Posts Tagged ‘PR’
Has the PR industry reinvented itself post recession?
March 12th, 2010
In September 2008, on the day that the European Commission officially announced that the UK would fall into recession, I wrote a blog post entitled “The role of PR within a recession” offering some predictions on what I thought this would mean for the PR industry. The post sparked a fair amount of debate, and so I thought it would be interesting to follow-up this post now that we’ve come out the other side, to see how close or far off the mark I was.
1. The PR industry will reinvent itself
I made the prediction that “a recession will force PR consultancies to get their houses in order, and evolve or die”. Reading it back that sounds a bit harsh, and thankfully I don’t think too many ended up biting the dust…but a fair few have certainly been born.
I imagined PR agencies would “evolve” by quickly bringing their teams up to speed on social media, to ensure they were reaching both online and offline audiences in their consultancy. However, within the UK market there has been a growing trend for PR agencies to set up separate social media or digital PR consultancies - a few examples would be Hotwire launching 33 Digital, Next Fifteen setting up Project Metal and Fishburn Hedges opening up Brew. The list of internal social media teams at established PR agencies is also continually growing.
Moving forward, I think we will see more consolidation happening within this space as large PR agencies look to snap up smaller, specialist social media agencies, in order to accelerate their social media growth.
2. The profiles of individual PRs will become more important
The trend towards ‘Personalised Relations’ that we were seeing at the end of 2008 has undoubtedly continued. However Twitter has exploded exponentially within the social media PR sector enabling more PR folks to “become their own hubs” in the words of Jeremiah Owyang. Competition for share of voice has become fiercer, making it harder to spot the experienced social media consultants from those who are doing a good job of talking about it.
3. PR will no longer be a beauty parade
I would argue that the definition of ‘beauty’ has evolved within the UK PR industry. Today it is not so much about the company name, but much more about the agency’s online reputation and profile. We are increasingly seeing evidence of brands shortlisting and selecting agencies based on their social media assets, rather than the kudos of going with a big global agency. This is a positive trend that I hope will continue.
4. New business will be won/put to tender in less orthodox ways
From what we are seeing at Liberate Media, and hearing about among our peers, this is definitely becoming the case. There is still some nervousness around selecting a social media PR agency, and brands seem more comfortable meeting with agencies that have been recommended within their network of contacts, than taking the impersonal approach of putting a pitch out to tender. We are encountering the fierce pitch process less and less, and instead being given the change to demonstrate our knowledge and creativity within a less confined manner.
5. CEOs will need to prioritise PR more highly
This final prediction is difficult to assess, as I can only offer personal experience. It would be interesting to hear whether other agencies have found this to be the case.
At Liberate Media we did see CEOs and senior management dedicating more time to PR, and taking greater interest in social media. Our training services in particular were called on increasingly as CEOs wanted to upskill and take a more active role in their social media PR efforts.
** These are just my humble opinions. It would be great to hear back from people who commented on my original post, and others, on their experience of the above predictions.
Don’t write TV off as a news medium yet
February 19th, 2010
I recently watched the film Frost/Nixon which is a dramatic retelling of the post-Watergate television interviews between British talk-show host David Frost and former president Richard Nixon.
As a quick bit of background for those who aren’t familiar with the Nixon Interviews, in 1977 (three years after his resignation), Nixon granted British journalist Sir David Frost an exclusive series of interviews for which he was paid $600,000. The interviews began on March 23, 1977 and lasted 12 days. They were taped for two hours a day, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, for a total of 28 hours and 45 minutes. The interviews were were edited into four programs, each 90 minutes long.
The premiere episode drew 45 million viewers, the largest television audience for a political interview in history — a record which still stands today.
For those who haven’t seen the film, it is a brilliant demonstration of the power of TV as a news medium. No other media would have been able to capture the “cascade of candor”, as Frost termed it, when Nixon said the line: “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal”, effectively giving the US public the admission of guilt that they so desperately craved.
Today so much emphasis is placed on social media, that as an industry we need to be careful not to prematurely write-off media that can still be incredibly powerful for a person or brand. Very recently we secured an interview for a client of ours on Sky News, and the next day their phone did not stop ringing with new business enquiries. We mustn’t forget that audiences can still be reached via linear TV.
An interesting statistic is that average daily hours of television viewing rose to 3.94 hours in Q4 2009, driving 2009 figures to the highest since 2002, according to the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising’s latest Trends in Television Report. TV consumption is on the up, and remains to be taken seriously as a news channel.
