Are you ready for your close up?

For business people, dealing with the media can be a lot like climbing a mountain. You work hard to advance your company’s story. But one slip and…disaster.

At Blue Horse, we’ve come to view media training as an important part of our effort to build brands. We believe that consumers own brands – that they are the boss. So we see our job as making our clients a hit with the boss. Yes, we can make ads and buy media wisely. But there comes that time when you have to meet the boss directly through the media. And you may not know where or when.

So you have to be ready.

Blue Horse is teaming up with a company called mediaspirits to introduce a comprehensive media-training program for executives that can enable you to have a very successful showing in front of the boss.

We’re calling it On Belay Media Training. It’s taught by our own Associate Director of Public Relations, Susie Falk, teamed with Kimberly and Davidson Kane. Susie is a former journalist and journalism instructor at UW-Madison. She has coached her clients through interviews with the Wall Street Journal, NPR, The New York Times, Forbes, Newsweek and dozens of other major media outlets.

Kimberly Kane is a former WTMJ-TV 4 news anchor and health reporter. She has been recognized by several media organizations for her fair and insightful work. She was named the State Medical Society of Wisconsin’s Medical Issues Reporter of the Year in 2000. She is currently Vice President and Co-Owner of mediaspirits, a video production and developmental firm.

Davidson Kane is the President and Creative Director of mediaspirits. He is a broadcast developer and television producer with 14 years of experience in the news promotion, corporate and broadcast worlds. A keen observer of the media and a trained actor, Davidson can help you make the most of your time on camera.

Susie, Kimberly and Davidson are prepared to instruct you in the fine art of controlling an interview. They serve up real world scenarios. Interviews are practiced, videotaped and critiqued. Media trends are analyzed and your crisis communication plans are reviewed. They’ll even give you a few tips on how to look and sound your best on air. Classes are small and times can be suited to your availability.

For those of you who have climbed a mountain or two, you know that “on belay” refers to communicating to other climbers that you’re ready to make the ascent.

Are you ready to face the cameras?

For more information, call Susie at 414-291-7620.

Was the Super Bowl Super?

The game sure was, but what about the Super Spots?

Every year, advertisers ante up to entertain America with their best spots in the Super Bowl. This year was certainly no exception, but was the $2.7 million investment worth it for advertisers?

Of course, you can take a look at any number of polls and critiques of the spots. The morning after the game, opinions are flying all over the place. You can hear from the trade critics, agency bigwigs and of course, football fans.

But at Blue Horse, we wondered about the opinions of marketing executives – the people who might not have an ad in the game, but whose job it is to oversee their own budgets and advertising efforts. What do they think? What spots would work in the marketplace? Which spots were a waste of money?

We sent out a number of invitations to marketing pros to communicate their thoughts to us either online or by phone. Here are the top six things they told us:

1. No one was impressed with the overall quality. While some marketing pros felt the body of work was better than last year, more said things like Larry Weissman of Cousins who remarked that the showing was “poor – run of the mill.” David Andrews of Assurant went so far as to describe the assembly as “terrible.”

2. As testimony to the lack of innovation, nothing really stood out as a favorite. The Doritos “Mouse,” Bridgestone, Budweiser’s “Rocky,” Planters and the Bud Light wine & cheese party all got good reviews. There were others right behind: NFL “Chester Pitt,” selected Bud Light spots, Coke’s “Dueling Balloons” and others were among them.

3. What did stand out as a big loser was the Salesgenie effort. It was almost universally panned by our marketing pros.

4. Not surprisingly, some spots were polarizing: Life Water’s “Lizards,” Planters, Vitamin Water and Audi. Our pros either liked ‘em or hated ‘em. Especially polarizing was the E-Trade baby series. “The gross out award,” said Larry Weissman. “I hated it,” said Hank Hakewill. But for some others, it was a favorite.

5. It was noted by many that a number of spots were, as Bruce Hutchison of Sears noted, “only half the story” because they sought to drive people online. It would only be fair, he said, to check out all the online stories and see if they paid off.

6. Several marketers cited the Hyundai Genesis effort as being laudable in that it elegantly portrayed the car as a Mercedes that is not a Mercedes. Roger Klement felt that this could be the most effective spot for business reasons. David Andrews said he would “withhold judgment until this summer.” He wondered, because of this commercial, “Will people hold off buying a Mercedes? It set expectations high. This is a risky move. The car must be quality and everything must be ready for the launch.”

The question has to be asked: has the escalating cost of production and time made everyone risk adverse? That would include the NFL who, in an effort to stay clear of the FCC, hired a rock musician who was big when some of us were in high school.

Consider the amount of “looking back.” Old music, even old comedic routines like Pepsi’s “Bobbleheads.” Bud Lite working to its “formula” of beer jokes. Then there’s Under Armor trying to break through and succeeding only in being a pale imitation of Apple’s “1984.”

One final note. Given the fact that a large portion of the audience says they watch the game only for the advertising (and with two East Coast teams, that might be particularly true this year), isn’t it rather ironic to note that this contributes so mightily to driving up the cost of the advertising?

Maybe if we just eliminated the game. Ah, but then Larry Weissman, the self-described “only Giants fan in Wisconsin,” wouldn’t have had nearly as much fun.