While not nearly as satisfying an experience so far as we had hoped, our much-beloved Boston Red Sox have begun their 2011 campaign. Having crept over .500, and even into or near first place in the division, they are far from the dominating juggernaut many expected them to be, yet they are equally far from where they were when they began their season so dismally a few weeks back. Fortunately for all of us fans of the game and of this year’s team, the season is a long one. Our boys have the opportunity to use much of the spring to move forward in the standings and, fingers crossed, the rest of the summer to pull ahead.
If you too are a fan of the Sox, then you likely felt that the 2011 baseball season was different than any in recent memory. Powered by an aggressive winter of new player acquisitions, we were, as a favorite blogger says so often, “cueing the duck boats” for another World Series rally. Like our favorite team’s payroll, expectations were correspondingly high.
Often our PR process reminds me of baseball. Like the Red Sox, we execute well-planned programs over a long season. We dip into our deep roster and use all of the weapons necessary to achieve success. And, while we pride ourselves on furthering a brand and moving the business needle on behalf of a client, rarely does significant success occur overnight. (It needn’t be 162 games plus the playoffs, but having some time to build momentum and positively impact key constituencies is a necessity.) We work hard at it each and every day – just as the Red Sox will do in the coming weeks and months.
If the program needs adjustment — and occasionally this is the case — we make changes to improve our team’s performance. However, like we’re hoping to see from Theo, Tito and company, we don’t make wholesale changes unless the evidence is clear that it’s absolutely necessary. We stay the course and achieve results. Like the Red Sox, we rely on talented individuals who have consistently delivered the goods over the course of their careers. While slumps happen and nobody hits a home run each time at the plate, we know that both the Matter team and the Sox are stacked and that eventually the key “hits” (media or otherwise) will come.
Like the Sox — we’re just at the start of a few campaigns of our own here at Matter and I’m absolutely confident that both teams are going to deliver in the clutch.