Ron Hartwig

Ron Hartwig is responsible for the communications group at the J. Paul Getty Trust and serves as a member of the Getty senior management team. Hartwig joined the Getty in 2005 from Hill & Knowlton, Inc., where he spent 24 years in several senior executive positions. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan in 1967. In 2007 he was named Professional of the Year by the Public Relations Society of America.

Q. I assume that your responsibilities at the Getty include its four Getty programs—the Museum, Research Institute, Conservation Institute, and Foundation. If so, does each program have its own communications structures, including its own programming and strategies– all under your supervision?

A. As Vice President of Communications for the J. Paul Getty Trust, my team has responsibility for serving the communication needs of the Trust, and each of the Getty’s four programs. The Communications Department handles all external and most internal communications, but we coordinate closely with the Assistant Director for Public Affairs at the Getty Museum, who is responsible for Sponsorship Development and for working with the Museum’s senior staff on specific programs that relate to the Museum’s work, as well as with coordinators at the other Getty Programs to gather information, and when appropriate, maximize opportunities that involve collaboration between the four programs.

Q. Is the time you apportion for each, a planned strategy or on a need/opportunity basis?

A. I work closely with the Getty’s senior management and the Directors of the Getty’s four programs on strategic issues and projects. The Department works against a set of specific communications objectives, so in that sense what we do is carefully planned, but as with most communications operations, all of us, including myself, are constantly looking for opportunities and challenges that can’t always be planned in advance.

Q. Your responsibilities at such an international cultural and philanthropic institution as the Getty, seem all encompassing. Would you please describe briefly the scope of your position?

A. The Getty is fortunate to have the resources to have a robust Communications Department. We develop our plans and strategies based on research, and I rely on a Manager of Market Research for both internal and external research. We have a very strong Web Group that is responsible for our external website, www.Getty.edu, and our internal site, which provides a wealth of information for Getty employees. The Web Group also works with our media and other staff on a very active Social Media effort that includes Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and the “Iris,” the Getty’s popular blog. We also have responsibility for Marketing and Advertising, Creative Services, Internal Communications and Media Relations.

Q. Does the Getty communication department work with international public relations agencies to manage the day-to-day communication tasks globally?

A. We work with media around the world on a regular basis given the range of projects undertaken by the Getty’s four programs on every continent. When we think it’s necessary we have engaged public relations agency support in countries outside the U.S. The Getty Foundation, for example, has a program that is helping to train the next generation of expert panel painting conservators and we used an agency in Italy to launch that program with great results.

Q. During your first almost six years years at the Getty, the Trust relied on your leadership to deal with several challenges, the most recent being the issue of the Getty Bronze. What are some future challenges that you foresee?

A. There is always something going on at the Getty — a new acquisition at the Museum or Getty Research Institute; the launch a Getty Foundation initiative, or a Conservation Institute program, usually in some distant part of the world. We continue to deal with challenging situations when they arise, but the excitement of working at the Getty is having the chance to deal with opportunities to expand awareness of the great institution’s important work on a daily basis. We are looking forward over the next few months to introducing the Getty’s newly appointed President and CEO, Jim Cuno, formerly the head of the Art Institute of Chicago, who will bring new ideas and energy to the Getty, creating new communications opportunities.

Mason Cole

Mason Cole directs public relations for Oversee.net and its operating divisions and is responsible for Oversee’s relationships with ICANN, trade associations, and partner companies. He directs the company’s intellectual property efforts and has secured seventeen patents in the United States, Canada, and China. He joined SnapNames in 2001 as Vice President of Marketing and was editor and publisher of the respected State of the Domain industry analysis newsletter. His previous experience includes marketing and public relations responsibilities in agency and corporate roles. He lives in Oregon with his family and enjoys traveling, aviation, and competitive swimming.

Q. Noting that you first joined Oversee’s subsidiary, SnapNames, in 2001, this year then marks your 10th anniversary with Oversee.net. Can you briefly describe the ten-year evolution of the company from a startup pioneer in a fledging industry to its position today as the leader in monetizing, registering, selling and developing domain names, coined by Oversee, as Internet Real Estate(tm)?

A. I started with SnapNames at a time when very few recognized the inherent value of domain names as assets. Those that did have turned some of those names into formidable properties and businesses on the Internet.

