Ramblings of a PR

I've moved...

2010-11-13T16:38:00.001Z

I tired of Blogger after using it every day on my cuts blog, so I've moved to Wordpress for my thoughts on PR, marketing and politics.

Visit www.ramblingsofapr.com for the latest.

The i-deal

2010-10-26T14:39:00.000+01:00

From the paper which was the first to steer away from political ties and which ended the era of the broadsheet only 'quality', comes the first new UK-wide national newspaper in decades.

i from the Independent is a brave attempt from a loss making newspaper to try and attract a new readership.

So I rushed out to buy my copy for 20p today (just in case it sold out).

The bad news (for the owners) is that it wasn't sold out. The good news is that it's a great idea.

Starting with the front page - i's lead is clever. House price crisis. Designed not only to appeal to core Guardian / Independent readers, but also steal from those paying full price for a 'mid market' Express / Mail.

The tribute to Andy Holmes and the provocative 'is kids TV gay' debate will also appeal to the more 'mid market' audience.

So, assuming i doesn't retreat into the Independent's enviro-concept front pages and continues to set a similar populist course, the content is there (enough to satisfy the commuter, but not overwhelm) and the price feels right.

And the strategy is potentially interesting. It has three main selling points:
- It's a lightweight quality paper for those who have deserted newspapers for the Internet
- It's a replacement Metro in commuter areas - which will do more than reprint the previous evening's Standard
- Finally, and most interestingly, it's a real rival to the lucrative mid market audience.

And good luck to it.

Spammed

2010-10-15T08:42:00.002+01:00

While the focus of my blogging is still my cuts challenge, an email arrived which has almost forced me to do another Rambling.

The below was sent to one of our 'team email addresses' - i.e. the ones on the bottom of press releases which go to the whole team to make sure journalist and client enquiries are dealt with quickly.

Normally spam just irritates me, but I add to the junk mail settings and forget about it. But this is different:
1) It's from a communications firm. And one specialising in social media. They should know better.
2) It's from the USA, I mean it's obvious that the client in question is UK only as indeed is my company which is clear from the domain name.
3) It makes it sound as if I may know this person. I've never heard of them.
4) It doesn't make sense. "Our unique process streamlines the marketing and PR process, which eliminates unnecessary costs and allows you to focus your marketing budget on achieving results." How?
5) They want to 'connect'. Dread word.

At least they didn't call themselves social media gurus.

Anyway, I know I shouldn't, but I've responded. After all if they want to fly the team to New York to meet, then why not!

If you're getting bored...

2010-09-30T23:21:00.002+01:00

The focus for my blogging for the next four weeks is my attempt to cut 40% in spending from my own budget - just as the government is trying to do to the nation's finances.

You can read about it here: http://40in4weeks.blogspot.com/

More from the doom-monger in chief...

2010-09-22T12:39:00.000+01:00

After another PR Week appearance, I'm getting a bit worried that there is only negative news coming from the public sector public relations fraternity... That's probably because despite some briefs still coming out, the news isn't that great.

In fact, my initial response to the report which showed that 47% of PR agencies with public sector clients have lost some business was, "who are the 53% who are lying." Truth is that every agency has suffered, but I suppose some may have just escaped with budget cuts as some activity has been allowed through - and I don't know how Daryl Wilcox defined "public sector". And I agree that there is still life in the sector, it will just look very different from life under the last government.

So, my more considered response to PR Week though, was:
"The pressure is on all public sector departments to reduce spending across the board and it's clear that despite the many successes in the past, marketing and communications is one of the first areas to feel the pressure.

"No organisation which receives government money is protected from these communications cuts.

"But within these cuts, public bodies should look at how they can use this opportunity to improve their communications. Bringing in agency support to devise new strategies, or working in more flexible ways with their agency partners should be investigated. Communications activity that is planned and delivered effectively can demonstrate real return on investment and actually realise the government mantra of spending only to save in the future."

And this return on investment could help address serious issues, as I wrote about earlier in helping NICE improve uptake of antenatal care.

Nice shows we still need government PR... if not the fat cats

2010-09-22T09:32:00.001+01:00

Was interested to see the anger on Panorama and in the media on the salaries of the government comms fat cats. PR Week covered the story and I obviously had my say there. But Paul Cardin's response made me think...

He said:

"No sympathy whatsoever from this quarter. Don't fight it and risk exposing yourselves. Just line up and take the medicine. Being surplus to requirements during the hard times, you'll be progressively more redundant as this recession takes hold and exposes the overpaid parasites and hangers on."

Fair enough on the medicine point. There are plenty in the industry who agree with Paul on that - and I think that's pretty much the industry body stand point.

But I don't think all comms people can be tagged as parasites. And, I think this misses the point slightly.

Sure there were excesses during the Labour years (as someone who has read more Central Office of Information briefs than I care to remember, there are some my company refused to go for because we just felt they were a waste of money and wouldn't deliver any tangible result).

