About Me
About Me – the author of the PRStar blog – professional version.
Long overdue, if I do say so myself.
Here’s a biographical sketch of the author of this blog:
My name is Doug Hovelson. I’m based out of Minneapolis, working as an independent public relations consultant and writer.
Background Facts
- Former newspaper reporter, editor, photographer.
- Freelance public relations professional in the transition from newspapers to PR. (My take at the time: Holy cow! You mean there’s real money to be made as a writer?)
- Account executive work at a small but very aggressive Minneapolis agency, Brum & Anderson Public Relations.
- Public relations account executive to partner, Bozell Worldwide, Minneapolis office over a span of 15 years. (I’ve got the commemorative 15-year anniversary watch to prove it. Still works. Good watch.)
- It was a major agency battleship,Bozell, part of a network that eventually reached beyond the Midwest into New York City and then morphed into True North – which in turn gave birth to the global advertising and communications holding company,Interpublic,orIPG as it’s now known. Big accounts lent themselves to big opportunities to grow and do great work for clients in industries such as bookselling, retailing, consumer electronics, consumer finance, healthcare, packaged goods, commodities and food, travel and tourism. Learned along the way – the compelling value of great writing and creativity as key components to successful public relations programs, campaigns – and even one-off projects. Combining public relations with advertising and other communicationsdisciplinesdeliversmaximum value for the client – that was a lesson well learned at the agency.
- When we introduced the Pork: The Other White Meat campaign, for example, we led with advertising and then used public relations to explain the startling and true facts behind the campaign (that pork was an actual healthful white meat, akin to chicken and turkey and in fact superior to those two fowl-born products in many ways).
- For Reading Rainbow, an Emmy Award-winning children’s TV show, public relations was the entire show – we garnered attention for the show with a national media relations campaign highlighted by coverage in such august media outlets as the New York Times, Washington Post, Good Morning, America, Today Show, CBS News, TV Guide and more. We also created posters, brochures, contests, and other promotional type materials and activities for distribution and implementation by individual PBS stations throughout the country.
- Media relations led the way when we introduced the era of digital satellite TV to America via client USSB/Hubbard Broadcasting. From the floor of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to press conference settings in New York, Los Angeles and many other US cities, we dished out the news about this new way of obtaining basic and premium television programming via a small satellite dish that could be easily installed and enjoyed in homes across the country.
- Those are just three of many examples that come to mind of the types of client challenges I dealt with while working at Bozell. The experience gained in working for large national accounts, often in tandem with advertising, direct marketing, market research and other forms of marketing disciplines helped me develop a very deep understanding of how to help clients successfully market their products and services with public relations strategies and tactics.
- Big Thunder Public Relations, a boutique public relations agency – well, a solo PR firm with panache – owned and operated by yours truly. After working at a high profile place like Bozell, it sometimes feels like I’ve disappeared into the witness protection program as a solo entrepreneur. To combat that perception – and, frankly, to win more business and provide more and better services to clients – I’ve recently begun working on developing more strategic partnerships with other advertising and marketing agencies. And why not? The world is full of opportunities for agile, quick-thinking, creatively focused agency teams that can provide the right types of services for clients on a just-in-time or agency-of-record basis. I still leverage my background in journalism by emphasizing such specialties as great writing and content production, media relations in all of its contemporary permutations, and creative problem solving. In this latter capacity as a creative problem solver I often function as something of a general marketing advisor and promulgator of effective solutions, the goal being to advance the needle by whatever means work best. I’m not alone in this – some of the biggest public relations firms in the country have taken to calling themselves centers of client creativity of late – and I certainly believe that I and my style – and my strategic partners – fit that mode.
The Big Thunder Years – Client Experience By Type
Client experience in the Big Thunder realm includes:
- • Healthcare technology – clinical management software
• Conference and seminar marketing
• Event marketing
• Manufacturing
• Outdoor power equipment industry
• Consumer products – new product introductions
• Automotive component manufacturing, US and international
• Faith-based organizations
• Non-profit organizations
• Commercial real estate
• Residential real estate
• Professional services – law firms
• Media
• Food/specialty foods
• Social entrepreneurship and social enterprise
Say Goodbye For Now
That’s about it for now. If you’ve a need for a fresh start with public relations for your business or organization – or simply want to talk with someone with an objective perspective on public relations and marketing – I hope you’ll think of me and Big Thunder. And don’t think that just because I’m located in the Twin Cities that my perspective is limited to the immediate area – the type of work I do and the level of expertise I can deliver can be of benefit to any company anywhere. In any case, I’d be happy to talk with you!
