A few months ago, I spoke at Kent State’s YouToo Conference on the topic of ignoring SEO.

And as you can imagine, talking about SEO with a bunch of PR practitioners at a social media conference meant that my “breakout session” was more like a “campfire discussion.” Especially in comparison to the keynotes and more sexy topics that were going on at the same time.

Fair enough. I need to better understand my audience.

But this ignorance goes beyond a specific conference and my hurt feelings. Like when I see some of PR’s most retweeted minds continually flipping, flopping and forgetting opinions on the subject (links omitted because posts keep disappearing).

I don’t want to overgeneralize a segment of marketing, especially one I love and occupy, but many PR practitioners need to get over themselves. The ignorance (or worse, disdain) for SEO is often at odds at the very shiny objects PR wants to own, namely social media and content strategy, marketing and development.

We covered this a few different ways on this blog, but let’s just agree content is expensive. Let’s also agree that clients want to get the most out of this pricey prose.

Therefore, would anyone disagree that content is exponentially devalued without proper optimization and indexation? Without it, a piece of content’s shelf life is minimized. How is anyone going to find your whitepaper the day after you tweet it out? Or that incredibly-time-consuming infographic the day after it’s posted on your blog? Or case study after it’s on Facebook page?

Are we so arrogant to believe our followers are following at our own inflection points? Let’s look at some recent data.

According to one publisher, 41% of external traffic to their websites comes directly from search. Compared to 11% from social.

According to a comScore study, buyers “who purchase or convert online are almost as likely to use a combination of search and social resources (48%) as they are to use just search (51%) along the path to purchase.” Leaving a magical 1% making purchases on social alone.

It should be apparent at this point that you cannot over-update your audience into content consumption.

But let’s ignore that people make more purchasing decisions via search than social alone. Let’s ignore PR’s new-found love of social media, content marketing and strategy. Let’s keep quiet that PR and social media struggle for relevant statistics.

Let’s get even more basic: the website. Specifically, the one that belongs to clients. How many agencies (PR or marketing in general) want to develop a client’s new or existing website?

All of them.

So how can these agencies ensure maximum value for their clients by ignoring best practices in web development, many of which are accepted or implied by the search engines? I say this (again) because it isn’t just about stuffing keywords. SEO is so, so much more. It’s about proper markup and site hierarchy. It is also about making sure your site loads fast and user-friendly.

PR can’t share and tweet and +1 and Like it’s way to SEO success. The search engines aren’t there yet, regardless of what you’ve heard. Practitioners need to get their hands dirty in SEO minutia. And get past tactical keyword-research and press release distribution sites.

SEO has so many PR-friendly benefits, it’s absurd to me that PR practitioners wouldn’t be jumping at the chance to add SEO to their capabilities. Perhaps it’s finally time PR takes SEO seriously.

The battle for eyeballs is an expensive one. Not that anyone will tell you that.

While the idea of content marketing and content strategy continues to grow in stature for companies large and small – along with the mantra, “everyone’s a publisher” – many (myself included) forget to mention what is necessary to actually achieve this status.

A few reminders about some actual publishers, i.e. your competition.

• Journalism’s love sonnet, The Bay Citizen, has raised $14.5 million and has an annual budget of $4 million.
• The Big Lead, one of my favorite sports blogs, was sold for in the low seven figures.
• Five-year-old blog TechCrunch was sold for roughly $30 million.
• AOL’s hyperlocal Patch is taking aim at the Midwest.
• Gawker media blogs (e.g. Gawker, Deadspin, etc.) each have 40-50 posts per day.

In short, they have funding. And staffs. And distribution.

You don’t.

Compounding this, the cost of bad content has also never been so cheap. I can get someone to write an ebook for $5 (among other things). Yahoo will pay me $3 per article to write for their content network.

So not only are you competing against relevancy, you’re competing against SEO-laden volume. Sadly, the path to relevancy takes time. It also takes analytical skills to determine if your content plan of attack is actually working.

So you want to become a publisher? You want to produce content? Some things you should figure out before you start throwing around the terminology.

What is needed to produce a valuable piece of content?

This varies for each person, beat and type (blog posts vs. case studies vs white papers), but can you identify the amount of time it takes to produce a piece of content your staff is actually proud of?

