External Communications

Public Relations – Best Practice…..I Think

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

I’m seriously anti-fluffy. I think there’s too much fluff in PR. Sadly, I think there are too many la-las as well. Thus, when I come across a trend-setting (or identifying) newsletter from an up-to-the-minute PR agency, my heart sinks and my stomach turns over. I know what it’s going to contain. Lots of laaaa, and Dysons full of fluff. “How great are we?” sort of stuff, with garish graphics and pictures of Charlotte, a junior account exec from their sTYleWerKs division, riding camels in an amusing manner. (Or is that just me?)

Anyway, much as it pains me, a shout out to Lexis PR for this. (Particularly for the Meatwater heads-up, which my regular readers – ho ho ho – will know sparked off a bit of a diatribe.)

Tentatively, because I’m not one to get all definite about anything, I think this might, actually, be quite good. No pictures of Charlotte riding camels, you see. I hope they can keep it going.

But – because nothing, here on Wordmonger Farm, is ever without its ‘but’.

“Dear Lexis,

Loving your website – but does it not take an absolute age to load? Is it, perhaps, slightly more clever than it needs to be? I hope this is seen as constructive criticism.

Also, in your lovely e-newsletter, just a small thing, you namecheck Bring Me The Horizon as being a beat combo who may achieve some popularity in the mainstream hit parade in 2010 and have a ‘new sound’. I’m seriously middle-aged and I know that Bring Me The Horizon have been around since 2004 and the sound, far from being new, is an evolution of that well-established and popular easy-listening genre, deathcore. Possibly not as cutting edge as you might be, here.

Good luck with it!

All the best

Jeremy”

Public Relations – Products You Cannot Spin?

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

Following on from yesterday’s commentary on things you wouldn’t spin, I came across something to day that made me think about things that you cannot spin, not matter how hard you try, and that, eventually you simply have to give up on and view as a lesson learned.

There is, I believe, a temptation for every communications practitioner to believe that everything can be promoted – that there must be a defining something somewhere, that there is a story hidden behind the hopeless exterior and (because we are all horribly insecure) that if we can’t spin it, then someone else will.

This prevents us from taking the obvious path, the one that would save us time, effort and sometimes cash, the one that involves us telling the prospective client that their lovely whateveritis simply isn’t going to fly. That it is, in fact, a horrible turkey, and that they should pack up now and go home. As I’ve said before, I can’t help but thinking that our industry would be in a better state if we weren’t so eager to say yes to everything (I’m generalising, obviously) and if there weren’t quite so many snake-oil salesmen around (and there are, there are) who have little in the way of pride and will counsel anyone on anything if it means they can submit an invoice at the end of the month.

(And before anyone has a pop – I am not making this up – I have seen it happen. I have worked in places where it was obvious that the prospective client was a hopeless basket case, and that the day we achieved significant results for their product or service would be the day that Satan puts on his gloves and scarf and skates to work – there’s a photo opp – yet we still took the brief, still took the cash and accepted the horrible, embarrasing sacking when, inevitably, it was a disaster.)

Recently, on a social network, I came across a bloke looking for help in devising a PR strategy for a new wine product. Now the wine marketplace is a crowded one. It’s price sensitive. It’s difficult to get traction. It’s even more difficult if your wine is made from pomegranates.

Luckily, I think I got to bloke first – I explained to him what he could do to publicise his product and I also explained to him why he’d be wasting his time – that it was unlikely ever to be more than a niche product which might, if he was lucky, become a fashion accessory or a fad for a very, very brief period. I also warned him about the snake oil salesmen and – hey presto – no sooner had I posted the advice, than there were two further posts, offering to help him make his product the new Jacob’s Creek. (I’m exaggerating slightly.)

My second example comes from many moons ago, when I was but a stripling PR person. One of my clients was the generic food promotion agency of a particular European country – while working for them we were not supposed to give one particular brand prominence over any other, however we were entitled to approach the brands that came under this organisation’s umbrella about their specific needs. And they were free to approach us. To cut a long story short, one day I took a call which turned out to be a request for assistance in the promotion of lard.

