David WebCameron
David Cameron is set to take advantage of the huge potential of the internet by communicating with the potential voters via videoblogs. Taking ideas from other video sharing sites and social networks, such as YouTube and MySpace, Cameron hopes that he will be able to create continuous dialogue with the public and ensnare voters.

My initial reaction to this story was to liken it to an uncle dancing at a wedding. However, Cameron has shown in the past that, in caparison with previous Tory leaders, he has personality and works well with the camera. It will be interesting to see whether this risk taken by Cameron comes off, though he has already taken over the front page of The Guardian.   Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 10:28 PM

  Party like it’s 1982! To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the 2007 Good Pub Guide, a handful of pubs up and down the country are selling beer and food this week at 1982 prices. A pint costs 62p and a ‘real’ pub lunch, such as scampi and chips will be around £2.   Permalink | 1 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 1:41 PM

  Flight sale until midnight tonight
Regular readers will know I'm a big fan of Martin Lewis' MoneySavingExpert web site. Here's a tip from this weeks' newsletter. Budget airline Ryanair is offering flights to European destinations such as Berlin, Gothenburg and Rome from the UK (Stansted and East Midlands) for £10 each way; unusually the price includes all taxes and charges. The offer ends at midnight tonight. Check MoneySavingExpert for more details.

Lewis also has a good tip for anyone that needs to renew their UK passport in the next few months. Get it renewed now as prices rise from £51 to £66 on 5 October.   Permalink | 1 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 7:44 AM

  Broadcasting Branding Criticism

The BBC has today been criticised for spending £1.2 million on its new ‘identity’. This comes rather too soon after the director general Mark Thompson announced the latest series of redundancies that will save £355 million a year by 2008.

The BBC's funding structure makes it an easy shot for the media. You’re unlikely to ever see a story about the cost of Sky’s latest identity and let’s face it £1.2 million isn’t actually a lot of money in terms of video production. Wallace & Grommit’s Curse of the Were-Rabbit cost $30 million. Pixar’s Finding Nemo was $94 million.

  Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 4:33 PM

  Exit Staged Left Further to the revelations about Cherie Booth’s alleged ‘liar’ comments about Gordon Brown, today witnessed further PR stage management from government ruthlessly engrossed with spin. “Home made” placards in the conference hall – all suspiciously bunched together and looking like the produce of some Blue Peter programme – were prominent at Tony Blair’s last address as PM to the Labour Party annual conference.

Charlie Whelan, Alastair Campbell – we’ve seen spin doctors at work during Blair’s premiership – and who’s to say that Cherie Booth’s alleged outburst wasn’t itself part of a clever PR trick designed to undermine Gordon Brown on the day when he effectively made his case to be Tony’s successor?

How are people meant to have faith in our politicians if all they see is stage management? Keep your placards, give us some action.   Permalink | 2 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 5:41 PM

  Comment cock-up Carolin Lotter has shot from relatively obscurity to front page headlines overnight. She’s the Bloomberg producer that filed the story about Cherie Blair’s alleged comment in response to Gordon Brown’s speech at the Labour Party conference in Manchester yesterday.

Bloomberg has aired an interview with Ms Lotter while both Downing Street and Mrs Blair have issued denials. Bloggers are predicting that a second source is set to come forward to support the Bloomberg story.

One thing is for sure: none of this was in the comms plan for the party conference.   Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 3:31 PM

  Gran Turis-No
As videogame production costs spiral to rival the budget of Hollywood movies, developers are keen on exploring new avenues in which they can recuperate their investment. Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG), such as the hugely successful World of Warcraft and Second Life, charge a monthly rate - which is still a rarity for console owners.

However, Sony has recently announced that its new driving game, Gran Turismo HD will come with no cars or tracks and players will have to download each vehicle for about ¥50-100 and a track for ¥200-500. Therefore, in order to see the full game, one could - theoretically - expect to pay up to ¥100,000 (around £450).

