pr-media-blog.co.uk

Postrank’s top blogs of 2009 has just placed PR Media Blog at number 15 among our peers, based on a level of engagement and influence.

Aside from creating regular content (our job), the engagement factor is down to you, the reader; so, we must thank you heartily for that.

To receive such an accolade makes one wonder whether we have, in a small way, created a brand of our own. If a brand is something that has built trust and influence among a group of people, then PR Media Blog might just be that. But if it possesses any semblance of brand values, these have not been created in isolation. Though we do the legwork in creating something for you to read, it has been the comments on posts, the feedback and retweets on Twitter and the trackbacks from other blogs that have helped us to refine and shape the blog. Equally, our guest bloggers are entitled to part-ownership of our micro-brand.

So, is our humble example emblematic of a shift in the evolution of a brand and who owns it?

Naomi Klein’s seminal book and examination of brand power, No Logo, is 10 years old and gets an update to be published later this month. The author’s latest article describes how, at the height of her fame, “megabrands and advertising agencies…wanted me to give them seminars on why they were so hated…a kind of anti-corporate dominatrix making overpaid executives feel good by telling them what bad, bad brands they were.”

To her credit, Klein never donned the metaphorical leather and whips. But, today, organisations don’t need to call upon Klein for such flagellation. Social media has amassed an army of brand critics only too happy to share their disappointment with the performance of companies. However, happy customers share their praise too.

In providing positive and negative sentiment online, they are giving organisations the opportunity to improve on their failings while interacting with a community of - well - fans. But to harness this wealth of management information, there has, first, to be a willingness to listen.

Listening to and acting on customer feedback is the essential precursor to worrying about brand. Klein illustrates this with the example of Price Floyd, erstwhile media relations direction at the US State Department. When, during the reviled Bush presidency, his colleagues urged more media activity and more messaging in an attempt to turn around “brand America”, Floyd nailed the problem: “It’s not the packaging, it’s the substance that’s giving us trouble”.

If organisations believe they can create a brand in isolation and simply tell the world what it stands for, they may be disappointed. As Tamsen McMahon says in a recent guest post on the Conversation Agent blog: “A brand is the collective impression people gain not only from you and your marketing efforts, but from all of their interactions with you-and the interactions others have as well (newly amplified through social media).”

Mr and Mrs Marketeer: how difficult is your job if your brand is…well…not sexy?

Forrester analyst, Josh Bernoff, writing on Groundswell reckons that anyone in marketing responsible for “boring brands” is really earning their keep, as “you are trying to get people interested in something they don’t really care about”.

Having worked in B2B public relations for more than a decade, I can testify to the sector having more than its fair share of companies that the world at large may call “boring”. It’s a totally subjective problem; where cable ties and ball bearings may be as effective as counting sheep to some, they are rock and roll personifed to someone else.

But back to Bernoff and the challenge of making the “boring” interesting…

Believe it or not, he sees social media as a thoroughly relevant way of bringing brands - that you wouldn’t automatically think of as social - to life.  

The point is, talking about your brand or company may be inherently dull to the customer, but talking about their problems isn’t. Bernoff calls this “borrowed relevance” - generating talk about things your audience really cares about. And the examples he cites show how coming at your company’s marketing from a lateral point of view (our sister company, TBWA Manchester, would call it “disruptive”) can achieve something that has significance for the customer and banishes the boring tag.

Especially with B2B organisations - where their overall customer base is unlikely to be on the same scale as consumer brands -creating a buzz about what you do and making it relevant to the people who matter is essential. And social media is another way of finding those people, keeping them interested and relishing just how beautifully boring your business is. 

I spent an interesting evening last night at a Q&A event with River Island’s CEO Sir Richard Bradbury, organised by Manchester Fashion Network in association with Business Link. 

Having worked his way up from the shop floor of a small menswear retailer in Great Yarmouth to his current position as Chief Executive Officer at one of the UK’s leading fashion retailers, Sir Richard is certainly qualified to advise and educate on the retail industry.

Sir Richard talked very openly about his background at Burtons, his experience with the Chelsea Girl brand and his personal River Island story, before taking questions from the floor.