I didn’t say ‘no’ immediately – mainly because my director was one of those who simply saw the fee opportunity and not the world of pain that would have to be endured to get to the fee, or the inevitable loss of the fee opportunity as we failed to satisfy the client’s expectations. Lard, you see, is lovely – it is – but unfortunately it’s got a bad image, it’s got lots of calories, it contributes to raised blood cholesterol levels and it doesn’t look very nice. OK, I knew my food then, and there’s not doubt that I could have leveraged some coverage for it. But achieving the brief to increase levels of lard consumption across the board? Sorry. I’m good – but no-one’s that good.

Finally I manage to prise my director’s twisted little fingers away from the prospect of the fee, and we said no. And, because I haven’t noticed lard becoming a staple feature of my, or anyone else’s, diet, I can only presume that no-one was able to do a better job of it than the one we didn’t, in the end, decide to do. 

And so to today – and well done, my blog snorkellers, if you are still with me. Today I was alerted to this fantastic and immensely disturbing product. Ladies and gents – if you haven’t had it already, I give you – Meatwater!

This has a genuinely repellent fascination about it, and I for one will not be trying it any time soon. And yet, and yet, I can still see why someone thought it would be a good idea. Anyway, in brief, here’s one that makes you think about the whole ‘would you, wouldn’t you’ deal. For what it’s worth, and on balance, I wouldn’t. I’ll go further and nail my colours to the mast and say it will, sooner, rather than later, disappear without a trace.

If they’re listening, however – the blog’s not been updated, the Twitter feed’s not updated and, as far as I can see, one of the most important things about Meatwater – what actually goes into it – isn’t featured on the site. This says to me that the actual manufacturers don’t really care that much about it, which makes me think that longevity is something this product hasn’t got.

Let’s face it – Innocent Drinks it ain’t. But thinking laterally – as Innocent have recently launched their veg pots (in a break from fruit-only tradition), maybe there’s something they might consider doing in this arena.

And as I’m not a snake-oil salesman, I’ll let Meatwater and Innocent have this counsel for free.

Corporate Comms – What Wouldn’t You Do?

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

It’s a question of ethics – not the county to the north-east of London – no, the whole moral rightness and wrongness deal.

At various points in what has passed for a career, I have been asked the question ‘is there anything you wouldn’t handle communications for?’ (I’m aware that this is grammatically lacking and should be phrased ‘is there any brand, company or organisation for whom you would not manage a communications strategy’ but that wasn’t the question. Lesson #1 for today: No-one likes a clever d*ck.)

Well. Mostly, my answers have been flippant. Deodorants. Catfood. Superglue. Gentlemen’s shaving requisites. And why – because they are all as dull as penguins. No fun whatsoever. And I know, that in answering the questions in this way, that I’m not endearing myself to the questioner.

But the truth is, what some may see as morally unsound stuff – fags, booze, chips – I have no real problem with. For instance – and seriously for a moment here – I’d absolutely love to work on a tobacco brand. Yes I’m aware it’s mostly issues management (and that’s not a problem) but it’s also a massive opportunity. I was having a beer in Zagreb recently – where smoking is still vaguely tolerated – and there, on the table, was a black ashtray with a red triangle on it. Now I’m a committed Marlboro man, but even had I not been, I would have recognised it. But it gets by all the rules – no overt branding, no name, no guidance, no relevance (apart from it being an ashtray, obviously) – it works because the brand itself is so strong.  That’s genius.

As an aside, there’s a lesson for us all here, no matter what we work on. How would you promote your brand, company or organisation (or your clients’ etc etc etc) if it were suddenly decided that you couldn’t promote it through any traditional means. I think that if we all focused on that question as an intellectual exercise, then our current efforts would probably be that much stronger. And we’d probably have the influence on brand/corporate strategy that we so obviously lack currently.

