Have It Your Way

This is the slogan pouplarized by Burger King.

I think the strategy here is to individualize itself from McDonald's, which serves virtually the same food. By using the slogan "have it your way," I think Burger King is trying vaguely to seperate itself from fast food franchises.

However, I don't think it works for them. The slogan is too vague. McDonald's has "America's fries." What does Burger King have, besides from burgers (and those really good funnel cake stick thingys)? I think because Burger King is such a huge corporation, they are able to get away with vague advertising. However, in reality, there are alternate options that more people are gravitating to, such as Five Guys.

Burger King's advertising focuses on a wide audience, making the ads seem impersonal. There is no advertising geared towards kids saying, "Get this really cool toy in your Happy Meal!" I think if Burger King wanted to succeed, they would gear their ads towards a certain audience. "Have it your way" is a good start, but maybe they should focus on what we can have our way instead of just saying we can have it our way.

Now that I think about, "have it your way" might be a little suggestive if read the wrong way.

The Importance of Comments

As a baseball blogger, I feel that I very much understand the importance of comments. Before starting my own blog, I blogged on one of the largest Mets fan blogs on the internet. My posts received some of the largest hit numbers ever. Comments, whether they be one comment or fifty comments, are important for a number of reasons, in my opinion:

1) It lets the blogger know you're reading they're stuff. Sometimes I feel like I'm writing to nobody, so seeing a comment on a post is very exciting!

2) It lets the reader express their opinion, whether they agree or disagree with the blogger. The blogger started the conversation, so a comment would be the natural response.

3) It allows the blogger to fight back. Sometimes, I feel that I have to argue my point or clarify something in the posting and the comments allow me to do that.

4) It allows for blogger/reader interaction. <--- Most important!

For writing blog comments, I have one word of advice: keep it short. You may be saying the most perfect thing to continue the conversation, but other readers (and sometimes the blogger) don't want to read comment ramble. Quick, witty comments are more likely to get a response (from me anyway).

Envisioning the Future

In the future, I definitely see myself in sports P.R. in some capacity. Ideally, I would like to work for my favorite baseball team, the New York Mets. However, I do also relaize that that path might be a long one, filled with many years of experience before the Mets even consider a job application from me.

I would probably start off in an agency, so that I can get plenty of experience doing a little bit of everything. Then I would move on to a corporation, so I can build the proper client relationships. Being a younger applicant, I already accept that I may just be getting paid to update Twitter and Facebook (which I feel the Mets need desperate help with, so maybe I'll get my dream job earlier than expected).

However, I do have a strong passion for journalism and I see myself also doing some freelance writing and continuing my current Mets blog. I don't think I could ever not write; it's like a bodily function for me.

I think after I've moved on from the Mets, I would just keep writing and maybe do some non-profit work.

Of course, this is all a very nice dream to have. I know the real road might not be as perfect as I have planned it. I'm gonna end up going where the jobs are. That might mean a big city like New York or Los Angeles or a small town like Tucker, Georgia. But I would like for my first job to be close to home. Home is where my heart will always be.

A Little Bit About Sports P.R.

With public interest in sporting events, comes the natural need for public relations in sports. Depending on how large or small the organization, whole departments may be employed by one team. Those who work in sports P.R. feed the public's interest in their team, it's athletes, and also play an important promotional role by generating public interest.

Sports P.R. people may do everything from dining with media to handling a media crisis. They gather player information including stats and supervise the printing and delivery in game programs.

Switching gears, instead of talking about the past in sports P.R., I want to focus on the whole Tiger Woods fiasco and it's impact on public relations. Tiger's press conference "apologizing" to his wife, his family, and his fans was a media disaster. It will be remembered for years to come, especially in the communications/public relations department. Everything about that press conference was so ingenuine that P.R. professors would wise to show it and say, "Never do this."

In Tiger's situation, a press conference would not have helped. The whole thing about only selecting a few members from the media and shunning everybody else was just wrong. If I had to say something positive about Tiger Woods's P.R. team, they did fuel general public interest in the story, as it was covered by all the media outlets.

It might seem like a media diaster on the part of Tiger Woods, but it certainly has its place in P.R. history. Keeping his eventual divorce quiet was wise.