Archive for February, 2008

February Agency News

Thursday, February 28th, 2008

It used to be that January and February were considered somewhat “slow”months following the craziness of the holiday season and the long wait until spring pokes its head out of the hardened, crusted-over snow and ice. (Think I hate winter?) Well, not so anymore for us PR agency folks, with new campaigns ramping up and media events scheduled to take advantage of what are typically considered slow months for media, as well.

So read our February blog and find out what’s going on here at RL&A – great placements on behalf of our clients in Clients in the News, the winner of the Softlips Picture Perfect Lips Contest in Promotions in Motion and learn about “SEO”, also known as search engine optimization, in Chit Chatter. Have fun and we’ll see you in spring!

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Clients in the News

Wednesday, February 27th, 2008

With winter still hitting full force, dry skin is at its peak and BeautyNewsNYC.com offers up the tip of using the new Microplane XL – Pro Foot File to “plane away that gross looking dry skin” on heels.” To get the complete list of head to toe tips click here For the RL&A Beauty NewsNYC.com placement.

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Clients in the News

Wednesday, February 27th, 2008

With more and more people looking to the internet for health and beauty advice, certain beauty blogs are beginning to garner huge audiences (the blogs themselves have been the focus of several major newspaper articles due to their loyal readers). SheKnows.com is one of those sites with monthly visitorship in the range of 600,000, making them one of the top sites for beauty and health info, including recent mentions for three RL&A clients in a feature we created titled “the family friendly medicine cabinet.” For the complete article click here SheKnows.com.

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Clients in the News

Wednesday, February 27th, 2008

Capitalizing on the intense media coverage and public interest in celebrities, RL&A scored big with two major consumer magazines –Star and OK! magazine — recommending ROHTO eye drops to take the red out of eyes the morning after a big night out.

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Clients in the News

Wednesday, February 27th, 2008

When men need style advice one of the best sources is Esquire Magazine, which carried our Certain Dri tip for sweaty armpits to some 2.9 million men.

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Clients in the News

Wednesday, February 27th, 2008

Lifetime TV, long considered the best in women’s television programming, has taken that reputation online and created myLifetime.com, featuring tips and advice on love and sex, to diet and exercise — the ideal spot for our unique CharcoCaps survey stat, which showed that 15% of adults admit to passing gas during sexual relations. Sad but true – we don’t make this stuff up!

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Promotions in Motion

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

For the second year in a row, RL&A and The Mentholatum Company teamed up to conduct the “Softlips Picture Perfect Lips” contest that was developed by RL&A to highlight the leading lip conditioner’s lip-perfecting qualities amongst young women.

Once again the contest proved successful in attracting attention, drawing almost 2500 entries from women ages 13 to17 who believed that their perfect pout could make them a top lips model with a contract from Parts Models, the only modeling agency devoted solely to beautiful body parts.

The campaign kicked off with a segment on New York’s CW11 and was later picked up by hundreds of media outlets, including the Chicago Tribune, St. Louis Dispatch, Tampa Tribune, Cosmogirl.com and YM.com.

The 2007 lip victor was Ashton Shane, 22, of Los Angeles, a young woman with beautifully-shaped and well-cared-for lips. As grand prize winner, Shane received a $2,500 check along with a one-year supply of Softlips® products. 

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PR Chit Chatter

Monday, February 25th, 2008

What’s all the fuss about "SEO?" — SEO or search engine optimization is one of the new buzzwords when it comes to Social Media. Why all the fuss about SEO? Simply put, when your site is properly optimized, you will improve the quality and volume of traffic to your site from search engines through search results for targeted keywords.

How this is accomplished is not that simple, however. Most SEO experts will tell you that there are a number of different variables that go into how a search engine ranks your page. One of the variables is related to keywords. So what’s a “keyword”? Think of keywords as message or copy points – those words or phrases that describe your product. For example, if you are a manufacturer of golf clubs, you want a customer who has typed “new irons” in a Google search to be directed to your Web site.

The first thing to do in regards to keywords is to make sure you are using the right ones. This means that even though you may refer to something related to your product as one thing, you want to use the term that your customers are using. Using the golf example, let’s say you have developed a new club that lends itself to those seeking a higher “velocity” in their swing. This may be a good term and you may be able to use it, but you may find out that most of your customers say “speed” instead of “velocity.” Since this term is used more often by your customers you should change your copy to reflect that.

After deciding on keywords, the next part of the equation is making sure the keywords are in your Web site’s text. This is done by simply inserting your keywords wherever you can. If this cannot be done, you may want to think about rewriting your copy so that your keywords can be used.

Confused? You’re not alone if you are! If you would like more information on SEO or anything else related to social media, please feel free to contact our social media coordinator John Whitcomb to have all your questions answered.

And don’t forget to come back next month for our next installment of Chatter where we will continue to unravel the mystery that is Social Media.

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Weird but True

Sunday, February 24th, 2008

Welcome to the next installment of “weird but true” – unusual facts and stats uncovered by RL&A staff in the course of research for our clients.

As many of you know, RL&A specializes in OTC brand health and beauty PR, which means that we know a lot about some very sensitive topics of a personal nature. This month we are highlighting statistics from a survey conducted with Harris Interactive for Cystex that focuses on public restrooms – something that women with UTIs know a lot about!

Have you ever thought twice about answering nature’s call while out? If so, don’t worry, as you are not alone, since 99% of Americans say they use public restrooms, and nearly half (48%) of us use them without hesitation. The rest of the cautionary members of the public only use them in dire emergencies (30%), while 25% only use ones that they know are safe and clean because they have tried them before.

Cleanliness matters when using public restrooms: 62% have reported walking in and walking right back out because they thought it was too dirty. Women (70%) are much more likely to do this than men (54%). And once you are inside the decisions don’t stop there, as we have all experienced walking into a stall where the person before us has left a gift. What to do on these occasions is pretty well a split decision, as slightly more than half (54%) will turn around and leave, while the rest of us give in to nature’s call and stay put.

So where are the worst public restrooms? Topping the list according to the Cystex survey, is the highway gas station with more than a third of all people saying they will just drive on by, preferring to not use them. Others – more than half of adults — say they like to sneak into restaurants or other establishments to use the restroom. The moral of this effort: prepare wisely next time you leave home and map out your bathroom route in advance – just in case, or, if of course you have a UTI. And for those of us whose bathroom “issues” go beyond what we covered in our survey, just join the other 16% who simply go home when nature calls.

Come back next month as we expand your mind with more weird but true facts.

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