pr-media-blog.co.uk

Companies will, no doubt, say that PR agencies don’t always live up to the heady promises made in the heat of the client pitch. Anyone working in PR who disagrees with that should be washing their mouth out with soap.

But companies procuring PR are sometimes equally guilty of not getting the best out of their agencies. Versus buying stationery or getting the photocopier repaired, buying PR is different. That might seem obvious, but despite the agency/client relationship working best as a true partnership,  some businesses still behave as if an agency is just another supplier.

Yet some of the most visceral exchanges I’ve ever seen in business relationships occur between a client and its PR agency. Why? Because the reputation of a company, the success of promoting what it does and the vital connections it needs to build with its audiences - be they customers, neighbours, stakeholders, media or the CEO’s wife - are all critical. The best agencies understand this dynamic and don’t take it lightly.

So, creating an environment in which a company can really share the responsibility for the business’ future with its agency (the guy who comes in to water the plants or check the rodent poison won’t offer this) will engender a united approach to the task. A wise business trainer once suggested that there is no client and supplier, just an objective which we all need to treat as the client. 

Sure, you might say, of course PR Media Blog would come out with all this malarkey. So, in the interest of unbiased reporting, I’ll hand you over to Nicole Jordan, a marketing and PR professional on the client side in LA, who has been willing to share her views on getting the best from PR agencies with Todd Defren’s PR Squared blog.

And thanks to Todd, for being willing to let a former client air her views on PR, with his company her most recent experience.

Just like anyone with customers, PR people have been guilty of atrocious customer service.

Leaving aside for a moment the client which actually pays the bill, the other main customer is the journalist.  Yet despite countless courses, internal mentoring from old hands and being shouted at down the phone by an irate correspondent on deadline, some PR consultants still get it wildly wrong with the media. And one of the greatest offences remains the unfocused, pointless and often desperate phone call to ask the journalist, pleading: “Did you get the press release I sent?”

So, as communications skills need to shift to meet the mores of Web 2.0, are PR people (not “PRs”, please - that’s just not good Inglish, rite?) behaving themselves?

The Independent’s Cyberclinic writer, Rhodri Marsden, seems to think not. In this week’s column - which suggests the populace give Twitter a go before believing, as the Daily Mail does, that it’s “boring” - he warns the reader to “Ignore the companies and PR agencies hell-bent on turning it into an advertising platform”.

PR Blogger Stephen Davies has spotted PR people using Twitter to pester journalists with the loathed “Did you receive my…” question and canvassed views via, well, Twitter. What might surprise Rhodri Marsden is the almost ”born again” response from the PR community, treating such practices with abject revulsion and suggesting the need for offenders to undergo a Twitter etiquette course. Maybe more PR practitioners than imagined have undone their evil ways and those persisting with naughty behaviour are being treated as a pariah minority?

But more surprising is the journalists’ response to Davies’ question. A fearsome critic of poor PR tactics, The Guardian’s Charles Arthur, comes out almost cuddly, saying: “I’m all for it” (on the proviso it’s in lieu of a phone call. The penalty for getting that wrong is inconceivable). And then @RobinBrown78 kicks back with “Relaxed about it - as long as it’s relevant.”

So, (some) journalists are virtually embracing Twitter free love, while PR people are mounting a Web 2.0 version of the Spanish Inquisition on their own. Clearly, the world has gone mad, but never - despite what the Daily Mail says - boring. 

*Update - the Daily Mail comes under attack from “Twitter vigilantes”. Oh Lord!

There was a Manchester based sports reporter for The Mirror who wrote Grand Prix reviews when he hadn’t even been at the races.  He watched them on the TV and filed the copy from the comfort of his living room.  Legend has it he was rumbled when after a major crash the editor dispatched him to conduct an interview with the injured driver at his hospital bed some several hundred miles from where, let’s call him Ted, was sitting.

I feel a little bit like that reporter, writing a piece on the Don’t Panic Guide to Social Media seminar in Manchester today when I didn’t go to it and at the time of writing this piece the conference hasn’t even finished.  It’s not live TV material so what’s the sketch?  Well it is a social media event so it is live tweet material.   There are at least six people posting micro blogs right now on Twitter with observations and snippets from the event.  The list includes @robin1966, @michaelcooper, @Sarah_Hartley, @craigmcginty,  @stuartbruce, and @stedavies.   So far there are over over 100 ‘tweets’ all search-able via the hashtag #dontpanic .  That’s a lot of information about Pradvertising, 3DPR, the decline of e-mail and the revelation that the first speaker up Tom Murphy doesn’t like Twitter. 

