Polling Fims & U.S. Supreme Court

PPACA: The Court of Public Opinion

Pollsters wonder how reactions to the PPACA decision will affect the fall elections.

 (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)

Polling firms are coming up with conflicting assessments of how the U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) might affect the fall elections.

• Analysts at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Menlo Park, Calif., says opinion seems to be divided along party lines, with poll participants who identify themselves as pure independents -- independents who not lean either toward the Democrats or toward the Republicans -- equally likely to say they approve of the ruling or disapprove of the ruling.

• Gallup Inc., Princeton, N.J., finds that U.S. adults are split down the middle when it comes to their reaction to the PPACA ruling, but that the independents it polled June 28 were slightly more likely to agree with the Supreme Court ruling than to disagree.

• StrategyOne Inc., Washington, a consulting firm, says it found that independents are more likely to oppose the ruling than to support it, and that the independents who oppose the ruling feel more strongly about the matter than the independents who support the ruling do.

Kaiser

The Kaiser analysts conducted a random-digit dial telephone poll of 1,239 adults ages 18 and older, including adults who living in Alaska and Hawaii.

Kaiser polled participants June 28 through June 30.

• About 59% of the participants said they knew the Supreme Court had upheld PPACA; 18% knew that a decision had been released but were not sure which way the court had ruled.

• When told of what the court had ruled, 47% of all participants said they approved of the court's decision, and 43% said they disapproved.

• About 79% of the Democrats, 44% of the independents and 12% of the Republicans said they approved of the ruling.

• Kaiser found a similar mix of views when it asked whether "independents" leaned toward one party or the other. About 16% of the independents who lean toward the Republicans, 39% of the independents who lean toward neither party, and 74% of the independents who lean toward the Democrats said they approved of the PPACA ruling.

• The Democrats Kaiser polled were about as likely to say express enthusiasm about the ruling as the Republicans were to express anger.

• The percentage of participants who said they had a favorable view of PPACA increased to 41%, from 37% in May, and the percentage who said they had an unfavorable view of the law fell to 41%, from 44%. 

• The percentage of Republicans who said they had a "very unfavorable" opinion of PPACA fell to 64%, from 69% in May, and the percentage of Democrats who said they had a "very favorable" opinion of the law jumped to 47%, from 31%.

• Although only 12% of Republicans said they approve of the Supreme Court ruling and 64% still have a very unfavorable opinion of PPACA, 26% of Republicans agreed with the statement that PPACA opponents should "stop their efforts to block the law and move on to other national problems."

• About 69% of Republicans and 69% of independents who lean toward the Republicans would like to see PPACA opponents continue to fight the law.

About 38% of all poll participants, 35% of the independents who don't lean toward a major party and 16% of the independents who lean toward the Democrats want to see the PPACA opponents keep up the fight, Kaiser says.

Gallup

Gallup conducted a telephone interview of 1,012 adults ages 18 and older June 28 for USA Today. The poll participants live in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

• After the survey workers told poll participants that the Supreme Court had upheld the constitutionality of PPACA, 46% of the poll participants said they agreed with the ruling and 46% said they disagreed.

• About 79% of the Democrats, 45% of the independents and 13% of the Republicans said they agreed with the ruling.

• About 31% of the participants said they would like to see Congress repeal PPACA, 21% would like to see Congress repeal some parts of PPACA, and 25% said they would like to see Congress pass a law that would further expand the government's role in health care.

About 40% of the independents said they want to keep PPACA as is or expand government's role in health care; 49% of the independents said they want Congress to repeal part or all of PPACA.

StrategyOne

StrategyOne conducted a survey telephone survey of 1,022 adults living in the continental United States.

• The consulting firm found that 48% of the participants in the sample said they agreed with the ruling and 41% said they disagreed with the ruling.

• About 46% of the independents in the sample said they disagreed with the ruling, and 35% of the independents said they agreed with the ruling.

The independents who opposed the ruling were more likely to strongly disagree with the ruling than the opponents who supported the ruling were to strongly agree with the ruling.

 

 By Allison Bell/Photo AP Photo.

PR News

Sports Illustrated and NBC Sports Plan a TV Series

Effort Joins Specials (and One Reality Show) About Swimsuit Issue

By: Nat Ives

Sports Illustrated and NBC Sports have teamed up to produce a monthly, hour-long TV series beginning July 24, the companies said today.

