Book review: For whom the Bell tolls Following a recent blog posting on a speech by former BBC war correspondent and independent MP Martin Bell at Loewy Group’s monthly speaker’s club, his publishers very kindly sent me a copy of his new book The Truth That Sticks: New Labour’s Breach of Trust. A chronicle of the corruption and abuse of public fund – not least to say good will – that Bell alleges to have witnessed first hand at Westminster, if this tome was handed to every citizen in Britain we’d be battering down the doors of Parliament like Citizen Smith armed with the zeal of Guy Fawkes.

Bell’s central driving force isn’t a naïve shock to find that British politics is far from clean, he centres more on the UK Government’s incredible capacity for hypocrisy, seeking to impose ‘democracy’ on countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan when the self-styled ‘Mother of all Parliaments’ herself far from represents a good model of democracy in practice. Bell appears to argue that corruption and lack of accountability – in the modern era, at least – hit a zenith during Tony Blair’s premiership, with the invasion of Iraq the rancid icing on a dirty, seedy cake.

Bell’s arguments are passionate, often siding with the foot soldiers at the coal face as he himself once was both as a Corporal and news reporter, but if you’re familiar with the works of Rory Bremner and his ilk then you’ll have heard all the charges before: Blair lied about supposed Iraqi WMDs, New Labour rewarded some of its paymasters with peerages, Alistair Campbell elevated spin to unprecedented levels. The differentiator about The Trust That Sticks, however, is that Bell has been on the inside of the House that claims to represent us, and it’s riddled with flaws. This should concern us and we should all strive to make a difference, which I imagine is Bell’s key objective in writing this book.

Labels: PR

  Permalink | 1 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 9:00 AM

  Future of recruitment agencies lies at the network edge We’re not the only agency to have made a hiring via Twitter. You’ll see from the comments on my last post that other people in the PR industry have done the same via LinkedIn and Twitter.

What does this mean for the recruitment industry? Over the last decade we’ve seen the web squeeze businesses based on an agent or intermediary model many times. Think about estate agents, dating agencies and travel agents. And during tough economic climates such as that which we’re currently predicted to be facing the impact will always be exaggerated as businesses seek to drive down costs.

This isn't the death knell for the recruitment industry. After all, we've been here before. Monster was going kill the industry five years ago with its ability to make direct connections between employers and potential employees. It didn’t of course. Instead smart recruitment firms embraced the online environment and were forced to innovate to survive.

Web 2.0 doesn't spell the end of the recruitment agency. Using a social network to recruit is no different to using a traditional network. The reach may be greater but it will always be finite. Recruitment agencies will be pushed to the edge of the network. While we've just made a hire utilising a social network its likely that are next couple of hires will be via recruitment agencies.

So what is the future of the recruitment agency?

Labels: agency life, PR

  Permalink | 1 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 10:47 AM

  Andrew Smith’s PR 2.0 tools Here for the sake of completeness are Andrew Smith’s blog posts about how web 2.0 is commoditising aspects of the PR agency business.

More tips on journalist backgrounders

How to create a journalist backgrounder in 5 mins with Google

An open source model for PR?

How to create a (free) powerful media monitoring and measurement system with Google Reader, RSS, Google Alerts and Blist

BBC tech correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones: a case study for the death of the journalist background briefing document?

Labels: agency life, PR

  Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 10:45 AM

  Using PR 2.0 to define a unique company position or why traditional PR agencies are dead Andrew Smith has run a fantastic series of posts recently about how free or low-cost web tools are eliminating a lot of agency grunt work. We caught up on Tuesday night at a Brodeus / A Plus reunion and chewed over how the PR industry is slow to catch-on to the application of web 2.0 to simplify PR practice.

An example that I’ve been citing to colleagues for a couple of months is how Google has made available a stack of intellectual property and search records that eliminates much of the analytical and empirical analysis associated with developing a market position for a company.

Google’s Keyword Tool is intended to help Google customers build compelling and targeted ads. It also allows a company’s top level positioning and key messages to be tested against historical search records, average search volumes and advertiser competition.

The tool squirts out a dashboard of stats based Google’s vast database of keyword search records. Its also provides synonyms and alternative search terms together with search records.

Consider three examples:

Example 1
A new client is seeking to position itself as a mobile social network. The Google tools tell us that advertiser competition is low and that search volumes are also low – but rising. Given that the client operates in a growing market the current positioning is spot on but will inevitably cease to be unique over time as competitors jump into market. The new client is advised to maintain its current market position for the time-being but to constantly evaluate this and look at applications as a way of creating a unique differentiation.

Example 2
A start-up in the electronics sector has developed a digital value for the precise control of oil and gas. “Digital valve” has low advertiser competition and low search volumes. The client can either seek to define this new market – an expensive exercise for an early stage company – or redefine its positioning so that it is aligned to a recognised market, issue or application.

Example 3
An enterprise ERP software client is seeking to reposition itself. Google confirms that its positioning is wholly undifferentiated. Search volumes are good but the market for adwords is highly competitive. The tool throws a couple of options such as “ERP business software” and application areas where search volumes are good and advertiser competition is low but the client clearly needs help redefining its market position.