If you have an idea of what an individual’s time is worth, it’s fairly easy to determine what the investment into content can cost the company, as well as the amount of leads necessary to justify its existence.

Can you identify the variables that actually produce leads?

Advertising revenue is not the goal for most content marketers and strategists. It’s about using content to convert.

We love learning how a prospect actually converts, then isolating that variable. Take what is known about landing page optimization into content. Too many very smart marketing departments still rely on asking leads “how’d you hear/find of us?” Do the work for them by either occasionally reviewing your goal sources or set up reports that automate the process.

The author makes a difference.

Having your staff of writers develop content is great. Having your writers individualize and interact as experts in your silo is better. Which person do you think would be more successful selling their novel (all things being equal) one that has a large following on Twitter or one that does not? Coming from your well-known company may give it cachet, but readers relate to (and prefer) individuals.

Going back to the first point, if you add the time to write AND build some semblance of a following/distribution strategy, you can have an even greater understanding of the investment necessary for content to exceed.

Flickr photo courtesy of gemteck1

Every once in a while, I have the pleasure of speaking to public relations students.

Talking about PR and communication theory are topics I never tire of discussing. It’s something I am still fascinated with, but also because it lends itself well into other marketing disciplines, specifically SEO.

Understandably, PR students want to know where to start with SEO and how it can benefit their studies. As PR students function first as writers, I start with the concept of copy, specifically keywords.

Unfortunately, that usually begins and ends with two equations.

SEO = keyword stuffing; Keyword stuffing = SEO success

Unfortunately, it’s also usually the same two equations used by many in the marketing communications world, from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies.

So many PR practitioners get can’t past SEO as it existed in 2001, and therefore never fully benefit from how it can be implemented within existing processes.

SEO is a method of making your content more relevant, not about gaming the system. It does not exist in a vacuum, and works well with other marketing disciplines. So if you think that stuffing keywords everywhere is going to accomplish your SEO goals, it will fail. Every time. If you think merely checking the SEO-ification box on your news release distribution of choice will accomplish these goals, it will fail. Every time.

While it’s infinitely more complicated, understanding the keyword universe is paramount to any type of tracking, let alone success.

Keyword research is about making a commitment.

It’s about knowing how your prospective customers search. It’s also about understanding the competitive nature of that terminology and its relevance to your larger goals. Your keyword universe is influenced by your analytics, and what is currently working and what is not.

Suddenly, if you start understanding that universe, and have a deep understanding of how you want to be found, SEO starts sounding a lot less like some nebulous acronym and more like an important part of the strategic marketing process. In fact, once you’ve done it, why would you ever leave it out?

PR therefore cannot exist as part of a strategic marketing strategy without SEO. And practitioners that do leave far too many opportunities on the table.

I hope this isn’t you.

If you’re curious how we meld the ideas of online PR, SEO, content marketing and such, let us know.

Flickr photo courtesy of trekkyandy

Monday’s media day marked the opening of training camps across the NBA.

While lacking the cachet of Major League Baseball’s spring training or the NFL’s training camp, media day is still a reminder that the NBA season is upon us and that hope springs eternal for fans everywhere.

To help ramp up their NBA coverage, ESPN decided to mark the opening of camp by turning the Miami Heat’s practices into a Jersey Shore rerun.

From USA Today’s Mike Hiestand:

ESPN will erect a set and parachute in analysts Jalen Rose, Josh Elliott and Jon Barry and reporters including Rachel Nichols for continuous surveillance across ESPN platforms.

Yes, this is the same Miami Heat that pulled off the most amazing free agent coup in professional sports history. And yes, this is the same ESPN that allowed LeBron James to turn the network into his personal YouTube channel over the summer with “The Decision.”

Cleveland homers aside, this is easily the main storyline across the NBA for the foreseeable future. However, as noted by Heistand, it’s very possible that ESPN won’t get footage of any actual practices and the reporters will solely rely on anecdotes and sound bites.

This is not news, and it burns me more than the heat of a thousand fiery suns.

ESPN has been an easy target for bloggers since the advent of the medium. It’s easy to poke the monolith. But ESPN earns it. From the ill-advised Barry Bonds reality show, to the constant battle over regional bias, these missteps bring about two very important questions.

1.  Is ESPN still considered a news entity?

Fact: ESPN has a news department.