But much of the comms activity undertaken by government / charities has been socially useful (anti-smoking and recruitment of teachers to name just two), but the headlines today from Nice show an urgent need for comms.

The big news in their story states:

"[We need to] improve access to and uptake of antenatal care for women in difficult social circumstances, thereby helping to prevent complications and potentially save the lives of these mothers and their babies.

Difficult social circumstances, or complex social factors, can include poverty, homelessness, unemployment, substance misuse, difficulty reading or speaking English, teenage pregnancy and domestic abuse.

Pregnant women in these situations often do not attend antenatal appointments as traditional services are often not adequate for their needs.

However, a lack of good antenatal care can increase the risk of women dying from complications during pregnancy or after birth, with women living in areas of high deprivation in England five times more likely to die during pregnancy or after childbirth than women in more affluent areas. Babies born into these circumstances are also around twice as likely to be stillborn or die shortly after birth as those who are not."

The access point is one area which needs government funding. But the uptake is an issue for communicators with a clearly defined audience to act on. It is very measurable objective and if successful will help save lives.

So even if you don't like the salaries of the PR fat cats, don't assume all government comms people are parasites - look what good they have done and could do.

Taking the BS out of the Big Society

2010-07-19T23:25:00.004+01:00

After a lack of interest the first time around, the Big Society was finally launched to the consumer today.

The anticipation was immense - the Twittersphere was groaning under the #bigsociety trend and the months of preparation and planning by Big Society agitators was finally to pay off.

Except it still hasn't. Not really.

It remains a rushed through, badly communicated initiative and ended up with the #bigsociety trend being turned into #bigcon or even #bs.

But I actually think the Big Society is one of the most exciting, revolutionary and potentially lasting (positive) legacies of the Cameron government.

However, today started badly.

PR Week figures showed that over half of people had little idea of what the Big Society stood for and a third had never heard of it (despite previous launch attempts before the general election and in mid-May at Number 10).

And as the day wore on, it became clearer that the failure at the other launches of not having a single clear message to communicate was being repeated.

Yes it's about creating an army of volunteers, empowering communities to look after their own services and taking on responsibility for what councils or government used to do. But then, it's also about local accountability for police services, setting up schools, national movements, like Martha Lane Fox's Race Online, and (despite protestations) it's also about downsizing government and cutting government subsidies (if you listen to Boris, it's also about fat people).

But as much as the message was confused, so too was Labour's response.

Tessa Jowell went on the airwaves to claim the Big Society was just "a brass-necked rebranding of programmes already put in place by a Labour government." But it soon became clear that a better line to take was Unison's, who claimed it would lead to cuts (the leadership candidates were either silent or, like Ed Miliband, latched onto a charity line).

In fact, what the left said didn't matter as official opposition was led by charities, some of whom got their attack in over the weekend. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations said any cuts mustn't "scupper the chances of achieving the Big Society," while the Muscular Dystrophy campaign said "it is not acceptable that financing of essential services is reliant on charitable funding."

And with further opposition from the Twittersphere and comments on news websites, this was not the glorious launch Cameron had hoped for.

There are five things the Government needs to do to better communicate the Big Society (and it certainly shouldn't attempt another re-launch):
1 - Ditch the jargon (see my PR Week comment).

2 - Simplify the message. Make it either about volunteering and local services (as the Big Society Network seems to think) and then evolve it nationally, or be honest and make it about delivering more for less.

3 - Unite your influencers and source real examples. Getting to a point where NCVO and charities (who should be enthusiastic supporters) were so negative was a huge mistake and a communications failure. These groups should be providing the real examples of successful delivery, so the government didn't have to use speculative examples from pet-councils.

4 - Be clear on the call to action and don't try too many at once. If you want the public to get involved, give them one way to get involved - then again, grow their enthusiasm.

5 - Identify the real barriers to taking up this call to action and address them through targeted communications. There are many barriers, but in time, effective communications working with wider civil society could break these down.

Do this and the #bs factor will start to be removed and the real, positive, impact of the Big Society may begin to be realised.

Worrying times for marketing

2010-07-12T22:57:00.000+01:00

Continuing my commentary on how the marketing industry is doing (yes I know I said I was going to stop doing this and stick to great work), the latest Bellwether Report is being spun in various directions by the competing factions within marketing.

Perhaps bizarrely, PR Week come closest to just printing the findings, so we can see for ourselves (well done Gemma O'Reilly).

It starts to show quite clearly the impact of the freeze on marketing spend by the government (see blogs passim). This factor is obviously not accountable for the whole downturn (although even in events and sales promotion there is still an impact), but it certainly explains the downturn in media (despite this being World Cup season) and in PR (which can often be immediately canceled with no penalty clauses).

Yet, the good news according to industry experts is that PR is going to emerge triumphant from this period of uncertainty... well, that's ok then!

What public relations does next...

2010-07-07T00:01:00.000+01:00

It's been exactly two months since the last Rambling... and things are very different now.

