Inspiration from Raymond Loewy for the Best Business PR

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A lady, sitting next to Raymond Loewy at dinner, struck up a conversation.

?Why,? she asked ?did you put two Xs in Exxon??

?Why ask?? he asked.

?Because,? she said, ?I couldn?t help noticing??

?Well?, he responded, ?that?s the answer.?

-Source: Alan Fletcher, the author of ?The Art of Looking Sideways?

Raymond Loewy, the father of industrial design, created the Exxon logo in 1966 but it wasn?t introduced until six years later. From 1909 to 1980, Mr. Loewy?s accomplishments were enormous.

Not to understate his global impact, here?s a mere sample:

• Air Force One?s sleek look for President John F. Kennedy
• Boeing?s 307 interior in the 1930s
• Coca-Cola bottle?s sleek look
• John F. Kennedy postage stamp
• Pennsylvania Railroad locomotives
• Sears Coldspot refrigerator
• Schick electric razors
• Studebaker models (including my favorite as a teen, the Avanti)
• U.S. Postal Service?s eagle logo

Not only did he create memorable designs, he was not shy. As a young news director at a Palm Springs all-news radio station in 1976, I once answered a telephone call, which was to become a career highlight.

?Hi, this is Raymond Loewy. I?m a listener. I really like your station. I?m taking a little time off from work and thought you might be interested in interviewing me.?

Mr. Loewy telephoned me after he had just finished designing the Air France Concorde interior, and the interior of NASA?s Skylab space station. That was heady stuff.

He was proud of his work, and was not ashamed to promote it. That was one of my first lessons about public relations. He knew how to make people notice his highly visible creations ? he was a walking press release. His enthusiasm was contagious.

So, as a former broadcast journalist and now as a writer and business-performance consultant, I have a long history with press releases. If they?re put together well, they work to create visibility.

Press releases ? multimedia

Fast forward to the 21st century ? now comes word of innovations in press releases. You can greatly enhance your press-release visibility ? by as much as 9.7 times ? if you use the right multimedia content according to a 2012 study by PR Newswire.

PR Newswire analyzed thousands of press releases that the company published from 2011 to 2012. It wanted to evaluate the impact of photos, videos and other downloadable content. The company released the data ? as you might expect ? in a press release.

The data shows that simply adding a photo to a text-only press release increases visibility by 1.8 times, while adding a video to a text-only release delivers 4.3 times the number of views.

Including both photo and video content further enhances a story, driving visibility by 7.4 times more than plain text releases.

The web analytics team at PR Newswire also compared releases with additional layers of assets including downloadable files such as PPTs, PDFs, and DOCs along with photos and videos.

Although the number of such stories was fewer than those with just photos and videos, they received even more visibility and interaction, representing the potential for releases with photos, videos and downloadable files to drive up to 9.7 times more visibility over text-only releases.

?Photos, videos, infographics and other types of multimedia assets present information in a more compelling and attractive way so it?s no surprise that they boost content visibility so significantly,? says Rod Nicolson, vice president, global reporting, PR Newswire.

?The volume of multimedia content distributed through PR Newswire is higher than it has ever been and it is extremely encouraging to see that our customers are embracing the power of multimedia to capture the attention of their audiences, build brand awareness and power content marketing initiatives,? Mr. Nicolson adds.

Certainly, Mr. Loewy would agree. You have to visually define your identity to get noticed.

Mr. Loewy?s official site: www.raymondloewy.com

From the Coach?s Corner, here are related press-release tips:

?You?re just anybody without your identity.?

- Grenville Main

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Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is also a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.

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Source: http://www.bizcoachinfo.com/archives/13034

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