Finally, I leave you with a great six minute video on how Richard Nixon turned the media into exaggerated fearmongers. It’s not completely relevant to the post, but well worth watching.
February 19th, 2010
At Liberate Media, just as at any other agency, we are regularly invited to pitch/meet/propose on a number of campaigns, and each year a percentage of those campaigns will be what we all unaffectionately refer to as ‘time wasters’, or perhaps if we were looking at it as a more sinister act, the thieves who invite you to pitch simply to hear your patter and steal your ideas. We’ve all been on the wrong end of this approach, no matter what business you are in, and sympathy certainly isn’t the purpose of this post.
So why bring it up? Well, as part of a business planning session we did at the beginning of the month I looked into 2009 new business successes/failures as a learning exercise, and I was pretty flabbergasted by the results and the amount of work we had put in with little or no return over the year. To be clear, by return I don’t mean purely winning the campaign or getting paid, I mean no result what so ever. Either the client mysteriously went quiet, said the budget had disappeared, the campaign was never awarded to anyone, or the real killer; we win and it never goes ahead.
Okay, last year was pretty terrible in terms of the economy, so the budget excuse maybe valid, but the opposite is also true, with little or no budget why would you call a pitch/meeting if you weren’t 100%. That makes me suspicious.
I haven’t quite come to the conclusion that 2009 was a back stabbing fest with companies turning agencies over for their ideas, but from our experience there was certainly more of these unexplained losses than usual.
‘You should have been more aware’ I hear you say, ‘the ones that are out to steal ideas are easy to spot’, and to some extent or other I agree. I used to pride myself in spotting the odd chancer who’s just looking for ideas, having been involved in PR pitching for coming up to 12 years I’ve seen quite a few examples, but either my radar is on the blink or last year was an exceptional year.
So, looking back at the outcomes of some of these pitches, many of which were with big brands, I see a whole host of outcomes, such as; ‘we’ve decided we’re not quite ready’, ‘one of our directors is on board but the other isn’t', ‘budget has gone/been pushed back’, ‘campaign has been put on hold or stopped’, the list goes on.
In fact doing a rough calculation of the campaigns in question, and looking at those that I know have gone ahead, only 10% that we were not successful in went to another agency, or went ahead in some guise. That means 90% are either still waiting or have fallen into the ‘unknown category’.
So what are we to do? I’m not considering the whole ‘charging for pitching/ideas’ argument that pops up every now and again, but would like to establish why the surge last year? Yes we can chalk a certain amount up to the economy, we have to take a fair hit for not spotting the time wasters, but that still leaves a good percentage with a motive as yet unknown. Am I being unkind in suggesting they did this deliberately, or is it something deeper?
Is there a part of this ‘unknown’ that felt, or were told, that social media/digital PR is something they needed to be involved in as part of their 2009 remit? And when they understood the situation, or when they realised the scale of the opportunity, discovered that they hadn’t budgeted or resourced sufficiently? Could it also be that some people needed to just investigate this area and bring in agencies to talk it through, well if discussion is the focus, fair enough, but please don’t hide behind the promise of a campaign if you want to talk. Education is part of what we all have to do, and most of us are happy to do it, but not to be duped into doing it.
So what has this review exercise taught me? Well, thinking practically, this tale should not just be one of woe, we’ve also had the great fortune to meet some brilliant new clients during 2009, many of which were won in an open and often quick process which has fostered a great relationship that has continued to this day. I hope that if the education barrier was an issue that we’ll see less of these problems in 2010 or at least more openness in discussing the problems.
Please let me know if you have any insight or experiences that you would like to share in this area, as i think there is more to be explained.
You’re not the Messiah, you’re a very naughty PR/social media/digital/etc agency
February 12th, 2010
It seems 2010 has started very brightly for most, and I’m happy to say that’s certainly the case for us. I’ve heard lots of talk of interesting briefs, new campaigns and renewed enthusiasm. Let’s face it most of us were very glad to see the New Year arrive, and so far so good.
However, there are always some habits that die hard, always at least one thing that has to drag us back, and for me that’s the non-stop preaching that comes from some corners of our great and varied communications industry.
By preaching, I don’t mean thoughtful insight that is designed to build conversation and add to the communities’ learning. I mean thinly veiled sales patter disguised as thought leadership, or in some cases not disguised at all and simply an attack on other approaches to the issue of digital communications/social media/combined traditional and social media, call it what you will.
