Posts Tagged ‘PR’

As someone relatively (under three years) new to PR, it is always good to go to as many as the informative talks on offer as possible. However I have noticed myself of late becoming increasingly frustrated by the treatment of digital in these talks. For some reason those giving the talks still seem to think that a back to basics approach is needed for us PR folk. For the record, I know that digital is important for PR, I know that it needs to be integrated into wider campaigns, I know what Facebook and Twitter are and how they work and I have seen examples of great digital PR in action. What I would like to see external organisations doing more of is offering talks on the practical side of digital - how you go about planning a digital campaign, how you SEO content, what the next big thing to watch is etc. Stop giving me a rundown of the history of social media and actually tell me how to use it. That is all I am asking for!

I know that there are still many sectors where the understanding of social media is pretty limited however I just don’t feel like PR is necessarily one of them – or am I wrong – what do you think?

Starbursting is essentially breaking companies up into more profitable pieces and despite not being familiar with the term until recently, it is apparently seeing a revival at present according to The Economist.

Notable mentions of rumoured or high profile starbursts include Pfizer, Motorola, Fiat and Foster’s. The Economist cites the main reasons for the revival as:

… companies seeking buyers for parts of their business are not getting good offers from other firms, or from private equity.

…the “conglomerate discount”—when stockmarkets value a diversified group at less than the sum of its parts.

…that this discount is real seems to be confirmed by the positive stockmarket reaction to the latest starbursts. From 20 days before the announcement of a spin-off to 60 days after, the combined value of the parent and spun-off children has on average outperformed the market by eight percentage points

This trend is much more common in the US and Western Europe with emerging markets seeing the opposite,….hence a popular alternative seems to be diversification.

This may be why, in some parts of the world, conglomerates are becoming even more diversified: witness Samsung Electronics, which is moving into pharmaceuticals.America’s big tech firms are also bucking the starburst trend and diversifying. Oracle, a software giant, has moved into hardware, and Hewlett-Packard, a computer-maker, is expanding further into software and services. Their big corporate customers increasingly want a one-stop shop for their information systems.

Whichever path an organisation chooses to take, one thing is for sure, excellent communications will be imperative both with investment audiences but also customers and prospects. Interesting times for PR.

CROSS POSTED FROM MY PERSONAL BLOG

Thanks to an early-morning TfL fail, I unfortunately missed the first ten minutes of the Gorkana breakfast briefing with Andrew Clark, Business Editor and Heather Stewart, Economics Editor at The Observer.  The parts I did catch however were extremely useful and I’ve included some of the key points below:

Links between The Guardian and The Observer:

- Apart from specific editors like Andrew and Heather, many of the journalists at Guardian Media Group are seven-day operatives specialising in key subject areas.  Their main areas of focus are breaking news throughout the week and working on Sunday news and features

- When pitching, you will need to specify which paper you think your story would be suited for

- Links from the Observer Business section to the rest of the paper – many of the stories are consumer-focused and easily accessible and so depending on the angle of the article the story can be moved into the main section of the paper

- Online: If a story is urgent the team will publish early online, however they do plan stories with a Sunday publication date in mind

Working week:

- Work from Tuesday – Saturday

- Tues/Weds – Conduct majority of briefings with PRs, finding story leads

- Thurs – Star to plan for weekend edition

- Fri – Planning for lead news and features

- Deadline: Saturday around 12:00 p.m.

- In terms of submission planning meeting for features take place Thurs/Friday, breaking news jus goes straight to the relevant journalist

What makes a good Observer story:

- Fits in with the broader news agenda

- Features with spokespeople who are willing to think outside the box (Roger Carr, CBI)

- Stories around current topical issues (e.g. Lord Davies Women in Boardrooms report)

- Political/green/CSR issues always of interest

PR-able sections:

- Punditry throughout the section – spokespeople who are willing to be controversial and have a strong opinion

- Case studies are always welcomed

- Success stories/company results  - don’t have to be a listed company, can be a company that is doing things differently etc.

- Don’t tend to run bylines/features although if you think your company/spokesperson is prolific enough then feel free to pitch!

