SeaWorld and the Blackfish problem

So I've mostly written about cases in which good PR helped a company, but today I'm going to talk about how bad PR can tear a company apart.

The documentary Blackfish was released in July of 2013. The film underscores problems within the sea-park industry, while specifically targeting SeaWorld. Ever since the release of the film, SeaWorld has received tremendous backlash both verbally and financially. The company's stock went down 33% in August of 2014 when it announced that attendance at its San Diego park had slowed in the second quarter as a result of the documentary.

Obviously, the film posed a great threat to SeaWorld, but if the company would have handled the situation in a better manner it might not be facing the financial hit that it is today. After the release of the film, SeaWorld chose to ignore it, which was a bad move on the company's part. Now that SeaWorld has addressed the film, it only seems that it did so because SeaWorld did not want to lose any more money as a company.

In response to the negative media attention the company started to receive because of Blackfish, SeaWorld set up an entire page on its website entitled "Blackfish: The Truth About the Movie." The page essentially debunks the movie as propaganda, and tries to disprove every fact that was portrayed in the film. This PR tactic did nothing for the company except make it look like a bunch of money hungry executives that are in denial about the nature of the sea-park business.

In another response to the film, SeaWorld also announced that it has pledged to implement mass upgrades to the habitats of its Orca whales. SeaWorld promises among other things to nearly double the size of the tanks in San Diego and eventually in Orlando through 2018. It also plans to build “water treadmills” to foster exercise for the marine giants. This tactic basically makes the company look like hypocrites. By completely denying that Blackfish has any clout, and then making habitual changes to its parks in response to the backlash from the film heightens the money hungry persona of the company that was actually portrayed in Blackfish. 

So, nothing has seemed to work for poor old SeaWorld, and it's mostly because its PR team did not take the right steps to help the company come out of the mess. One thing the company did get right, however, is promising to improve the environments of its animals. Instead of setting up an entire website page denying the facts presented in Blackfish, the company should have first immediately addressed the film in a statement recognizing that some of the facts are actually true, but that the company has since taken steps to fix the mistakes that it has made. This would not have made everyone happy, of course, but it would not make the company look like a bunch of hypocrites either.

Then, it would have to take steps to implement the mass upgrades that the company already pledged to make. Afterward, it would have been best for the company to not draw anymore attention to the film than it already has. Over time, the backlash would eventually seize once it's no longer an issue that's in the public eye. That's just how the media cycle works.

In the case of SeaWorld and Blackfish, SeaWorld is sort of digging its own grave by using these PR tactics. Unless SeaWorld changes the way that its handling the Blackfish issue, I won't be surprised if this just runs the company right into the ground.

Queen Bey is here to STAY

See what I did with that title? Anyways, it was around this time last year that the Queen dropped an album that NO ONE knew was coming. It was simply titled Beyoncé. Without any marketing or promotion, the album debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 chart and went on to sell more than 5 million copies worldwide.

On the other hand, Lady Gaga preceded the release of her third album, ARTPOP, with plenty of marketing and promotion. However, the album only went on to sell 2.3 million copies. So, how did Beyoncé manage to double the sales of her album with absolutely no marketing initiatives leading up to the release? Well, I've come to the conclusion that Beyoncé's team is comprised of marketing and PR geniuses. Like, seriously, these people are insanely smart.

When I analyzed the release of Beyoncé, I realized that the Queen's team specifically paved the way for the album's release without us even realizing it. THAT'S how genius they are.

So, in order to see where it all started, we have to go back all the way to January 2013 when Beyoncé released an album with her gal pals of Destiny's Child. In the same month, she sang the National Anthem at none other than President Obama's second inauguration. We later on came to find out that she actually sang along to a pre-recorded track because she happened to be sick that day. This, unfortunately brought a lot of scrutiny, but everyone quickly moved on when she put on one of the most amazing Super Bowl half-time performances of all time. Side note: I sort of freaked out when Kelly and Michelle of Destiny's Child came out. Actually, I completely freaked out.

Anyways, Mrs. Carter didn't stop there. On February 16 of that year, she released her full-length documentary on HBO, Life Is But a Dream. In April, Beyoncé embarked on The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour, which was comprised of 132 dates and lasted almost an entire year. Lastly, in May, she lent her voice to several tracks of the 2013 film adaptation of The Great Gatsby, which became hugely popular when the soundtrack was released.