SnapNames’ role was to help those people (and lots of others) acquire the domain names they were interested in. Oversee, which purchased SnapNames in 2007, began not long after SnapNames, and was founded by two men who very clearly understood the concept of online real estate. They had formed a very successful “monetization” service where domain name holders could provide relevant information and links tothose searching for specific data by using the domain name itself as the navigation tool.

By the end of 2008, when Oversee had put together a complete collection of domain name-related functions, the marketplace fully understood how valuable brandable words are in domain names, and the marketplace for these names was growing quickly. We had evidence of this, naturally. Oversee has sold or brokered single names for million-dollar figures. So we started talking about our capabilities and were attracting some business media attention.

The online real estate comparison was just an easy way for us to make a sometimes arcane concept understandable to consumers and businesses. In our relationships with the media, it let us describe what we did and why it was relevant in a way that got head nods from editors. Since then, we’ve talked about that concept very broadly, and it always helps bear fruit in our discussions, no matter who we’re talking to.

Today, Oversee is widely recognized as the industry’s thought leader. Our brands include DomainSponsor(r) (domain name monetization), SnapNames.com(r) (daily auctions of useful domain names), Moniker.com(r) (domain name registration and security), and the DOMAINfest(r) series of conferences in the U.S. and Europe. Those companies help customers buy, sell, broker, auction and monetize domain names. We also own and operate several vertical market-focused businesses, including LowFares.com(r) (travel), CreditCards.org (consumer finance) and ShopWiki.com(r) (comparison shopping).

Q. Can you discuss the many positions/responsibilities that you have held at Oversee over these ten years and how your view on marketing has evolved over time?

A. I joined SnapNames to handle communications and PR, and to edit and distribute an industry newsletter titled State of the Domain. The newsletter became popular beyond our expectations. At that time, it was the only tool anyone had for monitoring the growth and development of the domain name industry. I spent a ridiculous amount of time getting the statistics together, verified and ready for publication, never mind also writing and editing the articles. Once we published, which was monthly, I was on the phone for another solid week talking about the numbers with the investment analysts trying to understand what they meant for the markets, and with reporters, trying to understand what they meant for this burgeoning industry. It was great credibility for SnapNames and it attracted both customers and partners, as we were the only company speaking with any industry-wide authority status.

I was simultaneously handling PR for our products and services. By 2004, SnapNames had endured a layoff and some management changes, and we were preparing to update our service offering to meet some challenges from competitors. State of the Domain was taking a disproportionate amount of my time as well as of a few of my colleagues, so we elected to stop publication. It was the right move. We had established our credibility (not just through that publication), and others were getting into the stats game. We needed to focus on managing the company.

I continued handling communications and PR, but our management team was running lean. In a previous life, I worked for a Congressman in Washington, and industry regulatory issues were moving to the fore, so I began monitoring legislation and establishing relationships in Washington. Our company testified before both, the House and Senate, on Internet governance issues. Our industry is closely coordinated by a quasi-government non-profit (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers-ICANN) that meets three times yearly, and I have attended those meetings since 2003, addressing the non-government side of industry regulation.

Also, SnapNames had filed for patent protection for its products, but for whatever reason, no one was shepherding the applications along. I’m not a patent lawyer, but I gave it a try and, with help from our firm, we have since secured 18 patents from the US, Canada and China.

We grew the business nicely for the next couple of years and then in 2007 were acquired by Oversee.net, a Los Angeles-based company with operations in all parts of a domain name’s life cycle-registration, buying, selling, auctioning, brokerage, lead gen, and monetization. I moved into the VP Communications and Industry Relations role for the parent company, managing the company-wide PR and government relations efforts, and have been there for the past four years. I also now serve as chair of the Registrar Stakeholder Group (RrSG, in ICANN lingo) within ICANN, a group that represents about 1,000 domain name registrars worldwide in the Internet policymaking arenas.

My view on marketing hasn’t changed very much, honestly. The tools of marketing have changed in the past ten years, to be sure, but the premise of marketing hasn’t. In my experience, authenticity is the key to success. If you have an outstanding product or service, it usually “speaks” louder than anything you can spin. To successfully market and communicate, you need to understand your market exceedingly well before you sell into it. When I was in agencies, I used to ask clients to talk only about what they understood about marketplace pain for the first hour of our initial meetings, then tell me what they had created to alleviate that pain.

Q. As today’s Vice President of Communications and Industry Relations for Oversee.net, how is your department structured in order to encompass the company’s many subsidiaries as well as the gamut of communication disciplines that include public affairs and also intellectual property (patents) interests?