However, their main news program, SportsCenter, has become a de-facto infomercial for its own interests. Without any real news that day, the main story often becomes the match-up it owns the rights to that evening or that weekend.

ESPN pays an exorbitant fee to televise the NBA’s regular season games, as it does for all the leagues it televises. But in the post-”Decision” world, one wonders what ESPN is reporting is actual news and what is merely manufactured hyperbole to get a higher return on their investment.

To give you an idea of that investment, the Worldwide Leader in Sports will cover 90 regular season games across its multiple platforms. Of those games, it will televise the Miami Heat in 15 contests, one less than the maximum allowed by the league. It needs the Heat to be a story, as it does the Los Angeles Lakers (16 games) and the Boston Celtics (15 games).

In contrast, imagine CBS News placing “Survivor” as its lead story or better yet, “Two and a Half Men.”

By constantly searching for ways to “synergize” programming with news, ESPN fails on the basic premise that the story is the focus, not the deliverer or the hype surrounding it.

2. How can ESPN objectively cover the very subjects it hopes to monetize through advertising?

By garnering inside access with the Heat in training camp, ESPN will continue to give the NBA’s unholy trinity yet another a platform to promote themselves.

By keeping this team in the spotlight, and banging that drum of publicity and matchups, ESPN is more likely to sell its multi-platform (web, on-air, radio, etc.) ad inventory.

And for good reason, they know this story sells.

“The Decision” garnered a 7.3 television rating for the hour long program. To put this into perspective, it was ESPN’s highest rating for any programming in 2010 to-date outside of NFL games, but including actual NBA playoff games on the network.

This quid pro quo becomes a self-perpetuating cycle of tabloid culture journalism that J-schools warn us about: becoming part of the news story itself.

Because of the answers to these questions are left unanswered, ESPN is in this purgatory of reporting and programming.

But in order for ESPN to continue as a credible news agency in terms of breaking and facilitating stories, the network needs to separate news and programming.

Immediately.

That means, during newscasts on ESPN and ESPNews, save the promos for the commercial break. No reminders of upcoming programming (or Disney movies tie-ins) during the show or in the scrolling bottom line.

At one point, it looked as though ESPN understood this problem by employing an ombudsman offering “independent examination, critique and analysis” in 2005. While the work of George Solomon (2005-07) and Le Anne Schreiber (2007-09) was admirable, the latest ombud Don Ohlmeyer has been absent or fashionably late when they needed him most.

As I said earlier, it’s easy to pick on ESPN. In fairness, they aren’t the only news entity straddling journalism and advertising. Yesterday alone, I was pointed towards Forbes and Fox News making their own interesting decisions.

Readers may also point to the fact that ESPN is entertainment and a business (and a very successful one at that). Their main objective is revenue, not objectivity.

Fair enough.

So at what point do we stop calling what they do news? At what point does in the advertising and marketing world understand that ESPN’s multi-platform model of synergy is one that all outlets would like to emulate?

If every news outlet becomes as invested in their programming as ESPN, or worse, merely crowdsources to shape news, a lot of relevant stories get lost.

I don’t know about you, but as someone that enjoys a bias-free newscast, that’s a scary world indeed.

Flickr photo courtesy of ChicagoGeek

You’re a genius.

Your company has harnessed the universe in such a way that you’ve developed the most wonderful proprietary service/widget/product the world has ever seen. High fives all around. Start printing the money. Right? Right?

We see it all the time, but especially in the A&D marketplace: great products, innovative solutions and … crickets.

Marketers are continuously being told to be “buyer-focused,” but often forget to explain how problems are being solved in a way customers actually understand. That, or the message isn’t getting through to PR and communications departments.

In the same manner you would protect your company name in the event of online reputation management issues, you need to own the search results for all the potential problems your wonder product solves. Same strategy (and often tactics), same results.

And how does one do that?

First, you need to understand how and where your customers are searching for your solution. And if they’re American, they’re probably going to Google first and refining their search until they get their answer.

Next, you have to understand all the ways your customer may search for their problem (and your solution) via your favorite keyword tool, while still understanding the competitive nature of certain terms. Be selective and realistic; the problem keyword phrases you want to own are often non-competitive terms.

Once you know all the ways that people search high and low (and the longtail) for that answer, you have to figure out a way to get that copy on your site. Writing a press release and developing specs in a PDF isn’t going to own that problem, as searchers aren’t going to A) find it relevant or B) click on those in the search engine results pages.