The show, called "Sports Illustrated," is sponsored by Lexus but will include commercials for other advertisers. The magazine, part of Time Warner's Time Inc. division, and NBC Sports, part of Comcast's NBC Universal, are sharing production costs and revenue.

Magazines have long wanted a bigger role on TV, but have found the most success either in one-off specials or supporting parts on series like "Project Runway," which has included Nina Garcia in her capacity as an editor first at Elle and then at Marie Claire.

"Sports Illustrated," which will run on NBC Sports Network and NBC, is slated for five episodes. Sports Illustrated and Time Warner sibling HBO are collaborating on another hour-long series scheduled for five episodes, "Sport in America: Our Defining Stories," that is due next year. The magazine and HBO also have a partnership around "Real Sports."

But Sports Illustrated's previous TV ventures have most often revolved around the Swimsuit Issue, with "making of" specials on various networks and a NBC reality series called "Sports Illustrated's Fresh Faces Competition" that ran six episodes in 2005. The new series with NBC Sports will focus on athletes, sports and features from the magazine.

Social Media Tools

Free social media tools for your business



1. Buffer

Buffer is a great little app to help you send tweets and posts at optimal times. After you create your account and link your networks (currently Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn), you can choose when Buffer will release posts to each network. When you’re plugging through your reading list you can simply “Buffer” those articles you want to share, and they will be posted on each network when the get to the top of the queue.

2. Eventbrite

Whether your event is free or paid, Eventbrite is a fabulous way to manage it. The app makes it easy to set up an event to accept PayPal and/or credit card payments. There is no “installation” or “set up” fee, making it perfect for the small business that doesn’t want a big credit card system on a monthly basis.

The tool contains lots of features for customization of the event pages, email marketing to confirmed attendees, Facebook integration, and even the ability to scan QR coded tickets with your smart phone at the door. It’s free to use if your event is free. For paid events, the fees are comparable to other online systems.

3. Tweriod

A simple app that tells you the optimal times to tweet from your account. Run a free Tweriod analysis once a month and use the data to plan your Buffer schedule.

4. Manage Flitter

An easy-to-use tool that helps you find Twitter accounts that are not following you back or are inactive. I’ve used this one to get my follower ratio under control by unfollowing inactive accounts, but it has a range of other features as well.

5. Screenr

This is the perfect way to create a quick screencast video for your blog or training sessions. With a five-minute limit, you can be sure you never run long and because it only captures what you do on-screen, you don’t need to worry about your hair.

Posted by Sonya Y. Young /July 2, 2012

Nestle Crunch Breaks Campaign for Girl Scout Candy Bars

Effort Represents First TV Advertising for Brand in Five Years

Nestle Crunch's first TV campaign in five years begins today

 for its just-launched Nestle Crunch Girl Scout candy bars.

The co-branded bars hit retail shelves on June 1 and are already popular with consumers -- a pre-sale Facebook fan promotion in May sold out in less than 24 hours. But Nestle chose to break its traditional digital- and print-media advertising strategy and use TV to build faster recognition and sales.

"The fact that the bars are only available for a limited time meant we had to drive awareness very quickly," said Cherry Joh, marketing manager at Nestle. The ad campaign, created by Dailey, Los Angeles, will run through August, and bars will be sold through September while supplies last.

The campaign is built around the All-American vibe of both products which was the original motivation for the partnership. Nestle Crunch's red, white, and blue color scheme and heritage as an American candy since the '30s fit with the Girl Scouts' Americana image and sweet tradition of cookie sales, Ms. Joh said. "With two well-loved American brands, we focused [the marketing] on the reactions we experienced in our research which was an irresistibleness," she said. "… People [were] saying, 'Thanks for thinking of this, and putting my two favorite things together.' "

The TV spot features a young Girl Scout in uniform telling the Nestle Crunch employee who has just finished setting up a grocery-store display that he should "probably stand back." She then pulls him out of harm's way as a stampeding crowd descends.

Along with the TV, a Facebook coupon promotion begins today, pitting Nestle Crunch Facebook fans against each other to win a coupon for the purchase of three bars. Two fans will be given a chance to win a coupon that escalates in value. The person who grabs it first wins it, but the longer they wait, the higher the value. It begins at 25 cents off and can go as high as $1.25.

However, along with demand, the bars also have picked up some controversy. Several public health groups claimed that Nestle is targeting children and breaking its promise to not market to them. Nestle denied the claim, pointing out that the marketing has been focused on adults. The media buy for TV includes only adult-oriented cable channels such as TBS, USA, and Bravo. And while the TV ad features the Girl Scout who saves the Nestle Crunch employee, the stampede of customers are all adults.

