Search results matching tag 'PR'

Supermodels strip off for climate change

2228399 — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:34:00 GMT

If the idea behind a viral campaign for climate change group 350.org is to make people take the threat more seriously having nine supermodels strip to their smalls is perhaps not the best way to persuade people it's a bad thing.

If a warmer planet results in scantily dressed supermodels, some might conclude climate change is a good thing. Notwithstanding that the ad trivialises a serious subject; we learn nothing about climate change and it might alienate a large part of the female audience, some of us at Rubber Towers quite like this new viral. We can't think why.

On a positive note, if the viral campaign is designed purely to generate a bit of PR and easy headlines with a bit of harmless titillation, it's bang on the money. See what you think (thanks to Rev for bringing this to our attention) ...

CNN leads the way with more integrated multimedia website

2438628 — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:46:00 GMT

With CNN launching it’s new website with a focus on better integrated video and photography, it highlights the importance of considering a multimedia approach for all new stories.

Brian Stelter of The Washington Post said last week:

“The Web site, which will come online Monday, aims to highlight CNN.com’s original content. The red-hued home page will place breaking news and headlines to the left side, and add a feature section in the centre. It will often include a video player front and centre, reflecting the growing popularity of online video. “

“With 38 million unique visitors a month, CNN.com exists within the top tier of news Web sites, making any redesign particularly influential.”

As someone who not only works in a news agency but also works in communications, I get my news through many channels through out the day:

Getting ready for work: Radio – BBC Radio 4
Commuting to work: Print – The Independent newspaper
At work: Online – Press Association newswire (Mediapoint) / RSS feeds / Twitter / industry newsletters / email alerts
Commuting home: Print – Free Paper
Winding down: TV – BBC Newsnight, ITV 10 o’clock news

Wow, just writing that list shows how much news I personally consume in any given day and all the different channels I use to get it. I am sure that most people would find that if they did the same list, they also would be consuming their news through a variety of platforms.

Of course, not all media avenues will be relevant or possible for each campaign as budgets and content are of course varied but starting off by thinking about a multimedia approach to any campaign can be key to getting the most coverage and therefore the biggest impact for yours or your client’s message.

Posted by Suzy Richards @ TNR Communications

48 hours to save your reputation? If you are lucky, you'll get four

2545541 — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:06:00 GMT

Take a look at this chart, it shows the Twitter life span of the tube story that ran on Friday and is a lesson for any customer facing organisation. When something breaks online you literally have 3-4 hours to get a handle on things.

As has now been widely reported, on Thursday blogger Jonathan MacDonald filmed a London Underground staff member verbally abusing an elderly passenger after he got caught in the doors of a train.   By Friday morning it was on Twitter, we were indeed tweeting about it ourselves in our office around 10-ish. By the time I left work in the afternoon the story was staring at me from the front page of the Evening Standard, complete with calls by London Mayor Boris Johnson for an investigation.

This and two other UK stories that appeared last week showed how ordinary consumers online can once again make all the running and change the news agenda within a number of hours.

First of all there was the Trafigura case where the Guardian was prevented from reporting on an environmental scandal involving the energy concern, despite the fact that it was the subject of a Parliamentary question.   Never mind, people on Twitter uncovered the story themselves and by the end of the day the gagging order was lifted.   The Guardian itself admitted that Twitter had on this occasion saved free speech.

Then there was the Jan Moir column in the Mail hinting that Stephen Gately may have died for ‘lifestyle’ reasons (despite the fact that the coroner said he died of natural causes) and using it to make a comment on gay marriage.

A number of bloggers like Malcolm Coles weighed in and urged people on Twittter to focus their tweets on advertisers like BT and M&S, so that they pulled their ads from the (online) page.   And within a number of hours, they did.

All these show why Twitter matters.   The overall numbers on Twitter are actually quite low when you consider that there is a core of 5% of users who account for most tweets.   But though your mum or the bloke down the pub is unlikely to be in that 5%, a lot of journalists and bloggers are.

In fact, a key misconception about Twitter is that it’s a place for people to babble all day about what they are having for tea.   Sure there is some of that, but as David Bowen says in an article on online crisis management in the FT, Twitter is ultimately a connector – a bridge to other media.   News breaks on there, it breaks fast, and people take it elsewhere. Ignore it at your peril.

Media strategist Ben Kunz has run a similar analysis on his blog of the story of the balloon boy in the States, something else that went crazy on Twitter within a number of hours.   Ben makes the point that people who play it by the book and get legal, HR etc together will have missed the boat.   Indeed, he asks would a lot of organisations have even noticed what's going on?

