Easyjet probably thought they'd won the crisis management battle to shut down the debate on the holocaust memorial photo spread.
Online media coverage over the weekend showed them acting quickly, decisively and sympathetically by pulping 300,000 copies of their inflight magazine (although it took 3 weeks for the complaint to surface).
But the issue has been re-awakened on the eve of the mag nominated for an award for best use of illustration and traditional media waking up to the issue.
Is it so bad? Are the (tastefully shot) pictures all that bad if it encourages more people to visit the Holocaust memorial and learn more about the events which took place? After all, the New Statesman who broke the story felt it acceptable to re-print the shots willfully and other media have followed suit. INK's website says:
"Far from trivialising the Memorial, on the contrary the intention was to encourage passengers to visit for themselves… The aim of each monthly shoot is to highlight an easyJet destination and tell a relevant narrative. The shoot was intended to not only promote local design talent and the city itself, but to raise awareness... We absolutely regret any offence caused."
It seems that a lack of permission from the trustees of the Memorial is the problem behind the crisis.
But regardless Easyjet finds itself on the airwaves and debate intensifies and it shows that while online media may lead the way in breaking news, it still takes mainstream media channels to wake up before a crisis has been fully seen through - all PRs should beware this potential for a 'double dip' crisis.
Wednesday 25 November 2009
Thursday 12 November 2009
PR needs to embrace the chance to show it works
The UK's Central Office of Information has suggested that advertising value equivalent's (AVE) are no longer included as part of mandatory evaluation criteria when measuring how well PR campaigns perform.
And not before time!
You can read my comments either in PR Week or on the website of the company I work for. But, if like me you get excited by evaluation (or just want to understand more about the context of this debate) I thought I'd use this space to go into a bit more detail and set out what AVEs are, why they are so evil and what COI is planning to change.
Basically, some people reckon the way to evaluate if a media PR campaign works is to look at how much it would have cost to take out adverts of the same size as the coverage a campaign generated in the media. Some then go on to create a 'editorial value' which multiplies this amount to reflect the fact that people trust editorial more.
Sounds a bit crazy? Yes it is... and very inaccurate. There are three main problems:
1) There is no way of accurately recording the ‘value’ of pieces of coverage on BBC and other non-paid for channels, including social media.
2) There is confusion between AVEs which are based on, often rarely used and quickly outdated, rate cards and a ‘PR Value’, ‘weighted AVE’ or ‘editorial value’. This second group of measures are even more inaccurate and simply multiply the AVE by an editorial trust weighting estimated at 2.5 or 3 times AVE.
3) Despite the popularity of AVEs among some clients and widespread industry usage, just a third of communicators actually believe them to be somewhat or very effective as a measurement tool, according to an important international study.
So, the COI, as one of the largest providers (and purchasers) of PR services in the UK has suggested replacing AVEs with a cost per impact model. This is defined as the amount spent on PR divided by impact. Impact is the number of times the article is seen (reach multiplied by opportunities to see).
But this in itself may have its own drawbacks:
1) The suggested model may be open to abuse. Historically, ‘opportunities to see’ generated by a media outlet can be claim to be obtained by using a circulation figure (easily obtained from media databases) and a common multiplier – again three has become an industry standard because more than one person will traditionally read a paper or watch a TV (again, not exactly science when you consider my earlier post on YouGovStone research). And despite people having the 'opportunity' to see/read/hear, not everyone reads every bit of a paper or listens to every minute of a radio station.
2) It's difficult to see how this model could be expanded to include non-media campaigns as well – including social media, online, viral, stakeholder and event campaigns, etc.
In fact there is limit on any model which essentially only examines the efficiency of PR activity in generating coverage (important as this is). In Band & Brown's submission to COI in response to the consultation, we strongly argue that all evaluation measurement should also measure effectiveness and as such requires the inclusion of attitudinal and behavioural measurement (it's probably only fair to point out that at the moment, we use both types of evaluation, depending on client needs/budgets).
These measures ensure that all PR activity can be evaluated – not just media coverage - and also proves that the industry is not walking away from accountability and is living up to the standards adopted elsewhere in the marketing industry. This will help PR stand up for itself alongside other marketing disciplines as part of what the head of COI news and PR calls 'holistic evaluation'.
The paper I helped write for Band & Brown in response to COI set out five recommendations for addressing the problems above and improving the way the industry proves the real impact of public relations... let's see if COI and the rest of the industry accepts them when the final framework is published!
And not before time!
You can read my comments either in PR Week or on the website of the company I work for. But, if like me you get excited by evaluation (or just want to understand more about the context of this debate) I thought I'd use this space to go into a bit more detail and set out what AVEs are, why they are so evil and what COI is planning to change.
