Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Danielle Rudy-Davis
Peritus
Account Supervisor

This summer, Peritus had the unique, exciting and frankly – very cool, opportunity to work with the first ever USO Homefront Concert, hosted by the National Guard. The concert, held on July 26^th at the KFC YUM! Center in Louisville, featured country stars Montgomery Gentry and was the first concert specifically for military families.

That night Peritus joined more than 14,500 military family members to sing-along to Montgomery Gentry hits like “My Town,” “Lucky Man,” and “Something to be Proud Of.” Montgomery Gentry, made up of Kentucky-natives Eddie Montgomery and Troy Gentry put on an amazing show. The pair not only played to thousands of excited fans but also paid to be sponsors of the USO Homefront Concert. That’s definitely “Something to be Proud of.”

At the show, we also got the chance to see families “reunited” via video calls, listened to a message from First Lady Michelle Obama and Second Lady Dr. Jill Biden to the troops and their families as well as learned more about the great work of our Troops in the National Guard.

The night was the culmination of a lot of great work which we were honored to be a part of. Back in June, we were approached by the National Guard to help devise a strategy to not only pack the YUM! Center but also attract viewers at home to watch on the Pentagon Channel. We quickly went to work putting together a plan that would get military families across the country excited about the first USO Homefront Concert.

Our plan included a day-by-day social media strategy, online promotions and contests and a detailed media pitching plan. We came up with “watch party kits” that families could request with goodies to host a concert party of their own. In addition, we created a top-of-the-line kit to be given away to one lucky family. This deluxe kit included autographed Montgomery Gentry (MG) posters, CDs, pictures and unique MG memorabilia, along with special party planning and hosting tips.

All of the hard work paid off. On July 26^th more than 2 million people tuned in to watch the concert on the Pentagon Channel online. In addition, there were more than 8,000 watch parties hosted and attended by military families and their friends.

While we sang and saluted our hearts out, the country’s National Guard Adjutant Generals from each state and territory were celebrating the success of this new event. We’re excited to say that another USO Homefront Concert is being planned for next year. We couldn’t be more thrilled to have helped these military families take a well-deserved night off to enjoy themselves. We all owe a great deal of thanks to our servicemen and women but we can’t forget the sacrifice their families have made as well. We’re beyond proud to have been a part of this great new event.

Lauren Reed
Peritus
Senior Director

Think back to early elementary school. You just mastered print handwriting and then are presented with what – at the time – seems like a monumental challenge – cursive handwriting! As a child that had ridiculously messy handwriting, and what I considered to be some of the most difficult capital cursive letters in my name (an L AND an F), I despised handwriting. I never even tried, and today, still have trouble reading my own handwriting.  Fast forward a few – okay, maybe more than a few – years, and starting this fall, learning cursive is no longer required curriculum in Indiana schools. Students will be focusing more heavily on typing skills.

What do you think of this? While I dreaded this lesson in school, it makes me wonder if handwriting really is becoming extinct, which is what the Indiana Department of Education seems to believe. If my two-year-old son never learns to write his name in cursive, how will he sign his name on important documents? You know, like a note allegedly signed by me saying he was sick when he misses school one pretty spring day.  How will he sign a check, if those are still around?  Instead of hand-writing a thank-you note for a wedding gift, will he shoot a quick e-mail from his iPhone, or whatever new device is popular 40 years from now when I finally allow him to date? Or send a thank-you tweet?

An Indiana resident summed it up nicely in this Dailytech.com article when he said “I think it’s a shame, because as long as we have hands, handwriting is going to be important for some kind of human communication.”

Social networking can take a costly and dangerous twist

This post reflects a news story from the 11 p.m. news cast of NBC’s WAVE 3 in Louisville, Ky.

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) – Social networking sites have us more connected than ever before, but the sites are also connecting some to scandal. Experts estimate every 20 minutes there are more than a 1.5 million posts on social media sites. More than 2.5 million pictures are posted.

Smartphones make it easy to share every second, but this quick communication can take a costly turn even though the sites are supposed to pull family and friends together.

“You only have 140 characters to work with, and its point is to say what you are doing,” explained Danielle Rudy Davis with Louisville public relations firm, Peritus.

Despite Twitter’s character constraint, it doesn’t take too many clicks to find users posting too much.

“So you can put that out there and you may go back to delete that a minute later, but someone has already seen it. Someone will take a screen shot of that and that part is stuck,” Rudy Davis said.

It’s what got New York Representative Anthony Weiner stuck in the middle of a summer scandal that cost him his career. Weiner accidentally posted a sexually explicit picture of himself on Twitter. He later admitted he sent inappropriate photos to several women.

With a half million new accounts every day, Twitter makes it easier than ever to cheat with a tweet.

“I think the Internet is making it much more feasible for somebody to go out and be unfaithful to somebody else or find a relationship with somebody else without having to go through the hoops you used to have to jump through,” said Eric Cassius, a relationship counselor.

As we discovered the dark side of the social network, we found thousands letting their dirtiest desires be known using a simple symbol – the hashtag (#).

“Hashtags are basically the pound sign, and then you can put a word after it,” Rudy Davis said. “NASCAR is an example.”

Another example is “twitter after dark.” The phrase with a hashtag puts all dirty tweets after dark together.

“If it keeps going the way that it is, it seems like the long term relationships are going to be a thing of the past. It’s going to be quick little, short little things that you have with people if we adapt to that type of situation,” Cassius said.

This is a whole new domain. In fact, Twitter has only been around for five years. With the constant flow of communication and information, the panel of experts we talked with says it’s important to remember social networking can become addictive.

When personal problems start popping up because of it, that’s when it might be time to seek help from a counselor.

Watch the news segment here.