In the months leading up to the release of Beyoncé, the wonder-woman was featured on several other artist's albums including her husband Jay-Z's album Magna Carta. She also managed to stay in the spotlight by parading around NYC and LA with little baby Ivy. All the while, us commoners had no idea that Queen Bey was recording tracks and filming music videos for the amazing piece of work that is Beyoncé. 

So, the secret to her album's successful non-promotional release? Avidly keeping Beyonce in the spotlight the entire year. There is no way that the album would have had a successful non-promotional release if Beyoncé was not relevant. Beyoncé's team kept her in the public eye by doing all of these things I described above along with red carpets, occasional interviews and talk shows, and so on. The most important aspect of this was to keep her doing exciting work. Lady Gaga, on the other hand, came out of left field and just started promoting her album. She had been out of the spotlight for a while, and people started to lose interest in her.

Queen Bey's PR and marketing team geniusly managed to promote the superstar without actually promoting the product, and that's just amazing.

How is Kim Kardashian so famous?

Ok, so I'm pretty sure you've seen Kim Kardashian's spread in Paper Magazine by now. If you haven't, you're probably living under a rock. Anyways, this thing showed up everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE. I couldn't get away from it, no matter how hard I tried. This lead me to re-ask myself this question for the 1000th time: Why is Kim Kardashian famous???!!!!

I know that I personally ask myself this question every time she shows up on my Facebook news feed, or as the subject of a front page story on the Huffington Post. She's not famous for being talented, obviously. However, she is still one of the most recognizable faces in the world. Now, how does that happen? Well, in my opinion, Kim K's "success" is due in part to genius management and PR.

Yep, it was her management and PR team that took Kim from sex tape infamy to world-wide superstardom. How did they do it though? Let's go back in time to 2007 when Keeping up With the Kardashians first aired on E!....

It was October, approximately 8 months after Kim's sex tape leaked on the internet, when one of the most successful reality shows first aired. No one knew who the Kardashians were, nor did they care. The only things attracting viewers were: Some people who knew that the late Robert Kardashian was O.J. Simpson's lawyer during the whole "O.J. Simpson controversy," and a whole bunch of people who heard of "that girl who had a sex tape earlier this year." The producers of the show were smart in showcasing Kim as the star of the show, mostly because she was the only semi-familiar face in the entire family besides Bruce Jenner.

E! promoted the show well, and people were genuinely interested in the Kardashians. The show immediately became a hit, and now it's been around for seven years! I know, I don't get it either. The Kardashian family's fame could have come and gone just as fast as any other one hit wonder, but they've been milking it so much that it actually kind of made them actual A-listers.

Kim's first step was succumbing to becoming the person everyone thought she was. Since her sex tape, people thought of Kim as a sex symbol. So, her management/PR team pitched Playboy, and she ended up being on the cover of a 2007 issue of Playboy. So, it's safe to say that 2007 was the year that launched Kim Kardashian.

The reality show remained successful and Momager Kris Jenner, along with the rest of Kim's team, came up with the idea of monetizing everything they could by sticking Kim's name on EVERYTHING. By everything, I mean everything. Like, there's a fricken video game with her name on it. Anyways she started charging for everything: club appearances, tweets, endorsements, etc. The more things she put her name on, the more people started to recognize her, which in turn caused an upward ascent on the price of the Kim Kardashian name. If your company wants Kim Kardashian to show up at a party or talk about your product, it's gonna cost you upwards $750,000.

So essentially, Kim's team did what any other PR professional does. They saw an opportunity, and they TOOK IT. Despite the fact that I strongly dislike every member of the Kardashian family, I do have to give props to the team that made her as famous as she is today.

And now, to the Paper magazine spread. So here's an example of a perfectly planned publicity stunt, and Kim's camp has crafted plenty of those. Pretty much anytime Kim is no longer trending on Twitter, something super crazy happens involving Kim Kardashian. What a coincidence right???? If you guessed that it's not a coincidence, you're most definitely right. Her televised wedding to Kris Humphries? PR stunt. Kim's Instagram post where all she's wearing is a teeny weeny white bikini? PR stunt. And of course, Kim bearing it all in this month's issue of Paper Magazine? DEFINITELY a PR stunt. She's been trending the entire week, and I'm sure that's just the way she wanted it.