It was refreshing to hear, in the current climate, that it’s business as usual and the company is staying true to its customers and its own beliefs and strategy.  

While the recession is undoubtedly affecting businesses, River Island isn’t cutting back on investment, just wisely investing its money where it is likely to achieve a greater return.  

Cue less focus on traditional above-the-line advertising and more focus on attendance at events such as Graduate Fashion week; an event at which River Island has been the title sponsor for five consecutive years.  

Sir Richard understands that encouraging and investing in young talent can reap both commercial and creative rewards, and last night suggested that Britain is a nation of creatives, not ‘makers’. 

While strongly believing in nurturing Britain’s creative talent of tomorrow, online is also key for the future of River Island.

Its e-commerce site is a significant part of the business, with some of River Island’s best customers shopping online as well as in store, and the company is keen to evolve this with a new and improved site due to launch later this year.

I’ll be watching with interest to see how 2009 shapes up for River Island and despite the challenging market, expect them to continue serving up trends with the unique River Island style.

Was having an interesting chat with a couple of friends about the flurry of offers and discounts that have been flaunted by some of the high street’s perceived high end brands. We all couldn’t help wondering that, while there’s no doubt such offers have been helping people to rein in their spending, whether the brands have suffered as a result, or, if people’s perceptions of brands have changed?

There’s no denying that feeling of smug satisfaction when you manage to bag that perfect LBD or whistle n flute from your favourite top end retailer at 50% - sometimes 70% - less than it was originally being sold for, but do you ever think - as my friends and I were doing - about how much we were all being ripped off during the good ole times? Surely if a retailer can afford to drop prices so drastically in search of a sale, does it beg the question ‘how much is this really worth and how much have retailers been marking up in the past’?

Another thought that has entered my head is have people who used to shop freely without a second thought of the price tag, been put off by the barrage of offers out there or, more importantly, have their perceptions of their favourite brands changed? Does it make the affordable, throw away fashion more appealing if the more exclusive shops seem ever less so? Or do you upgrade to true investment pieces that will stand the good times and the bad?

From a PR point of view, I think brands need to remember their roots during the tough times - who are they really appealing to, where are those customers and how do brands reach them? Social media is a great way of speaking to customers directly - particularly when trust in the UK traditional media is at a low - and positive stories that communicate core values are valuable and a breath of fresh air amidst the landscape of bad headlines. Look for services/products that inspire confidence and give reassurance back to the customer and then tell your story. Focus on your original USPs in a fresh, forward-thinking way, know your strengths and trust in the reasons your customers came to you in the first place.

Sorry Twitterfolk, our secret’s out now.

What was - in Facebook terms - very much a worldwide minority pastime is now gracing the pages of Times2.

Though unconvinced by Facebook or - to be precise - its “status update” function as counter-intuitive behaviour for uptight British people, journalist, Sathnam Sanghera,  is now addicted to Twitter. He says: “The banal thoughts of complete strangers are surprisingly comforting and compelling: it’s like following a thousand mini soap operas”. But when he quotes a Twitter user, @foodiesarah - someone I know personally - I realise how small Twitter world has been.

But elsewhere, the migration to Twitter is not being welcomed. Writing on web news site, Mashable, Dr Mark Drapeau is keen to see brands banned from Twitter altogether. He questions whether “one dimensional organizational brands” fit with the Twitter way of working, and concludes they don’t. As he rightly points out, people on Twitter want to talk to real people who use a recognisable identity and photo or avatar, not @DunkinDonuts.

I recently posed the question  - in response to Jeremiah Owyang’s blog post on HP Labs’ Twitter research - about how businesses could work with Twitter, as we have pulled Twitter-based ideas from PR proposals for being inappropriate to the social medium.

And that’s something that businesses should be willing to do before they feel the chill wind of Twitter derision wafting their way, which can’t help but spread online. Social media may be the latest thing, and highly tempting for organisations to get involved in. But don’t dive in without testing the water first - or getting good advice about what might be lurking below.

Pic credit: humble thanks to Rob Cottingham at Noise to Signal for use of the most apt cartoon.