A high value service traditionally provided by agencies has just been commoditised. Research tools and agencies have been rendered redundant. It’s time to reinvent the PR agency.

Labels: agency life, PR

  Permalink | 1 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 10:36 AM

  Spin flint We know the Labour Government is lousy at keeping secrets, but Housing Minister Caroline Flint dropped a clanger today, unwittingly allowing paps to get a shot of her Cabinet notes which acknowledged the state of the housing marketing in the UK.

Although I think blogger Guy Fawkes is over the top in calling for Flint to be charged under the Official Secrets Act, I do agree that Flint’s closing statement is classic New Labour bollocks: “... it is vital that we show that at this time of uncertainty we show that we are on people's side,” she writes.

What’s required is firm action, not a few clumsily-spun words.

Labels: media, PR

  Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 2:42 PM

  Micro PR There’s a big echo in the PR blogosphere around this story but rightly so: Stowe Boyd has written a thought provoking blog post setting out a proposal for micro PR asking PR firms to get out of his in-box and instead engage a conversation using tools such as Twitter.

“Maybe someday, a decade from now, PR flacks will have evolved the new DNA needed to really change. An occasional mutant may pop up even today, but the corporate/pr firm hypocrisy is so general and contaminating to all it touches that even the most enlightened will find themselves turned.”

“So, this is an additional argument for MicroPR: forcing PR firms to approach us in the open, on open social flow apps like Twitter, and in the small, where they have to jettison all the claptrap of the old press release model. In the open, that can't lie easily, or they will be caught on it. In the small, they have to junk the meaningless superlatives, the bogus quotes that no CEO ever mouthed, the run-on phrases, the disembodied third party mumbo jumbo, as if the press release were edited by God.”

Boyd cites a mechanism called Twitpitch that he proposed as a means for companies to pitch to him. It’s on the same lines of Mick Fealty’s tip for pitching bloggers: headline, laconic comment followed by a semi-colon and a URL, plus real world contact details.

I think we may just have seen the future. But it’s a long way off.

Labels: PR

  Permalink | 1 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 3:33 PM

  PR and social media – an alternative view Tim Hoang has just had a quick lunch with the Justin Kirby, founder of the International Viral & Buzz Marketing Association (VBMA). The meeting came as a result of an email exchange in Tim’s role at New Media Knowledge where, to put it mildly, Justin was rather negative about the way the PR industry has so far tackled social media.

One of his main criticisms was that “the PR industry gravitates around certain individuals – much in the same way that people consume media that reinforces their ideology” and therefore we all believe we are correct and pat each other on the back, congratulating ourselves on our own greatness. After all, there is no one to tell us differently.

To some extent I would agree – look at the social media-type events whether it is through NMK, Chinwag or the like – there’s very little variation in the people who turn up. Okay, some would argue that it is an open invite and therefore it is not our fault if others do not want to come. However, I think it is ours’ and the organisers’ responsibility to make sure we have as wide a breadth of individuals at these events as possible.

Ironically, our current situation contradicts the social media favourite ‘Wisdom of Crowds’ theory – the digital environment encompasses a huge range of disciplines and there should be more than the regular throng of PR’s and Will McInnes - cheerleader for the digital design community in Brighton.

The term social media also came into question. I know both Wolfstar’s Beth Jones and Steve Rubel have commented on this topic in the past. However, Kirby’s take on it is that it should not merely be labelled ‘media’ but ‘place’. A forum, a blog, a social network is a ‘place’ where people meet and the people are the ‘media’, the channel to communicate through, which he believed we (those of us purporting to operate in the social media) don’t understand properly.

His overall message was that PR practitioners and marketers were talking a good game but how many were actually doing it? Does the insular nature of our inner social circle mean that criticism of ourselves is avoided but is instead directed at those not in ‘the game’? Social media is valid as a label but its importance is overstated – and marketers need to really up their game if they are to really ‘exploit’ this medium, according to Kirby.

Although this post is expecting a whole range of abuse - whatever your thoughts are on Kirby’s comments, the meeting did highlight to me how small and self-congratulatory the social media crowd can sometimes be. Hopefully we’ll see people like Justin at more events soon.

The full interview will be on the NMK site once Tim gets his arse in gear.

Labels: media, PR, social media

  Permalink | 6 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 4:20 PM

  Digital coverage takes precedence over print - report We’ve just conducted a study of 300 senior in-house PR professionals and, among other interesting stats, it has uncovered a tipping point in media focus.

New media channels are set to overtake traditional print and broadcast as the priority targets for PR professionals. It was surprising to find that less than half (49 per cent) of respondents cited traditional print media as their main target for PR, and for one third (32 per cent) it was the last choice. Blogs and social networks have taken precedence for these PROs. This was especially true for people-based businesses such as consultants and system integrators, as well as the computer networking sector.

Also, the PR industry’s commercial importance continues to grow but under-resourcing of in-house teams and relatively static corporate salaries threaten its achievements.

Download a copy of the full Rainier PR Tech PR 2008 report (1MB PDF) and let us know what you think of the findings.

Labels: media, PR, social media

  Permalink | 8 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 9:55 AM

  Everyone needs Twitter! (Well, those that are interested in using it properly) Todd Defren in his blog post yesterday asked whether PROs should “Get Into Twitter or Get Outta Public Relations”

Todd highlighted how PROs who used Twitter could improve their personal branding, have access to the knowledge of some of the industry’s most brilliant minds and build relationships with their peers.