Micro purchasing (with in game marketing) is seen as the future of gaming – a way in which gaming developers and publishers can recoup some of their investment in what is an increasingly expensive venture.

The Playstation 3 has had its fair share of problems, not helped by Sony's highly criticised communication and planning, and this should be seen as another poor move by the Japanese giants. Gamers do not want to pay for extra content in games, never mind paying extra just to actually start playing.   Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 1:51 PM

  Clean Finnish
Hot on the heals of Richard Branson’s $3bn commitment to find greener fuels for his Virgin planes, Nokia is the latest corporation to push the green button. It is leading a new consortium of manufacturers and environmental groups looking to develop more eco-friendly mobile technology and increase awareness of recycling.

The group says that if only 10 per cent of the world’s mobile users turned off the supply after charging, enough energy would be saved in one year to fuel 60,000 European homes annually.

Going green is de rigueur, from Conservative Party leaders to big corporations and Californian state governors, every one is raising the environment to the top of the agenda. This is great news for Planet Earth. Let’s just hope they all walk the walk rather than just talk the talk.   Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 11:21 AM

  Underage text
Tom Kirkham at Johnson King reckons texting amongst 10 years olds is no different from passing around notes in a classroom. I think it probably is, Tom.

I am really struggling with this issue - my daughters, aged 7 and 8, are both at primary school and want mobiles because their mates have them. Unsurprising, considering that 90 per cent of 12-years olds now have a mobile.

It is a nightmare issue for parents and teachers. Kids have always wanted the latest toys or gadgets of course, but in the case of a mobile it’s a gadget that provides an unmonitored and unsolicited channel to the outside world – and the effects of radiation on a child’s brain remain largely unknown.

The group of professionals and academics that wrote to the Telegraph last week had a point when they said modern life was contributing to childhood depression. Their reasoning was that children are forced to grow up too fast and need to experience real play to have the opportunity to interact and develop relationships with adults in their life.

Rant over.   Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 8:15 AM

  Gillette Cuts off Becks Coming hot on the heels of the announcement that David Beckham doesn’t think he will play for England again, Gillette announced that they would be dropping David Beckham as the sole brand ambassador.

This is another blow for Brand Beckham, as Gillette is huge in the lucrative American market. But before we start feeling sorry for him, let’s not forget that he is still the world’s most sponsored footballer and probably earns more than any of us, just for sneezing, than we do in a year.

On a lighter note, The Sun is currently serialising Rio Ferdinand’s autobiography. Fantastic.   Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 8:13 AM

  Ya-boo! for advertising spend
Yahoo today warned of falling revenues from advertising, reports today’s Telegraph business section and, in turn, has resulted in sliding shares in Google, EBay and Amazon.

This follows previous warnings given to print and broadcast groups which are heavily subsidised by advertising and show a reluctance of organisations to spend heavily in traditional forms of marketing, such as advertising.

At a time when the PR industry continues to look healthy, it is perhaps an acknowledgement by major organisations that, especially with the various options Web2.0 offers, there are more effective methods of communicating with consumers. This is good news to PR agencies as long as they seek to innovate and capitalise on the shortcomings of traditional advertising.   Permalink | 1 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 3:34 PM

  Jesus Christ!
Forget Peaches Geldof, Arctic Monkeys and the other MySpace celebs, the ultimate (well penultimate) guest has joined the ranks of these trendy young so and so’s despite being dead - at least physically - for around 2000 years, reports today’s The Daily Telegraph.

Jesus Christ’s very own MySpace site has been created by the charity, Churches’ Advertising Network and its aim is provoke discussion about religion and God to young people.

Whether you think the page is humorous or just offensive, I think the idea is very creative and original. It certainly beats those corny ‘Jesus is No Where’ (Jesus is now here) posters outside churches.   Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 11:03 AM

  Tough times for Ashley So Ashley Cole has revealed in The Times that everyone is to blame for his transfer to Chelsea apart from him – Arsenal for not offering him more than £60,000 per week (!), the fans for turning on him when he met illegally with Chelsea to discuss a transfer and the young players for not playing as a team -despite reaching the Champions League Final).