- Observer podcasts –pitches can be sent to Paul Maynard

- Engaging with the team – like to speak to CEO level, but any credible players within the business world will be considered.  Happy to meet with PRs first to build a rapport

Specific pitching - The UK Budget:

- The team envisage that there will not be many shocks in the upcoming budget, will me more focused around key themes such as unemployment and the action the government plan to take to alleviate the situation

- Do not bombard the team with 5+ comment emails during the day.  They prefer more though-out, opinionated comment the day after the event

So how long have you been in the industry? I’ve been at Ruder Finn for just over a year and I’ll be honest, I thought I’d got to grips with most parts of my role… until recently, when I attended a creative writing training session with our MD. The session showed me just how important experience is in this industry and that no matter how much you think you know you’ve still got a hell of a lot to learn.

So it got me to thinking – what about everyone else? Surely they must have felt that overwhelming panic when telephoning a journalist, or experienced the utter dread when you’ve sent a client email with a whopper of a spelling mistake? Or am I the only one who, at the start of what is hopefully a long career in PR, still sometimes feels completely clueless??

To answer my question, I spoke to my colleagues and crowdsourced some opinion using my recently-acquired Twitter skills and posed the question, “What one piece of information or advice do you know now that you wish you’d known at the start of your PR career?”

Thanks to all of the below for their contributions and suggestions and for reassuring me that I’m not alone. If you like what you read, make sure to follow them on Twitter:

“Don’t sweat the small stuff. When things go wrong, it isn’t really a disaster, it just seems like one at the time.”
Alison Denham, Director of HR & Operations, Ruder Finn

“Respect those who have been in the space longer than you but also trust your instincts/ideas. Don’t be frightened to speak up.”
Kate Boyle, Kate Boyle PR

“Don’t believe other people when they tell you something can’t be done.”
Hugh McKinney, Head of Public Affairs, Ruder Finn

“I would have found it useful to know difference between agency v in-house environment and how to know which you’d be more suited to.”
Nadia Shanaz, Freelance

“You should never underestimate the value of attention to detail. It doesn’t matter how good a piece of work is in terms of strategy or content – if it is littered with typos and grammatical mistakes it is that the client remembers.”
Emma Sinden, Director Corporate & Technology Division, Ruder Finn

“Don’t moan, understand you’ll need to graft, start at the bottom and get on with it!”
Laura Smith, Borkowski

“I wish I’d known how similar agency life can be to customer service. The strain of client needs and team demands makes me thankful my retail shop jobs during high school taught me how to put on a smile, mind my manners, and meet the needs of others no matter how ridiculous.”
Alison Morris, The CHT Group

“Being honest is better than faking it when it comes to important info. S’ok to say, I don’t know-but will look into it.”
Jessica Brookes, Blackberry

“In PR you just have to learn how to grow thick skin and get on with it.”
Sharon Chan, Consolidated PR

“The best source of advice and most wise mentor you’ll ever have is gut instinct.”
Richard George, LinkedIn

“That one day you’ll enjoy pitches, and wish you could have all the slides (instead of praying you only get the easy ones).”
Jon Silk, Waggener Edstrom

“Be nice to people, as you never know when you’ll cross their path again.”
Andy Crisp, Grayling

“Read everything, knowledge of the news from tabloids to broadsheets & also the industry is invaluable.”
Siobhan McNeill, University of Hertfordshire.

“Remember that journalists are just like real people.”
Patrick Smith, Joshua PR

“Keep a record of everything, especially anything sent to the press. Word for word.”
Ray Allger, ACCA UK

N.B. If you’re looking for advice on how to get on in the PR World Chris Lee, Founder of Run Marketing, has written a really interesting blog post offering advice to graduates looking to get their break in PR – give it a read for some really helpful tips. I also find PRmoment a useful site for insight into the current issues facing the industry and great profile pieces with some of the key influencers in PR. Check them out and see what you think.

Arun Sudhaman at PR Week contacted me last week with some questions on the communications challenges around the launch of Google’s Nexus One, the company’s first smartphone. He’s written an article on this topic in this week’s issue, which includes comment from other PRs.

Arun’s interest was raised by the initially cool reaction from the analyst community. This often happens when a product launches after months – or in this case years – of speculation. With pent-up expectation in the market, however great the eventual product turns out to be, there are commentators who write about how it could have been just a little bit better. When this happens, monitoring of initial reaction is crucial. The communications programme must adapt quickly and address any misconceptions that can quickly spread and threaten product adoption.