If you read my blog, you would know about my initial scepticism toward Twitter and how I eventually changed my mind about it. I find myself regularly having to explain to friends and colleagues why I spend time Twittering during the day and in my spare hours after work. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s great Twittering during sporting events or during Twitter favourite, The Apprentice.

I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to get more involved in the social media side of PR – which is not everyone in the PR industry. Some people just don’t get it and never will – nor will every marketing manager (i.e. those who pay our wages).

Although we are seeing a huge change in the PR industry, I still think we are a long way off from the point when everyone needs to know about blogging and Twitter and the social media space (and can Twitter be used effectively as a marketing tool in the first place? I certainly haven’t signed up for the porn / dating sites that keep following me – I prefer the freaky stuff).

One of the criticisms of Twitter is that it still feels very elitist. Those that get it, use it well but it is essentially the same folk we’ve been contacting and communicating through blogs for the last couple of years, meet at the same events and have geeky conversations with – newbies can feel a bit left out. However, whenever I’ve got a new follower I’ve always dropped them a quick message to say ‘Hi’ and others have done the same for me. Those that criticise it on this basis are usually too scared to engage. An excellent example of someone who’s come onto Twitter and just steamed in is Jed Hallam, a Nottingham-based PRO who started following me and politely and apologetically, joining in conversations.

Another criticism is that it is self promotional. In many ways it is, people (ourselves included) have been posting up new blog postings on Twitter. I don’t have a problem with it, as long as they are not posing as someone else (which would be illegal nowadays anyway). It means that I am notified as soon as something interesting comes up. Is it spam? (Niall Cook is not a fan) but I find the ‘self promotional argument’ redundant – don’t follow them if you don’t like them.

I’ve actually started using it more of a chat room to talk to people and arrange to meet up offline, whether to set up a game of football or meet for a coffee. As for whether PROs have to be on Twitter – yes if you are a geek like me, but only if you are interested in it. If you are not joining in on the conversation and just want to criticise because other people are using it better than you then leave.

Labels: PR, social media, technology

  Permalink | 3 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 3:08 PM

  Lively Westminister debate finds PR not guilty of threatening press integrity On Wednesday night, a couple of the team from Rainier PR attended a University of Westminster debate on whether ‘The growth of PR is threatening the integrity of the press’. And before we get complaints of bias, we would like to point out that of the two of us that attended the debate, one is currently moonlighting as a hack and the other is a former IT Week journo - so we can see from both sides of the fence.

There was an impressive line up of speakers at the event: Nick Davies, author of Flat Earth News and Roy Greenslade, former editor of the Daily Mirror and Professor of Journalism at City University, argued for the motion that the growth of PR is threatening the integrity of the press. Lord Tim Bell, Chairman of Chime Communications, and Phil Hall of Phil Hall Associates and former editor News of the World were both against the motion.

Both Davies and Greenslade didn’t pull any punches and heavily criticised the PR industry for taking advantage of the vulnerability of the press. Journalists do not have the time to research stories properly due to time constraints and decreasing budgets. Apparently a Fleet Street journalist now writes three times more copy than a decade ago.

Davies claimed that journalists had become “a passive process for other outlets”. The PR industry feeds false stories to the press and the Iraq war was cited as a perfect example of how the trust between PR and journalists has become abused, alleged Davies. Greenslade continued the criticisms of the PR industry describing those that work in it as “people who earn money by being between us [journalists] and the truth”.

Lord Tim Bell argued that it was questionable whether journalists had integrity in the first place – the reporting of the McCann’s was highlighted – and admitted freely that his work had his clients’ interests front of mind. Both Lord Bell and Hall believed that it was not the responsibility of the PR if the integrity of journalist was undermined – most of the problems of the press could be blamed on low prices and the pithy investment by those that own the press. Their clients are also entitled to be protected from the press and information withheld, said Lord Bell – why should they have to air their dirty laundry just because the media thinks it would make a good story?

The debate was very lively and all speakers came off well, particularly the stoical Phil Hall. The one thing both sides agreed on was that the media was broken, but disagreed on whose fault or responsibility it was.

When the votes were counted 59 were for the motion compared to 164 against. Is the growth of PR threatening the integrity of the press? It was quite clear that those who attended the event didn’t think so.

Labels: after work, journalist, media, PR

  Permalink | 2 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 9:29 AM

  Why Johnson King is wrong on b2b bloggers Jacqui Depares at Johnson King reckons that PRs should focus their efforts on online and print media and avoid the distraction of bloggers – at least in the b2b sector. She says:

"With already a huge media base to target, I think that PROs would be best advised to focus their efforts on traditional PR outreach – investing time in building and maintaining relationships with key journalists."

"So just to make it clear: blogs are an important tool for PROs (and PR companies!). I’m just not that convinced they currently have enough influence in the UK media to warrant us – certainly in the B2B arena – dedicating huge amounts of time targeting them."