So it seems like a good time to look again at the threats and opportunities to the PR industry under the new government.

As I warned in my last posts (and as the PRCA confirmed), the worst news for the media industry would be a victory for the party which pledges to cut the deepest.

In recent days, the Conservative / Liberal Democrat coalition has reaffirmed it's consideration of 40 per cent cuts in departmental savings. In fact, for marketing this is largely academic as there has been a 100 per cent cut in immediate budgets - with a freeze on marketing activity until it has been approved by the Cabinet Office's Efficiency and Reform Group (how the government's advisor on architecture's love your caretaker competition got through this process though I don't know).

But add to this cut the closing or downscaling of many quangos and, while many may not be too upset by the principles of smaller government, the effects on jobs in the public and private sector are starting to be felt.

Already there are freezes on recruitment of marketing professionals in most government-funded organisations. And the cuts are starting to bite into the private sector too. Last week, one regional marketing agency went under - taking 11 jobs, a major publicly funded event and a supply chain's cash with it. The market leader in public sector PR - Kindred - is also looking at a major restructure if rumours are to be believed.

In fact, with cuts now spreading in all directions, it's becoming worryingly easy to see how the impact of public sector cuts will be felt on the private sector. And given the new government hopes many public sector redundancies will be offset by private sector growth, the plan to stimulate this growth is not only unclear, but seemingly based solely on a stable tax environment and is certainly poorly communicated.

But this last point hints at the opportunities...

The government is still communicating. But is it communicating effectively?

It seems that most government communications is coming direct from press offices - such as the glut of 'world cup tie in' stories like this one from the Department for Communities and Local Government. While the best press officers in the business are based in government, they are more used to briefings, issuing news stories, policy announcements and crisis management, rather than implementing ongoing activity which works alongside other marketing disciplines to deliver behavioural change.

And that is what many of the new government's programmes are looking for. From the Big Society, to the expansion of Teach First, through to encouraging a more entrepreneurial culture, communications can play a vital part in the success of the new government's programme.

Delivering these changes and ensuring success is where communications agencies can play an important role. Driven (as good agencies are) by a thirst for creativity and measured by client targets and performance indicators, agencies can make a difference.

So this is what the industry - led by the PRCA, Chartered Institute of Marketing and other bodies, including the government's own Central Office of Information (COI), need to be celebrating: our creativity, our passion for using communications for good and our effectiveness in delivering tangible behavioural change.

If we don't, a vacuum will develop and marketing will be forgotten.

Yet the industry seems strangely silent. Maybe it is worried about rocking the new government's boat. Maybe there is lots of behind the scenes discussions going on. Or maybe it is feeling guilty for the excesses of communications during the New Labour years.

No-one doubts that there were some excesses and the old government was too quick to issue a marketing brief just to generate media coverage or get a message out into the public domain. But it's time to move on.

We need to celebrate how accountable communications can help deliver a real public benefit - and have a positive impact on implementing government policy. But we need to do it quickly before the skills and expertise in public sector communications are all diverted into work for the private sector - or are lost to the industry altogether.

So that's what this blog will do from now on... less politics, more examples of good (and bad) PR!

The PRCA agree with me!

2010-05-07T13:21:00.000+01:00

I was amused to see that now the election has happened, the industry body, the PRCA, agree with my summary of the state of the marketing industry. In PR Week, director-general Francis Ingham said, "for general PR agencies, this result poses real dangers. Let's not be in denial - all three main parties have taken a swipe at PR. They've threatened to slash public sector PR and marketing spend."

Well much that I love being agreed with, it's a shame that they didn't feel like saying something before the election! My Tweet to PR Week asking this question has so far gone unanswered...

How the media should vote tomorrow

2010-05-05T11:33:00.000+01:00

What a mixed bag for the media this election has been.

It's demonstrated dramatically how style can triumph over substance, how poor presentation can lose audiences and how the most persuasive messages are simple and positive. It’s also shown that social media may not be able to deliver knock out blows, but is vital in creating advocacy for campaigns.

All good news for us marketing disciples.

But less documented is the damaging impact a Conservative government could have on the industry itself.

Let me explain…

It was to be the social media election. We would all decide our votes based on Twitter, Facebook and maybe even Foursquare.

Well not quite but it has been influential.

Social media has been more of a bystander and commentator rather than leaders of the news or advocacy, but it hasn’t lost its purpose.

DemocracyUK, the Slapometer and even #labourcakepuns have all helped engage voters and the social media sphere has done what it does best – enabling people to have conversations.

So while it will be interesting to see the outcome of planned research into how social media (or rather what you and your friends discussed on social media) influenced voting behaviour, I personally hope that the more campaigning side to social media returns.

In fact, there have been a couple of examples of where social media has (at least tried to) set the agenda. Kerry4MP’s blunder and #phlipastroud have been notable examples.

Which brings me onto how I’ll be voting…

As a colleague pointed out, one example doesn’t make a whole party nasty. But, sadly for every Margot James, there is a Philipa Stroud.

