Fresh Thinking Published April - May 2008 1. HP turns to retirees to promote the brand Technology company Hewlett-Packard is recruiting an unlikely group of people to spread the word about the company and its products - its retirees. HP says the move reflects a renewed emphasis on grass-roots marketing. Those who ‘come back’ do so on a purely voluntary basis to become cheerleaders, good-will ambassadors and volunteer sales people. HP believes that its heritage - the organisation was founded in 1939 - that has created an army of people who have served a lifetime with the company, gives it a resource and competitive edge over many of its competitors which are much younger companies. The company says that its aim is inspire involvement in the US from as many as 40,000 retirees. It is encouraging them to do volunteer sales, join local alumni clubs, get involved in legislative issues the company cares about and represent Hewlett-Packard in philanthropic and community events. The retirees also serve as a good intelligence-gathering network for HP. And they can prove a good way to channel feedback from the consumer to HP’s marketing department. There has been some criticism of the move, particularly relating to HP using some retirees as salespeople and not paying them, but generally the initiative, which is being driven from the CEO’s office, has been successful. In fact other US companies with a pool of retirees are said to be looking to emulate the HP experience. Source: International Herald Tribune 2. Whole Earth Generation goes UGC An American company Whole Foods recently launched the Whole Earth Generation, a video podcast (or vodcast) series dedicated to raising environmental awareness among today's youth. To start the initiative, the company announced a contest to find six kids aged 8 to 17 to serve as hosts of the green-themed series, which will run through April 29. Children from all over the United States and Canada can either submit a video at Whole Foods' YouTube page or they can show up in person at Whole Foods stores. Source: Springwise - 24 March 2008   3.  Online Communities for Women Reading material for women has never been in short supply but recently a new online womens community has sprung up called http://www.wowowow.com/ The BETA site initiated in the US has been set up with the over 40’s women in mind. The site has high profile women such as Candice Bergen, Whoopi Goldberg and Lily Tomlin all contributing to the site.  Source: PR Week March 2008 4. Chrysler starts a conversation Chrysler in the US has started to recruit residents to participate in closed online dialogues to gather information for the company’s marketing and product development areas. The advisory panel is expected to have 2000 people who are happy to participate one or twice a week online.  VP-Chief Marketing Officer Deborah Wahl Meyer told Advertising Age, "It's a different way to be close to our customers and our future customers without doing physical focus groups”, she said. "We call it on-demand customer collaboration." Source: Ad Age, March 2008 PR Influences is published by innovative Sydney online pr agency, Network PR. Network PR focuses on business pr, technology pr and and online services pr services including the engagement with social media. Contact us if you are ready for a 'fresh approach' to your public relations.

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