In my view such analysis is just wrong and dismisses blogs as a fringe element of online media. Blogs are about far more than raw influence and can play a part in any media outreach programme, let alone social media programme. Here’s why:

1. Dialogue
It’s a two way process. We’ve made wrong calls plenty of times but have got involved in lots of discussions and met lots of people. Likewise our clients.

2. Test initiatives
Related to dialogue - bloggers are a great audience for testing ideas providing you prepared to accept often brutal feedback. The 3mobilebuzz team has just launched such an initiative seeking comment on the pricing model and user experience of its 3G USB modems (still waiting for mine).

3. Curious people
Bloggers are typically what Seth Godin terms “curious people”. Granted they’re a niche, often early adopters to coin another collective term, but they are people who have influence through their sheer enthusiasm, persuasion and networking.

4. Networking
Becoming part of the blogging community enables a client to engage directly with like minded audiences. In the b2b space that’s analysts, competitors, journalists, politicians, and crucially for clients sales prospects.

5. SEO
Google juice is an ever changing formula but good content and raw linkage are consistently two of the strongest factors in driving search engine rankings. SEO results are fast becoming a PR metric.

6. Line of business
Agencies such as Edelman and Weber Shandwick have assembled crack teams of social media experts that are driving business. Daljit Bhurj has started Diffusion PR and Jonathan Hopkins has launched Shed. And each of our brands is developing social media relations into a chunky income stream.

Labels: PR, social media

  Permalink | 2 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 9:05 AM

  Chocolate plop It’s all in a brand name: check out the moniker of these choccy bars that the lovely Lucy brought back for the team from her Swedish skiing trip. How we laughed.

Labels: PR

  Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 12:11 PM

  Downturns force innovation and create stars Economic slowdowns force businesses to innovate - or die. Here’s a blog post from marketing guru Seth Godin about the potential to develop a business and make a name for yourself during a downturn.

"Change (and the fortunes that go with it) is almost always made during the down part of the cycle. It might not be fun, but it's exciting. (Where do you think Google came from?) The opportunity is to find substantial opportunities (in any field) that deliver real value and have a future. Those jobs/investments/companies/ideas are undervalued right now, but not for long."

Labels: PR

  Permalink | 2 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 7:17 PM

  Tech PR jobs – hot UK firms are hiring Despite attempts to talk down the economy there’s proof positive of the strength of the PR market this morning from the number of firms that are hiring.

Hotwire’s Drew Benvie, Weber Shandwick’s James Warren and Liberate Media’s Wendy Mcauliffe have all been blogging or twittering this week about their hiring plans.

Rainier PR is also hiring. We’ve got positions open across the agency for people interested in working in the emerging space that encompasses digital and tech PR.

If you’re looking for a job please consider giving me a shout, but also consider looking up any of the people mentioned. Chances are the people using social networks to support their business are the ones that will be doing the most interesting work. And by exploiting your social networks you will immediately signal that you're switched on – and will more than likely see the benefit of going direct in any salary offer.

Recession? Maybe we should be worried about an emerging skills shortage?

Update: Armand David at Brands2Life is also hiring.

Labels: agency life, PR, social media

  Permalink | 4 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 1:49 PM

  Recessionary concerns call for strong professional and personal management Will McInnes makes the point that it would be irresponsible to ignore the turmoil in the financial markets and its potential impact on business. He’s right of course.

The last recession taught me some harsh lessons about management and financial planning. Budgets are now set on a quarterly basis and are reviewed monthly in line with rigorous key performance indicators and action taken to make corrections within any calendar quarter.

Working within the framework of a corporate organisation has also brought strong discipline. Decisions that were once deemed acceptable as an owner-manager are now severely tested.

Will also makes the point that it is important to get your own financial house in order. You could do an awful lot worse than buy a copy of Martin Lewis’ Money Diet.

You can get a weekly dose of Martin’s mantra via his weekly newsletter: protect your income, plan to eliminate debt, save cash, and spend every penny you earn wisely by always seeking out the best deal.

Labels: agency life, PR, technology

  Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 1:42 PM

  UK doom-mongers Why are people in the UK so bloody negative?

A survey of 200 UK business people by virtual business school Pentacle has found that two thirds believe that a recession or heavy downturn is unavoidable. 70 per cent claim to have “little or no experience” in handling a downturn.

How old are these UK bosses? 12?

Those of us in the tech sector have already come through one recession this century and are leaner and better equipped to deal with any economic slowdown than ever before. The same applies to businesses for the PR industry.

A recession is a decline in a country's gross domestic product (GDP), or negative real economic growth, for two or more successive quarters. The UK economy maybe slowing, but it’s a long way from a recession.

All this negative chatter is driving the market downwards and is totally unnecessary.

We’ve had a decade of sustained, rapid growth. Economic theory states that it can’t go on inexorably. Slow downs are inevitable and provide a driver for businesses to focus on costs and innovate. That is not a bad thing.

So, rather than British businesspeople moaning, we should be coming out fighting and looking for a way to meet any challenges as and when – or even if – they come.

Quick survey via comments: do you foresee a recession in the next 12 months?

