Public Relations

Corporate Communications – The Boxing Metaphor

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

Following on from an earlier post about publicity and the rules of engagement. Taking it as read that publicity – in some form or other (publicity (n) – information that concerns a person, group, event, or product and that is disseminated through various media to attract public notice) – is the end goal of everything that we do as communicators, then – ergo – there must be rules that the professional communicator has at least an eye to when going about the task.

For my part, these include (but are not limited to) telling the truth (or at least a part of it), not misrepresenting, not insulting, not belittling and not demeaning – and, here’s a biggie, not saying anything that you cannot, if called upon to do so, back up.

Obviously, there’s a fine line here. Many moons ago, Tesco announced a new home delivery service – for those of its customers who lived in some splendour and didn’t wish to see a Tesco-branded van up their cul-de-sac (to coin a phrase). The new service involved delivery by dark green Range Rover, and the pictures of said Range Rover (along with the story) got square hectares of coverage.

I myself announced that a particular pub restaurant chain was to launch ‘Pincher’s Portions’ of chips – to solve the age old issue of wives, girlfriends and partners refusing to order their own chips and then pinching yours. (Ooooooh – it still irritates me.) Again, the story tapped into the zeitgeist and generated a decent footie pitch of coverage.

Of course, neither story was strictly based in complete fact. Tesco had one, perhaps two, Range Rovers, and the posh delivery service vanished as fast as the story did. My lovely pub restaurant chain put the Pincher’s Portion on the menu in a couple of its outlets, for a brief while. It didn’t matter at all, though – the ideas behind the stories were great and, if absolutely pushed (by some humourless killjoy) to prove they were true – well, we could.

Now the boxing metaphor. As you may know, dear blog snorkeller, on Saturday, one David Hayes is to step into the ring of pugilism and face Nikolai Valuev of Russia. Clearly, Mr Hayes’ fortune rests on the publicity he can generate around the fight, encouraging people to pay their subscriptions to watch it, and making himself more marketable. He has been most vociferous around how well he is going to do, and how is is going to knock his opponent out. There has been reams of coverage – the story has been wholly unavoidable, unless you’ve been living in an hermetically-sealed bunker somewhere for the past couple of weeks.

Unfortunately for Mr Hayes, he is going to be called upon to prove all the claims he has made. Also unfortunately, his opponent is seven foot two inches tall, and weighs 23 stone. He is – looking at it in a logical and balanced fashion – going to get spanked.

A company caught generating publicity on the back of a lie will lose the trust of its stakeholders and the impact on its corporate reputation may be mortal. If you squint a bit and look at Mr Hayes as a company, what’s going to happen to him on Saturday is exactly the same.

Corporate Communications – The Role of Publicity

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

Without beating about the bush – “according to public relations scholarly conventions, publicity is a small part of public relations”.

Read the full thing here.

Further, as someone else put it “publicity is not considered among the higher forms of practice.”

Bollocks. 

What is meant by ‘publicity’? In what sense is it not considered among the higher forms of practice? What practice? By whom?

If we are talking about the PR or corporate communications industries, then I would humbly point out that publicity (of some sort, on some level) is the aim of everything that we do – from writing a news release, through the creation of the annual report, via investor relations, to lobbying of public figures.

‘Stunt’ PR is one way of generating publicity (and by ‘stunt’ PR, I include use of celebrity and also the publicising of celebrities themselves through use of their own celebrity)and I firmly believe that it needs to be subject to the ethics of our trade (amongst which are don’t lie, don’t misrepresent, don’t insult, belittle or demean).

But publicity is not ‘among the forms of practice’. Publicity IS the practice. A lot of the high falutin’, self-important practitioners would do very well to remember that.

You know who you are.

Social Media – Size Matters

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

The following excerpt is from a post about the Interbrand Top Global Brands survey, vs the Sysomos on-line presence survey – which shows how top brands are perceived in terms of social media ‘buzz’. (Horrible word, not mine.) Here you go:

“One conclusion that could be speculated based on the data from this small study is that well-established, mature brands don’t seem to need the high levels of social media buzz to sustain their value, while new and growing brands can reap great benefits from the power of a social media buzz.