Contact information: doughovelson AT MSN Dot COM or 612-722-5501 in these United States, add the +1 in front of the number for international callers.
Interested in:
- Queries from business people interested in upgrading their public relations approach for improved results
- Simple introductory discussions with business people – including those who may be considering whether a public relations strategy is right for their business needs
- Project work, including writing assignments of all kinds – PR, journalistic, promotional, research reports, etc.
- Helping out any way I can – contacts, ideas, brainstorming, etc.
Doug Hovelson Weblog 
Now Hear This, Mom! Public Relations Makes Perfectly Good Sense.
Posted on March 13, 2014. Filed under: Family Life, Public Relations, Public Relations Commentary | Tags: digital age, Mom, Public Relations, social media |
Public relations was hard enough to define in lay terms in the analog age. Imagine trying to describe to your mother what you did in PR back in the day when the word processor was a marvel of technical wizardry, laptop computers weighed umpteen pounds, and daily newspapers still had multi-page classified sections thick with want ads.
“I help companies get their messages out through the news media, Mom,” you might have said. That in lieu of going into a lengthy explanation about the need to identify key publics, slice and dice the demographic aspects of your target markets, develop a media platform by which to tell your story, align your efforts with overall corporate marketing and business strategies, and blah blah blah. Mom, meanwhile, has turned the page and is wondering whether she remembered to get stamps yesterday so she can some household bills into the mail today.
Visuals Overcome Cultural Barriers
So you might try using pictures. We had a client, back in the good old days of actual cut-and-paste layout boards, that produced a children’s television show for PBS stations. The goal of the public relations campaign was to create national awareness for the new season of this show — a show which, by the way, earned several Daytime Emmys and was sponsored by one of the largest breakfast cereal companies in the world, one that features a noble beast of the jungle as a signature character. Anyway, we were charged with not only doing media relations but also station relations. So we storyboarded part of our presentation, including various poster concepts, newsletter concepts and some graphic slicks that could be dropped in as-is into print publications. Those visual materials were easily grasped by Mom, as they were by the client for that matter. Now Mom had some idea of what I did – promotional posters and colorful newsletters, of all things.
Fast forward to today. Now Mom, who’s relatively computer-averse, has an even harder time understanding what I — or most any PR-oriented individual — does. Besides getting people news and blogosphere coverage for all the many newsworthy and compelling stories that they have to tell, I have to talk about using social media channels such as Twitter and LinkedIn, blogs, brand journalism and Native advertising, and YouTube to “engage with key client audiences.”
Mom, meanwhile, is still sticking stamps on envelopes and using the U.S. Postal Service to pay her bills.
Back To The Marketplace
So I just say that I do a lot of copywriting for companies, come up with ideas to help them stand out in the marketplace and get their stories told in a lot of different venues — including the good old, but now quasi-analog media such as newspapers, television and radio — and give important people (such as customers and prospective customers) reasons to know about them, and like them well enough to do business with them.
If Mom wants to see pictures, all I have to do is get on the Internet and call up examples of my work.
Mom, of course, is computer-averse as mentioned earlier. She doesn’t like looking at stuff on computer screens. So there’s not much chance she’ll look at what I have to show online.
Mom, most likely, is dealing herself a hand of solitaire — one of her favorite pasttimes these days — while I finish up my spiel about what I do in my PR life. Being an analogist, Mom is playing with an actual deck of beat-up cards, Bicycle brand. I could tell her that I like to play solitaire to relax too — but now I play online. I wouldn’t even know how to deal a hand of solitaire these days. I’ve forgotten how. The computer does it for me. God help me if I ever get stranded on a deserted island with just a deck of cards for entertainment and no computer. I’d have to reinvent the whole damn world of solitaire all over again. Holy Hoyle!
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