Similarly, for every Dianne Abbot or Tom Watson there is a Bob Blizzard (i.e. an MP who will trudge through the voting lobbies on behalf of his party). And for every hard working Lib Dem, like Lynne Featherstone, there is a quirky colleague – Lembit Opik or Anna Arrowsmith for your MP anyone?!

There is no substitute for a good local candidate. But, in many, many constituencies less than 50 per cent of the electorate vote for the winning candidate. This is unfair. And the expenses scandal has shown just what our politicians can get up to if not held in check – and simply saying people have a right to recall MPs just isn’t enough.

Simply put, the politicians are more accountable if every vote counts. And the best way to ensure better, more accountable candidates is voting reform. The list system is not the way forward, as we do need to protect the need for local candidates linked to their constituency – which makes me favour single transferable vote or alternative vote systems.

And the best way to guarantee this reform is a hung parliament.

I don’t buy the fact that Britain’s economy will suffer with a hung Parliament – credit agencies don’t have a problem with it, nor does the City and, according to the FT, neither should it impact on sterling. In fact, people now seem to be lining up to say it will benefit everyone from young people to the Scots.

So my decision comes down to which sort of coalition government would I prefer? And let’s be clear, a deal struck between parties to ensure a stable coalition will need to happen – a minority government would not be a good idea.

Well, my own fears about what the Tories would do for gay rights and civil liberties aside, the decision has to be fundamentally economic. How far do I want the cuts to go – and when?

Which brings me back to marketing.

Set aside the disturbing impact that immediate, savage spending cuts will make on the lives of everyday families, not to mention the deflating impact on our economy, the marketing sector – now a significant slice of UK plc – is simply not ready to see cuts of 40 per cent in public sector spending on marketing and communications in 2010/20111.

When the Conservatives make fun of government waste, they include marketing budgets in this.

The Conservative pledge is to reduce Central Office of Information spending alone back to 1997 levels. While marketing agencies need to continue to make strides in evaluating their work, proving the impact of their campaigns and reducing their reliance on the public sector overall, the replacement for his government spending from the private sector isn’t there yet.

The reality of implementing such cuts is that they are applied with a blanket approach – every £1 of marketing spend should be reduced to 60p (and just because one segment of the industry says it is more effective than another won’t mean it is safe).

This won’t just affect agencies and mean job losses in public sector communications departments, but it will have an impact on the wider media industry.

With an annual budget of £208m spent on advertising space by the government, cutting this to £124m will leave huge holes in newspaper, online and TV advertising schedules – and the latest Institute of Practitioners in Advertising report showed a very mixed picture for the industry in 2010, with almost as many marketing directors saying they will cut budgets as will increase them.

With the majority of any increased advertising spend likely to be online and a reapportioning of budgets away from TV and print, it is ironic that those media outlets who celebrate cutting waste are in many ways turkeys voting for Christmas.

The private sector just isn’t ready to fill the hole which would be left by 40% cuts in public sector spending this year – the cuts need to be made, but need to be less severe and less immediate than the Conservatives propose.

It really is the economy that matters – the country can’t take a chance with the recovery and I can’t vote for cuts now.

Vote Labour (or Lib Dem depending where you live).

Cameron's slip means the end for pre-records

2010-03-24T11:28:00.001Z

The majority of interviews for TV and radio don't happen live, but are pre-recorded. This works well for everyone - spokespeople get to do the interview at a time and place to suit them and broadcasters can line these set pieces up in advance and get content for stories in the bag.

The other benefit for PRs is that it allows us to re-assure nervous spokespeople with the line 'don't worry it's a pre-record'. The belief being that you can ask for it to be RE-recorded if it doesn't go well (or you forget a key message). This also does mean that the interview will look better when transmitted.

Of course, in this social media age and with the volatile political climate, perhaps the Tory spin doctors should have used the adage 'there's no such thing as off the record' rather than the 'don't worry, it's pre-record' line.

Yesterday we learnt that the age of the pre-record is over. And another old PR trick bites the dust. Sadly for David Cameron, he learnt this the hard way. For someone who prides himself on his media interview skills it really is awful...

Actually maybe the word 'slip' in the headline is being a bit generous...!

Education debate

2010-03-19T14:27:00.004Z

As PR moves ever faster into the social media realm, it's been interesting to be part of the launch of the first election broadcast generated entirely by the public this week.

Not just this, but it's also been a massive learning pulling together a broadcast itself - for example I had no idea how long a second really was when on screen! The results are below:

And you can have your say by debating the contents with education guru Mike Tomlinson on Monday:

Mydavidcameron more popular than leading charities

2010-03-12T15:01:00.000Z

In a pretty rare, but welcome, move, mydavidcameron.com has taken to publishing web traffic to their site on a seemingly regular basis.

The latest results show site traffic of 250k in six weeks - more than double what the country's leading charities (such as British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research UK) will have generated despite all of their paid for advertising.