Wait what?

Ok, so I know I said that this blog would be about public relations, but this post is a tad off topic. I thought that this week, I could discuss how to develop a voice as a writer.

When I was 19, I interned for a local newspaper and I wrote several articles for the publication. My boss would edit my articles before they were published, but I would always be somewhat offended when she edited my articles because she would unintentionally take out my personal spin on the topic I was writing about. I was too scared to actually say something back then, and it's a shame because I'm sure she had no idea what she was doing. She was altering my voice as a writer.

As someone who still writes in her spare time, I have found it to be extremely interesting to analyze the way that others choose to write. So, what dictates someones voice? I have chosen to analyze a popular blog in the world of public relations: Peter Shankman.

Peter Shankman is a world renowned entrepreneur, speaker and author. His expertise is in business, communications and public relations. In his blog, he writes about his opinions and thoughts, while also giving advice that can help those who work in the business and communications fields.

To show you his voice, I'm going to analyze two of his most recent posts and dissect his writing in each post.

1." Follow Them: People Who Piss Me Off, Volume 2!"

In this post, Shankman is talking about people who essentially piss him off. According to him, there are two types of people that piss you off: the annoying pests (mosquitoes) and people who motivate you. He chose to write about the people who motivate him and piss him off at the same time - if that makes any sense?

Let's take this excerpt from the post:
"Ryan Shell, you piss me off pretty much every damn day. You took an idea you had and turned it into a company. OK, I've done that. You've made it successful. Well, I've done that too. But you do it with a level of number-crunching, testing, and data-analysis that this ADHD poster child couldn't even DREAM of. I treasure our morning bike training rides together because I get to spend 90 minutes working out and learning more during my ride than I could ever learn by getting an MBA. Thank you."

In this excerpt, Shankman is sarcastic and funny, but he also uses capitalization, punctuation and figures of speech. For example, he starts by saying "you piss me off pretty much every damn day," which is meant to be slightly sarcastic because as we find out later in the paragraph, Ryan Shell and Peter Shankman are actually friends. He then capitalizes the word "dream" so to emphasize how much he looks up to Shell and strives to be like him. He also pokes fun at himself by admitting that he has ADHD, but he exaggerates in a comedic fashion by saying that he is the poster child for the disease, which is obviously not true. 

Throughout this post, he also uses slang words like awesome, hell, crappy, which makes his writing style more conversational and informal while still supplying valuable information to the reader. 

2. "How Aaron Sorkin Can Restore the Entrepreneur's Work-Life Balance"

In this particular post, Shankman discusses the ever present dilemma of balancing work with everything else in your life. He uses the writer of The West Wing, Aaron Sorkin, as a prime example of this balance. 

There are several instances in the post where Shankman's voice shines through. For example:

"On the same note, I’m writing this from a plane on my way to Thailand for a speech and then boomerang back to NYC. I think I have three days there. It might be four, it might be two. I don’t know, because Meagan decided to go on damn VACATION THIS WEEK, and I don’t even know my name."

In this excerpt he again uses capitalization to stress the fact that Meagan (who I'm assuming is his assistant) is on vacation and it has caused Shankman a little bit of stress. He's funny when he states that he doesn't even know his own name without her. Obviously, he is not so stressed that he can't remember his name, but he is using exaggeration to take a likely stressful situation and making it funny. Now let's take another excerpt from the same post.

"I know what you’re saying – “Dude – You’re actually OK with being so busy that connecting with your best friend on a Saturday on the damn subway is actually ok?” 

In this sentence, Shankman uses the terms "dude" and "damn," which are both informal, despite that the post is aimed at entrepreneurs. Shankman's strategy of using a conversational tone in his posts could be one of the driving factors of his blog's success. In my opinion, I would rather read an informative blog that is easy to digest and relatable. I think most people feel the same way.

Shankman is candid and not afraid to say what he thinks, but he does so in a clever way by mainly using capitalization, slang terms, sarcasm and exaggerations. His tone is informative, yet conversational, which is the perfect balance for a professional blog such as his. 

Who is Dave Fleet?