Sometimes I think we need an industry referee to step in and give people a dose of reality when they get their preach on…a character like Brian’s mother in the Monty Python movie; The life of Brian, whose famous line was the inspiration for the title of this post “He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy!”
Here’s the clip:
Perhaps Brian’s mother could put a bit more reality and a bit less fiction into the issue. After all, the most frustrating element for me is that in many cases not only are these agency sermons misguided, the preachers themselves know it.
Allow me to give you an example; company A: is a social media agency, approaching social media from a technical stand point as they understand the way the web works from a development and build angle. They know all there is to know about building communities, linking and useful multimedia. Company B also calls itself a social media agency but its strength comes from understanding social media from a communications stand point. Company B knows all there is to know about conversation, influencers and their contacts in the traditional media help them to reach influencers quickly to build social conversation.
Company A knows Company B has skills they don’t, so Company A goes out and talks about how great their approach is and how silly company B is for not being able to do the amazing things company A can.
That’s the game you may say, but there are three main points that get right on my nerves about this situation:
1. Company A and company B know that to deliver a full campaign they require each other’s skills, and it’s even likely that they partner with each other on the quiet to achieve the desired results behind closed doors. Or if not each other, (as that would be silly), very similar agencies.
2. Company A and company B both know that certain campaigns require specific skill sets, but won’t say that, and even if a client comes to company A with a campaign more fitting of Company B, company A will say they can do it, take the campaign on and deliver it via a partner….like company B.
3. Company A and company B know that in the long term their little squabbles will be academic as brands will expect one agency to fulfil the complete lifecycle of communications, including build, social media consultancy, PR, search, you name it. We’re now in the territory of company C (PR) company D (Search) company E (Digital) and company F (Advertising) (all of whom have similar relationships as company A and Company B). Both Company A and company B are recruiting and partnering with other agencies to deliver these skill sets but try not to talk about skills too far outside of their area until they are ready to announce something/someone.
So what are we left with? A whole load of puff. All the different companies talking about how smart their approach is and how naive their competitors are, scrabbling around trying to make their company reflect skill sets from A-D, or even the full range, as quickly as possible as everyone knows that’s likely to be the end game, but we can’t admit it yet as it might put our company at a disadvantage.
As a side note, in my opinion company C (PR) has been the whipping boy of the last few years. And friends, I have a confession, I have whipped that company. I come from a traditional PR background, and I know how slow the industry has been to react, so when I started Liberate Media with my business partner Wendy we wanted to offer a different sort of PR agency that understood traditional yes, but also social media. In retrospect I feel I too have been a naughty boy.
But, the PR industry is getting there and there are some smart agencies with great people delivering measurable campaigns. As a whole there is still a long way to go, but there is a marked improvement.
So where am I going with this? Well the inter-relationships between the agencies are obvious, the skills required to deliver an integrated communications campaign are diverse, and there aren’t many agencies out there that can, hand-on-heart, say they can deliver it all in-house.
So, if your campaign is totally delivered via your agency skill set, that’s great, well done, happy days. But if it isn’t, don’t get frustrated and lash out at skills you need but don’t yet have. Why not try to practise what we as an industry preach to our clients and get back into the open discussion around the issue. That’s one of the things that made this industry great and I’m beginning to fear we’re all being swallowed up by a great gold rush.
I’m not saying there should be a big agency love-in, we all have businesses to run and yes, that is the game, but this short term focus on who has the right approach and who owns social media is doing no one any good, and as we all know isn’t very realistic. So, why don’t we just be honest about what we have today and what we are looking to tomorrow.
This is a subject we’ll be looking at in more depth over the coming months, so apologies if this has come across as a bit of a rant, or if I have started to preach. That was not my intention. I think the industry we all operate in is one of the most open and exciting to be in, but more recently this nagging one-upmanship has crept in, and although competition is healthy and welcome, in some cases I feel it’s no more than propaganda, and that’s a dangerous path to go down.
January 29th, 2010
Following ‘iPad‘ week I decided to look at the differing strategies of the world’s two biggest technology competitors to promote their new approaches/products.
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are the traditional hero and villain of the computer world, and of course it depends on your point of view on which is which. They have been at it for some time, as the heads of their respective super brands (Microsoft and Apple), but Bill has taken a back seat at Microsoft, although he is still Chairman and of course the world’s richest man.