One great way to use searchers’ behavior in your favor is to think of developing content as one giant FAQ. You can get started with one FAQ page and keep building it until you can turn every one of those questions into it’s own page.

The second part of this equation is laying out the content in a way that actually compels someone to take that next step, and become a conversion. You must realize that every page on your site is a potential landing page, so how are you capturing that visitor? A form? A dedicated phone number? These new pages must entice with a call to action.

Finally, you have to diversify your message. Content onsite is great, but if you really want to own your problem and those search results, you must take your message to video. Turn those FAQs into short video clips with keyword-enriched titles and descriptions and links back to related pages on your own site. Because video is all about the longtail, write separate variations of those titles and descriptions and syndicate these videos across multiple services (i.e. don’t just rely on YouTube).

For more information on our online PR services and to learn how to integrate PR with SEO strategy, digital asset optimization and conversion, contact us today.

Cricket photo via Flickr courtesy of seeveeaar

We’re sad to report that the 24-hour news cycle has died, according to sources.

Survived by good friend Wolf Blitzer, the 24-hour news cycle had a solid 30-year run that begat such staples as the news ticker and election night holograms.

No longer do we measure news in hours. So why bother with a 24-hour news cycle? In it’s place, we welcome the 86,400-second news cycle. Same amount of time, many more opportunities.

This new moniker is better suited to describe our current media digestion habits, in which every news outlet, blog and Twitter-er is doing their best to dominate a news story one second at a time. Whomever can shout the loudest each second of each day, owns that second and the thousands of retweets, Likes and traffic that go with it. While it was once a faux pas to be incorrect, as long as you are first to proclaim such inaccuracies, accountability is forgotten. Whereas the media once balked at a story because of a lack of exclusivity, they’ll instead write seven articles on a subject for search-friendly headlines and pageviews.

Think yellow journalism cubed.

And no story has more accurately played out this new news cycle than the courting of NBA superstar and current free agent LeBron James. And I didn’t realize it until last Friday when I made a guest appearance on the WEWS 5 p.m. news to discuss the brouhaha. As fans across the U.S. live and die with every rumor via Twitter and I was sweating on live TV, it became clear that social media has had a profound impact on how news is disseminated.

Two things will happen in the 86,400-second news cycle that only happened sporadically before (and the first is fairly obvious): When you have no new information, inundate the masses with filler and non-news from “sources,” to pass the time.  And by “sources,” we don’t mean the ones of Woodward and Bernstein’s yesteryear. We mean “sources” as in “I just made this up to get noticed” and “Really, I just asked the security guard.” The New York Times is no longer the standard of journalism, everyone wants to be the New York Post.

Per esempio: among the things we were updated on during LeBronageddon from “sources:”

• Daily wardrobe updates of James and his suitors
• The types of plane James’ suitors used while flying into CLE
• The type of sandwiches ordered into meetings
• Which specific teams were NOT to cross paths in the hallway
• That those two specific teams did, in fact, cross paths

While it would be easy to blame social media or bloggers in general for the current media landscape, the LeBrodyssey has produced more contradictory stories, quotes and interviews from the traditional sports media than anyone. While we could blame the lost iPhone 4 saga on those silly, unethical bloggers, no one has been holding the traditional media accountable for their predictions or sources during episodes of The LeBrachelor.

The second thing that happens in the 86,400-second news cycle: the media gives the newsmaker, the gatekeeper, way too much power.

Yes, this stuff happened in bits and pieces prior to LeBronukuh, but we now live in the world where the chief newsmaker is granted a 1-hour free-for-all to push their agenda, no questions asked. Where merely confirming their existence on Twitter is breaking news. How many hard-hitting questions do you think ESPN will ask of LeBron during their patty cake session?

For companies big and small, B2B and B2C, manufacturing and retail, there are lessons to be learned from this passing into the 86,400-second news cycle.

