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TRANSCRIPT:
DOUG: Yeah, so many of the things you talk about are still important in the newsroom, but a lot has changed in the 13 years since you were there. Can you share your take on the “AI and the Newsroom” report that we shared with you?
PORTIA: I thought that report was very fascinating in the fact that producers so not the on-air talent, but the people who create the content, who come in each and every day to say, okay, how am I going to feel my newscast, how I’m going to stack my show that they are now optimizing for AI. And we’ll talk about that in a moment, how AI is really that new stakeholder. So, because they’re stretched so thin, we need the content to go as far as it can go. AI is that tool to be able to make it go even further beyond the audience, because now we’re in like the answer economy. We’re in the search economy. You know, I want the answer to this, boom there the answer is. So, if they’re creating content with AI in mind, that will just extend the reach of their productions and the things that they are creating each and every day. So, I thought it was fascinating that more than 68% of them would use a tool that would say, hey, yeah, I’ll use the content that can be optimized for AI. Sure. And that’s a new lens that I wouldn’t have thought would have progressed so quickly because normally they’re like, hmm, I don’t know, I’d rather get it myself or we’ve got staff to do that because they’re always a little distrustful. A lot of journalists still wearing that purist hat, you know. Is it ethical to take things from people or from companies or, you know, from entities that maybe don’t have the journalistic, you know, viewpoint that they had, but nowadays, because their resources are so thin, they’re going to need just that extra help and support to be able to still tell a story from an editorial standpoint, but to just make it work that much harder for them. I was fortunate to work for the Hearst Corporation, which had more resources than many, but even then, it’s the changing viewership. You know, with ad revenue going down, people don’t have the habit of watching daily news anymore, everything’s on demand. How do you get that captive audience to sit there and watch your newscast? When I was on the news, we had, you know, one rating point in the Milwaukee market just for your awareness way back then was 44,000 households. Morning show, we would get sixes, eights, things like that. Now, the morning shows are getting about twos, threes. The evening shows are about that same. So, that just shows the dramatic decline of viewership because I think baby boomers have the habit. Gen X might have the habit of watching the news, but millennials and Gen Z, Gen Alpha, it’s just not a habit for them.
DOUG: Yeah, though it is evolving because so much of the content is now online. You know, we’re seeing that the stations themselves are putting it online, have other sources which tie into AI, but you mentioned the reduction in resources for the stations who are putting out even more content. Is that expanding the role that PR people are playing, and what are some best practice ideas with that?
PORTIA: I think it makes it even more important. What we need to remember about PR is that still you have to tell it from a journalist point of view. They don’t want the glossy marketing thing that looks like an ad. In fact, I just had a reporter, you know, do the smell test with me and say, is this just an ad? And I said, no, no, this is actually what we would produce for you, and this is what we can give you. Oh, okay. You know, then it was like, okay, but it’s got to look editorial. It’s got to look real. And behind the scenes, it has to have the purpose, and the voice, and the feel, of your company still be on brand, but not the glossy, done up, and, you know, everything has to be just perfect. You know, they want it to look like they gather the news themselves. And so, you have to just kind of keep that in mind to when you’re sharing assets, you’re sharing stories. It has to be something that, you know, maybe they would have gotten on their own, but you’re just helping them take that extra step.
DOUG: Yeah, that is huge. And in your role at Sargento, you work with both the PR and marketing teams. How do you make sure they’re working together more cohesively, and have you seen that as a big change that’s happening?
PORTIA: We’re so fortunate at Sargento to have a great product brand that also bears our company name. So, we’re Sargento, the product, but also Sargento, the company. And for years, we have called ourselves the Sargento family. We’re the Sargento family of employees, and that comes from our founder, Leonard Gentine. He had a saying, “hire good people, treat them like family”. That’s back in the day, but that has lasted. I know a lot of companies, a lot of brands say, oh, we’re family, but no, it really means something at Sargento and we make sure that that family essence, the thing that gets played back to me by dozens of employees every time I sit down and talk to them to get their stories, it’s something I personally have experienced, that family feel, and now our brand is kind of leaning into that family essence of Sargento. You know, we’re third-generation, family-owned company. Of course, you know, we’ve got 2,500 employees who are part of that family that does good things to make people’s lives better. Even if you think it’s cheese, but cheese is a core memory. Cheese can be your grandma’s favorite meal. Cheese brings people together.