Well, Sir Dave is the Senior Vice President of Digital at Edelman’s Toronto office. No big deal, right? Anyways, he has a blog that’s pretty informative and well-versed on all things related to communications and PR. It’s called davefleet.com. Not very original, I know, but Mr. Fleet is quite relevant in the world of PR. He writes about advancements in fields relating to marketing, social media, communications, and of course, public relations. Considering that Fleet works for one of the most prominent PR agencies in the world, it is safe to say that he has much authority in the world of PR.

Prior to working at Edelman, Fleet launched and built a digital communications practice at a mid-size agency. Additionally, in 2008, he was presented with the Amethyst Award, the highest award available to Ontario public service staff.

As a side note, it is important to note that although Fleet works for Edelman, he does not write on behalf of the company. The thoughts and opinions found on davefleet.com are all his own.

Fleet began his blog in 2005, but did not consistently post until 2007. Today, he is rather inconsistent in his posts. Sometimes he’ll post a couple times a week, and other times he will make a post every other month. Considering that the quality of his posts, it seems that this format works well for Fleet. I believe that Fleet only makes a post when he thinks it is actually informative.

This leads me to talk about the tone of davefleet.com. Fleet chooses an informative and serious tone when writing his posts. The blog is well written, and his posts are both concise and pretty easy to comprehend. He uses several photos, which give the posts a nice visual component. However, he only uses photos when it actually makes sense for the post. For example, the post “How Lean In Got Me Thinking,” doesn’t contain any photos, but it is short and easy for the reader to follow along. In the end, I actually learned something from reading this post. Fleet places more emphasis on the content of his blog rather than its aesthetic factors.  Still, the layout of the blog is sleek and professional, which goes along perfectly with the tone of his posts.

On the other hand, in the post “Marketing, Community, Support, or All of the Above?” Fleet uses two pictures, but both of those pictures have a purpose. For example, one of the subheadings in his post is “When I Was Your Age…”, and Fleet put a picture of an older man sticking his cane out towards the reader. This picture makes sense with the post. Also, Fleet included an infographic that supported the point he was trying to make in the post

Reader engagement is quite low on davefleet.com. The highest amount of comments that I could see on a post was 20, which may mean that Fleet’s readers either do not feel comfortable commenting on posts or they may just view the blog as a purely informational source. Also, I couldn’t find an instance where Fleet actually responded to any of his readers’ comments. This may or may not be hurting the number of readers. According to the Alexa ranking system, davefleet.com is ranked number 462, 165 globally and 311,037 in the United States. In order to gain a higher readership, it may be a good idea for Fleet to post on the blog more consistently. Additionally, it would be beneficial if he were to interact on a more regular basis with his followers.

Let's make a viral video!

It seems that all anyone wants when they post a video on the internet is for that video to go viral. What most people don’t know is that making something go viral doesn’t always just happen by accident. In fact, most, if not all, of the viral videos that are produced by major organizations are specifically tailored to go viral.

Yes, it’s true that sometimes a video does go viral by accident. Take for instance the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge videos. This is a slightly different case in the sense that it is not one particular video that went viral, but instead a whole slew of videos with similar content that went viral. According to the ALS Association, the charity responsible for taking in the donations from the challenge, it did not foresee the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge to become nearly as successful as it was.

In other cases, however, a company puts in months and months of effort into a video in the hopes that it will go viral. One example of this is the Dove Real Beauty Sketches video, which went viral in 2013. Just in case you are not familiar with the video, which has over 64 million views on YouTube, I’ll provide a brief summary.

In the video, several women describe themselves to a forensic sketch artist who cannot see his subjects. The same women are then described by strangers whom they met the previous day. The sketches are compared, with the stranger's image invariably being both more flattering and more accurate. The differences create strong emotional reactions when shown to the women. The overall goal is to show women that they are more beautiful than they think they are by comparing self-descriptions to those of strangers.

Now, what do the Dove Real Beauty Sketches video and the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge videos have in common? Both videos contain engaging content. The first step in producing a viral video, is great content. Without good content, no one is going to want to watch that video, right?

The second thing that these videos have in common is that they were performed/shared on social media by key influencers, such as celebrities. In order for a video to go viral, it must be easily shareable, or else people will have trouble showing the video to their friends and family.