Basically, some people reckon the way to evaluate if a media PR campaign works is to look at how much it would have cost to take out adverts of the same size as the coverage a campaign generated in the media. Some then go on to create a 'editorial value' which multiplies this amount to reflect the fact that people trust editorial more.
Sounds a bit crazy? Yes it is... and very inaccurate. There are three main problems:
1) There is no way of accurately recording the ‘value’ of pieces of coverage on BBC and other non-paid for channels, including social media.
2) There is confusion between AVEs which are based on, often rarely used and quickly outdated, rate cards and a ‘PR Value’, ‘weighted AVE’ or ‘editorial value’. This second group of measures are even more inaccurate and simply multiply the AVE by an editorial trust weighting estimated at 2.5 or 3 times AVE.
3) Despite the popularity of AVEs among some clients and widespread industry usage, just a third of communicators actually believe them to be somewhat or very effective as a measurement tool, according to an important international study.
So, the COI, as one of the largest providers (and purchasers) of PR services in the UK has suggested replacing AVEs with a cost per impact model. This is defined as the amount spent on PR divided by impact. Impact is the number of times the article is seen (reach multiplied by opportunities to see).
But this in itself may have its own drawbacks:
1) The suggested model may be open to abuse. Historically, ‘opportunities to see’ generated by a media outlet can be claim to be obtained by using a circulation figure (easily obtained from media databases) and a common multiplier – again three has become an industry standard because more than one person will traditionally read a paper or watch a TV (again, not exactly science when you consider my earlier post on YouGovStone research). And despite people having the 'opportunity' to see/read/hear, not everyone reads every bit of a paper or listens to every minute of a radio station.
2) It's difficult to see how this model could be expanded to include non-media campaigns as well – including social media, online, viral, stakeholder and event campaigns, etc.
In fact there is limit on any model which essentially only examines the efficiency of PR activity in generating coverage (important as this is). In Band & Brown's submission to COI in response to the consultation, we strongly argue that all evaluation measurement should also measure effectiveness and as such requires the inclusion of attitudinal and behavioural measurement (it's probably only fair to point out that at the moment, we use both types of evaluation, depending on client needs/budgets).
These measures ensure that all PR activity can be evaluated – not just media coverage - and also proves that the industry is not walking away from accountability and is living up to the standards adopted elsewhere in the marketing industry. This will help PR stand up for itself alongside other marketing disciplines as part of what the head of COI news and PR calls 'holistic evaluation'.
The paper I helped write for Band & Brown in response to COI set out five recommendations for addressing the problems above and improving the way the industry proves the real impact of public relations... let's see if COI and the rest of the industry accepts them when the final framework is published!
Wednesday 11 November 2009
Who really influences Britain? The Sun or Twitter?
For those of us with a statto-like obsession with the UK media, some very interesting figures have been released by pollsters YouGovStone.
Ostensibly undertaken to find out who is more influential, Google or Murdoch, the raw data paints an interesting picture of UK media consumption and influence:
- 91% of the general public watch BBC channels and while 67% watch ITV, Channel 4 is right behind on 66%. 17% watch Sky channels.
- More people use Twitter (7%) than read the Sunday Telegraph (5%) or use Myspace (3%).
- The effectiveness of websites on the overall impact of a print media outlet is pronounced and proven with over 1,000% more UK adults saying they read the Guardian's paper/website (10% or 4.7m people) compared to its reported circulation figures (around the 350,000 mark).
- And while papers like the Times, Mail and Sun are still thought to be very or fairly influential by the public (67, 64 and 54% of UK adults agreeing), more so than some individual social networks: Google (62%), Facebook (47%), YouTube (39%), Twitter (33%), Myspace (18%), and Blogger.com (5%), print media needs to watch out, because when added together...
- 17% of UK adults believe online media has the most influence in Britain today, compared to 10% who think the same of print media and 67% who feel that way about broacast media.
And while there are some limitations to the survey (which I'm happy to go into if you Twitter me!), it shows some interesting trends.
But is however, all very worrying when 3% of the population believe the BBC is owned by Murdoch! Perhaps the BBC coverage of the Sun switching sides or attacking Brown is having an effect and Mandleson was right about it damaging the BBC's impartiality!?
Sources: Daily and Sunday Newspaper data from ABC via the Guardian and population data from ONS.
Friday 6 November 2009
Online safety should be as important as road safety
I quite enjoy it when I'm asked to comment on campaigns I'm not working on - especially when they're at brief stage, you can say what you think another agency should be doing.
But PR Week asked me to comment on one I wouldn't mind being part of - apparently there is a brief for PR to support.