The Google brand is now embedded in our daily lives and, for most people, means more than just search. Translating the brand into a physical product-in-your-pocket is something new and potentially risky for the company. It will have to quickly develop competency in consumer hardware communications and manage the huge global interest in its new strategy. Initial media coverage has concentrated on the handset itself. The first challenge is to communicate the benefits beyond a shiny new mobile phone and get the media to focus on the power of the underlying Android platform and associated apps.

Google still has a lot to prove. If it gets things right (and Google isn’t used to failing), it has a huge opportunity to grow a new hardware business to complement its online products. One thing is certain, the battle of the smartphone platforms has only just started.

This post was originally posted on my personal blog

1. Journalist 15 minutes late for client briefing: “Hello” when phoning at home/in the office
2. Voicemail alert: “Beep beep, beep beep” when getting off the tube 5 minutes before a media briefing is about to start….
3. Client: So, we have to cut budget this year and we thought we would look at ways to reduce European content and re-use Global press releases and articles….
4. Client: We know he needs media training, but we really can’t tell him…can you use him anyway?
5. European partner/office: That is not going to work in <insert Western European country name> and if we have to do it that way, we will need MUUUUUUUCH more budget than that (or in fact than anyone else in the Western Hemisphere has ever charged)
6. Junior team member: I couldn’t get hold of anyone, they were all on voicemail
7. Journalist:  The supplement this month was smaller than we planned, so your client’s piece should be appearing online instead.
8. Designer: On that budget, you can have it good, fast, cheap.  Now choose two.
9. Prospect: Let’s make a video at our sales conference and put it on YouTube to make it go viral
10. Actually just the word viral in a brief
11. Sales person My editor passed your email along to me…have you thought about advertising in X
12. 12. Client: our VP of sales is in the UK next month. There is no news but can you get the FT and some broadcast stuff lined up?
13. 13. Client: thanks for lining up that day of meetings – unfortunately the VP isn’t able to make it now.
14. Client (unprompted) to journalist – It’s been an interesting year. We’ve lost a lot of business and had to let a lot of people go.
15. Client CEO: I want to have a blog / Twitter account and I want you lot to write it
16. Prospect: The SEO agency does my PR, they send out the releases online
17. Client: Can you go on Amazon | x forum and write some positive reviews?
18. Message from reception: Watchdog wants to have your client on a panel
19. Prospect: I don’t have any time, money or resources. What can I do with social media?
20. Client: why weren’t we allowed to approve the piece before it appeared?
21. Client: because of my budget cuts I’d like you to pay for expensive items such as my hotels etc – just temporarily – and I’ll raise a PO next quarter – is that okay?
22. Journalist: your VP isn’t senior enough – I only want to speak to your client’s CEO
23. Journalist: sounds interesting.  Send me an email about it and I’ll take a look
24. Journalist to client on briefing call: Sorry, what’s this call about?
25. The silence that fills the room like a gothic marshmallow after asking the prospect what is the desired ‘call to action’ out of a prospective online campaign
26. Client Do you know where I can get a massage with all the trimmings and would it be possible for you to pay for it and charge it back to us on expenses?
27. Boss: I don’t see the point of twitter.
28. Client: I’ll be bringing somebody from procurement to the next meeting
29. Prospect to pitch team: I know we said this was just a one stage non-competitive process, but would you mind pitching for a 4^th time against a handful of other agencies?
30. Prospect to pitch team: Can you include a detailed explanation of the current UK and EU regulatory situation with your initial proposal?

Wade in PR folks…any more faves?

(Thanks to the team at Ruder Finn for crowdpitching in with some of these)

The media is reporting a survey by health campaign group Consensus Action on Salt & Health (CASH) which shows that some pasta sauces on sale in the UK are saltier than sea water. A good hook for a survey but bad news for celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, whose spicy olive and garlic pasta sauce topped the poll with a whacking 3 grams of salt per 100g.

