor Company award. And rounding out the year, YKK AP was the winner of the 1^st Annual Green Design Award.

Not to be outdone by our clients, Vantage won the 2009 Hermes Creative Award for Best Product Launch and was named a finalist for the Stevie Women in Business Awards for the Best Overall Company of the Year (up to 100 Employees category) – an honor among many outstanding firms.

Vantage strives to provide our clients with top-notch, strategic public relations campaigns. Celebrating twenty years in 2010, Vantage Communications continues to produce tangible, high-impact results for our clients. Since 1990, we have built strategic relationships with editors and analysts, and more recently, with bloggers and citizen journalists, generating awareness across all outlets.

If you have to ask if your PR program is working, it’s not. It’s time to rise above.

Last week, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition came to Washington, DC. This particular episode of Extreme Makeover featured the remodeling of both a house and a community center/school. I got an all-access, behind-the-scenes pass, thanks to a VIP invite from my client, Serious Materials. Its super-insulating SeriousWindows were selected for use in both projects.

Extreme Makeover’s energy goals for these two projects – a near net-zero home and community center – will provide both the Tripp family and The Fishing School with efficient homes and lower bills. With input and guidance from the Department of Energy (DOE) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), a DOE Laboratory, each project was designed with advanced energy-efficient materials and serve as examples for cost-effective near net-zero energy building design.

It was great to see so many people volunteering for an amazing family and an amazing organization right in my backyard. And to see that sustainable design was at the forefront of the project really showed me that green building isn’t just a buzzword; it’s here to stay. One of our friends, Tara Taffera of Door & Window Manufacturer Magazine joined us on-site on Tuesday. You can read her thoughts here. We also met up with Lee Patrick Sullivan of Clean Skies News. Robin Roy, VP of Projects & Policy of Serious Materials, discussed the super-efficient windows with Patrick outside the house on Tuesday.

Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu visited the site of The Fishing School to see the progress of the projects designed with guidance from Chu and his team at the DOE, which will ultimately serve as examples of near net-zero energy buildings.

And while I didn’t meet Ty Pennington, I did meet Paul Dimeo! All in all, a good week!

New technologies are always evolving and changing the way we communicate. According to research from IPG’s Universal McCann and AOL, “One out of every seven minutes of media consumption today takes place via mobile devices…That’s expected to grow by 60 percent over the next two years.” Many of our clients are looking into website redesigns in order to make them more mobile-friendly. It’s interesting to see this shift. No longer is just having a blog good enough. Now it must be mobilized. And in doing so, we are finding that content must be refreshed more frequently, so as not to get lost in the shuffle

MediaPost recently reported on a new survey by Princeton Survey Research International, which found that 90 percent of Internet users between 18 – 29 use video sharing sites, up from 72 percent one year ago. But that’s not all. Online adults ages 30 – 49 also showed big gains over the past year; 67 percent now use video-sharing sites, up from 57 percent in 2008. So we now work with our clients to produce more video content and add pictures and videos to press releases.

Additionally, how we get news and information is changing on a regular (dare I say, daily?) basis. As PR professionals, we focus on people who are influencers. Traditionally, this has been the media or industry analysts. While these folks remain influential, there is a new group of influencers. There are blogs that comment on or repackage the news, some of whom have larger followings than the original content (e.g. Gawker).  People  now regularly forward news to their friends and colleagues via social networks and Twitter.

PR is also an ever-evolving game. Not so long ago, press releases went out via fax. You read that right, fax. That little machine in the corner of the copy room that the interns look at in bewilderment. That was cutting edge. Then came e-mail. Now, as how people get their news is in a state of constant change, we are continually adapting to make sure that we are getting the word out to the right people in the way they want to receive it.  I guess it is not surprising that change has come to news, which after all, is the business of reporting on change.

Given the short week, Vantage Points is taking the week off as far as new posts are concerned. Stealing a page (and a title) from our friends in the TV and radio businesses, we are digging into the archives for some of our favorite undiscovered  posts:

Rebuilding the way we look at Green Building: Most people assume green building is expensive. An interesting post about a recent study published by Good Energies, a global energy efficiency and renewable energy investment company, shows some surprising conclusions about green building costs…

Millionaire Cat – Marketing Promotion Hits the Litter Box: Channel surfing last night, I came across Meow Mix Think Like a Cat Game Showwhich purported to be the first game show in which “catestants” (I did not make that one up) and their owners compete as a team for $1 million….

A Global PR Perspective: Differences in China and the United States: High tech companies are eager to enter the Chinese market for its endless opportunities, and successful PR will help them to engage the local markets….

It begins with energy…: Green building in particular is thriving in America right now.  Michael Kanellos of Greentech Media said it best yesterday, “For green building companies, the good times have just begun.”…. 

We hope you enjoy these posts and will be back with fresh ones next week. Have a great holiday weekend and stay cool!

Prime time television is full of makeover shows which feature people who are totally clueless about how they appear to others. Yet, businesses also do not take a sober look in the mirror and see how their customers perceive them.