A. We still run pretty lean. The PR team is my very talented colleague in Los Angeles, Corinne Forti and me (I’m in Oversee’s Portland, Ore. Office). We have an agency in Washington DC that is highly specialized in this industry and handles PR support, while also advising us on industry governance. Oversee has a very strong marketing team led by the highly capable Aaron Kvitek, and our departments work to support each others’ efforts and make sure messages are always in agreement.

Anyone managing a function like this one, would always like to have additional resources. Since I don’t for now, Corinne and I frequently consult with the business leaders to make sure we have good information flowing to us. We also make it a point to talk to the sales teams, resources which I believe PR practitioners should use far more often to understand what’s happening in customers’ minds. So even if we’re sometimes stretched thin, we have a great network inside the company that helps make things efficient

Q. In what way does your position interact/collaborate with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)?

A. I interact with ICANN very frequently. Even if I didn’t chair the RrSG, ICANN’s role has grown so large that it’s hard to imagine it could be ignored. The hurdle for participation at ICANN is very low, and the organization attracts all kinds of people, so it’s growing all the time and taking on more and more policy work-more — than it can thoughtfully manage, really. Even governments are understanding how valuable domain name assets are. They’re portals for economic growth, intellectual property protection, education, and other functions. They have significantly increased their participation in ICANN. So has law enforcement, as they’ve looked to the ICANN and the domain name system to help combat crime.

Increasingly, all kinds of varied interests are looking to ICANN to help satisfy their agendas, at least partly through the domain name system, that includes ours. So on Oversee’s behalf, we interact with ICANN in a way that sorts through those agendas and identifies ways to work inside the ICANN policymaking process to take advantage of opportunities and deal with threats.

Q. Since Oversee’s competition can come from many sources, how do you market against so many fragmented messages and voices in the marketplace?

A. It’s a good question. Actually, I think the fact that the marketplace is so full of fragmented messages, gave us an opportunity to speak clearly when others didn’t always. As the Internet ramped up, online commerce was a scattershot of providers, each one trying to get a message across.

When we understood we had a pretty complete collection of services, we stayed mostly out of the tactical “buy my e-mail service” or “our domain name registrar is better” kinds of messages and, in PR, talked more about where the industry was headed in a macro sense, and what it meant for businesses and consumers. It was clearer, less cluttered and easy for everyone to understand, and it made us stand out against the other guys.

Also, our operations and marketing teams are extremely diligent in what we learn from customers. We have a very good set of data from opt-in customers, and we’ve worked really hard to give them the information they’re looking for. So by executing very well across all our product lines, we not only have a good reputation with our customers, we deliver what’s extremely relevant to them at the right moment. We always try to validate a customer’s reason for doing business with us every chance we get. Talking about yourself is one kind of marketing. Doing something particularly valuable is the better kind.

Spirit Airlines jumped on Weiner-gate faster than most, with their well-known marketing prowess. From the same company that targeted Arnold Schwarzenegger a couple of weeks ago, they promoted, this time around, a Weiner Sale that is “Too Hard to Resist,” with the text of the offer reading, “Hurry to book now, before this sale gets hacked.” Tasteless? Definitely, but somehow irresistible and in line for a company who’s president/CEO once shoved himself in an overhead bin to defend his company’s carry-on charges.

And then there was Jon Stewart, with his spoof on his purported “best friend” (college roommate). And then Letterman and Craig Ferguson took off, elongating the tale and at some point, after a few more comics took their turns, the laughs cooled off and the ridiculousness of it all set in.

Curiously enough, the media circus itself sobered up and some even took offense at the ongoing tasteless battering of Weiner.

Still, repercussions from the comic frenzy continued. For example, in the wake of the Weiner scandal, actor Alec Baldwin might now seriously consider running for mayor of New York City in 2013 when it was Congressman Weiner that had been considered as the Democrats’ frontrunner. And Eliot Spitzer, who embarrassingly enough always gets asked for commentary on political figures involved in shocking sex scandals for obvious reasons, said he sympathizes with Rep. Anthony Weiner — naturally.

Imagine – a simple matter of a miss-key on Twitter, results in laying bare (pardon the pun) of personal habits and preferences, exposing personal moral digressions to an unforgiving public.

Miss-key or not, it is a gross lapse in judgment to even consider the use of a medium that is meant for public consumption in the first place. Political figures, by the nature of their chosen paths, give up a certain right to behaviors that can be seen as inappropriate to the “political image” that got them elected in the first place. They are held up to a far greater public moral compass than the ordinary man in the street.