Anyway. Just this week, right. The one thing that I wouldn’t touch with a bargepole. A very long bargepole. Even if I was wearing gloves. And lead body armour.

Nick Griffin.  The BNP.

As far as I can see, there’s two people handling their comms – John Walker and Simon Darby. C’mon, PRWeek – I think a decent, in-depth interview with them – and their views on spin and obfuscation – would be quite enlightening. And a salutory lesson to the rest of us. And fairly topical, given Mr Griffin’s impending appearance on Question Time.

Has the world gone completely insane?

The Philosophy of Public Relations

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

“The realms of advertising and of public relations, and the nowadays closely related realm of politics, are replete with instances of bullshit so unmitigated that they can serve among the most indisputable and classic paradigms of the concept. And in these realms there are exquisitely sophisticated craftsmen who — with the help of advanced and demanding techniques of market research, of public opinion polling, of psychological testing, and so forth — dedicate themselves tirelessly to getting every word and image they produce exactly right.

Yet there is something more to be said about this. However studiously and conscientiously the bullshitter proceeds, it remains true that he is also trying to get away with something. There is surely in his work, as in the work of the slovenly craftsman, some kind of laxity which resists or eludes the demands of a disinterested and austere discipline.”

This  is by (as you probably know) Harry Gordon Frankfurt (born May 29, 1929), professor emeritus of philosophy, Princeton University and is taken from his 1986 essay ‘On Bullshit’.

Something everyone should read.

Social Media – Social Media Crisis Management 2

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

Just following on from yesterday’s post about dealing with a ‘social media attack’ – or, less dramatically, an issue or crisis occasioned through or by social media networks.

I’ve been using Domino’s Pizza as an example. The incident took place in March or April – but since then there’s been continued interest in how the company dealt with it. If you’ve been living in a sealed container for the last six to eight months, help yourself to a wee clicket here.

Obviously, the continuing interest in the incident, and the fact that Domino’s is so often cited as a case history, says two things. The jury’s out on how the company handled it. And it’s still the most high-profile example of social media biting back. (The reason that it’s so high-profile might, of course, have a lot to do with thing one – Domino’s didn’t do a terribly good job, and that’s why everyone knows about it. Or it might be, genuinely, that no-one else has been unlucky enough to get nailed this badly.)

But, in fairness, the issue’s been done to death. And it’s served a purpose by highlighting how easily this can happen, and the signal necessity of having a social media policy in place in your company, and of pre-planning for a social media-driven crisis.

What’s delighting me is the way Domino’s has made – and continues to make – hay out of this. In the UK – which is my stomping ground –  their Communications Manager has been doing speaking opportunities and educational seminars around the way the (US-based) crisis was handled and is now the subject of a dps feature in CorpComms magazine. I’m afraid I can’t link to the article – but here’s the website.

The truly brilliant piece is the way that they’re not claiming moral high ground and are tacitly saying that they weren’t ready, didn’t know what was going on and that it was good fortune, as much as good practice, that helped them find a solution.

The company goes up in my estimation – this is good practice. Life gives you lemons – make lemonade.

