pr-media-blog.co.uk

A fellow blogger from PR Media Blog has, in the past, suggested I am unrepentant in using sex to sell this site.

Not wishing to disappoint, today’s Sex Uncovered supplement in The Observer is the perfect excuse to blend media talk and sex. But forgive me if I fall asleep somewhere in the middle. The British media (and overseas, but more of that later) are no strangers to sex surveys, and these often make for light reading over a cup of tea. But sex supplements???

Are they a way of winning the Sunday circulation war by getting Times and Telegraph readers to shelve their usual politics for a spot of salacious reading and persuading News of the World followers to feel they’re getting some sophisticated sex talk for a change?

After an exhaustive “history of British sex” introduction from chief leader writer, Rafael Behr - recyling the usual suspects of Philip Larkin and 1963; the Lady Chatterley case; the issue of sex = commerce and scaring us to death with the “tyranny of the ultra-sexual market” - the Observer supplement tries to prove its sheer stamina with several interminable features and pages of results from an ICM poll.

What these results tell us is a combination of the bleeding obvious (people aged 65+ are least promiscuous) and the completely inexplicable (people living in Wales and the South West have most sexual partners). The poll’s results are then trashed by some of the feature writers, in one case deriding the finding that men tend to have a higher sex drive by suggesting that everyone who took the poll is probably lying. So much for what our survey says.

Wondering whether sex surveys are a peculiarly British media phenomenon, a quickie search proved otherwise. But at least what’s out there in the overseas media is either funny or amusingly nationalistic. A survey of Italian men from the country’s edition of Cosmopolitan found the majority were turned off in bed by “vulgar language”, while another magazine flew the flag with a cover story about impotence problems under the title, ”Males of Italy - better than the Americans.”

The Germans are happy to make similar claims, care of a survey from “prophylactic giant, Durex”, which claims the Germans have “extended their Teutonic efficiency to the bedroom.” Not to be outdone, the International Herald Tribune brings in mathematicians to deal with the inexact science of sex surveys, debunking the “men have higher sex drive myth” with the ultimate passion killer - logic. But all very, very funny.

As an Observer reader it pains me to be hard on their supplement and one part of the poll did raise a smile: Is it typically British for 40% of people to rate their sexual performance as just “average”? How would that translate to a pre-coital conversation in the bedroom (or, in the workplace,  as 17% claim)? Might it go something like “Listen, don’t expect fireworks or any of that Latin lover nonsense, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Imagine my surprise when a video from a US cable news outlet popped into my inbox, containing a news report blaming ME for Barack Obama losing the US election!

It’s absolutely brilliant and is a Get Out The Vote (GOTV) initiative from the Democrat leaning MoveOn.org, an organisation set up in the late 90s to drive people behind particular causes by using the potential of online communities.

You watch it, can’t believe how clever it is, send it on to loads of your friends and probably largely people who wouldn’t want McCain to win.

Ok, ok , I realise I don’t have a vote in this election but if you and me would be motivated to pass this on, imagine how many folk in the US would.

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!

I am writing this on the train and it strikes me that there is a parallel between train travel and social media.  Bear with me for a moment.  Over the years I have noticed that business people can be a little indiscreet when they are travelling and fellow travellers develop heightened levels of inquisitiveness.

Which of us hasn’t cast a glance at an opened laptop or pricked our ears when passengers in the same carriage carry on a conversation about an industry we are involved in?   It is a mistake to think that a train carriage is a private space and the same should be said of the places where we gather on line.  In the same way that I have overheard and doubtless said things whilst travelling that I should probably have not, I have seen some real ‘corking’ indiscretions on-line.

True, Facebook has privacy settings and you can block people on Twitter but we should treat online discussions as if we were chattering on a crowded train rather than conversing in camera.  Likely as not people won’t be listening but we must always allow for the fact that they might be.   Also travelling on this London to Manchester train is Peter Mandelson…talking of keeping conversations private.

Say what you like about Philip Green but the guy knows his onions when it comes to satisfying his customers. He came out with some pearls in his interview with ITV News last night on how businesses can survive the recession. Lets get back to basics. Lets have some dialogue. Listen to your customer, know your customer, form a relationship. You’ll get better products and not make as many mistakes. This is how comms/PR/marketing can find find its way into the strategic centre of a business.

He says its all about face-to-face and not fancy technology. He’s right, the technology doesn’t need to be clever but using basic, freely available technology means you can form lots of relationships and service them in an efficient way. Never has there been a better definition of online PR.