Not having seen the brief, comment was always going to be a bit speculative, but the bit PR Week missed from my quote was (I thought) the best:
"Of vital importance will be the role of schools in instilling a sense of safety online from an early age. If internet safety is approached in a similar way to road safety, long-term benefits as well as short-term communications gains will be realised."
But PR Week asked me to comment on one I wouldn't mind being part of - apparently there is a brief for PR to support.
Not having seen the brief, comment was always going to be a bit speculative, but the bit PR Week missed from my quote was (I thought) the best:
"Of vital importance will be the role of schools in instilling a sense of safety online from an early age. If internet safety is approached in a similar way to road safety, long-term benefits as well as short-term communications gains will be realised."
Wednesday 4 November 2009
Worst PR Stunt of the Year
Afraid I can't claim credit for spotting this one, but got an email setting out a very disturbing PR idea... Email quoted below:
"As part of my job, I’m always looking to check what media campaigns are out there... this has to be the worst.
"Kenco are trying to promote the fact that they are reducing the amount of packaging they will make.
"Not only have they failed to see the irony in trying to do that by creating a giant piece of packaging...
"They’ve also failed to notice how disturbing an image of Amanda Holden’s bum with the words ‘refill and reuse’ over it can be..."
"As part of my job, I’m always looking to check what media campaigns are out there... this has to be the worst.
"Kenco are trying to promote the fact that they are reducing the amount of packaging they will make.
"Not only have they failed to see the irony in trying to do that by creating a giant piece of packaging...
"They’ve also failed to notice how disturbing an image of Amanda Holden’s bum with the words ‘refill and reuse’ over it can be..."
The NUJ must keep to its core mission
A PR and a member of the National Union of Journalists? Surely not. Heresy some will cry. Well, I am one.
Before I get on to the editor of the Journalist debate, perhaps I'd best set out why I joined. Years ago the NUJ helped me in a contract negotiation and my membership has been kept up since then - afterall, who knows what will happen in the future. I also believe the NUJ's code of conduct for PRs is one worth upholding and that it's better to have a vibrant union movement than none at all.
I made my mind up who to vote for in the Journalist election before the NUJ Left debate came to a head and based on the following criteria:
- Do they grasp the absolute importance of new and social media to the Union?
- Did they have the vision to make Journalist a relevant and interesting publication for NUJ members?
- Did they acknowledge the breadth of the membership of NUJ from PRs to book editors?
In the statements I read as I cast my ballot, sadly, none of the candidates truly met all of the criteria - so it was always going to be a case of the least worst option.
But the NUJ Left debate has only confirmed my belief that, as the union for journalists (and wider media community), the NUJ must not compromise members' political neutrality - regardless of how much we may believe in campaigns personally. There are other organisations to support which will help bring about the changes in social justice, peace and equality many members would like to see.
The NUJ's fight should be on media freedom, workplace rights, salaries and the maintenance of a vibrant, investigative and challenging media community.
And from the PR side, it should concentrate on placing "the NUJ among those leading the fight for the highest professional and ethical standards in public relations practice" as it claims it will do in the NUJ working practices for press/public relations and information officers.
So, now I would add to my criteria that I also hope that the next editor of the Journalist creates a title which reflects these priorities.
Perhaps I should have waited to cast my vote!
Before I get on to the editor of the Journalist debate, perhaps I'd best set out why I joined. Years ago the NUJ helped me in a contract negotiation and my membership has been kept up since then - afterall, who knows what will happen in the future. I also believe the NUJ's code of conduct for PRs is one worth upholding and that it's better to have a vibrant union movement than none at all.
I made my mind up who to vote for in the Journalist election before the NUJ Left debate came to a head and based on the following criteria:
- Do they grasp the absolute importance of new and social media to the Union?
- Did they have the vision to make Journalist a relevant and interesting publication for NUJ members?
- Did they acknowledge the breadth of the membership of NUJ from PRs to book editors?
In the statements I read as I cast my ballot, sadly, none of the candidates truly met all of the criteria - so it was always going to be a case of the least worst option.
But the NUJ Left debate has only confirmed my belief that, as the union for journalists (and wider media community), the NUJ must not compromise members' political neutrality - regardless of how much we may believe in campaigns personally. There are other organisations to support which will help bring about the changes in social justice, peace and equality many members would like to see.
The NUJ's fight should be on media freedom, workplace rights, salaries and the maintenance of a vibrant, investigative and challenging media community.
And from the PR side, it should concentrate on placing "the NUJ among those leading the fight for the highest professional and ethical standards in public relations practice" as it claims it will do in the NUJ working practices for press/public relations and information officers.
So, now I would add to my criteria that I also hope that the next editor of the Journalist creates a title which reflects these priorities.
Perhaps I should have waited to cast my vote!
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