Social Media – What You Need To Know About Social Media

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, External Communications, Public Relations, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , .
  • Social media is here to stay, in one form or another. You cannot ignore it
  • Every company, large or small, should have a clear-cut, unambiguous, not-open-to-misinterpretation social media policy – properly communicated and enforced
  • Social media comes to the fore in times of crisis and is a creator of issues – every company’s crisis management document should contain a section on social media
  • Every company should have trained spokespeople whose responsibilities include responding to comments/issues generated or communicated via social media. Sometimes they might even be proactive
  • The majority of a company’s employees, however, should not be allowed to post to social media, either on company time, on company business or about the company
  • Social media are not – yet – valid marketing tools. Your budget is still better spent elsewhere
  • Social media are, however, communications tools and, as such, belong to the PR or communications department
  • Everything that gets posted to social media on behalf of a company must either go through, or have gone through, an approval system
  • You do not need to spend a vast fortune on social media strategy or social media monitoring – one is an oxymoron, the other can be carried out perfectly adequately, in-house, in minutes, via search engines
  • Social media is not the same as digital. Digital is wide-ranging, well-established and value-adding – social is but one small, unproven, part of digital
  • Social media does not have a track record, no-one has much experience with it, and no-one knows what it can and cannot do
  • Traditional media can bite if mishandled – there’s no reason to suppose that social media won’t do the same
  • No-one has found a way of making money out of social media yet – not even the social media owners
  • Whenever successful social media strategy is discussed, some or all of these companies will be mentioned – Dell, Coke, Ford, Amazon, Starbucks, WholeFoods, Best Buy, Zappo, Domino’s – and it is not a coincidence
  • Social media is not limited to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Ecademy, Bebo and MySpace – however it’s only the first three of those that you’ll see discussed outside of genuinely niche fora
  • Inevitably, social media will consolidate – the question is which social media brand/s will survive
  • Social media is not the saviour of PR or IR or corporate communications – it is not a doorway to a new society or a new way of doing business. Engage with it by all means – understand what it is – monitor its development – but do not get carried away. If the Emperor has any clothes on, they are limited to a pair of baggy, grey y-fronts

Social Media – These Truths…….Self-Evident…..

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

Well – here’s something of a landmark – the 100th post since this blog commenced its outpouring of random musings on all things communications.

Well, that was the idea, anyway. What’s actually happened, as my regular blog snorkellers will know, is that I’ve been cunningly diverted from my original aim by this new-fangled social media malarkey, which has taken up vast swathes of this blog, big chunks of my time and a fair amount of wordcount.

The 100th post seems a good time to round it all up, briefly. To summarise the small amount I’ve picked up, the conclusions I’ve reached, the positions I took and the way that they have changed over time. The one thing that is certain, however, is that – whether you’re a social media aficionado or not – you cannot ignore it and the speed at which it (and the thinking on best practice that surrounds it) has changed and continues to change is quite – as our American friends would have it – awesome.

My charming wife – who is something big in marketing – was completely horrified when I shared my thoughts on social media as marketing tools – for the record, they aren’t. She was dreadfully concerned that I’d be seen as a dinosaur, a Luddite, and be left behind as the rest of you surfed away on the crest of the nouvelle vague.

So, once and for all, as a statement of intent, here’s where I stand on the whole social media deal.

  • Social media is here to stay. You cannot ignore it
  • Every company, large or small, should have a clear-cut, unambiguous, not-open-to-misinterpretation social media policy – properly communicated and enforced
  • Social media comes to the fore in times of crisis and is a creator of issues – every company’s crisis management document should contain a section on social media
  • Every company should have trained spokespeople whose responsibilities include responding to comments/issues generated or communicated via social media. Sometimes they might even be proactive
  • The majority of a company’s employees, however, should not be allowed to post to social media, either on company time, on company business or about the company
  • Social media are not – yet – valid marketing tools. Your budget is still better spent elsewhere
  • Social media are, however, communications tools and, as such, belong to the PR or communications department
  • Everything that gets posted to social media on behalf of a company must either go through, or have gone through, an approval system
  • You do not need to spend a vast fortune on social media strategy or social media monitoring – one is an oxymoron, the other can be carried out perfectly adequately, in-house, in minutes, via search engines
  • Social media is not the same as digital. Digital is wide-ranging, well-established and value-adding – social is but one small, unproven, part of digital
  • Social media does not have a track record, no-one has much experience with it, and no-one knows what it can and cannot do
  • Traditional media can bite if mishandled – there’s no reason to suppose that social media won’t do the same
  • No-one has found a way of making money out of social media yet – not even the social media owners
  • Inevitably, social media will consolidate – the question is which social media brand/s will survive
  • Social media is not the saviour of PR, nor is it a doorway to a new society or a new way of doing business. Engage with it by all means – understand what it is – monitor its development – but do not get carried away. If the Emperor has any clothes on, they are limited to a pair of baggy, grey y-fronts

There you go, That’s it. I hope it’s unambiguous enough and shows that I’m neither a dinosaur, or a Luddite. I’m a lean, mean communicating machine, currently having a cup of coffee and smoke on the sidelines, waiting to see how the surf develops.