Of course, this is a very small study of just the top 20 brands based on global value, so conclusions can only be hypothetical.  However, it makes sense that new and growing brands have more to gain from investing in social media advertising and branding campaigns than established or new brands do.”

While this is quite clearly a statement of the bleeding obvious, on a bit of reflection, like most statements of the bleeding obvious, it actually needs saying.

If there is any benefit in social media as a marketing tool, it is most easily accessed by small companies who a) have nothing to lose b) have everything to gain c) do not have massive organisations and overheads d) have limited employee numbers e) do not have massive marketing budgets and programmes, thus having the ability to dedicate time to social media as their sole (or major) route to market and f) will see and appreciate any ROI their activity generates. And if you reverse engineer points a to f, you’ll see why established organisations are wasting their time.

Here’s a link.

Social Media – The Other End of the World

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

As my regular blog snorkellers will know, I’ve not been backward in coming forward with my theory that social media is on its way out. This is for reasons too innumerable to mention here, including the fact that no-one’s making any money out of it, it’s being swamped by spam, the user growth figures are slowing, the user growth figures have never reflected the reality of the amount of people who sign up then never use the service again and – my favourite – because I say so.

There is another theory, however and in the spirit of fairness and balance, I give an iteration of it a hearing here. Clickety-clink – here’s the link!

(Can’t believe I just wrote that.)

The theory says that the traditional digital comms tools – email, websites – are themselves on the way out, to be subsumed into social media. The reasoning goes that social media provides opportunities to communicate and to provide content that email cannot – to summarise and paraphrase – email is one-dimensional and the social media are not. Same goes for the traditional, reasonably static website – why would you, really, when user-generated, arguably richer content pertaining to a brand or organisation is out there in the blogosphere, or posted on Facebook?

But then the theory trips up. I think it trips up because of the widespread inability to separate social media into its two component parts.

  • Something that people do in their spare time (and when they’re notworking, obviously) to keep up with friends and family, ask for advice on things that trouble/interest them and view/download jokes, clips, tracks, patches etc etc.
  • Something that simply is not working as a marketing, communications or reputation-building tool.

Just because individuals, in their day-to-day lives, may decide to run those lives via Facebook or Twitter or some combination of the two, does not make them valid, or valuable, business tools. Business requires communication without distractions, without logins, without a ‘spirit of community’ and – most importantly – without commentary from everyone who reads it. This is why email, as it is currently, works – for business purposes – so well. You can choose who receives it, you can monitor it and you can cane people who misuse it or try to hide their use of it. The thing that will change about email is how we send and receive it and what it looks like when we do send and receive it.

I also draw attention to the school of thought that says ‘ask a 20-year-old whether they’re using email’ as if this has any bearing on the matter. No, they’re not – they’re texting and using social media (well, some are, anyway) – but, quite frankly, who cares? Email is a business tool (and I include marketing and corporate comms within ‘business’) and 20-year-olds are a notoriously difficult-to-reach audience with limited appeal. You might as well ask an 80-year-old whether they’re using email for all the relevance it has.

And traditional, static websites – well, here’s a sensible post. Actually, there’s more of a place for traditional corporate websites that ever before – and why? Because, thanks to social media (and the way the bigger internet players are forcing us to behave – yes, forcing – Google SideWiki, anyone?) there’s such a slew of information that, ironically enough, the only place you’ll be able to go for reasonably accurate and (dare I say) impartial information will be the corporate website.

Now, I’d just like to make it clear – again, and mainly for my wife, who thinks I’m a cave-dwelling technophobe – that I am not either denying the existence of social media or telling anyone to stick their heads in the sand. Social media is here. Loads of people are using it. It is right and fitting that if we work in communications then we should have a knowledge of it. That being said – I repeat – do not confuse the social media that people use to run/ruin their personal lives and the social media that has all the potential to ruin your business (uncontrolled rumour and bad-mouthing) and none of the potential to materially enhance your revenues.