Labels: PR, technology

  Permalink | 1 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 11:32 AM

  Budget for business as usual The UK budget was business as usual for business. No surprises. Just how we like it in fact. Here’s the headlines:

- capital gains tax for small firms remains at 10%
- deferral of plans on income shifting rules for family businesses and delay to planned 2p price rise on fuel
- 30% public procurement target for small and medium-sized firms
- £60m more for Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme
- non-doms charge of £30,000

But a 55p hike on spirits has got to hurt the Scottish distillery industry. And along with a 14p rise on a bottle of wine is surely going to damage the entertainment budgets and personal pockets of the PR and marketing industries.

Labels: PR

  Permalink | 1 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 5:17 PM

  Public PR firms report robust revenues (and profit) Havas (parent of Euro RSCG Apex Communications, Euro RSCG Biss Lancaster and Maitland) has reported 2007 revenues of €168 million up from €121 million in 2006 and an operating margin of 11.0%, up from 8.2%. Organic growth in income was 7%.

Chime Communication (parent of Bell Pottinger Group including Good Relations, Harvard and Insight) has reported 2007 revenues of £96.5 million up from £77.9 million in 2006 and operating margin of 16.3%, up from 15.7%. Organic growth in income was 11%.

Lord Bell, chairman of Chime is quoted in the results press release on bullish form. “Another terrific year, double digit growth across the board and no sign of any slowdown in the first quarter of 2008 nor for that matter the rest of the year,” said Bell.

Meanwhile marketing groups Interpublic and WPP have both posted strong results. No sign of a recession here.

Update from Ben Matthews: No sign of a downturn in PR.

Labels: PR

  Permalink | 1 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 1:54 PM

  Tech PROs should drop the drivel and stand up to their clients Banish ‘corporate bollocks’ for ‘common sense and plain English’ in UK press releases, advises Rainier PR's Chris Lee in a byliner in today's PR Week (sub required).

Does this sound familiar? ‘Unheard-of Company X [NASDAQ: UCOMPX08] today announced the availability of market-leading fault-tolerant 24x7 enterprise solution UNHEARD-OF COMPANY X INNOVATOR to optimize system integration…’

This drivel continues for a 70-word opening paragraph by which time you find yourself lying on the office floor blue-faced with asphyxia.

How can a tech PR professional ‘sell in’ a press release when the US HQ forbids you to anglicise it beyond swapping the odd ‘z’ for ‘s’?

I am an angry ex-journalist who gets driven up the wall by corporate bollocks. Even worse, there are too many UK firms here that appear to want to follow suit.It is the responsibility of the PR industry to educate in-house marketing people that press releases should be designed with the audience at the core, not the egos of C-level executives or channel partners.

Unless you are happy with coverage on www.postyourownturgidreleasehere.com and nowhere else, of course. Any respectable journalist will tell you the same thing.But if the demand is for quality editorial coverage in the UK then PR people must train clients that style and content has to be suited to our media style.

What does a journalist want? A story of interest to the magazine’s readers. Who are the readers? Predominantly tech buyers and professionals. What do they want to know? -Something relevant to their market about how a product or service is going to save them money, improve efficiency and make them look good internally. What don’t they want? Corporate drivel, backslapping and internal promotions.

It is not just about the style, it is about the vocabulary, too. Overuse of certain words, such as ‘solution’, has led to Private Eye dedicating space to firms who offer, say ‘complete glazing solutions’, when ‘window cleaner’ will suffice.

All that is required is common sense and plain English. This is PR, not advertising. We need to tailor comms and stand up to clients, regardless of their home market’s style. Clients can no longer expect us to send out the same old hackneyed, self-serving rubbish and then fall over themselves wondering why little or no coverage appeared. We’re consultants; we’re paid to consult. It’s about time we all did our jobs.

Labels: media, PR

  Permalink | 4 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 11:31 PM

  Flat Earth debate disappoints It had the potential to be a fantastic debate: a panel discussion with media and PR heavyweights organised by the Press Gazette at the London College of Communications to debate Nick Davies' latest book Flat Earth News.

But in the end it was lightweight. A Flat Earth story in fact. Panelists and questioners largely pursued their own agendas and did little to move the debate forward with no one accepting responsibility for the state of the UK media. Everyone took themselves far too seriously.

Davies set up his premise. “Journalists don’t have time to do their business properly relying instead on recycling stories, wire copy and PR agency fodder,” he said.

To support this thesis Davies commissioned research by a team from Cardiff University’s School of Journalism into the origin of stories in the national media.

Like Observer media columnist Peter Preston I take issue with the Cardiff stats. The conclusion is spot on, but the claim exaggerated. “The four lead stories on the Guardian web site this evening are PR-led based on the Cardiff definition, including the Clinton story,” said Preston.

But Davies’ argument stacks up nonetheless. The PR industry exists to influence the media and attempts to secure coverage for clients.

Anyone equipped with Google can demonstrate the direct connection between press releases and press coverage – often word for word. The PR industry thrives on it; at Rainier PR we celebrate it.

“This is not dishonest. Viewer and readers are not being misled. PRs are enablers of stories. The industry isn’t characterised by stunts and political spin,” said Sally Costerton, UK CEO, Hill & Knowlton and cheerleader for the PR industry.

No one in the PR industry can deny benefiting from churnalism, although Francis Ingham, Director General of the PRCA flatly refused to acknowledge it. But to suggest that PR agencies influence news room agendas is simply bollocks.