It doesn’t take a trained political PR guru to understand that the greatest sin from the perspective of the public was not the miss-keyed Twitter moment, but rather not being truthful at the moment of crisis. It is a flaw in judgment which should not have happened, given the PR training he must have received on the way to becoming an elected official. He could have joked about it, made some attempt at “Oops, I did not mean to put it out there” (another pun intended) or any other type of Mea Culpa. But to blatantly lie about “questionable certitude” is such a PR 101 lesson – that it becomes incredulous. Where were his advisors?

Message to remember – social media is very social indeed, as opposed to private media.

Brian O'Connor

Brian O’Connor serves as director of marketing & public relations for Cunard Line, the iconic British ocean liner company that operates QUEEN MARY 2, QUEEN VICTORIA and the new QUEEN ELIZABETH. He joined the company in 2006 as director, public relations.

In his current role he is responsible for directing strategic brand marketing which includes: advertising, direct mail, SEM, web content management, public relations, media relations, social media, promotions, protocol and special events throughout North America.

In 2011 he is serving as President of PRSA-LA the Los Angeles Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (5th largest in the country) having served on the Board of Directors for four years. For the past two years he has served as Co-Chair of the annual PRism Awards.

He is a member of PDI-POA, Protocol and Diplomacy International, Protocol Officers Association and is a graduate of The Protocol School of Washington®, Protocol Officer Training. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in Telecommunication from Michigan State University.

Q. Cunard Line continues to have a special romantic aura, which is likely attributable to its legendary history with its famed Atlantic-crossing voyages. But the impressive thing is that it has sustained this aura over all these many years. What were some of the steps taken to ensure this?

A. As a 171 year-old cruise brand, Cunard is in the midst of a renaissance in that we have brought three luxury ships into service in seven years thanks to our parent company Carnival Corporation. The first was Queen Mary 2 which, when launched in 2004, was the first Trans-Atlantic liner built in 35 years, she was followed by Queen Victoria in 2007 and new Queen Elizabeth (not QE3) launched in October 2010.

During the golden age of ocean travel, Cunard was considered “the only way to cross” the Atlantic and was the choice Line of the well-heeled, entertainment’s biggest stars, dignitaries and political figures alike. We honor and celebrate our ocean liner legacy and today offer a modern interpretation of that experience in what we call “The New Golden Age of Ocean Travel” aboard our fleet.

The steps we’ve taken to ensure the aura (or cachet) of our brand is maintained is most visibly seen through the design of our ships, specifically the interiors which are designed in the spirit of the floating palaces of the past – with rich wood veneers, marble floors, grand double and triple height spaces, plush carpets and elegant draperies such that your surroundings look and feel an ocean liner, not a cruise ship.

We remain committed to excellence through our famed White Star Service. Our crew is always and forever being trained on the tenants of WSS for which we take pride in attentive, anticipatory but unobtrusive service ideals and integrate them into everything we do. This gives us a unique spirit to serve which ensures that our guests are at the center of our world.

Additionally, we celebrate the civility of ocean travel by maintaining formal nights (on average three per seven night voyage). We consider dressing for dinner an event to be savored – like going out on the town – making a grand entrance down the staircase into one of our two-story restaurants, attending a West-end style musical production show and ballroom dancing in the Queens Room to a live orchestra during our Royal Nights Themed Balls

Q. Cunard participated in the Tournament of Roses Parade in 2011 for the first time ever, winning the coveted Queen’s Trophy. Did the company see value in this, and if so, what did that participation impact the most, locally regionally or globally?

A. As a niche British luxury brand, Cunard is very publicity-driven in our efforts to increase awareness here in the very competitive North America cruise industry. We did measure notable value from our participation in the Rose Parade not only through media impressions but in our efforts to raise awareness for the brand, our newest ship and the new west coast presence by Queen Victoria, a deployment which we will repeat in January 2012. The New Years day parade fit perfectly in between two other major tent-pole events by bridging our PR drum-beat which started in early 2010 before the launch of our new Queen Elizabeth and continued after the parade with a Cunard Royal Rendezvous on 13 January 2011 in New York.