1. You have even less control over the news than yesterday. While the lesson from above may be “Transparency is only relevant when you’ve done something wrong” or “Hold back as much information as possible and be rewarded” these are not lessons your company can use effectively in the long-term. Have PR and social media protocols in place that prepare your company as much as possible for the unknown.
2. Be relevant and targeted. It would be easy to say, “The iIternet is a sea of CAPS LOCK, so start yelling.” But you’re not Apple or LeBron James.  Instead, let this at least be the wake-up call that sending out a press release is not going to bring you news coverage or sales. Make your company relevant to what is actively being discussed (and don’t stretch it).
3. We’re not going back. To use every overused cliche possible: you can’t unring that bell or put the toothpaste back in the tube. This is the media landscape we live in, and it has ADHD. Online PR strategies will need to incorporate the technology most relevant to your audience.

For more thoughts on the genre, check out our other posts on online PR or check out our online public relations capabilities.

Flickr photo courtesy of berther

Sport brings out the best in advertising, especially in the US. While the gold standard has usually been the Super Bowl, advertising, social media and PR departments have to get a little bit more creative when dealing with an event that is expected to break every known online multimedia record in the book.

And for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the departments that struck first all belonged to Nike.

The aforementioned Oregon-based company set the advertising and social world aflame with a three minute cinematic masterpiece and subsequent campaign entitled “Write the Future.”

The spot, by Wieden+Kennedy, was released a few weeks prior to the month-long World Cup tournament first via Nike’s Facebook page and then via YouTube. The video was even “leaked” to some influential bloggers to build the suspense.

As expected, the ad and sporting world gushed at the sheer extravagance. I read “best commercial ever” in more blog posts than I care to recall. Nike even took that PR-worthiness up another notch by using acclaimed, two-time Oscar-nominated director Alejandro González Iñárritu. And, as Nike hoped, that gushing caused most of us to forget that Nike wasn’t one of the World Cup’s official sponsors.

Sucks to be you, Adidas.

High fives all around, right? Not so fast.

Here we are, a few weeks in and none of the featured stars will be around when the quarterfinals begin on Friday. Not just out of the tournament, but most left South Africa in spectacular fashion.

In order of their appearance in the video:

Didier Drogba (Côte d’Ivoire) – The Ivory Coast star broke his arm just days before the tournament and the Les Elephants didn’t make it to the knockout stage.

Fabio Cannavaro (Italy) – The Italian defender and his fellow Azzurri walked into the World Cup ranked No. 5 in the FIFA rankings. They left South Africa as the “cavalieri della vergogna” (knights of shame) by not getting out of their group. I also may or may not have cried.

Wayne Rooney (England) – With the hopes of England on his shoulders, Rooney didn’t score a goal and the Three Lions bowed out with their worst World Cup defeat ever (to rival Germany) in the round of 16.

Franck Ribéry (France) – Before the World Cup even started, Ribéry was dogged by a prostitution scandal that was front page material in all of Europe’s big city tabloids. Les Bleus would ultimately exit in epic fashion with Ribéry receiving a departing gift of … groin surgery.

Ronaldinho (Brazil) – Samba-Robics are great. Unfortunately, he didn’t even make Brazil’s final squad.

Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) – The finale in both the spot and the World Cup, Ronaldo and his teammates lost 1-0 in the round of 16 to tournament-favorite Spain. The highest paid player in the world managed only one goal in tournament and the LA Times described his play thusly: “He is a fraud, an impostor, a sheep in wolf’s clothing.” Ouch.

And yet, with all this player analysis and failure (or in Ronaldinho’s case, lack thereof), does it really matter? Is the “Write the Future” curse the next Madden curse?

• At the time of this blog post, the video was closing in on 18 million views on YouTube.
• Subsequent shorter features on each player combined for another 2 million views
• There are over 434,849 related blog posts in Google’s blog search for “Write the Future”
• Searches for “write the future” are endless on Twitter
• The spot also “broke the record for the biggest audience in the first week of a campaign” on YouTube
• According to Fast Company, Adidas “can only muster 14.4% of the ‘official and competitor buzz’ as Nielsen has it, compared to Nike’s 30.2%”

Reviewing the spot repeatedly and reading just about every coherent article written about it, this campaign was an expertly placed and timed guerrilla campaign that associated the Nike brand with the World Cup without having to pay FIFA’s extortion exorbitant sponsorship fee.

Sucks to be you, Adidas.

Without a doubt, the winner of the pre-World Cup brand war was Nike. By a landslide.

However, with the amount of star players identified in the ad, Nike had to think at least one of their stars would make to the finals. So with no one left to “write the future,” can Adidas make a comeback?

Yes.