While this is a fair bit short of the likely awareness of official Tory posters (although any suggestions on how this web traffic may corresponds to actual awareness would be welcome) it's an impressive effort for the team - and for demonstrating the power of social media.

Twanscript: Royals and the media

2010-03-08T21:04:00.000Z

Twanscript (is that a permissible Twitter-word?) from the Republic debate The Royal PR Machine with Richard Palmer, royal correspondent of the Daily Express and Emily Hill, Evening Standard journalist and Guardian commentator.

Here are the pick of the comments from the debate (all have been shortened due to Twitter use and are comments made at the debate by others). For a full list of the Tweets I sent, search #royalmedia.

'Concerted campaign to prevent taking pictures of royals' - eve standard

Would people be so keen on royals if heir was a cross between Charles + Camilla?

Queen’s press officer known as Samantha the panther

Express corr never been allowed direct conversation with Charles

My right to know stops where the detectives we pay for's knowledge stops - Express

Press association under pressure corporately to toe royal line

Charles will look to set up Kings Conferences on issues

Royals using courts to deny right to know, or even release pics without approval

Abuse of civil lists makes mp expenses look like peanuts. Freedom of Information Act requests denied

9 times out of 10 royals take train to somewhere and fly back

Conservative and Labour dodging discussion on civil list

Charles will talk to his plants but won't dig them up - Emily Hill

Royals using Kate Middleton to take legal action to see how far they can push the courts

That it's a taboo to criticise the queen is a disgrace - @RepublicStaff

And the final subject - how advertisers would react to an anti-monarchy media will be a future blog!

Mydavidcameron vs the real thing... who wins?

2010-03-03T00:15:00.000Z

The recent media storm around Tory campaign funding jogged a promise I made to try and answer a big question about the importance of social media on the outcome of the election.

Just how effective will a poster campaign be for the Tories? And is it possible that more people would see Labour’s spoofs of Tory posters than the real thing?

The news media traditionally cast outdoor advertising as almost the be all and end all of campaigns - and true enough Saatchi’s ‘Labour Isn’t Working’ campaign from the late 70s is memorable and in 1997, Labour’s attack ads on the Tories generated 60% awareness.

But how many people can the Tories claim to have reached with the latest wave of posters - and how many of those reached will be positively influenced by the posters?

Effectiveness figures on marketing campaigns are a closely guarded secret, but using industry averages we can start to come to an answer.

These industry figures suggest a 29% recall of a poster / billboard campaign (CASI via www.posterscope.co.uk). BUT given the sites chosen for political campaigns tend to be those that are more visible - but which only deliver exposure of message for 3 seconds, the recall decreases dramatically to just over 4% (based on calculations made using stats from the 2007 paper “Total Recall: advertising exposure and engagement.”)

And there is another downside to such short-term recall - the actual impact of these sites could be reduced further as 29% who saw posters for 3 seconds said it had no effect on them.

This means a real impact on just 1.2% of the population - or under three quarters of a million people.

So – to the second part of the original challenge: how many people might have seen the unofficial Labour spoof campaigns?

The popularisation of www.mydavidcameron.com, was led by Labour supporters on Twitter which has 10,355 followers. On average each Twitter user has 300 followers according to Hubspot. Which means that if everyone of the followers Tweeted out a spoof poster it could reach 3,106,500 people. Even allowing for a lower average Twitter following of 100 (which Hubspot seems to advocate doing), a concerted campaign by all members could reach more people than a poster campaign.

The problem with Twitter, of course, is that people tend to only follow those in similar 'crowds' so such a campaign will not reach the general public or people who don't share their views (apart from via resulting media coverage of mydavidcameron). So instead perhaps we should look at Facebook as a medium / distribution tool. Here Labour have 5,834 fans, but with each Facebook fan having an average of 130 friends - often established through more natural networks - a single post by all members could reach 758,420 people.

There are obviously other factors which should be taken into account, for example, not all fans/followers will join in a campaign and the coverage of the original Tory posters in the mainstream news media adds to their reach. But hopefully this short analysis gives some backing to the argument that social media networks will be vital in the 2010 election – with the potential to generate more awareness in a few clicks by followers than would be achieved through an expensive poster campaign.

And it is also possible, that more people saw a mydavidcameron spoof than the original Conservative poster.

How to avoid your own Pratt-gate

2010-02-22T17:40:00.000Z

I feel sorry for Christine Pratt from the National Bullying Helpline.

Every time she has appeared on TV today, she seems to be spinning a different line and unsure of her own organisation's status.

But let's hope this episode is a learning for other charities.

What seemed like such a good idea on a Sunday afternoon to send out an 'issue hijack' (interestingly it's now been removed from NBH's website) was presumably conceived without the organisation having taken any advice from a public relations professional.

And sadly this lack of advice and readiness to deal with the media, could be curtains for the charity - with patron's resigning and the media crawling all over its history and accounts.