See you in the recession!

One of the key communications challenges for political parties is to get supporters to help them push the message in an era when people in the post-affluent age don’t really want to trudge the streets delivering leaflets. They also don’t really want to be told what to do in the purest sense.

Social media is great for grouping people together who have similar passions and expertise. The Lib Dems are doing this with a Facebook group that gets together Lib Dems who have PR experience.

Quite often when people work for a political party they will go into PR / PA but there are lots of good people in these fields who have a political interest and can be harnessed. Facebook is ideal for getting together a loose grouping who can dip in, dip out, offering help where they can. With an election coming up getting PR/PA people closer to the party to bring that critical mass of expertise through practical help, campaign advice, pro bono agency work etc has an obvious attraction.

May be this group still needs a bit of work. When I spoke to one of the group members for his views/insight into how it was going , his response was “ha, ha, ha ….you do not talk to anyone about fight club!” And here’s me thinking that social media was built upon a rock of openness and sharing:(

What is the way to a woman’s heart or, of rather more concern to politicians, her vote?

Tory leader, David Cameron, has hired all-woman PR company, Pretty Little Head, to help him and his party crack this enigma - much to the disgust of Daily Mail readers, who have been less than enamoured with the idea.

The idea of tapping into a PR company, which claims to have expertise in helping marketers deliver “what women really want”, has Mail readers incandescent with rage:

“Well, he’s just lost my vote,” says Ann of Wimbledon, adding “I can’t stand people who think women need special treatment”. Ex-pat, Sue, booms: “We are not stupid, we don’t need to be wooed…”

So, has Cameron badly misjudged the female voter? An informal (and far from scientific, but bear with me) survey of more than 40 of my female colleagues revealed that 47% found Cameron more appealing than Brown as the next Prime Minister, with 57% admitting the Tory leader had become “more appealing” in the past 12 months. So far, so good for the Tories and their PR campaign. But a crushing 92% said that politicians showing a feminine side was irrelevant in winning their vote. 

Apart from other Mail readers’ comments along the lines of “why can’t politicians think for themselves?”, is there a fundamental problem about style over substance? As Oliver Blanchard’s Brand Builder blog states: “No matter how you look at it, successful branding always starts with a product”. He goes on, “No matter how cool your packaging is…if your fragrance isn’t appealing you aren’t going to get many repeat customers.”

Does Cameron believe that looking good and showing empathy with the female population is more important than talking about actual policies - his party’s core “product”?

Last word to another ex-pat Mail reader, Karen, who says: “You silly man, most women are intelligent and don’t need pandering to.”

Probably a good tip for most men.

The way we get our news is changing.  Just over a week ago I learnt that french actor (and son of Gerard) Guillaume Depardieu had died.  He was not well known outside France so it’s perhaps not surprising that I didn’t hear about it in the British press.  I didn’t come across it through the media in France either.  I saw it on Twitter.  A colleague Lucille Reynard in the Paris office of our sister company TBWA\ posted “Guillaume Depardieu est mort :/ suis triste” at 5.50pm on October 13th.

I checked on Google News there was nothing there.  I looked up his Wikipedia entry and it confirmed he had died that day.  The news reports started to appear about half an hour later. 

I already use Twitter as a kind of news feed; following the BBC, sections of The Guardian and the New York Times as well as a selection of media industry feeds. What was different about this was that Lucille (or @lovny as she is on Twitter) was aware of the news because Guillaume was a friend of a friend. 

Because Twitter limits its posts to 140 characters it is quick and immediate.   The responses on Twitter to event’s like earthquakes are well documented.  The value of Twitter in these situations is that it is instant and unfiltered.  When a moderate earthquake struck near Los Angeles in the summer official news began to emerge after just four minutes. That sounds pretty quick until you examine what happened on Twitter.  The first update said simply “Earthquake” and it was posted seconds after the Earthquake began.  After four minutes the word earthquake was trending on Twitter Search with several thousand updates.  

When NASA’S Phoenix Mars Lander found water on Mars there were Twitter discussions as to whether the story was true several hours before any major news organisation announced the story.  This speculation was fuelled by a Twitter feed called MarsPhoenix, clearly written by a NASA project insider as if it were the voice of the lander itself.  It twittered the news hours before NASA issued a press announcement.

As more people join Twitter we will hear more and more information direct from the source.  We already have citizen journalists perhaps this is the start of the citizen news-wire.

