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Today’s PR Week carries a front page lead that US Presidential hopeful, John McCain, is casting an envious eye over here and is upset that the UK/Europe seems to be falling under Barack Obama’s spell. He’s also agitated over David Cameron’s desire to position himself within range of Barack’s halo effect.

He’s trying to draw right-wing media in the UK into his briefing network and is working on some of the right’s bloggers e.g. Guido.

For anyone interested in how the Yanks are doing blogger outreach in a professional way here is a tape recording of a recent session, hosted by Liz Mair, McCain’s Head of Comms. They are done by conference call and carry a briefing from staffers followed by open Q’s from bloggers who have dialled in.

I love it when there’s a thought going round my head and you notice that not only is someone else thinking exactly the same thing but they’ve come up with a neat new phrase to sum it up  - ‘Crunch-Washing’!

PR people are starting to repackage their stories with a credit crunch angle to try and make it newsworthy. In many cases the story is in no way really linked to the global financial crisis but in the same way that cr*p PR people send press releases to journalists in December with a Xmas theme or in February with a Valentine theme, not thinking 400 other people are doing the same, some are now crunch-washing! Perfectly described by Will Sturgeon.

I love that term! 

Reading about sex in the tabloids is, well, unavoidable. But in the Guardian, it makes me feel slightly soiled. Still, the story about the “outing” of a Brit blogger, ChinaBounder, in China is instructive about the blogosphere generally.

ChinaBounder’s, ahem, enthusiastic online entries about his liaisons with Chinese women caused a storm with an influential Chinese blogger, whose denunciation of the bounder caused a flurry of visits to the offending blog. Now the guy’s got a book deal!

If you are an empassioned expert in your field and are willing to share your passion with the world, you are likely to spark debate, attract an increasing audience and plain get noticed.  Hopefully, unlike ChineseBounder, you won’t have to leave the country.

Spotted a new site called www.iwantgreatcare.org, which is launched this week. It will let patients rate and review every medic who has treated them. Applying Trip Advisor and Toptable to the NHS. Patients are asked whether they would trust the doctor, did they listen and would you recommend them, using ratings 1-100.  

I think it’s a really interesting idea. Doctors have never had to worry too much about what patients think about them, except in cases of extreme negligence, which result in weighty compensation claims or worse! Brands, politicians, journalists, governments, pop stars, i.e. anyone who holds any kind of position in society, are waking up to the fact that people want to talk to them/be spoken to in a different way. Doctors are no exception to that. There’s always a reservation about people acting in a malicious way but thankfully decent moderation and the wisdom of the crowd tends to police that very effectively, just like in a proper community.
 

Summer seems to have been and gone while I type this on a grey, cloudy day. The only thing cheering me up is how lucky I was recently getting some nice weather for our Sets and the City event for Haagen-Dazs. Essentially, it was a five day sampling event that took place on the second week of Wimbledon fortnight and, thanks to fantastic weather, the place was heaving with people - about 25,000 visited it in total and 10,000 litres of ice-cream guzzled!

There was a giant plasma screen broadcasting play live from Wimbledon, astro turf had been laid to give the impression of a grass court and free scoops of Haagen-Dazs’ new limited edition ice cream flavour - Raspberries & Meringue - were served to the crowds. Free beauty treatments were also on offer and the space was furnished with soft chill out seating. We staged a photo call to launch the five-day event and got pick up in The Sun and Mirror and the London Paper making it into the ‘hottest day of the year’ story/picture round ups. We also generated preview pieces on London listings sites like View London and Itchy City Guide London. Although the event was branded - there was no mistaking it was Haagen-Dazs - it wasn’t in your face.

The whole thing felt relaxed and right and gave people something that was welcomed and enjoyed. I got a real buzz from being there - a really chilled, relaxed atmosphere with everyone enjoying themselves and making the most of the sunshine and the tennis (with free ice cream thrown in for good measure!)…

According to analysts, Gartner, social networking sites are not doing it for business. Well, who am I to contradict that global behemoth but - you know what - here goes…

Strategic communications consultant, Merryn Myatt, signed up for Linkedin about a year ago and promptly forgot about it. Latterly, she started to build up her professional network using the site and then needed some input for a project, so posted a question on Linkedin. Not only was the response enormous, but the profile of the people responding very impressive.

So what, you might say? Apart from Merryn getting a host of great material for her work (i.e., content - what web 2.0 should be good for) it shows that business people are online wanting to interact, share knowledge, learn and build contacts. Isn’t that the start of a beautiful (business) relationship?

Knife crime is a great media story. Like all the best stories it really plays to our base instincts. It has knife-wielding villains, death tolls, scapegoats, police sirens and grief-stricken families. Make no mistake, the issue of young people killing each other is a grave issue and needs to be addressed.

But its nigh impossible to do this when the whole issue is debated via the newspapers and 24 hour news channels within the prism of 300 words, with aggressive headline, soundbites for and against and neat, quick solutions. The media and opposition are right to criticise knife-crime solutions that have been thought up over the weekend in response to three more killings. But the clamour and panic stirred up by the same media demands urgent, quick ‘eye-catching initiatives’. 

The issues that underpin the knife crime problem existed long before the press started writing about it and will need long term decisions to deal with it. The kinds of decisions that need time to think through, be debated and have all interested parties sign up to. Then they need to be implemented over a long period of time. 

Its impossible to find solutions that society signs up to if we pretend hugely complex and troubling issues can be solved over the weekend. The government shouldn’t play this game but equally the press shouldn’t ask them to. They shouldn’t demand 5-point plans and then even worse, ridicule them when they arrive! I’ve decided I won’t comment on the Ray Lewis soap opera but you know what I’m getting at:)

 PS What happened to gun crime, street crime, binge drinking, even date rape? Have they been solved?

A lot of PR and ad people are asked by clients how to ‘reach out’ to the blogosphere. The key is to treat bloggers as super-users. People who can influence conversation about your brand within their community. In the old days their community was a neighbourhood, factory, church or club whereas now it’s interest based and faciliated online.

OK, OK I’m massively over-simplifying this but I need to.

Anyway, here is a great example of a brand, Sony, doing it well. They have made somebody, in this case Rick Clancy, Head of Comms, their human face. If you are going to interact with bloggers ie social media then you have to be ’social’. You can’t say sending people press releases or plastering ads everywhere is social:)

As well as responding to queries personally and joining conversations online, Rick is also planning to tour 40 Sony stores in 40 days to get involved in real face-2-face conversations with real customers - WOW!

The big talking point in parts of the PR/ad industry is how to do good blogger events. Is it a bit naff? Will the bloggers be nasty to us? What do we actually do and will they go away and write about us?

First point is DON’T treat bloggers like mass media. They are customers or service users. Their opinions really matter in terms of feedback on your product, your competitors and your marketing plans.

”OK, OK I’m a PR person, will they write about us?” It doesn’t matter if you get good feedback about your products but by involving them in your brand and offering them something directly relevant to what they blog about then why wouldn’t they?

Here’s the experience of a ‘Mum blogger’ that attended a Sony event. 

Congrats to Matt B from London who has designed the new national TV ad for Doritos. You may remember that Doritos went for the ultimate in involving their customers in the brand and asked them to produce an idea and creative for a major TV ad campaign.

All the finalists’ details are here and it’s nice to see that the brand has been true to its promise. The big challenge is for TV advertisers to innovate more as audiences fall and people use Tivo, Sky Plus to navigate away from commercial breaks. Emily Bell makes the point here.

Any advertisers out there with something innovative? There is one who we employed recently on the back of this.