Yet, it could have all been so different. With adequate planning, this could have massively boosted the charity's profile and the fight against bullying.

As I see it, before embarking on a PR campaign during the volatile pre-election period a charity needs the following:
- Clear messaging on what you are saying in the media and a clear point to make.
- A clear set of defensive lines anticipating all angles of attack not just on your particular viewpoint, but on institutional funding and history.
- A clear process for approving and handling media enquiries.
- On 'big story' days, a collective of media trained spokespeople ready to send out consistent messaging (with prior warning of the story sent to key partners).
- And if it goes wrong, a confidence that these spokespeople will stay calm and not change the story based on an email to their blackberry!

All of these golden rules have been broken in the NBH case. Which given the amount of PR agencies ready to offer pro-bono help to small charities (either through the Media Trust or independently) is inexcusable.

The sad fact is that now bullying has turned from a cause everyone is prepared to support to, at best, a political football and, at worst, a joke.

Comment moderation

2010-02-16T13:58:00.000Z

Sorry, after having been attacked by some people whose coding seemed to make the site appear in a non-Roman language, I've turned on comment moderation.

Anything which isn't random will be let through though as soon as possible!

Five steps to help Britain break the clutches of the celebrity

2010-02-15T21:33:00.007Z

One in ten young people would drop out of education to be on reality TV.

This was in 2006 and the research Band & Brown undertook for the Learning and Skills Council revealed the worrying extent to which young people (in particular - and I would argue society as a whole) were influenced by the cult of celebrity.

The problem has only increased since and was brought into stark focus by a panel discussion (it never really came to debate as such) organised by the University of Westminster and the PRCA.

The high-profile (in PR terms) names, Clifford, Borkowski, Beattie and Linley, seemed to come to a worrying conclusion: It takes less now than ever before to become a celebrity, which in turn is only more likely to encourage young people to see it as a path to 'success'.

Yet, they agreed, and as the impressive Trevor Beattie put it, "the spectrum of celebrity is getting wider and more thinly spread out" but that there is no end in sight for celebrity culture. Especially with politicians looking to stoop to the lowest common denominator (see PMwithPM) and with brands like Gillette throwing millions at celebrities like Tiger Woods and Thierry Henry not because they are true ambassadors, but because they fit a constructed corporate image.

Added to that, of course, there is good money to be made from celebrities. A quick look at the latest ABCs show how newspaper circulations need a boost - and the titles which do well all come with a healthy dose of celebrity. And brands like Walkers and Sainsbury's were cited as seeing sales rise due to their celebrity relationships.

Now this is not to say that I think all celebrity-backed campaigns should be stopped immediately. As the panel pointed out, Jade Goody achieved more for cervical cancer awareness and prevention than 20 years of public health campaigns.

But for those concerned by the takeover of British society by celebrity culture, how do we stop it?

Well, Max Clifford (in between taking calls from Simon Cowell and boasting how expensive his services were) perhaps pointed to an answer. He claimed that if people knew half what he knew that the cult of celebrity would be over. So, the internet can help then:

1) The John Terry saga (et al) has shown how injunctions, super injunctions and Britain's stifling libel law can be overcome.

2) A tribunal, like that suggested by Clifford himself, to assess the public interest in any celebrity 'kiss and tell' would offer no protection to those who mercilessly court the media. If a celebrity has a public Twitter, Facebook, etc, account, this should this make them fair game for relevant comment.

And then as more celebs become exposed:
3) The rumoured clampdown on government use of pointless celebrities in campaigns should be expanded, for example, share-holder campaigns shouldn't allow unsuccessful celebrity campaigns to be rewarded in the boardroom (where's the return on stitching your brand onto Lewis Hamilton's jacket for example).

4) Organisations only look to secure meaningful tie ins with true talent that sits comfortably with the brand identity.

5) The insipid coverage of celebrities such as in Heat needs to stop... Jason Linley seemed pleased that his magazine is rarely involved in court cases. As journalists, Bauer employees should really stop and ask themselves why is this?

A chance for the obesity makers to repent

2009-12-10T17:22:00.004Z

The UK's biggest advertising spender, the Central Office of Information, has started a process to find the biggest brains in behavioural change to join a new panel of experts who will advise the Government on how to get people to act differently.

Rather than taking us on a further step towards an Orwellian distopia, this is actually a pretty sensible idea.

Delivering real and sustained positive behavioural change is the holy-grail of marketing and over the last few years PR campaigns have demonstrated how effective they can be at helping deliver this change.

The public sector often leads the way in developing new theories and techniques for influencing and effecting behavioural change so it's welcome that the COI is now looking to bring the best academics and practitioners together to help inform and improve future campaigns.

But as I commented in PR Week, the biggest challenge for this panel will be to overcome the limits of behavioural models - which are deliberately kept simple and theoretical. Therefore, it's crucial that the roster has fair representation from senior professionals who represent current practitioners and that it also recognises wider, non public sector, insight and expertise.