The German brand not only sponsors three of the team favorites still playing (Spain, Germany and Argentina), sponsors a whole half of the bracket (guaranteeing a spot in final) and the most well-known players left in Argentina’s Lionel Messi, Spain’s David Villa and Brazil’s Kaká, who happen to be in the Adidas commercials. Nike has, well, the Netherlands (and Wesley Sneijder) and Brazil.

Knowing where we’re at now, which brand would you choose to be? Nike or Adidas?

I’d choose Adidas. By a landslide.

It wasn’t your doing Nike, but it sucks to be you.

Flickr photo courtesy of turkeychik

We no longer follow our sports heroes in box scores and cliched soundbites, but mind-boggling minutiae.

News is broken instantaneously, and not even by those who cover the beats day in and out, but by those who follow each and every communication by said heroes. Before details can be assessed, 140 characters can send fans, press row and front offices into a frenzy of speculation.

Last week, pro basketball player and upcoming free agent Chris Bosh of the Toronto Raptors changed his Twitter location from “Toronto” to “everywhere,” removed his Toronto-related bio and opined to the masses:

Minutiae? Absolutely.

Frenzy? Speculation? Done and done.

What did we learn? Nothing. Even a week later, it makes ESPN’s BottomLine, and yet we still have nothing of substance to add to the story.

I’m a big believer of social media* and it’s power to fuel relevant stories, blog posts and information. But this type of reporting infuriates me.

A lot of organizations are using and following social media as way to gain exposure through thought leadership and content development in their space. But while many industries aren’t as minutiae-driven as professional sports, timeliness and story-telling are still crucial.

Aspiring thought leaders: You’re not ESPN or CNN, so don’t try to be. Don’t regurgitate but instead tell us why it’s important. If you’re writing content for your site, you still need to ask questions, come to conclusions and tell the audience a story. It’s not enough to be first, outlets need to shape the minutiae in a rational way for those that don’t have the time for it. In doing so, you provide value.

Aspiring company-related minutiae senders: You’re not Chris Bosh, so don’t try to be. Refrain from half-baked ideas or thoughts. If you’re using Twitter or other social media, develop a list of topics, keywords and types of content that your audience actually wants to read. In doing so, you become valued.

For more information on how we can help you shape your social media marketing strategy and provide value, contact us today.

Flickr photo courtesy of Zen.

*Understatement

It’s here.

As AdFreak so unceremoniously reminded me this morning, KFC unveils their Double Down sandwich today. For the uninitiated, KFC’s news release describes the sandwich as:

… two thick and juicy boneless white meat chicken filets (Original Recipe® or Grilled), two pieces of bacon, two melted slices of Monterey Jack and pepper jack cheese and Colonel’s Sauce. And no bun!

They had me at the exclamation point.

We live in a schizophrenic country, where we place gyms and drug stores on every block, yet we’ll be less healthy than the generation before us. Because of that, it would be really easy to go on a rant about unhealthy products and marketing responsibility, but it’s been done before, and it’s a lazy blog post.

Spare me your high horse, these companies aren’t trying to kill us. Who’d buy their finger-licking sandwiches?

It’s merely a function of how products are unveiled these days. KFC is trying to tap into the ever-elusive siren of online buzz, a term I can barely type without cringing. It’s no different than when a minor league baseball team unveils an unhealthy promotion (like the Fifth Third Burger) or the newest social media company tests their alpha version. Publicity is a well thought out machine, determining audience and differentiation. What makes this product different is not the lack of a bun, it’s that the product sounds and looks absurdly unhealthy. The “buzz” being generated is a testament to that.

For the record, I don’t have a problem with KFC producing or advertising these types of gut-busting products. The problem lies in that this product is coming on the heels of last year’s KCF “UnThink” grilled chicken campaign (from which, the microsite no longer works), which was advertised as a healthy alternative to their other products.

While company flacks address the calorie count (540 calories) “similar numbers to many of the burgers available at fast food restaurants today,” it’s weak. You can’t use the ‘tubes for buzz on one campaign and not expect it to affect long-term online reputation, especially when your company makes such a big deal about it. So which is it KFC, do you want to be known as a healthy alternative or not?

If you’re going to go cholesterol-fest on us, go all-in. Otherwise, the Double Down campaign is a short-term win, but a long-term let down.

Photo of an actual Double Down sandwich from Consumerist