Our impact resonated most locally with great local news coverage and nationally through our promoting our appearance to our vast travel agent network. We were absolutely thrilled to have won the Queen’s Trophy (for best use of roses)…how perfectly fitting for our brand. It was actually quite unexpected because we hadn’t focused on that aspect of the parade but clearly our float builder did and this team achievement is a testament to the professionals at Fiesta Parade Floats, our builder Tim Estes, designer Raul Rodriguez and floral designer Jim Hynd. They simply are the best in the business. Our success further confirms that we made the right choice to work with them.

Q. One of the very clever PR tactics that Cunard employs is a meeting of the “Queens,” as happened in major port cities around the U.S. — be it two or all three ships. In essence this seems to be a marketing of the “family of Queens.” Is this a global theme that the company markets? Notwithstanding, does each ship have its own separate and individual PR/marketing plan?

A. Since joining the company I have been amazed at the attention our ships attract – whether calling on a port solo or with one of her sister-ships. We’ve caused traffic jams in San Francisco, Sydney and Hamburg with hundreds of thousands of onlookers coming to see the arrival/departure of a Cunard Queen (in the case of Hamburg nearly one million people line the shore each time Queen Mary 2 calls – no exaggeration).

Cunard Royal Rendezvous’ events began back in 2005 when Queen Mary 2 sailed into Long Beach Harbor and met her predecessor Queen Mary. A campaign platform was born and since then our global PR teams have leveraged major press events and news coverage each and every time two or more of our QUEENS call on a port on the same day. I had the privilege of being in Sydney when Queen Mary 2 made her maiden call with QE2. We dominated the news for two days and as a result city leaders were tasked to review the traffic congestion issues that our ships caused for “Sydneysiders” that day.

On 13 January 2011, on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth’s maiden call to New York we promoted another Royal Rendezvous – only the second-time in Cunard’s history that all three Queens have called on New York together (the first on the exact same date back in 2008). It was a spectacular day that culminated with a Grucci fireworks display at the Statue of Liberty which was later referenced by a New York Times reporter as having “rivaled the 4th of July.” Three days later, on 16 January, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth called on Ft. Lauderdale together and then on 5 May, on the occasion of her final west coast call of the season, Queen Victoria pulled into Long Beach Harbor and guests, waving union jack flags (both onboard QV and Queen Mary) were surprised with a pyrotechnics show and whistle exchange between the two ships.

One Plan or Three?

One of the challenges we face in North America is that our QUEEN ship names have stronger top of mind recall than our brand name, so we spend a great deal of effort and brand management rigor linking the two. We market the fleet under a master brand umbrella and when appropriate we highlight certain deployments by ship and enrichment or special entertainment programming (for example, back in 2008 we hosted James Taylor and his band on a Queen Mary 2 Trans-Atlantic Crossing – they gave two performances in the Royal Court Theatre) and James did an interview with our Entertainment Director in front of a live audience. During the voyage (in between rehearsals) James signed autographs and took photos with our guests for nearly 2.5 hours. Before we reached Southampton he did the same with our crew members during a visit below deck to their galley.

Q. When Cunard launches a new ship as with the Queen Elizabeth in 2010, there is always an excitement that goes well beyond anything that happens in the cruise industry. How long in advance are events planned around a launch? Can you outline some timelines for a launch?

A. Industry executives and members of the media (especially cruise industry journalists) tell me repeatedly that no cruise line stages a ship launch like Cunard. This is due in part to the fact that a senior member of the British Royal Family has attended our ship launches consistently over the past 77 years dating back to Her Majesty Queen Mary in 1934.

We started planning the Queen Elizabeth ship launch 18-months prior to her scheduled delivery. Given that this ship was not going to hold any superlative distinctions like “longest” “tallest” “widest” and would not include an ice rink or rock climbing wall we were tasked with developing a PR campaign that would be relevant and meaningful for the brand and still capture the media’s attention.

Q. Clearly, the Cunard legacy is unlike any other cruise line. Do you feel that this defines present PR marketing initiatives?

A. In my role directing an integrated marketing and PR department – publicity is always a key component to our marketing plans and in some instance it is most effective for making a small three ship British cruise brand occur GRAND in the minds of North America consumers.

My team and I consider ourselves very fortunate in that our senior executives here and at our Head Office in Southampton, England recognize the power of PR for our brand and empower us to leverage every opportunity possible – whether it’s a major press event in New York, sailing James Taylor and his band or one of our most popular weekly themed Facebook posts “Today in Cunard History.”

Our community – specifically “Cunarders” (a distinction you earn after your first voyage with us) are very passionate about the brand and they won’t hesitate to tell us if they believe we aren’t delivering on our brand promise.