In addition to the good content and shareability of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge videos, the challenge had a little bit of luck on its side. Sometimes, good timing can be a key factor in whether or not a video will go viral, but the Dove Real Beauty Sketches creators took the content and shareability of the video to a social video marketing agency.

You might ask, “What is a social video marketing agency,” and that’s the same question I had when I first heard of it. After doing some research on the company that Dove used, Unruly, I was truly amazed at the existence of such a company. Essentially, Dove paid Unruly to place the video on major outlets, as well as several forms of social media platforms. So whenever you scroll down your Facebook feed and see “sponsored post,” that’s exactly what Unruly did for Dove. It’s a new form of advertising, and sometimes it doesn’t work, but in the case of Dove it worked out fantastically.

Love at first click?

So, I think I met someone. Well, sort of...

Recently, I have been researching people online who also have an interest in public relations and the world of communications. In my search, I found a user that goes by the name of “Benayers,” and he (in my mind, Benayers is a he so let’s just roll with that) introduced me to some fascinating stuff that I had never read before I stumbled across the links he shared. Let’s just call Benayers my social bookmarking soul mate.

Now, I don’t know much about my soul mate, but everything that I could gather from him came from his posts. Unfortunately, Benayers has not posted anything significant this year, but he did share an abundance of great material last year. Most of his tags include #pr, #publicrelations, #communications, which are pretty much the same tags I use for all of my posts! It’s true love, I know.

On a more serious note, though, Benayers shared three extremely insightful articles last year. Each on of them offered a new perspective into the world of PR, which is really amazing considering I’m studying the subject on a regular basis.

I just wanted to share some of Benayers’ links with you guys so that you could also be blown away!

1. “The Press Release is Dead”

http://stokethis.tumblr.com/post/55867232946/game-of-thrones-breathes-fire-into-next-season

Wait, what’s that you say?! The press release is dead? It just cannot be.

Those are the exact words that came through my mind when I read the title of this article, and then I actually read the article. This is when I found out that the press release was not dead, but it was just being reformatted in Canada. According to this article, the press release would no longer consist of dense blocks of text, or the use of long titles in headlines and leads. Instead, Canada decided to opt for a more digitally friendly format when it comes to press releases.  This entails two or three paragraphs of short, crisp text that will allow readers to scan quickly for the key messages of the announcement. The new format also offers quick access to key facts and additional resources. Never before in my wildest dreams did I ever think a PR staple such as the press release would ever be reformatted, but this actually seems like a good idea to me. This format was just implemented in Canada last year, and if it proves successful I don’t see why American agencies wouldn’t pick it up.

2. “Game of Thrones Breathes Fire Into Next Season”

http://stokethis.tumblr.com/post/55867232946/game-of-thrones-breathes-fire-into-next-season

Okay, so I admit that I'm a little bit biased about this link. I love Game of Thrones, so I clicked on this link rather enthusiastically, but it turns out that Benayers shared a link talking about the publicity efforts of Game of Thrones. So it totally made sense to include it on here for you guys to check out. The show’s PR team pulled off a rather large publicity stunt on the beaches of Dorset in England. They placed a giant dragon skull right smack in the middle of the beach. Cool, right?! I would have personally been really excited if I would have stumbled upon this in Dorset, but sadly I am nowhere near the beach where this fabulous stunt took place.

If you’re curious to see more of what Benayers has to share, go ahead and click on the following link. I highly encourage you to do so since he shares some pretty cool stuff. I mean, GAME OF THRONES. That is all I have to say.

https://www.diigo.com/user/benayers

Wait...not all PR is the same?

There's a widely held state of confusion when it comes to the definition of public relations. Most people that I talk to don't even know what it is. In fact, I didn't even know what it was until I took my first class in PR. You would be surprised at the actual definition of public relations: “the professional maintenance of a favorable public image by a company or other organization or a famous person.” So in other words, public relations is essentially a company, or famous person, relating to its publics. Sometimes this can roll over into advertising, marketing and communications, which is why people get so confused about what publicists actually do.

Well, yes, publicists do work with the advertising, marketing, and communications departments from time to time, but their main priority is to display a positive public image of their client to its audience. There are many ways in which a publicist can do this, and it all depends on the type of publicity that the client needs. For example, Coca-Cola does not require the same strategies as a celebrity would. Most publicists choose a specific area of focus that they solely work with because of the fact that different types of clients need different types of publicity. The various types of fields that publicists could specialize in include entertainment, crisis communications, investor relations, social corporate responsibility, non-profit, medical, automotive, and the list goes on, and on. 