The FT piece says that you have 48 hours to restore your credibility as after that people won’t visit your website to get your point of view.

Maybe so, but in terms of getting a handle on the story I’d say you have four – if that. If something goes viral in the morning and if you aren’t proactive by lunch, you’ve pretty much lost control of what’s going on and you’re just left to firefight.

Who knows, the next time someone captures an incident similar to the one Jonathan MacDonald did, they’ll use the live mobile broadcasting platform qik (which works with a lot of smartphones), and people will be able to see what’s going on in your organisation in real time.

Who in your opinion is harder to win round – the consumer or the employee?

2640548 — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:56:48 GMT

We at Caburn Hope have noticed that one of the trending hot topics of late is the employee brand. Evidence suggests that the employee brand is becoming a strong sub-brand in its own right, and must therefore be treated with equal passion and creativity as the consumer brand when mounting a marketing campaign. To draw in the best employees, the employee brand must be uber attractive and strong. How important a role does employee marketing and communications play within your organisation, and do you consider staff an easier win than the consumer when trying to achieve brand buy-in?

www.caburnhope.co.uk

The Face of your Company

2438628 — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:06:00 GMT

People buy people, so it is important to reveal the human side of your enterprise, as very often the first image people see is the profile photo on your website, blog or social networking site. You need to communicate effectively with your chosen audience, ensuring you are sending the right message about your organisation. Be sure to personalise the connection you make, it helps your customer see you as a person instead of an abstract web site.

In the past companies have not been keen to invest heavily in photography for their corporation as they see it as an unnecessary expense compared to the overall promotion of the company, but consider this: Your company sites will be the first thing your potential customers will see, they are the windows to your company.

Here are a few points you may want to consider about your current business photography:

Has the image been taken in a relaxed, comfortable surrounding?
Is the light flattering?
Is the background distracting?
Is the image up to date?
Can you clearly see the individual?
Does it give the right impression and match your brand image?
Is it a quick snap shot taken by a colleague?
Does the individual look approachable and trustworthy?
Is the image engaging?
Would you connect to this person on a social networking site?
Most importantly would you do business with this person?

If the answer to any of these is “no” then perhaps you need to speak to a professional business portrait photographer. Investment in your business photography can set you apart from your competitors. There is still a lack of investment in images and graphics online stay one step ahead and put a human face to your company.

Post by Penny Joyner (PA Photocall)

The End of the Embargo?

2438628 — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:54:00 GMT

Interesting piece in the current issue of PR Week about concerns we could be seeing the ‘Slow death of the embargo’. The Wall Street Journal is believed to have introduced a new policy stipulating that they will only honour embargos on exclusive stories. It’s a change of direction that’s obviously brought on by the pressure to be first with breaking news amid increasing competition from other online media outlets especially bloggers who traditionally have been more cavalier with embargos.

Certain newspapers may feel that they can’t afford the niceties of sitting on embargoed stories when specialist blogs are prepared to ‘publish and be dammed’. News has moved on it’s no longer written up today printed tonight and read in papers tomorrow, it’s available instantly & constantly via multiple formats.

The walls have come down and the means of news production are now available to anyone. In that light embargos can seem antiquated, but they still have a place, they just need to be used with care and not as a ‘catch all’ control mechanism.

PR Week editor Danny Rogers talks about embargoes as being “a lazy means of dealing with the media.” The WSJ and the blogs have stirred things up & if that stops these ‘lazy’ embargoes it’s probably no bad thing.

So what could this it mean for photos? I always feel the best way to handle a press PR photo is to use embargoes as sparingly as possible. Basically, ‘take it, get it out, get it in!’ Getting your pictures in the press is always hard enough without making it harder for yourself by putting embargoes across the top of them unless they’re really necessary.

Obviously certain photos because of logistics or availability need to be be taken beforehand and held back. Journalists will understand that and personal relationships, trust and exclusives will always play a role in this business. But maybe the shake up in attitudes towards embargoes generally will make people look at picture embargoes a bit harder too. Using embargoes where they aren’t really appropriate, such as on pictures taken in public places or of stunts that are open knowledge may start to become a thing of the past.

In this climate when the media is crying out for good, free to use PR copy, it’s unnecessary to shackle every story & picture with an embargo. Nobody can really control the media, instead we just need to continue to work with it making content that the press will want to use now, not next week.

