Communications Strategy

Just a few thoughts on the dark art of corporate communications and how one should approach it – and when you’ve approached it, whether you should embrace it with open arms, or simply walk away. Quite quickly.

Social Media – A New Dotcom Bubble, As If Proof Were Needed

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, External Communications, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , .

ITV sell Friends Reunited for £145m less than they paid for it. DC Thomson buy it, announce that they plan to make a dating site for the over-50s out of it.

As a service for the hard-of-thinking, in simple terms, this is what it means. ITV paid over £150m for Friends Reunited because they thought they could ‘monetise’ it (to press a curennt buzzword into service). They couldn’t. DC Thomson, being slightly smarter AND with the benefit of some years extra intel, realise that they’ll not be able to sell it as a marketing/advertising opportunity, so look at the ways they can make money from the users of the site. Who happen to be over 50 and – let’s face it – looking for something.

This – and eBay’s experience with Skype (OK, not technically a social network, but reliant on users parting with cash to communicate with each other) – really underlines where we are with social media as a marketing tool. Nowhere. Marketing activity through social media delivers no tangible value – certainly nothing that translates into noticeable uplift in revenues. The ITV/Friends Reunited debacle just shows how futile it is to try and ‘monetise’ – get a sensible, serious and stable revenue stream out of – a social medium.

It is an object lesson. Do not do it.

Oh, I hear you say, but I have no intention of buying placebebo.com and trying to monetise it. No, my social media marketing strategies involve using existing social media channels, and require no investment from me.

Wrong. Every hour you, or your people, spend monitoring Twitter or creating groups on Facebook is time, effort and opportunity cost that would be better dedicated elsewhere.

(Oh, yeah – Twitter – becoming the province of the middle-aged and older. Young people moving away, new research says so. Google it.)

Social Media – The Twitter Crack’d 2

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, External Communications, Public Relations, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , .

Those avid followers of my blog (thanks, both of you), with a decent memory, may remember a post back in June which highlighted – actually, that’s a bit grand – which focused on a piece of research done by the Harvard Business School into Twitter’s usage patterns. It seemed to show that the bulk of tweets come from a hardcore of twitterers (95:10 was the ratio, I think) and that average numbers of tweets during the lifetime of a twitterer is one.

This kinda leads us to believe that Twitter’s not really the massive phenomenon that other media – and the rash of ‘social media experts’ that has infected the face of the internet – would have you believe and – thus – it’s a bit rubbish as a marketing tool. As I’ve often said, don’t ignore social media – you’d be foolish to do so – but bear in mind that there are countless other things that you should do first (from a comms and marketing point of view).

Anyway, here’s another nail in the coffin piece of research that would seem to lead us to similar conclusions, although for different reasons. Enjoy:

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007208

When Is the Right Time To Say No?

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, External Communications, Public Relations.

Here’s a question from someone searching for some b2c/b2b communications advice. Have a read, have a think.

I shall be asking questions.

How does one go about promoting a ‘healthy’ wine made from pomegranates (http://www.rimonwinery.co.uk) in the UK?

 A friend of mine is importing a new kind of wine made entirely from pomegranates. There are three types: dry red, desert and ‘port-style’. The challenge is to define the market and work out a PR and marketing plan, as well as develop the look and feel of the brand. It is purported to have health benefits over and above red wine made from grapes. Apparently it has three times the antioxidants plus other health properties. A difficult challenge seeing how alcohol and health don’t really mix. The other issue is with price point (£20–£26) although the desert wine is being sold in Waitrose for £14.99. Other facts: the wine as a high alcoholic content; 100% sugar free; usable as a mixer for cocktails; produced in a family winery in Galilee, Israel. Thoughts and tips would be highly appreciated!

(Obviously, the ‘friend’ mentioned here is a friend of the questioner, not a friend of mine. Although, if it HAD been a friend of mine, my response would have been the same.)

The question to you, gentle readers, is what would you do? There’s probably some budget and some money to be made from this. What advice would you give?

