My thoughts on strategy, communications and digital and technology, and how it’s creating opportunities and transforming service delivery in businesses and governments.
Sign-up to my RSS feed or follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.
Listen to my podcast on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify.
All tagged public relations
After much behind the scenes debate the UK PR industry has finally taken a step out of the shadows and stood tall. The UK’s leading public relations title PR Week announced this week that it would no longer ‘accept AVEs (Advertising Value Equivalents) as a method of measurement in its awards.’
Convergence. This was one of the keywords that came of out of this year’s 2011 Financial Times Digital Media & Broadcast Conference. It’s taking me some time to pen this, but I wanted to share some of the key points that were discussed.
Comments by Sky Sports presenter Richard Keys and pundit Andy Gray about assistant referee Sian Massey and West Ham Deputy Chairwoman Karen Brady this weekend highlight the problem that football in the UK has. Their off-air sexist remarks highlight outdated and out of touch views in the The Premier League, Championship and lower divisions. Dealing with them, will help give UK football a much needed rebrand.
Social media and networking channels have during the past year established themselves as the preferred method of communication amongst the varied publics that we interact with. Facebook, Twitter and Youtube have become part of the mainstream.
The Adverting Standards Authority (ASA) siloed approach to regulating social media highlights this regulatory body’s lack of understanding of real-time communication channels.
Following on from the CIPR’s acclaimed Digital Impact conference last month the institute will be hosting a series of social media meetings this summer. Entitled The CIPR’s Social Summer events will take place every Thursday until the end of August and will bring together leading PR and social media professionals to discuss and debate this ‘not so new’ communications channel. Speakers include Philip Sheldrake, who yesterday presented a session on analytics, Andrew Smith, Stuart Bruce, Stephen Waddington, Steve Earl and myself.
Last week Prime Minister Gordon Brown said about the election during the #leadersdebate that, “if it was all about style and PR, count me out.” The fact is that after his walkabout meeting with Rochdale pensioner Gillian Duffy it is PR, or lack of it, that highlights that he is stumbling along the election stump.
The Chartered Institute of Public Relation’s announced today that it has brought together some of the UK’s most eminent social media thinkers “to provide input into the Institute’s policy guidance, education and training.” Led by CIPR Board Member and Stainforth MD Rob Brown the advisory board is charged with looking at the impact of social media on “online reputation developments, convergence in marketing communications and best practice social media measurement.”
Last week Google decided to launch a salvo against the news industry by attacking plans by some outlets to introduce paywalls. Armed with an array of statistics Google’s Chief Economist Hal Varian highlighted how “newspapers have never made much money from news” and that they could “save a lot of money if the primary access to news was via the internet.” In effect, what Varian was saying is that print is dead, bin the paper and move all your content online. Simple. But is he right and would such a strategy save the news and publishing industries?
Senior media and communications executives met in London this week for the 2010 FT Digital Media and Broadcast conference (#ftmedia10). At the heart of the debate were the questions of how the sectors were emerging from the global recession and the impact of online and social media on the creative industry and its revenues. WPP Group Chief Executive Sir Martin Sorrell launched the opening salvo by questioning companies that, from an advertising perspective, were being over-optimistic about social media. Sir Martin described social media as a phenomenon that was “personal” and therefore “not suited to being invaded by adverts.” He was right. This phenomenon is personal and it works because it’s based on conversational marketing that’s more suited to public relations than advertising.
It has been an interesting year for public relations. The recession has affected how businesses communicate. Reputation and issues management have been the watchwords as companies throughout the world battled to safeguard their image and reputation during what could be described as the first major downturn in this globalised era. And it has taken no prisoners as it spread across sectors and continents, highlighting how interconnected we all are today
Nic Newman summed up the impact that social media is having on journalism when he said that based on volume and time spent on site, “Facebook was six times bigger than CNN.” People today spend more time on social networking sites than on news sites, with industry commentators citing this to highlight the reason for the supposed death of news and quality journalism.
The BBC launched its much-anticipated ‘Democracy Live’ online service on Friday. Offering ‘live and video on demand video coverage of the UK’s national political institutions and the European Parliament’, the site brings politics to the public. Giving people insight into government and how our elected representatives and institutions work.
“Be human, all this is still experimental” is how Media140 founder Ande Gregson summarised everybody’s expectations of Twitter and social media at the end of the Media140 Brands conference in London this week. And he is right.
The MacTaggart Lecture took place last week with News Corporation’s James Murdoch deciding at long last to take the stand at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International TV Festival.Murdoch wasted no time in setting his stall out to get support as he painted a grim picture of the state of the UK’s media industry. Pointing the finger at the BBC, Murdoch described the corporation as a villain that had a “chilling” hold on the UK media landscape.
However you want to describe it, online and social media is playing an important part in shaping the reputation of brands around the world. It’s been doing so for some time now, certainly a few years. The issue at hand though, the one that New Media Knowledge (NMK) raised at their ‘What happens to online PR?’ event last week was if the Public Relations industry was best suited to lead clients through the ever-changing digital media landscape.
Never doubt how Social Media can help develop and drive a brand. To give you an example of its power you need look no further than Spotify, a company that’s taken the online community by storm since it was founded in 2006 and launched in the UK in October 2008. Six months on and at a OpenMusicMedia event in London last week Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek confirmed that the company had just days before secured its millionth subscriber, with tens of thousands more joining by the day.
It’s been a busy time for Fashion PRs. With London Fashion Week coming to an end tomorrow we have been entertained with the latest designs from established and up and coming fashion-makers.