Social Media – The Last Days of The Empire……

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

History shows us that, right before a major upheaval, there’s normally a flurry of activity. Decadence. Celebration of the good times. Wringing out of the last drop of excitement and pleasure. I refer you to, in no particular order:

  • Nero and the whole Rome deal
  • King Charles, his nasty long hair and his cavalier attitude
  • A nice slice of cake prior to the French Revolution
  • The divinely decadent parade getting a good raining on courtesy of Mr Hitler
  • £400k for a one-bedroom flat in Acton – that’s worth nothing now

Taking this into account, I was interested to read a piece from Communicate Magazine which highlights a veritable slew of social media events, publications and workshops that are springing up and taking place over the next month or so – including, if you can credit it, a two-day ‘social media retreat’. At which, apparently, ‘the finest wines are available’.

I think the parallel is there to be drawn. Vive la revolution!

Social Media – A Bit of a Roundup

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

This is for those of you who think I’m at my best when dealing with social media as a topic area.

(Keen blog snorkellers may have noticed that I’m essaying a move away from just ranty nonsense about social media to more considered, but still ranty, horse-droppings about other elements of the communications mix. But it’s not to say that here isn’t still stuff to marvel at in the wacky world of social media, with all those fine gals, guys and horrible, abnormal cretins who are busy filling up the internet with mindless, unentertaining shyte. Oooop – did I say that out loud?)

So – thanks to the Evening Standard yesterday evening for their profile of Mark Zuckerberg (for those living in an hermetically-sealed coffin, buried at a depth of 75 metres beneath the Gobi Desert, he’s the 25-year-old wunderkind behind the terrifying Book of Face) and the idea that Facebook has a bigger advertising potential than Google. Which makes it pretty damn’ huge, ladies and gentlemen. As an aside, it also makes Marky richer than several squillion Croesuses, and good on him. Putting an interpretation on this, it means that otherwise sensible companies will be able to stop messing about with Facebook groups, sack their overpaid Heads of Social Media Strategy (bye-bye Scott Monty), and spend their money sensibly on the only thing that social media will ever offer to a commercial concern – advertising space. Yes, good old above-the-line.

What this means is, finally, we can all blow a big, fat raspberry in the face of the truly evil American idea of ‘The Conversation’. Ooooo – it’s all about The Conversation. The Conversation – it’s the future of business. We need to have ‘The Conversation’. I even came across – and I’m not going to link to it, it makes me all wobbly and cross – someone, with (I presume) a straight face, actually suggesting that a good measurement of social media strategy effectiveness would be a ‘share of conversation index’. Oh – please just f*ck off. You nasty little hippy.

And, therefore, the inevitable demise of The Conversation will mean a drop off in the slew of noisome Twitteration that’s being forced down our throats currently. Once and for all, Twitter is an ego trip and no-one cares what you are reading or eating or thinking/watching/excreting etc etc – except those people who also think that someone might be interested in what they are etc etc etc. This is why Twitter’s growth is slowing in the US. It’s a fad, always has been, and it will be for the rest of its (hopefully) short and dwindling existence.

Meanwhile, stuff surfaces proving once again a) the danger of social media to a company or brand and b) that every company, among its employees, has a greater or lesser number of fuckwits who I wouldn’t trust with a digestive biscuit, never mind access to a uncontrolled, unregulated, global communications portal.

Recently the employees of two UK electrical retailers – Currys and PC World – created a Facebook group, poking fun at their customers. Really, really stupid, did nothing for corporate reputation and, I sincerely hope, nothing for the career prospects of those who set the group up. Now, I read, again in The Standard (great paper – free, d’you see?), that they’ve done it again – and the clowns have set up a Facebook page as an open letter to their bosses, which – in summary – accuses them of being barriers to free speech. The sheer enormity of their delusion and stupidity is beyond comprehension.

And finally, as a little light relief, here’s something from msn.co.uk. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – in capitals, just in case you’re missing the point – DO NOT LET YOUR EMPLOYEES ANYWHERE NEAR SOCIAL MEDIA IN WORK TIME, ON WORK BUSINESS, OR ON BEHALF OF YOUR BRAND OR COMPANY. There’s a lot of stupid people out there. Beware.

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?

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.