More from the doom-monger in chief...

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.

Worrying times for marketing

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...

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!

Cameron's slip means the end for pre-records

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

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

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.

 

How to avoid your own Pratt-gate

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.

Five steps to help Britain break the clutches of the celebrity

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

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

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

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!

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."

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..."

Trafigura, Twitter and the questions for PRs

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?

PR needs apprentices rather than graduates

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?