There is a danger when we tweet (or blog) about twittering that this becomes navel contemplation but it is an interesting phenomenon nevertheless.  There is also the discovery that new communications channels bring new and unexpected challenges.  Two of the Twitter correspondents have had to abandon their live reports because their phone batteries died.  Well at least they were there.

Batten down the hatches, most pundits are agreed, recession is here.  Forget the US rule of thumb that we have to register two successive quarters of negative GDP - we’ve already had one quarter of zero growth and all indicators suggest that contraction is underway.  That means that marketing budgets will be slashed and PR will be amongst the first to feel the chill. 

Well it’s not that simple.   Public Relations is not recession proof but it’s not usually the hardest hit either.  Companies that hold their marketing budgets in a downturn are the ones that fare best.  Harvard Business School professor John Quelch said in March this year that it is a well documented fact that brands that increase their spend in a recession, when competitors are cutting back, can improve market share and the return on their investment.  There will be pressure on budgets but the smart money will still be there.

PR companies are going to play a key role in advising clients on how to navigate very difficult and for some uncharted waters.  There will be complex messages to deliver.   More than ever when times are taxing the media needs substance not fluff. 

I’ve always believed that PR thrives on the ideas and enthusiasm of its young.  It is a vital industry and the particular zeal of its youthful practitioners is a crucial part of every agency.  When the economy is in ‘bust’ business must turn to experience.  The UK largely escaped the 2001 global recession so the last time we were in a situation approaching the current one was nearly twenty years ago.   PR in the current climate won’t be seeing grown men and women running around city centres dressed as creme eggs.   Chief executives will need the knowledge and experience from PR people that were around the last time.  They will need strategic counsel and there will be growth in corporate PR and in crisis and issues management. 

When he was a young knife Matthew Freud, probably the world’s most well connected PR person said “there’s nothing sadder than a 40-year-old PR person”.  Matthew is chairman of Freud Communications. He’s 45.

They say that politics is showbusiness for ugly people, well step forward Lembit Opik. Former beau of both weather girl, Sian Lloyd and one of the Cheeky Girls, has enlisted the services of Bell Pottinger in Liverpool to try and buff his image sufficient to get him elected as Lib Dem President.

Bell Pottinger have plenty of form in moulding the profile of unpopular politicians but why choose the Liverpool office? I guess as a Lib Dem, the head of BP Liverpool, Richard Clein, has a personal relationship with Lembit.

This is definitely part of a trend in our media obsessed world. Disgraced former Lib dem front bencher, Mark Oaten, has been using the services of a former Lib Dem spin doctor to try and repair his public image. There’s nothing wrong in this. I’ve done a fair bit of this kind of work myself and its extremely interesting. No word on whether Lembit is paying Bell Pottinger but Guido has a way of finding these things out:)

The next thing you know, we’ll be seeing fading politicians staging a comeback by appearing on reality shows.

Spending the whole of August living in New York City, working at one of the world’s most talented agencies – TBWA\Chiat\Day, and still getting paid. Not a bad position to be in. How did it come about? Here’s the deal… 

As part of TBWA\Manchester’s ongoing push to build connections in our worldwide network, I’m out here to live, breath, experience and learn, first hand, how one of our most recognised network agencies works. It also means that we can keep ahead of the trends by making the most of the media and sector insights out here that we can take back and use for our clients. 

So, I’m at the work pod – naturally a Mac given that only geeks have PCs out here. It’s summertime hours and I’m still here, which does make me a bit of a geek but I like the buzz about this place. The agency, located on Madison Avenue, is a similar size to TBWA\Manchester (around 200ish people). There are 2 receptions, 3 floors, and walls that are plastered in Disruption case studies of some of the biggest and best brands you’ll ever come across. From Absolut Vodka, known for campaigns such as the Sex And The City placement through to Mars, whose Skittles campaign swept the floor at Cannes this year, beating Cadbury’s over exploited gorilla. 

There’s also a ‘firsts’ wall, spanning across a global map to reveal achievements of TBWA\ agencies worldwide. From holding the first vertical sprint up a 33 storey building and being the first to use U2 in a commercial through to creating China’s first interactive billboard and being the first to use currency as a medium, it gives you a sense of pride to know that you’re part of something so big and ambitious. 