Rich Tehrani of TMCNet.com recently wrote a brilliant blog post that is built around a very simple question: “In This Recession, Would You Buy From Your Company?”  According to Tehrani, businesses need to “put yourself in the customer’s position. Do you think they want to buy from companies they aren’t familiar with and those who do not invest in their customers? No – they don’t… If you think just wining and dining decision-makers is enough to win the business, you are wrong.”

On the makeover shows, before the intervention,  people think that others somehow will see the  ”inner beauty” that lies beneath a slovenly mess. Similarly,  in tough times, tech companies think that their products will sell themselves because customers will  see their underlying engineering brilliance. So when money gets tight, they cut their marketing, and stop communicating their successes to their customers. The result is that these companies are not making their best cases at the time when their customers are making decisions about what needs to be to cut.

I am not just making this point to carry the flag for marketing in a tough time. Fortunately,  when the economy started changing at the end of 2007, the Vantage team did take a hard look at how we were perceived by our customers. We saw room for improvement. So, we re-branded the company. To highlight our thought leadership, we started this blog. We now regularly communicate our successes with press releases on new clients and practice areas. We are becoming leaders in social media such as on Twitter and Facebook. These actions led to an extremely successful 2008, and positions us well for 2009.

At the end of the post, Tehrani provides some very important advice: “Ask yourself this question – are you spending your dollars as wisely as you can? What are your goals and are you altering them to suit a rapidly changing economy?…Yes, now is the time for prudence and now is the time to cut unnecessary expenses. But remember – be careful where you cut from – after all, your customers are trying to find a reason to cut you.”

Like on the makeover shows, your business may need some outside unbiased assistance to improve its appearance. If you need help to answer the tough questions that Rich raises at this critical time, please do not hesitate to contact me at radler [at] pr-vantage.com.  There are no obligations or strings attached. So what’s the benefit to Vantage? We get to make a connection with a group of companies that know they need a change and that are more likely to succeed over the long term.  As we have been in business for 20 years, this is the company we like to keep.

Update: Tweet Up at Mobile World Congresson Wednesday Feb. 18 at 5 pm. Location: 7 Sins, Muntaner 7, 08011. Please check out http://blog.pr-vantage.com/?p=1036 for more Tweet Up details.

Surprisingly, less than a month before Mobile World Congress 2009, no one had set up a hash tag on Twitter for the major wireless industry trade show. A “hash tag” uses the symbol – # – followed by a name to allow people to search and find information on Twitter. With a hash tag, people attending the show could connect with other people at the show. Also, people not attending the show could follow in real-time what was happening at the show.

So into the breach jumped the Vantage Communications team. With the help of Tory Klaubo, we checked out who recently had posted Tweets on Mobile World Congress. We then got a discussion going and came up with #mwc09. Then we tweeted the name out to the community, and it was retweeted and retweeted. Our imediate goal is to connect more people attending the show via Twitter. Eventually, the plan is for me to be Live-Tweeting during the show.

Although social networking will be a hot topic for MWC 09, it is surprising that the organizer, GSMA, is not actively using Twitter, Facebook, etc. to enhance the experience of people attending the show. There have been sporadic posts on social media about trying to make a connection. Yet, there seems to be a large void in connecting these people. With travel budgets under siege, trade show organizers need to go the extra mile. Using social media to make connection seems like an easy and inexpensive way to add value.

Until this comes to pass, Vantage is stepping up. Join us by spreading the word about the show via Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. To keep up with my Mobile World Congress experiences, follow me on Twitter: @robadler. If you want to meet at the show, e-mail info [at] pr-vantage.com, leave your contact information in the comments or send me a message on Twitter.  But social networking will only be successful if  we all are responsible and take action. Look forward to connecting with you.

Recently, someone posted the Twitter addresses of all of the BusinessWeek editorial staff. What makes this especially interesting was that the poster was not a hacker or a wayward PR person, it was John Byrne, Editor in Chief of BusinessWeek.  In his article, Byrne stated:

“Two months ago, in a post entitled Twittering Your Way Into Our Newsroom, I invited readers to follow me and partake in an experiment to bring the outside in and the inside out. Some 2,640 people are now following me. Thousands of others are following the more than 30 journalists at BusinessWeek who are now on Twitter.

So if you are on Twitter, I invite you into our newsroom via my Tweets.”

The article resulted in the BW editors and reporters on the list receiving a spike of followers on Twitter. Of course, some of the people who took Byrne up on his invitation were PR folks.  The reaction to the reporters to PR folks in the newsroom was decidedly mixed. Some sent tweets welcoming their new followers. On the other hand, Steven Baker, one of the reporters, responded with a blog post, Freak out: Twitter infested by PR.  Baker noted that reporters “thought they shared their Twitter streams with a small group of friends and colleagues—and suddenly dozens of strangers were jumping on: Flacks!”  Baker estimates that half of his 2500 followers are PR folk.

The result is not particularly surprising.  Social media is becoming an important part of every PR campaign. PR agencies need to master social media tools before we can advise our clients on how to use them.  Tom Foremski of Silicon Valley Watcher said it bluntly, “I’ve always said that PR firms cannot claim to know anything about new/social media if they aren’t using it themselves.” 