For what it’s worth, here’s mine:

“DO NOT attempt to promote this on a health platform. Alcohol consumption is not healthy, and you will fall foul of the drinks industry’s self-regulatory code and its regulating body, The Portman Group. Hell, you might as well go the whole nine yards and suggest that it improves your sex life as well.

First, in the nicest possible way, address the product’s limitations. It’s niche and is never going to be mass market. It’s expensive. It’s not an everyday drink. It’s made from something that a) people are only just accepting as a viable alternative to cranberry juice and b) is in no way, shape, or form associated with wine.

Then, what are the product’s unique selling points and attractors? It’s unique. It’s unusual. It’s ‘limited edition’. It’s from Israel.

(BTW – what does it taste like? Be honest with yourself. If its taste is even slightly an ‘acquired’ one, then stick that fact in both the ‘limitation’ and in the ‘USP’ column.)

What’s the personality of the product – and the personality of the product’s manunfacturers – is it fun? Is it serious? Is it young? Is it upmarket or is it down with the kids? This will determine your ‘tone of voice’ for all communication/marketing activity.

Once you’ve reconciled the limitations and the USPs – who’s your target audience? Who, given everything you’ve thought about the product and its tone of voice, are the people who are going to, or might (at least), consume this drink?

Then:

Press release to all drinks correspondents on media aimed at your target audience (eg if it’s housewives, then the Daily Mail, if it’s young guys, then Zoo and Nuts, if it’s ‘girls’ night out’, then Grazia and Now etc etc) – information about the product, how it can be enjoyed, where you can buy it, how much it costs. Offer samples.

Hold a tasting for your chosen drinks correspondents – get a mixologist to do some cocktails for them. Have the recipes available for them to take away, with samples of the product.

Build a consumer-facing website – feature the URL on all your marketing/PR collateral. Start a group on FaceBook (it doesn’t cost anything except time.) Your website should have – at the least – pictures, cocktail recipes, and some background information and, most importantly, a feedback mechanism. Act on feedback.

Target the Jewish community – fiercely loyal to Israeli products, they are great ambassadors for any brand
 

And get a couple of sales guys to go out, with the product, and try and get it into some ‘style bars’ (ideally Boujis, Mahiki and the Met, but this may be aiming too high) – you need bright young things to be seen to be drinking it.

There’s a loads and loads of stuff that you could do – it’s all dependent on time and budget.

Personally, I don’t think it will ever rise above the level of niche product, and I think, outside of the Israeli/Jewish community, you’re not looking at a big success. Sorry.

So be wary of PR people who promise the earth at a cost. You may well be buying nothing more than smoke and mirrors.”

What would you have done? Told the guy that there is, really, very little chance of pomegranate wine become the next Bailey’s – or taken the money for as long as it lasted?

It’s Not What You Say – It’s The Way That You Say It

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, External Communications, Public Relations and tagged , , .

Bit of a rant, I’m afraid.

I think I’ve already stated on this blog that I’m something of a fan of what I would term PR stunts – bit fluffy, bit wheeey, bit whoooar – but, actually quite effective while they last. I think I mentioned Aleksandr the Meerkat from comparethemeerkat.com (a search engine dedicated to meerkat paraphernalia and accessories, as far as I can see) as a particular example of how something fairly silly and with low relevance to anything and with an undeniably ‘cheap’ feel to it can be extremely successful and tap into the zeitgeist. Simples! (And cross all sorts of media divides – digital, print, experiential, broadcast etc etc  etc.)

Anyway – peeping out from under my stone the other day I came across another one – you probably all know about this, but anyway – it was the absolutkindness.com campaign, ‘Give Kindness Not Cash!’, on behalf of Absolut Vodka. I only read a case history, but I quite liked the idea of giving smiles, hugs or high-fives in exchange for food, drink, whatever. I don’t know whether it was a success – but it deserved to be – it had legs, it had digital, it had experiential and it had the possibility of print as well. Hooray for whoever it was who came up with it. Silly, yes, foolish, perhaps, short-lived, most definitely – but attention-grabbing and thought-provoking.

So why did some clown let the Absolut head of marketing ruin it with this quotation: “We wanted to put a smile on people’s faces. Absolut is more than just a vodka, it’s a way of life, and this seemed like a good way to communicate that attitude to people.”

