Ask anyone at the Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics (PIA) – flying a plane is nothing compared to fixing one. Each time you embark on a business trip or a relaxing vacation, there’s a very good chance that a PIA grad has worked on your plane, using their Aviation Maintenance degree to keep you safe.

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It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s…a team of highly-specialized orthopedic surgeons! (more…)

We’re starting a new file at Fitting Group. I’m going to call it the “turn down the heat and let it simmer” file. In this file, we will store all of the great and crazy ideas we have for clients and postdate them for 18 months to three years from now. We’re doing this to maintain our sanity.

In reviewing the work of our agency over the last three years, I began to see a pattern. In our desire to help clients get ahead of the curve, we have often promoted ideas that were viewed as too risky. So the conversation goes something like this:

FG to Banking client: (seeing the regulatory environment loosen up and allow more competition plus the trend in online banking) “We think you should change the name of your bank to UnBank. We’ll advertise that you’re a new kind of bank – completely transparent, with no hidden fees or evil practices. Unbank takes the pain out of the banking relationship for the customer. You’ll launch new products with no minimum balance requirements, no penalties for early withdrawal or loan payoffs, no ATM fees, etc.” (more…)

As the Public Relations Coordinator at our agency, I find myself constantly discussing with clients the many benefits of social media: engaging, free, easy to maintain and most importantly – allows you to have direct conversations about your product or service with your customers. All really good things – right?

So as a young Republican, I should be enthused about the following:

Last week, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, candidates to become chairman of the RNC were asked at a debate, among other questions, whether they have any followers on Twitter. Almost all of them responded ‘yes’ and went on to quote the exact numbers of social media followers and friends they had accumulated on not only Twitter, but Facebook as well.

This somewhat unusual line of questioning is part of a larger movement by the Republican party to focus on the Internet and social media after the November drubbing by the more tech-savvy Democrats. In fact, a coalition of Republicans came up with a ten-point action plan outlining how to rebuild the Republican party, with “the Internet” as the number one priority. According to them, “Winning the technology war with the Democrats must be the RNC’s number one priority in the next four years.”

So am I, as the young, social media-pushing Republican, enthused about this? No. Here’s why.

If the Republican party really does plow ahead making the Internet its number one priority, it will be missing a vital step in the process of rejuvenating itself – REBUILDING THE BRAND (or, as we like to say, spanking).

Whether it is social media, online advertising or good old-fashioned print advertising, it doesn’t matter which outlet you’re using if the right message isn’t there. The majority of my peers (who supported Obama to McCain 2:1) were not supporting Obama because they received his tweets or were friends with him on Facebook. They supported him because they wanted change and his brand represented that. Consistently.

The Republican party has already realized it needs to revitalize itself, and that’s an important first step for Challenger Brands. But before it jumps the gun and tries to “get out there” and “connect,” there needs to be consensus about what it stands for and what message it’s trying to portray. Once everyone has a message and cause to rally around, then online support will develop naturally – that’s the beauty of social media.

Until then, tweet off.