DOUG: I was going to say you’re talking about lunch. You know, you’re talking about dinner. And that’s when people and families historically are together. So, you know, everyone remembers what they were eating when they were young. The fact that it’s third-generation, that means a lot to people to sort of continue that.
PORTIA: And Doug, the way I see it is that any company or entity has three brands. You’ve got your purpose brand, your why, who you are. The things that don’t change. What you believe. What you do for your stakeholders. You’ve got your product brand that then you got to sell to consumers. Then you also have your people brand. You know, how your employees show up and what’s the value proposition for them. And those three things, if you think of like a Venn diagram, when it comes together at the center of that essence, that’s really the sweet spot. And that’s where we always kind of collaborate to make sure we’re replaying those family messages because if for us, it really is the truth that we’re talking about the third-generation family ownership. Most family-owned companies don’t make it past the third-generation.
DOUG: They don’t really make it past the first.
PORTIA: Yeah, super blessed to be able to be in the third-generation. And our CEO, he’s, you know, still a young guy. So, there we go. And the fourth-generation, they’re coming up. We’re seeing, you know, ways that they can maybe be part of the company too. They’re still very young, but, Louie, that’s what we call him, Louie Gentine. He has a plan. It’s one of those things where he’s like, you know, I want them to choose. They have to choose to be here, just like he chose to be here. So, we’re collaborating, making sure that that people’s story, the family story that that gets out there where this, you know, the tiny cheese company that could, you know, from Plymouth, Wisconsin, we got on World News Tonight a couple years ago when we were celebrating our 70th anniversary. Great, companies have milestone anniversaries all the time, but the thing that got us through the producer filter at ABC World News was that we have actual families that work there. We’ve got mothers, and daughters, and fathers, and sons, and cousins, and all this type of stuff. And we had that featured in the piece, and that was the thing they thought was unique. And then we have a family farm that’s a fifth-generation farm providing some of the milk for our string cheese. And that got into the story. So, that’s what drew them to our story. And we were able to pull that family thread through.
DOUG: So, we don’t have any family farmer available to help us celebrate our 40th anniversary. So, I might have to come to you offline to get in on the celebration. One thing we are celebrating, it’s a time when earned media seems to be uniquely valuable for brands. What’s your take on that?
PORTIA: Earned media is the very heart of PR, you know, it’s getting other people to talk about you. I think what’s happening now is through the influencer economy. A lot of people say that that’s, you know, but you’re paying for that, that’s marketing. That’s actually one of the oldest forms of marketing is the paid spokesperson, right? So, when you’re getting something earned, that’s extra credibility. And those are the things that the LLMs are picking up those results when somebody else wrote something credible about you, when going back to that journalist in that newsroom, when you have something like Fast Company or you have a really good business publication writing about you, that means you had a compelling story to tell. And that’s what the what AI is picking up. They’re delivering earned results more so than what you paid for.
DOUG: And finally, and maybe you touched on this or hinted at it with the influencer talk. The difference you feel between chasing buzz and storytelling. Why is storytelling so important?
PORTIA: Storytelling is still the heart of it. There are still critical pieces of a story that are always going to be relevant. You have to have a character. You have to have conflict. You have to have some tension. A story arc, a build. Then you got to have that resolution. And in a way, yes, influencers are kind of telling little stories every day, but they’re going after humor. You know, there’s other emotions that you can pull through in people and in your audiences that I think sometimes lacks a little bit on social media. Going for the quick laugh, okay, that’s great, but I don’t know if it will have long term results. You know, I don’t know if it’s diminishing returns. We’re still in the thick of it, but I do think that the influencer bubble may burst, because then people are going to start saying, wait a minute, they were paid to do that, or they want something that’s a little more authentic and they want the influencer to know, hey, they’re actually using that product in their daily lives. And that might be the where the pendulum kind of swings back, because right now you’ve got influencers doing things, you know, they’re not trying all these products, you know, on their own, or maybe it’s not something that they even use. So, we’ll see where that plays out, but I think any good story that’s authentic to who you are, sometimes you get an influencer to do something for you, and it’s like wearing clothes that don’t quite fit, you know, make sure that it is something that, yeah, you feel good in. And yeah, this is a great partnership. So, that’s evolved. And I say more to come on that.
DOUG: Well, I think you’ve convinced me to maybe joke a little bit less on that, but what you’ve given us is some really thoughtful information to consider it. Thanks so much for being part of the podcast.
PORTIA: Yes, thank you for having me.