The fact is that editorial news rooms are too stretched. Since Murdoch kicked down the print unions in the mid-eighties newspapers have been driven by profit. Boardroom executives seeking commercial return have replaced press barons motivated by ego, who were happy to fund breakeven or loss making operations.

Malcolm Starbrook editor of the East London Advertiser said that the result is reduced staff, casual labour and older staff replaced by lower paid employees all stretched to research, fact check and file copy for an increasing number of media channels. No where is this more apparent than in the regional media.

Perhaps the reason there weren’t any answers forthcoming from the panel or the audience is because there aren’t any. Media groups are shareholder driven organisations that need to turn a profit like any other business.

If the media industry is to find a solution it isn’t going to come from the NUJ. It came in for a lot of stick for its failure to campaign on ethics and clamp down on bad practice.

Andrew Gilligan said the solution lies with individual journalists. He called for them to be braver and opinion led in their reporting. “There’s a lot of he said she said reporting, with both sides of an argument getting an equal voice. Instead we need to dig into stories and uncover who is actually telling the truth”.

Update: H&K's Niall Cook was also disappointed.

Labels: after work, media, PR

  Permalink | 2 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 9:52 AM

  Value of student blogs When we met on Friday, Katya asked me whether it was worthwhile for a communication student to blog.

My response? Ask Stephen Davies and Richard Millington, both of whom are developing impressive careers off the back of their student blogs.

The only way to begin to understand social media is to embrace it wholeheartedly. I’ve got personal form after all. I used to think Twitter was a complete waste of time until I started using it and discovered the benefits for myself.

And the chances are that you’ll attract the attention of a future employer. In fact it surprises me that more students don’t blog.

Labels: PR, social media

  Permalink | 5 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 11:57 AM

  Academia, PR measurement and social media measurement Tim Hoang and I had an interesting meeting with Katya Trubilova on Friday. She’s in her final year of a Public Relations degree at Leeds Metropolitan University and is currently writing a dissertation on evaluating the effectiveness of business blogs.

PR theory teaches that in order to measure the success of a campaign you need qualitatively measure the attitude of your audience before and after a campaign. This model is borrowed from the ad industry and is well proven. The degree to which the audience’s attitude has changed before and after the campaign gives a measure of return on investment.

Measurement in this rawest form is incredibly expensive as it necessitates one-on-one interviews with a broad cross-section of your audience. Measurement budgets can very quickly escalate out of kilter with the investment in programmes.

But the PR industry is still keen to prove its value. The solution has been to pick an arbitrary point between the PR campaign and the audience and use quantitative metrics.

Where a campaign has a sales dimension, sophisticated clients are able capture sales data. But this is the exception rather than the norm, so instead we pick off arbitrary variables such as the number of press clippings resulting from a campaign, advertising equivalent value or web hits.

The PR industry has now moved this model over to social media domain. We can’t measure the impact of a blog posting directly on the audience as like efforts to measure the success of a PR campaign, it would be ridiculously expensive, but we can measure RSS subscribers, blog hits, Technocrati ranking, track backs and comments. But to what end?

I’ve always used Google search rankings as a raw measure of the success of this blog. Stick pr blog, tech pr, tech pr agency and tech pr blog into Google. We’re doing okay – this week.

But these metrics are still arbitrary. The only absolute measure of the success of a business-to-business blog is whether it delivers brand value and sales. The good news is that people in the industry want to talk to us because of the blog and the P&L is showing benefit.

Job done?

Labels: media, PR, social media

  Permalink | 3 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 11:39 AM

  Del.icio.us links Here's a selection of recent del.icio.us links. There’s more at del.icio.us/wadds.

An experiment in lifesourcing | Micro Persuasion
Steve Rubel hires a virtual exec via Elance to crunch web stats. Well worth considering.

20 things I wish I had known when starting out in life | Zen Habits
A new subscription: a beautifully written blog about personal goals, personal organisation, money saving and achieving a flat stomach. Author Leo Babauta is married with six kids.

Nice social media release, shame about the content | Getting Ink
Sally Whittle shares my belief in content over substance.

Come to the Inquirer’s 7th birthday party! | The Inquirer
The Inquirer’s 7th birthday party is on 6 March, celebrating the departure of Mike Magee and Martin Veitch.

Speed the Plow | The Old Vic
I’ve booked tickets to see Kevin Spacey and Jeff Goldblum in action after the truly superb reviews.

Van Rental | 1Van1.com
Everyone should try driving a white van at least once to experience the reaction of other drivers – particularly when your passenger is a toddler. Dan and I drove up to Newcastle last weekend.

Labels: after work, PR

  Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 10:40 PM

  Dark side of the moan Doing an Anakin Skywalker and crossing over to the Dark Side is not unusual, in fact it’s probably increasing common for hacks to become flacks. We’ve a number of Anakins here and one of them, Chris Lee, presented himself at PR Week’s studio this week to talk about the pros and cons of making the switch.

Labels: PR

  Permalink | 1 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 2:33 PM

  Bring back the news release; forget about social media releases Richard Millington debates the issue of drafting the perfect press release only for it to be mauled by a client.

You've just written a press release. You send it to the client for their approval. They come back with a lot of changes, most of which are awful. The quote has clearly been written by a machine, they've inserted lots of acronyms, even more plenty of hyperbole and it just doesn't read well. In short, it's been butchered and no journalist in their right mind would touch it.