This looks to have been a brand extension too far. Jamie is a brand and brands need to deliver on their promise. Over the years, he has been the front man for campaigns on better school dinners, healthier eating, animal welfare, creating employment for disadvantaged young people, apple pie and more. Today’s news is at odds with his wholesome image. What is to be done? His team will be working to focus attention on their man’s good deeds. But while they control the brand, they don’t own Jamie’s reputation. His public image will be dented. Will his sales be hit? Certainly, expect a new recipe pasta sauce to be rushed out and to hear updates on his campaigning efforts. But when his next campaign is launched with television series, website and spin-off book, his public might just take it all with a pinch of salt.

Meanwhile, the celebrity cook market remains big business, particularly in the run up to Christmas. A quick search of the web shows that today Jamie can sell you:

Jamie Oliver salt and pepper mills

Jamie Oliver salt pig and scoop

Jamie Oliver pop-up salt mill

Jamie Oliver salt kilner jar

That just rubs salt in the wound.

So for many of the uninitiated, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 was released this week. This has been the most anticipated video game since GTA IV which came out in 2008. CoD MF2 is already a record breaker with over 1 million copies being sold in day one, analysts expect 10 million sales in the run up to Christmas.

That’s mental! Record companies would bite your hand off for those figures especially when the game costs around £50 a pop.

The reason this is relevant to the PR industry is the buzz around this game this week has been incredible, it has secured coverage across not only in the traditional gaming press and blogs but also mainstream broadcast and national press with MP’s debating the games’ release in Parliament. Shouldn’t they be sorting the country out rather than discussing a piece of entertainment that has already been classified and approved by the British Board of Film Classification?

I have no doubt that the game is a great piece of workmanship and entertainment and I am looking forward to playing it. What I was impressed with was the PR launch of the game. Many shops were breaking sales embargoes and there were large queues of fans waiting to get their hands on it. The most impressive aspect of the launch was the permission to use Leicester Sq in London as the site to unveil the game. This is predominately reserved for Hollywood movies, so the fact that there was a massive scale PR event with full military occupation including camo vehicles and personnel added to the drama and event. The launch also had the red carpet feel with a number of celebrities attending, proving that gaming is part of our modern culture just as music, art and movies are.

The revenues of the gaming industry worldwide are overtaking the movie industry very quickly due to huge sales and high prices for games. The scope for executing well planned and large PR campaigns for games has arrived and will be a major aspect of the PR business sector in the years to come. Expect a lot of big agencies to be pitching for software houses such as Activision, EA, Epic, Rockstar, Eidos and Ubisoft as well as crazier and bigger PR launches.

Game on!

PR week today takes a look at the “Five up and coming social media sites every PR person should know about” and asks the question, what is the new Twitter for 2010?

This analysis by 14 digital PR experts shows that Google Wave is the site set to be the biggest hit. Farmville, Posterous and location-based network Centrl.com are next, with the all new comment-augmented BBC website in fifth.

While these are all exciting developments in the social media world, are we really able to predict the extent to which these sites are likely to take off and how strongly we should work them into our PR strategies for 2010? Are any of them really set to be the next Twitter?

I think that no one could really have predicted the extent of the unprecedented rise of Twitter. If it hadn’t been for the high profile support that the site received - through things like the Obama presidency campaign and Ashton Kutcher’s activities, in addition to the vast number of celebrity tweeters sharing the ins and outs of their celebrity lifestyles - Twitter may never have taken off as a viable and valuable communications platform.

However, while I predict that evolution of what we already have is more likely to take off than innovations like Farmville next year, it is certainly important for us, as PR and communications experts, to be ahead of the game with social media. We will all now be keeping a close eye on these big 5 to see how they all pan out for 2010 so watch this space!

Well the lovely Stephen Davies over at 3WPR has kindly updated his list of journalists using Twitter post.

Stephen did the same list a year ago and it was a great help to many of us in the industry…so what’s changed in the past 12 months?

• Well volume for one, there are a lot more journalists using the medium today.
• Also an increase in the use by regional, tabloid and trade journalists…last year the majority were national or freelancers but this has changed substantially.
• And finally, many journalists are figuring out how they want to be contacted via Twitter and their blogs and are posting guidelines on what they want / don’t want to receive.  Essential reading can often be found on their own blogs and I advise taking the time to do this before you get in touch with them.

As with all kinds of PR outreach…use people’s contacts with care and don’t give the industry a bad name by spamming the hell out of the list…I know, as if you would?!