As I write, the House of Lords is debating the 42-day detention amendment to the Goverment’s counter-terrorism bill, which - if passed - would increase from 28 to 42 days the amount of time a terrorist suspect could be held without charge.

To support opposition to the bill, campaign group Liberty has orchestrated 42 UK writers to publish work tackling the implications of the legislation head on, with the results posted on a special section of Liberty’s website. 

The Liberty campaign is a brilliant piece of PR: securing 42 high profile writers to contribute their own words on the subject; designing the web site as a 42-day calendar and gaining press coverage such as that in yesterday’s Observer (half an early news page), aimed at precisely the left-leaning libertarian reader who is more likely to rattle his MP’s cage on the matter.

But the key element here is the writers. Whether or not they could be deemed “celebrities”, their profile raises that of the campaign.

Choosing the right, high profile people to associate with your campaign is a sticky business: finding someone who has sufficient profile and resonance with your chosen audience and who will reflect the brand values of your product or cause. Some choices are clear cut in their brilliance while others seem to work in spite of themselves. 1960’s model and icon, Twiggy’s association with M&S just works. Ironically, so does M&S and Mylene Klass, despite the latter being not really a model nor a pop star, but somehow right for the brand.

Here is a selection of brands that had an association with a star, with a suitable clip to refresh your memory. Can you name the star before clicking on the brand? For those readers under 30, you might need to ask a grown up.

Curly Wurly; Campari; Cinzano Bianco; Boddingtons; Memorex; Fosters; Teach your kids to swim (public information film); Olympus Trip; National Westminster Bank

What do you call a Skoda with a sun roof? A skip! (dumpster, if you’re a US reader)

Such jokes, unthinkable about Skoda cars now, were testament to the failure of a company to manage its appalling brand image. Certainly, the product didn’t help. But as Spencer mused on Twitter, Skoda moved from “embarrassing purchase to surprisingly good cars” - a “transformational brand”.

But “brand” - that word is everywhere. “So what, dummy?” you might say, and rightly so; working in PR, the concept should be a given.

But now that brands and branding seem to have entered the common vernacular - Top20 Coolest Brands reported in the Daily Star, a compendium of wise words from the experts in the Sunday Times’ business section, and even mid-evening radio programmes devoted to it on BBC Radio 4 - has the concept lost something? Is the alchemy of branding devalued by the possibility that Joe Public is “in on it”?

A useful definition from an unlikely source, legal news site Lawdit Reading Room, says “Many decisions about brands are made by customers emotionally or intuitively rather than rationally”. I never bought into that, reckoning my buying decisions were driven by the head (or, more often, the stomach), not heart. But recalling a trip to the USA, I realised that a brand journey was pure, unbridled emotion:

1. Book Florida/Disney/beach holiday with Virgin in one easy transaction: LOVE Virgin!

2. Arrived to find hotel atrocious - actually fearing for life - and Virgin reps couldn’t give a hoot: HATE HATE HATE Virgin!

3. Pour out heart to waiter at Hard Rock Cafe who vows to help us out: LOVE Hard Rock Cafe!

4. Move to Disney resort hotel. Previously HATE Disney because of prolonged exposure to son’s favourite Lion King soundtrack. Now, LOVE fabulous Disney hotel, even with Inca-themed restaurant.

5. Return flight to UK on same day as discovery of international liquid bomb plot. But, Virgin allows  me onto plane with contact lens fluids. LOVE LOVE LOVE Virgin!

I suppose that whether punters grasp a product’s “brand essence” or not, if you can get hold of their heart strings their purse strings will follow.

Now you’ve got your head around blogs, park that as we’re on to the next big thing: comment tracking. The phrase is my invention (in a futile bid for cultural buzz word fame) but it’s a convenient shorthand for describing the world of CoComment, an online service for collecting in one place all contributions you make to conversations across the web. It tracks comments on your comments and, for bloggers, captures all their extra-blog activity on their own pages.

Leading French blogger, Loic Le Meur, hails this as a new dawn for commentators, who could end up as influential as TV pundits.

His closing comments on the importance of online conversations in consumer choice are a wake up call for brands.