"We wouldn't have held an auction on Rodeo Drive if we were targeting kids," Ms. Joh said. "And the same way with Facebook, the sale was for adults who had to have a credit card to buy."

She is referring to earlier pre-launch marketing efforts that included a live auction at a Rodeo Drive auction house for three first-line candy bars which eventually sold for $650, and a Facebook promotion that offered early sales of the bars to the 800,000-plus Nestle Crunch fans in May. The bars sold out in less than 24 hours at a rate of one bar every 28 seconds, Ms. Joh said.

Nestle began working with the Girl Scouts two years ago to develop the three bars based on Thin Mint, Samoa (caramel & coconut), and Tagalong (peanut butter creme) cookies. The bars don't include bits of the cookies themselves, but are meant to be the flavors recreated via cookie wafers and creme layers.

A Nestle spokeswoman, and 20-year company veteran, characterized the Girl Scout bars as "the most successful new product launch out of the gate that we've ever had." When asked out of how many, she estimated that Nestle had easily "cleared 100" launches in those two decades.

WHAT PEOPLE THINK ABOUT ENTREPRENEURS

Secrets from a PR Small-Business Owner

June marks my sixth month as the owner of a communications and PR shop. I worked with a few clients in a freelance capacity before launching my own company in January, but prior to that I had the safety net of a salaried job.

Not anymore.

This business owner thing has been a ride. Here are few thoughts on starting a communications shop:

The cliché about suffering revenue loss when you start a new biz is a load of crap. If you're leaving a high-paying gig to “go out on your own,” don’t begin by assuming you need to make less cash for some indeterminate period of time. It’s a loser’s mentality.

The inherent fiscal concerns in the early stages of running a communications shop can lead to problematic clients. I’ve had two problematic clients in five months. I took them on, because I needed cash. Both were probably more trouble than the cash was worth. It’s important to think through whom you sign, even in the face of financial pressure.

No client is signed until they sign. I wish I got paid for the amount of times people told me they were going to sign with me.

Most people are shocked by the cost of PR. I am not that expensive, but I’ve seen prospects experience "sticker shock" after they received a quote. People who don’t want to pay a real (and fair) price are probably going to be a pain in the ass.

As appealing as focusing on a specific niche sounds, it is hard. This is especially true when you have a new business and want to mitigate the risk that arises from having only a few clients on the roster.

Good help is hard to find. You might know this one already, but it matters more when your life depends on it.

Referrals are gold. The challenge is asking for them. Receiving one, meanwhile, is like striking gold..

The clients want press. They tend to think they know how to get it. You already knew this, but it’s more troublesome when the PR shop belongs to you.

I will never be an employee again. This is simply too much fun. Plus, I was never a very good employee, so this is better for everyone.

Any of you business owners out there have insights to add?

Contributor: Sonya Y. Young – PR/Advertising/Marketing Boutique.Jackson Wightman is a PR Daily contributing editor in Montreal. The company he launched in January is Proper Propaganda

DOCTORS & FACEBOOK

Today, more doctors use two or more social media platforms for personal use, compared with social sites used for professional purposes.Almost 90 percent of physicians use at least one site for personal use and more than 65 percent for professional purposes.As a profession, doctors have a significant interest in the potential applications of social media to patients and other clinicians. They illustrate interest in online physician communities and patient communities that may facilitate doctor-patients interactions.

A small group of “connected clinicians” use multiple social media platforms for both personal and professional use.

Key points from this QuantiaMD study:

·         The majority of doctors use social media. Facebook is the most popular medium for personal use. Online physician communities are more popular for professional use.

·         Doctors who are familiar with patient portals or communities agree that they have a positive impact an individual’s health, but awareness of these social media sites is low.

·         28 percent of doctors use professional physician communities, with the goal to confer, refer and learn from experts.

·         Clinicians approve and see the benefit of electronic interactions with patients to improve access and quality of care, but many are concerned about patient privacy, liability and compensation for these activities.

·         There remains a significant need for secure and convenient forms of interactive communication tools that doctors can use to talk with each other and patients.

·         20 percent of clinicians use two or more social media sites for personal and professional use. These so-called “connected clinicians” are very eager to use social media to improve health care.

Thank you for making it all possible! Penn State Hershey Children's Hos...

Hospital thanks community for high rankings

Watch this video to see what it is celebrating.