Exciting news reaches Staniforth Towers that the FT is beta-testing a new style forum, which will be modelled like an exclusive club where users have to qualify for membership.

It will be called the Long Room, after the famous City restuarant, which used to be a favourite for financiers and opinion formers to swap ideas and make contacts.

 The site will be an offshoot from a redesigned Alphaville blog and interestingly members must apply to be accepted by the Alphaville editorial team. Once ‘in’ they can write articles, comment on articles or just observe. Although, interestingly, if you decide to write a post (open a ‘table’) you can restrict access so that only those people who you want to be privvy to the discussion are part of it.

I think it’s a fantastic idea and builds on what forums are supposed to be i.e. a recreation of traditional social networks and its only right that if you want to build an electronic community for big City ‘players’ then it should have exclusivity and privacy. 

It’s a really efficient way of networking, doing deals and finding things out for bankers, lawyers, fund managers, regulators and even PR people. Far less costly and time consuming than conferences, presentations and dinners. However users are allowed to adopt fictitious personnas, so it will take time for some users to build trust and will the FT be earwigging on private, matket sensitive discussions?

 A thumbs up from me and it will be fascinating to observe. It goes live next week.

PS I’ve been allowed to relay information but not pass on links. Sorry!

PPS The FT Alphaville blog has around 15,000 subscribers with a 60/40 London/Wall Street split

Here’s the membership criteria

Admission to FT Alphaville’s Long Room is restricted to finance professionals, therefore we need to collect some information about you. Applications are hand-sifted by the FT Alphaville team and we aim to get confirmation of membership back to you as soon as possible.

We do appreciate, however, that you may well live behind a regulatory wall or simply want to protect your privacy. For that reason Long Room members are free to adopt a fictional online persona. You will be prompted to choose one below, along with a suitable picture from our selection.

None of the private information requested - including your email address - will be disclosed to other Long Room users or any outside body.

But the FT Alphaville team does need to know that you are who you say you are. For that reason, if your FT account was registered with an open access webmail address (eg. godwinson10666@gmail.com), we will request further evidence of your identity.

Apologies in advance for these stipulations, but we need to ensure that the Long Room is a quality destination for professionals - and free of both market and personal abuse.

With so much doom hanging over the economy, who would you expect to be doing well?

No surprises then that Google has posted outstanding third quarter figures, with revenues up 31% to a dizzying £3.2bn (though dwarfed by bank handouts from you and I) and profits up 26%.

And everyone’s favourite search engine is now providing 63% of online searches in the USA (August figures), which is double that of its closest competition.

Which somewhat supports Jeff Jarvis’ notion on Buzz Machine that the “Google economy is just different”.

Jarvis says that Google typifies the “small-is-the-new-big” economy in which the myriad of advertisers of all sizes using its services now adds up to a critical mass. This mirrors the inter-relationship between Google and online communities, whereby Google recognises the critical mass of activity generated by social media, including blog posts, user-generated comments, content sharing and bookmarking sites such as Digg, etc.

If people you need to reach are using the Internet to research before they buy or make decisions about something, the equation is this:

a) The majority of people are using Google to search the Internet.

b) Google’s techno wizardry ranks quality online destinations according to their level of activity and interactivity.

c)  Therefore, you might need to include some form of social media activity as part of your communications.

To paraphrase the old Clinton campaign slogan, it’s the Google economy, stupid!

Coming out from under your boiler or out of a blocked drain, it’s plumbers’ turn to have their time in the sunshine: the US presidential race, no less.

 ”Joe the Plumber”, the ultimate American regular guy, who got face to face with Barack Obama over his tax plans was purloined by John McCain and his campaign team as the exemplar of those whose American dream would turn nasty if Obama ever makes it to the Oval office.

So powerful did McCain’s team consider the plumber, his name came up 25 times during the final presidential debate.

But while hanging his hat on Joe, I wonder if McCain knew that the plumbers’ union had already pledged its backing for Obama, way back in January this year?

Maybe he did, but the lure of using the plumbing “everyman” and unlikely media star to bash Obama was too much to resist. So, was it a clever tactic or desperation?

McCain wants to associate himself with and show that he’s batting for the regular Joe. It reminds me of former UK prime minister, John Major, who in the early 90s evoked a British image of “cricket grounds, warm beer and invincible suburbs” and “old maids cycling to holy communion through the morning mist” along with his moralistic “back-to-basics” campaign to tap into the mindset of Middle England.

A few Tory party scandals later and he was out on his ear.