Andy Smith bemoans some of the piss poor press releases that agencies tart via Sourcewire.

You can get a feel for the kind of press release hitting journalist in-boxes by looking at Daryl Willcox’s Sourcewire or Response Source. For example, would you put out a press release to “pay tribute” to someone holding down the same job for 5 years? You might if you were the Prime Minister - but a call centre manager?

Three issues here:

(1) We’re taught to write from age five. Consequently anyone can reasonably voice an opinion on the content of a press release.

(2) The client will always win. Once a press release has done the rounds of a corporate organisation it takes a very astute PR exec to tell a client that their modifications are off the mark.

(3) Press releases have morphed into Medusa-like documents that are ultimately often little more than web fodder that massage the ego of third parties such as customers, channel partners and investors. Very rarely are they news releases.

Forget about the social media release for now. As Sally Whittle says we need to get to remember the purpose of a press releases and get back to the basics of writing decent news copy.

Labels: journalist, PR, social media

  Permalink | 10 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 9:58 AM

  Taking issue with tech PR stories drive national coverage Almost every tech new business prospect that walks through our door wants to hit the national media in order to drive brand profile or support a sales effort. Who wouldn’t? But there is frequently a chasm between a client’s belief in a story that will make the national media and the stark reality.

Opportunities to get a profile in the nationals are limited and typically require a creative pitch and months of relationship building to persuade the journalist that a story is worthwhile.

The challenge for tech PR firms is that journos on the nationals don’t typically want to write about business or consumer tech firms unless it’s a hot start-up or a familiar brand name that has a significant consumer angle to hit the home pages or a financial angle for the business pages.

So PRs need to work hard to educate clients about what it requires to get ink in a national newspaper – it requires creativity aligned with the current news agenda, with a fast turnaround best achieved through the use of pre-packaged comment. PRs need to scrutinise the media constantly, hit the phones and make sure spokespeople are available for follow-up. We call this tactic ‘newsjacking’.

The need for speed often places this tactic at odds with corporate PR team. There’s no room for multiple layers of corporate sign-off. Educating a client on the process and preparing material are critical to success. But when it works the results can be spectacular. Rainier PR and its sister agencies Lighthouse PR and Custard PR use this approach to get coverage for clients in the nationals on most days.

And of course pitches developed for the national media can be reused for trade media. In today’s media climate tech web sites follow new agendas as aggressively as any national.

Labels: media, PR

  Permalink | 3 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 2:01 PM

  Made to measure? A couple of our guys went to the Chinwag event last night.

Labels: after work, media, PR, social media

  Permalink | 5 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 2:21 PM

  New boss We’ve got a new boss; Loewy has appointed Bill Jones to the role of chair of its PR businesses.

Jones’ career in PR spans 20 years and highlights include founding and building Lexis into an 80+ people agency with £5 million in fee income.

At Loewy he will be focussed on the growth and development of its PR businesses – Mantra, Rainier PR, Custard PR, BMA Communications and Lighthouse PR.

Bring it on.

Labels: PR

  Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 12:41 PM

  Valentine marketing misses a beat How many Valentines did you get today? None so far for me; but I remain hopeful. Its early days. What I have received is lots of dodgy e-marketing from firms latching onto the Valentine theme as an easy marcom tactic.

Here are some of my favourites:

• Double Cashback On Flowers – nonsense plain talking from GreasyPalm
• The new 32GB iPod touch. Just in time for Valentine's Day – no attempt at romance from Apple
• £11.95 on Double-Steaks with free delivery – who could resist this Valentine dinner deal from Well Hung Meat
• Express your love in glorious colour with Epson – nothing else to add

Has anyone spotted a smart use of the Valentine theme?

Labels: PR

  Permalink | 1 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 12:35 PM

  Tabloid headliners Two personal nominations follow for tabloid headline of year 2008 from the front pages of two of this weekend’s newspapers.

Rumpy Stumpy! in the News of the World
Heather Mills allegedly cheated on ex-hubby Sir Paul McCartney.

Bash the Bishop in The Sun
Tabloid launched a campaign criticising the Archbishop of Canterbury over his comments on Sharia law.

The Urban Dictionary offers an alternative explanation of the latter headline for anyone that isn’t familiar with the lexicon of the UK tabloid media.

Comments in the form of headline puns only please.

Labels: media, PR

  Permalink | 1 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 10:06 PM

  del.icio.us links Here’s my delicious links for the last seven days.

Mayor of London - Chinese New Year
Celebrations in London today for the Chinese New Year of the Rat.

Mucca cheated on Paul McCartney | News of the World
As the Mucca versus Macca trial moves into its final phase, today’s News of the World’s ‘Rumpy Stumpy!’ headline will surely land the paper in hot water.

FT.com / Your money - My first million: Trevor Baylis
Profile article in the FT on inventor Trevor Bayis who has launched a wind-up MP3 player.

Cheap Flights, Airline Tickets, Cheap Airfare & Discount Travel Deals - Kayak.co.uk
Travel web site recommended by a client.

Is Your Client a Certified Asshole?
If you need to do this online survey I think you already know the answer.

