Thought Leadership

Airfoil provides insights into technology public relations and marketing communications trends. Recent topics range from consumer marketing trends to the rise of social media. To receive a printed version or to be placed on our e-mail list for future white papers, please e-mail us.

• Innovation: Now it's the Dirtiest Word in Business
  Why are so many communicators these days chomping on the hand that feeds our economy? Bring up the word “innovation” and, in some quarters, you’re likely to hear grumbling. You may even hear that promoting innovation doesn’t work or is no longer “fashionable.” This, at a time when business leaders acknowledge that innovation has been the principle and practice that has led us away from the edge of economic cataclysm, time and time again.

• Alternative Energy Vehicles, Clean Technologies Going Mainstream – Pipe Dream or Reality?
  Airfoil points out that automakers have talked too long about the revolutionary alternative-energy vehicles that are on the horizon. We urge the automotive industry to look no further than the technology industry for inspiration, for best practices, for partnerships. Technology companies are fast companies. They have created a way of moving forward and placing the latest and greatest, often inconceivable, capabilities quickly in the hands of customers.
   
• Engage, Embrace, Empower: Influencing Health Care Policy in the Digital Era
  Airfoil Public Relations can help you confidently participate in the dialogue around health care policy reform. Read Airfoil's latest Point of View to best communicate with your key stakeholders and insert yourself into the policy reform process.

•  What’s Your Policy Brand?
  Airfoil Public Relations’ Point of View, What’s Your Policy Brand?, can help you understand your business interest in the policy-making process – even if you do not operate in a heavily regulated industry.  Discover the rewards in shaping how your industry is viewed by influential politicians, and the risks in keeping your policy voice silent.  

• How SMB Compatible Are You?
  If you’re a large enterprise courting small and midsize businesses, you may want to test your knowledge by taking Airfoil’s SMB-compatibility quiz. Primary research conducted by Airfoil reveals what SMBs really want to hear from suppliers, how and where they network, which sources of information they trust the most—even their choices of dramas vs. comedies on television. Your score may move you to the front of your prospect’s little black book or, perhaps, indicate a need for couples counseling with a PR firm that understands this diverse, hard-to-reach audience. 

• Public Affairs: The Dawning of the New Federal Era
  There isn’t a business or organization that can afford to ignore the impact the actions or inactions of U.S. Federal Government can, and does, have on its business strategy or tactics. If it’s not government it may be some other influential organization, the general public or the media that affects public debate about issues related to your business.

  Decisions made in the public sector shape, influence and impact not only how your business is run but also your reputation. A vigilant government relations strategy involving monitoring and managing public debate and critical government decisions, legislation and direction, can influence the public policy conversation.

• The PR Stimulus Package for IT Innovators
  Economic indicators are plummeting and budgets are tightening at a time when businesses need technology more than ever. IT innovators can adopt PR strategies that will support the marketing of their own solutions and help IT managers make the case for continuing to advance the company’s technology when they approach top management. The PR Stimulus Package for IT Innovators offers strategies to innovators who are attempting to overcome budget restrictions among corporate customers. 
    
• The Prognosis for What's Next in Healthcare
  The prognosis for what's next in healthcare scans the healthcare sector to offer enlightening insights. An examination of healthcare’s consumer-driven future. With empowered consumers, the patient has the power in a new healthcare dynamic. In coming years, what will be the consequences of consumer-driven healthcare for marketing communicators, who now must market to both the provider and the prospective patient? To hear this white paper, listen to part one (mp3), part two (mp3) or subscribe to our podcast feed.
   
• What in the World is Web 2.0?
  Web 1.0 was Niagara Falls—a torrent of information. Web 2.0, by contrast, is a global water-pistol shootout. Rather than being deluged by the flow, participants in Web 2.0 can become part of communities that enable a tremendous amount of personal interchange. What in the World Is Web 2.0 examines how blogs, social sites and related developments are impacting news outlets and public relations, offering advice for communicators.

  To hear this white paper, listen to part one (mp3), part two (mp3) or subscribe to our podcast feed.

• Small is Big
  The biggest target segment for marketers today isn't GenX, GenY, or Baby Boomers; it's small- business owners. While iPhone, YouTube and MySpace have dominated the front page of our front pages, the business section is filled with the efforts of large enterprises and startup companies alike to appeal to the vast small-and-midsize-business category, known as SMBs. 

• Are You Talking to Me?
  Are you talking to me, up here on the C level? Or are you talking in geek to the information technology department? Those guys in the server room used to drive our technology growth, but now those of us without an “I” or a “T” in our titles are making the decisions on how and why we’ll use technology to address inefficient processes and competitive challenges. A shift has occurred in how businesses talk about technology, and marketers need to accommodate that change. Now it’s the managers of the business, rather than the managers of the network, who are driving the demand for technology tools. 

• A Fractured New Universe with Thousands of Stars
  With their fingers on the triggers of powerful new tech tools, consumers are rapidly carving up the marketing universe to reshape it to fit their own perspectives, rather than following the traditional viewpoints assumed by marketing and public relations professionals. For decades, marketers, communicators and entertainment companies were assured of an orderly universe of network media, newsstands, phone companies and movie theaters orbiting comfortably around the life-giving source of 18-to-34-year-olds. Suddenly the consumer world has been knocked out of kilter. Out of the blue, we’ve discovered, not one world of consumer tastes and habits, but thousands of worlds beyond the conventional boundaries of our media and market concepts.  

• Building Your Brand in the Local Community
  If brand strength is the degree to which consumers develop emotional attachments to a brand, then those relationships must be developed where the consumer lives, works and plays. Local sensitivities and preferences play important roles in the successful emergence of emotional connections to a brand. A brand must go beyond developing a national awareness to establishing a powerful emotional tie with consumers at the local level, and that is where public relations can make a compelling impact.  

• Elevating Credibility through Research: Gaining the Trust of Your Audiences
  Today, research results are released by just about every company, group and aspiring entrepreneur around the world. Non-scientific polls are positioned next to meticulously developed research studies. How can companies gain credibility for their own research? Marketers can build credibility by asking themselves a series of questions that position the research appropriately with the consumer, and consumers can judge the value of the research by considering a series of validity factors.  

• Decisions in Outsourcing Public Relations
  Many corporations are finding that a single in-house public relations person does not have the time or resources available to fully leverage PR opportunities. They are realizing, as well, that in-house staff rarely have the relationships with key reporters that an agency does. Agencies are being valued for the scope of their skills and capabilities. So agencies are being given greater consideration as businesses learn to operate in smarter, more flexible ways.  

• Working with PR Agencies from the Inside Out
  Specialized public relations firms have begun to flourish again, along with now-downsized generalist agencies. As corporate marketers get smart about how to manage and source their public relations programs, many have become smart about when and how to outsource work to agencies. This white paper explores the benefits and disadvantages of outsourcing public relations to an agency, as well as profiling best practices in working with PR firms.  

• From Message to Money
  For marketing executives, determining the true impact of public relations efforts (and subsequent ROI) has always been difficult. Long-term corporate objectives, such as enhancement of reputation and increases in customer preference, are largely intangible and difficult to quantify; and their direct link to revenues is weak. This paper explains a simplified model for evaluating the effectiveness of PR strategies and tactics and suggests how this model may be implemented within companies that lack sophisticated tracking mechanisms.