Aaaaaaaaaagh. It reminds me of something I might have written when I was young and stupid. No, Absolut marketing and PR bunnies, Absolut is not more than just a vodka. It is actually, quite plainly, just a vodka. Nothing wrong with that, and I’m sure it’s very nice, but it’s just a vodka. It most certainly is not a way of life – that would be a worry – but luckily, most of those who see spirits as a way of life cannot actually afford them, which is why they drink Special Brew.

(Also, and it’s a side issue – ‘a good way to communicate that attitude’ – well, is it an attitude, or a way of life? Make up your minds, guys.)

This is a plea – and an object lesson, perhaps – never give your spokespeople words, or allow them to use words, that will jar with, or patronise, or offput your audience. The quotation above runs the risk of achieving all of those things – I’m not stupid, and therefore I don’t presume that anyone else is.

‘We wanted to put a smile on people’s faces. – your choice of Absolut Vodka says something about you – and this was a great way of communicating that something to people.’

See where I’m coming from?

New Uses for Social Media – Part 7,523

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, External Communications, Public Relations, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , .

Is it just me or are the attempts to get some real use (and thus value/benefit) out of social media getting more desperate by the day?

Today’s was a facility for the Jewish community to Tweet prayers and have them then – I presume – printed out, folded up and stuck in the cracks in the Wailing Wall. Which is great – a genuine service and all credit to the ‘young man from Tel-Aviv’ who’s responsible.

A great use of Twitter, thereby providing a little more grist for the social media justification mill. Yes, social networks, they get everywhere. In every walk of life. Social networks – they are your daddy.

Only, only – would it be as easy to email ‘the young man in Tel-Aviv’ and get him to print that out? Or, in fact, if you’ve got a friend in Tel-Aviv or Jerusalem, you could email them. Or text them. Or fax them. Or – how about this – you could ‘phone them up and get them to write it down.

It’s a great idea, it genuinely is and it’s a real service. It just doesn’t need Twitter. Or FaceSpace, or MyBook.

Other uses for social media today – publicising Aleksandr the Meerkat (if you’ve been in a hole in the ground for the last six months, this is the eponymous Aleksandr the Meerkat from comparethemeerkat.com, which is a sort of search engine for meerkat-related paraphernalia. I think).

I like Aleksandr – simples! – and he reminds me of a lot of people I work with, but, let’s face it – sorry Alex mate – he’s a fluffy PR stunt. A very, very good one, but a fluffy PR stunt nonetheless – here today and gone tomorrow.

And therefore an absolutely perfect fit for the social media phenomenon.

‘Tis The Season to be Silly

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, External Communications, Public Relations and tagged , , , .

Just a reminder to all that the Silly Season is here and – if you’re not already carping the diem – it’s time to dust off all those rubbish stories that would never make the cut in a million years normally, and get them out there! There’s acres of  gaping media void to be filled and we, the few, have a duty to fill it.

This morning – and OK, it was one of those terrible free papers (but somehow so much closer to the zeitgeist than your average broadsheet, d’you not think?) – there was a story (‘story’) about someone on holiday in Great Yarmouth (I think, could have been Skegness – it doesn’t matter – seaside town anyway) sending a postcard to someone at home in the West Country. On looking at the photo, a view of the seafront, taken over a decade ago, the recipient discovered it included images of her and her daughters, sat on a park bench! What are the chances! Cue much mumbling in astonishment and small-world commentary.

(The fact that the person sending the card sent it because they knew the recipient was a fan of the seaside town, and had visited, at peak season, many years on the trot, and that she and her daughters often sat on the same bench, does actually reduce the chances considerably, but never let logic get in the way of a good story.)

Yes – the silly season’s here. I even read a story about some guy – Peter, I think – who’s managed to become the most powerful man in the country, without going through the boring rigmarole of being elected, or with any form of public consent or (indeed) knowledge at all!

Amazing the old nonsense that gets printed.

Silent with Rage – Better Off Just Silent?

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Crisis Management, External Communications, Public Relations and tagged , , , , , .