First impressions? Makes for a pretty cool place to work in, and the fact that it’s 2 blocks from Saks and 2 streets across from New York’s hottest spa – Bliss – helps settle me in even more, despite the credit card looking tired and weary already.

We often have discussions within PR agencies about training staff, recruitment and so on. You’re always striving to make your agency, your product, your staff better.

But how much of this stuff can you teach? I’m a big believer in formal training and a lot of informal stuff e.g. mentoring, but there are some uncomfortable truths related to the inner DNA of the successful PR person, the consultant or adviser as opposed to the ‘press release jockey’.

Stuart Bruce did a cracking post, like me sounding a bit old man’ish, but he’s right when he says to work in PR you have to grasp that the basics of getting media coverage for your client rest in your ability to fit what your client does and know about into what the outside world is interested in (the news agenda) with an understanding/relationships with the mediums (media) they use to find out about this stuff.

To do that you’ve got to read papers, watch TV output, check out sites, blogs and forums, way outside of the small number of media that the average person will expose themselves to. Its your job to be interested.

You also need to be interested in that news agenda stuff. You’ve got to expose yourself to it. The news agenda affecting your client might be very specific, so understand that, but you can bet that at some stage it will be influenced by trends in the economy, audience behaviour, government policy etc.

The more somebody has an enriching life outside of the office, the more they are likely to be creative inside the office during that specific hour that’s been set aside for brainstorm on xx client. Stuart B lists things like arts, politics and travel. Whatever it is just be interested and expose yourself to it.

I used to be a radio DJ on various radio stations in the north west. One of the key lessons it teaches you is to constantly think about your audiences. What’s his/her name, where do they work, where do they live, what are they doing right now, how do I join their conversation and get them to allow me into their home, car, office?? To do that you have to go to the kind of bars/places that they go to. You have to live the life, find out what’s going on in your audience’s world. Absorb it and you’ll be able to communicate with them.

Hats off to those creative communicators who are using social media to publicise their own skills and build relationships online with potential employers. I found a graduate placement student via Facebook last summer, Stephen Waddington raves about a new recruit via Twitter and I wanted to mention a new creative that’s just been hired by my employer’s sister ad agency, TBWA.

His name is Paul Williams. He constructed a cross outside our head office, which is a disused church and imprinted the details of his blog. It’s a stunt that could’ve gone either way! We could have crucified him (sorry!) but the big cheeses recognised his creative flair and balls, so checked him out. This is how he did it.

I’ve just had a coffee with him. He’s a good guy with a bright future.

Sally Whittle over at journalism and PR blog, Getting Ink, tells it as it is when it comes to receiving junk (i.e. irrelevant or badly targeted) PR material from so-called PR professionals.

But how many companies buying in PR support are aware that the antics of their agencies might be getting their stories - and hence their reputations - blacklisted by journalists?

Asking who and why agencies are talking to on your behalf (and how) is too important a question not to ask.

  News reaches us of an online soap opera about the Manchester PR scene. According to HowDo…. Spinning Jenny, as it is set to be called (a big, shiny ‘well done’ to the first to spot the Manchester link), is currently in development at Silk Press Productions and will have its own website www.spinningjenny.tv as well as appearing on the increasingly popular www.manchester-live.tv site.Jenny – auditions are taking place next Monday (17 March) for the central role – will be a young girl in her early 20s working at one of the city’s leading PR firms… Brazen to be precise.Online video is the big story for 2008 as far as PR is concerned. People, especially the under 35s, like short video that they can snatch while surfing at work or at home in the evening. It is often more accessible than text and there is a high incentive to pass on to friends. Websites like it as it’s ‘sticky’ and the advancement of broadband make it easy to download. However even the biggest sites, let alone bloggers, lack the resources to produce enough video to satisfy demand. There is a role for PR to produce content to make them useful to their online networks. It can’t be corporate guff, the usual rules apply – know your audience, know your media, be transparent. Some agencies have dabbled in their own version of reality TV. Agency.com’s ‘fly-on-the-wall’  of the Subway pitch prompted a number of mash-ups but I think it’s a great decision by Brazen to allow access to the filmmakers and some of the stardust may rub off. But don’t confuse this with a PR agency that understands how to navigate properly through new media. Wonder if Jennifer O’Grady, who recently left Brazen to start a new media agency, will be auditioning?