After all, the peddlers of 'fast moving consumer goods' (FMCG brands in marketing speak, or selling sweets to kiddies in common parlance) have caused obseity rates to rocket - let's use their expertise to help us address these trends!

Easyjet's 'Double Dip' Crisis

2009-11-25T08:25:00.002Z

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.

PR needs to embrace the chance to show it works

2009-11-12T23:31:00.007Z

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!

Who really influences Britain? The Sun or Twitter?

2009-11-11T18:25:00.003Z

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.

Online safety should be as important as road safety

2009-11-06T12:18:00.002Z

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."

Worst PR Stunt of the Year

2009-11-04T22:38:00.003Z

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..."

The NUJ must keep to its core mission

2009-11-04T11:46:00.006Z

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!

Question Time shows how Dick Griffin can be beaten

2009-10-23T08:49:00.006+01:00

The most encouraging sign emerging from last night's Question Time was that it has shown that the BNP can be beaten through debate.

Griffin was uncomfortable, uncertain of his own policies, exposed for having no idea of British history, not even sure of his own past and branded a 'thoroughly deceptive man'.

The audience - more impressive than any politician - tore his agenda apart with the mainstream media this morning picking over his support for the KKK, his repulsion at homosexuality ("the feeling is mutual" said one excellent lesbian audience member) and how, according to the Independent, he 'choked on the oxygen of publicity'.

Even the Daily Mail, Express, Sun and Star were united with the Mirror and quality press in their damning headlines this morning. Even Sky News have finally managed to stop treating "Dick - sorry Nick - Griffin" (another audience member) as a neo-celebrity in its reporting.

But while the BNP performance coupled with the headlines this morning will not have helped win new support, Griffin may have felt the party landed some important punches on mainstream politics this week.

The squabble about immigration on Question Time will not have re-assured any wavering voters inclined to vote on this issue - something Labour, Tories and Lib Dems must sort out rapidly. For such an important topic in beating the BNP, the three parties should agree a common line.

And against an almost united studio and media, the victim card may have cut through and helped galvanise his existing support base.

But (as I've argued below) last night's TV showed that when its ideas are debated, the BNP have no answers and nowhere to turn, other than in blatant lies, racism and homophobia. As Margaret Hodge MP suggested on Channel 4 News, when the debate is had, the BNP are exposed to voters as a nasty, hollow, violent party.

Mainstream politics does need to get its act together with clear messages which deal with the issues, a united approach and support from the public, but the BNP can be beaten and last night was a good start.

TweetMobs will not always be a power for good

2009-10-19T23:25:00.005+01:00

There have been more words written subsequent to the Jan Moir article on Stephen Gately's death than she's ever written in her life. So there's no need for me to recount how error ridden her article and subsequent reply are (Charlie Brooker in the Guardian, Daniel Finklestein in the Times and even Janet Street Porter in the Mail give some of the best responses).

Even the freedom of speech debate is now well trodden (on right wing blogs and this morning's Wright Stuff). Moir should have the opportunity to express herself (she should get a blog), but the Daily Mail should not have printed such erroneous and PCC violating information.

But both Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and the Telegraph's Damian Thompson get closer to the most worrying issue.

The PCC may act, the Mail may lose advertisers, distribution channels or even sales, but what those of us tempted to rejoice must consider is what happens when the boot is on the other foot.

Just as a TweetMob has been created (if you scroll though What The Hashtag it's clear it's not just a few celebrities or gay activists behind this campaign) around Jan Moir and Trafigura, so – in time – will such a campaign rally round a more worrying debate.

An illegal immigrant kills a young mother leads to calls for mass deportation, a suspected pedophile is lynched by a TweetMob after his address is posted then found to be a pediatrician, a high profile gay celebrity is found cruising on Hampstead Heath as a class on a school trip pass by leads to a TweetMob calling for total CCTV cover and 24/7 policing of our parks.

We should never assume that a TweetMob will always be a power for good.

And given that, the question for those who have taken part in the more recent TweetMobs (and for those working in public relations) is how do you fight back against one?

That's a blog for the future...

Daily Mail Demonstrates Its Ugly Side (Again)

2009-10-16T12:27:00.005+01:00

Two blogs in a week. The world is obviously taking a turn for the worse.

Jan Moir and the Daily Mail are the focus of my indignation today. Most notably the article today suggesting how Stephen Gately died because he was gay. Horrid woman.

Anyway, thanks to my pals on Twitter, it's been pointed out this is in clear breach of the PCC Code. So please complain away.

I reckon, this article is in clear breach of:
1) Accuracy. The coroners report clearly states natural causes - not being homosexual caused Gately's death
5) Intrusion into grief. Clearly this article is designed to hurt the grieving family of the deceased.
12) Discrimination. The author is clearly homophobic.

But there may be other breaches!

Trafigura, Twitter and the questions for PRs

2009-10-14T14:03:00.002+01:00

I'll cut to the chase - those who haven't read up on Twitter vs. Trafigura/Carter Ruck only have to read the just one the Guardian's articles on the scandal to realise the case has implications for PR.