‘Fraid this isn’t very timely – been busy doing nothing, d’you see – but the more I sat and thought (as opposed to just sitting, which is what I try and do mostly) I felt this needed a little exploration/explanation – what with all the current hoo-ha over Directors of Communications for political parties (sorry – that’s the ‘phone……….strange…….nobody there).

Anyway, there I was, minding my own business, consuming some media, when I happen across a (what can hardly, really, be called a) story about Damien McBride and the PM (Gordon, not Peter) and the PM’s reaction (Gordon’s, not Peter’s) when McPoison told him about the content of the unfounded smear emails he’d been circulating. He was (that’s the PM, G not P), and I’m paraphrasing, shaking and silent with rage. Might even have been speechless. Beyond angry, anyway, and out the other side.

Well, you’d hope so, really, wouldn’t you. But, and here’s the thing, why did we need to know? And, more to the point, how come the ‘news’ got into the media anyway (‘cos it wasn’t just one story, no, I saw it run across other outlets, when I bothered to look).

So, was it No 10, trying, as part of a rearguard action, to show G (not P) in a favourable light (speechless with anger and rage and probably coated in mortification also)? And therefore distancing himself further from the evil McPoison? Or was it McBride himself, finding it all a bit difficult on the employment front, making an attempt to rehabilitate himself – a bit ot a tw*t, but honest enough to ‘fess up and take the (silent with rage) consequences? Or was it a half dozen of one and six of t’other – collusion between No 10 and McPoison – ‘this’ll help us both, Damian, mate’? (And if so, was it also testing the waters, laying the first good intentions on that road to Damian’s rehabilitation?)

Whatever, it made me suspicious. (But I’m always suspicious.) For what it’s worth, I reckon it’s McBride trying to rehabilitate himself. I mean, no-one would be stupid enough to fan the dying embers of this unhappy episode, running the risk of re-ignition and all the nightmare that would come with it, on the off-chance that it might have some small positive impact on the PM’s (G’s, not P’s) reputation.

Would they?

Coming Over All Jo Moore

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Crisis Management, External Communications, Public Relations.

The clouds are gathering, the horsemen are saddling up – the Aporkalypse is nigh!

“The swine ‘flu death toll in Britain has leapt from 17 to 29 since Monday and could hit 65,000 this winter.”

Am I alone in thinking that there may some very good days to bury bad news on the horizon?

(Oh God, I am, aren’t I?)

Whoops! Aporkalypse

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Crisis Management, External Communications, Public Relations.

If there was a ever a better example of how news works, then I have yet to see it. It should be a text book for wannabe PRs in their ivory towers of PR learning in such exotic far-flung places as Bournemouth, Southampton and Keele (all of which, I believe, proffer degrees in PR to the spinsters of tomorrow). (Except Keele, which I added to the list because it SHOULD offer a degree in communications.)

So, young Paduan learners, fingers on your clickers and through the magic of internettery, track down the development of the swine ‘flu story since Monday of this week (July 13 2009).  It started with no particular worries – OK so the first two people with no ‘underlying’ health issues has died, tragic, but two of them. After all, 22,000 people a normal year die from ordinary ‘flu. That nice Mr Burnham, the health secretary, promised everyone a shot of vaccine, starting in the next month or so and half the population would be vaccinated by autumn. Fine.

But no. The very next day, the World Health Organisation pops up and says that Mr Burnham may have jumped the gun. No vaccine available until August. No safe vaccine available until two or three months of clinical trial after that. Chief Medical Officer cannot confirm or deny whether estimates of one death per 200 population are near the mark or not – and we all know what that means. Scientists – this is my favourite bit – are ‘surprised’ at how quickly the swine ‘flu virus is spreading.

Then today. GPs have seen a leap of almost 50% in the numbers of people contacting them because they’re feeling a bit piggy – over 40,000 a week. Cherie Blair’s got it – nay, is ‘battling’ it. Still no vaccine. Burnham’s back on the attack saying that he’s right and there will be vaccine. Others saying that there’ll be bo vaccine for the bulk of the population until next year (which will be a bit late).

This is the most amazing vignette of how a story develops and how – in this internet age – quickly things can change, people’s positions can change and (as I’m sure we’ll see) reputations and careers can be made and broken.