Happy hundredth post – I look forward to seeing you at my next centenary.

Social Media – Regulation, Mercan-style

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

And I know you’re going to think that I’ve come to this late, dear blog snorkellers, but it has come to my attention that the august body that is known as the Federal Trade Commission (Protecting America’s Consumers) has published some new (well, revised, actually) guidelines covering endorsements and testimonials (changes affect testimonial advertisements, bloggers, celebrity endorsements) – click-click away, click-click away, stateside!

Now it seems – to my pale and fevered mind – that the upshot of this is that bloggers are going to have to make it clear if they have been paid to review (or write about generally) products or services. It also appears that this covers not solely hard cash, but also the very products and services that are reviewed, if they have been supplied to the blogger free, gratis and for nowt. If not, they will be punished to the tune of $11k per violation.

(And, credit where credit’s due, I found out about this via a blog that I cited before – take a trip over here. I think you’ll find it quite edifying, in terms of the light it sheds on US PR practice. Unless you’re from the US, in which case, it’s still quite edifying in terms of the debate it foments.)

Anyway, as is my wont, a couple of questions thrown up by the FTC revised guidelines.

1) How, on earth, are they going to enforce these? I read a piece somewhere, written by a lawyer, who compared this to the legislation that brought down Napster, and how Napster users (down to teenagers in their basements, downloading one or two tracks) were sought out and punished. Well – again, to my mind, that’s very different – Napster was one site, and its users could be tracked by their IP addresses. In the case of the blogosphere – well – there’s simply too much of it, isn’t there? If this legislation is to apply – and it must, surely – to Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, Bebo, private blogs, corporate blogs, comment posts on special interest sites – well, just how is the FTC going to monitor all of it, let alone impose punitive measures?

2) Isn’t this just a step too far? What happened to caveat emptor? If we are going to trust people to surf the net, engage with social media and comment on blogs, surely we should also trust them not to get suckered by advertising masquerading as editorial. Consumers are a fairly media-savvy bunch, aren’t they? They’re not going to buy a product or service just because some blogger, magazine, TV show or celebrity told them to. Are they? (Apart from those who went to Iceland because Kerry Katona told them to. But they deserve all the frozen horror that they get.) 

Bottom line. The FTC is, to all intents and purposes, trying to regulate the internet and, as we know, by the very nature of the internet, this is pretty  nearly impossible. Yes, the internet is in dire need of some regulation (and good spring clean) but it’s not going to get it.

What this regulation will do, however, is further hobble the relationship between brands and traditional media, to the detriment of traditional media. In a well-meaning attempt to protect the consumer from the iniquities of the blogosphere, the FTC has, in fact, created something that the blogosphere will largely ignore and will impact most heavily against an already (arguably) overregulated traditional media sector.

And what impact – if any – will this have on non US-based blogs?

Social Media – Approval Processes For Corporate Users

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

This is one of my favourite topics (and I’m only partly joking when I write that). In brief – to bring you up to speed – my thinking goes like this. Social media are channels of communication. As such, they represent an opportunity and a threat for brands, companies and organisations.

They can enhance and damage corporate reputation like any other channel of communication and, like any other channel of communication, because they are not ‘tame’ they can bite if mishandled. This is why every organisation needs a rigid social media policy, why corporate dealings with social media should be restricted to the professional communicators and trained spokespeople, and why everything should be approved so that the message – as far as possible – can be controlled. After all, that’s what we, as communicators, do.