This is one of the key reason that we created Vantage Points, and I proudly note that 17  people at Vantage have written posts for our blog. It also is why everyone at Vantage is on Facebook (including the CEO), we have our own Facebook Group, and most of us are twittering. For those of you who haven’t used Twitter, its like Facebook on speed, without all the pretty pictures.

So as the media and PR agencies jump into social media, we are finding that it is changing the way we interact with each other.  Facebook and Twitter shine a light on each other beyond the byline and the press release. Sometimes, it means that we see the frustrations that we each face in doing our jobs. Other times, it is sharing parts of our lives that are outside work, such as sharing opinions and recommendations on music.  Moreover, to help briidge the gap, there is now a  Journchat on Twitter,  which is a weekly (Mon 7-10pm CST) conversation between journalists, bloggers and public relations folks.

I also understand  how Stephen Baker felt.  That initial realization of being out in the open can catch you unaware.  I remember the first time someone outside Vantage (an editor!)  joined our group on Facebook.  It felt like someone snuck into our clubhouse.  But we quickly realized that it is really cool thing, and now encourage it.

And now, as John Byrne did…I invite you to follow me and some of my Vantage colleagues on Twitter:

@Robadler

@JenniferKutz

@lydhow

@CatrionaHarris

@lmchen

@cynthialai

@MarieGoltara

@rachelmarshall

@Klister

@toryk

@bschweitzer

@lyndastarr

@ar_perry

A tip of the hat to Catriona Harris for helping make sure this is the last post for 2008; rather than the first of 2009. 

This week, over 120 companies will be launching products at one of two trade shows focused on start ups: Demo 08 and TechCrunch 50. Having worked with companies launching at previous Demo shows, I know that preparation for these shows takes an incredible investment of time, resources and money on the part of the start up. Unfortunately, when two similar shows occur at the same time, the one predictable result is that spotlight is removed from the start ups, and the volume of news makes it much harder for any particular start up to attract attention.

As previously noted, more people read about a trade show, then attend. This means that garnering press coverage is one of the most important aspects of trade show exhibiting. This is especially true when the trade show is sponsored by a major media organization – in this case TechCrunch and IDG News.

With the first two days of each conference completed, what can we say about the press coverage. Much of the mainstream media coverage has been about the organizers, the competition, and comments about commenting about the competition. The two shows also have generated a firehose of information.

Quite frankly, with 120 companies in 2 days, the overall impression becomes a blur of start ups with mobile, social networking, video, microblogging, advertising platforms. To make matters worse, there also is a CTIA Wireless show in San Francisco this week with hundreds of companies vying for press attention.

For companies that are not exhibiting at these shows, avoiding issuing news during high traffic trade show weeks becomes an imperative. The collateral damage from these simultaneous shows is not limited to exhbitors.

Back from three days of 106 degree weather at NXTcomm. The temperature was not as hot indoors. The best description of the show came from Jahangir Raina of iLocus:

“Attendance was low for sure. A lot of people walking along the central aisle …. But exhibitors along the ends of the hall saw very little traffic. Lots of Analysts and Press.”

Like in the theater, the center aisle was the best seat in the house. It seems that most people no longer walk the entrire show floor. So exhibitors cannot rely on walk by traffic to make their show a success.

Mostly, it was the large vendors with booths down the center. Ironically, those vendors will get foot traffic regardless of location (though Huawei was testing this theory by being way back on the bottom floor). So how do the rest of the exhibitors drive traffic to their booth and make the show a success.

The answer is to leverage the power of the large number of press and analysts that are at the show. When people read about your company either before or at the show they make your booth (or even conference room) appointment viewing. One of our clients, Ixia, even posted a large copy of their show press release outside their conference room. During one 30 minute period when I was there, 2 potential customers came by saying they saw the Ixia news and asked to see the the Ixia demo at show. There were many more during the show.

One final thing to consider about a trade show. More people read about a trade show than attend a trade show. So by getting the news out, you are reaching the larger audience that is interested in the show but cannot attend.

Ilene and I are attending NXTcomm – the large Telecom trade show starting today in Las Vegas. The weather has been in the 100s. Fortunately, there have not been any reports of exhibitors spontaneously combusting from the heat.

The question you may be asking is why do PR professionals attend a trade show. The main reason is that many editors and analysts also are attending. This makes a trade show a great opportunity for clients to meet face-to-face with their key influencers without incurring the travel cost of a press tour.

In fact, we have booked approximately 100 meetings at NXTcomm for our clients. This does not include pre-show and post-show briefings that we arranged. At the show, we manage these meetings for clients, and otherwise make sure things run smoothly.

Additionally, it is a great opportunity to meet with clients both at the show and after the show in a more relaxed setting. We also meet with potential new clients there. So if you are interested, feel free to e-mail or call Mike Harris, and he will hunt us down. You can call him at +1 407 767 0452 x 231 or e-mail: mharris (at) pr-vantage.com