The major differences within the subsets of PR lie in crisis communications, investor relations and entertainment publicity. Each of these requires a completely different strategic approach. Case in point, the Chicago Tylenol murders, which I talked about in a previous post. In this instance, a crisis communications specialist had to work in a timely matter to deflect the enormous amount of bad press facing Tylenol. There was no room for deliberation. Something had to be done, and it had to be done fast.

When it comes to entertainment publicity, a publicist’s busiest time is when his or her client is releasing a new movie, album, single, etc. The biggest goal is to get the client showing up on every talk show, every magazine cover, and every radio station. The client themselves has to be the one promoting the product. The publicist sets up the interviews and appearances, and gives the talking points. In the end, it’s up to the entertainer to pull off a good appearance, which can be very risky at times with certain celebrities. Publicists don’t always have the control they wish they had over their clients in the world of entertainment publicity.

Investor relations is probably the furthest away from entertainment publicity. The target audience for investor relations specialists is the shareholders of a publically traded company. So, in that respect, the investor relations specialist for a company will be the one drafting the quarterly financial earnings statement, and will basically deal with any sort of public financial issues. The investor relations specialist usually has a background in accounting or finance. Where as an entertainment publicist or a crisis communications specialist does not necessarily need a degree, an investor relations specialist will more than likely have a degree related to finance.

So, believe it or not, a term as simple as public relations takes on many meanings when it actually comes down to it, which is why people may be confused when they hear “public relations.” Hopefully, this post helped clarify some of the confusion.

Bendgate 2014

It has been a less than joyful week for Apple.  By the close of the day on Thursday, the company’s shares had fallen by more than three percent. This descent in shares wiped close to $23 billion off of Apple’s overall stock market value (YIKES). Well, it’s all due to the release of the long-awaited iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, along with iOS 8.

The PR nightmare has slowly started ascending upon Apple ever since the iCloud hacking in August, which resulted in the release of several celebrities’ nude photos. Then came the unexpected download of the new U2 album, which surprisingly enough, not everyone wanted in their music library! Shocker. It all snowballed out of control when reports of a very glitchy iOS 8 and an unusually bendable iPhone 6 surfaced. Now being dubbed as Bendgate and iOSgate, it’s needless to say that Apple has a lot on its plate at the moment. The PR nightmare has officially come to life. 

Apple has taken several steps to correct the wrongs, but according to the three percent drop in share, it’s not enough. Apple did do one thing right; it pulled iOS 8 within the first hour of the release so that it could fix the bugs on the operating system. The tech giant has now released iOS 8.0.2, which has reportedly fixed the bugs that were in the previous version. Apple did not address the case of the bending iPhone, however, until a week after the story surfaced. This is a HUGE mistake on Apple’s part, in my opinion. Instead of apologizing for selling iPhones that bend, Apple defended against these reports by saying that warping is “extremely rare” through normal use. Granted, there are only nine reported cases of an iPhone bending, but Apple is essentially saying that it knows that it’s a problem and that it isn’t going to do anything to solve it.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my phone to bend and break. Let alone a phone I’m paying upwards $600 for. Luckily, I am not someone that has purchased an iPhone 6, but if I had, I would be extremely upset over the matter. Apple is unknowingly sending the message that it simply does not care about a possibly huge problem with its product.

Unfortunately for Apple, the damage is done. When it comes to crisis management, the company’s response must be immediate. The weeklong response only added fuel to the fire. Additionally, if more reports of bent iPhones come in, they will have no choice but to fix it. This will make Apple look like a hypocrite, which is not a good look for any company. The company essentially tainted its own credibility by ignoring the problem, and Apple shareholders see this.

The PR team at Apple has a lot on their hands this upcoming week. If it does not reverse the negative attention that Apple has been receiving this past week, shares could possibly dip even further. I think we can all agree that this outcome would be no bueno for everyone.

I like Apple, and in no way is this a hate on Apple post, but it’s a clear cut example of how bad PR can instantly affect a company, no matter how big it is.