Now (he sighed, wearily) there is an opposing viewpoint. And, in the spirit of balance and fair play, I give it a bit of an airing now and then. In my travels round t’internet, stuff tends to stick to me (such is the nature of the beast) and I find myself receiving all sorts of bits and bobs, like souvenirs from the places I’ve been. In the last couple of days I received this and it’s only now that I’ve got round to reading it.

This is a very prevalent school of thought in the US. Corporate dealings with social media should be, to all intents and purposes, unregulated and unapproved. We should trust our employees, whoever and wherever, to post on behalf of the brand, company or organisation. In fairness, this post talks about those within the organisation responsible for handling social media – so it’s not a free for all that’s being recommended (which is a relief and a definite development of the argument from where it was a month and a half ago) – but it still talks about people who can speak on behalf of the organisation without getting approvals.

As far as I’m concerned, no-one speaks on behalf of the organisation without – at some point – having had their messages approved. No-one makes off-the-cuff remarks – the company’s reputation is far too valuable and the result of far too much effort for it to be jeopardised by unrehearsed commentary.

So potentially what we have here is a question of what constitutes approval. And what is, generally, being posted to social media. I agree, if you’re answering a customer query on the price of one of your products, then as long as you’re polite, and the information’s correct, you don’t need a formal approval to post it on Facebook.

But, all too often, social media throw up questions that aren’t about price, or opening hours or other anodyne stuff. (As most of this information is/should be available on your website.) No – social media either throws up people with Tourette’s, or protest groups, or litigants, or questions about matters that either are not up for discussion, or require a ‘corporate’ response. All of this stuff needs to be approved. So that everyone knows what’s being said and – if they’re asked – knows what the response is.

And if you’re in a situation where some stuff needs approval and some doesn’t – sorry – it all needs approval. This is the only way of ensuring that nothing slips through the net. Yes, it’s time-consuming, no it’s not as ‘free-to-air’ as some would like, but hey – busines isn’t a democracy or a commune. It’s a process whereby people make money from other people.

And I completely disagree – approved responses do not equivalent to ‘canned’ PR messages. And I also disagree that there is some Utopia being created where people want to have relationships with the people who work within organisations.

No. They don’t. They want their cereal, or soap, or computer, or socks – they want the item or service at a fair price, delivered in a polite and timely fashion and they want to be reassured that it is not responsible for the deaths of babies and that it’s not made from toxic waste. Occasionally they want some free stuff. Mostly, however, the vast majority of these people – myself included – want to pay our money, take our choice and be left alone to consume our item in private. Thanks a heap.

Research – Data Doesn’t Imply Understanding

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

(Your deity of choice here) bless CNN for this story. 

I’m not sure whether it’s just me, but this has got to be wrong – and on so many different levels.

  • Why did they do this study in the first place – what purpose does it serve?
  • What made the Pew Forum think it was a good idea to release this?
  • Why didn’t someone make Brian Grim change his name? To Brian All-Embracing perhaps?
  • Who wrote it? And if it was the Pew Forum, why didn’t CNN re-write it?
  • “Nearly one in four people worldwide is Muslim – and they are not necessarily where you might think” – er – where did you think they might be? (Incidentally, it’s 0.9 people in four who are Muslim. 1.3 people in four are Christian, and I’d bet they’re not necessarily where you might think either. I know I’m not.)
  • Did it not actually cross anyone’s minds that this might be – well – incredibly insensitive and insulting?

It’s not research I have a problem with – we’ve all got to know stuff.

The issue I have is with those who think that – because it’s a legitimate study and thus statistically proven and correct – it’s OK to tell the world you’ve done it.

In this case, the way the research and its findings are presented make just under 25% of the global population seem little more than a curiosity. Congratulations, Pew Forum.

(Oh – and I particularly enjoyed this quotation. “When it comes to issues of outreach to the Muslim world, these numbers will indicate that outreach cannot be focused so narrowly on the Middle East. If the goal is to create better understanding between the United States and the Muslim world, our focus should be on south and southeast Asia, not the Middle East.” So – where are we off to war next?)