The End of the Embargo

2619528 — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:25:00 GMT

Companies and PR agencies have always tried to control the timing and flow of news stories by using the Embargo technique. It's pretty standard practice and ensures, among other things, that news can be broken to publications with longer leadtimes (like monthly publications) to ensure that they can feature news at the same time as competitors who get to market quicker.

With the introduction of 24 hour news cycles and online (and therefore instant) publication, the use of Embargoes arguably became even more critical to ensure that publications had a level playing field. After all, without an Embargo, we have to think very carefully who we speak to first, as they will be the publication who gets the scoop, making it less likely that their competitors will bother to cover the issue - and certainly not with the same prominence or enthusiasm.

Finally, with the arrival of blogs and their fierce competition to break new stories, there's considerable uncertainty about where we stand and the validity of the embargo at all. TechCrunch, for example, declared last December that they would no longer honour embargoes at all, with the justification that when they played nice, some other site didn't and scooped them anyway. As Michael Arrington wrote:

Today that ends. From now our new policy is to break every embargo. We’ll happily agree to whatever you ask of us, and then we’ll just do whatever we feel like right after that. We may break an embargo by one minute or three days. We’ll choose at random.

No one can say that we weren't warned. And if you're in technology, you can't exactly sanction these important players, unless (as Michael Arrington hinself points out), you're a mega-player like Google or Microsoft, where a future news buoycott would actually hurt the publication itself.

I've been exploring the implications of this with our UK PR agency, Speed Communications and its Managing Director Stephen Waddington, who can see at first hand how PR and especially Tech PR has changed so much in the last few years. Stephen agrees that one of the major causes of problems has been some PR agencies' tendency to spam everyone they can think of with a story, rather than relying on more traditional skills of developing relationships with key, relevant journalists on a one-on-one basis.

"The PR industry is moving wholesale to the discipline of the financial markets whereby news is managed by a small team and kept under strict wraps until the break date and then distributed to all audiences at the same time." Says Waddington.

Certainly the trend is more developed in the US currently, though it is coming this way quickly. Soon media embargoes are going to feel as quaint Grub Street and hot metal printing.

Article about viral on competing marketing news site

2116546 — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 02:19:00 GMT

So here's an article on Ad Age.

We've sent around Ralph as something relevant to us and definitely the vibe we pick up from existing and potential US clients; they consider us quirky, funny Brits and therefore more likely to come up with something that requires no media spend to get massive. I'm grateful for this image and I think it's true of us and many other great UK agencies out there. I agree with a lot of what's in the article but the groundbreaking point of it seems to be that for something to be successful it needs to be a great creative idea.

I mean, Jebus, you don't say, I thought that people would pass on any old turd because they love bombarding their friends with boring unimaginative adverts.

What isn't said in the article is that of course these ideas still need a crap load of media spend (Ads across all formats, PR, seeding etc.) to guarantee the big views. I had a meeting the other day where the client is trying to replicate the success of a viral video (I was going to put that in inverted commas but it actually became a viral to be fair) they had a few years ago. The traffic shot up apparently after it was shown during the Superbowl.

Makes me want to cry.

Re: How can marketers measure their PR coverage?

2412308 — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 09:40:30 GMT

By using the appropriate measurement tools to monitor the success of each campaign the marketer can judge on whether using PR has been a worthwhile excercise. Allocating specific telephone numbers for individual campaigns can help with this process as any calls taken using these numbers can be collected into online data that can be used to measure the campaign as a whole. In addition to this there are the online measurement tools such as Google analytics that can be used to measure results in terms of referrals received from articles that appear online. Using a two pronged approach is neccessary to monitoring the results as PR can point the consumer in many different directions. If a PR campaign is supporting direct mail or email broadcast then the campaign has to be looked at as a whole and then broken down into sections to ascertain the journey the consumer took to make contact.

Covering every response mechanism is key to measuring the success rates of a good PR campaign. Using tools such as call recording, asking staff to question how the consumer found the company, ensuring web forms are populted with 'how did you find us' fields and monitoring call and web responses will enable the busy marketer to keep track of results and ultimately the return on investment.

Again with the 'viral' marketing

2116546 — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:14:00 GMT

Check this out.

I love the idea, and it deserves to be written about on many, many blogs etc. Does the guy need to get so angry at the end though. Especially as he's yet another person using the term viral marketing for anything that seems to reach out and touch the Internet in any capacity. This is a PR stunt, a great one, but not a piece of viral marketing. Oh no, wait, it is viral as we're now talking about it.