Having paid a six figure sum to serialise Ashley Cole’s autobiography, My Defence, The Times must have thought they had a real winner with the young England hero. However, the ‘amicable’ transfer to Chelsea has resulted in negative feedback from The Times readers.

It will be interesting to see the sales figures of The Times this week - when David Beckham’s autobiography was serialised in the News of the World the circulation went down. But David Beckham’s autobiography revealed that he was a nice guy, whilst Ashley Cole’s reveals - well quite a lot about his morals - and unfortunately I can see both The Times and his autobiography doing well.   Permalink | 3 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 10:07 AM

  Free sheet free for all
So now we have four free newspapers in London: City AM, the Metro, News International’s thelondonpaper and Associated Newspaper’s London Lite. It has been just over a week now since thelondonpaper and London Lite started their battle for commuters eyeballs in the evening, and of course advertisers’ wallets.

Both papers have been criticised for tailoring their content at the lowest denominator, much in the style of the burgeoning weekly gossip market. However, after a day at work it is often more relaxing to read a digested version of the news – something that the freesheets do well - than trying to digest a literary classic.

With the release of the new freesheets, a model pioneered don’t forget by the internet, how long before all newspapers become free in order to have the largest audiences and therefore satisfy advertisers.

Whatever your view its great news for PR agencies – loads more column inches to target with stories. And think of the potential reach if any or all go regional in the same way that the Metro has.   Permalink | 2 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 4:39 PM

  Telegraph ITV tie-up Media convergence is creating some unlikely allies as media companies vie to maintain their market position. Here’s a nugget from the Observer yesterday: The Daily Telegraph and ITN are close to announcing a groundbreaking partnership that will see them co-operating to create new products including programmes fronted by Telegraph journalists and new content for the newspaper’s web site.   Permalink | 1 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 9:06 AM

  National Trust open house There’s an opportunity to get free access to some amazing places this weekend when the National Trust opens hundreds of its properties to celebrate Heritage Open Day Heritage Open Days celebrate the UK’s architecture and culture by offering free access to properties that are usually closed to the public or normally charge for admission.   Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 8:32 AM

  Cheap travel options
Thanks to Money Saving Expert for the tip off that Ryanair currently has a range of free destinations. When you add in its taxes and charges this becomes roughly £20 in total. For a full briefing read the How To Find a Cheap Flight article or go straight to the special free FlightChecker.

Last week Money Saving Expert spotlighted the UK great train rip off. Since the railway system in the UK was split between different operating companies there’s been a deluge of different fares and ticket combinations to choose from with train companies profiting from the confusion. The Money Saving Expert’s guide to buying tickets can save you up to 75 per cent.

Finally a tip from Clodagh Boyle at Rainier PR. She recently picked up the phone to the Flight Centre to buy airline tickets to Munich beating Expedia and Opodo prices by more than 50 per cent.   Permalink | 1 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 3:32 PM

  Rainier PR wins BCS awards gig The British Computer Society (BCS) has appointed Rainier PR to raise awareness of its IT Professional Awards. It’s a cracking opportunity for us to meet and showcase exciting firms in the sector as well as have a decent night out at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London on 7 December. Visit the BCS site for more information.   Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 3:06 PM

  “Hello? I’m on the plane…” Just when we thought that 35,000ft provided a sanctuary from irritating commuters armed with Nokias, loud mouths and domestic issues that can’t wait until they get home, two airlines have announced this week that they will be allowing mobile phone calls on flights. Following hot on the heals of Ryanair’s announcement this week that it will allow mobile calls on its flights from the middle of next year, Aussie carrier Qantas has disclosed that it plans to do the same.

Will this prove to be a pull for the budget airline? For Qantas, whose fleet includes planes big enough to have designated mobile zones away from irritable continent-hoppers, this could be a plus – especially for business travellers. Meanwhile, Ryanair’s less roomy flights could become chattering menageries.

  Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 3:59 PM