As you may or may not know, Bill Gates made an interesting move to open up his communications last week, by joining Twitter on January 19th, kicking off with ‘Hello World.’ Hard at work on my foundation letter - publishing on 1/25′, in reference to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest non-profit hard at work giving Bill’s billions away to worthy causes. This has pretty much been over looked thanks to the anticipation and launch of Apple’s new best seller.
Since Bill joined, he’s been collecting followers like the Pied Piper of Twitterland. To be precise, according to figures from 20 decibels recent blog post on Wednesday (nice job guys): ‘Bill Gates has 365,000+ followers (now 376,000 +) and counting and has been added to 13,056 lists (now (13,600+) His following grew rapidly after sending his first tweet. He has a whopping 14,600 followers per tweet sent.’
Here’s Bill’s latest tweet: ‘At Davos G8/G20 panel - Spain Pres. Zapatero says meeting MDGs just as important as global financial reform…‘ (When you have $50 billion in the bank you rub shoulders with some pretty important people).
Here’s some more interesting data from the guys at 20 decibels: ‘Bill’s tweets generate a very high click through rate. He has tweeted 12 links to 6 unique sites with a total of 160,161 clicks.
‘Engagement: In additional to high click through rates, Bill Gates audience engages with his content frequently. For example, his recent Tweet promoting the Gates Foundation annual letter garnered 818 Retweets on top of 13,500+ clicks.’
Pretty impressive, but then you would expect it to be. The question is why has Bill waited so long to join Twitter when his influence and understanding is so high? Could it be just that? In a scale of normal to Bill, the influence of Twitter can only offer so much more in comparison to what he already has? I hope not, as the figures above prove Twitter can be very valuable, and more importantly it has already helped him to engage directly with more people in his first week alone.
Although the iPad wasn’t officially advertised, the buzz and leaks around the story did much of the work for Steve and Apple. Apple doesn’t really need to PR its new launches anymore, well not in the traditional sense. A few strategic mentions, and the odd review leak, and the community will do the job for them. That’s not to say it wasn’t planned though.
So how was the iPad launch received? According to Trendrr there were 177,000 tweets in the first hour after the announcement, and Crimson Hexagon revealed that the content of more than half a million tweets following the iPad announcement sentiment was split down the middle with 48% percent of tweeters reacting positively, while the remaining 52% were less impressed.
(image courtesy of iStockphoto kutaytanir)
Of the 48% positivity, 29% of people wanted to buy an iPad and of the 52% of tweets that were less impressed, the majority (21% of all tweets) had a bad reaction to the name, 19% weren’t impressed and 11% were critical of all the build-up and/or just sick of hearing about it.
But this is just a small proportion of the results Apple generated from a very tightly developed and seemingly secretive launch. You only need to look at the BBC, Guardian or FT yesterday to see Steve holding his iPad, with a nice big smile, to appreciate the scale of the hype surrounding the launch.
But was the hype as positive as he might have hoped? The reaction to the iPad has been 50/50, speaking personally the functionality of the iPad is disappointing and as a product it’s not something I’ll be investing in yet. The idea itself is probably the most revolutionary element, together with the new opportunities it presents for content and publishing. However, the hype may have in fact put the final product in the shade and made it seem a little disappointing in comparison. That said, it will obviously be a success and the next iterations will, as usual, be much more interesting and capable.
So what can we learn from Bill’s low level approach and the higher profile launch from Steve over the last week? Firstly, i’ll hold my hands up and say it’s not really fair to compare the two directly. The obvious issue is that one is a consumer product and the other a campaign of philanthropy. You could also say that both Bill and Steve are super brands in themselves, and nothing helps to build interest like a bit of fame, which is true, but it is an interesting look into the different approaches that two formally old-school technology giants are employing in a world of communications opportunities.
Apple’s old school cloak and dagger approach to product launches, although successful, potentially undermined the final product by not being upfront about its potential uses, elements and focuses. By leaving the community to build the buzz and furore to such an extent they may have in fact ended up being disappointed by the false expectancy. Would a little more engagement and actual product detail have helped to communicate the real benefits of the product and avoided disappointment?
In comparison, Bill has started to take an open approach by communicating with his audience and sharing his day-to-day activity, removing this false picture of the world’s richest man sitting on piles of cash and handing it out to those that he deems fit. This is a very different approach to the path he took at Microsoft and although he has to be more open as he is the brand now, it shows evolution in thinking and perhaps something that Steve could take notice of for his next major launch.