Frankly – I’d rather not be a spin doctor in the Depertment of Health at the present moment.

Aporkalypse Now.

Canny Tweeters – Gotta be Rhyming Slang, Right?

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Evaluation, External Communications, Public Relations, Social Media and tagged , , , , .

Today, I is mostly loving PR Week.

(Oooh, oooh – and its £3.70 cover price. Why £3.70? Why not £3.50? Or, for the amount of bearing that it actually has on reality, why not £763.27? These are the people after whom ‘Twitter’ was named.)

Which segues me, more smoothly than a freshly-oiled smarmoset, into my subject matter. PR Week and a small ‘news’ story about how Twitter saved the day for Boris Johnson. (For those of you not of a London persuasion, Boris is the rather shambolic chap who spends some of his time as Mayor.)

The first para of this ‘story’ reads “London Mayor Boris Johnson has won plaudits from PR professionals for apparently using Twitter to deal with roasting hot buses last week.” Implication – Boris was replying to tweets about the hot bus situation. Read on, young Paduan learner, and discover that the Mayor was ‘inundated’ by tweets (although how many is not revealed) and then that ‘after a number of days of tweets and  re-tweets’ he went to see his transport adviser and asked him about it. After a number of days? Isn’t Twitter supposed to be about what you’re doing NOW?

Oh, yeah – and then the Mayor’s transport adviser (and I quote) – wait for this – “I immediately fired off a letter to transport for London.” Sent second-class, one can only presume. Yes, the world may be changing, we may be in the digital age, we may be able to IM and Skype, but thanks to the civil service, the time-honoured tradition of ‘firing off a letter’ is still alive and well. Brilliant.

So all in all, Twitter didn’t really save the day for Boris. It was one more medium of communication that alerted him to a situation which it took him a number of days to resolve. Let us reflect on the fact that it took him days to resolve an issue as serious as the heating being switched ‘on’ on London’s buses. How long do we think it would take him to resolve an issue like – ooooh – the pollution of the Thames by an antiquated sewage processing system? (Hint – it’s a couple of years, so far.) Going  back to hot buses, Boris did (finally) respond to the heeted tweeters, but you can bet your bottom that other communications media were used more widely to disseminate the action that was taken.

The story was illustrated – presumably to illustrate how effective Twitter is in saving the day – with some figures for Twitter usage. I’ll repeat them here, for your delight and amazement:

900 tweets per week – Innocent Drinks

100% – Hyatt Concierge’s engagement with followers

738 – people following Asda

226 – number of updates by Boris Johnson

14m – total number of Twitter users

Now is it me, or are these statistics – while on the face of it quite impressive, even compelling – on closer inspection, in one way or another, wholly meaningless? 900 tweets – what about and why? 100% engagement – in what way and to what benefit? 738 followers – Asda’s got more stores than that, hasn’t it?

It gets better. Underneath the Boris story was a small piece with the head “Dell, Innocent and Kodak named as canny tweeters”. I’m not going to bore you with the whole thing – you can do your own clickery and find it should you so wish (or you can go and buy a copy of PR Week for $547.32) – but here’s an excerpt. Dell claims to have made more than $3m (the price of a copy of PR Week) worth of sales since 2007 via its @DellOutlet Twitter stream. That’s $1.5m a year. Loose change. Probably cost them more than that to activate and maintain the Twitter stream.

It’s not really compelling, is it? You know, I think a lot of the chasing around after the social media of the moment and the breathless reportage on how it is changing our lives irrevocably is down to the fact that – deep down – everyone loves science fiction. Everyone wants to be part of a Star Trek world. Which is great.

But to be part of the Star Trek world, it isn’t enough to know what a tweet is and to be able to throw the names of a couple of social networks into conversation. Or even to be part of an MMOG, like W0W or Second Life.

No. You see Star Trek world exists and deals with ddos attacks (which are real) and botnets (which are also real – and huge). Read this – it’s better than William Gibson.

http://thompson.blog.avg.com/2009/07/i-think-i-know-what-the-ddos-was-about.html