Will Jordan has started discussing this, but I think it raises five key questions for PRs, which certainly weren't discussed in PR Week's brief coverage of the issue this morning.

1) Will this become a case study of how not to act reputationally in the social media age.
Has there been a more spectacular transformation from a company which was virtually unknown to one with a reputation as a toxic waste dumper and destroyer of free speech in a matter of 24 hours?

2) What was the role of PR in the situation - Bell Pottinger's denials in PR Week are being questioned by The Guardian?

3) Regardless of BP's role. This is more important - where do PRs and lobbyists start to get involved in these legal proceedings? Is a case for the Law Society and the CIPR to investigate best practice and provide guidance?

4) Every PR needs to think about how they would have acted in the situation. Where does protecting a client and their right to representation become more important than protecting free speech? And do we need to look again at the 'whistleblowing' protection PRs have in this circumstance (membership of NUJ or CIPR looks more attractive by the minute)?

5) Finally, what is the resonance of this campaign? Sure PROs and the twitterati have heard of it, but has it resonated with the public? And what is the likely impact on Trafigura as a business?

And apart from these initial questions - what next?
Yes, Twitter has helped protect democracy and free speech - but should we as a nation really need to rely on Twitter to play this role? Will this mean new legislation to counter the actions of some lawyers - and what is the lobbying industry's thoughts on how big business will react to this?

Question Time and the BNP

2009-09-07T13:55:00.002+01:00

Got an email first thing this morning from PR Week asking for comment on the BNP/Question Time issue (nice to see they remembered my last contribution to the debate on how to deal with them).

With representatives elected at a national election, I guess there was a sad inevitability that the BNP will be given the right to appear on mainstream political shows - interestingly the BBC have reversed a previous policy.

However, the uncertainty around the handling of their potential appearance on Question Time shows that it still hasn't been decided by other politicians and the media how best to deal with the party.

Politicians shouldn't be afraid of debate - but there is a concern that they will allow themselves to be distracted by the BNP's presence or simply try to rubbish their arguments with rhetoric rather than highlighting the very serious consequences of their policies. A clear strategy for tackling the threat needs to be decided and implemented - across the political spectrum.

Commenting in the article also made me question who is best placed to lead this national strategy... it probably isn't politicians.

BNP and mainstream media

2009-06-08T12:45:00.002+01:00

Our industry bible, PR Week, has picked up on the BNP campaign - claiming that Anti-BNP efforts fail to stop party have failed. There's an interesting comment from Insight Public Affairs agency stating that the BNP "exist outside of existing media channels."

But in addition to the party political broadcast, Newsquest newspapers in target areas ran adverts from them and the constant hand-wringing coverage of the party on TV news helped add credibility to their name - without highlighting the hideous consequences of their policies.

I was suprised to learn though that there was an anti-BNP online campaign... not surpised it didn't work, as Amanda Stuart correctly states, the fight against the BNP needs to take place in communities and on the doorstep. The question is how do we persuade people to stand up and take part in it, when they are so obviously disillusioned with the existing parties...

Papers and the BNP

2009-05-18T20:00:00.003+01:00

Earlier today journalism.co.uk highlighted that some regional press are now accepting advertising from the fascist BNP. It seems just to be Newsquest's online titles, but as Jon Slattery points out, given they have bans on adult sex advertising, you'd think they'd take a moral stand on this!

So earlier on I suggested a boycott of Newsquest titles... if people threaten to boycott all their titles maybe the management will take notice.

Shame I don't have any control over ad budgets, but it will be interesting to see if brands look to pull other advertising like they did to Facebook a few months ago.

PR needs apprentices rather than graduates

2009-03-20T09:17:00.000Z

Last week, PR Week ran a story saying that our industry heads were unconvinced by PR degrees. No big suprise, even people I know who have taken them reckon they are crap (apart from the work experience placement).

But, I had a letter published today in response arguing that it's not PR degrees which should be a worry to the industry, but the reliance industry heads seem to place on degrees in general.

For too long, agencies have relied on graduates many of whom now seem to be leaving university with less and less of an idea about how to work in the real world. Recruiting PR Trainee level staff through offering work experience programmes available to graduates and non-graduates and promoting admin juniors - who can start work with GCSEs or vocational qualifications - should be the focus for the new wave of PR recruitment.

In fact, it seems that the industry is actually looking for recruits at the wrong level - we don't need PR degrees, but PR apprenticeships.

But PR apprenticeships come with their own problems... most notably the difficulty in actually setting them up. Our industry is supposed to be represented by the Creative and Cultural Sector Skills Council for , but when I spoke to the excellent City & Islington College to try and look into setting one up, I was told that PR wasn't a priority for this SSC.

This may turn into a one-man campaign to try and set up a PR Apprenticeship, but does anyone else have any thoughts on how the industry can come together to set up this apprenticeship?