P & O Ferry Offer - MoneySavingExpert.com Forums
Cheap ferry travel from the UK to France from MoneySavingExpert.com.

Personal Video Recorders now under £50
More from MoneySavingExpert.com. PVRs are becoming a commodity product.

MobHappy » Blog Archive » Myers Briggs Explained
Myers Briggs explained in a podcast from a mate of MobHappy.

Portrait of an ENFJ
This is my Myers Briggs profile. What’s yours?

Wild Honey review - Restaurants - Time Out London
Had an excellent lunch here this week. It's just received a Michelin star. Well worth a visit.

Labels: after work, personal, PR

  Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 8:07 PM

  PR industry stands up to 'churnalism' attack PR Week carries an article by Clare O’Connor and David Quainton on the PR industry’s response to Flat Earth News including some of my comments from Monday (sub required). Ian Monk and Danny Rogers both follow up with leader comment. Fair play to Nick Davies; as Rogers says like all good PR driven stories he’s touched a raw nerve and got the industry’s attention and has started a debate. I’ve ordered my copy.

Labels: media, PR

  Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 10:22 AM

  Look ma, I’m on Sky News! Last week our very own Tim Hoang took part in an interview with Sky News about Facebook’s apology for its Beacon application.

The key issues Yorkshire-boy covered about Facebook and Beacon were that:

1) Beacon was a PR disaster more than anything else

2) Facebook and the social media space are still young and inevitably are prone to cock-ups. We're all learning

3) The average Facebook user doesn't actually know about Beacon, and, anecdotally those that do actually like its targeted approach

Labels: blogger, media, PR, social media, technology

  Permalink | 1 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 9:13 AM

  Embrace PR2.0 or die The University of Westminster hosted an evening with Mark Borkowski on Monday night which three of our clan attended. As expected, Borkowski wasn’t afraid of addressing some of the issues that faces the PR industry in the world of web 2.0, warning how a “generation of PRs will die” if they do not embrace this new era.

With economic uncertainty ahead in 2008, the PR industry will likely have to take budget from other disciplines and merge with the marketing department – a trend that Will McInnes has previously highlighted.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom for those of us still operating in ‘traditional’ PR. Borkowski was keen to point out that a good story will always be interesting. Referring to his excellent “bring back Wispa” social media campaign, he said, “a good story will always get picked up. It was something that was genuinely happening at the time and the product had already shifted before the media picked it up.”

I was disappointed that I didn’t actually get to speak to Borkowski at the after drinks and drill him on what made the Wispa campaign so successful (we’ve tinkered around with Facebook before but with very little success as I think has everyone else). As always, it’s interesting to see what other companies are doing in the social media sphere and I was particularly impressed with Shiny Red, which appears to be developing a solid business in this area, unlike some agencies who are talking about it but actually doing anything.

Labels: media, PR, social media

  Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 5:01 PM

  Event report: NMK – Clients in the wild Last night both myself and Wadds went to NMK’s Clients in the Wild seminar (disclosure: I work both for Rainier PR and NMK) in Piccadilly Circus.

I’d encourage anyone who is interested in social media whether you work in PR, marketing or in-house to attend these things (whether NMK or These4Walls or other events) not just to listen to the three talking heads of early 90's boyband lookalike Drew Benvie (the first blog I ever subscribed to), Will McInnes from Nixonmcinnes and Sarah Ogden from Midnight Communications, but also to network afterwards. You end up learning so much.

The debate began with the startling news that we were no longer in control of the message. Whilst hardly a revelation along the lines of string theory or Newton’s laws of gravity – it was a good place to start and a good place for Will to sound off about how screwed up the PR industry is. Will’s argument wasn’t whether PR can control the message (has it ever been able to?) but more with how the PR industry demonstrates value in PR 1.0, let alone PR 2.0.

My main bug bear with the debate was that no one gave a sufficient answer to the question how do you measure influence? Mat Morrison, unfortunately not the 90s rap star who got a friend to do his community service but the Digital Planning Director for Porter Novelli showed me the model they used. It was a spider diagram showing how influencers are interconnected to their audiences though much like every other diagram couldn’t show influence just numbers.

Personally, like the panel, I think the measurement depends on the objectives of the client – they are the ones who pay the fees – if they think a feature in The Times would sell x amount of products then all the PR industry can do is advise – push back if unrealistic or help them achieve it. And ditto if they want to target bloggers. Simon Collister asked whether we should scrap the way we ‘do’ PR in this new world. I’d be inclined to disagree- certainly the tactics we (and many other companies) use for our clients still works and is profitable. And as Sarah rightly pointed out, PR tactics should include social media as part of the strategy (depending on the objectives) not just tagged on to existing campaigns. What we have is good it just needs to evolve quicker with the change in the environment.

Most of the more interesting discussions came after the actual seminar with Adam Parker from webitpr elaborating on an earlier point he made about the Northern Rock fiasco. Adam asked why the directors of the company didn’t engage with the public and communicate the huge sums of money they donate to charity (5 per cent of all profit apparently) by visiting local branches.

Ged Carroll has written an excellent post about the event which I urge you to check out.

Labels: after work, blogger, media, PR, social media, technology

  Permalink | 9 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 2:25 PM